words <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As an American historian and citizen working at the University of Sydney I often get asked by Australian media to comment on U.S. politics. This is especially the case regarding the presidential candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who I have written about academically, covered journalistically, and supported through my own volunteering since he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. The most common question I get asked about Senator Sanders is, why is a 78-year-old so overwhelmingly popular with younger people? The answer is simple. Younger people in the U.S. disproportionately fall into the class of people rocked by tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. Younger people in the U.S. are chronically unable to afford quality health care in a system in which health care is delivered for profit and not as a citizenship right. Like in Australia, younger people in the U.S. are plagued by skyrocketing rents and decreasing hope of owning a house or apartment. Like in Australia, younger people are entering a labour market beset by stagnating wages, declining workplace rights, and the growing likelihood that they will cycle through dozens of jobs and multiple careers in their lifetimes. And like in Australia and all around the world, it is younger people who will inherit the devastation born of tepid action on climate change after it is far too late to meaningfully reverse course. Younger people around the world are not exhibiting some kind of generational politics born of youthful idealism in their overwhelming support for Senator Sanders. Theyre demonstrating their cohesiveness as a distinct class of citizens with particular material and ethical interests vis--vis an American, Australian, and global political and economic elite that benefit from the upward redistribution of wealth, the privatisation of public goods, and who are relatively well-insulated from the realities of climate change. I was in Iowa recently to write about the campaign for the ABC and it was striking how much this summers fires in Australia have become a point of emphasis for voters and Senator Sanders. The U.S. has the highest per capita carbon emissions of major countries in the world and is second to China in overall emissions. Sanders Green New Deal foregrounds the trade union principle of a real just transition for the hundreds of thousands who depend on jobs in the fossil fuel industry. It proposes the complete renewability of transportation and electricity in the U.S. by 2030 and the total decarbonisation of the U.S. economy by 2050. Given the U.S. role in global emissions, these plans alone would do wonders to stem the tide of climate change. But Senator Sanders does not stop there. He frequently talks about being the organiser in chief, not just in reference to labour unions in the U.S. but also regarding global grassroots action on climate change. His is the politics of climate strikes and mass-mobilisations of voting blocs around the world to counter those who profit from a carbon economy and the politicians their money buys. Indeed, if you think the elite brokerage politics of Paris and Davos can get us to where we need to go on climate change, then as the saying goes, Ive got a bridge to sell you in Sydney Harbour. In this regard and given the enormous global power of the American presidency, the election of Senator Sanders represents what may be the worlds last best hope to curtail the worst of social and environmental climate catastrophe.Luckily, even from Sydney, there are ways students and staff can support this last, best hope. With easy online registration and voting available from March 3-10 at http://democratsabroad.org/primary as well as an in-person voting from 11 am to 4 pm at the Sydneys Palace Hotel on George St. on March 7, U.S. Citizens abroad have the opportunity to disproportionately play a role in the victory of Bernie Sanders. Disproportionately because Democrats Abroad (D.A.) will be awarded thirteen delegates to the partys National Convention in 2020 where it will take a minimum of 1,991 delegates to secure the nomination. In the 2016 race, less than 2,000 votes in the D.A. primary was enough to earn a candidate a delegate whereas in most American states it took around 10,000 votes. Thus, voting in the D.A. primarywith its ease of online, same day registration and votinghas the added benefit of meaning your vote or the vote of the American exchange student sitting next to you in your lecture has exponentially more value than say, my primary vote this year in Louisiana. Indeed, between exchange students, dual citizens, and their friends and family in Sydney, its likely there are enough U.S. citizens on or near this campus to make a real difference in this election. Bernie Sanders campaign slogan is Not Me. Us. That us refers to all of us around the world. Not just those of us who can vote in the U.S., but those who cant as well. You can phone and text-bank from abroad on behalf of the campaign as hundreds do via Australians Supporting Bernie Sanders. And we can talk to our friends, classmates, and coworkers who can vote and urge them to cast their ballot in the D.A. primary. As Senator Sanders emphasises repeatedly on the campaign trail, this past summers events in Australia are a vivid reminder that sitting on the sideline is no longer an option. To beat back the politics of inaction on climate change, it truly will take all of us. Dr. Thomas J. Adams is Senior Lecturer in History and American Studies in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry. On leave during Semester 1, he will be teaching HSTY 2712: From Lincoln to Trump, a unit on the history of American (in)equality in Semester 2.How to vote for Bernie?Vote online from March 3 10 at http://democratsabroad.org/primary; orVote in-person from 11am to 4pm on March 7 at the Palace Hotel on George Street.Can I vote? Yes! If:Youre 18, or will turn 18 by November 8;Youre an American citizen living abroad;You havent voted in another state primary yet; andAre registered to vote (if youre not, no worries, you can register online at: https://www.democratsabroad.org/join). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I was nine when I was burnt. One moment, I was breathing in steam from a mixing bowl of freshly boiled water to chase away a cough. The next, I was screaming as boiling water dripped down my legs.I remember the pain the most. The cheap polyester pyjama shorts covered in bright pink and red cherries had melted and fused to my skin; blisters bubbled across my lap. I remember the drive to the hospital; tears streaming down my cheeks while the hospital speedbumps left me shaking in pain. My parents met us at the hospital. Dad was stony faced. Mum refused to let go of my hand the entire night. My thighs were unrecognisable. I had red, angry scalding from my knees to my navel. My lap was a mess of second and three degree burns where the skin had been completely burned away.I spent several weeks in a hospital bed in Westmead Childrens Hospital. I spent months in a wheelchair. I spent well over a year returning to that bandaged bear unit to have my bandages redressed and checked signs of infection. I cried during my first shower after what felt like an eternity of sponge baths and hair washes in the sink. I wore silicon patches for three years after that accident and couldnt wear shorts for longer.But as physical wounds turned to scars, the mental trauma of what occurred only started to sink in. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder made sleeping almost impossible. Calming essential oil blends and classical music prescribed by a therapist did little to stop the images that flashed behind closed eyelids. Those cherry shorts, the whiteness of skin burnt away, shivering in a tub of cold water while my babysitter called triple zero. Even after a decade, citrus cleaning products make me tremble and feel nauseous; they send me back countless trips spent having bandage glue wiped off with orange De-Solv-It.Still, I was lucky. I didnt need extensive skin grafts, nor did I face the horrors of infection. My scars did not disfigure my face or hands or arms, Instead they faded, and became relatively smaller as I grew legs no longer belonging to a nine year old.But when the words burns survivor are spoken, one imagines obvious scars mutilating large expanses of skin. Indeed, that is what I pictured for a very long time. Which is perhaps why I look down at my relatively small patches of white scarred skin, barely discernible under criss-crossing stretch-marks, and struggle to acknowledge what I am. How could I be a burns survivor when there are people who had it so much worse than me?This idea became my mantra for a long time. I would throw away invites to burns survivors camps because I wasnt a burns survivor. I felt I did not meet the minimum requirements to deserve the title and the pity survivor evoked. I mistook downplaying the trauma as recovery; dismissing triggers as hysteria or sleep deprived emotionality. Smells and images that would make me feel like sobbing saw me hastily making an exit whilst hiding trembling hands and the crack in my voice. My PTSD evolved to general anxiety and a compulsive need to perfectly prepare for every possible outcome. Go with the flow became lost from my vocabulary, stemming from a hyperawareness of how bad a worst-case-scenario can be. It became the norm for friends to tease me about being paranoid or high strung, whilst I smiled, shrugged and triple checked google maps.But the reality is that its hard to explain the trauma that has made a home inside of you whilst you constantly dismiss it. Its hard to call yourself a burns survivor when you are waiting for the response, you dont look like a burns survivor or hot water? That doesnt hurt like fire though, does it? That constant fear of someone dismissing your experience leads you to do it first. Eleven years on, I am still learning that there is not a threshold for recognising your own trauma; the experiences of others simply do not discredit your own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Watashi wa ringo ga suki desu.I like apples. That was the first sentence I ever wrote in Japanese. Grammatically simple, but to be able to express a thought in another language remained deeply satisfying for my 12 year old self, as if I had unlocked a new region of my brain. Six years and many linguistic eureka moments later, I was able to hold a sustained, semi-realistic conversation in Japanese, and write essays about topics ranging from the benefits of being an only child to the dangers of social media. Of course, I still couldnt read the newspaper or watch a Japanese movie without subtitles, but overall, I was happy with where I was in terms of my language ability after the HSC, and cautiously optimistic about where I was heading.Then I got to university. The eureka moments dried up and I stopped speaking or writing in Japanese for two years. And it was my major. Towards the end of second year, as I took Japanese exchange students around Sydney, I realised I couldnt even ask how long they would be in Australia for.While many prospective university students will be excited at the opportunity to learn a language after school, the sad reality is that, save for superhuman motivation or an immersive exchange experience, you will not become fluent. Far from it.The problems with language learning at university relate to both the inherent difficulty of learning languages, and also to the way theyre currently taught. While humans have an innate capacity for language, to relearn as an adult the basics of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, things we take for granted in our native tongue, is not easy. It requires patience, intelligence, and most importantly, discipline. While children supposedly have the luxury of a more receptive brain, their biggest advantage is not neurological, but educational.If a student has completed the HSC Continuers level course for a language, they would have done at least 600 hours of classroom time by the end of it, with 120 of those hours happening in year 12. In contrast, at university, where the semester time is shorter and the course load smaller, a language student will normally complete only 78 hours (3 hours a week for two semesters) of dedicated classroom study. From the outset, university students have much less to work with than they would have in high school.Of course, it can be argued that an important part of tertiary education is the ability to self study and be self-disciplined. While this is undoubtedly true, the lax, self-directed nature of tertiary education is not at all conducive to language learning, which requires a level of consistent discipline and rote learning perhaps only a high school student can handle. While in theory someone who puts in a lot of study in their own time in addition to their tutorials and lectures could probably develop the level of fluency their course description prescribes, that same student could just download Duolingo and do an hour of exercises everyday. The result would be the same. People choose to study languages at university because theyre expecting a degree of structure and guidance that a phone application just doesnt provide. My first year reading tutorials for Japanese involved the tutor going around the class and making everyone each read a sentence from the weekly passage in the textbook. You would spend the majority of the 50 minutes in silence, and when your turn came, you would read your sentence aloud for maybe 10 seconds if you were lucky. Then class would finish, and you wouldnt speak any Japanese until the next reading class. There was no discussion in Japanese about the content of the piece, nor any emphasis on actually understanding what you just read. Vocabulary building was relegated to a weekly online quiz which only tested whether you knew what a word meant and how it was pronounced, and not how to actually use it.Most infuriatingly, classes revolving around speaking, deceptively named communication class, involved no actual speaking but the filling out of pointless worksheets and acting out unrealistic scenarios to a pre-written script. By the senior units, it seemed that no one in the class could hold a conversation in Japanese anymore, so we just sat sheepishly and chatted in English, with the tutor doing nothing to stop it. The focus on speaking that high school language study places such a huge emphasis on very much disappears at university.But while my problem was that classes didnt have enough Japanese, some students have found the complete opposite. Horror stories quickly circle in first year about introductory Spanish being taught entirely in Spanish despite many incoming students having no knowledge of the language. In Chinese, many students have spoken of native speakers managing to bypass prohibitions to get into beginner level units, diminishing the experience for beginners. And its well known that first year French requires its students to read a novel in French after only one semester.While I dont want to generalise my experience to all languages taught at university, I still believe the biggest problem with language learning at university isnt that its too hard, but that the expectations on students are too low, such that its entirely possible to graduate majoring in a language without having anything close to fluency. Personally, the best thing about my Japanese major was that I could go on exchange and study the language not in Australia. Had I not gone, like so many of my friends, I would have left university with a piece of paper but nothing to show for it.Perhaps the problem of language learning at university is the whole idea of fluency itself. While students of modern languages languish in their studies, students of ancient languages seem to be relishing in them.Latin and Ancient Greek students seem to be enamoured with both the languages and the people that teach them, with a friend describing the latter as ridiculously overqualified. The academic nature of studying ancient languages, which involves copious amounts of translation and almost mathematical grammar exercises, seems to be much better suited to the self-directed nature of university. Without the need to ever have to hold a conversation or write a business email in Latin, Classics students seem to be spared some of the biggest shortcomings of modern language learning the difficulty of transferring classroom learning to practical results.Once the dream of fluency is taken out of the equation, its easy to see the benefits of trying to learn a language. Its intellectually stimulating, whether youre working out verb conjugation in Japanese or trying to decipher a long, winding sentence in French. Its culturally enriching, and many students, though unhappy with their language units, have praised how interesting many of the cultural units are. And sometimes, when the stars align for the right student, who has the right amount of determination and linguistic ability, it could very well lead to fluency.In a time where Sydney University is relentlessly pushing forward the idea that its degrees are practical and graduate quality enhancing, its strange how a language education at the University is nothing of the sort. Of course, if your motivation to study a language is to be able to have a basic conversation with someone, or because youll be travelling to a country which speaks it, or because you just want to give yourself a challenge, by all means go for it. However if you go in expecting to leave with full working proficiency, maybe its better to temper your expectations. To any language learner, fluency will always be more a possible bonus than a concrete end result. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For Aboriginal people, January 26 is Invasion Day, a day of resistance not celebration. It marks the beginning of the racist oppression we have suffered and continue to face today. The logic of invasion terra nullius saw the introduction of British capitalism and all its brutal and exploitative practices to these shores. The rich natural resources that helped sustain human life for over 65,000 years were now the object of colonial expansion and profiteering for the British ruling class. The colonisers knew that any recognising any form of Aboriginal sovereignty undermined their project, so extensive measures were taken to undermine and ultimately smash all expressions of Aboriginal sovereignty.The foundation of Australian capitalism saw the birth of the Australian farming industry. For many decades after, livestock rearing was Australias dominant and most profitable industry. This period saw the introduction of racist laws that functioned to control every aspect of Aboriginal life from who they married, where they could travel, where they could work and who they could associate with. In WA and Queensland, hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people were enslaved on agricultural plantations as profit was siphoned off their (stolen) land. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people were rounded up en masse and forced to live on government reserves known as missions in some cases managed by the Catholic church in an effort to stamp out Aboriginality and force assimilation.Still today, racist laws and practices continue to oppress the Aboriginal community. Aboriginal children are now stripped from their families under the guise of child protection at higher rates than during the days of the Stolen Generations. Aboriginal people continue to be killed by a racist criminal justice system at shocking rates. In August 2018, an analysis of 10 years of coronial data found that 407 Aboriginal people had died in police or prison custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1987-1991). That figure has now increased to at least 425. A recent and highly public case was the murder of David Dungay Jnr at the end of 2015. Only weeks before he was due to be released from Long Bay Jail, David was killed by prison officers in his cell, for the crime of eating a biscuit. The coronial inquest into his death was finally held in 2019, with an outcome that has become all-too-familiar to the families of those murdered in custody no-one was held responsible for his death.Systematic racism against Aboriginal people continues to exist for the same reason it has always existed to enable and justify the continued exploitation of Aboriginal land for the profit of Australias rich and powerful. Today, mining is Australias largest and most profitable industry, making up over 50% of Australias total export earnings. Coal, natural gas, and iron ore are the big three, and Australian mining corporations BHP and Rio Tinto are among the largest in the world. Despite the gains of the land rights movement in the 60s and 70s, Aboriginal people have virtually no meaningful or reliable rights over our land. The limited areas where native title does exist are constantly under threat from mining companies. The ineffectiveness of existing native title laws came to the fore when the Adani Corporation bankrupted Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) spokesperson Adrian Burragubba through Australias High Court, demanding that he pay up over $600,000 to cover legal fees for the mine. Under the Native Title Act, the Native Title Tribunal can order that mining leases be granted even if an agreement with traditional owners has not been reached. To grant genuine land rights and acknowledge the true history of invasion in this country would endanger the right of billionaires and businesses to exploit Aboriginal land for their own profit.The celebration of Australia Day hardens Australian nationalism and papers over class divisions under capitalism. Such a celebration pushes the idea that everyone shares a collective interest. This could not be further from the truth; we are not all in this together. The people that profit from the extraction of natural resources on stolen Aboriginal land are the same people fuelling the climate crisis the cause of the wildfires that have levelled entire towns, burnt over 10 million hectares of bushland and killed more than 25 people. As temperatures continue to rise, the Australian capitalist class, backed by Albanese and Morrison, will continue to profit from extractive industries while the planet burns.Every year the turnout to Invasion Day rallies has consistently grown. We need more of it! We need protest and mass action if we want to radically change society. This is what won greater civil rights for African Americans in the 60s in the United States and this is what won marriage equality here in 2017. Get along to the Sydney Invasion Day Rally at 11am in Hyde Park; join thousands of others in taking a stand against the revolting racism and nationalism that taints this date every year. If youre interested in learning more about how to defeat Aboriginal oppression or want to get involved in anti-capitalist politics, Ill be speaking at a public meeting on Black Lives Matter: the struggle to end Aboriginal oppression on 23 January at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre at 6pm. See you there! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My boots crunch through whats left of the snow as I make my way to class when I smell it: smoke. Its almost as if Im being pre-haunted about my return to Sydney following a year-long exchange in Sweden.Normally, the lingering residue of burnt wood would be a comforting, pleasant scent that Id inhale happily but now, it conjures up this guttural fear, twinned with the unpleasant anticipation of having to fly back home to a place which has become a literal hell.Although Im fine, physically, at least for now, every day I wake with a dreaded curiosity and tune into the news about Australias bushfires. 16 people have died. Over 250 million tonnes of CO2 have been emitted into the atmosphere, more than half of Australias annual greenhouse gas emissions. Sydney is experiencing some of the worst air quality ever seen. And the smoke is here to stay.The rampaging assault from the bushfires was what tipped the scale of moral conscience beyond any sense of balance: sealing my decision to remain childfree by choice. Its a decision mostly fueled by my own climate anxiety, backed by the enormous ecological impact of each human on the earth; but also because, quite simply, I believe that any child would suffer in a world wracked by climate change. The science is already out there we just need to break our collective cognitive dissonance, and act.Im all too aware of the privilege that comes with the ability to make the choice to be childfree, but I also believe that those who have privilege should use it in a way that minimises harm wherever possible. And Ive come to the conclusion that I could never, in good conscience, bring a child into the world who will have to suffer through existence of human-induced climate change.Lets be real here, the world isnt just fraught with dangers of the impending climate disaster: its fucked.Even now, after the Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 4%. And in a completely non-suicidal way, I wish Id never been born, because without existing, I wouldnt have contributed to screwing up the planet. This feeling that I thought only I felt is far more common than I realised, and is actually referred to by psychologists as eco-despair, a sane and rather normal reaction to the climate crisis.My first brush with a mass existential depression occurred after being taught about human-induced climate change in high school science. It still brings me anxiety to reflect just briefly on teenage mes climate panic now, and its even more unfathomable to imagine what it would be like being a child at school in 10 or 15 years, feeling the same shame and guilt simply because of their existence, and having to just keep on living, despite the total collapse of the world as we know it.I wouldnt want to be born today and eventually realise that previous generations could have done something; but didnt. Or they did, but it wasnt enough.I've delivered a baby this morning (in a smoky theatre) and done lots of antenatal visits.The dawn of a new decade. Normally a time for optimism and hope.Today, every single parent-to-be tells me they are fearful for their child's climate future. #bushfiresAustralia Steve Robson (@DrSteveRobson) January 2, 2020I do admit to being somewhat isolated from the mass rallies calling for climate action in Sydney, but I still head out every Friday in Sweden and strike, joined by a handful of youths and some 30 woke retired people. Its a pitifully small, but nonetheless loyal group of strikers. However, despite the global collective effort, the pessimism I have for my future let alone the future of the generations who come after me persists.Some days, I find myself mourning for a very specific version of parenthood that Ill miss out on. But then I remember: I have friends, the capacity to have pets, relatives who have children, and theres always the option to adopt an already existing child. There is so much more to living a rich and fulfilling life without biological kids. Plus, I firmly believe that people need to start making sacrifices now.We already have all the facts, says Greta Thunberg. All we have to do is to wake up and change. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Doctor of Medicine program currently costs $78,000 per annum for international students and $66,000 for local applicants. For a four-year course, that comes to a total of $312,000 and $264,000 respectively.The costs have been justified by the University on the basis of prestige. Sydney Medical School, ranked 18th in the world according to QS, is one of the biggest jewels on USyds crown.With all this money pouring in, there should be no reason to avoid paying tutors properly. And yet, that is the reality for many involved in the the Clinical Teaching Fellowship (CTF). Now in its second year, the fellowship claims to be a new initiative to prepare the next generation of clinicians and basic scientists to deliver high-quality medical student teaching within Sydney Medical School. But it makes no mention of the fact that tutors are left unpaid.Do you work for the University and receive no pay or other employment rights? Let us know via our anonymous tipline. Encrypted channels are available.When I applied for the fellowship, I assumed that teaching would be remunerated. The CTF requires tutors to facilitate four two and a half hour Team-Based Learning tutorials a class where students are given a case study to complete. When I requested my contract, the response was that payment would not be given for teaching within the program. I was disillusioned. Conveniently, the word volunteer was omitted from the application pack. The promise of furthering my skills in medical education was apparently enough to counter the onus on profit-making institutions to pay their workers.Beyond the tutorials, tutors were required to complete the Clinical Teaching Training module, a two and a half hour course which consisted of nothing more than common sense pasted on a USyd-bannered PowerPoint.The worst part came when I had completed the program and I received an email probing my availability for the coming year. I requested payment again, to little avail. After requesting my contract, I was told that the Medical School does not pay tutors, but that the CTF would look really good on my CV. In response, I asked who I should direct my feedback to. This email went unanswered.The University has concocted an illusion of the highest order it has given training as recompense for teaching, leaving the CTF as nothing more than a guise to get free labour, without conferring any employment rights.This has not always been the case. When the now defunct relative of Team-based Learning (TBL) the old Problem-Based Learning tutorials were being delivered, tutors could opt in to as many or as little tutorials as they wanted all of which were on a remunerated basis.The CTF program has been economically advantageous for the Medical School but utterly non-sustainable.Academics within the Faculty have told me they are disgusted to learn that the CTF model has become the new model for teaching.Im sure most students would be displeased to find out that their fees were not going towards paying teachers properly.After all, staff teaching conditions are student learning conditions.Marcus Andersson is a current PhD candidate in the Faculty of Medicine <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The sex positivity movement has lauded in the feminist movement in a big way, but there are undeniable issues in the belief that all consensual sexual acts are inherently healthy.The argument for sex positivity comes down to considering any and every sex act that a woman engages in enthusiastically as inherently empowering, solely because it goes against everything that the patriarchy has taught us to do; and thats feminist, right?But while empowering and encouraging women to be active agents within their own sex lives is something that should be unequivocally supported, there is something sinister in how this movement, marketed towards women as feminist, has become weaponised against them.Particularly within the kink and BDSM communities, there is the ingrained belief that since erotic role-playing is a situational suspension of reality, the scenarios played out within it are to be exempt from the same moral criteria we would hold them to in any other situation. Part of the appeal of kink and BDSM is specifically that one is free from the burdens of their life outside it, and are able to play roles that are wildly different.However, it is important to acknowledge that enthusiastic consent alone does not make a sex act empowering, nor does it mean it is intrinsically progressive. In particular, sex acts that involve scenarios in which women are degraded and abused are widely free from criticism within the framework of sex-positivity; we would be quick to condemn people who expressed bigoted views, but yet we give bigotry accolades when it is eroticised.This is not to critique women who enjoy partaking in said acts, but it is to critique the socialisation of which such inclinations are products; we and our actions dont exist in a vacuum. There is no denying that ones personal autonomy plays a large part in their decision-making process, but any and every decision we make is a result of our socialisation. Try as we might to unlearn the oppressive, patriarchal systems of learning in which we have been brought up, it is foolish to think that we could be remove ourselves entirely from them. The same thinking should apply to when our partners want to engage in problematic sex-play we should be critically analysing where those desires stem from, the same way we would with any other problematic behaviour, regardless of whether we may feel comfortable engaging in them or not.Too often it feels as if sex positivity is another manifestation of the patriarchy, repackaged to appear shiny and new and sold to us under the guise of progressiveness. In particular, the currently held framework of the movement has curiously emboldened groups of men (Im looking at you, straight, cis men) to identify as sex-positive feminists, allowing themselves to be labeled as progressive. They are granted societal permission, and even encouraged, to perform behaviour that would in any other case be seen has fundamentally unhealthy, unsafe or generally misogynistic, under the guise of kinkiness. All the while, women continue to be subject to the same misogynistic and abusive power dynamics.We should not be critical of sex, nor critical of women being empowered to enthusiastically engage in sex and discussions around it. Instead, we need to be critical of the way that this movement is being weaponised against us, to lead us to believe that by engaging in these acts, we are inherently empowering ourselves. We must analyse the politics that lie beneath sexual intentions, the same way we would with any other intentions.The sex positivity movement cannot and should not exist without a critical analysis, because sex and sexual acts themselves cannot exist within a vacuum and can never be apolitical. As such, the movement (and any movement which proclaims itself to be feminist) is useless if it doesnt arm women with the knowledge of the political nature of the behaviour that they are expected to so willingly accept and engage in. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Something about it is almost lethal. The turn of a waist, or the tasteful slip of gauze as it falls over a bare shoulder. An underwear line, half-hidden. Beige tape below the breast. Theres the immateriality of it all, the illusory play of light how it touches our bodies the way nothing else does. Not nude, but naked.When Rihanna wore Adam Selmans Swarovski dress at the 2014 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Awards, news sites all over the world described it as her most daring red carpet look. Featuring more than 200,000 crystals hand-embellished onto a transparent fishnet gown, it was an almost absurd display of luxury and eroticism. However, its ability to shock was in more than just the extravagant dress. By wearing spectacular fashion, Rihanna ultimately revealed how the political site of the female body is itself a spectacle, a performance, and a crafted image.This notion of the spectacle harkens back to Guy Debords Marxist theory, where a society of appearance both falsifies and reflects reality. Through the idea of play, actions transcend the ordinary to portray a desired impression. Images replace the real, and the ordinary self becomes the extraordinary other. Housed in a room of representations, it is the product of reality itself. This can be seen in the naked dress a piece of clothing that is sheer, translucent, fitted, or revealing. It exposes the naked body, while also transforming it into something beyond the authentic world. It encompasses the real, and the illusion of the real. Are we looking at a clothed body? A naked body? Or perhaps something else entirely?As wearers of spectacular fashion, women are subjected to cultural and political conceptions of the physical self. By revealing flesh, the naked dress forces us to interrogate the way that womens bodies are commodified in a Western patriarchal society. The sexualisation of the female form disrupts the purely aesthetic appeal of the naked dress, if such a thing exists at all. More than any other article of clothing, its relationship to the body is an essential part of its design. It is not only activated through embodiment, but given meaning through movement. It is almost entirely dependent on the wearer, whose body is the finishing touch. Selman himself noted that the most scandalous part of the Swarovski dress was not the crystals or the fishnet, but the beauty of the female form. What we see is a dress that reveals as much as it suggests, like a hand reaching out: an invitation, or a challenge.The political site of the female body is further magnified in the celebrity sphere, where there is a blurred division between reality and the playful society of spectacles. Typically worn by celebrities at fashion and media events, the naked dress exists as part of cultural performance. In these exclusively theatrical spaces, spectacular fashion is not simply an object of clothing, but a personified representation of fantasy. At an award show full of photographers and onlookers, Rihanna actively participates in the culture of image-making. Picture the flash of a camera on diamonds, the animating effect of a single spark magnified. The glorious radiance of a crystal do-rag. How the naked dress absorbs heat, repurposes flesh. In this world, the wearer is transformed into a spectacle that can only function through illusions and commodities. She consumes her own image; she becomes a spectator of herself. The woman is no stranger to this feeling, spectacular fashion or not.Although the naked dress appears to reveal what is usually hidden, it is inevitably a highly constructed image. Underneath her slip of fishnet, Rihannas chest is bare, but her beige coloured underwear is plainly visible. The purposeful revelation of what is known to be a hidden undergarment is almost as equally startling as her exposed body. More than transparency, there is the question of nakedness as a performance of intimacy we only see what we have been allowed to see. Skin as costume, skin as delight. And it is delightful, in the way that spectacular fashion always is, but rather than an elaborate display of feathered shawls and puff pastry organza, we are left with a dress that is ironically as excessive as it is scarce. As Journalist Cait Munro describes, the naked dress conceals a facade being held together by a bricolage of double-sided tape, bizarre styling tricks, and possibly black magic. The naked dress, then, as bewitching. The wearer as enchantress. Although it supposedly reveals what is hidden underneath, it merely transforms the body into a constructed ideal of rehearsed revelation, sheltered by the seductive glamour of illusions, of something beyond our imagination.In the society of the spectacle, interactions between fashion and the female body are highly political and complex. In post-modernity, the naked dress may appear to be a subtler expression of extreme fashion on the runway. However, it emulates the playful spectacle that continues to shock, enthral and surprise. The naked dress carries with it an element of drama in disguise. It is an homage to contrasting images: the diamonds and the fishnet, the exaggerated act of stripping bare, the sharp feelings ignited by the most mundane and intimate moments. There is, of course, the theatrical significance of something as precise a silhouette. When asked about her bare breasts, Rihanna simply said, I just liked it better without the lines underneath. Could you imagine the CFDA dress with a bra? I would slice my throat. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The universality of female subordination, the fact that it exists within every type of social and economic arrangement and in societies of every degree of complexity, indicates to me that we are up against something very profound, very stubborn, something we cannot rout out simply by rearranging a few tasks and roles in the social system, or even by reordering the whole economic structure. Sherry B. Ortner, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? (1974)The oppression of women has a long, complex history, variably and idiosyncratically affecting every woman who lives today. The enforcing patriarchy has taken many shapes and forms, in different cultural, economic, political, and physical patterns. As we stand today, we exist in the midst of a climate emergency and on the precipice of ecological disaster. An understanding of the multifaceted effects of patriarchy, in conjunction with the more commonly discussed effects of industrial capitalism in creating the aforementioned climate emergency must be reached, as well as the ways we, as a society, can move forward from this.Expansionist and extractionist methods of economic growth have been well established within the European modus operandi for centuries, as evident through years of territorial wars and the brutal endeavours of colonialism. Murder, expatriation, and devastation of land was an accepted component of European prosperity. The utilisation of coal and the steam engine allowed an intensification of violent colonialism and war abroad, as well as entrenching systems of capitalism and inequality within England. Mechanised factories could move to cities, and a larger, more desperate pool of workers allowed factory owners to keep wages low and hours long. Women, and specifically married women, were desired as labourers, as they were seen as more docile and accepting of harsher conditions for less pay. Consumerism further legitimised waged working and alienated people from resources, methods, and production of goods. The interlocking processes of repressing workers, foreign imperialism, and resource extraction were simultaneously fuelled by coal.Within Western European history and philosophy, there is precedent that allows men to think of conquering women and nature in the same way. Dualistic positioning labels Man as having standing, while Woman, as opposed to him, does not. Similarly, Humanity, or Culture, has standing, while Nature does not. Man has been bestowed by the Western Canon (a retrospectively applied label loosely linking Ancient Greece and contemporary England) the virtues of rationality, order, enlightenment, and law. The perceived superiority of European men justified/s the violent marginalisation of all foreign people in concurrence with the personal, physical, and political repression of women. Mary OBrien notes that men did not suddenly discover in the sixteenth century, that they might make a historical project of the mastery of nature. They have understood their separation from nature and their need to mediate this separation ever since that moment in the dark prehistory when the idea of the paternity took hold. Western European obsession with the complete comprehension and penetration of nature set a track for the domination of the subject.Issues of patriarchy and climate destruction have been exacerbated by the conditions of neoliberalism. Wealth and power have been consolidated within destructive industries such as fossil fuels, mining, and plastic consumables. This wealth exists in the hands of mainly white, American men. Circumstances of Western society today necessitates that average people continually buy new things that are cheap and disposable, with planned obsolescence built in. Women are disproportionately affected by this, with a specific instance being the constraints of the beauty myth that coerces women into buying huge amounts of clothing that will go out of style, chemical based makeup, and plastic surgery. People have been alienated from their environment, their labour, production and consumption, and their own existence both internally and externally. This luxury of consumerism in the West has been at the expense of the majority of the planet. Many countries have had to mine, farm, excavate, and export massive amounts of natural resources in an effort to match the path of industrialisation and modernisation as dictated by powers such as the United Kingdom and the United States.Liberal feminism has not made the gains for all women as it has promised. The few figureheads of female CEOs and the ideas of lean in feminism do not do justice to the vast majority of women. Women will not be liberated by gender equality that only favours the ruling class, especially when it is a known fact that women do two thirds of the worlds work for 10% of its pay. When the limitations of society and culture are pushed, women are forced to step to the plate. This is evident through research on ecofeminism by Ariel Salleh who identified that what happens in the fullness of capitalist patriarchal time, is that men retain their rights in a public and legal sense, while social responsibility falls to women.Environmentalism similarly will not make the gains the earth needs unless it also sets out to deconstruct the method and psyche of capitalism that rationalises extractivism and expansionism in the name of wealth. Women must constantly fight to have the gendered nature of environmental issues addressed. It is socially and structurally evident that women earn considerably less money than men and yet still have the burden of care, making them disproportionately susceptible to climate disasters in terms of mobility, safety, food security, and financial security.None of this means to reduce discussion to any forms of gender essentialism. There is a tendency to discuss the procreational capacity and care work commonly undertaken by women as having more of a natural, biological aspect than the work of men. Women and men should be equally encouraged to engage in green, climate, service, and care work. It is to say that we must deconstruct the assumptions we have culturally generated and engage in perpetuating about the role of women in society and how we envision our relationship to the environment. The inscription of maternity and nature onto womens bodies as a default is an element of the 1/0 culture and Man over Woman (= Nature) dynamic that justifies Male domination.I apologise for the binary language used in this article. This is not to erase gender non-conforming identity from discussion surrounding environmentalism, nor is it to reduce the position of non-binary people in the environmental movement and larger society now. This article aims to interrogate the patriarchal dynamic of misogyny and extractivism that is critical to the climate crisis as it exists today, which has a distinct binary dynamic to it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres nothing worse than sitting down for a good vent about The Bachelor with a female friend, colleague, or favourite auntie when [insert condescending male acquaintance here] interrupts with the charming refrain: The Bachelor? Really? I thought you were smart!The most immediately annoying thing about these kinds of comments is that they generally come from men who think that golf is real exercise, complaining about political correctness is good comedy, and cargo shorts count as clothing. These guys do not occupy the moral high ground of good taste, nor are they consumers of thoughtful and high quality media. It seems mean-spirited, then, to mock young women for their pleasure in unwinding and getting perhaps a little emotionally involved in something thats not Serious High Art By Dead White Men (or a podcast).Its annoying for another reason. The Bachelor is undeniably a flawed and sometimes silly TV show. But it is also extremely watchable. The reason, at least in my experience, is that the women on the show are very fun. No one would watch an hour of the Mattchelor insipidly nursing a cup of tea and flexing his forehead vein. And seasons of The Bachelorette are inevitably masochistic to watch, with a line up of identically boring and freaky men failing to inspire. The women on The Bachelor, whether villainous or angelic, are frequently funny, sweet and/or interesting. Towards the end of each series they have backstories, complex emotions, and seemingly genuine friendships. Its dismissive to say that watching interesting character development and emotional journeys is vacuous.Unfortunately, The Bachelor does its excellent contestants a disservice. Whether through actual direction, or just ingenious editing and casting, the show robs the women it stars of their full personalities. It routinely confines people into convenient patriarchal boxes that provide drama and fairytale narratives but ultimately make for shallower TV.On the last season, this manifested in the obsession with marriage and kids. Matt, blurring the line between Nerdy Man and Soviet State Planning Committee, had a concrete 5 year plan for his life, wherein a wife and kids were a certainty. This became a pervasive drama throughout the show. Most notably, the persecution of Abbie was based on the bizarre idea that a woman cant possibly be on the show for The Right Reasons if she doesnt nervously check her biological clock every few minutes. Its absurd that a 23-year-old not having her life meticulously planned out was framed, not as a non sequitur, but as a conniving betrayal. Matts date with Helena, where he asked her to plan their relationship on a confronting 10 year timeline, understandably freaked her out. Deciding on your imaginary childs 7th birthday present before youve finished your second date is a bit much.All this was compounded by the constant focus on Matts career, with endless astrophysics puns never letting the audience forget that the producers were proud of getting someone smart on the show. The Bachelorettes were also very qualified, with a couple of engineers interrupting the usual demographic of designers and models. Matts 5 Year Plan seemed as though it would come at the expense of these careers which were at best ignored and at worst actively treated as disposable not his. The show would have been better had it avoided this framing: it could have prompted serious conversations about domestic labour and gender roles within families, rather than pressuring the women to compete over how clucky they were.The Bachelor (and admittedly the women on it) also suffers from a belief in an unwritten girl code which punishes women for being insufficiently demure. It was this girl code behind the unreasonable demands that Abbie not kiss Matt, the anger at any girl fully participating in a group date, and the backlash unleashed for telling Matt about drama in the house. Ultimately, the girl code tries to enforce passivity, making it seem immoral to competitively participate in the show or to be overtly sexy. The Bachelor would be a better show if it stopped arbitrarily picking women to present as villains and creating conflicts over this girl code.Watching The Bachelor exposes women to sexism from two sides: dismissiveness about viewers of reality TV being stupid; and the poor framing of women on the show. This may seem inconsequential, but the programme informs a lot of discourse in our society about love and romance. It might be a show full of heterosexual nonsense and wacky group dates, but it should at least do its contestants, and its viewers, justice. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Jagose (who has no first name), today spoke out about the gendered impacts of being accused of wage theft.The clear-eyed, all-knowing ideologists with their hermeneutically suspicious motives have demystified and interpellated me to no end, Jagose told The Boot over a cheese platter and prosecco at her ideologically activatable managerial brunch at Forum this morning.Im not the first person to note that, while the authority of the public man is augmented by praises of fiscal prudence, the public woman is undermined by the claim of wage theft.In light of these paranoid readings, I am proposing the obliteration of the Political Economy department and every casual staff member, Jagose continued, her grip on a dog-eared copy of Judith Butlers Gender Trouble tightening under the table.Jagose informed her colleague Stephen that she would be appearing in a feminist panel on Q+A next week to discuss the impacts of false wage theft accusations on gender pay inequities in upper management, the mental health of university #girlbosses, and their pet dogs who are having to take antidepressants.The effort to identify the enemy as singular in form is a reverse-discourse that uncritically mimics the strategy of the oppressor instead of offering a different set of terms, Jagose was heard muttering to herself as she used the stolen wages of casuals to purchase a $33 plant-based burger. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Boot has acquired shocking files under the Freedom of Information Act revealing ASIOs detailed plans to halt protests in Sydney by creating unprecedented fractures in the left.The files show that ASIO scrapped its plans soon after the project commenced, with one spy complaining of having spent three hours listening to an argument about whether the left should run for USU board.Another ASIO spy reported that two socialist groups they struggled to tell apart were postering over each other on campus for upcoming talks on the same topic.Furthermore, emails reveal that the ASIO spies, who had committed to wearing platform Doc Martens for the project, planned to stay long enough in the groups in order to gain enough credibility to cancel someone.I think we at ASIO can make better use of our resources than on these inner-west queers, one spy said. I have been observing their activity closely and it appears that this particular group is about to crumble over a split between post-anarchism and post-left anarchy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Greens MP David Shoebridge was left shocked after no one attended a cross-collective speakout, where he had planned to deliver a speech this morning.The Boot understands that organisers forgot to invite people as they were making a social media graphic in the OB room.Honestly its just been such a busy month, said organiser Milly Power.Last week, we made some staunch pastel infographics on abolishing the police. We also had a working bee to make a cover photo for a Facebook event. And to top things off, we made a cute weekly meeting calendar.Power told The Boot that she is hoping to become a graphic designer after she finishes her term. Ive gained so much experience through this and I hope to take the skills Ive learnt through activism and producing autonomous Honi editions into the industry. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At yesterday afternoons Figure Skating Society AGM, President Abigail Winters was ousted after a pack of 25 factional hacks showed up to the meeting with a mean glint in their eyes.Winters considered it an honour though.This is a dream come true. She told Honi. Its just like when Timothy Goebel landed three quad jumps in his 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics program: it was beautiful beautiful yet deadly.Longest serving Figure Skating Society president and all-round C&S heavyweight Leon Donor-Hugh thought it was anything but an honour.They stacked us about as much as Gillis Grafstrm stacked his Olympic medal shelf. And not only is stacking at odds with the spirit of C&S, it is at odds with the very principles of figure skating: fairness, justice, and above all, a respect for your fellow ice dancer.Walter Sturges, the newly elected President, fiercely rejected this claim in his USU campaign launch speech.I love ice and I love the thrill of a triple salchow. The blood of skating runs through my veins. And so what if me and exactly the right amount of my buddies showed up to the Figure Skating Society AGM to express that love by nominating for executive positions.This saga is far from over thougb. Following the AGM, the society has suffered a schism, with a group of separatists called the True Skaters declaring the society compromised and pledging to register a rival club.A university spokesperson warned students not to attend any ice skating adjacent campus events until the unrest had been quelled.All it takes is one poisoned snow cone machine, and BAM, things could get a whole lot worse. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After receiving a Dataminr alert late last night, NSW Police were informed that NTEU activists planned to use the large mobile boba statue outside of Manning House as a battering ram.While information is scarce, sources have told The Boot that the NTEU intended to breach the F23 building using the oversized bubble tea on wheels.Upon police approach, activists were tipped off about their imminent arrival, at which point, NTEU Headkicker David Brophy mounted the novelty beverage and sped off down Physics Road.Police remain in pursuit, with Brophy last seen being towed down Eastern Avenue. Experts warn that the statues straw is particularly dangerous. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> USU Board candidate Joe Fidler has survived an assassination attempt by a Nerf-wielding top-hatted assailant in the Holme Building.Harrowing footage shows Fidler addressing the audience of the USU Election Soapbox yesterday, before a top-hatted figure interrupted Fidlers response to a panel question. The man, known to Fidler as Mr Pennyworth, lambasted him as not worthy and undecent, before drawing a Nerf blaster and shooting Fidler at close-range.Despite taking a foam dart to the chest, Fidler was able to return fire with a Nerf weapon of his own, wounding the assailant, who fled the scene.Decency doesnt die that easily, Fidler told the audience, to applause.Video: USUSources close to Fidler praised his steely resolve and deadeye shooting.Hes the fastest man on Eastern Avenue, said one admirer.In a statement to Honi, Fidler said he had many enemies in this sewer of a campus, but that the dart hit my copy of The Barefoot Investor, which I carry everywhere in my suit jacket pocket [] Im mainly concerned how this will look on my Linkedin.If the USU give me a plaque next to Gilgamesh, we can call it even due to their subpar security.The attackers condition and current whereabouts are unknown. Eyewitness testimony suggests Mr Pennyworth, who Fidler described as my campaign patron, an oil baron from Alabama, bore a strong resemblance to Fidler campaign manager James Wily. Honi makes no allegations of wrongdoing against Wily.Fidler has promised a return of decency to campus, with policies including the fracking of the Quadrangle and the introduction of a USyd uniform. He has strongly denied claims he is a joke candidate, telling the Soapbox he would not let these baseless allegations burn me down.Little else occurred at an otherwise uneventful USU Election Soapbox.Voting for the USU Board elections opens 17 May. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After the F23 Administration Building was blown up by the Education Action Group, insurance company Allianz has committed to covering activists legal fees.Here at Allianz, we care about our socialist customers, recently-appointed Allianz CEO Karla Marcs said.If you have been fined, we urge you to get a quote on one of our premium mutual aid insurance packages. We cover loss or damage caused from attending speakouts, being trampled by police horses, or having your phone screen smashed by pigs.The announcement comes after Marcs announced a radical redistribution of wealth in Allianzs latest financial statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.No cuts, no fees, no corporate insurance companies! she chanted as she leafleted Barangaroo for the companys upcoming AGM.The Boot can confirm that Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Rhonda and Interim Vice-Chancellor Ketut were unharmed in the F23 incident, as they were busy sucking each others toes in the Fisher sound booths. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a major restructure, the University of Sydney has announced that Studies in Religion will be replaced by a new major designed by the Catholic Society.Here at the University, we value this higher-order skill called critical thinking, a spokesperson told The Boot. Were confident the Catholic Society will pose thought-provoking questions to spark productive and constructive dialogue.The new major will include subjects such as Fetal Feminism and Childrens Anatomy.When asked for comment, the Dean of Arts now Artsbishop Annamarie Jagose after being baptised in Victoria Park Pond said she was excited to see her students experience a world-class prayerful education.Keep an eye out for Theology Thursdays, fish and chips catered lunches and political football games! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Australian Federal Police raided several campus cafes over the weekend, after they declined to bake ANZAC biscuits.We received intel that unpatriotic elements had seized control of the the University of Sydneys campus cafes and acted swiftly to prevent further damage to national unity, Temporary Deputy Vice Under Chief Assistant Commissioner Jeremiah Pastizi told Honi through a hedge.A special taskforce dedicated to investigating and disrupting anti-Australian sentiment breached the kitchen of Courtyard Cafe at 05:00 on Sunday morning. A group of 25 elite AFP officers (accompanied by 4 heavy armoured vehicles and 10 mounted divison members) used thermal charges to detonate the reinforced doors.A number of Courtyard staff fled the scene holding bags of oats and flour, as well as multiple bottles of golden syrup.Honi spoke to a member of campus cafe staff on the condition of anonymity.Its not a political thing, we just really hate making ANZAC biscuits theyre a war time desperation bake they arent supposed to taste good.The AFP are currently tracking the fugitive Courtyard staff through the local bushland.Every ANZAC biscuit that goes unbaked is a grave threat to national security. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Federal Government announced earlier last week that they would scrap the vaccination timeline entirely. Buoyed by their courage, 7th year undergraduate Leon Donor-Hugh announced that he would stop promising to graduate any time now.I dont really think that learning, as a philosophical progression of knowledge, really ever ends and my time at USyd is no different.The 27 year old has deferred three times now so that he can juggle his many extracurricular commitments.Being the President of the Figure Skating Society isnt easy ya know. And when im not organising rink meets, im busy being Treasurer of the Jazz Club or General Secretary of the SRC.When Honi asked for comment, SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu said it was time for Donor-Hugh to move on.Hes had his time he started 15 socieites, was president of 23, treasurer of 18, and secretary of 47. Maybes its time that Leon stops doing electives and starts doing core units again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Nothing thats worth fighting for is easy to get. The choice that we fight for does not magically come merely with the removal of a formal ban. In other states where abortion has been decriminalized for much longer than in NSW, getting an abortion remains just as inaccessible for those who come from regional areas and low socioeconomic backgrounds. If we let abortion services remain as inaccessible and unaffordable as they currently are, the ability to choose that we have fought so hard for will be tenuous and uncertain. The pro-choice movement must therefore harness the momentum derived from its success and keep pushing for substantive choice, which lies in designated public services, coverage under Medicare and the removal of heavy restrictions around GPs and pharmacies who can provide abortions.A cross-sectional study suggests that more than one in 10 people who access abortion services were from outer regional or remote Australia. Figures from Marie Stopes Australia further show that only 0.2% of regional GPs in NSW are registered to prescribe RU486, the drug used for medical abortions. This means a significant number of people who need access to abortions do not have viable options to exercise their right to bodily autonomy in their local area. Lack of local resources also leads to inadequate understanding of different abortion procedures, which removes peoples agency in making informed choices about their bodies. Furthermore, those who travel for more than four hours to receive an abortion are more likely to be more than nine weeks pregnant. This points to a delay in access due to geographical barriers, and as even heavier restrictions apply to pregnancies beyond 22 weeks, such a delay could put people requiring abortion access in situations that are no different than before decriminalization.Even if geographical access or legal barriers are no longer an issue, one may simply be unable to afford an abortion. As of 2017, the median upfront cost for Medicare-rebated medical abortions before or at nine weeks was $560, or $470 for a surgical abortion. Furthermore, in many regions, there are no public and few private health services that provide surgical terminations. On top of how difficult it is for people of low socioeconomic status to secure enough money for the upfront payments associated with getting an abortion, costs increase significantly for procedures undertaken after 12 weeks. This will most likely affect those who travel from regional and rural areas of NSW the worst.I have witnessed someone in my life go through the experience of accessing abortion. She had received assistance with a second pregnancy and had a termination for her third. The decision came after long consideration of her age, health, and financial capacity. While she wasnt able to financially support a third child, she was one of the lucky ones that could both access abortion in a public hospital in her neighborhood and afford the steep fees associated. If she had been forced to carry the pregnancy to term because such an expensive procedure was out of reach, it would have put her in an unthinkable situation.So, in cases where abortion is a legal option but remains inaccessible, much work still remains for the movement. To preserve the progress thats been achieved so far, the broad left must gather their forces around a pro-choice movement that fights to make the choice theyve won actually available to people from all geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds.We must work towards implementing designated public providers of both medical and surgical abortions across the state, so that everyone can access them without delay or long-distance travels, just like other essential health services. We must also put abortion drugs and procedures on Medicare. If we believe that abortion is a human right, and that it is fundamental to individual autonomy, the existing rebate regime is far from adequate. Finally, heavy restrictions limit not only the number of GPs capable of prescribing RU486 but also the number of pharmacies that can issue and administer the drug. This has led many to turn to tele-abortions, where people undergo medical abortions within their home. While tele-abortion has been a leading development in medical abortions, it is not an ideal option, lacking the level of care of a clinic visit. Furthermore, tele-abortion is not appropriate for all cases such as surgical abortions. Therefore, we ought to focus on lifting the heavy restrictions in a system that remains oppressive to people in need of abortion access.As part of the pro-choice movement, we must remain indignant about systemic inequities and injustices, because we are progressive, feminist activists. We are activists that do not stop at our first success. We are activists that keep fighting for a better tomorrow.Our next mission beckons. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content warning: sexual and psychological abuse, rapeThe Modernist canon is an integral aspect of Western literature, and the themes of colonialism, capitalism, post-war poverty and modern society running through its seminal works have captivated me since I was introduced to the lines of T.S. Eliot in high school. However, it was not until I studied Jean Rhys, Claude McKay and Nella Larson that I learned about the writers sidelined and trodden on as the canon was emerging: the female, the black, and the Creole writers.The reduction of great work from marginalised writers extends far beyond leaving them out of the canon and off the syllabus; it ultimately comes down to how they are studied. While cultural context and societal paradigms are incredibly important background tools to judging a piece of writing whether this be a novel, an essay, or a poem what has revealed itself to be most important to me is acknowledging the autonomy of the author. It is possible to form critiques about ones society which are informed by but not dependent on ones circumstances, but scholarly study up until recently has failed to address this nuance, instead caving to the argument that personal experience lessens the strength and legitimacy of a critique. I would insist that the opposite is true: personal experience brings to societal critique a strength and legitimacy that cannot be attained otherwise.Historically, English-Creole author Jean Rhys has been predominantly read through the lens of the myth of feminine distress. Even Ford Madox Ford, short-term partner and strong promoter of Rhys work, narrates in his introduction to The Left Bank that she wrote with a kind of pre-intellectual feeling, what he described as an instinct for form; a very undercutting remark about her femininity. This kind of thinking which began in Rhys own time has since served to undermine how seriously she has been taken as an author. While male modernists of the period such as Hemingway, Joyce and Eliot have been studied for their academic style, form and technique despite also writing about men who are alienated from themselves Rhys has been studied for her emotional states and experiences.James Nicholls puts it well: In the critical writing on Jean Rhys, this process of biographical pathologisation is usually constructed around a nexus of the emotionally dysfunctional, sexually promiscuous woman, and the woman as writer.Jean Rhys by no means had an easy life, and understanding her life is integral to understanding her work. She was born in a small white Dominican community in 1890 to a Welsh father and a Scottish Creole mother. Rhys had a challenging relationship with race all of her life, neither belonging to or quite accepted by Dominica or England. She made her entrance into the Modernist canon early on; however, her Caribbean identity was essentially ignored, and she was seen as a European writer, which deeply affected how seriously her intrinsic criticism and understanding of the world around her was taken.Good Morning, Midnight was the first Jean Rhys novel I picked up and it immediately captivated me. Her emotion and her disjointed narrative voice pulled me in. The novel takes place over a ten-day period in October 1937, and follows Sasha Jansen, a middle aged women with a complicated and traumatic past, through the streets, hotel rooms, and cafs of Paris. Much like Rhyss other fiction, it is semi-autobiographical, and the more deeply you can study and understand her life, the richer her novels become, the more they reveal to the reader.Despite this, I believe it is important to emphasise that the semi-autobiographical nature of this novel in no way takes away from its worth, in no way takes away from the depth of critique she gives about modern society; about capitalism and the economy; about colonisation, poverty, fascism, modernity. Rhys was a colonial writer, and was just as much influenced by, and responding to these influences as male modernists of her time.Jean Rhys writes often about rooms. When one thinks of the importance of rooms in the Modernist period, Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own comes to mind. However, there are several integral differences between Rhys room and Woolfs room that are important to highlight. Woolfs room is a place of autonomy and creation. It is a room which has been purchased with a womans own money, it is a place of luxury, and despite the hard work that goes into acquiring such a room, it is a place of privilege; an ideal far out of reach for the black woman, the colonised woman, the Creole woman.By contrast, the rooms of Good Morning, Midnight are non-autonomous. They are paid for by a variety of different men who Sasha is constantly borrowing money from. It is not a place of sanctuary or comfort, because its impermanence seeps through the cracks in the walls and permeates every underlying anxious thought that Sasha holds. The rooms she stays in are never static, and nothing ties her to any particular place. The relationship she has with these hotel rooms changes throughout the novel. At the beginning, Sasha holds out hope that if she can just get this light room than everything will be okay.Suddenly I feel that I must have number 219, with bath number 219, with rose-coloured curtains, carpet and bath. I shall exist on a different plane at once if I can get this room, if only for a couple of nights. It will be an omen. Who says you cant escape from your fate? Ill escape from mine, in room number 219.However, this optimism never lasts, and by the time she has settled in room number 219, she has accepted that All rooms are the same. All rooms have four walls, a door, a window or two, a bed, a chair, and perhaps a bidet.The hotel rooms in Good Morning, Midnight are saturated with the past, and invaded by men. The metaphorical intrusion of unwanted guests and memories into her hotel room culminates in the rape scene at the end of the novel, and signifies that Sasha cannot escape from ridicule, anxiety and depression, because it is not only the outside world thrusting these things upon her, but her own mental instability. This damned room its saturated with the past Its all the rooms Ive ever slept in, all the streets Ive ever walked in.Because Rhys novels are so autobiographical, she has not historically been seen as an author who really addressed contextual issues of class inequality, economics, and the impact in cities of capitalism-driven consumerism on the population. Good Morning, Midnight however, very clearly addresses the importance of money to those who dont have it and demonstrates how far-reaching the consequences of such an absence can be, especially on women.In the modern city, Money becomes the common denominator of all values [reducing] all quality and individuality to the question: How much?. There are seemingly endless recurring references to money in Good Morning, Midnight, from the prices on the menus in the cafs and restaurants which Sasha frequents, to Sashas internal dialogue about the price of renting a room, and the items of clothing she wants to buy. Living in a patriarchal, capitalist state, Sasha is forced to constantly worry about her appearance. She thinks that if she just buys this new dress, this new hat, these new shoes, then nobody will think twice about her social status when they pass her in the street. Despite the fact that she is living on the poverty line, she can pass as rich if she performs these high class symbols appropriately. These are symbols of no meaning beyond appearance, yet in Sashas world, they are incredibly important to the act that she performs.As a Creole woman, Jean Rhys was very aware of the complex consequences most importantly in this case, economic and psychological of colonial politics on colonised peoples. The criticism of these policies is not always explicit in Good Morning, Midnight, however, the implicit remarks add much to the reading of the novel; the fact that money is an ever-present source of angst in this world is demonstrative of this.In Good Morning, Midnight, women in particular are seen to be deeply affected by the struggling economy. Early in the novel, Sasha establishes her market value, telling her employer what a month of her work is worth. Continually throughout, references to prostitution enhance the notion of everything being for sale; a gigolo who Sasha encounters refers to himself as a market good.Rhys doesnt shy away from depicting the horrors that women experience and that she herself has experienced. One of the most important issues that she addresses in Good Morning, Midnight is trauma and traumatic patterns, and her exploration of these themes is convincing and genuine. Knowing the context within which Rhys wrote this book gives us a much better understanding as to why she, as a semi-autobiographical author, writes the character of Sasha Jansen in the way that she does.Part way through writing Good Morning, Midnight, Rhys paused, put it aside, and began to write an account of her childhood now known as the Black Exercise Book describing sexual and psychological abuse she suffered at the hands of a family friend when she was only a teenager. There are scenes of sexual trauma in Good Morning, Midnight that correlate to those described by Rhys in the Black Exercise Book. The responses described by Rhys, both in her own account of her experience, and in Good Morning, Midnight are common responses of survivors of this type of abuse.In the Black Exercise Book, Rhys writes,I follow him sick with fear of what is going to happen but I make no effort to save myself. If anyone were to offer to save me I would refuse. If anyone were to say shall I save you I would answer no. It must happen. It has to happen.In Good Morning, Midnight, Sasha describes a brief experience of splitting in a scene she remembers from her previous life, where she is forced to ask a man called Mr. Lawson for money. In order to receive the money, Sasha is forced to let Mr. Lawson kiss her, yet she responds to the advance, split between a yielding body and a repulsed mind.I am standing there with the note in my hand, when he comes up and kisses me. I am hating him more than I have ever hated anyone in my life, yet I feel my mouth go soft under his, and my arms go limp.This splitting is a common response to sexual trauma, and Rhyss portrayal of it in Good Morning, Midnight is a representation that goes deeper than making a simple statement about the power dynamics between men and women, or about poverty and class struggle in her European context.Good Morning, Midnight is not a novel about trauma, but it stages the experiences of trauma, and depicts a self-destructive, self-punishing protagonist who is caught up in repetitive and compulsive patterns of behaviour that can be traced back to a traumatic experience in her past. The rape scene at the end of Good Morning, Midnight is one of the most important parts of the novel. It is the culmination of the trauma and depression that has been building up to this point, yet Sasha doesnt react with anger; rather, she sees it as a sort of rebirth.Good Morning, Midnight is only one of Jean Rhys many novels, but it is a special one. That it can address complex and difficult issues while staging the hope and optimism of love is a testament to the writer that Jean Rhys was. That she can bring out emotion in us while also making us think deeply about the world goes to show that she deserves serious scholarly attention, and that she deserves to be recognised among the writers that defined modernism. This passage, drawn from Part Three of Good Morning, Midnight, epitomises that feeling for me; it holds both love and tragedy, emotion and intellect.When I saw him looking up like that I knew that I loved him, and that it was for always. It was as if my heart turned over, and I knew that it was for always. Its a strange feeling when you know quite certainly in yourself that something is for always. Its like what death must be.I know Im not the only reader who this passage will stay with, and the power that Jean Rhys has to convey emotion in this way while making strong critiques of her society says to me that she alongside other female, Creole and black writers deserve deeper and more nuanced study. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A few months ago Honi Soit was contacted by a student, concerned about moving plans to implement so-called graduate qualities (GQs) into undergraduate students final transcripts. It was alarming, to say the least so we did some digging. Heres what we found.These plans began as far back as the binding Learning and Teaching Policy 2015 which named the acquisition of seven graduate qualities that would be necessary to contribute effectively to contemporary society. These seven qualities would remain unchanged in the University Strategic Plan 2016-2020, where GQs are an embedded focus within the plan to transform the current undergraduate curriculum.The seven graduate qualities and their descriptors.The definitions for each attribute were developed by the Assessment Working Group which came out of the Strategic Plan, tasked with developing and delivering the Plans specific assessment initiatives. Observable, and potentially able to be assessed, indicators of each of the qualities known as curriculum components are attached to each of the GQs.Since 2017, there have been consultations with various, but select, faculty staff and students. In 2018, the Assessment Working Group set up working parties to develop assessment rubrics and design assessment plans for curriculums. In 2019, an Assessment Advisory Committee was created on which the SRC President sits. At the end of this year, faculties will present draft assessment plans to the Assessment Advisory Committee.Core components within the curriculum framework such as collaborative learning activities and assessments, interdisciplinary and inter-professional learning experiences and new degree structures such as the Bachelor of Advanced Studies, have been developed insofar as they map directly onto the implementation of GQs within undergraduate student learning.In an attempt to avoid standardised testing, the assessment of GQs would be rubric based mapping student progress and communicated via feedback in the form of positive statements about the abilities of each student, apparently irrelative to their peers and the rest of the cohort. Co-chair Professor Peter McCallum told Honi, via email, that there is no intention to provide numerical marks or grades to assess student attainment of the graduate qualities.It remains unclear exactly when in the semester students would be able to access this feedback. Furthermore, the Assessment Working Group have flagged that they may consider how to assemble and assess evidence for a final statement on a students qualities on graduating transcripts.If a university-wide approach to assessing the adopted GQs is successful, assessment planning shifts from the unit of study to the overall degree curriculum level. In the Assessment Working Group 2017 working paper, approved by the Academic Board, it is noted that, such an approach has the potential to reduce the overall burden of assessment on students and staff and allow more emphasis to be placed on providing students and staff with feedback.However, this still begs the question as to whether the graduate qualities represent something observable within student learning across the length of their degrees. Are these GQs simply metaphors for the oftentimes complex and shifting real experiences of undergraduate study and is that enough?While many details of the curriculum overhaul are yet to be confirmed, it is set to be of significant impact for staff and students. At a most basic level, the reforms pursue two ends: bringing units of study in line with a broader university-wide curriculum, and focusing assessments on the skills that USyd thinks are needed in the workforce. Whether the reforms will in fact improve students learning experience, however, remains to be seen.In an age when a university education increasingly feels like a conveyor belt towards the job market beyond, these changes do much more than creating a stronger central curriculum they move learning away from the pursuit of knowledge and toward the acquisition of professional skills. While McCallums email promised that Faculties may adapt the University wide rubrics to meet the needs or language of a particular discipline, staff are still expected to uphold the spirit of the rubric. Given a trend of University faculties being asked to capture increasingly diverse disciplines, it is also unclear whether there will be ample flexibility to adapt the rubric.Given the scale of change being demanded, significant conjecture should be placed on how meaningful the assessment of GQs will be for students. Many of the qualities USyd hope to assess seem difficult to test given their subjective nature. A letter sent to USyd by Jeremy Chan and Madeleine Antrum, the President and Vice President of the Sydney University Law Society, asked whether assessments testing influence and inventiveness two of the GQs could be trusted.We do not believe that academic assessment can adequately represent subjective qualities and may misrepresent students from particular backgrounds, they said.The core concern of Chan and Antrums letter is their belief that the results of GQ assessment will be published on students transcripts, alongside existing unit marks, thus being available to all future employers. As already noted, the Assessment Working Group is yet to determine what form assessment will take, or whether these results are published. However, this letter never got a response from the University, perhaps emblematic of the questionable extent of student consultation throughout this process.In his response to Honi, McCallum claimed that, In 2019, we will begin a series of student engagements including: (1) a student-facing information website, (2) student news story on the project and ways to contribute, (3) a student forum and information sessions. It does not appear that any of these have happened yet, and if they are planned to happen next year, the feedback will arrive after draft assessment plans have already been made, perhaps meaning that the policy will be too far along in its creation for meaningful amendment.While a particularly personalised and private process may avoid some of the problems canvassed, there are reasons to think there is a necessary degree of standardisation to the assessments. The 2017 Working Group paper claims that using a rubric avoids standardised assessments, which it acknowledges would be burdensome, expensive, and difficult to sustain, as well as having unclear benefits. However, for multiple teachers to be able to track a students progress across multiple units, in multiple disciplines, measured against a central list of qualities, the chances of highly-catered feedback likely dwindles.* * *Policy development and consultation will continue into 2020 with implementation in 2021. Given the implications these reforms will have for students, and indeed how we define the purpose of tertiary education more broadly, these discussions are certainly worth paying attention to. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Mixed responses met Chief Justice Preston of the NSW Land and Environment Court when he handed down his judgement in Gloucester Resources Ltd v Minister for Planning in February this year. Hopeful murmurs of a response to climate change from the courts despite the Governments failure to act were crowded out of the public discourse by histrionic dogwhistling about judicial activism. Over more than 150 pages, the sprawling judgement gave many uncontroversial reasons for the rejection of a proposed mine in Rocky Hill, NSW. One justification, however, was particularly novel. The mines contribution to global climate change via the downstream emissions of overseas end-users of coal was a persuasive reason for its refusal. Now, after the dust has settled, the NSW Government has tabled a bill that would kill the authority of this case in the cradle and disempower the Independent Planning Commission (IPC), a planning authority that sits independently of the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.The case for refusal on this basis was straightforward. This mine would fly in the face of efforts to keep global temperature increases below 1.5-2 past pre-industrial levels, as per Australias obligations under the Paris Agreement. What made Chief Justice Prestons judgement controversial was that it based this refusal on the downstream emissions of third-parties (defined as Scope 3 emissions under the GHG Protocol for carbon accounting) rather than emissions directly produced by the mine. While consideration of downstream emissions is mandated by the State Environmental Planning Policy (Mining, Petroleum Production and Extractive Industries) 2007 (SEPP) s 14(2), it had not been enforced as a justification for refusal before.This justification is intuitively legitimate. The amended Environmental Impact Statement (a publically available document upon which the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment approves or rejects a development) of the project estimated the mine would produce 1,808,576 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions under Scopes 1 and 2 (direct emissions and emissions from purchased energy respectively), and 36,283,171 tonnes under Scope 3. The downstream emissions dwarf the emissions directly produced by the project for obvious reasons: the raison detre of coal is to burn. Consider this in the context of the Australian debate on climate action. Pundits like Alan Jones speciously assert that Australias contribution to global carbon emissions, at 1%, is so low as to invalidate any economic forbearance in the name of climate action. This figure ignores the Scope 3 emissions that we produce, and which are, in the case of the Rocky Hill mine, over twenty-times greater than the emissions from which the figure is calculated. Our laws perpetuate this dishonest miscalculation, with the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 mandating the reporting of only Scope 1 and 2 emissions, without regard to Scope 3.The reasoning in the Rocky Hill case was a lucid recognition of the true impact of our mines on climate change, and would have lead the way in state-level case law by recognising the incompatibility of our mining economy with action on the worlds most pressing existential threat. While the judgement considered the mines other flaws (including planning, visual and social issues) to be better reasons for refusal, the recognition of its environmental flaws as a further reason for refusal could be applied to prohibit any future mining project in NSW. In the past few months, this significance has become clear: citing Chief Justice Prestons ruling on Scope 3 emissions in the Rocky Hill case, the IPC rejected a proposed mine in the Bylong Valley in September. In August, it gave consent for the United Wambo open-cut coal mine, on the strict condition that it prepared and complied with an export plan under which its coal would only be sold to countries that are signatories to the Paris Agreement, or an equivalent plan approved by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.It may come as no surprise that the Coalition Government has seen this as an intolerable slight and is now legislating to kill the authority of the judgement in Rocky Hill. On October 24, Planning Minister Rob Stokes introduced a bill in the NSW Parliament that would amend the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 to forbid the IPC from imposing conditions for the purpose of achieving outcomes or objectives relating to the impacts occurring outside Australia as a result of the development. The bill would also amend the SEPP to omit specific reference to downstream emissions in s 14(2), which underpinned Chief Justice Prestons judgement. The combined effect of these amendments is to make it effectively impossible for courts or statutory authorities to consider the downstream emissions (and, by extension, the true environmental impact) of any project.This bill is a bald-faced attempt to disempower the IPC now that it stands a chance at effectively stopping environmentally destructive investments. Days before the bill was announced, and only weeks after the Bylong Valley mine was rejected, Rob Stokes announced a hasty review into the IPC to be performed by the Productivity Commission, calling it faceless. This hasty turn is speculated by many figures (including former ICAC commissioner Anthony Whealy) to be the result of pressure from the mining industry, with no such reservations being voiced by the Government since the IPC was reconstituted in March 2018. The independent authority was tasked with determin[ing] State significant development applications where there is significant opposition from the community and its independence was emphasised to distinguish it from its predecessor, the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC). The ICAC had praised the PAC in its time for warding off the corruption engendered by ministerial discretion over the award of mining licenses.The moves the Coalition have made on behalf of the mining lobby (which, coincidentally, recently fronted the ICAC over suspicions of undue influence over the Government) are as disproportionate as they are absurd. A statutory body tasked with scrutinising planning issues with regard to significant community concerns obviously cannot fulfil that task if its awareness ends at the shoreline of a country with a globally interconnected economy and population. It is now clear that the initial discourse over the Rocky Hill decision earlier in the year was plainly wrong: Chief Justice Prestons decision was not some discretionary abuse of judicial power, but was a direct reading of the regulations provided in the SEPP. Now that the courts and authorities have begun implementing the Governments own laws, the Government is bending over backwards to contradict itself at the behest of lobbyists.Despite all of this, few people seem to care. Media coverage of the issue has seemed to fixate on foibles taking place around the IPC, and not the broader picture of environmental deregulation that surrounds the misguided proposals. While active and radical measures are required to mitigate the environmental disaster that looms over the 21st Century, uninspiring technicalities like s 14(2) of the SEPP can provide an important stopgap when courts and bureaucrats show themselves to be increasingly willing to eke out change from beneath the Government. Even if these technicalities cannot bring about the structural changes our world needs, they can play an important role in the interim by blocking the creation of new mines. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) is an amount of money every university student in Australia is required to pay every semester. In fact, most students would have received an email this week informing them that this semesters payments have been processed. The fee funds student groups such as the University of Sydney Union (USU) and the Student Representative Council (SRC), the groups in charge of USyds events, clubs and societies, student publications (like this one!), and welfare services.SSAF was made mandatory by federal legislation following the introduction of voluntary student unionism (VSU) in 2006. Its purpose was to mitigate the effects of VSU on the funding of student organisations. Problematically, SSAF legislation sets out an incredibly broad range of services which the fees can be spent on, providing universities with significant discretion over the way money will be allocated.At USyd, the allocation of SSAF fees is decided every year by means of each student group preparing budget proposals for the upcoming year. The organisations are guaranteed 90 per cent of their previous years funding as a base amount. After each organisations base funding is allocated, the remaining SSAF fees are placed into a contestable pool of funding. That contestable pool is divided between student organisations, making SSAF allocations a zero-sum game. While historically these negotiations have led to a joint-proposal about funding allocations, in recent years no agreement has been reached.Notably, the group that consistently takes home the largest share of SSAF money every year is Sydney University Sports and Fitness (SUSF) operating with millions of dollars every year. In 2018, they were allocated over $5 million in SSAF funding, as well as generating over $14 million in revenue, in addition to their significant generous donations from Hockey Donors and Boatshed Appeal Donors.The University has long since been criticised for the amount of funding SUSF receives, especially due to the fact that its managerial structure has been known to hinder student engagement. Recently, an overhaul of the governance structure has been carried out, with SUSF undergoing a process of incorporation which sees the University being given powers to influence the appointment of SUSFs company board. The restructuring means there is even less student input than previously, with only two student directors to be appointed to the board. The general student population is afforded no transparency into the operations of the organisation, let alone given voting rights. This change indicates an even further departure from any attempt by SUSF to be anything resembling a student-led organisation. Despite this, USyd has indicated no intention to alter the amount of money in SSAF funding that SUSF receives.Alongside SUSF, the USU is allocated the second largest share of SSAF, receiving $4.3 million in 2018. That figure stands at more than double that received by the SRC. There are numerous problems with this allocation of funding.Firstly, corporatised organisations like the USU and SUSF have significant alternative sources of revenue. This allows them to exercise discretion over what projects they can include in their proposal for contestable funds, cherry-picking those which are appealing to USyd management. This is a luxury that organisations like the SRC who entirely rely on SSAF for their funding simply do not have.In a post-VSU era, the organisations that are most corporatised and profit driven, like SUSF and USU, are rewarded with an increasing hunk of student money. Many of their projects fall nicely within the key performance indicators outlined in SSAF legislation, allowing them to attract favourable treatment from USyd.As SUSF and USUs scale of operations grows, so too do their base costs, leading to more increases in funding, creating a problematic cycle. It is extremely telling of the Universitys intentions for the future of student unionism for them to increasingly prioritise funding for these profit-driven organisations.Funnelling exorbitant funding to organisations like SUSF and USU comes at the cost of supporting student unions which have the power to provide vital welfare services, such as food subsidies, advocacy for affordable housing, mental health services, free legal casework, and so on. It is more important than ever that genuine student unionism is supported to actually represent and protect student interests, and fight the corporatisation of our institutions. Students and student organisations should not merely be an avenue from which to make money, and as such, SSAF allocations should be on the basis of student needs, rather than the amount of revenue an organisation is able to generate.The reality is that SUSF and the USU are multi-million dollar organisations, able to generate their own hefty income and source funding from numerous other channels. Organisations like the SRC struggle for scraps despite entirely relying on SSAF funding. The services they provide are critical for students facing the worst of circumstances. SSAF legislation places all the power in USyds hands. Whether they will exercise that power justly remains to be seen. At the end of the day, to the decision-makers in USyds ivory tower, goat yoga is probably more appealing than sexual assault lawyers. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its that time of year again: the air is warmer, the breeze a little less crisp, and the jacarandas have bloomed. Since the end of mid-sem break, your favourite campus hideouts the darker parts of Laneway cafe, or the parquet tiles that comprise the Anderson Stuart courtyard have been peppered with factional powerbrokers, hidden in plain sight as they scramble to lock in numbers before the inaugural meeting of the 92nd Students Representative Council next Wednesday. So, what is the deal with RepSelect?A meeting of many minds and sour heartsRepsElect (short for representatives elect) is the first meeting of the freshly elected SRC council, where new councillors will vote for different people to hold office-bearer positions, , in the 92nd SRC administration. It seems simple enough a process, but this meeting is infamous for generating a considerable amount of drama and anguish. Indeed, from 2015 onwards, RepsElect has been reported on by the mainstream press for incidents ranging from, inter alia, the cutting of power switches, Liberals adopting non-binary identities in an attempt to overcome affirmative action requirements, and the pulling of fire alarms, all with the view of stopping votes from going in certain directions.While so much makes it easy to trivialise and dismiss RepsElect for the shitshow it inevitably devolves into, some of the positions elected will receive a stipend which comes from student money. With the right people elected into these roles, the student union can become effective in agitating for various social causes and student interests.Whats cooking?Positions are negotiated between factions prior to RepsElect. For the majority of those involved at least, it looks to be pretty smooth sailing this year compared to last years iconic four part series. In those circumstances, a series of absences, abstentions and factional shifts meant the SRC saw itself move towards complete dysfunction right out of the gates of the He presidency.At this point two rounds of negotiations have taken place: one pre-election, and a second round following the council announcement. At the time of writing, it looks like the Save Our Union left bloc, who campaigned together throughout the election in support of Liam Donohoe, will work together in RepsElect to consolidate a left-wing majority on council.If this is done, a simple majority of 18 out of the 35 available seats is easily achievable and will give the bloc control over all paid positions, at least 3 out of 5 General Executives and at least half of the minor OB positions. Save our Union made up of Grassroots, Switch, National Labor Students (Pump), Socialist Alternative (Left Action), and Advance (Pro-Team) make up a total number of 17 councillor spots, one shy of a simple majority.Activist Strikeback (Solidarity), since winning one councillor position, are perceived as de-facto members of the Left bloc post election.Though it is highly unlikely that they side with the right bloc, Activist Strikeback are just as likely to retreat from any deal making which they deem to be unprincipled. Given this, it will be harder to predict who and how they will support the left bloc on the night.If the left bloc is numerically victorious, the biggest divergence from last years RepsElect may be the decision to respect collective autonomy, and elect preselected office-bearers from autonomous SRC collectives, such as the Wom*ns Collective.Moving right onTwo other groups and their plans for the night remain unclear for the moment. While Labor Right (Unite) worked with the Save Our Union group throughout the campaign, rumour has it that positions on the National Union Of Students (NUS) positions offered by the right bloc, may lead Unity to sway towards the right. This year, three members of the Boost campaign have been elected as NUS candidates.Unity headkickers have no doubt been in discussion with Boost over the last couple of weeks, and, if the Sydney University Arts Society AGM is anything to go by, it appears Unite and Boost have forged the way for a lasting deal-based relationship this year.Cupcake is the nascent newcomer with one council seat to their name, their affiliations remain unclear. Cupcakes campaign manager, Crystal Xu, historically worked with Chinese international student grouping, Panda, who backed her move to become the 91st Wom*ns Officer, against the autonomy of the Wom*ns Collectives preselected officers. Things have changed throughout the year though, and recently, Crystal has moved away from the confines of Panda, refusing to endorse Boost presidential candidate Josie Jakovac. The Panda-Cupcake relationship appears tense, however, and Xu may be tempted to join the right bloc if they offered her the role of Vice-President, which now includes a tidy $13K stipend as of this year.The right bloc received far less councillor positions than they would have hoped. Panda gained only nine positions, and Boost gained four. With Colleges for SRC almost certainly set to support the right, that bloc look to hold 14 positions.Whether Cupcake will support the left is yet to be seen. Should Unity defect and Cupcake turn to the right, it is still unlikelyto lose their majority. The right, in turn could create a minority bloc gaining them access to at least half of the minor OB positions and up to two general executive positions, expanded further if Pro-Team defect to their side. None of these things are set is stone in fact, probably by the time youre reading this, half of this information will have evolved.This article is an alternate version to that which appears in the Semester 2, Week 11 print edition due tocorrected errors. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Where tobegin?If you drive around Sydney and keep your eyes open, you will notice that suburbs differ. They differ in a variety of ways. Affluence, demography and architecture all vary throughout the city. This variance is of course not something unique to Sydney, rather it is a feature of all urban ecosystems, or as we commonly call them: cities.It is not controversial, then, to assume as the basis for this article that suburbs within cities are non-identical. Indeed it may seem that this article is labouring over a non-issue. However, what has just been established is something ostensibly unheard of in the hallowed corridors of Australias health bureaucracy.We move now to the issue at hand namely, that people are going to start suffering because of the Coalitions poor policy decisions. Nothing new, yes, but the banality of their ineptitude makes it no less worthy of critique.The key issue is that the government is using the Modified Monash Model (MMM) to allocate Distribution Priority Areas (DPAs). To the average person, this sentence may seem nonsensical. However, it refers to something very real that affects numerous lives. And, the fact that it is rather difficult to understand may very well be intentional. It is no new thing for jargon to be used to obfuscate understanding, just ask Joseph K.The MMM is a model that is supposed to show which regions struggle to attract health workers due to geographical remoteness (this remoteness resulting in health inequality). There are seven MMM categories with MM1 being an area with the lowest need (anywhere within a major city) and MM 7 being an area with the highest need. Basically anywhere above MM2 and even some MM 2 areas will be classed as DPAs.But whats a DPA area? This is an area in which overseas trained doctors (OTDs) must come and work for a moratorium period of ten years in accordance with the Section 19ABHealth Insurance Act.The issue is that the MMM is taken as its premise that all areas within a city are the same in terms of their health care needs. This article will focus specifically on Western Sydney an area that is emblematic of the inadequacies in Australias health system. Currently, Western Sydney is experiencing an undersupply of GPs, a higher disease burden than the rest of Sydney and has traditionally relied on OTDs because it has struggled to attract Australian trained GPs.Not all suburbsare identicalAs flagged above, this article takes as a premise the idea that not all suburbs within a city are the same a pretty uncontroversial idea that the Modified Monash Model seems to ignore. According to this model, places such as Mt. Druitt and Doonside are said to be in the same situation in terms of health needs-as places like Vaucluse or Point Piper. This is clearly not the case. There is a great deal of information that shows this, most of it generated by the government.It is trivially true to say that socioeconomic factors influence an individuals health outcomes. Using the governments own SEIFA Index (Socio-Economic Indexes For Areas) IRSD (Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage) Map it is possible to look at the differences between suburbs in Sydney. If one compares the previously mentioned suburbs you will see that both the ones in Western Sydney are in the lowest quintiles on the scale. By comparison, the two Waverly suburbs are in the highest. That it is a monumental difference, considering that the government is allocating the health workforce.The second point comes from the Medicare statistics provided by the governments Health Funding Facts webpage. It was originally set up to combat what was termed the MediScare Campaign by Murdoch lackeys but it can now be used to see how the governments own policy is contradicted by a website it set up to make itself look good. To understand this point, it is useful to consider the electoral divisions of Chifley and Wentworth (alongside the aforementioned suburbs).As of 2016, the ABS census put Wentworths population at 145,949. Those in Wentworth had access to 258 GPs providing Medicare services in the year 2017-18. Of these GP services 72% were bulk billed, totalling 622,939 services altogether. The MBS (Medicare Benefits Schedule) data shows that the government provided $175.5 million in funding during this same year.Now lets turn to Chifley. Chifleys population at the time of the 2016 census was 171,249. In the year 2017-18, there were 209 GPs providing Medicare services. In other words, there were 49 less GPs for an area with approximately 25,300 more people. Oh dear, Greg Hunt. Furthermore, 99% of these GP services were bulk-billed, services which totalled 1,522,600. So thats more than double the number of services than the place with 23% more GPs and a great deal more affluent. Thankfully in the year 2017-18, the government was kind enough to provide $178.0 million in Medicare funding according to MBS data. This is the one metric in which Chifley does better than Wentworth and it is with rapt attention that I await the golden egg to be laid by this paltry $2.5 million bonus.There was a report done by WSROC called A Comparative Study of Health Services in Western Sydney, which outlines the considerable degree of inequality [that] exists across Sydney. It is worth reading if you are still looking for a reason why the governments policy is fundamentally flawed. The report highlights that the health burden attributable to socio-economic disadvantage is large and much of this burden is potentially avoidable, and furthermore that Western Sydney (places like Chifley) are disproportionately affected by adverse health outcomes resulting from socio-economic disadvantage. This report was done in 2012 and even then it was identifying a lack of GPs in Western Sydney. The report shows that the Greater Western Sydney areas is sicker on pretty much every health indicator in comparison with other areas of Sydney.Classing all areas within major cities as essentially requiring the same level of healthcare is wrong. It will result in people who desperately need care either presenting at EDs and incurring more cost upon the state or dying preventable deaths.Ockhams razorto the rescueShould we attribute poor policy-making to a nebulous scheme involving multiple government agencies and spanning successive governments? Is there a plot to kill people in disadvantaged areas? Most definitely not. The answer proposed here, which is simpler but not necessarily any better is that it is just another case of poor policy-making and political expediency.It would be nice to hold the Coalition responsible for something requiring a modicum of forethought and intellectual rigour, but this is not the case. Even in their ineptitude, they are incapable of being deliberate or precise. Rather they function with an inadequacy made oblique by meretricious policy programs and sloganising. The hierodules of respective bureaucratic fiefdoms have woven a labyrinthine web, one with a semblance of order when viewed from afar but upon closer inspection really makes little sense. The worst part in all of this is that people will suffer some of them dying unnecessary deaths.However, this will all happen in places thought of as other within the psyche of our nation. Places that are in between the affluence of the inner city and the ideal of rural Australia. So really the question becomes: will anything happen at all if the people impacted never really existed in the first place? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Above the clutter of books and wilting flowers on my desk, there is a reproduction of Cezannes Still Life with Apples (18931894) hanging haphazardly on the wall, still dressed in the black frame it came in when I bought it from Vinnies. In my little gallery of blue-tacked postcards and newspaper cutouts, this particular painting stands out from the rest. Its soft contours and mellow colours remind me of what I love most about still life how I feel instantly comforted by the intimacy of domestic spaces, the sensuality of a vase, the sensory delight in picturing bruised fruit. The pure joy of finding a painting you recognise in a second-hand store is very much like bumping into an old friend when you least expect it. That pleasant swell in my chest lingers for the rest of the day.On a surface level, still life appears to be a genre of painting that is as apolitical as it is static. The Tate Museum Glossary describes its subject matter as anything that does not move or is dead. In French, it is called nature morte translated literally as dead nature. Its implicit connection to death can be traced back to its origins, as the earliest known still lifes come from Egypt in the 15th century BC. Murals of everyday objects adorned the interiors of Egyptian tombs as prayers and offerings for a blessed afterlife. These funerary paintings of fish, crops, and other stacked goods reveal something profound about personhood that extends beyond the body. That hopeful desire for what we leave behind, for even the smallest traces of this earth to follow us into the next life.Our understanding of still life has changed over time, particularly through its rise as a distinct genre in Western tradition. In the art world (and in the external world), cultural values and prestige have always been defined by old white men. The hierarchy of genres, established in the seventeenth century by the French Academy, placed still life paintings on the lowest rung. In parts of Europe, women painters were often restricted to still life because it was easily accessible and undervalued. Supposedly devoid of any human quality or personal identity, it was considered to be one of the lowest forms of painting compared to the highly-esteemed portrait. After all, what could be as harmless as a bouquet of flowers, with their softened petals so easy to envision? What else is there to think of except time passing and fruits rotting, the inevitable decay we are not privy to? Lacking a human subject, it was accused of being too neutral, too simple, and without any intellectual stimulation. This view also insinuates that aspects of the physical world are exempt from human concerns, that a rotting carcass, or a golden vase are as impenetrable as they are untouchable.A single moment that evades movement is perhaps the antithesis of a revolution, but there is an undeniable power in constructed objecthood. The values of the establishment may have shifted since the seventeenth century, but they continue to be defined by dominating power structures. In Delusions of Whiteness in the Avant-Garde, Cathy Park Hong critiques the notion of post-identity that is often hailed as a pure state of artistry beyond the taint of subjectivity and history. Still life is by no means considered avant-garde, but the sentiment remains: there is a certain beauty, if not prestige, attached to art that removes the self from the story. And this is rooted in the delusion that identity is merely a cloak one can simply slip on and off.It is difficult to unlearn the colonial discourse that continues to permeate the field of Art History. When studying Western art, I am confronted by the strangest desire to step out of myself, as if I am staring at something that is not intended for me. This, of course, is followed by a wave of guilt am I allowed to enjoy this? Do I betray myself when I am not actively thinking, hurting, rebelling? There is an unexplored, yet distinct relationship between the painful marginalised experience and the comfort of still life. The calmness that I once considered to be mind-numbing is not the removal of the self a privilege that has never been granted to people of colour it is a marker of its very significance. To rest your eyes on the corner of a room, a desk, an unoccupied seat, and realise how deeply life moves you. To allow yourself an identity that is not defined by grief is a slow act of forgiveness.In her still life paintings, contemporary artist Crys Yin speaks to the nuances of her Asian-American identity. Remarkably alienating in its simplicity, her depictions of countertop objects are odd, humorous, and somewhat detached. In Vessels, Everything Is Exactly the Same (2018), a wooden table appears before an emerald green backdrop. An array of household containers are spread out on its surface: a porcelain teacup, a bread bowl, a scallop-trimmed hot pink saucer. The unusual shadows of these objects are pitch black and skewed. They are flat, but given the comical illusion of depth. Appropriately titled Vessels, Yins artwork explores emptiness and physical space in relation to cultural history. The items are both deeply personal and unfamiliar, like realising the strangeness of your own body. Placed next to each other, these objects revel in the absurd, splendid nature of materiality, and how this is traced in the mundane details of our everyday lives. The simple pleasure of colour still surprises me. The brief flicker of recognition that eases my heart also sings my name, loud with its awareness of the self.When I recently visited a friends home for the first time, I noticed a bowl of White Rabbit candy on his coffee table. Its crinkled blue and red label was a familiar sight. And the glass cup, passed from his hands to mine, resting innocently beside it. And the light from the window, always the light, leaving the room sun-laced and warm. How I almost wanted to get up and leave, just to imagine this space without a single body in it. I thought, I shouldve brought flowers. It was mid-afternoon, and there was a candle lit. There was nothing significant about it, except that I wanted to remember it so vividly. A white candle sinking into itself. A white candle in a bright room on a quiet Sunday in October.What is it about this image that I find so compelling? Still life as a reflection of lived spaces not necessarily the echo of a person, but a reminder that their perpetual absence, our permanent impermanence, is still a call to memory. That even the deepest parts of our identity will recognise and resolve that full-bodied shape of a feeling so impossibly, unremarkably human. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Women climate change leaders face increasing sexist attacks for wanting to save the world, recent evidence shows. Not only are they targeted by mostly male climate sceptics, but studies show green behaviour may be resisted by some men for being too feminine. But what the hell does sexism have to do with climate change?Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist in charge of September 20s School Strike For Climate, has been receiving backlash that escalated after her UN Climate Action Summit Speech. Attacks on her gender, as well as autism and age, have swarmed social media and news sites. White men make up the majority of those targeting her, now a widely reported phenomenon.The Herald Suns Andrew Bolt called Thunberg the deeply disturbed messiah of the global warming movement. She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! tweeted President Trump on a CNN clip of the speech. One social media user quote tweeted CNNs speech video: This is another example of terrible parenting raising a self-entitled brat(s). Spank her for being disrespectful and send her to her room.While seemingly isolated insults, Thunbergs backlash follow in the wake of similar attacks on women climate advocates. Alan Jones widely-reported remark on Jacinda Arden to shove a sock down her throat in August followed the New Zealand Prime Ministers claim to be carbon-free by 2050. That being said, Ardern is, of course, no perfect prime minister. Maori communities recently criticised her handling of disputes between them and a construction company, which plans to build 500 houses over sacred land in Auckland.In early September, a man shouted F*** you climate barbie! at Candian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. This preceded verbal abuse and death threats on social media via the trending of hashtags #hypocriteBarbie and #climateBarbie. A special security detail was eventually assigned to McKennas house on 7 September. Mckenna later tweeted: Unfortunately the attacks on and offline is a trend faced by women in politics, in media and especially women working on climate issues. Its not okay.On the other hand, McKenna has also been criticised as one of several former anti-oil activists appointed in Canadas government over the past 10 years. One investigative article ties this to the plummet in its oil industry and workers.Women in STEMM industries face similar comments. For example, Katherine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, told The American Scientific she has been called a sad, little mediocrity, an ugly fake scientist and an old thin-looking hag, by men online. Larger gender inequities in STEMM industries foreground this issue. In both the US and UK, men receive the majority of research funding. In Australia, just 17% of senior academics in universities and research institutes are women.Reducing broader gender inequity in areas like science, contributing to this issue, has been generally ineffective so far. Current approaches to tackling gender equity in (STEMM) have been fragmented and for the most part unsuccessful, Dan Wheelahan from the Australian Academy of Science told Honi. The Academys 10-year roadmap developed in partnership with the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering,outlines a number of areas to strengthen gender equity in STEM in Australia.Despite efforts to tackle the issue more must be done.The overlap between climate sceptics and misogynists is a new area of study, however. The threat posed by climate activism to industrial modernity built and dominated by (their form of) masculinity, is what many climate-deniers fear. This was found by a 2014 paper published by Swedish researchers. The American Scientific also reported: Men are less likely than women to accept scientific conclusions about people being responsible for rising temperatures. And theyre more likely to overestimate their knowledge of the issue.Men are also less likely than women to embrace eco-friendly behaviours because they are often seen as emasculating. This so-called masculinity intersects with western culture itself, advocating humanitys right to manufacture goods using the earths resources. It prioritises economic growth over the environment, often premised on the assertion (of white men) over Indigenous lands. Todays environmental mismanagement has been largely spurred by these values. Men and women both labelled green behaviour as more feminine in an experiment conducted by The American Scientific. The New Republics The Misogyny of Climate Deniers linked this to Thunbergs case: The idea that white men would lead the attacks on Greta Thunberg is consistent with a growing body of research linking gender reactionaries to climate-denialism.Meanwhile, climate warnings grow. Catastrophic levels of temperature change will hit harder and sooner than originally forecast, reported The Science Advisory Group to UN Climate Action Summit 2019. Current climate policies must be tripled to meet the 2030 goals of emission reduction, as they continued to rise in 2018. The point then is women climate leaders must be heard, just as much as male ones. Tackling climate change must become a global priority. For everyones sake, listen to that sixteen-year-old girl. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content Warning: The following contains references to and depictions of language relating to racism, xenophobia and terrorism.Absent-minded phone scrolling or much-valued meditation, these are but simple methods of distraction employed when attending to one of lifes necessities.It should then come as no surprise that during a casual trip to one of our universitys many bathrooms, a moment of daydreaming may lead one to stare at the wall. It is in this instance that we may encounter the occasionally poetic, sometimes humorous, and often blatantly offensive messages and advertisements scattered on the inside walls of toilet stalls.From Abercrombie to Holme, Edgeworth David to Wilkinson, various ads, lavatory limericks, and powder room poems occupy small patches of valuable cubicle door real estate. In the past week, Honi has taken a look at the current snapshot of these settings. While far from exhaustive, the following investigation attempts to lay bare the hidden discourses found in the toilets of a number of significant buildings around the Camperdown and Darlington campuses.Of course this saga has to begin at its epicentre. The lower-ground mens bathrooms play host to a veritable cavalcade of messages, ads, and slurs including:The use of scab labour is unAustralian .1 BILLION RAISED FROM DONORS BUT STILL THE FILTHIEST UNIVERSITY.A sticker with the text Aussie jobs for Aussie workers scratched off with FUCK OFF written over the top.A number of Chinese-language ads for a management consulting bootcamp and a promotion for a luxury fashion sale also adorn the walls.An entire cubicle alone is devoted to writings about the (in)famous Carslaw gloryhole. Initially patched up but re-established at the expense of a toilet paper dispenser with messages to accompany:tried to unscrew but its balted [sic] in.glory days are ended why ruin harmless pleasures.i suck cock.horny as, alongside a number of makeshift tallys.Education BuildingControversy continues along Manning Road, as the third and fourth-level bathrooms in the Education Building contain writings ranging from political arguments to philosophical platitudes including (from top):Kill your inbred idols, jump into the void.A socialism conference sticker scratched out with the text FUCK SOCIALISM and Go back to North Korea written on top of and beside it.You are being domesticated. A life where your choices are being forced to be secondairy [sic]. Live how your movie star wants to. Dont be DOMESTICATED followed by a number of fading comments making pun-riddled jokes about the spelling error.Another cubicle contains, amongst other fade and painted-over writings, a notable reference and quote:SUB TO PEWDIEPIEBoth a YouTube movement to keep the namesake channel the most subscribed on the website and reference to the grim tragedy of the Christchurch Mosque shootings of March this year.Who is John Galt?An oft-stated quote from Ayn Rands novel Atlas Shrugged, referencing the authors philosophy of Objectivism; an ode to rational self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism.Edgeworth David Building/Old Geology Lecture TheatreThe discussion continues at the Edgeworth David building along Parramatta Rd., with the bathrooms underneath the Old Geology lecture theatre displaying a familiar array of political debates and advertising (from top):A socialism conference sticker, with a scratched-off Aussie jobs sticker over the top, and various scribbled-out messages on top of that:you guys are pathetic = )I voted Liberal!more financial crisis, more natural disasters, more One Nation seatsWhats not to love?An ad for a study from the Sydney Human Ethics Committee sits below everything.Fisher LibraryThe final major destination of our survey is the 3rd-level bathrooms in Fisher. The bathrooms closest to the ground-floor entrance to the library are more-or-less non-controversial, showcasing merely (from top) a graffiti tag, the Star of David with the number 2079 next to it, and the final couplet from Shakespeares Sonnet 19:Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong,My love shall in my verse live ever young.Remarkably on-brand for a building full of books.The RestThe four locations above dont even cover everywhere we visited! Not pictured is the abundance of graffiti tags in the Wentworth food court, Wilkinson, and Law Building bathrooms; not to mention the perennial please dont squat over the toilet signs in Charles Perkins and Fisher Level 7 bathrooms to name but a few. For those who are still curious, a quick peruse of the criminally-underrated Facebook page USYD Toilet Reviews will show that it really is a jungle out there.So, whats to learn here?These spaces unveil a hidden political economy of targeted advertising, ideological debate, and miscellaneous comments. In the case of bathrooms such as those in the Abercrombie building, there are no written messages but rather, stickers for September 20ths climate strike and Chinese-language ads for luxury fashion sales, restaurants, and tutoring services. This is in contrast to buildings like Carlsaw that present a colourful intersection of faculties. Reflected in the more political commentary, some scribbles remain flippant, while others highlight how hateful comments are platformed. Toilet stall writing is the subversive cousin to the public message boards populating thoroughfares like Eastern Avenue. These private spaces remain beholden to a different view of USyds social macrocosm; wars of attrition fought away from public scrutiny. Ads that may stay up in one building for weeks may be torn down and replaced in far shorter time in others.It would be a little too problematising and far too Orwellian to propose that toilet stall scrawlings are a scourge on our society and ought to be entirely censored or removed. Although its impossible to guarantee that such comments are to be taken at face value in any respect, it remains important to establish that egregious faceless statements are not victimless crimes.That said, this form of relatively-harmless vandalism presents an interesting reality: what will people say when they have full anonymity and zero accountability? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Having received the green light to satisfy the desires of her property developer friends and tear down the Allianz Stadium after winning the state election, Gladys Berejiklian has wasted no time in enlisting help to begin knocking it down. To lead the demolitions, Berejiklian has chosen American conservative provocateur Ben Shapiro an unorthodox choice that has raised a few eyebrows.I am absolutely confident that Ben will do a fine job of tearing down the stadium. Anyone whos been on the Youtube knows he has a stellar track record of destroying leftist power structures and ivory towers Berejiklian said, justifying her choice.Speaking to his appointment, Shapiro was similarly confident about leading the demolition.WHILE THIS IS THE FIRST NON-HUMAN I WILL BE DESTROYING, THE POWER OF FACTS AND LOGIC WILL SURELY PENETRATE ITS STEELY EXTERIOR AND BREAK IT INTO INTELLECTUAL SUBMISSIONWhile many political commentators and structural engineers were initially skeptical, Shapiro immediately silenced his nay-sayers after causing the stadium to spontaneously collapse upon telling it FACTS DONT CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its a warm autumn day and I just got laid. It is in this moment that I see that shining eggspanse of Fraser Annings forehead so beautiful, and so smooth. And suddenly, I feel myself getting hard.I want Fraser Anning to run his hands down the shining curves of my shell and stroke my hard exterior. Inside, I am all runny already. I want to rub my inner membrane against his bald head and have him dip his fingers into my yolk and raise it to his lips.See how you taste? Fraser whispers. Your yolk is so soft. So thicc, and so salty.My yolk quivers. Does he like his eggs scrambled or fried? Or does he like them hard-boiled? Gag me, I whisper into his ear.Gag you? How? Youre an egg, he says. Please whisk me! I moan. Whisk me away! Yes, yes!Yes what?Yes sir! I whimper, struggling against my restraints. Damn this eggshell. I am helpless, caged against my will, so hot that I am frying inside. I want him to break me, free me from this eggsquisite torture.You eggsotic omelette, he whispers in my ear, and I feel my inner walls pulse as they eggspand and contract.I know these thoughts are sinful. I dont want to be eggscommunicated from the Catholic Church, a noble institution of which I am a proud quivering member. But I think I must make an eggception for this devilish egg.Shall I make you come?I cant come, Im an egg, I find myself whimpering in eggstasy. I want to fuck you egg! I want to be buried inside you! Fraser, I yelp. Eggscavate me! And with a cry, I launch myself into his embrace.Im cumming! I scream, despite being an egg.And thenI eggsplode, my white essence splattering all over his face. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a shocking surprise, local air conditioner Jenny has revealedthat she too is an LG both a Korean electronics brand, and also a member of a distinct subculture referring to athleisure-wearing, rave-going, bubble-tea-sipping young women of Asian heritage. The reveal comes after Jenny was spotted at popular joint Sanctuary Hotel, affectionately called Sanc, keeping scores of holiday internship weary Asian Australian young professionals cool in the summer heat.After months of telling her friends that she was actually a Fujitsu, Jenny decided to come out with the truth after seeing the Arterial Blood Gas test announce at a press conference last week that she was, in fact, an Asian Baby Girl (ABG).It just felt right. Im so happy I did it because now I can go to Sanc on a Friday night without any guilt Jenny said, speaking from her Hurstville flat. Vivian Tran, Jennys owner and fellow LG, expressed solidarity with her air conditioner. Yea so what? Shes an LG. What you gonna do bout it? Do ya know how hot it gets at KO? We need Jenny Tran said. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the impending doom of our planet on the horizon, environmentalism and sustainable lifestyle choices has rightfully come to the forefront of the global consciousness. However, it is important to note that the sustainability movement has often come under fire for being elitist; and it absolutely is.To briefly define sustainable consumption, it can be understood as the use of services and products that cause minimal harm to our planet and preserve it for future generations. Those that police how environmentally-friendly our consumption is from militant vegans to sustainable lifestyle influencers are notorious for their simplistic views of sustainability. For the most part, they are unable to differentiate between those who are unwilling to be sustainable and those who are unable to. Being good to the planet has a price tag, which is often quite substantial, and effectively locks out those in low-income brackets. The culture of shame that emerges from the sustainability movement ignores the complex barriers to entry that are created by capitalism.Free-market capitalism has ensured that sustainability is not universally accessible: higher price points for sustainable essentials such as food and clothing effectively bar sustainable options to people in lower-income brackets. In addition, the sustainability movement often neglects to critique capitalism as the main instigator behind the profit-driven actions of large corporations, in destructive industries such as mining. This should not be news to us; this year in Australia, the approval of the notoriously disastrous Adani mine in Queensland shows us that the greed of capitalism will continue to win out over the continued survival of our fragile ecosystems. The Carbon Majors Report, tells us that a mere 25 corporations have been responsible for over half of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions over the last 30 years. As long as ecocide is profitable to such corporations, capitalism will continue to quietly carry out ecocide to a global level. And yet, the sustainability movement too-often sets it sights on the choices of individuals.The sustainability movement is flawed and largely inaccessible in many ways. Particularly regrettable is the emergence of a shame culture that villainises non-sustainable lifestyles, blind to why people may not be able to live more sustainably. The animal rights group PETA has previously declared that eating meat and being an environmentalist are mutually exclusive. This rhetoric underlines sub-movements for sustainability such as militant veganism, which have often come under fire for being too dogmatic in their methods of persuasion. I have often found that the shaming of non-sustainability turns the sustainability movement into a hostile environment, which is inadvertent to the complex barriers of entry that sustainability entails.Social media platforms such as Twitter have given rise to the amplified rhetoric of militant vegans. Recently, I came upon a tweet: If you still eat meat at this point you are honestly just selfish. Sadly, this was not the first statement from this ignorant line of rhetoric that I have encountered, nor will it be the last. These statements highlight a central flaw in the sustainability movement the onus of saving the planet should not merely be on individual consumption but on the consumption of multi-million-dollar corporations who leave devastating ecological footprints in their wake. This attention given to individual consumption goes to show the short-sightedness of militant veganism. Many people cannot become vegan for reasons such as health or financial instability. Inability to be sustainable is too often construed to be unwillingness. Until the sustainability movement is able to move beyond simplistic views and a culture of shaming others into joining their ranks, it cannot meaningfully contribute to the continued survival of our planet.The barriers of entry to sustainability created by capitalism must be brought to the forefront of our discussions. It is an issue that is so often ignored, either by the aggressive views pandered by militant vegans or the simplistic representation of sustainability by social media influencers. On social media, ethical fashion brands such as Reformation or With Jan are promoted as shining beacons of sustainability. We need to keep in mind that though these companies are represented as ethical and eco-friendly, they are still positioned to be profitable, as capitalism would have them be. A quick glance at their price points, which mostly sit in the hundred to hundreds range, prove them to be inaccessible to most. Optimistic representations of ethical fashion uphold the culture of shame because they are exclusionary and create an economy of cultural capital that revolves around ones ability to access or perform sustainability. There is a lack of awareness on social media regarding the absence of accessible sustainability that feeds back into the sustainability movements shame culture.While sustainability should absolutely be championed, the shame culture that it often plays off is unproductive in many ways shame wont put food in mouths or clothes on backs. It realistically does nothing to reduce barriers of entry into sustainability while creating an animosity that makes the sustainability movement even more unwelcoming to outsiders.There are good arguments for ecologically sustainable life choices. The meat industry treats animals horrifically, and we are devastating our planet with the wasteful processes that underline fast fashion. These are all sound points to make for the argument for sustainable living. However, the priorities of low-income demographics lie in quiet everyday survival. Capitalism plays a central role in both the devastation of our planet, and the disenfranchisement of working class communities.As consumers, we should be mindful that sustainable options are simply not accessible to all. The shame culture that we see emerge from the current elitist sustainability movement is unproductive and aggressive, shaming poor people for being poor rather than prioritising the root of the inaccessibility dilemma; capitalism. Shame is not a sustainable force of change; compassion and collaboration are. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When my grandmother was 16 she was misdiagnosed with a brain tumour. She would lie on her bedroom floor, listening to La Mer by Charles Tebet over and over, crying about her crush on Angus McDonald, the boy next door. Shed climb the oak tree in her leafy Gordon backyard to spy through his bedroom window. Naturally, her parents called the doctor. She was rushed to hospital and poked and prodded. A lumbar puncture left her bedridden for weeks. In retrospect, she attributes her symptoms to the lethal combination of PMS and a teenage crush.Sixty-five years later, Im sitting opposite my GP in her dishevelled Potts Point surgery. Im listing my symptoms. I have splitting headaches, my period cramps are unbearable and my mental health is at an all time low. Ive always been a bit of a worrier but in the past 18 months Im as anxious as a turkey in December. I ask whether the pill could be to blame but am immediately shut down not a chance! My cramps should be better now that Im taking my new best friend Estelle and, most crucially, theres no way that the pill could affect my mental health.Weeks later, after conversations with many female friends about their (usually similar) experiences on the same pill, I book an appointment with my auntys GP. Her practice is in Newtown so I think maybe shes open minded. I enlist my mum for moral support and climb the rickety stairs to her terrace-house surgery, but I am once again dismissed. This doctor, who has never met me, insists that my anxiety makes me irrational its all in my head but to humour me, she prescribes a different pill.Its been 65 years since French pop music sent my grandmother to hospital, and still doctors are notoriously misdiagnosing women and dismissing their problems. A Breast Cancer Network Australia study found, in 2018, that doctors dismissal of young womens health concerns leads to substantial delays in diagnosis. There remains an enormous misconception within the medical community about female hysteria, and a belief that women are more likely to see doctors unnecessarily. A 1999 UK study proved this undeniably false.Further studies found that 30-50% of women diagnosed with depression were misdiagnosed and that the underlying disease often remained undetected. Once a psychological disorder was in a patients medical history, future issues would often be dismissed, creating a never-ending cycle of misdiagnosis.Where my grandmother and I are fortunate that our misdiagnoses caused no long-term harm, this isnt always the case. Misdiagnosis can be extremely dangerous in the US, 40,000 to 80,000 deaths per year are due to delayed or inaccurate diagnosis and women are disproportionately affected. A 2014 study found it took significantly longer for women to be seen in the emergency department, and that they were rarely classified as an urgent case.Attitudes within the medical profession clearly need to change. For many women, the solution is seeing a female physician. A 2018 study linked male doctors to worse outcomes for women suffering heart attacks. Its a good sign that the numbers of female medical graduates are vastly increasing, however they are not reaching the same positions of power as their male counterparts, and many believe that real systemic attitudinal change will need to come both from the bottom and from the top. Ultimately, however, doctors of all genders simply need to listen to their patients with an open mind.I finally call a friends mum. Shes a gynaecologist. I give her the same spiel Ive given to the two doctors prior, except this time there isnt a doubt in her mind that my symptoms are caused by Estelle. Ive now stopped taking the pill and Ive never felt better. But perhaps most importantly, for the first time in months, I feel heard. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I have always, essentially, been waiting. In my mind, I have a checklist of things I have to accomplish before I turn 30, before I get married, before I graduate. There is a clear mental space dedicated to all of those colour-coordinated milestones that will get me one step closer to having my ideal life.Or so I was led to believe. Only later much later did I realise that the list was not my own, but one constructed for me based on who I was supposed to be, and where I was meant to fit in within my society. Growing up in an Indian household, it was understood that my accomplishments and shortcomings were not merely my own, but also reflective of my family. It was very easy to construct seemingly logical arguments like, I am my own person and I can make my own decisions, but every mistake was met with questions of who raised you?, and what will people think of me? from my mother. After all, most of my choices were not the ones she would have made for me.I was immensely grateful that my mother always gave me freedoms, be it picking what books I wanted to read growing up, my subjects in high school, or what major I wanted to study in university. She would say that my life would be a result of what I decided, and not what was decided for me.But how much autonomy could I really exercise in a collectivist society deadset on fitting me into a mould crafted by preconceived beliefs? Would I really be allowed to change my mind again in a world where I should have known what I wanted for the rest of my life at the crisp age of 16? Why would one assume I was fit to make a decision when I was too scared to tell my legal mentor that the air conditioning was too cold for two weeks, and wore a shawl in the middle of New Delhis worst heatwave?I come from a family of businesspeople and lawyers, and I was always asked when I would finally fill my parents shoes. For a long while, I considered going along with it. I could study economics, or law. I couldve become a lawyer and argued in a courtroom; I couldve gone into marketing and come up with new business strategies. I could have repressed the writer, the painter, the creator.Deep down, I knew most of this pressure came from within myself the need to conform, to belong somewhere, to have it easy and never have to explain why I deviated. Once I realised this, I also realised that amidst these pressures, I still had free will.In retrospect, I know I needed to brave that storm before I could discard it as a career path without a what if? haunting me later. I had to be strong enough to tell everyone that no, I would not be going to law school, despite dedicating a whole summer to it. I had to make peace with the tight smiles and pitiful head-tilts to find the people who said Yes! The world needs you to write!Hence, I wanted to know I wasnt alone, that there were other people out there who were meant to be somebody else. And once I found them and it wasnt difficult I found that the one thing all of us had in common was a crippling sense of dissatisfaction and a lot of repressed rage.All of a sudden, my mind went blank. The checklist blurred and disappeared, leaving an uncertain path and unsteady legs to tread on. But I knew I was blessed for the choice I had been given, and would forever mourn the lost creations of those less fortunate than me. I learnt that you become so many other people before you find yourself, and no Europe trip or mountain trek can speed the process up.I recall being seventeen and scared, clutching onto the blossoming ideas of a fiction novel and newspaper article in my mind, going to my mother, and saying, I want to write.I remember her smile, her determined eyebrow raise, and her saying, then write. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This entry was awarded first place in the non-fiction section of the Honi Soit Writing Competition 2019, judged by New York times journalist Isabella Kwai.I fell in love with Daphne du Maurier at the age of eleven.It happened after my mum lent me her copy of Rebecca; a book which had left a lasting impression on her own adolescence. Du Mauriers novels might not be renowned for literary sophistication, but their capacity for spectacle goes unmatched. Rebecca practically drips with tension and brooding. Its heavy atmosphere swells and crashes through plot devices that are both gripping and surprising. Du Mauriers novels are virtually ubiquitous in themes of mystery, jealousy, and deception. As such, critics and commentators have been eager to draw parallels with the authors own life. In particular, there has been much attention devoted to the mystery of du Mauriers sexual orientation.Du Maurier married her husband in 1932, and had three children with him. Although her marriage was noted for being impassive at times; in later life du Maurier admitted to feeling intensely jealous of her husbands ex-fiance. It is often claimed that du Maurier herself had several affairs during her marriage only one she admitted to being physical, and that was with a man.Regardless of these facts, what tends to receive much more attention is du Mauriers involvement with women. In letters written to a friend, Daphne described these as obsessions. She certainly shared high levels of emotional intimacy with three women during her life her French teacher (when du Maurier was an adolescent), and then later, her publishers wife Ellen Doubleday, and actor Gertrude Lawrence.In 2009, I chose to start researching du Maurier for a school assignment. During my research, I encountered several articles published around the centenary of her birth two years prior. These were almost entirely devoted to the subject of her lesbianism. In the sexual naivety of my early teenage years, I was immediately rendered uncomfortable by newspaper headlines which screamed of forbidden lovers, unruly passions and a terrible secret.I scrapped the assignment. I told my mum I had fallen out of love with du Mauriers books; pretending that I agreed with the sneering responses of her contemporary critics. In reality, I just didnt want to let myself love Daphne any longer.The problem was that, in 2009, I had just completed my first year at all all-girls High School. Here, lesbian was used as the insult of choice; and was regularly hurled at myself. Homosexuality was entirely excluded from our sex-education. The articles thus reaffirmed what my school experience had taught me same-sex relationships between women were salacious and shameful. Struggling to come to terms with my own sexual orientation, I suddenly felt mortified about all the time I had spent staring adoringly at Daphnes portrait inside the front cover of Rebecca. I wondered if my own admiration for the author, along with my undying curiosity about her life, constituted the same sort of illicit infatuation that Daphne herself had been accused of.Even when lesbianism isnt decried as overtly wrong or amoral; ambiguity in womens sexual orientation tends to be presented under the guise of scandal. In 2017, the publication of a biography of Jane Austen inspired an outpouring of press reports that Austen could have been a lesbian. In the words of the biography author herself, however, the door of possibility may remain ajar by the very tiniest crack, and only in the absence of evidence. When terms like lesbian and bisexual are applied to historical female figures, it is rarely done so to help modern audiences understand the same-sex relationships they might have had. Instead, these terms are used to conceal nuance and generate shock-factor.Despite the numerous reports pushing the label on her, du Maurier herself actively did not identify as a lesbian. She is reported as once having said, If anyone should call that sort of love by that unattractive word that begins with L, Id tear their guts out. The author often referred to her childhood self as a half-breed, although, despite what some sources claim, this was not an admission of bisexuality. Instead, du Maurier was referring to the fact that she thought of herself as having a boys mind and a boys heart. This quote, in turn, has been used by some to suggest the possibility of her being transgender. It seems like modern terminology is not necessarily able to accommodate how the circumstances of Daphnes life during the early 20th century would have limited her opportunities to explore, practice and define her own sexuality.It was only after coming to terms with my own queerness a few years ago that I was able to return to du Maurier. I was so glad that I did. I was able to appreciate the emotional texture of the novels in a way that I couldnt during my pre-teen years. For the first time, I was also able to identify the potentially lesbian subtexts in the portrayal of Rebeccas Mrs Danvers. It was fascinating to be able to think about how her relationships with Lawrence and Doubleday influenced her later novels, like My Cousin Rachel. Fascinating precisely because her sexuality escapes easy interpretation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This entry was awarded second place in the non-fiction section of the Honi Soit Writing Competition 2019, judged by New York times journalist Isabella Kwai.Day Six of the Australian Open 2018. The crowd on Rod Laver Arena are waiting patiently for Angelique Kerber and Maria Sharapova to take centre stage for their blockbuster encounter. Tens of thousands of eyes scan the schedule in gleeful anticipation of the Swiss maestro, Roger Federer, who follows them. Very few will look down to Court 8. Even fewer will bother to walk over to spectate. But this is where the magic will happen.Nicolas Mahut, famous for playing the longest match in singles history at Wimbledon, is playing alongside his partner Pierre-Hugues Herbert. On the other side of the court, the largely unheralded Chilean-Belarusian team of Hans Podlipnik-Castillo and Andrei Vasilevski. The crowd is barely half full. Yet, after the subsequent hugging of supporters, coaches and the lifting aloft of the Chilean flag, there is not a dry eye in the house. However, apart from the few hundred spectators at the match, few will ever know. This is the world of doubles tennis.It is an unfortunate reality that doubles tennis has come to be regarded as the ugly stepsister of the more illustrious singles game. Even tennis icon John McEnroe, himself the winner of seven doubles grand slams, remarked in a recent interview with The Times of London, Doubleswhy are we even playing it? [] The doubles [players] are the slow guys who arent quick enough to play singles. So what has happened to the doubles game?It is certainly true that there are more doubles specialists (those who dont play singles) in the game than before. Only 48 of the 128 mens doubles players at the Australian Open were in the top 100 for singles. It has also been observed by many sports journalists that the doubles game has become a game of big serves and big returns, the implication being that there are less grinding rallies than we have become accustomed to in the singles game. According to tennisabstract.com, there is some truth to this. At the 2019 Australian Open, the average mens doubles rally was 0.7 shots shorter than its singles counterpart on average, and on the womens side, this discrepancy was 0.5 shots. However, while there is a clear difference here, it is certainly not as great as the media sometimes portrays it.Furthermore, while points may be shorter, surely that is better for a generation with shortening attention spans? Shorter, more high-octane points can be both exciting and different for a new sport-watching audience. Accounting for the common criticism of singles tennis that it has become too monotonous, with endless baseline rallies, it seems increasingly likely that doubles could fill a void that singles simply cannot.I spoke with Olympic Silver Medallist and 2019 Australian Open Mixed Doubles Champion Rajeev Ram, who described the doubles game as a very exciting brand of tennis that offers some different skillsets [to] singles [such as] quick reactions and good teamwork. He believes that doubles adds a new and very interesting dimension to the game that does not exist in singles, and this combined with what he characterises as the pinnacle of the doubles game, the teamwork between partners, makes for a game that appeals to the younger generations.As with anything there are reasons why doubles has fallen down the pecking order of sports watchers. Coach of former top 10 player Janko Tipsarevic and advisor to many ATP doubles players, Dirk Hordorff said to me that he believes that there should be better promotion of doubles matches through a separate doubles court and other initiatives. Rajeev Ram also notes that doubles players do not have the same notoriety as singles players and the key to addressing this is to get [doubles] on TV more. Ram has a point here. Only seven of 195 doubles matches at 500 level (the second tier tournament on the ATP tour) were even produced for television. Unfortunately, until this vicious cycle is broken, doubles tennis will not regain its popularity.Its a long road back to popularise the doubles game. Every TV station in Australia would have been showing Roger Federers straight sets win over Richard Gasquet on that day at the Australian Open, not one likely to mention the patriotic triumph of Hans Podlipnik-Castillo and his partner out on court 8. However, the people sitting on that court who saw the joyous face of their proud coach and the delighted legion of Chilean supporters will never forget the moment when the underdogs took the biggest win of their career. The power of doubles tennis will never be lost on them. And with the dominance of tennis biggest stars ending as they enter the twilight of their careers, the administrators would be very wise to promote this fast-paced, energetic game to their young fanbase. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This entry was awarded third place in the non-fiction section of the Honi Soit Writing Competition 2019, judged by New York times journalist Isabella Kwai.They gathered at intersections and roundabouts, marching with the confidence of a crowd that knew they would be tomorrows headline. The disparate many that make up the gilets jaunes have an undisputed flair, adorned in high-vis regalia and possessed of a notorious temper, a narrative that moved around the planet with the speed weve come to expect of tweets and live-streamed video. They mostly hail from the rundown cities that lend their small-font names to the spaces on maps between one affluent metropolis and another.Fuel wasnt cheap in France, but President Macrons plans to transition the economy away from carbon emissions culminated in plans to levy a new tax on diesel and gasoline. In the eyes of many around the world the protesters were little more than the stubborn resistance we have come to expect from enemies of progressivism; bigoted hicks, junkies for coal, holding us back.And so they rebelled. They broke shopwindows and brawled with police, the leaderless mob engaging in spontaneous mobilisations in provincial cities across France. The op-ed class happily dismissed their concerns as the myopia of the drooling masses, their violent insurrection proof in itself of the invalidity of their claims. Many young progressives from around the world shrugged their shoulders and agreed for lack of anything better to say on the topic.Then on March 18, in our own country, a young boy tried to make an omelette using a racist senators head. Rightly so, a generation celebrated a protest that fell somewhere between hijinks and praxis. We were, of course, not uniform in our national response the civility cops were quick to feign outrage that a senator could ever be treated with such wanton disrespect (think of The Children!).The two events viewed together might not have immediate resonance, but I suspect there is something that unites the crowds of gilets jaunes and the supporters of eggboy, something that perhaps reveals something about the nature of civil disobedience in the world today.The gilets jaunes are the natural outgrowth of a class of people who are incessantly watched but never heard. Eggboy, likewise, represents the moral revolutionaries that have long been marginalised in Australia Indigenous Australians, immigrants, and, to an extent, young people. As Hannah Arendt wrote in 1968, for the first time in history, all peoples on earth have a common present. But where the millennials expressing their support for eggboy are acting as a rejection of the values of the past, the gilets jaunes and people of their ilk are scared of the future. Together, we make an awkward coalition of the terrified.Im always hesitant to try to reference Foucault in just about any setting. Trying to explain why Foucault was brilliant is like trying to explain why a joke is funny, and trying to condense his rambling sentences into palatable morsels through ellipses just reads like he formulated all of his theories while constipated (Power is a mechanism by which we, as human beings attempt etc.). Despite this, his work is precisely what best describes the yin-yang of authority and repression that undercuts our many attempts at civil disobedience in the 21st century. Rebellions only hope of effectiveness relies on the assumption that we make our world, and not the other way around.If theres another similarity between these jumbled groups around the world, all fighting against a ruling class co-opting ideologies and esteemed institutions as the anti-majoritarian rearguard of their dying movement, its the draw to nihilism. Its easy to assume that there is little use or hope for the losers in this game.In the wake of the Cold War, history was pronounced to be over. The ideology of liberal internationalism had succeeded, and people were told to wait while the world improved around them. All we had to do was sacrifice participation in democracy and allow the enlightened technicians of our world to fix the planet for us. This fiction lies in ruin, and (pardon the financial analogy) we are now rushing to recover the cost we paid for a good we never received. The ensuing panic has blurred what we thought were the fault lines of modern discourse between conservative hipsters and progressive nihilists, its hard to imagine we ever had solidarity at all.But thats probably where some hope lies. People poised to profit from the inertia of the world toward mayhem would love nothing more than for us to be immobilised by transient distaste and propaganda. Its hard to tackle the banal evil of the political class because its easy to advocate for nothing. People make careers out of it in Canberra. Atomised rebellion is doomed to fail, but the true enemies of progress are smart enough to pick their battles. We need to do the same. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This entry received the Editors Choice award in the non-fiction section of the Honi Soit Writing Competition 2019.At 28 years old, I was laid off from my job.I packed my things inside a cardboard box and kept my dinosaur-shaped magnets. The magazine I worked with for four years had folded. We had a good run: poking at societal issues with a sharp cognizance, provoking and asking all the right questions. People took notice of our work, and the work was important. For a while, we felt invincible. Purposeful.But when I carried my box of things home with me, I realized that even significant work was dispensable. I wondered, whats a jobless millennial supposed do now? I felt too young to be a casualty of retrenchment, too old to keep up with the next generation.I remember the day the companys founder gathered the entire editorial department in one room. She read her speech with a lofty acceptance, starting with a story about how a few brilliant, fashionable women gathered in a basement and dreamed up this very publication house, and then lead it to become the biggest one in the Philippines. You could feel the weight of gloom in the air: she wasnt just reading a speechshe was delivering a eulogy. A year later, the company would replace all its 11 print publications with websites, replacing an editors mastery with Search Engine Optimization, prioritizing things like clicks-to-site and engagement ratings.I thought it a weird time to be in the newsroom. Technology had challenged the integrity of the work that journalists did, and changed the way that these stories were being told and consumed. The political climate was tearing communities apart. Social media festered toxicity. Media businesses struggled to stay afloat. Journalists were replaced by bloggers.For a year, I let this disdain simmer inside me while I worked freelance writing profiles of celebrities and beauty queens. It wasnt ideal work, but one needed to pay the bills. I managed until a breakdown one morning. I cried in the arms of my boyfriend and whined about this feeling of selling out. He rubbed my shoulders and offered the only comfort he knew: a helpless optimism disguised as bad humor.Outside, the Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes ruthless crackdown on drugs continued. His brutal war had killed more than 12,000 people. Human rights advocates were sent to prison, administration-critics were harassed and humiliated. The news filled with haunting images: a howling mother cradling her dead son in the darkness of the night; children weeping against the caskets of their fathers; there were portraits of orphans and widows and broken families left behind. At night, the town smattered with dead bodies. Police washed their hands off the blood of the people. To respond, the President hissed at his critics, mocked the poor, tormented the people who fought for truth and spewed misogyny towards women.I thought, somewhere in the world, another writer is packing their things inside a box. Another paper folds. Another machine stops printing. Another news story is overshadowed by a celebrity. Another truth is bent and twisted and molded into obscure shapes so unlike itself its hard to distinguish what it even is anymore. A light goes off.But as I sat despondently on the sidelines, watching the world turn without me, I realized that I wasnt the only one wrestling with angry thoughts at 4 a.m. in the shadow of my phones blue light. Today, in a time of war, people will raise their armors even higher. In the face of abuse, they will stare attackers straight in the eye. In response to threats, they will speak even louder.It only takes one person to inspire a group to charge for combat. It only takes one person, so publicly beaten and shamed and chewed up and spat out, to stand up and say hold the line, which will inspire this moping writer to get off her ass, pick up a computer, and start writing again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> 3 June, 1989. Tiananmen Square. Months of student protest in Chinas political heart culminate in a brutal, bloody crackdown. As tanks and soldiers march into the square, protesters are shot. By daybreak, hundreds, if not thousands, are dead. * * *3 June, 1989. Beijing. My aunt is in middle school. Despite state-run news urging people to stay inside, she nonetheless ventures out to see whats happening, more out of curiosity than any democratic fervour. Before she can leave Beijings ancient, winding back alleyways, she hears a sudden roar of bullets in the distance. Terrified, she runs back home. More than 20 years later, she recounts that night to me. We are in the safety of home, but still, she talks about it in hushed tones and a voice so low its almost a whisper. My cousin sits impassively beside me on the couch, more interested in his iPad than he is in his mothers story. Maybe hes heard it already. Maybe he hasnt, but thinks it happened too long ago for him to care. Everyone in Beijing that night seems to know exactly what they did when the tanks rolled into Tiananmen, but my aunt notes that the young people of today know nothing about it. Not even my cousin, she scowls. But, just as shes about to get carried away into explaining what she thought of the loss of innocent life, she abruptly stops, and her tone changes.Those poor students were exploited by people in the shadows. They died fighting for someone elses cause, she says, before adding that many soldiers were killed that night as well. The conversation ends there, and she proceeds to talk about other, more mundane topics. Tiananmen hangs in the mouths of people from her generation like Chinese medicine bitter and repugnant. You want to spit it out, but you know you must swallow it for your own good.* * * 5 June, 1989. Guangzhou. Thousands of kilometres from Beijing, my parents are fresh out of university and slowly finding their place in Chinas emerging middle class, and like most people, they are outraged at what they see on television. But unlike most, they are not watching state-run channels; Guangzhous proximity to Hong Kong means they can receive broadcasts from the then-British Colony. They see shocking details the rest of China have no idea of. Indignant, my father, a member of the ruling Communist Party, decides to wear a black armband to work in solidarity. Some people they know are even trying to make their way to Beijing to join the protests. A close friend begs my father to lend him a nice shirt he owns one does want to look their best at an anti-government uprising, of course. My father refuses if they shoot you itll ruin my shirt, he retorts. But its all for nought. The whole country is in lockdown. The trains have stopped running, roads are closing, and social disorder is beginning to spill out into streets all over China. In the days leading up to June the 4th, my parents recall having already seen massive protests in their own city, forcing life to a chaotic standstill. At work, my father realises that he is the only one wearing a black armband. Feeling rather out of place, he takes it off, unwittingly ensuring that he will eventually come to Australia as an immigrant, not a refugee. Others are not so lucky. A few years later, my parents offer to hide a student-protester-turned-dissident in their apartment as he waits for political asylum overseas. Looking back on it now, my father wryly notes that had the protests held out for just a few more weeks, they would have then ridden the wave of revolution that had swept across Europe, and that the China we know today would probably not exist. He does not say this with regret about what could have been, but more with relief about what actually happened.Thirty years after Tiananmen, the China we know today is deeply shaping how people like my parents and my aunt view the protests. Their initial outrage and shock has dissipated, and from it has emerged a belief that the crackdown was tragic but necessary. This change cannot simply be attributed to a collective amnesia brought about by government propaganda it is hard to retell a narrative if you do not speak of it at all. Instead, their pragmatism stems from how the Chinese state addressed the original concerns of the protest in the wake of the bloodshed. While Western tellings of Tiananmen focus on how it was a fight for democracy, for many Chinese people, the protests were a response to economic anxieties as much as they were to political frustrations. Deng Xiaopings sweeping reforms in the 1980s had dragged a society still mired in Communism into capitalist modernity, but while millions were lifted out of poverty as a result, the nascent market economy itself presented many problems. Workers in state-owned enterprises like many in my family, suddenly found themselves unemployed as their workplaces were privatised in order to compete in the new economy. Job security and subsidised living became increasingly uncertain, and in a society that was at least nominally equal, signs of economic inequality began to creep in, delegitimising the governments official Communist rhetoric. Ironically, university students, who formed the bulk of the protesters, were the worst affected by the liberalisation capitalism needed workers in light industry and agriculture, not more intellectuals. Further burdening the people was the lifting of price controls, which caused inflation and the cost of living to skyrocket. Consequently, many saw democracy as a better way to deal with the economic challenges presented by marketisation, especially when compared to the current system which was prone to corruption, and controlled by men whose minds were stuck in a bygone era. But since Tiananmen, the Chinese state has shown a remarkable capacity to manage the economy without the help of democracy. It has learnt that the social stability imperative to its survival comes from maintaining economic prosperity, and so has pursued it at a lightning pace, with an almost inspired diligence. Its grip on power seems stronger now than ever before, not only because of its growing authoritarianism, but also because the Chinese people are genuinely content with it. And why shouldnt they be? When my parents compare China now to what it was thirty years ago, they dont see human rights abuses and censorship, but a country more confident, more wealthy, and more powerful than ever before. Meanwhile, when they see the bitter experience of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, many of which endured years of war, social unrest, and economic downturn after Communism collapsed and democracy was established, they cannot help but feel somewhat grateful that it never happened in China. In their minds, history has shown that the government crackdown on Tiananmen was the right decision. Indeed, with the dysfunctional state of political systems in the West, many Chinese have come to the understanding that democracy is deeply undesirable for their country. Tiananmen, then, has become a symbol of misguided idealism. * * *4 June, Tiananmen. Had I been a student in Beijing then, faced with a dismal job market and unflinching political conservatism, I too probably would have marched. And, upon seeing the meteoric rise of China that happened in many ways not in spite but because of the failure of the protests like my parents, I too may have come to view Tiananmen with pragmatic indifference. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content warning: anxiety, mental healthAn unanswerable question has plagued me for what feels like years: why am I anxious?When I think about mental illness, I envision a physical representation of it. I see a woman, palms on her stomach trying to contain the sensation of something clawing its way out of her; I see a man, dust in his lungs and gasping for help into empty air; I see a child, ink-stained hands trying to communicate what the inside of their head looks like; I see people, humanoid shadows following them, glued to their backs like helpless parasites.Its often difficult to realistically convey what it feels like. A constant companion, my anxiety often manifests in my heart flapping wings against my throat. It hides in my shaking hands and averted eyes. Its the sound of my own voice in my head echoing the same words: be brave, be brave, be brave. Of another voice, quieter, but just as persistent: make it safe, make it safe, make it safe. Its you are not enough, but also everyone that is not you is not enough at the same time. Its the whole world thriving as I watch from behind a one-way mirror, banging on the glass and screaming let me in, let me in, let me in. Its an oil spill in the ocean, constantly on the verge of catching fire. Its panic creeping into spaces within myself I never realised existed. Its realising an assignment is due at 10pm and not 11:59pm. Its waking up late on the day of an exam and rushing to the wrong side of campus. Its claws at my throat and my thoughts becoming things with fears. Its feeling blue; the blue of a blossoming bruise, the blue of wilting forget-me-nots. Its missing something but not knowing what. Its losing my keys then convincing myself I will never, ever find a way back home. Its my heart hammering against my chest, but suddenly its not just my heart, but my whole world pounding out of control. Its aching to go somewhere quiet, someplace holy, somewhere that provides sanctuary from the clamour inside my mind.But Im getting better at distinguishing my own voice from the imposter that sounds exactly like me. What Ive learnt, and what I hope you figure out as soon as possible, is that we are not here to fill empty space, to always be accommodating, to always be in control of every situation we are in. Sometimes, you will feel like youre standing behind a door that refuses to open. Sometimes, you will feel like everyone else is living their best life and that you are missing out. Sometimes, you will never feel anything other than an all-consuming bitterness. Maybe that is the burden of being human: cursing our parents until we need guidance, cursing the gods until we need a miracle, cursing ourselves until we realise that the only constant in an otherwise lonely existence is our conscience. I look back at all the times I thought I would be different. Sometimes its years ago, sometimes its yesterday, but theres always a constant: a disenchanting sense of incompleteness. Is this all there is? Will I ever be more? Why did I grow up wanting more, more, more? What is more? Is there a chance that this isnt the end? That Im always, forever, becoming?I am all too familiar with wishing for another time, another place; somewhere I will always feel wanted. But, I also know that theres no use ignoring all I have now for the potential of a better tomorrow. I am proud of being the inarticulate, selfish, condescending, often sad, often grateful, creative, opinionated person that I am. Maybe, there will be a time when I wont feel so empty from wanting what is not meant for me. Recognising the possibility of it feels like a step forward. But, for now, I am happy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Wigram Street, at least for now, has resisted the wave of gentrification which surrounds it. Situated in Harris Park, it has been left unsullied by the trend of modernisation that has unwoven the cultural fabric of neighbouring suburbs like Parramatta and Westmead. This has meant that in a city which seems determined to strip away its cultural hubs, Wigram Street survives as a sort of ethnic tour de force. And yet, despite its admirably persistent identity as a home for the Indian diaspora, to me Wigram Street is constantly changing. I have quite fond memories of Wigram Street as a child. On any given night, six of us would pack ourselves into a five-seater car. I would sit comfortably on my grandmothers lap and cause mischief with my cousin, as the adults discussed a recent bout of family drama that seemed quite foreign to us. Eventually, wed reach the street, decorated with neon lights which accompanied an ensemble of loud conversations and pumping Punjabi music. My mum would park on a side street, next to a construction site (where something is yet to be built today). My cousin, sister and I would hop out and race up to Wigram Street, waiting patiently near a shop that sold pirated DVDs. On some days, my mother would take us into the shop and ask the store-owner if there were any good new movies. He would pull out a CD from under the register and place it loosely in a plastic sleeve with a poorly cut 3 in 1, best of Bollywood logo on it. He would then assure us that it was a high-quality print which usually meant that the guy filming the movie in the cinemas on his camcorder had quite a steady hand. After browsing the store for a little while, wed go to one of the many restaurants and eat, what was at the time, quite a normal meal.The first time Wigram Street changed for me was when I was thirteen years old. My grandmother (Ammu), who was my only grandparent living in Australia, had recently passed away and it was the first time I recall feeling a true sense of grief. Amongst the many memories I have of Ammu, there is one in which she would invite all her grandchildren over and cook parathas for us. I would sit at her kitchen bench-top eating gobhi paratha, listening to tales she would make up as she frantically attended to chores around the house. After she passed away, my mother and I would occasionally go to Wigram Street and reflect on moments we had shared with Ammu. There was one particular vegetarian restaurant which served authentic gobhi parathas. Although they didnt quite measure up to Ammus, they were able to evoke memories of her that I was desperate not to lose.As I moved into a predominantly white private high school, Wigram Street became a source of simultaneous cultural shame and relief. During that period, I undertook a long term project of assimilation which many second generation migrants go through. Part of that project involved distancing myself from my ethnicity at any cost. As I began to buy into the myth of my new transformed identity, Wigram Street became a place I resented. Despite being just ten minutes from the vast grounds of my elite private school, it was a place I wanted to stay as far away from as I could. Somewhat paradoxically, however, in rare instances where I gave in and accompanied my parents to Wigram Street, I felt a sense of unexplained ease I wasnt able to experience elsewhere.Nowadays, Im not as personally invested in Wigram Street as I once was. Its a place where my family and I can go to and laugh at the absurd experiences we had as a new ethnic family in Australia. Perhaps its somewhere thats slowly making its way into my nostalgia. When I see young families walking down the street, though, I hope this place can do as much for them, as it has done for me. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Opal /pl / noun: An amorphous, iridescent gemstone, deposited at a relatively low temperature. Background may be nearly any colour of the visual spectrum, but, in the rarest cases, is black.Opal card /pl kd / proper noun: A plastic smart card, measuring approximately 85.6mm x 53.98mm; the ID-1 international standard card size. Background may be black, green, gold, light blue, or silver. Probably toxic if eaten.***In first year, I lost my Concession Opal card after a few months.The next one lasted over two-and-a-half-years.***On Sunday, January 17th, I board a 440 bus to Leichhardt at 8:55am.I take my grey Concession Opal card out of my pocket and press it against the card reader at the front of the bus, hearing the anodyne chime confirming the success of my tap-on.The trip costs 39 cents.When I catch the bus home at 2pm, I repeat the process. Yet, no chime comes. Not even the harsh, slightly humiliating buzz suggesting failure.I try the other readers to no avail.Were all the readers broken? Was my card broken? Can Opal cards even break?The Opal website tells me I had used the card 7806 times.I tap my debit card instead and pay the full fare.***I spend a week or so in mourning and order the next card.It arrives within 5-7 business days.At 3:40pm on Friday, February 19th, a journey to work aboard a 370 is my last.After a mere 179 uses, it, too, unceremoniously refuses to tap-on when I try to go home.What the fuck?***My tribulations have scarcely afforded me the certainty of an error code. The readers have shown me neither an Error 90 (digital seal is corrupt) or Error 93 (card contents corrupt).Opal doesnt respond to my email enquiry about the apparent lapse in the reliability of their machines and cards.Research leads me to @TheOpalUser, a transport aficionado, Opal blogger, and proud owner of the 273rd Opal card ever issued. Sadly, he is unable to comment due to his proximity to Transport for NSW.I try emailing Transport for NSW directly, to see if they can explain themselves. They never respond.I wonder whether the ISO/IEC 7810:2019 Identification cards Physical characteristics global standard could shed some light on this malfeasance.A PDF copy costs 58 Swiss Francs around 80 Australian Dollars.Stonewalled at every turn.***I wait almost a month before ordering my next card.I dutifully log in to the Opal website and name it Pattys Card IV.Ive gone from putting the card in my pocket by itself to returning it to my wallet every time it gets used, sandwiching it between several other cards its fallen brethren among them.One day, I ask a bus driver at Central whether theres something wrong with the readers when my card doesnt seem to work.He answers with a perplexed look and an uncaring Nah mate, have a go with the one further back.Pattys Card IV lasts just over a month.***The tyranny of the Sydney public transport system is well-documented; the (potential) virtues of fare evasion, extolled.International students cant even use Concession cards, for reasons known only to the decrepit overlords of Transport for NSW.But, could the apparent unreliability of Opal cards actually be the linchpin of a larger conspiracy?A planned obsolescence scheme in which faulty readers eventuate in a scenario where commuters must pay a greater fare lest they risk feeling the wrath ofTransport officers / trnspt fsz / plural noun: Veritable mall cops of the Sydney public transport network, identifiable only by their perplexingly-small shoulder-hung satchels and four digit badge numbers.Or maybe Im just really sick of having to order new cards.***Its been proven that Melbournes Myki readers can run DOOM.So why cant Opal readers seem to work?I surreptitiously record the sounds of strangers tapping on and off the bus after noticing the slight variation in the pitch of the chime depending on which type of card is used.My calculations and limited knowledge of music theory leads me to discover that a tap-on with an Adult card chimes at A5 (or 880Hz), while a Concession card chimes at G#5 (or 830.61Hz).A mere half-step difference in Western music theory.I do not know what to do with this information.***Pattys Card V arrives in due course.I treat it very carefully and dont even peel off the activation sticker.I hold my breath every time I use it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It took me starting university to learn that Christian is a more fraught term with which to identify than my Catholic education wouldve had me believe. This is not because I associate religious beliefs with intellectual softness, nor because our secular University has forced me to take any measure of shame in the question of faith, but rather because people who identify as Christian often voice sentiments from which I would prefer, as a matter of basic decency, to distance myself. Best to lay these ambivalences down early, I figure: once I was Catholic, now Im probably not, still I feel a measure of protectiveness over tenets of belief that are continually misappropriated by the very people who claim allegiance to them. But this article is not about faith, and it is also not about god. As at most times Christianity comes under scrutiny today, god rarely enters the frame. This is an apt point to begin with, and a crucial distinction to preserve.CathSocs A-frame on Eastern Avenue last week had an unmistakably Catholic flavour. After years in Sydneys Catholic education system I recognised it immediately: the same discursive trick I saw performed in a hundred religion classes, the same Im-just-here-for-open-discourse stance that allowed several teachers to declare anti-queer positions over the years while copping out of responsibility for what this really signified, which was that, in one way or another, some peoples right to live freely and securely was not all that valuable to them. Of course, CathSocs A-frame was in many ways a separate thing to this entirely; I dont intend to conflate homophobia with ableism, nor suggest that posing a question is quite the same thing as expressing a view. But what felt familiar to me was the set-up of the act, its use of a rhetorical mechanism that is fast becoming a favourite of that subtler, more sensibly centred strain of religious conservatism which the Catholic church in Australia has come to embody so well.What I am referring to is a kind of framing device, a method of staging a conversation that uses the banner of open debate to lend it a dignity that it doesnt always deserve. Let me demonstrate this with reference to the classroom homosexuality debate, a spectacle marked in my memory for the way it began as a civil discourse which quickly gave staff and students occasion to share homophobic convictions as openly as if they were thoughtful intellectual points. While my Catholic-educated parents have confirmed that the pathologization of queerness is far from a new addition to the unofficial Catholic curriculum, they have also pointed out that its expression has changed: where once such prejudices were preached directly, today they take the passive but no less sinister form of a supposedly critical discussion. You have your view, says the speaker in this context, and I have mine; in this forum we are tolerant, dispassionate. The thing about discourse that is framed in this way is that anything is rendered passable: protected by the cloak of open conversation, one can question the utility of song in Christian prayer and the queer communitys right to basic dignities as if both were equally legitimate subjects of debate. But perhaps the most novel move of this technique is the way it protects its speaker from criticism, setting up the discourse so that those incensed by the question itself are easy to pin as threats to the cool civility of intelligent debate. Given that the people so incensed will frequently be queer, disabled or female groups associated, in other words, with a hypersensitive imaginary left the fruits of this rhetorical protection are often especially low-hanging.Of course, CathSocs A-Frame had nothing to do with sexuality. I am not trying to impute a homophobic undertone where there obviously isnt one, but rather to draw a line between what we saw last week and other kinds of harmful Christian rhetoric visible today. That CathSoc thought to ask whether people with disabilities are a burden, and that others sought to defend this choice (why are you apologising? reads one comment beneath their subsequent apology, dont let outrage push you into an apology that isnt due), reflects the danger of a discursive technique that uses the frames of free speech and critical conversation to legitimise questions which should not be asked in the first place. And this doesnt mean that the question is aesthetically offensive, but rather that the very act of posing it, of putting out wooden sticks for passersby to cast a response, contributes to the ongoing exclusion of people with disabilities from a conversation in which their own bodies are the objects under debate. This is the biggest irony of the democratic language in which this discourse comes couched: more often than not, its structures reinscribe the otherness of a group it presupposes will not be present (are disabled people a burden? Should gay people marry?), thus refusing them entry to the conversation before it has even begun.Judging from the kickback CathSoc has received, many people saw through a device that I am tired of seeing used to dignify the same monolithic discourse that has defined Christian conservatism for centuries. But others efforts to defend the A-Frame reflect the logic of a rhetorical technique whose invocation of a conservatism that is under assault by an overemotional, uncritical left is becoming all too familiar. As a secular citizen, I see the need for us to understand how this device operates so we are competent to name it when it occurs. And as an ambivalent Catholic, I long for a church that is honest with itself, that can admit when it is using the veil of free speech to evade accountability. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Is something happening to Sydneysiders? We usually like to think of ourselves as a pretty relaxed bunch. But these days, the mere nudging of a speakers on button after sunset seems to be enough to have neighbours frothing at the mouth and the police on their way to knock down your door.I have heard many a story about the hysteria that attempts at a decent Saturday night have been met with.My Surry Hills neighbour climbed on our fence to reach up and pull the fuse box at 9pm on a Saturday night, to shut down our party, and then staunched my housemate, one person told me.Another, who lives in Redfern, did everything right when they wanted to host a party for the first time in a year.They warned neighbours beforehand and kept noise as low as possible. Cue cops shutting the night down early, a noise abatement notice, and a potential $30,000 fine for future infringement.The cops came around the back alley and yelled at my housemates to leave, only to be sheepish when they found out they lived there. Apparently they got over 10 anonymous complaints about the party, which I find impossible to believe.Another inner-Sydney party-thrower was sent a sharply-worded letter warning of harsh consequences, were they ever to make any noise past 6pm (!) on a Saturday again.Whats going on? What is it about noise after dark that makes Sydneysiders so aggressive?Sydney seems to have come up with an answer to this already. Practically a stock character at this point is the humourless soul who snaps up the inner city terrace and proceeds to drop noise complaint after noise complaint on the sixty year old pub next door (bonus points if said pub is the Sydney Opera House). With many of Sydneys loudest, trendiest suburbs now among its more expensive, the stereotype goes that the white-collar, Dinosaur Designs-clad types who can afford the pretty terraces have no patience for the revelry of the share house next doornot when theyve spent the day chipping away at the mortgage.Aside from gentrification, another term thats quick to roll off peoples tongues these days is nanny stateapparently, New South Wales new name under the Liberal state government. Our state leaders own tyrannical attacks on fun after dark dont need belabouring, but could all of these the knee-jerk reactions to noise have been validatedand bolsteredby their actions?Or is all this noise about noise a symptom of something deeper?Are Sydneysiders so quick to scale fences because of the fences themselves?For decades, the Australian dream has endured: ownership of a detached three-bedroom house on a quarter acre block, girt by grass. Our big backyards, and the fences that score them up, have long formed a steadfast boundary that the hiss of a barbielet alone party-noisewould need a good wind to pass over. In contrast, many of the worlds party capitalsBerlin, Paris, New Yorkhave high population densities, and arent exactly known for suburban sprawl. Maybe Australians, with all our distance, just dont particularly like hearing our neighbours?Maybe not. For a nation of fence-lovers, we seem pretty interested in what our neighbours are up to. Since the 80s and 90s, shows like Today Tonight and A Current Affair have been national celebrations of gleeful, self-righteous voyeurism. Over dinner, Australians have tutted over a nightmare tenant here, a water restrictionflouter there. People who deserve punishment. Something has got our curtains twitching, our sweaty fingers reaching for the phone. Maybe its more than just the want of a quiet night? A feeling of accomplishment of righteousness***As all of this was mere conjecture; I decided to visit the other side of the fence, and ask some prolific noise-complainers what really motivated them.Emma*, an employment services industry professional from Marrickville, values her peace and quiet after a long, stressful day. When she hears the first rumblings of a weeknight party threatening to ruin her recharge time, her first port of call is the police.The ultimate thing is when youre pissed off, youve had a shitty week at work, the police arrive and you can see and hear everything, the music shuts off, and youre like fuck yes: goal accomplished. And you feel this sense of achievement. Very righteous, yeah.I also spoke to Baz*, a Newtown resident who interrupts parties when they impact his familys sleep and study time. Unlike Emma, Baz is confrontational firstnot afraid to scale the fence and yell.Id wait until someone was coming out for a cigarette, he said, and then Id target them directly, and turn on the swear words: turn the fucking noise off now!. That usually shuts it down immediately.The aggression, Baz told me, is only when strictly necessaryhe dislikes playing bad cop, and will generally wait a generous half hour after council noise restrictions kick in before taking action.I asked Baz if he had ever considered tampering with the fuse box.No! WowIm gonna do that!With our city changing, the days you can tamper with a fuse box might be drawing to a close. Clusters of apartments now fill our skylines, chipping into the quarter-acre blocks of our dreams. Like the unwanted burble of a party down the street, these new population centres are high-density, young, and noisy by nature. The sound of Sydney may only be getting louder.*Names have been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sewing clothes is a hobby I picked up during quarantine. After watching a couple of YouTube videos I found use for a few old pairs of jeans and a bleached doona cover. While Ive hand-sewn little felt cakes, fruits and animals since I was around 10, and picked up machine sewing with tote bags and pencil cases throughout high school, Id never sewn clothes until mid-last year.For anyone who creates things, being told someone will pay you for your work is one of the best compliments you can get. Until it gets asked for the third time Im sorry, but I dont like selling what I sew.My mum is the person who got me into sewing when I was younger as Id play around with her fabric scraps and some cheap thread. Its very convenient, you can alter, you can fix things when somethings not right, instead of just throwing it away. Like I give you dads old jeans and you make it into a skirt, she tells me.I struggle to contain my excitement in pinning an idea on Pinterest and then finding some fabric in my hoard of materials to actually make it. This is why I love sharing my process online; from drawing a design with my amateur drawing skills, drafting a pattern with my measurements that are probably completely off, to then constructing the pieces and sewing the final garment. With all the comments of support from my friends and sharing of ideas from the sewing mums I follow back on Instagram, Im often asked why I wont sell my pieces, or make an exception for a friend.I rarely sew the same garment twice because theres no real creative gain from it; even if I really love the design, Ill always make a slightly different version. I fear that if Im selling these pieces and making the same thing over and over again, sewing will turn into a source of income, not a source of fun and creativity. I dont want to turn my hobby into work at the risk of losing the joy I find in it.My mum, who used to sew for work before she came to Australia almost 30 years ago, agrees with me, To sell is not worth the time You make it when you feel like you want to do it, not because someone ordered it.However, one of my brothers says, I think you should do commissions, I feel like you havent yet experienced the feeling of making something and someone buying it, loving it and wearing it theres a special joy in that.In a more practical sense, sewing is a sponge and time is water. On average, one garment will take me around five to ten hours, and at a rate of $20 an hour Id need to charge over $200 a piece. While some may say that theyd happily pay $200, if I just spent day and night working on a piece, making sure it fits my body and my style preferences, it becomes really special to me, and often signifies a new skill Ive learnt in the process. Like the first time I sewed an invisible zipper, or made a top with puffy sleeves. The garment becomes a part of my sewing journey, and so I want to keep it for myself!But all my selfish reasons aside, what sewing has taught me is that theres no way a dress for $50 is made with a completely ethical production chain. Somewhere along the line, someone is being underpaid and synthetic materials are being used. Theres enough clothing in the world, and with plenty of small boutiques and handmade businesses out there that depend on sales for a living, Im not in a position to take that away from them. Im not in a position to introduce more clothing into the world for commercial purposes.Im not in it for the money I sew purely for the enjoyment of finding new ways to sew buttonholes, create ruffles, attach sleeves, and saying Thanks, I made it! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At the beginning of 2021, I am prescribed an IUD to manage my diabolical period pain. I opt to get it inserted at my GP, with minimal pain relief. I am brave, I decide. Im stoic. Ive endured enough pain and enough contraception that I have nothing to worry about.It turns out this is a mistake they dont even get the Mirena box open, because as soon as they touch my cervix, I am teary. No amount of discipline or stoicism can break through the blind pain which scrunches me up and knocks the air out of me. I cant even stop my thigh from shaking.I get a referral to an OB-GYN. We have better equipment, he tells me, but let me know if the pain is too much. It is too much. Once again my legs shake helplessly on the stirrups and my abdomen is wracked with contractions. The IUD remains in its box. I sniffle, feeling pathetic.The OB-GYN sits me down. Ellie, he says solemnly, I think you have endometriosis. Your cervix is at an angle and your uterus is retroverted. I think its because the endometriosis has created scar tissue, which has pushed the cervix around. Are your periods bad? I sob, all nine years of menstrual torture running through my head: the first cramps hitting in the summer between years six and seven, the missed days of school and work, the brain fog, the ineffectual Panadols and Nurofens, the series of unhelpful hormonal contraceptives.I get home and I sob more. Partly because of the excruciating pain of having my cervix prodded. Partly because of the indignity of sitting, legs open and shaking, with the slimy speculum inside me. But mostly because I have endured 9 years of chronic pain now and all it took to work out what was wrong was a specialist taking a look at my cervix. Im furious.The fury grows as I read the pamphlets on endometriosis the doctor has given me. The symptoms line up: the period pain, of course, but also the nausea, the faintness, the diarrhea, the aches in my lower back and upper thighs, the stabbing pain in my ovaries when I ovulate.When I asked my doctor about endometriosis, aged 15 or so, she told me not to worry it was just primary dysmenorrhea, regular old period pain. Apparently, menstruation had just arrived to me as a cursed package deal with a whole lot of suffering thrown in.I book a laparoscopy. The surgery involves probing around your abdomen via a keyhole incision in the navel. If they find endometriosis, they excise it.The night before the laparoscopy, I am subdued. The idea of surgery is scary, but the question that I really cant get out of my head is: what if they dont find endometriosis? What if Ive paid thousands of dollars for a surgery which doesnt find anything? What if Ive been exaggerating my pain the whole time?I know, rationally, that these questions are nonsense. A laparoscopy is a diagnostic procedure, I remind myself, and endometriosis rarely shows up on ultrasounds. A laparoscopy is the only real way to be sure. But all the same, years of being told that the pain is normal have got to me; I cant help feeling like maybe I am just overreacting, like maybe its all in my head.I have to arrive at the hospital at 5:30am. I change into the hospital gown and do a pregnancy test. They wheel me into the operating theatre. The anesthetist checks my name, date of birth, and whether I have any allergies. My consciousness lapses, and I wake up several hours later to the news that I was a massive pain to intubate, and that I have endometriosis. I feel relieved, sleepy, and in pain.In the fortnight it is taking me to recover from the surgery, in between opioid-addled dreams, I mull over the experience.My prevailing emotion is shock. The whole process is so surreal. To go from years of unexplained chronic pain, to a diagnosis, to treatment in a matter of weeks is absurd. I grapple with what it will be like once the surgical scars heal. Im scared: Now that less of my brain will be wasted on coping with pain, I worry Ill be disappointed in myself, that I wont be that much more functional or productive. To have spent so much time withstanding pain, and now to suffer less, is uncanny.I am also intensely conscious of my privilege in having had a laparoscopy at all. Accessing specialists, getting tests and consultations, paying for the anesthetist and the hospital and the surgeon are all immensely expensive. There is really no way I could have afforded it without help from my parents and if I had been living out of home. Even beyond the upfront cost, spending two weeks off from university and work is a sizable expense in time, study and lost income.The expense of the surgery is complicated by my lingering sense of its frivolity. Although it has now been proved undoubtedly necessary, nearly a decade of doctors downplaying my pain has its impacts.As I think through my experiences with doctors, The overwhelming observation is the unseriousness with which my doctors approached my pain. Despite its significant effects on my life, they had no interest in determining its source: their treatments were either wholly ineffective or required me to skip my periods indefinitely. At no point was the pain treated like a serious, chronic issue which was negatively affecting my quality of life. This is regrettable because the pain was nowhere near normal in the months before the laparoscopy, I was nearly always in some form of pain, a twinging near my ovaries or a cramping in my lower back simply a fixture of my body.The part of my experience which does not sit easily with popular narratives about womens health is that the gender of my doctors was totally irrelevant to the quality of the treatment I received. An assortment of women GPs ignored my symptoms and it was a male OB-GYN who finally diagnosed me. Despite what representation politics would have me believe, having a doctor who looked like me or had the same organs as me was immaterial. I cant help but be pessimistic about the prospects of tokenism (at worst) or representation (at best) for improving medical care for non cis men.In my pessimism, I remember all of the appointments where I would prepare questions in my head beforehand, telling myself I would get answers at last. When the time came to actually ask the questions, the doctors would simply brush them off. Theyd tell me I didnt have anything to worry about and we simply needed to try another medication. When I asked apologetically whether it might be worth at least getting an ultrasound, I felt like a nuisance. A crazy, hypochondriac nuisance. When things went wrong, like when my Implanon stopped working, Id wait months before returning to the doctor, preferring to wait and hope instead of bothering them again.Its clear to me that the barriers to proper healthcare are systematic ones. Most obviously, the lack of investment in research and the unwillingness to seriously address chronic pain mean that primary health carers lack the requisite knowledge to help their patients. Underpinning this, the power imbalances between doctors and patients make it difficult for people with pain, illness and disabilities to be acknowledged. This is largely not an individual fault (although individual doctors must do better) but shapes the way that patients are viewed and whether we are listened to.The feeling that you are overreacting, the fear that you are a hypochondriac, the sense that youre being annoying by persisting in seeking care: these are the symptoms of a medical system which tells us we cannot trust our bodies and we must simply tolerate debilitating pain. At the nexus of an underfunded and inaccessible health system, ingrained ableism, and flimsy investment in womens health, getting reproductive healthcare is a struggle. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Let me confess something: I am always terrified of not being able to live up to myself. I spent a long time gathering the courage to write this. A blank page is pristine, not to be marred by my half-baked thoughts and pretentious ramblings. Perfectionism is a double-edged sword. On one hand, when I do produce work, its usually meticulous. On the other hand, I more often condemn myself to the ultimate failure: not trying. What is existence without excellence? Embarrassment, my mind supplies. I must apologise for myself before Ive even begun, as if being bad at something is a moral deficiency.Our education system enforces a hierarchy of intelligence which falsely conflates test results with individual worth. With a natural ability to excel academically throughout high school, I developed a sense of self-worth predicated on overachievement. After earning several accolades during the awards night in Year 7, my dad had warned me, Dont burn out from peaking too early. Once youve reached the top, theres nowhere to go but down. Through Year 11 and 12, I was especially driven by the fear of dropping in ranks, not because I had any particular aspirations for a degree but because my identity had become so inseparable from the illusion of being the best. Anxiety would simmer in my gut as I lay in bed at night, dreading the day we got our exam results back. When I did maintain my rank, I was always awash not with happiness, but with overwhelming relief. A relief that was fleeting in contrast to the chronic pain of failure and disappointment when a single mark lost had cost me my rank.On the contrary, those who struggle with standardised testing come out of school with a distorted mentality that they will never amount to anything, diminished to numerical valuations of their worth. This is not surprising for a system that has undergone little reformation since its inception during the Industrial Revolution, an era that prioritised productivity and uniformity over creativity. The reality is that intelligence manifests in many different forms, whether logical, artistic, kinaesthetic, emotional, or social. One isnt inherently better than the other.Yet the road to unlearning toxic mentalities is long. The deep-seated need to be consistently perfect seeps into other aspects of my life, especially in my creative pursuits. My free time is interspersed with hobbies I enthusiastically launch into only to abandon when I dont demonstrate immediate aptitude. Otherwise, I waste away long stretches of inertia wallowing in my disappointment. Mediocrity is inherent in the beginning, I tell myself. Progress is never linear. But the chasm between me and those who have mastered their craft seems impossibly wide. If Im not a prodigy, whats the point?We must learn to dissociate our self-worth from our work. One terrible painting does not make you terrible at painting. We should not condemn mediocrity. That is not to say we should strive towards it, but rather accept it as an inevitable by-product of the learning process. So what if I create something average? That doesnt mean I am doomed to be average. So what if Im doomed to be average? That doesnt mean I dont have worth to contribute to the world. Capitalism has ingrained in us the idea that we mustnt waste our time pursuing hobbies unless we are good enough to monetise them. The truth is that the primal instinct to create is what makes us so beautifully human.So, go draw that lopsided picture. Go write that nonsensical story. Go sing that song off-key. Go dance on two left feet. Go stumble through the wrong notes on the piano. Despite the ever-present possibility of failure, within you lies its most potent adversary: the infinite capacity to overcome. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It was a bustling night in Pattaya. The scent of coconut flesh and grill smoke clouded the twilight that was unfurling inside. Arriving at a glittering theatre dressed in bright, neon fuchsia, our tour attendant invited everyone inside to see the drag show.The invitation set off an insidious response in my seven-year-old self. On the pavement outside, I protested and screamed hateful things about the drag queens. The conspiracy in my head was that they were being forced to perform against their will for the sake of Pattayas mafia underbelly. I thought I would go to hell just by being in their presence.Eventually, I relented and went to see the show. Far from demonic flames and brimstone, the drag queens were nothing of the preposterous sinners I had imagined.Fifteen years later, that same boy came out. Cries of concern and disgust followed as my parents prayed, in the literal sense, the gay away.If you come out to your grandma, shell pass away, my dad warned.Such remarks turned out to be nothing more than unwarranted hysteria a few years later, my grandma asked: I dont see you having a girlfriend, are you gay?Yes, I calmly replied.Ive known for a long time but didnt want your dad to get stressed! she exclaimed. Hysteria has a curious way of entangling us, confounding allies, the undecided, and myself alike.The ensuing years were characterised by a permanent paling of anti-queer anxiety. I relished the day I could go overseas and be surrounded by queer-affirming friends, to go to a school where creatives & theatre dominated all else (think La Cage aux Folles & Marxist interpretations of Les Miserables).I would eventually study a Theology degree at Wallace University,* inspired by my own faith and philosophical curiosities. There, I became involved in several student organisations, including an LGBTQ+ Forum. where I met Violet,** one of the convenors.Violet is quite possibly one of the most passionate queer advocates I know, drawing from her own experiences as a trans woman. Her quiet rectitude and caring personality is capable of inspiring all in her stead.It was also during these years that I experienced a mental downward spiral, precipitated by constant microaggressions from weekly Skype family catch-ups alongside slipping grades.Then, it culminated. A series of heated arguments ensued a few days after my birthday. Feeling overwhelmed, I left for the city centre and stared down the granite columns of a bridge, adorned with timeworn cat statues. Memories and thoughts tangled in contradictions flashed through.I sent a series of parting texts to my friends and flatmates, including Violet. It was them that lifted me away from the precipice to safety. After a police escort and hospital discharge, a message from Violet came through:Ill try and cancel my shift tomorrow and I see if I can come see you.Waking up at 6am the next morning, I rushed downstairs and there Violet was, standing just outside my flat with a box of homemade chocolate cupcakes. A wave of warmth took over as I hugged her. It must have been a solid minute. For hours upon hours, she gave consolation, lent an ear to my confusion, and above all, unconditional love.Violet was an extraordinary hero in those fleeting fateful days. The advice, unconditional understanding, and soulful empathy she offered has touched me ever since. She too, has had her own battles.Returning home, I slowly got my parents to accept my queer identity, one long conversation after another. Though I may not be able to fulfill their white-picket fenced dreams of a biological grandchild, it is important that acknowledge queer families and lives are not inferior to their straight counterparts.Over time, my parents have become some of my strongest supporters. Perhaps they were simply concerned that I would be unhappy. But while angst and precarity may be parcels of postmodern queer life, they are separate from queer happiness.Why then, am I telling this story?It is because, as overstated this may be, hope does exist. No matter how arduous the circumstances, reach out, speak to someone, a trusted friend. Get involved in queer circles and find a home in your community.It is also because I wish to share Violets courage. Not merely as a person but as a trans hero. Without her, I may not be here to write this piece. Our queer family is indivisible from trans progress. No matter what, trans rights must never be abstracted and reduced to inhumane, armchair philosophical musings. It is our duty to lift the spirits of trans youth, as the earliest trans pioneers have done to us.I am incredibly grateful for spaces such as QuAC (Queer Action Collective) and SHADES at this campus. I am always inspired by the rousing speeches against figures such as Mark Latham.Not least, because their activism gave me that impetus to tell this story.Not least, because these voices, through the past decade, motivated that little, frightened boy in Pattaya out of his closet.*, ** = Names and identities have been changed to protect the anonymity of the author. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last week, after two years of planning and preparation, the Liberal government released The Good Society website with 350 videos and many written resources for school teachers to provide sex and consent education to school children from kindergarten to Year 12. These resources are the fruition of the two-year-long, $3.7 million Respect Matters campaign. To say they are disappointing is an understatement. The University of Sydney Womens Collective demands better sex and consent education than the shambles released by the Liberal government this week.Several main videos have fallen under public scrutiny, including three which aimed to cover the topics of consent, STI prevention, and sexual violence. Notably, no explicit mention of these terms was to be heard. Instead, these videos were heavily censored, using confusing examples and silly euphemisms that failed to clearly explain the topics at hand and trivialised sexual violence. Consent was explained through milkshakes, and sexual assault was compared to tacos. Trivialising and censoring these conversations only further stigmatises sexual violence and survivors.We are informed and experienced activists in the anti-sexual violence campaign. If we ourselves struggle to decode these videos on sharks, milkshakes, and tacos, then how are these messages supposed to reach the school children they are aimed at?Consent is not complicated, but simple. These videos specifically are aimed at late teenagers who are largely already having sex. Despite this, explicit mentions of sex are sidelined and skirted around until the final module of the Year 10-12 content, in which it is only covered in two of the eight topics. Teenagers dont need confusing messages or misinformation on sex, as exemplified in these videos. Rather, they need proper, thorough sex and consent education from experienced educators. Clouding conversations on sex and consent does not teach respectful relationships nor prevent sexual violence. The rape crisis that universities, workplaces, and as we have seen over these past few weeks Parliament face will not be curbed without direct, holistic conversations in schools that treat young people like real people.As it stands, each module within the Year 10-12 program opens with a condescending voice over-explaining topics in an overly simplified and trivialised manner, talking down to teenagers who already have a vast array of lived experience in sex and relationships. This does little to expand on the current experience of exceptionally limted sex education within NSW public schools, which places a detrimentally low emphasis on sex itself. The government seems not to trust teenagers enough to incorporate sex and consent education clearly and concisely in their lives. These videos harmfully assume not only that teenagers dont engage in sex, but that they dont know, or arent themselves, survivors.The depictions of relationships within this material are deeply anchored within cisnormativity and heteronormativity, and actively abstain from any representation of gender nonconformity or queerness, even within their designated module on gender. This comes as no surprise, but of great concern within the present context of Mark Lathams Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill which attacks and silences transgender children and educators within schools. The Good Society is part of the newest attempt to erase and other trans and queer youth.When WoCo spoke with Georgia Carr, one of USyds own previous Sexual Harassment Officers who is currently studying her PhD in sex education, Carr said that expert-led information on sex and consent already exists:The problem with getting comprehensive sex education into every school isnt a lack of teaching materials, its that our teachers need time, training and trust: They need time to make sure theyre up to date on any changes (e.g. changes to consent laws, or the introduction of The Australian Curriculum in recent years) and time to familiarise themselves with new material. They need training so that they feel knowledgeable and confident about their topic. And they need trust because they fear community and media backlash we only have to look back to 2016 and the political firestorm around Safe Schools to see why one teachers might be afraid to talk about issues of sex and sexuality in schools.Where the money spent on The Good Society should have gone is towards supporting teachers. Teachers in this country are overworked, underpaid, and constantly criticised. Like Georgia says, the moral panic of the Safe Schools program and the Religious Discrimination Bill proves how heavily scrutinised teachers are, and shows that right-wing ideology is valued and upheld over childrens safety and learning in schools. It is passionate teachers that are supported, well-resourced, and given autonomy that ensure effective sex education; not drawn out metaphors about milkshakes.The stifling of research-backed, holistic sex education from experienced educators reminds us of our own university management which defunded USyds own Radical Sex and Consent Week, and are now dragging their feet as WoCo tries to bring this essential education back. This is the same university which has been proven time and time again to have a rape epidemic by reports such as The Red Zone Report. Another survey being conducted right now is again researching its severity. Sex education is the most effective way to prevent sexual violence; so why wont USyd nor the Liberal government take it seriously?Founder of End Rape On Campus Australia Sharna Bremner has openly criticised The Good Society website and videos for once again failing to support survivors:This government has form in this area. After the Australian Human Rights Commissions report into sexual violence at universities in 2017, they launched a review that relied on unis self-reporting what they were doing in response to the report, but they backed away from an expert-led taskforce that would have actually ensured unis were taking concrete action to make campuses safer.The last few months seems to have been a wake up call for some people about how the Federal Government views sexual violence, but they walked away from student survivors two and half years ago. It shouldnt be surprising to anyone that theyd completely miss the mark when it comes to educating young people about consent and relationships.Whilst two of the videos of concern have been taken down, the rest of The Good Society program needs major re-working. Experienced people in sex education and sexual violence prevention have been excluded and it absolutely shows. Nothing less than expert-informed, research-backed sex and consent education will help stop the rampant sexual violence that our universities and workplaces face.School students deserve better. Uni students deserve better.All survivors deserve better. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a Zoom breakout room one day for a group presentation, I received a private message from one of my group members.What are we in for?Our presentation was in half an hour and she was trying to spell out a word for another member, whose first language wasnt English. At first, it was easy to brush off the sentence as part of the gross blur that is online group work, but it left me unsettled.***Four years into university, Im finally getting the hang of participating in class. Despite the downfalls of Zoom education, there have been a few perks that I hope Im not the only one to admit. I have never been one to put my hand up and wing my way through class discussions. The thought of responding to a question is never a mere casual response, replaced by a fear of stumbling through a string of disconnected words. For me, participation requires curation; a careful draft of what exact words to say written into a notes app, or multiple attempts at drafting a message in the chat box, only to backspace it away. Though, slowly but surely, Ive begun to press down the space-bar and unmute myself, even if just for a few seconds.Another affordance of Zoom that I appreciate is the gallery layout. With the absence of body language, and hyper-awareness of how youre sitting or fidgeting, Zoom equalises the student appearance. This may also, in some ways, link to the general air of informality of Zoom classes: roll out of bed and into your 9am lecture, though some people feel better having dressed more power to you. Now, evenly spaced across a grid, every student occupies the same real estate and, at least on the surface level, has the same power to speak up and the relieving agency to be seen or not.But the complexities of the digital realm make it harder to dissect. Social behaviours, microaggressions and unconscious biases have carried over from in-person teaching to digital spaces. There have been exhausting experiences in Zoom classrooms that required me to confront my own behaviours and what I was unconsciously communicating.In the earlier Zoom interaction, I realised that I had somehow communicated a level of mutual whiteness to her while casually exchanging pleasantries: Whats up? How are you finding the subject?, despite being an Indian migrant whose first language is also not English. Mutuality to a level where it had become comfortable enough for her to assume that we were feeling the same frustration and impatience with the need to mutually affirm a harmful stereotype of international students. Retrospectively, its difficult not to critique my own response to the situation. Why did confronting this person feel like a quick way to ruin the dynamic of a group that Id have to work with for the coming weeks, even though the dynamic had already been skewed? Or perhaps wilful ignorance would have held a mirror up to her judgement. But at that moment, I choked.Discussing this interaction with a friend of mine, we shared the ways wed found ourselves compensating for our physical traits and body language on Zoom. For me, a thicker and more slurred Australian accent and, for her, a carefully curated backdrop that doesnt look too brown, and a careful approach to pronouncing Vs and Ws. When pondering this, its easier to understand how it represents a subtle rejection and erasure of our upbringing and culture; a hyper-awareness ingrained in us in our endless attempts at an unattainable whiteness.Despite experiences like this, there have been a handful of special moments that made me look forward to participating and engaging in class. Last semester, I had a class that was taught by a non-white tutor one of only five subjects that Ive taken in a total of twenty-eight. Fridays at 9am quickly became the best three hours of the week as our tutor checked in with students who were overseas, effectively popping the bubble of isolation; conversations ranged from chatting about favourite Malaysian food spots in Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, to the weather and skyline of different cities. The most safe and welcoming space at USyd wasnt one that needed to manifest physically, but one that was created through conversation which welcomed the nuance of students backgrounds.Its not surprising that this experience is not the norm. While the transition to Zoom has been a solution for a relatively equalised learning space, the issues surrounding privilege and race have moved with it and largely remain unchallenged, overlooked and undiscussed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is, quite literally, a glorified hole. Dug beneath the Royal Botanic Gardens and overlooking Sydney Harbour, theres no doubt as to why the Con is the poster child for the University. Its such a shame then, that students themselves dont get much of a view in this building which has been awarded for its design.The issue with the Con being a massive hole in the middle of a city is that other things happen to be underground too. I dont know which architectural genius decided itd be great to dig the hole for a performance institution not just over, not just beside, but all the way around the City Circle line, but Id like to pour cold water over their head. What, you might ask, is the end result of this masterstroke in design? Rumblings mid-recital, rumblings mid-recording and even just rumblings that interrupt the flow of practise and study as the trains travel from St James to Circular Quay, and back again, in relentless droves.One other perk of this unique design is that half of Level One is inaccessible via Level One. To venture into the back of the Con, one must loop back and climb to Level Two to pass over the train line, and then descend again to access the remainder of the first level. What this does to the poor first years each year is just criminal: many are left wondering why they have classes in a non-existent part of the building while just a few staircases away, my friends, is where your class in Room 1156 happened to be.One of the other truly delightful quirks of the Con being the Con is that the campus is totally incapable of retaining a caf for more than a year. In 2018, the Con didnt have a caf at all which, naturally, was the fault of a myriad of governmental red tape enough, apparently, to prevent any new business moving in. In 2019, someone must have finally gotten through the paperwork and in came Fast Fuel. This short lived, overpriced and mildly flavoured caf didnt even last the year. Then came 2020, and there was finally hope; Piccolo Me, the favoured watering hole of Con students since time immemorial, expanded from the Botanic Gardens and opened a small shop in the downstairs caf space. But the promise of 2020 proved illusionary, and the cafe was only open for a handful of months out of the year. With the advent of 2021, the Con saw yet another change: the Piccolo Me downstairs moved upstairs into the actual caf and finally, after half a decade of revolving door cafes, we pray that they may stay.It would be remiss of me to end a reflection on the quirks of the Con without at least some small remark on the availability of practise rooms. All I have to say is this: to everyone who studies on Main Campus, if you think library spaces are a rare commodity, you havent seen anything yet. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I was very young when I first encountered the work of Shirley Barber, prolific writer and artist of childrens books. The memories have largely been lost to time and I remember only snatches: being drawn into the orbit of a pink and purple hardback cover, tugging on my Mums jacket and traipsing through the parking lot on short, stubby legs, my new prized possession tucked proudly under my little arms.I have always had a penchant for fairies, and much of this can be attributed to Barber, whose illustrations of woodland fairies, mermaids and animal footmen breathe a sense of hazy wonder into its readers. Barber ushered in a blissful age of imagining fairy houses, secret doorways in willow trees, the whisper of gossamer wings borne on an autumn breeze. Having spent her early childhood on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, much of the pastoral beauty of English woodland makes its way into her books. When she was twelve, a local paper noted: cats, dogs and fairy stories are among Shirleys favourite subjects for illustration.Since emigrating to Australia in 1965, Barber has written whole worlds into being, filled with quaint woodlands alive with magic and fairy song. Of my personal favourites is a short story titled A Visit to Fairyland, which follows the adventure of two children who slip through a small green door in the willow tree at the bottom of their garden, finding themselves in Fairyland. Reading along, I followed the cobblestone path and became enraptured with the mushroom villages, the fairy carriages drawn by butterflies and the hidden woodlands where anthropomorphised animals played jaunty tunes. Yet, the lingering wistfulness that I felt as I closed the book was for the quiet countryside cottage that the children returned to after their adventures. Barbers fairy-filled countryside made everything come alive with possibility, like a glittering nexus between two worlds.I had always loved the idea of the countryside, its promises of peace, the dreams of a cottage bordered by rose bushes and a hearth burning steadily within. My world by comparison was a grey one of cracked asphalt, traffic lights, the sleepy rumble of cars on the highway. But as the years pass, it is impossible to shrug off a growing decolonial consciousness because popular impressions of rurality are not accidental.Rather, the most popular conception of countryside is an idyllic site of white, colonial nostalgia. Growing up in Australia meant growing up in a British settler-colony, where conceptions of bushland, dry and steely, have been cheapened in favour of a Eurocentric longing for a different kind of country: sprawling Arcadian fields of wildflowers and mossy woodland. The nostalgia is at once sinister and familiar, as I find myself yearning for an imagined homeland that never existed at all, except as a faded derivative of a colonial longing for England.Nostalgia unchecked is dangerous. The echoes of colonial efforts to terraform stolen lands can be seen everywhere, in immaculately manicured lawns, invasive flora and fauna, the scars of mining on sacred land. I spend a great deal of time, however futile, grappling with the knowledge that Barbers Arcadian fairylands and depictions of English pastures draw on a Eurocentric culture that is inextricable from colonialism.I dont like the process of unpicking joyous memories one by one, as though they were a ratty old rug. But growth is uncomfortable, and so discomfort is inevitable. When I delve into this internal conflict, it is difficult even impossible to reconcile the delight of Barbers fairies with a decolonial consciousness. The questions that I ask myself now are: Can I still draw joy and peace from these memories while knowing that they perpetuate Eurocentrism, however innocuously? Does this make for bad decolonial praxis?I dont think it will be possible for me to ever again appreciate Barbers magical worlds without reminding myself of its colonial roots in romanticizing the Eurocentric countryside. But this is not to say that I dont think softly of Barbers stories, but lovely blooms dont always mean that the roots beneath them arent rotten to the core. Importantly, when it comes to the question of decolonial praxis, there is no fixed answer. Questioning our past and challenging colonialism is a quest without a foreseeable end. The immortal questions I am faced with as I attempt to reconcile childhood joy with violent histories are ones that I think I should keep asking myself as I move through the world. Colonialism isnt easily separated from any part of the world we live in today, and it must be expected that its reach cannot be easily overcome even in the pages of a childrens storybook. It is only through a constant re-examining, the pursuit of a quest to know and unknown, that we might hope to vanquish it.Barbers influence remains even now. There is seldom a day that I dont glance out my bedroom window, wondering if there might (still) be fairies living under the bougainvillea. Two years ago, I sought out a copy of Shirley Barbers Fairy Stories and CD on eBay. It lives in a cosy nook in the back of my car, and I have it with me wherever I go. To this day I maintain that twelve bucks for a childhood relic that has since gone out of print is a bargain.If I could speak to Barber today, I would tell her that I dont blame her for my internal conflicts nor do I seek to villainise her. I simply find it difficult to grapple with the immensity of the colonized world, and I dont think it will ever get easier. Instead, I would thank Barber for her boundless imagination, the gentle soul that shines through in all of her stories, and her ever-faithful approach to the Little Folk. I would thank her for the words and illustrations that live in my heart, for daydreams of glittering wings and the laughter of pixies that Id like to think I hear on the wind on a bustling day.Of all the wonderful words that Barber has etched into my mind, I think I like these best: When children say they have seen fairies, Barber says that I have no reason not to believe them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Greek mythological epics have laid the path traversed by literary greats, Homers archetypal characters permeating the very essence of Western culture. Literature is colourfully enriched when repurposed and reappropriated into new, diverse narratives and there are no two experiences more diametrically opposed than those of the Ancient Greeks and Ocean Vuong, a second-generation immigrant whose parents fled war-torn Vietnam. Yet, as he unpacks Western canonical epics, he ties common threads in his variegated poetic patchwork of personal and cultural identity. Despite the spatial and temporal rifts, Vuong claims displacement, war, violence and trauma is a human and species-wide history, and thus any story is only amplified by the subtle echo of voices of another. By reframing and inhabiting Western works with the use of poetic license, Vuong is also able to broach cultural barriers between him and his Western audience; ultimately, he constructs his own quasi-epic, drawing from and preserving experiences since time immemorial.Vuong reappropriates the strong martial undercurrents of Homers epics to construct a representation of queer identity that shatters prior misrepresentations and societys normative model of gender and sexuality. Vuong describes the importance of mythologising the queer body, which has historically received inadequate attention in literature, whilst confronting the Western masculine tropes associated with combat. By appropriating age-old tales of Greek war heroes, he both sheds light on the perilous nature of queer expression and subverts stereotypes. Alluding to the famed Trojan myth, he writes, this belly full of blades/ & brutes, indicating the danger of concealed queer identity but as the boy experiments with wearing a dress, he becomes a flame, both potent and transformative.Vuong explores queer coming-of-age as the poems chronicle adolescence and the path to maturity, with intertextuality functioning as a constant Western frame of reference. Vuong alludes to the fables of Odysseus to evoke a queer journey of self-discovery, portraying caution and reluctance to display intimacy as he, waited/ for the night to wane/ into decades before reaching/ for his hands. The heroic connotations of Odysseus journey endow Vuong with the ability to transcend cultural chasms and bring the mythology of the queer body to the forefront of literature, heightening its valour and value. Here, intertextuality functions to reject the silence and shame conventionally surrounding narratives of minority identity, reconstructing a platform for hushed voices on which discourse can burgeon.Another shared thread woven through traditional Western and Vietnamese narratives is the concept of steadfast filial piety, and such cultural norm is amplified by the inclusion of the tale of Telemachus devotion to his father Odysseus. As Vietnam is a collectivistic society, values of unconditional filial piety and parental respect are intrinsic to Vuongs selfhood. Vuong draws from his experience of paternal absence, inviting a comparison of the Western patriarchal value of the father-figure with the power vested in matrilineal heritage in the Vietnamese realm. The contrast in the dominance of masculinity over femininity highlights the cultural differences in perceptions of familial hierarchies, confronting the Western audience.In an interview with The Guardian, Vuong discloses his intentions, that Western mythology is so charged with the father, providing an apt foundation for the dissection of his father-son relationship in poetry. The intertextuality of Greek mythology does not just function as a point of contrast; Vuong is also attracted to the way in which epics are constructed, and the personal stories they ensconce. He shares, personally, I am always asking who my father is. Like Homer, I felt Id better make it up. The mythological allusions serve a cathartic function for Vuong, a testament to the power of mythology to communicate and reconstruct a personal narrative. Vuong expresses admiration for Homers audacity to invent, demonstrating how myths remain a crucial genre of literature, despite their antiquated connotations.To examine his absent fathers complex character, Vuong draws from the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which explores mans vulnerability to narcissism, seen in Orpheus direct defiance of divine orders as he could not help but glance back at Eurydice as he made his way out of the Underworld. Orpheus actions are a commentary on the weakness of the human spirit and its tendency to lose faith; Vuong transfers these characteristics to his father, whose true personality is unknown to him. The collection probes Orpheuss flaws, emulating the essential experience of gradually realizing parental imperfections, as they fall from heroic grace in our eyes. Parental absence inevitably leads to a struggle between forgiveness and spite, so the universality of filial identity among cultures provides a salve. The father-son relationship of both Vuong and the Greek Gods have been tainted by war, interweaving them in a way that invites a collaborative approach to literature as stories are written, and rewritten. This approach, encouraging diverse interpretations and reappropriations, preserves works in that it allows them to be loved and poured over by audiences that have not yet been born. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article contains spoilers.Every child dreams of magic. You look for it in ordinary things, in wind whistling through open windows, sunlight breaking through clouds, or the invisible beat of blood in veins.Netflixs Shadow and Bone was so much more than we expected it to be. The show combines characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology, which chronologically takes place after the events of the third book, Ruin and Rising.The series follows Alina Starkov (played by Jessie Mei Li), an orphan cartographer for the First Army living in the fictional country of Ravka. The Grisha, magical beings who can manipulate the Small Science, elements that make up our world, are simultaneously revered and despised. The Grisha form the Second Army of Ravka, a central line of defence beating back its enemies, but they are also hunted and burned at the stake or sold to slave labour in other countries. Ravka is torn in half by the Shadow Fold, a swath of darkness filled with winged, flesh-eating creatures called the volcra that separates the east and west sides of the country.When Alinas childhood friend, Malyen Oretsev (played by Archie Renaux), is charged with crossing the Fold into West Ravka, she finds a way on it herself because she could not stand to let him go without her. Yet, on a sand skiff in the middle of the Fold, Alina discovers that she may be the most powerful Grisha the world has ever known: a Sun Summoner. Before Alina, a Sun Summoner was nothing but a whisper around a campfire. It was widely believed that a Sun Saint would come along to destroy the Fold and unite East and West Ravka after five hundred years of separation, though most people resigned it to a bedtime story built on the shoulders of waning faith.All of that being said, there were a fair few aspects of the show that can be uncomfortable to watch. In the books, Alina and Mal are both white and do not experience any discrimination because of their race. The show deviates from the Anglo-normative depiction of Ravkan characters, depicting Alina as being half-Shu, with Mal also being mixed-race.Our first problem lies with the vagueness surrounding Shu Han, and Ravkas geopolitical relations with the other countries of Kerch, Fjerda, the Wandering Isle, and Novyi Zem. While those familiar with the books from which the TV show is adapted have a greater insight into the relationships between these nations, the show gives little indication of tangible conflict or why it exists. Shu Han, a fictional nation that shows Chinese influences, is alienated and shrouded in vague references and mysticism. The only indication given to the audience of what one would assume is a deeply bitter war between Ravka and Shu Han are passing racist comments and targeted racism towards Alina.The shows half-hearted dabble in discussions of racism is not limited to Alina. Inej Ghafa (played by Amita Suman), a knife-wielding spy of Suli descent, is subjected to racist commentary at Alinas official unveiling as the Sun Saint. A white lady ascending the spiral staircase, where Inej is suspended on aerial silks as she masquerades as an acrobat, makes the comment: I didnt know the Zemeni had such talent. Interestingly, Jesper Fahey (played Kit Young), who actually is Zemeni, faces no such racism throughout the season. Why is it only the women who are subjected to bigotry? While one would obviously not wish racist encounters on a character, it is worth criticising the shows limited engagement with discussions of racial hate. While the show dips into discussions of xenophobia, it never seems to fully crystallise a fuller picture of a world at war. The fact that Alina was specifically made mixed-race for the show in order to project an image of diversity is very surface-level at the best. One cant help but wonder if this is simply the product of lazy storytelling, but at the same time, the first season of Shadow and Bone is so largely self-contained that one might overlook it for the time being. We wait with bated breath.However, the one thing we never expected to do was change our opinion of Mal. In the books, Mal is to put it plainly awful. He is selfish, and he doesnt seem to care about Alina until she is ripped from his shadow and enters a different world, becoming the sole hope of Ravka in a new age. The show gave Mals character so much depth, exploring the intimate connection between Alina and Mal. While the books are focalised through Alinas experiences, the show shed light on Mals journey back to Alina, as he fought tooth and claw through the Ravkan wilderness and Fjerdan permafrost.Mals journey is starkly juxtaposed by the story arc of General Kirigan (played by Ben Barnes), known to fans of the books as the Darkling, whose relationship with Alina is built on lies and manipulation. Kirigans relationship with Alina is textbook abusive from the beginning. Alina is brought to him, terrified and confused, immediately after she emerges from the Fold having just discovered that she is Grisha, and a powerful one at that. While he takes her in and promises that they will change the world, he also alienates her from Mal, the only family she has ever known. The only people who are allowed to get close to Alina are people who answer to him. There are no others like us, he tells her at one point. And there never will be. It becomes clear that while Kirigan seems to possess complex feelings for Alina, he ultimately views her as nothing more than a weapon to wield.Shadow and Bone does more to humanise Kirigan than the books attempted to, controversially revealing his true name Aleksander merely four episodes in. There is value in analysing the humanity of villains and acknowledging the moral greyness in which they operate. The character of Kirigan is a case study in the way that violence creates violence; we are shown a scene at the height of Grisha hunts, centuries in the past, where Kirigan is forced to watch his lover murdered by witch hunters. We see every step of his descent into darkness, culminating in his unleashing of merzost (the forbidden magic of creation) and creation of the Fold.Not every relationship depicted in the show is unhealthy. One of the most exciting dynamics to grace the small screen was the juxtaposition of Kaz Brekkers (played by Freddy Carter) scepticism with Inejs faith, which is tied deeply to her sense of self. She names her blades after the Saints that she prays to, and is one of Alinas first followers. Kaz could not be more different ever the sceptic, he looks for every reason to doubt and believes that nothing but greed motivates men. As Inej prepares to leave the Crows, knowing that she can never go back to the Menagerie that she was sold to as a child, Kaz tells her why he does not believe in the divine: No saints have ever watched over me, Inej. Not like you have. Their relationship tells a tale of faith and doubt, the way that they intertwine and exist together like two sides of a coin.While a second season hasnt been officially confirmed yet, showrunners have publicly spoken about plans for the future of the series which doesnt seem unlikely considering it has been atop Netflixs chart since its release. Despite our criticisms, Shadow and Bone was a joy to watch the first (and second, third, fourth) time, and we can only hope for the chance to delve deeper into the Grishaverse in coming seasons. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its a breezy Wednesday morning and Abercrombie Street, a central thoroughfare for students at the University of Sydney, is aglow with light. There is a particularly bright patch of sun shining onto an overgrown bush peeking out from under somebodys fence. You plop yourself atop the bush, basking in the warmth of the day. Opening one eye, you glance at the water bowl that has been set up for you in front of one of the local cafes, making sure that it is still there. For an old cat, youve established quite a celebrated rapport with the local human community. Its a nice day and youve decided to venture out of the backyard, your usual haunt, and spend some time among the hustle and bustle of Redfern. You drift off, your mind foggy with thoughts of sunshine and sleep.If youre a student at the University of Sydney and your journey to uni involves walking down Abercrombie Street, chances are youve encountered a certain ginger gentleman. Tiger, who can be found seeking pats along the busy Redfern street or on Instagram at @tiger_abercrombie_streetcat, is a 19-year-old ginger cat who has endeared himself to many a Redfern-goer over the years, becoming a landmark in the commute of those who flock to our dear university every day of the week.Moving from the sleepy town of Bundeena to the hustle and bustle of the inner west was something of a culture shock for Tiger, but hes an adaptable fellow. It hasnt always been caviar and champagne for the ginger darling though. Bouts of sickness have plagued our feline friend over the years, with death stalking him at every turn. One Instagram comment from early 2020 read:Im sorry to report that Tiger may be on his last legs. Hes at the vet now because he has been bleeding from the mouth. Hes a very old cat, around 17 years, and it might be his time. Hes coming back to Abercrombie this afternoon and will most probably spend the night at Hudas place. If you do see him on the street, make sure to get one final pat on this lovely old fellow.Cats always land on their feet, and thats no different for dear Tiger. 19 years gets many a USyd first- and second-year down, but Tiger isnt like other boys.Tiger himself isnt the only thing to suffer a death scare though, for the last 12 months, Tiger fans were left at a loss with the famed cats Instagram account going inexplicably dormant for about a year. The very good boy resurfaced recently, as golden and chilled out as ever, with a message for his chosen family:Hope everyones having a purrfect Sunday afternoon. My useless human social media manager had lost my Instagram login details for the past 12 months and only just managed to get access back to my account. Im still kickin and living my best cat life.Therell never be a cat like Tiger, so Honi wishes him a long, lucious, and luxurious life. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres a certain suspension of disbelief that we reserve for superheroes. We accept that they can fly, read minds, shape-shift, use magic, have super strength or bend the very fabric of our reality. We accept that an interplanetary battle seems just as possible as them fighting their local villain. Nonetheless, if there is a risk that a hero may go beyond our limits of accepted fictional realities, it is often mitigated by grounding the story in a set time period.Wonder Woman is set in 1918. Agent Carter is set in the 1940s. WandaVision travels from the 1950s to the present. Wonder Woman 1984 is set in, well, 1984. Captain Marvel is set mostly in the 1990s. Even, the upcoming Black Widow prequel movie is set in her own past as she reckons with her life before becoming an Avenger.This could just be a coincidence, or it could reflect a shift in expectations as to what is expected of female-led superhero productions. Timelines are important for superheroes as backstories chart their path from origin, to current predicament and into the future, allowing audiences to connect characters and stories across franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) or the DC Extended Universe. Male-led superhero films that have been set in the past tend to use this as a method by which to develop the backstory of the character before ending up in the present where they face contemporary issues, whilst many heroes in female-led productions have not reached the present, or at least not yet. Whilst there are a variety of possible reasons for this kind of decision, the time period of the film, nevertheless, controls the kind of stories that can be told.By moving through a number of decades between the 1950s and the contemporary present, WandaVision as a series, as with Wanda as a hero, manages to escape many of the limitations of female heroes of the past. Whilst Wandas initial use of her powers in earlier episodes seems reminiscent of the kinds of magic in sitcoms like I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched, the development of Wandas power culminates in her battle with Agatha and her identification as the Scarlet Witch. The change in her costuming throughout the series, particularly evident in the change from the Scarlet Witch Halloween costume to the Scarlet Witch suit in the finale, expresses this process of transformation as she is styled to match the decade of the episode, which ultimately demonstrates the expectations and understandings of the time period. It seems that even superpowers cant save you from normative gender roles.As much as WandaVision seeks to allow Wanda to grow, her hero experience is still shaped by the norms of domesticity, intertwined with the sitcom form and their story arc which essentially begins and ends in the home. Domesticity in superhero films is not inherently bad. The inclusion of the domestic experience in male-led superhero films created occasions like the I love you 3000 moment between Iron Man and his daughter, and Hawkeye spending time with his family on the farm in Avengers: Endgame. In many of these stories, the male heroes are permitted to have both domestic ties and their powers, often moving from one sphere to another as needed. In female-led stories, many of the plots centre on the heroes needing to choose between their home life or their life as a superhero. For Wanda, she is forced to make a choice between using her powers to stay with her family, or essentially lose her family to stop her powers from harming others. For Wonder Woman, she cant save the world without losing Steve. For Captain Marvel, she must choose between reuniting with her friend and her past or saving the world.Even the limited time that female superheroes spend in the present doesnt free female superheroes from these expectations. At one point in the series, agents Jimmy Woo, Darcy Lewis and Monica Rambeau discuss the development of Wandas powers. However, the assessment becomes a comparison to the powers of Captain Marvel. Elsewhere in the MCU, the somewhat infamous all female moment at the end of Avengers: Endgame felt abrupt and offered little nuance in its presentation of these female heroes, leaving audiences unsatisfied. Captain Marvel was met with considerable backlash and trolling pre-release that led to Rotten Tomatoes changing their review policies. The release of Wonder Woman had many again equating its potential success with the possibility to validate the creation of more diverse superhero films. Thus, although the overall positive reception of WandaVision suggests a positive change, there is still considerable opportunity for more nuanced and complex female-led superhero films and stories. As both Marvel and DC have more future female-led superhero stories planned in the near future, we will see if 2021 is the time for the female superhero to finally get her chance. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Everyone loves a fairy tale romance. Movies and TV shows often represent love through dramatic gestures and swoon-worthy moments. But they also depict unhealthy relationships that lack boundaries, and reinforce rape culture. By normalising these patterns of behaviour, popular culture perpetuates rape culture, and blurs the understanding of consent. It contributes to the lack of understanding amongst young people about what constitutes emotional abuse and rape, and normalises toxic relationships.Primarily aimed at teens, TV shows and movies like Gossip Girl, 500 Days of Summer, and Pretty Little Liars, significantly shape peoples understanding of relationships and appropriate boundaries. Younger viewers are less likely to have had discussions surrounding safe sex, consent, and healthy relationships, so they learn from what they see on-screen. Whilst schools around Australia require sex-ed from Year 6 onward, discussions of consent, rape, and relationships are far less common. These texts dont just normalise inappropriate behaviour, they often glorify it. The Notebook, often claimed to be one of the most romantic movies ever made, is a clear example of this. Noah and Allie are depicted as a couple in love, however the relationship isnt as perfect as it seems: Noah forces Allie to go on a date by threatening suicide, she knowingly cheats on her fiance, and they fight constantly (passion isnt everything, people). Whilst people attempt to emulate these relationships, they fail to acknowledge the unhealthy behaviours they adopt in the process. The theme of passion and pursuit is also repeated throughout rom-coms. The refusal to accept the word no is often seen as sweet the guy is so in love he has to keep pursuing her. But in real life healthy relationships are built on acknowledging boundaries and accepting when the other person is uncomfortable. How can we expect people to learn these lessons when Hollywood tries so hard to sell toxic relationships?Despite the growing recognition that these classic pop culture artefacts are problematic, theyre still adored. Grease not only encourages young girls to completely change themselves in order to gain a guys attention, but also includes lines like Did she put up a fight? Danny repeatedly forces himself onto Sandy and yet they still get together. Sixteen Candles had the perfect guy that many-a-high-school girl would crush on. Yet Jake carelessly hands his drunk, unconscious girlfriend to another guy and tells him to have fun.The lack of pushback, not only from characters within the shows, but from the general public reinforces the idea that these behaviours are acceptable. Recent discussions in Australia have increasingly addressed the need for more developed education on consent. But when the government releases ridiculous videos about milkshakes, which one are people more likely to understand?Older movies arent the only ones reinforcing poor behaviour. Pretty Little Liars consistently had more than 2 million viewers an episode and yet the main romance of the show was between a student and her teacher relationship. Furthermore, Gossip Girl continued the pattern of passionate partners, cheating spouses, even trading your girlfriend for a hotel like a piece of property. Mean Girls had teenagers fighting each other for a boy, betraying their friends in the process.The role of popular culture in shaping and reflecting cultural attitudes is undeniable. Given that media is endlessly consumed, the pervasiveness of these messages is concerning. By depicting toxic behaviours as acceptable, it not only normalises them throughout society, but makes change difficult. Targeting messages like these at younger audiences is a dangerous way of shaping their behaviour and influencing their beliefs.A recent shift towards recognising and calling out these ideas is important. Content like Moxie and Promising Young Woman, all represent a shift in pop culture towards representing rape culture as unacceptable. Nevertheless, more needs to be done to reinforce healthy relationships, the respect for others, and the understanding of the word no. Its time to recognise that picture perfect romances arent reality. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Did you know that otters hold hands so they dont drift apart?, one of my friends tells me.I sigh. Yes, the otters have become a symbol of mutualistic affection, their cartoon bodies plastered onto cheesy Valentines cards with an accompanying I otter-ly adore you!. But they are more than a paragon of love. This creature is feisty, resourceful, playful, but most of all, multi-dimensional.Trick and treatOtters exhibit enigmatic behaviour all year round, leaving researchers puzzled in their wake. Mesmerising and playful, the creature has been frequently observed juggling small pebbles whilst afloat. They launch the rocks high into the air and catch them with grace, rolling them across their furry bellies and necks. According to researchers at the University of Exeter, otters are inherently social creatures with a penchant for mimicry- thus one juggler inspires a whole circus. Recently, theories have emerged aiming to explain this carnival act, including the hypothesis that the performance correlates with anticipating dinner! A popular theory suggests they may be innately drawn to juggling to distract themselves from hunger pangs, or to demonstrate their excitement. Rock juggling may also be a brain stimulating activity, increasing in frequency as they age, to remain sharp and alert. Like us, otters are closely attached to objects, as David Attenborough claims each otter has their favourite rock with which they tussle and play. Some keep their beloved rock under a loose fold of skin in their armpit area for their entire lifetime, refusing to part with it.A raft of funThese spirited beings do not simply come to play in the animal kingdom, but when they do, their playtime is one to behold. Researchers watch with amazement as otters create exhilarating water amusement parks, transforming waterfalls into water slides, turning somersaults and splashing in the sea. Sliding may actually serve a survival function; they accelerate down mud paths as a form of transport, and also reinforce territory with fecal spraint production during vigorous activity. They clearly receive some adrenaline rush, as wild otters were once viewed sliding 16 times in under a minute! As they are social, their communal playtime can be remarkably structured and governed by rules. Otters have been observed playing tag in groups and chasing each others tails, as well as undergoing bouts of non-aggressive wrestling, often as frequently as 20 times an hour. They are also notably vocal with others, and have been witnessed chuckling, chirping, squeaking and snorting, all in the name of lively otter banter. Indiscriminate in their embrace, otters will hold hands and play with strangers, bonding over a shared predilection for amusement.Otterworldly skillsWhilst otters cannot purchase tools from a hardware store, their resourcefulness and tact supersedes that of cavemen, as they find novel ways to break apart hard shells encasing their food. They have been observed viciously smashing their prey against sharp rocks, or repurposing their favourite toy as a hammer. In their game of life, play intertwines with their pursuit of nutrition. As Polecha, who studies the river otter, illustrates, They are investigators. They turn over rocks and swim under log piles, while spiritedly hunting for food. These creatures sometimes display a cunning nature, evident when they squat and settle in beaver dams, forcing an exodus of this fellow marine mammal, rather than constructing their own habitats.Otterable skincareResearchers have endeavoured to decipher otters obsession with skincare, as they incessantly massage their own faces. This behaviour is purposeful, as sea otters tidy and neaten their fur, which is the densest in all the animal kingdom. Ensuring their furs cleanliness is crucial to maintaining its waterproofing qualities, so they vigorously rub and rub, to the delight of onlookers.Looking after each-otterAs well as holding hands to avoid drifting apart from their friends, otters are one of the most protective creatures over their pups. As young pups eyes remain closed for a short time after birth, the mother cleverly wraps them in seaweed and love, fastening her vulnerable offspring to her chest, and gliding gently along the waters surface. If she needs to forage, she tightly ties her pup with kelp to ensure they do not drift astray.I mustelid like it is: the otters spirited and infectious joie de vivre should delight us, uplift us and, most importantly, inspire us. I can only imagine humanity would improve if we tamed a favourite rock, opted for water slides as public transport, tied our loved ones in kelp, and approached life as a game. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We all have our niches, things that we love just a little bit too much to be normal and retain far too much knowledge of to be healthy. As a child, I watched many films and TV shows that blew my mind and enraptured my soul; but out of all of them, there is one film in particular that has become an integral part of my personal branding and holds a very special place in my heart.That film is the 2006 Disney Pixar sensation Cars.Now I know what youre thinking, why Cars of all movies? Ill admit, there are far better Pixar films out there; but alas, the heart wants what it wants. And when I say that it was my niche, I mean it. If you know me personally, youll recognise that my social media handle is a discrete-not-discrete Cars reference and has been for the past 5 years. Furthermore, I chose to put Kachow on the back of my year 12 graduation jersey. Do I regret it? Not at all. Why not? Because Cars is in my most esteemed opinion one of the most important childrens films of our generation.Now, its definitely taken its share of flack over the years. Thats hard to escape when youre deviating from Pixars cinematic formula and existing almost exclusively as a cash grab for a money-hungry corporation looking to bank in on toy sales. But as much as I laugh at the memes online, I will defend this film with my life.What makes me say this? Well, where do I start?The animation is gorgeous of course, Pixar never lets down in that regard. Visually and sonically, Cars is great. But thats only a small part of the appeal. What I truly love is the story, meaning the characters and themes. Cars has a myriad of life-lessons hidden in its undercarriage and I, in my spare time, have done my fair share of analysis on it.Our hero, of course, is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a hotshot rookie race-car making his way up the ladder to racing stardom in the Piston Cup tournament. Hes cocky, reckless, and stubborn; the perfect candidate to undergo some good ole fashioned character development. The charming residents of small town Radiator Springs; including the loveable-in-small-doses Mater, the earnest Sally, and the velvety-smooth voiced Doc Hudson make for a wonderful extended cast and the perfect catalysts for growth. The writing overall is very well-done and makes for an extremely satisfying character arc and conclusion.But taking a step away from the boring English major analysis, lets look at the emotional aspects of Cars, the stuff that gets me right in the feels. In particular, theres something really romantic about the setting of Radiator Springs and what it represents within the film. In a world where fame and riches are worshipped as the ultimate goal, Radiator Springs represents the dream of finding a place to belong and a close-knit family of people you can belong with. From the fantastic mentor-mentee relationship we see between Lightning and Doc Hudson, we learn that we dont always have to go it alone and that its okay to admit you need help, no matter how good you think you are.In an especially heartstring-pulling scene, we see the history of Radiator Springs, from its hey-day to its eventual fall into obscurity as a mega highway is built and diverts traffic from the humble town. All this happens as James Taylors Our Town plays, just to break your heart even more. Amongst other things, Cars also preaches the importance of taking a break from the highlife, living life in the slow-lane, and overall just appreciating the little things that you already have.Having first watched this film as a child, I couldnt really understand all the important messages it told. I was simply enthralled by the funny cars and a teeny tiny (read: massive) crush on Lightning McQueen. However, looking back now as an adult, I can see the merits in its morals. Watching it makes me long to get stuck in a small country-town just so I can experience similar epiphanies of self-discovery and belonging.At the ripe old age of 20, Id say that Cars is more important to me now than ever. Just likeLightning, Im right at that stage where Im still figuring out who I am and what I want to be. Do I continue my studies and get my degree majoring in English and Film? Do I (and sorry to my Mum and Dad for even suggesting it) drop out and pursue the dramatic arts career of my dreams? The future is scary and I havent the faintest idea of what Im going to do.As the title says, life is a highway and Im on my Ls (both figuratively and literally); but hopefully one day Ill find my own Radiator Springs. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (MGS3) is a 2004 stealth action video game directed by Hideo Kojima and published by Konami. If you know anything about Metal Gear or Hideo Kojima then youd know that Hideo Kojima is a crazy person and that he makes crazy design choices. At least, they may seem crazy.Shown above is how Call of Duty, the most normal video game of all, maps out its controls. As you can see the right trigger is mapped to fire and this is the obvious choice. It makes sense: a gun has a trigger and the controller has a trigger so why not map the controllers trigger button to fire.In MGS3, the X button instead of the right trigger is mapped to shoot. Although in theory it sounds like a horrible idea (mainly because you cant aim the camera with the analogue stick and shoot at the same time), in practice, it immerses the player into the world of the game while mirroring the storys anti-war thesis.Whenever you fire your gun in MGS3, youre forced to stand still and shoot as Snake, the player character, would. Because you cant simply run and gun like how you would in most other first and third person shooters, youre encouraged to use the games stealth mechanics and act like Snake.This less intuitive means of violence borrows the narratives anti-war thesis and imbues it into the game play. In MGS3, violence is not executed easily or instantly, rather, the games control scheme demands thought and consideration from its player. Forcing the player to stop and think, MGS3 encourages its core stealth gameplay while mirroring its story. Whereas Call of Duty might go out of its way to make its violent gameplay as intuitive as possible, MGS3 does the opposite.This isnt limited to the Metal Gear Solid franchise though, another good example of unintuitive game design adding to immersion can be found in the Japanese role-playing series, Dragon Quest. While the series has iterated over the years, one design choice that has never been changed is its saving system: a player can only save their game in one of its churches.This lends consequence to towns and makes each one a memorable step in the players journey. Instead of simply serving as a hub for shops and quests, each town becomes a distinct landmark and serves an important mechanical purpose.This reflects the developers original intentions: to turn Dungeons and Dragons into a video game and by proxy, gamify Lord of the Rings. Just as the fellowship would consider each landmark they travel to important, by giving the towns further mechanical purpose they gain importance in the players minds as well, immersing them in the story and the character.Dragon Quest is not alone in meaningfully restricting some of its mechanics to certain locations though. Another title that does this is CD Projekt Reds The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In The Witcher 3 a player is only allowed to use fast travel when there are signposts nearby.These restrictions force the player into experiencing the open world and finding creative and explorative means of traversing it: encouraging the player to engage with the world of the game. The Witcher 3, from both a narrative and mechanical perspective, is as much about its world as it is about its characters and story. By restricting fast travel, the developers enable an even greater depth of role-playing.When playing video games we sometimes forget that were interacting with the game in our heads just as much as were interacting with the games literal systems and mechanics. Its important to understand that like shot composition and mise en scene in a film, a video games mechanics and controls carry meaning. So as consumers and developers we should give just as much thought to what a games mechanics and controls mean as we do to how intuitive they are. By doing this, not only will we produce better games but we will also treat games as pieces of art instead of just pop culture. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On the first day of semester I wandered to my usual study spot, Bosch Commons only to find its lights off, door shut and a sign that read Permanently Closed. I quickly went onto the library website to try and find its opening hours and was sorely disappointed to discover nothing: no update, no answers. What I did notice was a new library had just opened less than 500 meters away: the new Susan Wakil Health Building Library. This was Boschs replacement, a new, lavish building that boasted state-of-the-art technologies. My disappointment turned to hope maybe a Bosch 2.0 was on the horizon. Maybe I could still study until 2am with a table full of bubble tea and muffin crumbs. I was gravely disappointed when I stepped into the Susan Wakil Library, not because it wasnt fresher than Bosch, or that it wasnt well equipped, but because it had absolutely none of the charm that Bosch once held. Theres far too much airflow in Susan Wakil, too much natural light and the carpet isnt even slightly mouldy. I was also surprised to see much of the library is only open 10-5 and is not open on weekends, while Bosch boasted 24 hour service.Sure, Bosch had its pitfalls. It was often unbearably cold and the constantly overflowing pile of used hand towels was mildly disgusting, but nevertheless I will miss it. It was a place where worlds collided, from college kids in their pajamas armed with just their laptop and charger, to Stucco residents like myself who spent many a late night in Bosch using their far superior internet to illegally download movies. Sometimes, you might even see an actual medical student. And when all three came together, it was truly spectacular. So farewell Bosch! Youll live on forever in the heart of my first degree. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sydneys train system is failing. Frequent delays are felt across the network due to systemic issues including inadequate backup power generators, shortened crew handover times, slow issue response and an inflexible new timetable.In June 2015, the NSW Government announced plans for a revolutionary driverless rail networkthe Sydney Metro. The project is now underway, and the announced routes in Sydneys northwest, CBD, west and southwest are scheduled to be completed by 2030. There are 33 confirmed stations to be created or converted to the Metro system, spanning over 66 kilometres. The first stage of the project, the northwest line through Chatswood, is scheduled to be operational by later this year. We are being promised peak hour services every 4 minutes, and platform screen doors to improve safety and decrease incident-related delays. There are still many hurdles to clear before these benefits may be enjoyed. For many years to come, expanding construction will bludgeon day-to-day operations, putting the Sydney Trains network under immense pressure. This will in turn increase demand for alternative public transport services buses, ferries and the light rail. Unreliable public transport will prompt many to drive to school or work, congesting our already busy roads and making the bus an even worse solution for those with no access to a car.Major delays within Sydneys public transport system are not hypothetical. On January 9, 2019, the city experienced some of the worst delays in decades, with only a quarter of the scheduled afternoon train services arriving on time. Given the centrality of public transport in most peoples lives, the Metro network has become a highly political issue that voters are increasingly willing to prioritise. Voters are clearly exasperated with the current system, especially compared to more efficient systems in cities like Melbourne and Brisbane, which outrank Sydney in almost every aspect of public transport infrastructure. The Light Rail construction has seen both major parties blame the other for delayed project timelines and mismanaged funding allocation. Labor recently pledged $8 billion to fast-track the project. An already optimistic timeline raises questions as to how they will be successful should they win the next State election in March.Beyond infuriating construction-delays, the Metro Rail project itself has fundamental flaws. Original plans were rushed through Parliament, hastily adjusted by politicians with very little knowledge of transport engineering. The systems heavily expedited plans give us little hope for the saving grace we were promised.For one, the Metro was initially designed for high capacity, short distance transport (such as around the CBD). Carriages on longer lines, like the northwest, will likely fill up at the first few stations. The potential for congestion-induced delays skipped stations is high, leaving us once again with an inadequate transport system.While Sydneys Metro falls to political whims, students are left wanting. Students typically have very little disposable income and tend to be time-poor. For those financially privileged who own a car in order to transit to class and work, loan and petrol payments further strain weekly budgets. Unreliable public transport inevitably means students have less available hours in the day for study or idle time, only degrading their social wellbeing and mental health. Wasting away on train platforms and standing on packed trains are barely soul-nourishing experiences. These woes are compounded for international students expected to manage unreliable transit whilst paying exorbitant tuition fees and barred from concession Opal cards only further straining their work-life balance.Its clear that politicians like Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Labor Leader Michael Daley have prioritised a short-term solution that ensures votes, rather than investing in long-term infrastructure improvements. If future policies continue to take this approach, Sydneys public transport will always be behind schedule, a never-ending loop of problems and quick fixes. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In November 2018 police shut down raves at a pair of warehouses in Marrickville that have become iconic venues for Sydneys Gen Y ravers and creatives. The NSW Police Force projected a message that they were monitoring Sydneys rave scene. Initial anxiety amongst the rave community means that warehouses are no longer made as available to crews desiring to host events.The sudden clamp down may seem surprising given Sydneysiders have raved in the inner west and inner city from the late 80s largely without major disruption. But the increasing popularity and lack of secrecy surrounding raving has undoubtedly contributed to the police crackdown. This impediment also has to be understood within a broader systemic assault on live music venues and festivals following recent, highly publicised, drug overdoses within these spaces. Tyson Koh, founder of Keep Sydney Open, believes the timing of the crackdown is entwined with a looming state election. We have a particularly anti-nightlife and anti-fun state government.In addition to police vigilance, the construction of WestConnex, the improvement and expansion of light-rail infrastructure, the sale of both disused and used public spaces to private developers and increasing gentrification in the inner west Sydneys rave belt all signify a reduction in industrial space for partying. It is easy to assume that this is a hopeless time for Sydneys nightlife. In Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2018, thousands of protestors raved outside parliament across multiple days in defence of progressive western values and free speech following armed police raids on two renowned LGBTQI+ clubs. Watching music scenes flourish overseas can be disheartening for Sydneysiders.However, recent developments herald evolution, rather than demise, for Sydneys urban rave scene. Ironically, rather than scrubbing away the aural graffiti of raves with industrial solvent, police have brought mortar to a construction site. Forget the graffitied wall, the state government and NSW Police Force have themselves laid the bricks for a mansion of dissent. They have brought a tight-knit, rave community closer together. Attempts to mute the relentless bass of Sydneys rave scene have further inflamed passions in a youth subculture that was already fiercely anti-establishment.Sydney is still pumping if you know where to look. Events, such as the 15 hour Community Chest party at the Bridge Hotel in January, are a response to changing circumstances in Sydneys alternative club cultures. DIY open-air parties in secluded areas of bush, still within Sydneys urban labyrinth, appear to be an increasingly appealing alternative to the warehouse. These are halfway between a warehouse party and a bush doof.Max, a part-time DJ who recently organised his first two raves, showcases a healthy optimism. The more the state government clamps down on regulated nightlife, the bigger this underground scene will grow. There are always two sides to every coin.Another crew, who have organised raves in Sydney for over seven years, went even further. Sydney has an amazingly vibrant scene considering the endless amount of limitations the promoters are creative and the punters are willing to pay more and go further [they] are, in my mind, more committed than punters in other cities. The artists that we host at our events frequently mention that the Sydney show was the best of the tour. This probably wouldnt be the case if we had a good club scene.DIY outdoor raves do bring their own difficulties. With less of a capacity to regulate attendance, these parties often free, donation entry or cheaply ticketed can attract outsiders unaware or disrespectful of the ethics and logistics of raves. This code includes a BYO policy, a green leave no trace ethos, respect for all genders, sexualities and races, a ban on anti-social behaviour and an awareness not to loiter in the areas surrounding secret rave locations.Largely though, these raves remain a safe space for all. While not perfect, they offer an escape from the alcohol-fuelled violence that has plagued the CBD in recent years. Promoters preach acceptance and tolerance. For non cis-men and queer ravers, this safe space is vital, especially as Oxford Street declines as a gay space and night-time violence increases in queer-friendly suburbs such as Newtown and Erskineville. While the lock-out laws have decreased rates of non-domestic violence in the CBD, violent incidents have proliferated in surrounding regions. These laws have not so much solved violence as displaced it. A 2017 study by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found that non-domestic violence had increased between 11.8 and 16.7% in suburbs like Newtown since the introduction of the lock-out laws.* * *Raves bring together musicians, performance artists and visual artists. The sensory overload is entrancing, intellectually stimulating and creatively inspiring. Raves allow attendees and performers to engage with music that is quite often more experimental than late-night sets in licenced premises. Sydney bars do not offer adequate variety to those who appreciate niche genres such as breakcore, jungle and hard trance.My discovery of the underground rave scene has been life-changing. Raving offers a sense of belonging in a gentrifying inner city belt catered to yuppies and the elderly, an inclusive zone for self-expression, a healthy avenue for letting off steam and some of the best music you can find in Sydney. I treasure the familiar faces I see at raves. There is a like-mindedness that transcends class, race and gender. It doesnt matter if, post rave, you return to a double bed with Yves Delorme sheets or a mattress on the floor. When I rave I feel like Im part of something special. I dont see myself surrounded by degenerates but rather bright, intelligent, creative, young people. Tyson shares this optimism. A lot of people who came out of the warehouse culture of the 80s and 90s notable artists have positions in government and are in positions of influence. They work for major art institutions.These nightlife spaces to a very big degree are almost like a ladder on which people are able to gain experience putting on events, working within networks and working on designs, promotions, social media, staging, dcor and sound and lighting tech. The experience theyve gained from doing parties can then be used elsewhere professionally.Rave organisers often throw parties at a financial loss or with slim profits. Proceeds go to local charities or to future events. It is love for the music that keeps Sydney alive at night. Some crews donate to Aboriginal-focused organisations to promote awareness that we party on stolen land. They take up the slack among youth who have arguably ignored broader issues in NSW with their focus on fighting the lock-out laws.Kal, the founder of a Sydney-based music syndicate, believes that the anti-commercial underground is a place where people can properly escape authoritarian control or social constructs reinforced in capitalist society. This passion fosters unrivalled innovation in local dance music. As the panellists at the recent Sydney Subcultures and Club-cultures talk at UNSW explained, the innovation of music within Sydneys LGBTQI+ community bloomed because certain party organisers, club owners and DJs like the Glitter Militia and DJ Gemma fought to make a space for themselves in the face of marginalisation even from within the queer community itself. While bars on Oxford Street in the 80s and 90s played popular dance music techno and Hi NRG, for instance alternative clubbing cultures promoted more experimental performance. The speakers at Sydney Subcultures and Club-cultures, Justin Shoulder, Jonny Seymour and DJ Gemma, demonstrated that in contests over Sydneys soul, resistance always seems to organically emerge. I have witnessed two police helicopters and a wall of police cars arrive to shut down a public rave at which not a single fine or arrest was made. The crowd dispersed respectfully. It seems that those in power fundamentally misunderstand what the underground rave scene stands for. They underestimate ravings self-regulating nature. Young people will never stop partying. No government or police force can prevent that. Issues only arise when police try to force young people to party in increasingly hazardous spaces. Thankfully, despite ongoing attempts, they have not hindered a vibrant rave scene. They never will. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Mental health advocacy is experiencing a surge. People are talking about it, and public acceptance of mental illness an all-time high.However, the conversation feels limited. Its often centred around high-functioning individuals who dont notice their depression until its too late. Though important, these discussions leave little room for discussing the system of mental health treatment. It seems as if somewhere in the discourse of r u ok? we have ignored the need to consider what happens after that question is answered.As somebody who has historically been more troubled by the chronic and debilitating nature of my mental health issues, rather than by being immediately high-risk, both mental health advocacy and mental health treatment often feel inadequate. When expressing my feelings of distress or chronic low-functioning, I have often felt dismissed by mental health professionals who tell me that there is little to nothing wrong. It took multiple years for professionals to take me seriously enough to prescribe medication, despite a number of tests returning with evidence of my illnesses. Often, this came down to how I physically presented myself, having been told numerous times that I didnt look as unwell as I said I was. The socialisation of women of colour, which influences how they conduct themselves within gendered expectations of presenting a certain way, is scarcely considered.For women of colour, its hard to give up the act for an hour in a clinic, when at all other times we are expected to be agreeable and talkative to be deemed acceptable. It becomes even harder when the power dynamic between the clinician and client is unbalanced. Sometimes subconsciously, I have internalised unequal power dynamics between me and men who have provided me with mental health care, finding it hard to reach a state of unfiltered authenticity without significantly investing in establishing trust.When yearly provisions for free mental healthcare are limited to ten sessions under a mental healthcare plan or six Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) sessions through the SRC, this delay in proper communication can result in inadequate provision of relevant mental healthcare.The legitimacy of womens pain is and taken to be less serious than that of men, leading to a situation where many women end up receiving inadequate treatment. Gendered expectations of men being less emotional or psychologically vulnerable create a situation where expression of distress is often met rapidly with the prescription of medication, whether or not such medication is necessary.These circumstances point to a broader structural problem in the preferencing of certain forms of mental health issues over others. For example, numerous resources exist for suicidal and otherwise high-risk mentally-ill individuals. However chronic mental illness, despite not being life-threatening, can worsen quality of life often seems to fall to the wayside. Additionally, public mental healthcare programs provide limited mechanisms, which focus largely on surface level solutions, like cognitive behavioural therapy. This leave little room for those lacking the financial means for ongoing talk therapy, and associates contingent symptoms of unaddressed mental health such as low energy with personal failure.In the absence of affordable public mental healthcare, the prescription of medication becomes a financially lucrative substitute. Over time, whilst they may not become life-threatening, the compounding burdens of chronic mental health overwhelmingly reduce the quality of a persons life and put them at a greater risk than they would otherwise be.Currently, the mental healthcare system lacks the capacity to comprehensively address these shortcomings, leaving many individuals without a level of support that can materially improve their situations in a meaningful way, creating an increased level of risk for those not deemed to be critically at risk.When a focus is put on broad ideations of mental health awareness, instead of on mental health support systems, it results in situations where SRC candidates mental health policies advocate for more therapy dog days over providing more monetary support for counselling services.Mental health advocacy must actively work to improve the quality and availability of mental health supports from clinical services to disability rights, to fighting against a capitalist system that prioritises productivity and efficiency over peoples health and stability. By becoming politically engaged and actively working against oppressive conditionslike povertythat aggravate mental health issues and reduce the efficacy of available, accessible mental healthcare, we can work towards a system of adequate support. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney Unions (USU) recent decision to offer free ACCESS membership is calculated to improve student experiencea priority also shared by University administration in light of poor results in national student experience rankings. The USU, helped by a million-dollar deal with the University, will make Clubs and Societies membership at the start of 2019, with an optional paid membership for students wanting to receive discounts at campus food outlets. Making ACCESS free is a major step in improving the accessibility of student unionism at the University, and has removed a significant financial barrier to participating in USU activities and initiatives.Although free ACCESS membership goes some way to making the USU more inclusive, the organisation could do far more to engage with and deliver action for students. There are many issues students face, which can never be resolved by simply letting students join societies for free.Since the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) in 2006, student unionism has been on a steady and seemingly irreversible decline. This decline is a problem because student unions, apart from providing valuable services to their members, have historically been major contributors to student activist movements around Australia. Student unionism has been instrumental in affecting major social progress, often leading protest movements and facilitating radical activism.VSU makes it dangerous for student unions to be actively political. When dependent on student services and amenities fees allocated by universities, and in the USUs case, their own corporate activities, it can be tempting for student unions to depoliticise and appease those with financial power to avoid controversy. For example, in 2013 the USU Board opposed a number of measures to support staff strikes, concerned that the strikes might affect commercial operations and their bottom line. That happened again in 2017, when the USU refused to shut down its commercial operations alongside further staff strikes. Last year, the USU took no stance on the proposed Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation because multiple Board Directors claimed not to have educated themselves on the issue, despite concerns that it constitutes a colonialist, partisan threat to academic independence on campus. With examples like this in mind, its clear that VSU doesnt just make student unions smallerit weakens them and undermines their history of activism.Some people might claim that weakening activism at university is no bad thing. Right-wing candidates in student elections have insisted that activism is futile, unwanted by students, and a distraction from providing tangible services. A common refrain of the campus right, looking to posture as sensible, apolitical, and student-focused, is that they will prioritise services for students over activism. During last years Students Representative Council (SRC) election, centre-right group Shake Up regularly claimed to want to start spending student money on students, saying they would prioritise student services. Liberal Board Director Jacob Masina explained to Honi last year that he didnt believe the Ramsay Centre was relevant to the USUs work, suggesting the Union ought to focus solely on student experience. Board Director Lachlan Finch, who ran as an Independent but is affiliated with the Liberals, was quoted in his candidate Honi interview as tepidly saying, I dont think politics has a place in making the best decisions for the Board.The framing of student services as in competition with political activism is deeply bizarre. It might be easy to proclaim that activism is a less effective use of resources than fun runs, textbook subsidies, faster WiFi and a #MeToo movement at USYD (whatever that means), but doing so necessarily fails to understand the ways in which injustices in our society affect students ability to access services. Discrimination, abuse, systemic marginalisation, and disadvantage all create barriers to accessing services and are magnified when student unions like the SRC and especially the USU fail to take strong stances on the challenges facing marginalised students.Someone who is being underpaid at work certainly benefits from caseworkers, but fighting for stronger unions, better pay, and more accountability for bosses helps to stop them being underpaid in the first place. Someone who faces discrimination based on their identity or ability may appreciate the SRC Legal Service, but additionally would benefit from activism fighting stigma and bigotry. USU Clubs and Societies are a great way to get involved in university, but without demanding better housing affordability and ensuring tertiary education is affordable, regional and low-SES students have a difficult time ever accessing them. Therapy dogs are pretty cute, but its hard to see how they could have a tangible benefit on students mental health when were faced with material assaults on our welfare and living standards. Constantly facing issues like discrimination and exploitation at work, systemic racist violence, sexual harassment and abuse, vicious anti-LGBT+ sentiment, ableism, and the looming threat of climate disaster has a tendency to make you miserable. Student services can mitigate these issues to some extent, but to truly address them in meaningful ways, we need activism.Student activism isnt futile. Looking at the University of Sydney Wom*ns Collective, we can observe how dedicated and radical activism against sexual assault at university led to the productive Red Zone report and the End Rape on Campus movement. The Collectives work created tangible benefits and change for women on campus, which no amount of palatable corporate apologism could have created. In 2014 students organised en masse against the fee deregulation proposed in the federal budget, sending a powerful message to the government about the need for access to tertiary education. The USyd Disabilities Collective and Caregivers Network protested last year against the inaccessibility of public transport, something which directly affects the ability of students with disabilities to access a university education. These achievements illustrate the potential for activism to focus effectively on student wellbeing, provide a voice for marginalised students, and remove barriers to accessing tertiary education.It is vital for student unions to take on activism to change the oppressive systems which materially harm students. Their role as providers of student services is enrichednot diminishedby improving student wellbeing on a systemic scale. Challenging political oppression, unjust discrimination, and exclusion will always be valuable uses of union resources. In real terms, despite positive progress by the USU towards better access to its services, a neoliberal and apolitical union operating in the shadow of VSU will never be truly impactful in improving the lives of all students. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dear Mr Brennan, I am writing to let you know if you want to send me home or not, but I am frightened to go home. I got trouble in my country, if I go I might get kill because they are waiting for me all the time. Dr Mr Brennan, you will let me stop in Queensland because I will get kill that is all I ask you. Letter from Peter Janky of Malaita, Solomon Islands to John Brennan, Queensland Immigration Department. Dozens of letters like this were sent to the Queensland Department of Immigration near the end of 1906. They give an insight into the emotional trauma and uncertainty generated by the Pacific Island Labourers Act (1901). After 31 December 1906, all South Sea Islanders resident in Australia were to be forcibly and permanently deported to their countries of origin, with the exception of those born in Australia or those who had been residents continuously since before 1879. Between January 1907 and December 1908, between 4500 to 5000 Islanders boarded steamships bound for the South Sea Islands. It remains the largest mass deportation in Australian history. This article tells the story of how these fateful events came about.**********************************************************I sorry that I cant see you before I go. Government he hurry up along we fellows. Louis, a Malaitan Islander to his girlfriend (1906) From the late 1860s to the early 1900s, the Queensland sugar and cotton industries had become structurally reliant on cheap labour from the South Sea Islands. During this time, approximately 67,000 Islanders were brought to Australia to work on vast, isolated sugar plantations. Yet in spite of the significant economic benefits that the labour trade brought to the state, or more specifically, to its burgeoning plantation class, resentment against Islanders proved widespread. Although many Islandersreferred to as first indenturescompleted their contracts and returned home, others chose to stay on in Queensland, seeking further employment on plantations or in other industries. Most Islanders who chose to remain in Australia believed that after their initial term of employment, they would be able to demand better wages as higher skilled workers. Many had formed close associations with their local communities, intermarried, and were members of educational institutions and churches in their adopted homeland. Additionally, returning home carried a number of risks. The extractive process of colonisation in the South Pacific meant that living conditions on the islands had deteriorated, whilst those who had been absent for long periods often found it difficult to readjust to life on return, particularly where family members had departed or were deceased. Dire circumstances had also seen the outbreak of high levels of violence, particularly in the Solomon Islands from where the majority of indentured workers were drawn from the 1890s onwards. Yet for those Islanders who chose to make Queensland home, life was not without risk either.From the moment indentured workers arrived in Australia from the South Sea Islands, racially motivated campaigns sought to regulate, surveil and segregate them. Public narratives on Islanders shifted between viewing labourers as nave, docile children, and dangerous, impulsive criminals. In an interview for the 1869 Select Committee in Queensland Pacific Island Labour, Mr Charles Eden, a planter from Cardwell district, called his workers docile, laborious, good-tempered and affectionate, but moments later referred to them as capable of acting like warriors, dancing and howling like madmen jumping and shrieking in the most appalling way. Public organisations opposing Pacific Islander labour sprang up throughout the country. One group, founded in Brisbane in 1871, stated their determination to stop the deleterious effects on the civil, religious, and political institutions of Queensland brought by a class of unintelligent labour of the semi-civilised races.By the 1880s, state legislation mandating the surveillance and restriction of South Sea Islander populations intensified. Under pressure from white trade unionists, the Queensland Pacific Island Labourers Act (1880) confined Islanders to work only in industries related to tropical or semi-tropical agriculture. This allowed Islanders to continue to work on cane farms and in businesses tied to the plantation economy (general stores, boarding houses, transportation), but not in other economic spheres. In this period, the vitriol directed towards the resident Islander population became more intense and achieved particular prominence in the discourse of early Australian nationalists and trade unionists. The famed Australian federationist, Harold Finch-Hatton wrote in his 1885 travelogue Advance Australia! that in Northern Queensland intercourse with civilisation is producing its usual result among uneducated savages and the kanakas in Mackay are starting to get troublesome.E. J. Brady, poet and editor of the Labor Party newspaper The Australian Workman, gave an account of his visit to Kanakatown in Bundaberg in the 1890s that now serves as a testament to racist attitudes prevalent in the period. The Kanaka quarter was an edification, a labyrinth of rookeries on the outskirts of Bundaberg, where black and yellow make their lairs. It remains to me as a nightmare of evil sights and smells and soundsTommy Tanna [a stereotypical name attributed to South Sea Islanders] was in a bad humour. Race-hatred gleaned in his bloodshot eyes. Murder stalked upon the hot, quiet Northern night. It was an evening stroll through a village of darkest Papua, where dusky gloom was balefully lighted by a sprinkling of degraded white faces. The labour press stressed the threat posed by Islander labour to white mens wages. The Worker provocatively asked Queenslanders whether they wanted their state to be known as Mongrelia or Kanakaland. White labourist solidarity required standing up against the fat man of business and his n***er nourished industry. By the turn of the twentieth century, the scene was set for drastic action to be taken against the South Sea Islander population.I am afraid of the kanaka and of every black man, because I do not want my race to be contaminated with theirs. Jim Page, Labour Member for Maranoa, House of Representatives Debate, 1901The governing mantra of early federation politics was the ceaseless quest to make Australia white. Whilst the term White Australia Policy is generally used to refer to the Immigration Restriction Act (1901) and its infamous dictation test, Australian politicians were as fearful of the enemy within as of those yet to arrive. The logic of White Australia demanded the segregation and marginalisation of non-white communities within the nation. This quest culminated in the forced deportation of South Sea Islanders after 1906. The Pacific Island Labourers Act (1901) was one of the first items of business on the agenda of the newly convened Commonwealth Parliament. It provisioned that by March 1904, no new arrivals of South Sea Islanders would be admitted to the country. After 31 December 1906, those remaining in the country who had been born overseas and had arrived after 1879 were to be deported en masse. The act passed in parliament without incident with near unanimous support. The then Attorney General of Australia, Alfred Deakin, noted the close connection between this act and restrictions on migration: the two things go hand in hand and are the necessary complement of a single policythe policy of securing a white Australia. Deakin was particularly keen to stress the insights that White Australia had gleaned from the experience of multi-racial democracy in the USAwe should be false to the lessons taught us in the great republic of the Westsuccessful parliamentary democracy required the unity of race.The jurist Henry Bournes Higgins delighted in the passage of what he saw as the most vital measure on the programme that the government has put before us. The few parliamentary voices of criticism came in the Senate, where the Free Traders David Charleston and Josiah Symon referred to the act as a cruel wrong (Symon) and an example of the hysteria generated by the White Australian cry (Charleston). The press proved slightly more equivocal. The Adelaide Observer, whilst supporting restrictions on immigration noted that If the deportation law should be carried into effect, Australia will be guilty of a monstrous injustice and gross inhumanity, whilst The Worker (Wagga Wagga) believed it unjust to deport a community which was strikingly intelligent and had a fair mastery of the English language, together with a fair education. Other sections of the media voiced criticism along different lines: the terms of the act had not been harsh enough. An anonymous writer in The Bulletin had hoped that the Bill would include a prohibition on inter-racial marriageI hope to see the day when the Australian Parliament will do its bounden duty and make miscegenation a crime punishable by heavy penalties to all parties concerned I would like to see boiled in oil all those legislators of the Kanaka Prostitute Party who recently voted in favour of non-deportation of those Kanakas living with white women. Delays in deportation were attributed by The Bulletin to the spineless, incompetent, unreliable men of the Barton government, who lacked the courage to sweep the remaining n***ers into the sea, and to a conspiracy between the owners of industry and their black workers, as illustrated in the accompanying cartoon.The response to deportation amongst white workers in Queensland was overwhelming. According to the Brisbane based magazine Truth, upon the announcement of the deportation bill, a feeling of joy thrilled all the white workers of the Queensland sugar districts. At last, their hopes were to be realised and they were no longer to be forced to compete with the black man, or to run the risk of having their wives and daughters assaulted, perhaps murdered.**********************************************************Is it really true that white people want to send all boys back to islands, we been work well in this land for white people, then why they want to turn us out? Jack Malayta, Letter to the Brisbane Courier, October 1901The passage of the Pacific Island Labourers Act was met with spirited resistance from the resident Islander community in Queensland. Two petitions were sent by Islanders to the King and the Governor General in late 1901 and early 1902, carrying the signatures of community leaders. One requested that the Islanders be given permission to lead a quiet and peaceful life in Queensland where most of us have resided for many years, whilst the other noted the difficulties that returning to their places of origin posed for Islanders: Many of us have been continuously resident in Queensland for upwards of twenty years and during these years our parents and brothers died and we are forgotten there; villages have disappeared and some of our tribes have been exterminated.A Pacific Islanders Association was also formed in Mackay by a 30-year-old boarding house proprietor, Henry Tongoa, in 1904. The Associations meetings across North Queensland regularly attracted audiences of more than 200 people and arranged a march of 100 Islanders through Queen Street in Brisbane in 1907 to receive a hearing by the states Home Secretary. Tongoa, with the support of 500 signatories, proposed an alternative arrangement to Deakin in 1906: a reserve could be set aside for South Sea Islanders in a remote area of tropical Australia, where their long history of cultivation could be put to good use and they would not be in competition with white workers. Unsurprisingly this proposal was quickly shut down. However, pressure by community groups and plantation owners forced the state governments hand in 1906 and a Royal Commission was called to investigate possible exemptions to the terms of the act. Islander testimony stressed that many did not wish to return home: they had children in local schools, were members of community churches, had steady employment, and in some instances owned land of their own. Further, many argued that returning home would be dangerous, especially for the ill, old and infirm.White plantation owners additionally signalled that the end of the labour trade would spell the death of the sugar industry in Queensland, depriving farms of their inexpensive workforce. In response, the Royal Commission recommended that a number of exemptions be given to Islanders who were enrolled in educational institutions or had intermarried in their communities. More significantly, fears of industrialists and plantation owners were allayed by the governments provision of fiscal protection and white labour incentives in the industry. A protective duty of 6 per ton was placed on sugar imports, and, to encourage European labour, 2 of a 3 pound excise placed on Australian produced sugar would be refunded on sugar manufactured from cane grown and harvested solely by Europeans. The cultural imperatives of the White Australia project were thus to be buttressed by an incipient economic nationalism.********************************************************** Within a short space of time now, the walkabout kanaka and the work-a-day kanaka in Queensland will be but a memory of bygone days. The Brisbane Telegraph, 8 December 1906 With the preconditions for deportation set in place, the action was swiftly taken to round up remaining Islanders for transportation to Brisbane or the sugar ports of coastal North Queensland. The Pacific Island Department of Queensland was to be paid 5 per head for each Islander deported. In order to avoid trouble, it was acknowledged that the deportation should be commenced at once on a large scale and carried out regularly until the work is completed. Islanders from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) were to be separated from those from the Solomon Islands to avoid conflict at the ports, and punishment was to be meted out to those who disobeyed embarkation orders.Whilst the majority of Islanders complied with the deportation orders, it is thought that up to a hundred fled inland to escape police raids. One Islander reputedly lived in the hills south of Cardwell for 30 years until he was apprehended and sent to an Aboriginal reserve, whilst in Innisfail, a European hid a favourite servant for weeks in the bush and supplied him with food. To finance the deportation, the Commonwealth government put pressure on employers to pay for shipping costs. This proposal met with significant resistance, forcing the government to turn to a more nefarious solution. In the 1880s, the Queensland government had established a Pacific Islanders fund, which paid the wages of deceased labourers to their families in the islands. Only 16% of these funds would reach their destination. The remainder of the money was returned to the Queensland Treasury and duly put towards meeting the costs of deportation. Islanders left Queensland in large numbers, filled with spite and resentment. Departing Malaita passengers on board one steamship issued a defiant farewell: Goodbye White Australia; Goodbye Queensland; Goodbye Christians.**********************************************************Human solidarity does not mean the mixing of all the races of mankind in the mortar, and the extinction of race, colour, and character. The Tocsin, 1901With the deportation of two-thirds of Australias South Sea Islander community came the destruction of a once lively community and much of its cultural memory. Yet those who remained kept the stories of the departed alive. Many were never able to let go of the trauma which accompanied saying permanent goodbyes to friends, colleagues and family members on the docks of Brisbane, Mackay and Bowen. Their testimony bears witness to the hypocrisy of the White Australia project. In one of the most harrowing pieces of evidence given to the Royal Commission of 1906, a Lifu Islander from North Rockhampton offered an apt summary: We are very sorry, and we have plenty feeling. We know white people dont like black men in this country and hate the sight of us these boys no come from the islands by their own will. Ship comes to the islands and make fool of them and fetch them to this countryI am ashamed to think you drive away people like that. That is a thing I would not do. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A water crisis is unfolding in the small north-west NSW town of Walgett, with residents currently drinking bore water that has been deemed unsafe by public health experts. The situation comes amid record-breaking temperatures across NSW, with the mercury frequently climbing past 45 degrees since the new year. Walgetts water woes also mirror issues across the north-west and far west of the state, where many communities are experiencing issues with water access due to the depletion of the Murray-Darling river system.Usually, towns like Walgett, Menindee, Broken Hill and Wilcannia use water from the rivers to supply their needs. However, with the rivers dry these places have been forced to rely entirely on bore water for drinking and bathing, with many residents complaining about their waters foul taste and appearance as well as negative health impacts.Associate Professor Jaqcui Webster, director of a World Health Organisation unit on the health impacts of salt, released a statement through the local Dharriwaa Elders Group on the 30th of November warning that long-term exposure to bore water in Walgett could negatively impact on residents health. Walgetts water contains approximately twice the safe level of sodium, which would expose residents to high blood pressure and therefore induce higher rates of stroke, heart problems and kidney disease. Salt exposure is already above healthy levels in the community due to high consumption of salty preserved foods, which are cheaper and more accessible in remote areas than fresh foods.Walgett is a Gamilaraay (also spelt Gomeroi, Gamilaroi or Kamilaroi) word meaning two rivers, referring to the towns location near the Barwon and Namoi rivers which join at Walgett before flowing into the Darling river system. The rivers are culturally vital for Gamilaraay people, among other reasons because they continue to provide a source of healthy traditional foods such as freshwater mussels and fish. They are also socially and economically vital to the town, providing water for livestock and crops as well as drinking water and recreation in the summer. However, both rivers are almost entirely dry due to decreased overall flows resulting from the drought, and because of water extraction by upstream irrigators. While the rivers have run dry before, these events are becoming more common and severe, a situation which scientists have linked to both climate change and the failure of water management overall in the Murray-Darling Basin.In early January, Walgetts water treatment facility failed due to a power outage, leaving the town entirely without a water supply for several days. Volunteers delivered bottled water from nearby towns, with some deliveries funded by community donations and others donated by local businesses. The plant was repaired and water supply from the bore was restored, but concerns remain over the health impacts of this water source.Walgett has a population of approximately 2500 people, of whom at least 45% are Aboriginal. The town is regarded as one of the most socially disadvantaged in NSW. Aboriginal residents of Walgett are on average 20% more likely to be unemployed, earn 25% less, and are over 20% less likely to have completed high school or attained a tertiary qualification than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. Aboriginal people across Western NSW live approximately 20 years shorter than non-Aboriginal people, chiefly due to health issues arising from poor diets. These social indicators have not improved in the previous decade, and in some instances are getting worse. Alongside the town itself, two nearby Aboriginal communities at Gingie and Namoi Village are home to a further 100 families. Gingie is a former mission, while Namoi Village was a government-run Aboriginal reserve. Until the 1967 Referendum, Aboriginal people in these communities were legally wards of the state, and could not marry, seek employment or leave their communities without the permission of local authorities and the NSW Aborigines Protection Board.Walgett is a good example of what sociologist Barry Morris calls the cultural borderlands of north-west and far-west NSW, where the process of colonialism remains more obviously unfinished and questions of Aboriginal disadvantage remain more clearly unresolved than in the more heavily developed parts of the state.Towns in the region have large Aboriginal communities who have become increasingly culturally and politically assertive since the emergence of the Aboriginal land rights movement nationally since the 1970s. This has taken the form of cultural initiatives such as Gamilaraay language revival, the formation of Aboriginal community services, and political advocacy around Aboriginal land ownership.Aboriginal demands for the restoration of land in particular, fundamentally challenge the social, political and economic rural status quo, which is historically based on the dispossession of Aboriginal nations by white farmers for pastoral and agricultural development. Aboriginal people never alienated their land through a sale and were not officially conquered by the British crown, implying an ongoing need for either restoration of land or financial compensation. This radically threatens the economic interests of rural landowners, who have responded by politically challenging the legitimacy of Aboriginal land claims and dismissing calls for Aboriginal self-determination. Subsequently, a re-assertion of the colonial relationship in towns like Walgett has been seen, a trend especially visible in the rising numbers of local police, cuts to community-run services, and worsening rates of child removal and incarceration for Aboriginal people. In 2015 Walgett saw the construction of a new $16 million police station, while the previous year a domestic violence service for Aboriginal women was closed due to budget cuts.Social problems in remote NSW are also directly linked with the health of the rivers and the broader environment in particular, droughts lead to poor mental health especially among young people, and higher rates of youth crime are linked to heatwaves and periods when local rivers are dry. Rivers are an important source of affordable recreation, offering the opportunity for young Aboriginal people to cool off and socialise away from the often oppressive atmosphere of towns where racism has always been part of the social fabric.Authorities have been slow to respond to the crisis in Walgett, with local Mayor Ian Woodcock initially claiming the water is safe to drink and telling residents it is better than nothing. However, NSW regional water minister Niall Blair has now called for an investigation into water quality in the town, and the state government has offered funding for initiatives to fix the water supply problems. Enlarging the town weir, constructing long pipelines to pump water from healthier rivers, or building a local desalination plant have been suggested as ways to ensure a reliable supply of safe drinking water for the town. However, these suggestions do not address the fundamental issue raised by locals; the over-allocation of water to irrigation farmers. The combination of the drought and large volumes of water being diverted into private dams for irrigation has left the Barwon and Namoi rivers largely dry, with environmental flows released from upstream dams unable to reach Walgett or the towns along the Darling river further downstream. Locals across rural NSW argue that management of the Murray-Darling river is corrupt, with regulators unable or unwilling to police irrigators who extract too much water, and widespread collusion between state and federal governments and irrigators in the process of deciding limits on water use. The coal industry, which has expanded in recent years into the Namoi river valley with the construction of large open-cut mines near Boggabri, Gunnedah and Narrabri, uses very large quantities of water but is not required to publicly report how much water is used. This has led to a demand for a Royal Commission into the management of the river system, and limits on the volume of water that can be pumped out of rivers for use irrigating crops, along with calls for limits on the further expansion of coal mining in the area.Aboriginal organisations and advocacy groups have also argued for a greater role in water management. Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN), a coalition of native title holders in the upper part of the Murray-Darling river system, has criticised its exclusion by NSW authorities from decision making around the water crisis. NBANs leaders have also backed calls for a royal commission into the Murray-Darling management plan, which they argue has clearly failed to provide any benefits to the health of the river or to the predominantly Aboriginal communities along it.With the long-term viability of towns like Walgett dependent on resolving the water crisis, their future looks uncertain. Locals have welcomed the donations of drinking water from other towns, but stress that this is not a long term solution. What is ultimately needed is an investment in sustainable and safe water supply and a greater role for Aboriginal communities in water and other aspects of environmental management.Volunteers from Sydney-based Aboriginal rights group FIRE, including students from Sydney University, have been collecting donations of money and water and organising deliveries of safe drinking water to Walgett. If you would like to donate, send funds to:Bendigo BankSAWC SydneyBSB 633 000Acct 150 758 621(there are no spaces, just there for ease of reading)Please write * Walgett * in the description tab so we know what monies are for.Or contact the FIRE page to arrange donations of bottled water. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In SRC Minutes seen by Honi today, the SRC Executive unanimously resolved to pay SRC Vice Presidents Wanlin Chu (Panda) and Dane Luo (Independent) a total stipend of $27,820, or $13,910 each, pending review and discussion at the SRC general meeting in March. Honi understands that Luo and Chu did not vote on the motion which passed in the December executive meeting. The meeting, which barely reached quorum with four executive members present, saw Luo and Chu foreshadow their increased responsibilities, highlighting the creation of an Interfaith Festival and greater engagement with faculty societies.The new stipend was made possible by the release of $41,345 in funds previously allocated to student-facing services like the SRCs now defunct second hand bookshop. This comes on the back of several months of SRC disarray following the attempted rolling of the Wom*ns Collectiveand the collapse of three repselects with numerous office bearer positions remaining unfilled, which has left a sense of persistent ambiguity over the state of the 2019 SRC budget. The VP stipend stands to overshadow the budgets of the SRC Collectives. Under the 2018 Budget, the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) and the Queer Action Collective (QuAC) were afforded $2,000 and $3,200 respectively.The timing of the decision to pay a stipend to the vice presidents is particularly interesting given its proximity to negotiations over the allocation of proceeds from the Students Services and Amenities Fees (SSAF) which constitute the SRCs primary source of funding. In 2018, the SSAF, paid by each student at USyd, amounted to a total of $16,259,051 and was distributed amongst the SRC, University of Sydney Union (USU), Sydney University Postgraduate Association (SUPRA), Sydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF), The Cumberland Student Guild, and Student Support Services. The distribution of that money (with the exception of $2,000,000 allocated to a capital sinking fund) is determined by a prolonged period of negotiations between these organisations in which their basic funding requirements, as well as expected projects for the year, are considered. It is likely that the SRCs ongoing dysfunction will significantly weaken its standing in these negotiations and subsequently reduce the total amount of funding it receives. If this occurs, the decision to allocate $27,820 of its available budget to remunerating what has often been considered a figure-head position is likely to come under question.Various pre-selected convenors of collectives have been vocal in their criticism of the executives decision. Swapnik Sanagavarapu, one of ACARs preselected candidates for ethnocultural officer, told Honi In a time when collectives have been dissuaded from having their own t-shirts for Welcome Week due to budgetary constraints and tight SSAF negotiations, it is disheartening, but unsurprising, that the Gen Exec has chosen to give money to the VP rather than to collectives.Wom*ns Collective Convenor Layla Mkh added to these criticisms, telling Honi once again the 2019SRC is showing us how they not only dont care about student unionism but the fact they dont know how to run the organisation.However, SRC President Jacky He seemed not to give much weight to these concerns.In the future, once the stipends of the Vice Presidents have gone on for a year, they become included as a part of the base SSAF funding which is guaranteed to obtain for the following years and the amount and flexibility of the SSAF that we receive would not be affected, He said.Whilst He is correct in pointing out that the money for a VP stipend is not directly coming out of SSAF allocations this year, it would be misguided to think the decision bears no consequence on funding for collectives or other SRC services.In Decembers executive meeting, two funding requests lodged by former SRC President Imogen Grant and the Wom*ns Collective for merchandise totalling $1,500 were rejected in camera (a decision to hide discussion from the public record). However, a member of the general executive informed Honi that the rationale for rejecting those requests was the SRCs weak position in the aforementioned SSAF negotiations. If this is the case, the $41,000 made available through the bookshops closure could have been used as a safeguard against a potential decrease in total funding. The funding rejections also continued a track record of limited transparency where, in RepsElect 2, the majority bloc, including members of the SRC Executive, had voted to move in camera. The SRC Executives first two meetings also contained in camera discussions. Unlike the USU whose meetings frequently go in camera due to issues of commercial confidentiality and fiduciary duties, the SRC Executive has no equivalent reason for these discussions.In addition to funding concerns, it is also questionable whether the role of vice president is worthy of a subsidy in a context where ethnocultural, queer and environment officers do not receive any remuneration from the SRC. In a statement to Pulp, He justified the decision on the basis that Dane and Caitlyn have been performing above and beyond their obligations.The ongoing RepsElect difficulties have meant unelected office bearers have not been able to contribute to the SRC as much and the VPs have worked extremely hard to make sure the collective stalls and essential merchandise are put together, He said.When asked why such duties could not be distributed amongst office bearers, He responded: office-bearers, in accordance to [sic] the regulations, would not have the capacity to perform the role. Whether office-bearers would be restricted from performing these functions under the current regulations is contentious. Ultimately, however, even if this were the case, it is unclear why the option of altering those regulations was not explored prior to pushing for stipend reform.A further reason behind the vice presidents greater obligations and workload may be the recurring absence of SRC Co-General Secretary Yuxuan Yang (Panda), who in 2018 spent three months overseas and only returned one months worth of pay. Despite this, Yang was re-elected as General Secretary at RepsElect 1. Honi understands Yang is currently undertaking an internship in China where his ability to communicate with the team is undermined, according to He, due to internet and Facebook issues. This leaves open the possibility of incumbent Co-General Secretary Niamh Callinan (Unity/Labor Right) facing an increased workload which Luo and Chu have assisted in with a proactive perspective to a vague description of a large role according to Callinan.Yang did not respond to Honis request for comment.The new VP stipend clashes with Panda for SRCs 2018 campaign promises. Pandas policy statements previously promised to subsidise fund [sic] into providing more electronic copies of textbooks as well as establishing $6,000 SRC-endorsed scholarships. The executives decision to increase executive pay and source the funds from two-thirds of the SRCs new funding guarantee, during a difficult budgetary period, effectively squanders funds that could be otherwise expended on Pandas election promises and student services outcomes in the immediate future. The decision also remains at odds with principles of service espoused by recent campus Liberal and right-of-centre candidates. Unsuccessful 2017 presidential candidate Brendan Ma (Mod-Lib) had promised to take $5000 from his own salary to establish a means-tested textbook subsidy pool.Stipend reform is not particularly novel. Attempts at installing stipends for multiple office bearer positions failed in 2018 and will be re-attempted under He in 2019. But the concentration of a large portion of student money into a single executive position deviates from past proposals. The new stipend tells us, as students, that the SRCs financial priorities are being reconfigured. As with all financial decisions, there are winners and losers. For now, with a shiny new $27k stipend, only the SRC vice presidents win. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You may have already heard it: on Wednesday, the University of Sydney Union (USU) announced that from 2019 onwards, membership will be free for all students.Students may join clubs and societies with no financial barrier aside from the occasional nominal registration fee. Food and retail discounts, previously 15%, will be reduced to 10% but will be available only through an opt-in scheme priced at $45 a year. The move was made possible by a near $1 million offering from the University itself.The changes are no doubt beneficial to students in certain respects. Students will now be able to immerse themselves in a society without the prohibitive financial barrier of ACCESS fees. Under the previous scheme, an eager first year would have to fork out at least $75 before joining any clubs or societies. This would be in addition to over $150 for the Student Services and Amenities Fee, over a quarter of which already goes to the USU.What is less obvious is how the changes to food and retail discounts will benefit students. As mentioned, the previous scheme gave ACCESS members a 15% discount at USU outlets. ACCESS memberships came in three options: one year, three year and five year. A five year membership, the most cost effective of the three, was equivalent to paying $55 a year.As mentioned, under the new scheme, students will have to opt-in to food and retail discounts by paying an annual $45 fee, but will receive only a 10% discount.When applied to a student who spends $600 a year on food and retail goods at USU outlets (or roughly $24 a week during semester), its clear that free membership will, in fact, cost some students more money.Taking into account a 15% discount, as well as the equivalent annual cost of $55 for a five year membership, a student spending $600 a year under the old five year membership would save $35 each year. A student spending the same amount of money but paying $45 annually for a 10% discount will save only $15. This is $20 less than they would save under the old scheme. In fact, anyone spending over $24 aweek during semesterwould have been better off under the old scheme, paying $75 annually for a 15% discount.Under the USUs new membership scheme, the habitual patron of USU outlets will in fact be paying more than they would have under the old scheme.In a statement to Honi, USU President Liliana Tai clarified that current three or five year members would still retain their 15% discount until the expiration of their membership.It might be argued that this is simply a levy on food and retail customers to democratise the USU: though some may pay marginally more for their sandwich or coffee, its worth it if it means all students will now be able to access the benefits that come with club or society membership. Nonetheless, its worth noting that the USUs changes to memberships and discounts will not benefit all students equally.Its also worth noting that the changes will not benefit students exclusively.Hard though it may be to believe, the Universitys million-dollar offering is not pure philanthropy. In her statement to Honi, Tai also explained that the sum was only contributed providing that the USU remove the price barrier to clubs and societies. According to Tai, this was due to the shifting priority within the University and the Senate about prioritising student experience.Its not difficult to see why this priority shifted in the way that Tai describes. The University is perpetually obsessed with its rankings. For that reason, its likely of great concern to the University that in the Student Experience Survey funded by the Department of Education and Training and conducted annually across the nations 41 universities USyd most recently ranked fifth last.Viewed in light of this deficiency, it becomes difficult not to see the USU as essentially a service provider for the University, enlisted to rectify what has become an embarrassing blemish on its reputation.It may be true that, in this case, the goals of the two institutions align. It is also worth noting however, that for a self-proclaimed independent, student-led organisation, the USU now finds itself closely intimated with and dependent on the University.The USUs recent announcement is far from all it seems. Contrary to the eloquent remarks of the editors of Pulp, the new discount scheme is not simply a sweet reduced price, but will in fact cost consumers more. Moreover, in a time when student unionism may again be under attack from the right, students should beware the potential consequences of relying on an institution which at one stage was not afraid to flirt with fee deregulation.Free membership for all it seems, but not without a price. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The National Union of Students annual conferenceor NatCon, as its frenetic followership calls itis often decried for its displays of chaos, debauchery and insolence. Nonetheless, the policy passed at NatCon, alongside the often heated debates on the conference floor, are consequential in setting the tone of the student movement for the year ahead (so long as contentious motions arent eaten up).The outcome of policy tensionsHoni brought you an analysis of anticipated policy tensions in the lead-up to this years conference. As we predicted, factions riled up to either support or condemn the implementation of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for National Office Bearers. KPIs place performance requirements on National Office Bearers, and are often used in conjunction with conditional accreditation, meaning that unions continue to pay their affiliation fees only when performance indicators are met.On the conference floor, National Labor Students (NLS/Labor Left) were in favour of KPIs, putting forward policy which noted that KPIs would increase the efficiency, transparency and accountability of the NUSan organisation infamous for appointing paid office bearers who are at best idle, and at worst entirely inactive, to the extent where legal advice has been sought for the removal of presidents who have failed to submit monthly reports.Student Unity (Labor Right), however, voted in favour of a Socialist Alternative (SAlt) motion against KPIs. This is a curious coalition of two political groupings who are all too often at ideological odds with one another.The platform of SAlts motion urged the NUS to recognise that KPIs are used to discipline and coerce employees. Likewise, outgoing General Secretary Jacob Cripps (Unity) decried both KPIs and his rival Labor faction, questioning how NLS could simultaneously support corporate policy and be trade unionists. The motion against KPIs passed.In his final report as General Secretary, Cripps was proud to proclaim that he had left the NUS budget with a big fuck off surplus, commending his faction for being the most apt when it comes to handling the organisations finances. The role of General Secretary, responsible for managing the budget of the of the NUS, has been bestowed upon a member of Student Unity for over a decade.In 2018, the NUS charted increased affiliation from already accredited unions, including USyd. Despite this, total income from affiliation fees decreased by $16,425. By and large, its likely that any introduction of KPIs would further diminish affiliation income for the NUS, potentially to the extent of throwing its budget into deficit. This year, a major affiliate in ANU refused once again to reaccredit, citing transparency issues. For an NUS General Secretary wanting to keep their budget in surplus, KPIs are no doubt bad news (beyond any concerns about increased corporatisation).Closer to home, SRC President Jacky He suggested tentative support for KPIs under his presidency should they be introduced. But theres a catch. He told Honi that although he doesnt think KPIs should be established for unpaid office bearers, KPIs within reasonable boundaries can be considered to be set for paid positions in NUS. In any case, He assured Honi that the SRCs affiliation fees wouldnt be decreasing in 2019, going so far as to consider an increase, depending on the flexibility of the SRC budget.You dealt with Libs!As Honi understands it, SAlt were given Unitys ballot papers for the election of the Adelaide Campus Representative. Among these ballot papers were the proxied votes of twelve Liberals (including USU Board Director Lachlan Finch, who, unable to make the conference due to an army cadetship taking place at the same time, handed his vote to Connor Wherrett of Unity). With the use of these ballot papers, SAlts candidate for the position, Leila Clendon, was elected.The use of Liberal ballots was widely criticised on the last day of the conference, particularly by members of NLS, who denounced SAlt for purporting to be left-wing, yet all the while dealing with the Liberals.Honi reached out to relevant members of both SAlt and Unity as to whether a any kind of deal was made between them for the ballot papers, but did not receive a response to request for comment.2018 NUS Womens Officer, Kate Crossin (NLS), told Honi that she had notified members of SAlt that they would not be able to elect a member of their faction to the position without Liberal ballots. I assumed they would take a political stance to not take those ballots.If a deal was brokered between SAlt and Unity, its prudent to question whether the actions of SAlt are parallel to the vote-washing practices which have allegedly been used by NLS at USyd in the past, where NLS does not directly negotiate with Liberals, but works with a third faction who is happy to do so. If its the case that SAlt dealt with Student Unity to receive Liberal ballots as opposed to dealing with the Liberals in isolation, then they too worked through an intermediary.However, USyds 2018 Education Officer James Newbold of NLS confirmed to Honi that NLS doesnt deal with, give votes to, or solicit votes from Liberal candidates, whether directly or through intermediaries.This policy hasnt stopped NLS from expressly pairing with campus Liberals in the past. Weathered hacks will remember the infamous alliance of NLS successful 2016 presidential candidate, Isabella Brook, with Liberal Ed McCann, in a deal which saw McCann promised the position of vice president of the SRC. Brook went as far to boast the slogan Ed McCann for VP on her campaign shirts.It remains to be seen whether NLS anger at SAlt translates to their own disengagement with Liberal groupings at USyd hereon.Its okay to be on the rightLiberal deal or no deal, theres no denying that sentiments of the rightindeed, the far rightcrept into policy discussion nonetheless. A motion within the Ethnocultural chapter of policy titled It has ALWAYS been OK to be White, condemned senators who voted in favour of the white supremacist slogan in Federal Senate in 2018, and acknowledged that you cannot be racist to white people. The three Liberals present, alongside Student Unity, did not support the motion and voted against it.In response to Honis Twitter coverage of NatCon, a member of Student Unity noted that Unity voted against it because it erased the existence of antisemitism, but sure, lets ignore that nuance hey.Honi reached out to incoming General Secretary of the NUS, Michael Iroeche (Student Unity) for clarification as to how the motion erased the existence of antisemitism, but did not receive a response.The NUS and autonomyAutonomy, and autonomous organising for minority groups within student unions has been a hot topic at USyd this year, with the usually tame election of the SRCs Wom*ns Officer being contested by individuals extrinsic to the Wom*ns Collective.However, the issue of autonomy for minority groups, or groups with specific organising interests within the NUS is nothing new. In 2001, the autonomy of the then NUS-affiliated Australian Students Environment Network (ASEN) was broken, when a member of the Australian Democrats with a lack of environmental organising experience was elected as the National Environment Officer instead of ASENs selected candidate. In 2014, Michael Bezuidenhout (Student Unity) nominated for and was elected to the position of Ethnocultural Officer, despite being a white South-African.Pushes for NatCon to ratify the National Queer Officer candidates preselected at the annual Queer Collaborations conference have existed since at least 2012, and 2018 was no different. There is a tendency for these preselected candidates to be discouraged to nominate.Dashie Prasad (Grassroots Independents) was both a delegate to this years conference and one of two preselected Queer Collaborations candidates for the role of National Queer Officer. They were told by the Returning Officer at the beginning of the conference that it would allegedly cost the NUS four thousand dollars to run a ballot for the positionthe implication being that it would be a waste of money to nominate for a position that has already been pre-negotiated between factions.Prasad told Honi, I dont think that the NUS should waste its money either, but I also didnt nominate because for fear of called a scab for wasting union money on ballots, which has happened in the past.Although they were not expressly disallowed to nominate, Prasad found out quite early that [they] wouldnt be worked with to negotiate the position despite being part of a faction. Historically, negotiations have happened through backroom deals, its a weird idea that a person is one-hundred per cent assured that they wont be elected to a position thats not how elections are meant to be done, they should be about people proposing their plans and arguing for why they should be given the position as opposed to getting the position through a deal.Dylan Lloyd, previously affiliated with an iteration of Grassroots Independents, was preselected by delegates of the Queer Collaborations in 2015, 2016 and 2017. During their nomination in 2017, Lloyd notes that they were pressured multiple times to withdraw from the ballot by SAlt (including offering deals which [they] rejected out of principle for the QC endorsement).At one point during the conference I was physically assaulted on the stage of the conference by a member of SAlt, who said I had pissed them off because I didnt withdraw from the ballot.There is an argument in the fact that the Queer Collaborations conference is not officially affiliated with the NUS, and therefore bears no responsibility to respect the decisions made there, with regard to preselected candidates or otherwise.However, both Prasad and Lloyd pointed out that the the responsibilities of the elected National Queer Officers as stipulated in the NUS constitution require them to assist with the organisation of queer conferences, such as Queer Collaborations, annually. Despite this, according to Lloyd, the NUS Queer Officers have ignored Queer Collaborations entirely in recent years. I even organised a workshop in collaboration with the NUS Queer Officers in 2017, which they agreed to present via teleconference. They did not turn up on the day.There is no prescribed group that organises Queer Collaborations, other than the relevant organising body for queer students on the nominated campus for any particular year. Prasad argues that cooperation between Queer Collaborations and the National Queer Officers should be increased in order for preselected candidates to be taken more seriously, noting that the National Womens Officer is often heavily involved in the organising of the Network Of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference (the equivalent of Queer Collaborations for wom*n students), despite NOWSA not being an official wing of the NUS.Back where we started?Last year, Honi queried whether the NUS was as bad as NatCon makes it out to be.The tail-end of this years conference saw Socialist Alternative pulling quorum, disallowing the discussion of queer and disability policy, which ultimately had to be passed en bloc. Delegates and observers sat idle for about forty minutes in the interim, as Ariana Grandes thank u, next played on loop.With more than one 2018 SRC presidential campaign putting forth grievances concerning poor use of student money by the SRC, its a surprise that the same criticism is not levelled at the NUS more oftenperhaps because its work and operation largely remain opaque to most. Indeed, not only does the USyd SRC affiliate to the NUS, part of its budget is siphoned to paying the registration, accommodation and travel fees of USyd delegates and observers.Whether through so-called corporate KPIs or otherwise, we echo the sentiments of those reporting on the 2017 conference, in arguing that there is still a greater need for transparency and reduced factionalism within the NUS so that it may achieve positive, progressive political objectives, and be held to account when it does not.Despite a small change in the percentage of votes held by different factions, since the 2017 conference the functionality of the Union has remained largely unchanged. Likewise, with the continuation of a Labor stronghold on the conference floor, alongside futile attempts at introducing any form of transparency, the possibility of a more democratic and less opaque Union hangs once again in the balance.Though there is neither a clear nor feasible alternative peak body for students, the benefits of affiliation appear murky.Jessica Syed is an ex-member of Sydney Grassroots, and was the 2018 co-Wom*ns officer of the USyd SRC. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Growing up, mathematics gave me an uncomplicated sense of joy. While other kids played Saturday sports, I was at my desk, engrossed in solving problems; I loved that rush when things finally made sense. I took Mathematics Extension 2 in high school, and am completing my Honours in Economics, a maths-heavy major.Naturally, I was sad to hear that enrolments in HSC mathematics courses have fallen consistently over the last 10 years. This year, 76% of students are taking some level of mathematics, compared to 94% in 2000.Part of this decline could be due to maths social stigma. For many people, maths seems complicated, difficult, repetitive and driven by rigid rules. Schools often teach math as a process for getting the right answer, says Kyne, a drag queen and educator known for her informative TikToks. Students memorise formulas like y=mx+b without knowing why leaving them feeling like math is arbitrary and purposefully challenging.Maths can also sometimes seem impractical. In most disciplines you can gain a better understanding of a productive skill, says Nicholas Giannoulis, President of the Sydney University Mathematics Society (SUMS). If the question isnt rooted in a real-life situation, it can become abstract and meaningless, Mei Zheng, SUMS Sponsorship Director, adds.This might be why popular culture has normalised being bad at maths. Its relatable to claim ineptitude or disinterest in mathematics; a viral TikTok implored viewers to stop normalising the idea that math makes sense. Theres also the idea that some people are maths people: that youre either born a mathematician or not, and that if you dont understand a mathematical concept with ease, then maths isnt for you.It implies mathematics isnt something you do (and can get better at), but rather, that mathematical ability is something you inherently have. Someone who doesnt find numbers enjoyable right off the bat is likely to have [that belief] reaffirmed by cultural attitudes, says Giannoulis. Zheng adds that there still exists prejudice against females excelling in maths.I strongly feel that the myth of the maths person wrongly suggests that the subject is only for certain people. That all-or-nothing attitude doesnt exist elsewhere: even if youre not a natural-born athlete, nobody would think youre devoid of sporting ability, or that you cant play social sport. Even if you arent a world-class musician, you might still enjoy playing music and getting better after sticking with it.Kyne agrees that consistent practice fosters confidence. If I spent every day practicing basketball, I might one day be really good. However, if my practice only involves shooting the ball from the free-throw line, I probably wouldnt be a great player, she says. Even though starting from a young age does help, and natural aptitude plays a role, maths, like sports, music or languages, requires some discipline and resilience to enjoy it.Its fair that high school maths education can turn people off maths. Many of my friends felt that maths was like learning a new language, or felt demoralised when they got the wrong answer. Instead, schools need to approach maths from a problem-solving perspective. Educators like Eddie Woo (a USyd alumnus) and Numberphile are ditching formulas and telling mathematical stories about real-world problems. Schools also need to tackle peoples internalised beliefs about mathematics, encouraging mistakes as part of mastery. Its hard in a crowded curriculum and results-focused sector, but its necessary when maths concepts build up like a pyramid structure, as Zheng explains, requiring a strong foundation. USyd has also introduced course prerequisites to incentivise high school maths study.Mathematicians also need to show others why maths is useful. There are many reasons; from modelling the spread of coronavirus, busting misleading graphs and statistics, doubling a recipe, predicting traffic, calculating whether youll be on time, and understanding why certain designs are pleasing, maths permeates our lives in ways we cant comprehend.To end, Id like to challenge the perception that maths is out of reach for non-STEM students. If you study humanities, you analyse evidence, use jargon and construct compelling arguments through logic and critical thinking. Mathematical proofs are the same. The link between maths and philosophy is well-documented, from Aristotle to Descartes and Russell.If you are artistic, you know how to think laterally and creatively. Contrary to popular belief, progress in mathematics relies on looking at things differently, and being bold enough to challenge assumptions. Solving tough maths problems requires creativity.As Hardy noted in A Mathematicians Apology, the beauty of maths is what makes it accessible (look at Islamic art, snowflakes, sunflowers or music). Essentially, maths is the study of patterns, says Zheng. I think everyone can enjoy maths, even if they dont work with it professionally.Math-phobia has become so normal that even kids know they arent supposed to like math, says Kyne. If an adult wants to learn about science, history or art, they can walk into a museum the masterpieces of math are just as worth looking at.For more information on the mathematics community at USyd, or information on further study and careers involving maths, check out the Sydney University Mathematics Society, or contact lecturers and tutors at the School of Mathematics and Statistics. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For the musicians at the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra (SUSO), it has been a particularly rocky year. With the campus closure in March, they were forced to cancel two planned concerts and discontinue rehearsals as there were no spaces to practice.Its been a really sad time, says Felicity Macourt, principal violist at SUSO. A lot of us have been playing in ensembles since we were five years old. To have been silenced over the past six months has been devastating.But recently, things have begun to turn around for the student orchestra. Last month, SUSO was able to put together Socially Distanced Strings, a concert which showcased string players performing chamber music in front of a more intimate audience.While I miss playing with a full orchestra in a concert hall, it still felt so amazing to be back, Macourt says.Even though SUSO has managed to stay afloat this year, student orchestras and classical musicians in general face enormous challenges with funding and support.Aside from ticket sales, SUSOs funding comes primarily from the University of Sydney Union (USU). Due to the pandemic, they werent even allowed to apply for funding since the USU was not supporting in-person events.I can understand what happened this year, but even in a normal year, its already really hard for us to scrape by, says Belinda Zhang, SUSO President and flutist.Many people dont realise that running an orchestra is expensive. There are significant costs involved with venue hire and payment of fair wages to conductors. Currently, the fee for SUSOs home venue, the Universitys Great Hall, is $6,490 a day.In addition, they have to pay a hefty rental fee if they want to perform copyrighted pieces which essentially includes all compositions from the 20th century onwards.While SUSOs concert this year was made possible due to the society being given free access to spaces in St Andrews College, limited funding has meant that they often run with narrow margins and have to charge fairly high prices for ticket sales. This of course tends to shut out some audiences.At the very least, the University or USU should subsidise us for the use of our home venue. Its absurd that were students paying money to use our own university facilities, Zhang says.SUSOs funding shortages are reflective of wide austerity measures and lack of support for classical music more broadly.In August, Opera Australia Australias largest performing arts company sacked around a quarter of its orchestra in order to recover from financial difficulties precipitated by COVID-19.Their corporate structure has meant that instead of reducing Director salaries or management positions, they are cutting musicians who not only have very specific and valuable skills, but are the lifeblood of what they do.Paul Davies, director of MEAA Musicians, told the Sydney Morning Herald that this was part of a broader move to casualise the arts, which destroys artistics standards with no significant reduction in labour costs.Further, while the Coalition government announced a $250 million package in June to support the arts and entertainment industry, this follows years of cuts that have resulted in countless redundancies. Additionally, government cuts to tertiary education are likely to impact the amount of funding received by student orchestras such as SUSO.Its indicative of a sign that people arent valuing classical music for what it should be, Macourt says. But classical music constitutes so much to Australian culture. It is a really important way of bringing together communities, as well as understanding what our identity is as a nation.She points to how modern Australian classical music has at times been a space to recognise Indigenous artists, with pieces like Concerto for Didgeridoo finding ways to incorporate Indigenous knowledge.Its important that we are fighting back against austerity measures in the arts as well as the casualisation of the industry.Zhang says that robust performing arts programs within schools and universities are especially important in allowing low-SES students to break into areas like classical music.And on an individual level, we should attend more concerts, particularly by amateur and student musicians. When we hire a musician to play a gig, we need to ensure that they are being paid at least minimum wage, recognising the sheer amount of work that goes into a performance.These acts will go a long way to support an industry where stable employment is hard to find.While the future of SUSO remains uncertain, one thing for sure is that their community is stronger and more alive than ever. This year has been hard, Macourt says. But we will come back roaring with really big pieces. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> YouTube is, in many respects, an undeniable force for good in the music world. It has provided musicians with a slightly more achievable pathway towards gaining a following and, ultimately, making money than other, more traditional means. This is not specific to the songwriters and performers on this platform, as musicians often apply their skills to more theoretical areas, such as education (because what else are you going to do with that three year music degree you spent all that money on). This is not inherently a bad thing why pay for instrument or music theory lessons when there are hundreds of videos you can watch for free that will give you a similar, albeit potentially less streamlined, learning experience?The issue lies not in video tutorials or lessons, but rather the videos where musical knowledge is applied in an analysis setting. While some of these videos are genuinely educational, novel, entertaining, or, at the very least, informative to those largely unfamiliar with music theory, many are obnoxiously meaningless. Theres been a growing trend over the last couple of years in which musicians film live reactions to musical content (albums, music videos, live performances, etc.) and then insert observations about the most glaringly obvious features of said content.Take Nina Schofields video CHARLI XCX Charli Album [Musicians] Reaction & Review!, in which she concludes by saying Shes [Charli] able to give us these pop songs that are radio-friendly, but then shes not afraid to explore and go places that no pop artist has gone before. Along with sounding like it was specifically written to be quoted in marketing campaigns for the album, this statement by itself isnt necessarily untrue or completely devoid of meaning. But when placed in the context of a 24-minute reaction/review video with the prefix Musician attached to it, it feels like a basic assertion that anyone with at least one functional ear could have made.Whats more, Nina spends much of the video pointing out and singing along to various instrumental parts within the songs shes reacting to, as if we the listener arent able to identify these elements for ourselves without filling the necessary requirements to earn that Musician prefix. Its like an alarm sound, she observes earlier in the video when, towards the beginning of the track Shake It, there is, indeed, an alarm-like sound. Thanks Nina!With only 29,460 views as of the time this article was written, this video is admittedly an easy target. Its worth mentioning more popular channels who display similar tendencies at 6.59 million subscribers, RoomieOfficial is certainly one of these. The grand majority of Roomies content consists of him reacting to other music-related videos, having recently started busting out the Pro Singer Reacts to titles for some of his uploads.In Pro Singer Reacts To The BEST singing videos 2020, Roomie spends most of his reaction time complimenting various singers voices while sprinkling in the occasional musical buzzword (e.g. vibrato, tone). Beautiful voice, really fun to listen to, he notes, while reacting to the TikTok videos of Sam Ryder. He also points out that Ryders voice sounds like a combination of a little bit more of a metal voice and a rock voice and a pop voice, and that he is singing very high notes, like a high B, before singing said note to seemingly remind us that he is a pro singer and thus his comment section-esque wisdom warranted a 13-minute video.Besides his friendship with famed slur-dispenser PewDiePie, Roomies videos probably rose to the top of the landfill of musician reactions due to his flashy and humorous editing, which favours many a quick cut between short phrases or sentences, as well as wacky sound effects and text. Its a gimmick employed by many YouTube channels not just music ones who have little else to offer by way of personality. Bassist extraordinaire Davie504 is yet another example of this, though he does sometimes structure his reaction videos more compellingly than most by attempting (and usually succeeding) to play what is being performed in the videos hes watching. Often, though, he resorts to making Reddit-level jokes accompanied by meme-heavy editing as a substitute for useful insight or any sense of charisma that would make his simple comments entertaining.Unfortunately, meaningless observations are a lesser evil compared to some of the other pitfalls of the YouTube musician/reactor. On many channels, youre likely to find the kind of elitist rhetoric that dismisses entire musical styles and discourages many from participating in music performance or discussion. In his video Jazz Pianist Reacts to Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles, Charles Cornell deems the song in question musically useless, and a particular melodic line in the songs pre-chorus completely devoid of definition, essentially due to a couple of apparently misplaced notes. Not only does he spend nearly the entire video reinforcing strict rules that musicians must abide by lest they be sent to music jail, he also bases parts of his appraisal around his knowledge of jazz theory a framework which can hardly be usefully applied to a radio-ready pop song. Cornell masks what are clearly nitpicks behind the air of authenticity lent to him by his Jazz Pianist title, thus allowing viewers of the video to also declare the song inferior (based on a professional opinion). Even at a time when many are mocking the notorious claim that Modern/popular music sucks!!!, this line of thinking still seeps its way into cultural conversation through the guise of theory-based objectivity.Uninteresting reaction channels are nothing new, and hardly a pressing issue within the music industry in particular. Many of the [Insert musical qualification] reacts videos could be less aggravating with less attempts at intercutting instinctive responses with shoehorned music theory, or even a simple removal of any signal of musical authority from their titles. As they stand, however, they do nothing but stifle meaningful music discourse. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I am no stranger to the realm of fanfiction. I have spent many late hours of the night curled up on my side on AO3 (archive of our own), stolen moments between tutorials reading about Harry Styles being Cheshires Pablo Escobar, long minutes scrolling through books of BadBoy!AUs on Wattpad. I am no stranger to being Y/N. What I am, however, a stranger to is being POV-choked through my phone by someone cosplaying as Draco Malfoy.There is little debate surrounding what qualifies as fanfiction. It can be argued that Dantes Inferno and John Miltons Paradise Lost is Bible fanfiction, or that Virgils Aeneid is Iliad fanfiction. The line between great works of literature and trashy NewStudent!AUs is not as blurry as scholars might want to admit. But the subculture has evolved since then: from Star Wars and Star Trek fanzines to boyband members as mafia bosses to minute-long videos on TikTok.In the late twentieth century, fanfiction primarily written by women who reimagined popular texts and situated their plots in feminist narratives was limited to the physical page. But as it evolved, fanfiction became less of a political statement and more for the purposes of entertainment. The first half of the 2010s saw online platforms like Wattpad flooded with books about real people pages and pages on pop stars like Justin Bieber and One Direction placed in high schools and small towns and drug lord dens. In theory, popular Harry Styles fanfic turned bestselling book and then major motion picture After is comparable to The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.Preteens and teenagers are the driving force behind Wattpads success; but Wattpad isnt the only app they have popularised for fanfiction. TikTok, a Vine-esque video-sharing app, is a new host for the genre. But TikToks format means the content has a time cap of one minute which has excluded many genres of fanfiction. Slow burn fics, for instance, can go as far as having seventy thousand words before the character pairing even interacts. But TikTok fanfiction allows for an audio-visual experience that hasnt previously been tapped into. Watching people dress up in a green and silver scarf, or with piercing blue contact lenses and store-bought fangs, or open white shirts with butterflies on their chest is a new form of intimacy, to say the least. TikTok creates an inadvertent immersive experience of fanfiction. POV (point of view) videos are structured to insert the viewer directly into the context of the scene they are there, with the character; they are being pushed up against a wall; they are being held hostage with a sword under their chin.American scholar Henry Jenkins famously described stereotyped representations of fans in popular culture and academic criticism, likening them to shameless, undisciplined cultural scavengers. However, more recently, active and creative behaviour by audiences has been instrumental to the commercial successes of popular cultural artefacts (mainly film and novel franchises). There is a semiotic democracy in which active audiences reinterpret texts in creative and personal methods, effectively questioning established power hierarchies in the process. Writing and consuming fanfiction actively causes people to fragment and reassemble texts, joining broken shards together to fit the picture they have in their mind. By recreating the texts, they are able to form more inclusive material a larger audience can engage with. Fanfiction was and still is considered entertainment enjoyed by the lowest members of society: teenage girls, women and queer people.But despite popular derision, fanfiction is slowly beginning to be understood as an important popular cultural artefact. Most fanfiction, especially those found on sites like AO3, can be better thought-out and more holistic than the source text. Is TikTok fanfiction worthy of the same degree of consideration and discourse we have placed on their written counterparts? Honestly, probably not. But does it have to be for us to enjoy it and admit that it is culturally significant?TikTok POV videos are in their infancy. The people who produce them do not do so with the intent to make subculture history it started as a method to place beloved characters in different settings, pushing the limits of what is traditionally accepted in the genre. It is a means to share and explore experiences of sexuality, to form relationships with a like-minded community, to have an excuse to bleach your hair ash blond and carry around a stick from your backyard. The first time I saw someone cosplay as Draco, I absentmindedly scrolled past it, not realising that moment would later turn into a flashbulb memory. Henry Jenkins might not appreciate people in repurposed bathrobes with fake blood dripping down their chins, but what does that say about him? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1956, the great trumpeter Louis Armstrong and his all-stars played a concert in Accra, Ghana, to a crowd of over one hundred thousand people. It was the bands first time in Ghana, and they were amazed at the incredible reception that they received. This exact concert could not have been played in Armstrongs home town of New Orleans. At the time, racially integrated concerts were banned and Armstrongs all-stars included two white musicians.Armstrongs story is a part of a broader culture war waged by the United States against the Soviet Union; a tale of how the United States (US) used its black artists and musicians to showcase a faade of American homogeneity at a time where it could not have been more divided. This was the story of the Jazz Ambassadors.ConceptionThe United States of the 1950s was a hugely divided country. Racial tensions were as high as ever as a state-mandated apartheid between white and African American populations was maintained. The USSR, seeing a chance for effective propaganda, often highlighted the hypocrisy between the US international promotion of democracy and the violent oppression of minorities domestically. This propaganda was effective at winning over post-colonial countries in Asia and Africa. They were sympathetic to the plight of African-Americans in the US and saw it as a colonial oppressor not at all dissimilar to the ones that they had overthrown.American policymakers saw race as their Achilles heel on an international stage. However, the success of Armstrongs concert in Ghana renewed hope for US foreign policy and policymakers saw an opportunity to win the culture war over the USSR through exporting jazz music. The recently created United States Information Agency (USIA) jumped at the chance to showcase cooperation and friendship between white and black artists.The jazz musician ultimately chosen to represent the US as a jazz ambassador was Dizzy Gillespie, who to this day is considered one of the greatest trumpeters of all time. Gillespies job was simple: he was to tour the globe and win the hearts and minds of the people who he performed to.The TourThe tour was a smashing success on all fronts. Gillespie himself stated that it was the single best tour of his life. The reception that the band received in each country far exceeded the expectations of both the band and the USIA; they were receiving standing ovations wherever they went.The band was often asked their views on the racial segregation that took place in the USUS. In bold defiance of the orders they had been given by the USIA, they responded with a frank condemnation of the racial segregation that took place in the US. If the USIA had done any prior research on Dizzy Gillespie, they would have known that he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the USA and an outspoken activist in the field of black rights. It was this honesty that Gillespie and the band displayed that endeared the audiences. It was also this honesty that brought the first president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah to tears when Louis Armstrongs all-stars performed Black and Blue when they returned to Ghana this time as jazz ambassadors. Present DayFast forward to the present day and we quickly realise that nothing has changed in the terms of the exportation of black culture by the US to peddle the image of American homogeneity. We do not have to look far back into recent history to see this, with the most pertinent example being hip hop and rap music. Now the largest genre in the world, rap music is arguably the single largest cultural export of the US and like jazz music, it is deeply rooted in the African American experience. Both have very much been exported to the world as a cultural white out to obfuscate the deep tensions that exist across racial lines in the United States. Although there is no longer an overt state-mandated push to export culture in the same sense as the USIAs attempts, the US still continues to reap significant cultural capital from the exportation of black culture. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The growing popularity of artificially intelligent tools in creative industries should hardly come as a surprise, given the lengths a dash of algorithmic magic can go to cutting unnecessary busywork in pursuit of artistic success. Photographers and graphic designers have long enjoyed using content-aware fill tools and automatic exposure adjustments to rough hem their drafts before putting on the final touches. DJs have automatic beat gridding which helps them sync tracks to each other and make for seamless nightclub mixes. Even writers have Grammarly-esque tools that suggest follow-up words in real-time. In no other field, however, has the meteoric rise of AI tools been as controversial and as confusing as within music production in the past half-decade.In 2017, music software developer iZotope released a suite of products that would forever change the landscape of mixing technology (and give mastering engineers around the world an immediate and overwhelming fear of death): Ozone 8. Previous iterations of the software had served as a bundle of useful tools for balancing the spectral and dynamic content of an in-progress track, but the 8th revision shipped with a Master Assistant feature, in which an AI companion would listen to your track and compare it to a database of millions of other songs it had already analysed. It would then average out the data of the closest matches and automatically apply various EQ, compression and stereo imaging settings to get your song sounding as close as possible to commercially mastered releases. Almost immediately, boomer producers from across the world presumably those who had been making Eminem type beats for years emerged from the woodwork to decry the innovation as laziness-inducing marketing hype.Since the release of Ozone 8, countless other plugins and pieces of hardware gear have shipped with machine learning and AI as description-fillers and exciting new features. Mixed in Keys Captain Chords generates new musical motifs from a given chord progression, writing the melodies to entire verses and choruses if you so desire. Sonibles Smart Reverb will algorithmically calculate the most appropriate amount of reflections that your sound would have in a virtual space of your choosing, keeping the amount of unnecessary echo under control. Other plugins have taken the more esoteric approach to functionality under-the-hood: no-one can really be sure what Soundtheorys Gullfoss actually does, except that if you turn a couple of the knobs on the interface, your song might sound a little clearer and brighter whatever that means.These further AI innovations if thats what you can call them have caused an aggrandising reactionary movement across the internet who claim that using these tools to produce music is actively anti-creative and anti-artistic. Your mixes will never sound good, they declare. Not unless you do them by ear, painstakingly over the course of several hours, while your wife and infant child look on in pity and despair! Its not hard to imagine why they might come to this conclusion: authors write words on the page, visual artists pull together materials and put paint to canvas, and architects do whatever architects do. We think of chords, melodies and textures as the intuitive and paradigmatic product of artistry when it comes to contemporary music production after all, if a computer generated Phoebe Bridgers hooks by algorithm, would all her Twitter stans still be as willing to claim her song-writing genius? The argument then proceeds like such: AI tools lower the skill ceiling of music production, and make mediocre tracks much more achievable. They tempt people into forgoing the difficult process of learning abstract skills like ear-training and instead rely on a pre-determined algorithm. Therefore, as time passes and more of these tools come out, music will become increasingly homogenised, and forward-thinking records will become fewer and further between.The more I think about this position, the more untenable I find it is. Not only does it betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of music production at least since the invention of the synthesiser but it is unjustifiably pessimistic. If anything, the rise of so many useful AI-assisted tools has made music far more intimate, and the boundaries for experimentation and new ideas far broader than ever before.First, music production is a creative field so mired and deeply interconnected with automation that these new AI tools are really nothing more than a slight extension of techniques that have existed for forever. Ever since Robert Moog debuted the first commercially available and musical voltage-controlled oscillator in 1964, the directness of artistic involvement has been intercepted by technology that has a mind of its own. No longer did musicians have to physically cause sound output from their instruments, like plucking a violin string or hammering a piano key: synthesisers are always generating sound, as long as they are provided electricity. To play a synthesiser is to access a continuous stream of sound that already exists thanks to its circuitry, and to shape the emerging vibrations using envelopes and other modulation. And yet, do we regret the invention of electronic instruments the single greatest leap forward for music since Bartolomeo Cristofori discovered he could put dynamic control in a keyboard instrument back in 1700? By extension, would we characterise David Bowie, Daft Punk or Aphex Twin as un-artistic? Music these days is nigh-unthinkable without the timbres and textures pioneered by Moog, Oberheim, Dave Smith, Yamaha and Roland throughout the 20th century; AI is merely an extension of the progress that has already been made.Moreover, music production is becoming increasingly about the intention of the process and not the notes-on-the-ledger-lines final product taking on an almost impressionistic shift since the turn of the century. Infamously, American rap trio Migos took an average of 30 minutes to record each song on their 2018 album Culture II. To judge a song as insanely stupid as Stir Fry by the nature of its chordal or melodic content utterly misses the mark of Migos innovation: brain-dead, unthinking slappers with absurdly loud 808s and kicks. Cutting-edge trends like the recent wave of cough hyperpop blow out traditionally-hated production techniques auto-tune, chipmunked vocals, overly-distorted clipping, terrible MIDI instruments and transforms them into an aesthetic of subversion: an irreverent fuck-you to mixing convention rather than a half-assed attempt to emulate tradition. To employ a relatable phrase I hate: its the vibe, honey.However, perhaps most crucially, its simply incorrect to view these new tools as somehow any different than the aforementioned techniques photographers, graphic designers or writers employ in their day-to-day craft: ones that we dont seem to have the same kneejerk reaction to. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes applying an equaliser curve knows its an absolutely mind-numbing chore. The amount of time A/B-ing compression settings could just as easily be spent considering adding extra musical variety, a beat switch-up, or a new creative combination of effects. AI tools lower the skill ceiling, sure, but in ways that dont fundamentally matter to the pursuance of an artistic vision. In a sense, theyre far more liberating than restrictive, because anyone can put out a good sounding mix from their bedroom on no budget. While places for professionals will always exist in the industry, AI democratises music production by decreasing the amount of time necessary to reach a baseline level of listenability, and allows young creatives to focus on crafting their own sound. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In response to the attack against the arts, which takes the local form of the Liberal National Partys irrationally applied fee hikes but is a more global phenomenon under capitalism, defending the arts as useful may have the inadvertent effect of undermining its value. For disciplines like English, Film Studies and Art History, moving to outwardly proclaim their usefulness risks the possibility of accepting the terms of a discussion which should be refused. In light of this danger, I will look to two writers, the literary critic and author Maurice Blanchot and the poet Paul Celan, who attend to this anxiety about the unworldliness of language in art. It is this anxiety that may be exploited to argue for the expendability of art, but in the hands of Blanchot and Celan, language as an autonomous realm comes to form the very basis of art and literatures importance, as well as how it may have an effect on the world.This problem of the arts defending themselves in terms of their usefulness is the situation that Blanchot responded to in mid-twentieth century France. In the political turmoil of those years, after the occupation and through the Algerian War of Independence to the student riots of 1968, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre articulated the nature of literary engagement as a quest for truth that utilizes language. This meant that language was used to serve as a worldly force, with an emphasis on clarity and realism that worked towards the inducement of direct action. This view was attractive because it suggested that literature could have a direct political impact. For Blanchot however, this was a mistaken collapse of the irreducible difference between political action and literature, one which ellided languages distinct and elusive nature.In The Space of Literature, Blanchot describes the fundamental experience of literatures language in terms of the outside. This is a space which is utterly non-relational; home to an imagined language which, because it is prior to, or absolutely other from, the language which we all share that is soaked with history and culture, it cannot really be said to be experienced. This seems paradoxical, but it is the paradox that Blanchot finds fascinating. The success of such a work is measured by its saying exclusively this: that it is and nothing more, by which Blanchot means that it uncannily makes itself present despite its impossibility. This paradox is one he finds revealed to him by a canon of modernist art including Kafka, Mallarm, and Rilke, obsessed with dissolving the supposed laws of literature and poetry which they saw around them.While the artwork resists rational explanation, our relationship to it can be understood in terms of an inevitable failure to approach this indefinable space. The failure is remarkable, because at this very point, where all seems lost and thus the work must be let go, the outside may be experienced. It is this realisation of the impossibility of mastering art or bringing it about by way of ones will, and the strange fact that still it appears, which prepares the way for an acceptance of a passivity, in service of language, of the outside. I find Blanchot compelling for the suggestion that a commitment to literature, which would be the commitment to something exterior to the simply human, would dissolve the self as an active agent. While Sartre calls for a literature that fits language to the world, Blanchot argues for one which undoes the world by a faith that lets language play, and so constantly defers the closure of any worldly circumstance, political or otherwise.To conclude I turn to the poetry of Paul Celan, a Romanian born, German speaking poet whose work was deeply affected by the Holocaust. His work shares with Blanchot a rigorous sense of what is inexpressible in the poem, but he also suggests a few more bridges to the world. There are two major ways his poetry is bound up with the world. Firstly, the language of the poem responds to the movement of language as a whole, a language that after the Holocaust has passed through terrifying silence, through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech. Secondly, the poem is dated, which is to say always tied up with human finitude.The poem is the point where the tension between broad historical time and disappearing personal time goes slack, where they interpenetrate in mutual silence, as an interruption or inflexion in the world. At one point, Celan calls the poem a message in a bottle tossed into the sea in the hope that it will reach anothers heartland. The following poem is about a letter which hasnt yet arrived representing the poem itself. The wax is just being sealed after the writer has toiled away at it by candlelight deep into the night, and now rests in the pleasant afterglow of the promise of communication, embraced by a swimming light. He rests in the interplay of lights presence and darks absence, which is the poems true domain is an ever-open and indeterminate way for us.With Letter and ClockPaul CelanWaxto seal the unwrittenthat guessedyour name,that enciphersyour name.Swimming light, will you come now?Fingers, waxen too,drawnthrough strange, painful rings.The tips melted away.Swimming light, will you come?Empty of time the honeycomb cells of the clock,bridal the thousand of bees,ready to leave.Swimming light, come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Van Gogh Alive has made it to Sydney, welcoming us back to physical art exhibitions in one great big kaleidoscopic sensory overload. You are invited to step into this 45 minute digital art exhibition a symphony of sounds, smells and a dancing digital light display projecting images of Van Goghs oil masterpieces floor to ceiling and all around you.Once you make it past the metal sculptural sunflowers at the entrance of the Royal Hall of Industries, the first thing that is apparent is the careful planning of COVID precautions to keep everyone safe. Staggered ticket allocations, temperature checking, frequent cleaning and mandatory masks (bring your own in a Van Gogh-themed fabric for extra kudos from the exhibition marshalling staff).In the lobby, you are gently guided down the path of Vincents life story through 1.5 metre-distanced steppingstone sunflower stickers on the ground. Letters exchanged between Vincent and his brother, Theo, allows you a glimpse into the painters great passions and fears that kept him awake in that slightly off-centre painted bedroom.This is just the teaser trailer of the main event happening in the next room. The grand orchestral music echoes around the warehouse walls, inviting you to step inside.You may have seen the pictures, but that doesnt spoil the feeling something like walking into a movie screen, or sticking your hand in front of the projector at the back row of a cinema but to the greatest extreme.The room is covered with floor-to-ceiling screens surrounding you with the stariest of nights. You fly through fields with steaming trains to the branches of almond blossoms and, of course, float amongst the petals of Vincents famous sunflowers.The narrative is quite simplistic, following key moments of Vincents life in chronological order, marked by quotes from his letters. This is necessary to ground you in a time and place amidst all the movement of the projected paint strokes.Van Gogh Alive brings even further multi-sensory layers to the experience, the most dominant of which being an epic musical soundtrack underscoring the visual journey, breaking from the traditional silent tip toeing around an echoey gallery room. .A subtler touch to the exhibition plays to the most underrated of the senses smell. A unique blended scent is released in the space to evoke elements of the South of France with top notes of cyprus, middle notes of lemon and bottom notes of sandalwood. Its a fresh but not overpowering scent and a pleasant surprise when you catch it! While Im no expert in this field, it added a whole new curation element unlike that of a typical exhibition, which I wonder if was only made possible when working with digital reproductions rather than fragile original oil paintings.Yet, the most exciting element (for this digital art student, at least) is definitely the people-watching in the least creepy way possible. Watching the way people interact with this new digital art exhibition is a fascinating display in and of itself.Some sit, watching one screen only like they were at the cinema. Others move around the hall, looking up in bewilderment, trying to catch it all and not miss anything. And then there were those who came prepared, wearing white from head to toe, stepping into the paintings themselves and taking a picture to share, or 100.Now perhaps the gallery goer purist would start their complaints here, explaining that they arent truly experiencing the art, or theyre spoiling it by sharing pictures of the exhibition to others who arent present. But what if the digital moving into this new realm has opened up the gallery to a whole new way of experiencing art, just as the digital has opened up Van Goghs work to a whole new state of existence?You just have to look around to see: the kids laying on the ground to see projections of blue irises, and the gallery goer in a wheelchair with his family accessing the multi-sensory sounds, smells and light displays and yes, even the avid Instagramer who is excitedly snapping selfies and sharing their cool illuminated outfits with friends. These are all new ways of watching, appreciating, learning and experiencing Van Goghs colours come alive.What colour is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life. Van GoghVan Gogh Alive is on now in Sydney until 20 December tickets still available. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> An estimated 1.2 billion people identify as Hindu. Almost all religious scholars agree on the claim that Hinduism is at least 4000 years old, originating in the Indus Valley with the authoring of the Vedas in 2000 BCE. What makes Hinduism distinct from Abrahamic faiths and has fascinated many people in the West is just how complicated and diverse it is. Unlike the Abrahamic religions which follow a salvation theology, Hinduism has no one true God or one Holy text from which Hindu philosophy or morality is derived. Religious scholars in the West often note that there is such openness and freedom within the Hindu faith that the various traditions, philosophies, and ideas within it at times appear to contradict one another. There are even contradictions amongst some of the texts that are considered central to Hinduism. For example, the Brihadranyaka Upanishad (3.8) states One who declares anything other than the Self as dear, to him nothing will be dear Let him worship the Self alone as dear, however in the Bhagavd Gita (9.34), Krishna states, Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, offer obeisance and worship Me. So, is one to worship only the Self, or is one to worship Krishna? How can one who identifies as Hindu make sense of conflicting statements such as these?To me this brings into question whether there is such a thing as a coherent Hindu identity at all. For other major religions, such as Islam and Christianity, the identity of a follower is clear: one who believes in the doctrines expounded in the Holy books and acts according to the path laid out by a Prophet. Hinduism, however, has no single Holy book or Prophet. It fits under the categorisation of religion only because it demands faith in something beyond the physical world, but it does not demand devotion or sacrifice to a God for the promise of salvation or damnation. For example, Hinduism expounds the idea of Karma but does not demand that you must act good in order to score points with a God.In that sense, Hinduism can be better understood as a culture built upon spiritual teachings rather than a theocentric religion. The only problem with this, however, is that Hinduism can be better understood as a culture only because it was never supposed to be a God worshiping religion in the first place. Hinduism is not a 4000-year-old religion, its a 200-year-old colonial era invention.There is no question that key events in Hindu history did, in fact, take place. There is archaeological evidence that the Mahabharata (Kurukshetra War) and a war between South India and Sri Landa described in the Ramayana occurred, and that Shiva (Adiyogi) most likely lived in the Himalayan region during the years 17000 BCE 14000 BCE. All of these are reasonable claims, and Ancient writings on the spiritual aspect of human existence from the Indus Valley which fall into four classes: Vedas (a collection of hymns, philosophy, and guidance in regards to ritualism), Upanishads (an expansion on the spiritualism of the Vedas from a standpoint of monism), Aranyakas (a further expansion on the philosophical nature of rituals introduced in the Vedas), and Brahmanas (a book of instruction on how one should perform rituals in the Vedas) have been preserved through oral and written means for 4000 years.However, the fusion of the many hundreds of Indian traditions that have developed over a few thousand years under the one religion called Hinduism is only a very recent invention. It is the product of efforts by Western orientalists and British missionaries to cement the idea that there was a sufficient amount of Ancient regional and sectarian tradition in the Indian culture to construct a single systematic religion. Between 1789 and 1890, the British Raj attempted to create a comprehensive description of Hinduism that exhibited it as a coherent system of beliefs and practices operating under clear, regular, and rigid principles. The word Hinduism as we use it today comes from this period in which the British Raj, in an effort to study the distinct Indian spiritual practices, created texts such as Hinduism (1877) by Sir Monier-Williams and many others which eventually led to the compilation of Indian spiritual traditions and those who practiced them being put under the one label Hindu.For example, before the 19th Century, the Bhagavad Gita was an esoteric academic text understood only by scholars to extract ideas for their own spiritual pursuits. The 1785 translation of the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit to English by Sir Charles Wilkins sparked great interest amongst the British elite in Indias spiritual culture. The framework by which they understood this culture was through this idea of a unified religion, which was later called Hinduism. This new Bhagavad Gita, translated and re-written by colonists in the 19th Century seems to contradict the ancient Vedic Upanishads which lay the groundwork for later Indian spiritualism. In the Upanishads, for example, there is no concept of God. Brahmin in those texts is described as an eternity which permeates all things in the Universe, not a God or creator who invades the personal lives of individuals to demand devotion and answer prayers. Strict devotion was not the norm in pre-Colonial India but in this 19th Century version of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna claims himself to be a Supreme God and that all those who wish can find deliverance from the perpetual cycle of reincarnation by worshipping him, a narrative which sounds strikingly similar to the native salvation theology of the colonists who translated and promoted the Gita both in India and Britain.Since then, in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Indians have decided to react to this in many ways. Overwhelmingly Indians both in India and in the West have accepted the term Hinduism and consider the trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh) as central Gods of their polytheistic faith. Others have decided to reject this new religion and instead follow the Vedic scriptures, while others still identify as Hindu but stay within indigenous formulations of their own practices and traditions developed by their ancestors in a certain region of India.With such a complicated history it is becoming increasingly tempting for one who grew up with a Hindu family in the 21st Century to reject Hinduism altogether in favour of another faith or to have no faith at all. There is a great deal of confusion as to how to approach which branch of Hinduism ones family follows and why the continuation of such traditions is important at all, especially for the diaspora living in the Western world. It would be untrue to say that the identity Hindu does not exist, but digging below the surface for a moment we can see that the picture of a Hindu is not as clear as we would first imagine a religious person to be, even for Hindus themselves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When we think of absurdity we might equate it with nonsense, but what if it was this very nonsense that gave the absurd meaning? This is precisely what the artistic movement of the mid 1910s, known as Dada or Dadaism achieved. Dada was born out of the devastation of World War I and became one of the first anti-war, anti-bourgeois, leftist artistic movements. Utilising shock-value as its key visual messenger, Dadaism was an artistic tool of social revolution. Its visual absurdity and anti-war politics rebelled against the standards of art, and hence the standards of society. German painter and Dadaist Hans Richter described the point of Dada as only a means of arousing the bourgeoisie to rage, and through rage to a shamefaced self-awareness. Dadaists equated their absurd subject matter to the absurdity of warfare, laughing in the faces of the bourgeois class, whose so highly valued art had now become a mockery of its primary consumer.As the world is faced with a multitude of global crises and we fight against social injustices as an imperative, we grow tireless and disenchanted with our political status quo. The social, economic and political landscapes that gave birth to Dadaism have resurfaced and once again pervade the art world. Co-founding Dadaist Marcel Janco said, we had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished. In 2020, this sentiment is echoed across the world from the Black Lives Matter movement, to the Hong Kong protests, the Belarusian protests, and the ongoing fight for climate justice. We have seen the power of the mobilised working class, and we have seen the agency we have as organised individuals against the establishment. However, when we turn our heads to modern art what command does it have as a revolutionary political force?During its time, Dadaism revolutionised working-class perspectives on war through its scathing criticisms of the ruling class. Using absurdity and shock value to convey their critique, Dadaists called into question every sector of bourgeois society that perpetuated the war. One of the most poignant examples of this is Hannah Hchs photomontage Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919). The work comments on ideas of the machine, featuring wheels, cogs and other mechanical parts. Through this, Hch attempts to break down capitalist structures that lead the working-class to their organised oppression, examining both the idea of the machine of society, and the ways in which new technologies made the totalising destruction of the war more efficient. This critical commentary is effectively delivered to the viewer through the stark and abrasive visual quality. Todays contemporary art exercises this same visual shock-value to garner attention, and propagate criticisms of the ruling class.Taking it one step further than Dadaists, many contemporary artworks seek to weaponise their capacity as revolutionary objects by entering the arena of public demonstrations, taking shock-value out of the galleries and into the streets. Whether it be a pained banner held high or organised performance art, rather than acting as a precursor to revolution as Dadaism did, contemporary works of art participate in moments of protest. A key example is Lady Liberty Hong Kong (August, 2019) created during the height of the Hong Kong protests which demanded democratic systems of government. Standing three metres tall and built like stone, the sculpture depicts a female demonstrator in protest attire, with a fist held high. Entirely crowdfunded, nine designs were proposed by a large team of creatives and the final design was chosen by an online vote of the people; the statue stands for, and embodies, democracy. It was displayed in several locations of protest including the Anti-Abusive and Anti-Authoritarian rally in September 2019. The incredible symbolism of not only the statue itself, but its transportation during live protests speaks to the hard-fought determination of the protesters. It is in this way that I see the shock-value of Dadaism re-achieved, although the statues subject matter is overt. Carrying an 80kg embodiment of your defiance at a heavily repressed demonstration is no small statement. Rather, it sends an immensely powerful message about the strength and unending resilience of the Hong Kong protesters to all who see the statue. Dada artworks have been described as a protest with the fists of its whole being engaged in destructive action. Lady Liberty Hong Kong, its creators, transporters and fellow protesters, stand as a whole being, fists engaged.Dadaists wanted to change the world through artistic satire, striving to make a mockery of their political climate, and tear open the discussion of war and the working class. Artists of our modernity refer back to these revolutionaries, desperate to be heard in a world where artistic commentary of the social and political is continually stifled. Yet it is in the very nature of art to transcend its own condemnation, existing outside the approval of the bourgeois class as Dadaism did. Art lives and dies in the streets, not by the discerning hand of those who try to dampen its revolutionary spirit. The mutinous power of the visual media has never stagnated. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> COVID-19 has shown us just how interconnected the world is. As the virus spreads, it has left a trail of stripped shelves, laid-off workers, and overwhelmed hospitals. But these connections run much deeper.Health crises are inextricably linked to environmental crises. The destruction and transformation of our natural environment has created conditions which both facilitate the spread of disease and amplify its impacts. Additionally, with the media focused squarely on COVID-19, governments are rolling back environmental protections without scrutiny or regard for long-term public health.As we recover from this pandemic, our response necessitates principles of climate justice. By recognising the mutuality of health, the economy and the environment, and the fact that vulnerable communities are disproportionately burdened by these crises, we have a chance to reorient our social and economic institutions to protect life in the future.Environmental destruction facilitates the spread of diseaseOur reshaping of habitats and ecosystems has forced humans and wild animals closer together, creating ideal conditions for new diseases to emerge. Around three quarters of novel infectious diseases have originated in animals, most of them wildlife. While these viruses generally exist harmlessly within animals, humans become hosts when we venture into and alter their habitats.The Ebola outbreak of 2014-16, which killed more than 11,000 people across West Africa, occured in areas which were deforestation hotspots and likely emerged after fruit-eating bats were driven to human settlements in order to find food. COVID-19, which is similarly thought to have originated in bats, is the just the latest infectious disease to arise from human interference with nature.Further, the conditions of industrial agriculture and intensive factory farming today not only produce substantial emissions and toxic waste but also serve as breeding grounds for viral pandemics. In abattoirs and meat markets, animals are often kept in overcrowded, poorly ventilated, and unsanitary premises the ideal climate for disease.COVID-19 has been traced back to a wet market in Wuhan, China, where caged animals are slaughtered onsite in crowded stalls. Chinas live meat trade emerged during its economic transformation in the 1990s, when some small farmers undercut by industrial farms and pushed out to uncultivable areas turned to farming wild species in order to stay afloat.Disease is also facilitated through small changes in ecological conditions temperatures, rainfall and humidity which occur as a result of destructive practices. Land clearing and agricultural expansion in the Amazon have created moist habitats, ideal for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to breed. In Australia, similar changes to the distribution of mosquitoes have resulted in human contractions of dengue fever and Ross River virus in areas which were previously not at risk.The impacts of climate crises amplify the impacts of global pandemicsClimate change is a risk multiplier that accelerates the pace and deepens the severity of global pandemics such as COVID-19. Extreme weather conditions, rising temperatures, and deteriorating air quality exacerbate our vulnerability to a range of diseases.As heatwaves in Australia become longer and hotter, illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which may alter immune functions, are on the rise. Smoke pollution and haze from the recent bushfires resulted in thousands of hospitalisations for respiratory problems, as well as increased presentations to emergency departments with asthma. These people are more prone to further respiratory problems such as pneumonia, putting them at a higher risk of severe complications from COVID-19.Importantly, climate change and pandemics work in tandem to produce disproportionate impacts on poorer communities. Not only do these groups have higher rates of adverse health conditions, they also bear the brunt of air pollution as they often live closest to pollution sources. In Australia, around 90 percent of facilities such as power plants, industrial installations and hazardous dumps are located in postcodes comprising low to middle income households. In contrast, only 0.1 percent of polluting facilities are located in the most affluent postcodes.First Nations people living in remote and rural areas are particularly impacted, as hotter conditions are likely to bring about elevated risks of disease and health conditions in places such as tropical northern and western Australia.The mutually reinforcing cycle of health, economic, and environmental disadvantage makes it extremely difficult for vulnerable communities to recover from COVID-19 and future pandemics.Such health inequities become a problem for everyone. A large segment of workers do not have the luxury of working from home or simply cannot afford to self-isolate. Lack of access to quality health services also makes it difficult to get diagnosed or treated if they become ill. And since a large number of these workers are in jobs that involve high contact with other people, it means that viruses can circulate a lot faster.Governments are using COVID-19 to roll back environmental protectionsAt the same time, governments and businesses are beginning to relax environmental regulations to achieve short-term economic stimulus. The Victorian government has recently lifted the moratorium on onshore gas extraction, which risks fugitive emissions greenhouse gases that can escape into the atmosphere from poorly managed sites.The NSW government has also approved the extension of coal mining under the Woronora Dam, risking contamination of Greater Sydneys water supplies. It was the first mining approval under a Greater Sydney reservoir in two decades.And in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has assured companies they would not face penalties for not complying with environmental obligations, for as long as the outbreak persists.These changes show how companies and governments assume they have no choice but to exploit natural resources in order to remain economically viable, especially in periods of crisis. However, this is a narrow view which neglects to consider that environmentally destructive practices will reduce our capacity to prevent, and respond to, the economic and health impacts of future shocks.As public health diminishes and our public and private health systems are strained, governments inject huge amounts of money to support them during crises. Instead, we should develop environmental and social policies which improve public health and ensure a more sustainable health system that can withstand the worst effects of future pandemics.Our responses to COVID-19 must incorporate climate justiceOur broader responses to COVID-19 therefore must be informed by principles of climate justice, recognising that pandemics are not purely a health or economic matter, but encompass issues such as workers rights, Indigenous rights, infrastructure and housing, and indeed, environmental sustainability.To assist in economic recovery after the pandemic, our goal should be to support livelihoods by investing in renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. We should now begin to redirect the $5.2 trillion spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies to fund initiatives such as green infrastructure and reforestation, including fossil fuel workers in these programs.Government assistance to corporations must have strings attached to ensure targeted progress towards social goals. Qantas was recently criticised for standing down 20,000 workers without pay after the airline industry received a $715 million bailout. Instead, loans to airlines should be conditional, or the industry nationalised, requiring a commitment to invest in low-emissions and zero-waste flights while protecting wages, employment and working conditions.The Federal Government announced last week that thousands of nurses and hospital beds in the private healthcare system would be repurposed to deal with COVID-19. Moving forward, we should create stronger relationships between public and private health providers or increase government control to regulate prices, improve community access, and help us coordinate our response to future pandemics and natural disasters.While reduced work travel and aviation have cut emissions in the short term, anything that causes human death is counterproductive to social and climate justice. When the risk of transmission lowers, governments should look to how we can sustain these effects purposefully and without human cost.For example, we should invest in and promote public transport and electric vehicles to decrease emissions from commuting. Businesses need to assess whether work can continue to be done remotely, while keeping as much of their workforce employed as possible. City planners could make communities more pedestrian-friendly, ensuring that people have easy access to essential services without needing to travel great distances.Ultimately, solutions must not only allow us to recover from COVID-19, but improve outcomes in the future. COVID-19 will not be the last shock to the global economy. If we scramble through each new crisis, putting out fires without addressing the structures that got us here, we will soon find it difficult to deal with potentially deadlier disasters that are worsened by climate change.As governments and communities respond to the health crisis in ways previously unimaginable, it is clear we are capable of transforming ourselves overnight. We are now at a vital turning point. If we shift our current stance of defensive protection to one that is restorative and community-led, we may begin to achieve justice for workers, vulnerable communities, and the planet moving forward. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This year, International Day of the Unborn Child, a Catholic pro-life event, was cancelled in Sydney due to the COVID-19 pandemic that is bearing down on the world. These crisis conditions have made the priorities and flaws of our government clearer than ever, and it has also pronounced the long-standing inaccessibility of abortion. With the Australian healthcare system now exceeding capacity, the recent decision made by the National Cabinet to suspend non-urgent elective surgeries seemed to leave surgical abortions up in the air. The suspension of all Category 3 and some Category 2 surgeries was announced last Wednesday, and it was originally unclear whether surgical abortions would be included within these austerity measures. This lack of clarity is nothing new; rather, it points to a much deeper problem of inaccessibility, and how the powers that be have time and time again failed women.Abortion accessibility is limited today due to cost, lack of information, and social stigma; reasons that have persisted even after decriminalisation. Before decriminalisation, medical professionals and public hospitals offering the surgery were few, far between, and shockingly expensive on the rare occasion they were available. The decriminalisation of abortion in NSW last year came at no small cost and was rightfully heralded as a huge victory for the pro-choice movement. However, as the dust settles, it becomes clear that the lack of abortion accessibility will prove to be an enduring issue.Different methods of abortion present their own challenges, but one that is particularly interesting is that of medical abortions by phone. These services, also known as teleabortions, provide access to an abortion without having to visit a clinic. This is appealing in the face of overt social stigma against abortion and even more so given the social isolation measures that have been implemented in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. A statement released by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) tells us that Greater use of remote consultations, and early medical abortion at home, may be necessary to ensure women have access to timely and safe abortion care. When procuring a medical abortion by phone, one is able to consult with a medical specialist and be talked through the process of performing an abortion remotely. Pain, nausea, and abortion medication is couriered to the patient within 1-3 days of their consultation, and they are provided with free access to aftercare nursing.Though serious side effects are uncommon, medical abortions still carry slightly more risk than surgical ones. Moreover, they cannot be performed after eight weeks of pregnancy and cannot be performed on patients who live more than two hours away from emergency medical services. They are the cheapest form of termination, costing a minimum of $290 for merely a consultation without the medication. Medicare only partially covers the cost of abortions whether they be surgical or medical if at all. This means that those in low socioeconomic status brackets are often unable to access essential and life-saving healthcare.The reproductive healthcare system is flawed as it is, so it comes as no surprise that the outbreak of COVID-19 has only exacerbated the difficulty of obtaining surgeries like abortions. Surgical abortions are nowhere to be found on the National Elective Surgery Urgency Categorisation, established in 2015, when abortions were still considered a crime. Additionally, states and territories have individual elective surgery policies, which impacts the way that surgeries are prioritised in hospitals.The general lack of information around the classification of surgical abortions and lack of timely responses from health departments led to widespread confusion as almost 80 women on surgical abortion lists around Australia were left vulnerable. Last week, Buzzfeed News reported that Marie Stopes Australia (MSA)one of Australias largest abortion providerswas forced to call the COVID-19 hotline to demand a concrete picture of what surgical abortions would look like under the new restrictions on surgeries. It came as no small relief when MSA received confirmation from Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland that abortion providers would be treated as essential health workers during this pandemic. It is unclear whether other states would be taking the same approach.We clearly classify abortion care as a Category 1 procedure because it is so timely and sensitive and it has been really heartening to have that confirmed by some governments, said MSA managing director Jamal Hakim. Nevertheless, the fact that abortion providers have been left to define for themselves whether abortions are a necessary procedure speaks volumes about the ineptitude and apathy of the government and their priorities in times of crisis.Beyond the deficit of information available to confirm whether surgical abortions can continue under austerity measures, the pandemic has also over-looked the effects on abortion access and aftercare. For example, the panic buying of pain medication makes it difficult for patients recovering from abortion to access material relief. Moreover, fly-in abortion providers to rural areas are now limited in their ability to provide services due to interstate travel restrictions that mandate 14 day self-isolation for those travelling into different states or designated remote communities. But these crisis conditions have only highlighted pre-existing constraints that rural women face, as it remains extremely difficult for people who do not live near metropolises to access safe abortions and aftercare.If there is one thing that has been made unmistakably clear in the turmoil of COVID-19, it is that the dilemma of reproductive health inaccessibility has persisted even after the historic decriminalisation of abortion in New South Wales. Abortion remains expensive and largely exclusive to metropolitan areas. It is unacceptable that these shortcomings are only becoming more obvious and dire now, as the country heads towards an indefinite period of social isolation. For many, being unable to access an abortion is not a side effect of disrupted healthcare amidst a worldwide pandemic, but a lived reality. It is plain that the government doesnt prioritise abortion as necessary healthcare, despite it being an essential and life-saving medical procedure.The fight for reproductive rights needs to continue. Though we demanded free, safe and legal, we have only really won one of these demands. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Following the rapid spread of COVID-19, social distancing and self-isolation measures have been implemented worldwide, leading to a wide shutdown of society. As a result, the lack of human activity has led to a cleaner environment, or so it seems. Images of crystal clear rivers and animals flourishing, matched with record low levels of air pollution have been widely circulated on social media. More often than not, these posts are followed by the assertion that all of humanity is to blame for climate change; that we are the disease.Its pertinent to ask who contributes to climate change the most and how?Some of the content that has circulated widely on social media have included images of the canals in Venice being clear and animals returning to these habitats. This was soon matched by responses such as Earth is healing, including by a far-right group posing as environmental group Extinction Rebellion who had stickers proclaiming that Corona is the cure, humans are the disease. However, these images were soon proven to be misinformation.Perceptions that humans are the virus play into eco-fascist sentiments about the environment and reinforces notions that mass immigration and poor people are to blame. This is dangerous for several reasons. But what exactly is ecofascism? Defined very loosely, ecofascism combines white supremacy and environmentalism and advocates for conservationism through any means necessary, including eugenics and mass murder.This also feeds into other harmful ideas like the overpopulation myth, which argues that resource scarcity is due to population growth. Overpopulation discourse is rooted in eugenics, primarily focusing on the Global South to the exclusion of nations in the West. This rhetoric is disputed by statistics which show that half of carbon emissions are produced by half a billion of the worlds richest people who comprise 7% of the global population, while 50% of the worlds poorest only produce 10% of carbon emissions.The foundations of fascist ideology are rooted in the idea of security. Climate change threatens environmental security whereby their aim is to preserve it in which they can establish a future white ethnostate. As elements of society, such as the economy are starting to crumble due to the widely-implemented shutdown, fascists are taking advantage through the spread of propaganda.An investigation into Neo-Nazi networks on Telegram and other channels by The Guardian has shown that fascists often rely on narratives of systemic and societal failures, some of which have been highlighted by the COVID-19 crisis, to spread disinformation, recruit and organise. The survivalist element in fascist ideology advocates that only the strongest and fittest will survive. Through the assumption that COVID-19 is the cure, the vulnerable such as the elderly, disabled, and those who are immunocompromised become collateral damage in the fight against climate change.Ecofascist narratives such as population-control have also been peddled by more liberal environmentalists in the past which only further reinforces Western hegemony and dominance, particularly when it comes to potential environmental solutions.This also largely obscures the fact that it will be working-class people who will pay the price, especially in less developed countries where they may lack the necessary resources and infrastructure to survive the drastic effects of environmental and ecological crises.Environmental degradation and exploitation are a global issue and there have been very few attempts by governments to transition to clean, green energy. Globalisation and increased trade facilitate the need for constant manufacturing and production to fulfil the markets constant supply and demand, particularly across developed, wealthy countries. In Australia more specifically, ongoing colonialism and land exploitation and profiteering by industry giants have resulted in marked environmental impacts such as extreme weather conditions, resource mismanagement and temperature increases.As climate change becomes more of a pressing matter, it becomes easy to latch onto simple narratives. Combined with the rising tides of fascism, migrants, especially from the Third World, become an easy scapegoat. This kind of rhetoric also helps justify harsh, strict immigration policies and border closures, particularly in places like Europe, the US, and Australia, some of who are greatly responsible for carbon emissions. These measures have great consequences for many from surrounding underdeveloped nations who are at risk of becoming climate refugees due to potential environment devastation.Additionally, assigning blame to humanity absolves those who actually wield power from the coal industry to politicians in Canberra of the harm they are actively doing to the environment. It also places the burden of environmental responsibility on the Global South and peoples resisting ongoing colonialism, especially those who are directly impacted by climate change.Racist approaches to environmentalism are far from the solution. While the shutdown has placed a temporary halt on society, and by extension, industrial activity, this is not sustainable in the long-term, particularly as it has costly economic and health impacts. It is imperative that a just transition into green energy is embraced, rather than looking towards genocidal solutions.This is why anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism and anti-racism are essential to the fight for climate justice. An environmental movement that fails to consider the nuances of history, class, and colonialism will only exacerbate existing inequalities by reinforcing fascist notions of who is and isnt worth saving in the fight for a better future. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 12 March, universities around the world have been plunged into mayhem. Classes have been moved online, facilities have closed, and the University of Sydney is scrambling to find its legs as it is suddenly cut off from sources of revenue. In the midst of all this, students are feeling the socio-economic disaster first and most acutely. A lack of response from university management has left student organisations to mobilise in order to fight for protections and support for students on a number of issues: from jobseeker payments and rental assistance, to academic support. Some have done this more successfully than others.The Students Representative Council (SRC)The USyd Students Representative Council (SRC) responded swiftly to the huge upheaval, setting up a COVID-19 response group as soon as the first case of the coronavirus was confirmed in a first year student at USyd. The SRCs services, including access to caseworkers and lawyers, were moved online so as to maintain physical distancing measures and accessibility to students, who will now need these services more than ever. SRC President Liam Donohoe encouraged the SRC COVID-19 Response Group to come up with key demands of the government and the University.From the beginning, the group took a strong political stance that prioritised the safety and needs of students. As a part of the SRCs response, Donohoe wrote an article for Honi condemning the governments prioritisation of businesses over the vulnerable in its initial $17.6 billion stimulus package. A petition titled Contain the virus and protect the vulnerable was created to the same point. These actions were vital in getting the message out to the student body, and getting students involved in the group and campaigns to come out of it.The SRC has pushed mutual aid hard from the start, necessary in a time where communities have been disrupted by social isolation and thousands have lost their jobs. Notably, some of the Office Bearers of the SRC, such as the Education Officers, Womens Officers, Ethnocultural Officers, Queer Officers and Disabilities Officers, have been involved in groups like Inner West Mutual Aid and have also been responsible for setting up mutual aid groups in other areas including South West Sydney. The SRC will be helping with storage and resource distribution for Inner West mutual aid activities, and has been organising ways to source masks, hand sanitiser, gloves, and other essential items which will be distributed by volunteers once they are collected.The USyd Education Action Group (EAG) fought to extend the governments welfare stimulation package, which originally had gaping omissions to student welfare, Youth Allowance, AUSStudy and ABStudy. EAG members took an active role in Twitter bombing, calling and emailing politicians in order to fight for this. Donohoe also reached out to the mainstream media and put pressure on them to report on the student element of the struggle, which has largely been overlooked by mainstream media reporting.Since the coronavirus supplement was expanded to students, the SRC has turned to international students, who have not received the same financial support while paying exorbitant fees.The SRC has formed a WeChat mutual aid group and are designing flyers in Mandarin to promote the Inner West mutual aid group and SRC WeChat mutual aid group, aiming to distribute these to students in campus accomodation.The National Union of Students (NUS)For all intents and purposes, the NUS functions as an SRC on a national scale. The NUS, in contrast to the USyd SRC, were slow to get on their feet.When the travel ban against non-citizens travelling from mainland China was announced in February, it was swiftly condemned as racist by the NUS Ethnocultural Department in its Chinese Students are Welcome, Racism is Not campaign. The Ethnocultural Department created Facebook profile picture frames against the initial first wave of Sinophobic vitriol.However, the NUS did not seem to respond to the broader dilemma of student welfare as swiftly or comprehensively. It was not until students at universities like USyd mobilised that the national student body put out a press release. The NUS had not set up a working group until 20 March, after many Australian universities had begun the transition to online classes and students were beginning to feel the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. The NUS first media release since universities closed, addressing the governments COVID-19 stimulus package, echoed the demands of the USyd SRCs petition and demands that had been published earlier that week. But it left out mention of reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and increased funding to frontline medical services.Despite their slow start, the NUS have now put together the #SaveOurStudents campaign, to demand that students, as one of the most vulnerable demographics impacted by the socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, be prioritised in government actions like stimulus packages and university actions like academic leniency. In the past week, effective explainer graphics made by the NUS have generated large amounts of interaction, with one post reaching over 750, 000 people.Like the SRC, their next step is to advocate for international students, calling for reduced fees, amended visa conditions, better health insurance coverage and a delay of census dates in universities across the country. Aside from a brief press release, the NUS has put out a survey, circulated through Facebook and WeChat, asking international students to outline their struggles and opinions about the situation. By 25 March it had already received over 1000 responses.The University of Sydney Union (USU)Unlike the SRC and NUS, the USU has hesitated to call for student welfare-focused responses to COVID-19.While the USU stated in their response to the COVID-19 outbreak that their highest concern remains the wellbeing of the entire University community, a recent USU board meeting seemed to focus largely on their own finances rather than advocacy for students. USU President, Connor Wherrett, argued that student advocacy was largely the responsibility of the SRC, despite Wherrett himself having previously appeared in a University ad which condemned coronavirus-related racism. The Board has not formally discussed their stance on potential changes to academic regulations such as delaying the census date or expanding special considerations as of yet. However, they did approve signing the NUS petition calling for a range of measures to protect student welfare, including delaying the census date.Additionally, workers do not seem to be at the forefront of the USUs concerns, with the organisation standing down many of its casual workers and laying off several full-time workers in the past week. This comes after weeks of uncertainty, and an undertaking by Wherrett that casuals would have access to sick leave. During the meeting, the Board passed an amendment that changes the wording of the Regulations so that the Board is no longer obliged to fill student leadership positions such as Campus Activity Coordinators, PopFest Creative Directors, or Pulp Editors. This amendment, according to CEO Alexis Roitman, would allow the Board to have more discretion from a financial and staffing perspective, especially given the precarious state of the USUs finances. This amendment fares poorly for many of the USUs staff, who now face uncertainty in their future with the organisation.In a blow to the student media, contributions to the USUs own student media Pulp have also been indefinitely suspended by the USU due to a large-scale budget cut, meaning that only the current editors are still able to write and publish content.Ultimately, the USUs dedication to student wellbeing seems to fall short. This is especially evident from the USU Board discussion about how they would find creative ways for members to receive online rewards instead of having to give students cash refunds. The six $50 Woolworths vouchers that the USU will be giving away to Rewards members seems to be little more than a tokenistic show of care, and the emails to members promoting online discounts reads as a cheap marketing ploy for corporate sponsors dressed up as compassion. At the very least, these vouchers could have gone to the USU employees who will no longer receive shifts for an indefinite period of time. It is unmistakably clear where the USUs priorities lay, and it is not with the wellbeing of students and workers.___Undoubtedly, the coming weeks and months will be incredibly difficult for us all, and much more action is required from these student organisations. Some, like the SRC, have stepped up to bat. It is essential we remember that these student organisations have a responsibility to advocate for the students they represent, whether that be on political grounds or through material relief and mutual aid. To sit back and assume that someone else will pick up the slack is simply not good enough. There are still many fights to be won, and there is no space to let up the pressure were putting on the government from all angles. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Save the Darlington Trees is an ongoing campaign to stop the University of Sydney administration from demolishing a grove of Tallowwood trees behind the Civil Engineering Building. The fate of the 19 trees has become a hotpoint for the local community, with the campaign gaining support from local MPs and university academics. But why are these trees important?The Darlington grove supports a range of wildlife, and the local community values the ecological diversity it creates. Peter Prineas, an organiser of the campaign, describes the possums and flying foxes, rainbow lorikeets, white cockatoos, kookaburras, currawongs, butcher birds, Australian miners, wattle birds, magpies, ravens and at least one migrating koel. Moreover, a 2014 paper (source) co-authored by USyd professor Dr Dieter Hochuli, who has been involved in the campaign, argues urban biodiversity is important to the wellbeing of nearby residents. These trees are crucial for the local ecosystem and the wellbeing of those around them.The local community has been organising since 2015, with ongoing support from Newtown MP Jenny Leong to oppose the demolition. The demolition was brought to the attention of Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who in a letter to the Save Darlington Trees campaign, shared sympathy at the demolition, stating she had serious concerns to the Department [of Planning, Industry and Environment] about the trees, opposing their removal. In a separate letter to the campaign, Leong promised to raise the issue with the Liberal Government in January this year. However, since the development was approved by the Department, neither politician was able to directly intervene in the approval process.In a letter to Leong, the University justified the demolition as necessary to redevelop the Electrical Engineering Building, to create a place where the most promising students can tackle the problems of the future. The development will be a four-storey building stretching beyond the current Civil Engineering Building, with the carpark and hence the grove replaced by a landscaped courtyard, the design of which references the constellations above Sydney.But students at the nearby Civil Engineering building, which was constructed in the 70s and has not seen major renovations since then, have raised concerns that the University has prioritised shiny new buildings over upkeep of existing ones. The university is currently too concerned with constructing new buildings than maintaining its current ones, administrator of popular Facebook page Broken things in PNR told Honi. A quick browse of the page indicates the building deserves urgent attention. Engineering has always been a little in disrepair, though the last 18 months have seen several things go beyond the realm of general disrepair, one engineering student says.Though the project is now on hold due to COVID-19, the development is still scheduled to go ahead with Sydney City Council. Vice Chancellor Michael Spence has offered only empty words to the campaign. We deeply value our neighbours and I welcome all ongoing discussions of our operations and plans, he states in his letter.It is crucial that Sydney University is a good neighbour and shows respect to those who live in the surrounding suburbs, Leong wrote in a letter to Spence. [The University must] reflects the environmentally sustainable values held by the students, staff and local community who are the heart of the organisation. Its unclear with this move, whether the University values anything but new buildings for its promotional pamphlets. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After weeks of uncertainty as to whether campus would remain open, the University announced that all face-to-face classes would cease, coming into effect last Monday, two days after Honi broke the news that a first-year student had tested positive for the coronavirus. A week in, with the switch from the physical classroom to the virtual one, it is clear that the higher education sector is undergoing its biggest transformation in years.As the novelty of being able to wake up ten minutes before class, attend in pyjamas and change screen backgrounds like a 12-year-old on Photobooth wears off, it is important to interrogate what this digital transformation means.Most classes have been going ahead on Zoom, a video conference and online meeting space. Previously a platform of choice for both multinational corporations and fledgling activist collectives, Zoom is now being used by universities worldwide as calls become digital classrooms. As of Wednesday, the University told Honi that the Universitys Zoom has hosted 378,107 users this semester. According to the University, feedback shows that it is working well.However, the students and staff Honi spoke to paint an altogether different and more complex picture. All staff and an overwhelming majority of students Honi spoke to preferred face-to-face classes.Students find Zoom classes harder to concentrate in, less enjoyable, and slow sometimes to the point of awkward. There is consensus that people are contributing less than in comparable face-to-face classes, and more select people are dominating the discussion. For example, one male law student who noticed a boys club culture (encouraged by the tutor) in his class, which is roughly split even along gendered lines, noted that this problem had become worse online. Many students are also having accessibility issues, either with their own internet connections or Zoom itself, due to the exceedingly high traffic. One student told Honi her Zoom crashed several times in half an hour.Of course, there are students with more positive experiences. These generally include: those with smaller classes (such as honours cohorts), those with mobility issues and people who live far away from campus who now dont have to spend hours commuting. Nonetheless, it is clear that the student experience is considerably worse for the vast majority of the student body than it was the week before.Yet, there is a group whove had to adapt far more than students. Staff are seemingly finding the shift even worse than students thus far. Staff told Honi that they were provided with little training on online teaching, with the exception of sending online materials to read over. Unlike universities like the University of Technology Sydney, they were not given a week break from classes to transition online. Further, one staff member said that administrative hours (which are usually used for meetings) for Graduate Teaching Assistants were cut in their department this year, and were only added back as a result of the additional workload because of the COVID-19 crisis. They note that four hours does not make up for the time needed to keep up with the everchanging coronavirus information, and the flow-on adjustments that need to be made to teaching.According to our lecturers and tutors, Zoom classes are no genuine alternative for in person face-to-face classes. Ultimately, this is not just because of technological concerns, but because of the intrinsic social dynamics that being together in a building on campus brings. In bedrooms, instead of classrooms our educational experience becomes atomised. As one Senior Lecturer put it, since the purpose of education is the collective benefit of society, it should be a collective experience. Staff have also noticed less students willing to contribute to discussion.Yet, one aspect of Zoom which has been somewhat overlooked likely because a lot of people arent aware of it is its potential use for surveillance and breaches of privacy. With the University having an institutional account used by staff, the University as a Zoom administrator has immediate access to view a snapshot in real time of whatever is occuring, analytics capability of ranking users based on various categories, data which shows where and how people are logging onto Zoom, access to view any meeting going on under the organisations license, and seemingly the ability to log directly into any meeting (in this case, class) going on. With a range of administrative tools to surveil and categorise users, the online classroom begins to resemble a digital panopticon.When Honi put these Zoom features to staff, most were largely unaware of the specific tools institutional Zoom accounts have. However, there was a widespread belief that the implications of managerial surveillance are genuine, and could be used to harvest data, performance manage or enforce student attendance with an iron fist.Zoom analytics arent even all that accurate. As one casual tutor told Honi, Given that I, the tutor, was given the lowest attentiveness score in the whole class by Zoom for a tutorial that I taught last week should tell you enough to distrust such crude analytics. Having said this, Im under no false impressions that higher-ups actually believe such measures are valid. Theyll only lean on them when they want to get their way and punish staff that arent in their favour.When the University announced that all classes would move online, Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence told the Sydney Morning Herald, weve put a lot of effort and thought into how to do it. I think this is a tremendous opportunity. This could be an interesting pedagogical experiment. But staff have been left without the support they need to make an effective transition, harming student learning in the process. Alarmingly, this crisis thus represents a tremendous opportunity for the University to shift more classes online and reduce teaching and learning costs, while splurging on consultants, administrative buildings and their own salaries.Ultimately, if there is one positive to be gleaned from this crisis, it is rising consciousness amongst students and staff. More than ever throughout my time on campus, we are thinking critically about how the University functions, who this benefits and how to change this. It is absolutely essential that we keep this up post pandemic. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydneys choice to use third-party contractor, ProctorU, for online exams has caused widespread outrage amongst students who fear the ways the software (read: spyware) invades privacy.Downloading the software for ProctorU gives offshore proctors access to personal information and data on students computers. Though ProctorU claims it does not use any students personal information for any reason other than the proctoring of online exams, proctors can access far more information if they so choose, since sitting through an exam with ProctorU involves handing over control of personal computers to proctors.The company also claims that it never sells any personal information to third parties, but in its privacy policy it acknowledges it may sell or transfer information collected from students in the event of a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets. That information includes students name, email address, educational institution, phone number, country of residence, IP address, internet service provider, browser extensions and video and audio recordings of the examination.When using ProctorUs services, students must present an ID card on camera. ProctorU uses the image from this ID card in conjunction with biometric facial recognition software to confirm a users identity. ProctorU may monitor online exams live with a proctor via webcam but the process can also be automated via technology that tracks and records eye movement, noise and keystrokes. Users must then download a program, LogMeInRescue, to obtain remote support from a technician. Proctoru disables the screenshot function, the copy and paste function and all sounds outputs (aside from verbal instructions from proctors), takes control of your mouse, turns off any running apps and prevents you from opening new internet tabs or windows.Users have described having to show a 360 degree view of their bedroom, including each corner of the room in which they sit the exam, as well as the spaces under desks and on the floor. One user reported doing the exam on his bed after his desk was considered too cluttered. This involved removing the bed sheets to prove that no materials for cheating were lying nearby.Unsurprisingly then, students have heavily criticised the proposal. Our email inbox at Honi has been inundated with messages from concerned USyd students, one of whom wrote a person in their right mind wouldnt ordinarily tolerate this level of privacy breach.In a statement to Honi, however, the University stood by its position to use ProctorU. Were confident ProctorU will be able to fulfil our exam needs, given the platforms ongoing and similar work with many universities globally. However, if we do experience any technical or other issues well work hard to manage and mitigate any potential impacts as the particular circumstances demand.More than 1000 institutions, including hundreds of universities, use ProctorU, raising ethical questions around the broader normalisation of privacy breaches. In 2019, Australia was downgraded by global research organisation CIVICUS Monitor from an open to a narrow democracy, in part due to severe limits on press freedom and whistleblowing. Mandatory metadata retention laws were introduced in 2015 with bipartisan support. The Greens, minor parties and academics have criticised these moves, highlighting the numerous ways in which law enforcement agencies have abused and stretched the boundaries of these laws since their introduction.These moves come despite a lack of evidence for growing terrorism threats and statistics which indicate that crime rates have lowered across every major category over the last forty years in New South Wales, except for sexual assault and domestic violence. Clearly, powerful institutions care more about authoritarian regulation than protecting civil rights.Students need not blindly follow a status quo that erodes our right to privacy and commodifies our personal information. We need to push for alternatives to ProductU: take home exams, online assignments or suspension of exams for some units altogether. The University has previously been more responsive to student complaints over invasions of privacy. In 2017, the University decided against adopting cheating detection software Cadmus, which would have analysed keystroke patterns on students computers. Security concerns have also caused companies like Amazon no champion of workers right to privacy to abandon their use of ProctorU. Perhaps this gives us hope that USyd too may cave into the demands of (what the university hierarchy views as) customers, or think twice before using ProctorU in future. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Human beings are storytelling animals. We attempt to make sense of the world around us, and our place within it, by subconsciously constructing narratives that are cogent with our own beliefs and biases. However, this process, wherein we form our own version of the truth from the assortment of discourse that surrounds us, often ends up revealing more about the person that constructed the story, than the event or issue that they intended to detail. But in times of global turmoil and crisis, wherein over 7.7 billion people are attempting to narrativise the present in simultaneity, there is a singular narrative that inevitably prevails; bullshit.In 1986, Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt published an academic paper titled On Bullshit, wherein he outlined the quiddity of a term that is so ubiquitous in contemporary discourse that we tend to ignore its substance. His theory, centred around a simple dichotomy, separated liars from bullshitters by noting that the liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; [whilst] the bullshitter doesnt care if what they say is true or false, but rather only cares whether their listener is persuaded. Thus, the most definitive attribute of bullshit, Frankfurt decides, is a complete disregard for the truth.In view of this, it would not be a stretch to propose thatFrankfurts theory seems almost proleptically respondent to our currentpolitical climate. One need only look as far as the White House to see apolitical model hinged on the capital of bullshit, and to sense that authorityis now, more than ever, built on the foundations of charisma and blindpersuasion. But what is most deeply disturbing (not to mention profoundlydangerous) is that in the wake of the global spread of COVID-19, bullshitnarratives appear to hold as much currency as a 12-pack of toilet rolls.In his address to the United States concerning COVID-19, and much of his recent Twitter content, President Donald Trump blatantly ignored the wills of the World Health Organisation, denoting the pandemic as the Chinese Virus. This linguistic choice has served as a justification for countless narratives of hate, centred around xenophobic racial profiling that inextricably attaches the lethal virus to its place of origin, and Asian identity more broadly. However, when faced with facts concerning a spike in racially-targeted violence following his use of the alternative title, Trump claimed that his continued use of the term was not racist, not at all, [the virus] comes from China, thats why.Mere days later, our own Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, responded to the current Australian supermarket crisis by taking on the strategy of a primary-school teacher with a nationalist bent; convincing the population that sharing is caring by painting the act of hoarding as ridiculous, and perhaps more importantly, un-Australian.But perhaps the most insidious bullshit that has emergedfrom the Corona crisis so far, is that which penetrated the Australian airwavesin the early hours of the 16th of March. From a self-isolatedstudio, 78 year-old talk-back radio host Alan Jones stated that We now seem tobe facing the health version of global warming. Exaggeration in almosteverything. Certainly in description, and certainly in behaviour. It is timelyto note that the famed climate change denialist, along with almost half of hislisteners, are in the age category most at risk of death from COVID-19.These three men are no strangers to bullshit. Trump has produced more alternative than real facts since entering the White House in 2017, Morrison is still coming to terms with the reality of travel bans preventing his ability to flee this crisis and go to Hawaii, and Jones, the so-called controversial conservative, has been so overtly racist, sexist and ignorant on radio that the only thing that is consistently conservative in his arguments is the supply of facts to substantiate them. As such, we have grown used to taking many of their comments with a grain of salt, because whilst genuinely meaningless discourse may be frustrating, it usually isnt taken seriously for all that long. Why then, in the midst of one of the most significant global health crises in recent history, does this attitude change?Now is a period defined by two significant forces; greatuncertainty and media noise. Both are parasitic organisms that not only feedoff each other, but are sustained by a sense of anxiety and hysteria. This iswhere bullshit comes in. Bullshit is the perfect click and share material. Itis the content that gets billions of hits and millions of retweets because weshare it in the hope that others will confirm our fury. At a time when peopleare literally divided, we find unity in our common opinions, and those commonopinions are usually rooted in revulsion.We have been told time and time again to seek the advice andopinions of medical professionals, but the reality is that our updates onCOVID-19 are being fed to us second-hand through the mouths of politicians,radio jockeys, journalists, television presenters and celebrities on socialmedia. Although we would like to assume that people with a platform at thistime are well informed, we are still storytelling animals, and in view of this,we embellish, and sometimes even avoid the truth, to attract clicks, likes andshares. Thus, although we have been quick to assign the title of thepost-truth age to this present era of communicative abundance, what is injeopardy at this time is not the existence of truth, but trust. Frankfurt did not propose the theory of bullshit merelybecause of a vocational bent to provide a philosophical essence to that whichis unimportant. The theory of bullshit is forged on the foundations of the needto question ideas that are posed to us, and what better time is there to askquestions than now? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A couple of weeks ago, the University of Sydney proudly announced that 31 of its subjects were ranked in the top 50 in the world. According to the QS 2020 Subject Rankings, USyd placed 4th in the world for sport and physical therapy, 13th for law and 1st in Australia (and in the top 20 globally) for performing arts.University rankings are closely watched by the media and the tertiary education sector. They condense the vague notion of a universitys quality into a nice, neat, comparable number. And a good rank is an attractive selling point to employers, students and potential sources of research funding.However, a closer look at leading university rankings reveals that they tend to ignore criteria which are most relevant and pressing to students, such as teaching quality, overall student experience and graduate outcomes.The three most high-profile university rankings are the QS World University Rankings (QS), Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE) and Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Each system also publishes separate lists for subject areas and geographical regions, as well as more tailored measures regarding, for example, graduate employability or young universities. Their methodologies suffer from two main misidentification problems: firstly, an unbalanced emphasis on research; and secondly, an over-reliance on subjective metrics.40% of a universitys QS ranking is based on a universitys reputation among academics. Academics are surveyed annually on which institutions they believe represent the best in teaching and research in their field. THE, similarly, gives teaching and research surveys a combined weight of 34.5%. Granted, these surveys encompass a fair amount of academics across locations and fields, and prevent academics from voting for their own university. However, critics argue that QS and THE assign too much importance on an essentially subjective measure of sentiment within the academic community.Recent citations, a proxy for an institutions research impact, make up 30% of THE and 20% of QS rankings. QS also includes research income from grants and industry (8.5% in total), while ARWU evaluates how many highly-cited staff (20%) and papers published in high-profile journals Nature and Science (20%) a university has, in addition to general citations (20%). This is the starkest illustration of these rankings research-heavy focus.Unfortunately for students, none of the main rankings involve student surveys. They include, as proxies for teaching, staff-to-student ratios, international staff and student numbers and staff with PhDs.These flawed methodologies lead to four main problems for students. Firstly, they essentially ignore issues of student satisfaction with teaching and overall campus experience, and substitute easily ascertainable data on labour market outcomes of graduates such as employment rates, income or promotions per profession or industry with subjective employer surveys. QS Graduate Employability Rankings (under which USyd ranked 5th globally in 2019) consider employer surveys (30%), prevalence of high-profile alumni (25%), industry partnerships in placements and research (25%) and frequency of employer visits to universities, framed as employer-student connections (10%), with only 10% allocated to graduate employment rates. Not only is this an imprecise assessment of how well a particular degree prepares students for the real world, it indicates that the move towards graduate employability at universities is pushed by employers, not students, reflecting a growing and divisive trend of corporatisation at universities.Secondly, subjective measures such as teaching reputation surveys, especially from the providers and not the recipients of such teaching, are likely biased towards larger and more established universities, as their work is more visible, meaning that smaller universities producing quality output can find it hard to get recognised. Citations with all the vagaries and uncertainties of publishing in journals can also be similarly biased. In particular, ARWU includes as criteria the number of alumni (10%) and staff (20%) with Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals, resulting in a ranking which focuses on prestige at the top of the bell curve and which does not necessarily translate into positive results for the vast majority of students who do not receive instruction or supervision from these laureates.Thirdly, even if rankings are explicitly research-focused, the problem arises when they are so high-profile and used simplistically by media and universities alike to compare institutions and, critically, attract students. Most students at most universities are undergraduate coursework students, for whom the research function of their university is largely unseen and bears little personal relevance to the content they learn, the skills they acquire and the quality of education they receive. For a recent high-school leaver tossing up their options, these rankings are ill-suited to judge whether their future course the educational environment and the concrete value of the skills and qualifications gained is one of the best in the world. And finally, focusing too intently on rankings runs the danger of universities substantially shifting out resources towards research, awards and income-generation, which is acceptable in itself, though not at the expense of teaching.So how can we fully capture students experiences or improve existing methodologies? The most obvious answer is to include concrete graduate outcomes and direct surveys of the student body, weighting these components heavily. Student surveys will still be subjective to an extent, but considering the large sample size and the critical financial stake students have in universities, they must be taken seriously to encourage universities to invest in quality teaching, facilities and resources, and make policy decisions in the best interests of students.The Commonwealth Government recently released the results of the Student Experience Survey for 2019, revealing that USyd students were the second-least satisfied in Australia (behind UNSW, largely due to their unpopular trimester system). And rankings such as the THE University Impact Rankings, which measure universities research priorities and impact against the UN Sustainable Development Goals, might more accurately reflect a universitys contribution to social progress and global issues that students care about.The headline numbers tell a different story to what is happening on the ground, in classrooms and on campus, leaving student voices ignored and unaccounted for. Ultimately, regardless of whether a university is research- or teaching-focused, students are the main source of revenue for the sector and are impacted the hardest by ill-thought-out decisions. They should be front and centre in this public forum. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney (USyd) is notorious for its ethos of elitism and privilege. With some of the worst numbers of low socio-economic status (SES) and rural enrolments in the country, its not hard to see why.Though, it is more than culture and class keeping rural and low SES students from a high-class education. Even before disadvantaged students experience the blue-blooded culture on campus, they face the exclusivity of the Universitys on campus accommodation. USyds superficial endeavours to increase diversity are yet to fix the problem.With an onslaught of negative PR following the dangerous culture of privilege shown in the 2018 Red Zone Report, and criticism from the Bradley Review calling for a 20% increase in the enrolment of low SES students by 2020; USyd focused its 2016-2020 Strategic Plan towards ensuring students have the ability to thrive whatever their social or cultural background.Though existing in the heart of the countrys most expensive city, USyd has a difficult time reconciling a tradition of exclusivity and classism with the desired image of diversity on campus.The prices of accommodation on the cheaper side still skyrocket above what a University student can make while efficiently working, studying and finding their feet in a new city without daddys financial support.The most well known accommodations are that of the private residential colleges, which average around $1400 a fortnight, as well as the less costly Regiment and Queen Mary, which range upwards from $720 a fortnight. If a student works a casual job at $19.49 an hour, it would take 20 hours of work a week on top of studying needed to cover the cost. This doesnt include money for food, travel or any other unexpected or leisure expenses.While being a poor uni student is an expected part of the university experience, disadvantaged and low-SES students are disproportionately excluded by the effects of cost-of-living. And as a consequence these kids are turning their backs on a high-class education.Efforts have been made by USyd to increase social inclusion, pouring money into volunteer programs to encourage disadvantaged student engagement, which has led to positive results for Indigenous students.Indigenous education programs like the Wingara Mura-Bunga Burrabugu have seen a 36 per cent rise in First Nations student numbers. The strategy includes pre-tertiary outreach programs, admission pathways and, crucially, scholarships and rent support.The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Accommodation Award within the program offers a fixed rent of $50 a week for nominated University owned accommodation, including the affluent residential colleges. It also waives application fees and bond.The low SES and rural equivalent is yet to exist, which is unfortunate considering the success of the program with First Nations students.Currently, to access equity scholarships available through USyds accommodation services, non-Indigenous rural and low SES students are made to pay any bond and application fees when applying.Applicants must go through the process as normal full-fee-paying residents and are notified about the success or failure of their scholarship application days or weeks later. This can mean paying hundreds of dollars in non-refundable bond, application fees and cancellation to get out of accommodation contracts.All of the Universitys residential colleges require scholarship application fees. Low SES or rural students applying for an equity scholarship at Wesley College, for example, would be made to pay $1000 in bond and another $100 for each different scholarship applied for.There are no application fees for the more affordable Regiment or Queen Mary accommodations. Though, once students are green-lighted for equity scholarship subsidies, they are forced to pay a $200 acceptance fee, a four week deposit and two weeks of rent in advance, all before they receive their financial support.This leaves some of the most vulnerable of students out of pocket before they are even notified of whether their application was successful or not. Its a costly risk and many low SES and rural students cannot afford to apply for and accept the scholarships meant to ease the financial burden of studying at USyd.If the University is as dedicated to increasing on-campus diversity as outlined in the 2016-2020 Strategic Plan, then attention should be turned towards housing one of the most disenfranchised groups on campus. There is a need for better programs and more practical funding for accommodation subsidies for low SES and rural students on campus as seen with the success of the Wingara Mura-Bunga Barrabugu program. Because currently, these disadvantaged students bear witness to USyds entrenched class divide before they can even step foot onto the green manicured lawns. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Three and a half years ago, I picked a medical science degree, like many confused seventeen-years-olds before me, because Id always loved biology in high school but couldnt quite close the deal on undergraduate medicine. I quickly found a genuine love for medical science. While it is true that its students are occasionally awkward and often competitive, I have never met a more earnest group of people in my life. One of my first university memories is of a lecture introducing diabetes where a lecturer wore a shirt extolling the virtues of the pancreas. I am also deeply fond of the Anderson Stuart Building, a building that despite Honis postulation that it was haunted in my first week on campus, has since become my second home.In noting these things, I would be remiss to ignore the very public crises of management that have coloured my years here. In the first semester of 2019, on my way to anatomy and histology classes, I would walk through corridors where flyers and posters begged for Anderson Stuart to be saved. The buildings staff were being threatened at the time with eviction, and I tried to show solidarity in whatever small ways were possible.In 2020, against the backdrop of a pandemic that ought to have strengthened the imperative for basic science teaching, staff in my own major of physiology were threatened with losing their jobs. I rallied with them, fought police repression and even participated in a historic occupation of the F23 building to try and protect their jobs. This year I watched as several of my friends who had gone on to start their honours years were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building, once again under the auspices of safety concerns and an allegedly toxic workplace culture. Over the past few weeks, I resolved to speak with staff, unionists and student activists to try to understand exactly why the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH) has generated these yearly crises.Jamie*, a former FMH staff member who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, describes a once drastically different workplace culture and attributes recent changes to the appointment of the inaugural Dean, Professor Robyn Ward, in July 2018. Before that time, they said that while management was not perfect, staff felt that their opinions were valued by Heads of School and that they collaborated freely and extensively.Ward was appointed three years ago to oversee the centralisation of what were once seven separately administered schools Medical Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Sciences into a single mega-faculty. Jamie says that staff in the School of Medical Sciences (SoMS) perceived themselves as particularly targeted, and that their trust in faculty leaders has been most especially eroded by a lack of collegiality or consultation over the last two years.Jamie believes that the targeting of staff in SoMS began in late 2018 when staff who worked in wet laboratories (those that use biological material or liquids) in the Anderson Stuart Building were told that they would be evicted on the grounds that their laboratories did not adhere to safety standards. Initially, Ward argued that the workplace health and safety risks were so intolerably severe that they could not be remedied by usual procedures, and mandated full relocation to other facilities by, at the latest, mid-2019. Staff say they were confused by this sudden development on two accounts. First, many staff reported that immediately before this proposal, their labs were found to meet Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) standards or had received minor, rectifiable recommendations. Additionally, management were extremely reticent to provide any detailed WHS reports on which the claim that the laboratories were unsafe was based.Rob Boncardo, a member of USyds National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch committee, says that these actions on managements behalf led staff to seek NTEU involvement to wage a dispute with the Faculty on their behalf. Boncardo argued that given the lack of WHS evidence, managements initial actions were a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) as they did not engage in a formal change process, in which consultation and discussion would be required to move staff from the Anderson Stuart Building. This motivated the NTEU to challenge the decision with the Provost, the Vice Chancellor and ultimately arbitration by the Fair Work Commission. In October 2019, the Fair Work Commission ruled in favour of staff in the Anderson Stuart Building and declared that the University should have entered into genuine bargaining through a formal change process.Both Jamie and Rob tell me that there was a noticeable shift in the narrative of management during the dispute. After it became clear that FMH had insufficient evidence to support evictions on WHS grounds, they began to prosecute an argument that the staff deserved better facilities and so ought to be moved out of their presently suboptimal spaces in the Anderson Stuart Building.Jamie says that staff were sceptical of this narrative as they had seen management promises of new buildings and facilities fail to materialise in the past and ultimately felt that the move was done to specifically demoralise and separate staff who had previously become accustomed to close collaboration. Campbell Watson, a fourth-year student in the Faculty and long-time activist, tells me that this was the first time that students became aware of what he described as a longer term culture war between management and SoMS staff. Watson also recalls the high levels of staff militancy and the horror of many students when they discovered how their teachers were being treated.In 2020, Watson was a key organiser in the campaign to Defend Medical Science Education, an involvement he says was motivated by his belief that the staff who were to be made redundant were some of the best people who had ever taught him. In late 2020, Professor Sarah Young, the current Head of the School of Medical Sciences, put forward a Draft Change Proposal that made redundant positions in the disciplines of Physiology and Pathology. Jamie was one of the many staff members whose job was ultimately made redundant under the proposal, and notes that several attempts to be genuinely consulted on the proposal were rebuffed and that directly negotiating with management was difficult.The justification for the proposal was argued on two grounds: a) an attempt to further centralise teaching and b) to address what was argued to be overstaffing of the Physiology and Pathology disciplines. Physiology staff reported to management that the data being used to calculate the full time equivalent (FTE) value of their work was incorrect and did not take into account its full scope. In one other incident, management was especially combative, insisting staff were not being paid for a bioengineering class that staff knew they were being paid to teach.Undergraduate and higher degree by research (HDR) student attempts at consultation were also rebuffed. Watson recalls a meeting with Sarah Young after the Revised Change Proposal was released, in which he and other students demanded that they be given the opportunity to make submissions and be consulted in the negotiating process. Watson describes Youngs approach in the meeting as completely retaliatory as she referred to technical descriptions showing that students did not need to be consulted on matters of staff employment.Everyone I spoke to noted that after the Anderson Stuart incident, management appeared to now be weaponising the terms of the enterprise bargaining agreement to their benefit, particularly against concerned students. Jamie notes that while the EBA required the Faculty to demonstrate that it was consulting staff, they were not obliged to make concessions to anyone, and appeared unwilling to do so throughout the process. In one survey conducted by the Defend Medical Science Education campaign in 2020, 69.17% of the 132 SoMS staff they surveyed reported feeling bullied by the actions of senior management.Despite a large-scale campaign of resistance involving two disputes issued by the NTEU and a mobilisation of both staff and students, SoMS ultimately proceeded with the majority of the planned staff redundancies. Kelton Muir de Moore, a casual staff member in Physiology and member of the NTEU, remembers the campaign as a moment of unprecedented staff mobilisation, describing the campaign as the best level of colleagueship Ive seen in my time in Physiology. Although relationships between staff had become tense, Muir de Moore says that the struggle against the brutal management of staff gave staff a commonality that nurtured friendships and desires to fight the mismanagement of the University.This year, in a sequel befitting of a scripted drama, honours students were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building (MFB) and asked to change their supervisors on short notice. The eviction was initially justified on safety grounds by the fact that an unknown white powder and broken glass were found underneath a poster criticising management. Many of the same staff and postgraduate students that were evicted from Anderson Stuart in 2019 were relocated to MFB, and the culture of the building has been described by staff to be particularly sceptical of senior management. Subsequently, the eviction of honours students was justified on the basis of a supposedly toxic workplace culture within the building.Boncardo explains that the NTEU closely engaged with the affected students in the MFB as losing honours students can significantly impact staff workload provisions and make them appear as if they were not performing their job adequately. Initially, Boncardo says, FMH management did not respond to NTEU appeals for mediation and proceeded to contact students informing them of an intent to evict regardless. The NTEU subsequently used a right of entry protocol to audit the evidence for the toxic workplace culture. The evidence, Boncardo says, was found to have been sourced from only six Faculty members, all of whom were members of the senior management team, and only one of whom worked in the building. At this point, Boncardo recalls, staff began to suspect that the phrase toxic workplace culture was managements way of describing the strong union culture in the building.Students, helped by the NTEU and the Students Representative Council (SRC), attempted to bargain with the Faculty and wrote individually and collectively in order to stay in the building and continue their original projects. The Faculty eventually reneged on good faith negotiations with the NTEU and the students were told that they would be moved out of the building at the end of the week. Subsequently, a meeting was held between management and students in which Boncardo attended in his capacity as a representative of the NTEU and the interests of students. Despite the students wish for Boncardo to remain in the meeting, management asked him to leave. Boncardo describes these actions as a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement and a transparent effort at union busting. Eventually, after two weeks of negotiations, the Faculty decided to allow the honours students to remain in their building.An honours student affected by the incident, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, described the personal toll of the two weeks on their education. The student said that they lost weeks of work and what feels like years off my life [and] I really cannot emphasise enough the mental and emotional toll. Several students expressed to me that they were finding it impossible to sleep and eat properly as they were feeling too hyped up by the adrenaline, stress and uncertainty around the decision and our meetings with management.The student further described dealings with management as devoid of empathy. Several honours students affected by the project have reportedly lost their trust in the Faculty and have strongly reconsidered their intentions to undertake further studies.The SRC President, Swapnik Sanagavarapu, who was heavily involved in assisting students as a representative during the incident, confirmed that management were particularly hostile during meetings and did not seem to want a resolution. When asked to speak generally about accusations of a toxic culture in the faculty, Sanagavarapu said that in his experiences advocating for students, he felt that there was no faculty that has had so many instances back to back of people being treated so poorly (by management).The NTEU has since conducted an audit into the workplace culture of the Medical Foundation Building and found that there was no evidence of a toxic or urgently unsafe workplace in the area. Overwhelmingly, respondents to the NTEUs audit said that the space was safe and had a positive culture among colleagues. 69% of respondents, however, felt that the senior management of the Faculty negatively impacted the culture of the building. On 27 May, the NTEU recommended that further consultative processes with staff should be taken by senior management in order to best meet their needs. As Boncardo surmises, while this process began with management cruelly accusing staff of cultivating a toxic workplace culture, it has ended with a rigorous and wide-ranging audit showing that it is in fact management themselves who have a lot of work to do to improve their relations with staff and students.Senior management may well have had an important (even good) idea when they set out to establish this mega-faculty. Change of this scale, however, requires a well articulated vision, clear communication, regular trustworthy consultation and authenticity where actions match a shared vision. The narrative so far seems sadly lacking in all of these attributes. Staff, students and unionists all appear to agree on one thing: FMH management have, for multiple years now, been engaging in a campaign of obfuscation, bullying and managerialism. If a toxic culture exists in the Faculty of Medicine and Health it is surely not one that exists amongst its students and teachers. Instead, it is one created by senior managers who have, thus far, unsuccessfully tried to divide and conquer them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I remember sitting in the back of my uncles car, my younger brother and cousin sitting on either side of me. I was twelve and it was the first time that I had travelled overseas without my parents. We had just crossed the border into Northern Ireland and the radio was trying to acquaint itself with the UKs FM waves, a haunting crackle broken by the odd word in an accent that was thicker than what I was used to hearing. I dont know what it is about the radio, but my brain is like a sieve for that form I could probably count on one hand the stories that have stuck with me. But for some reason, the tinny voice that came through the cars speakers on that day is still scorched into my memory with a burning sense of clarity.A murder trial was about to commence. The victim was an elderly woman, alone on Christmas Day at her home in Newry, too frail to visit her family. The accused was her next door neighbour, a middle-aged mother delivering a gift on Christmas morning. The facts of the case were particularly gruesome. The victim was sexually assaulted and later, bludgeoned to death with the wooden crucifix that she kept by her bedside. Her body was found with internal bruising, bleeding and fifteen broken ribs. An imprint of the crown of thorns was deeply embedded in her chin, the Christ figure detached from the cross, lying beside her.When in Ireland, I stay in my mothers childhood home. It is an unavoidably warm place. The fire is always blazing, the living room always filled with relatives and friends. But on that night, I didnt sleep a wink. I lay in my bed, mistaking my rapid heartbeat for feet clambering upstairs, holding my breath as I watched the cinema of shadows created by the headlights of passing cars. I could feel every kilometre of distance between me and my parents. I worried how long it would take for me to get to them if anything were to happen. But most of all, I was transfixed by the crucifix that was hanging above the door. A staple in the Catholic Irish household, so long a symbol of sacrifice and devotion, now a lingering figure of cruelty. I had almost convinced myself that I could see and hear blood dripping from its outline. It was really nothing but shadows, and Irish rain.Of course, my adult brain is starkly aware of the fact that most neighbours are perfectly sane people, and that most people are not bludgeoned to death at all, let alone by a crucifix.***Upon reading The Argonauts in the summer break after my first year of university, I fell hopelessly in love with Maggie Nelsons writing. This passion manifested itself in the decision to purchase her entire catalogue of books, which arrived on my doorstep in the middle of the second week of semester. However, as the story of impulsive online shopping inevitably goes, the semester passed, then the next, then the next, and I hadnt read a single word of any of them.I was sitting in my criminal law class, pondering the absurdity of how it is considered normal to contemplate the facts of six brutal murders before breakfast. I assumed that it took a certain person to be able to mull over these things in any sort of detail, and gathered that I was obviously not one of them my only contribution to that class being the observation that the victim in a cannibalism case shared the name of the tiger in The Life of Pi. With this conviction in mind, and my penchant for topical distraction, I took to scaling lists of isolated lines from great texts and thinkers concerning cruelty, in the process of which, I stumbled across a familiar name Maggie Nelson.2011s The Art of Cruelty is a meditation on the relationship between art and cruelty that consciously assaults the increasingly feeble barriers between representation and reality. Each essay reads like a palimpsest of ideas, with Nelsons incisive vision inscribed atop the musings of a rich index of philosophers, theorists, writers and artists. This is, at the best of times, an intimidating trope. I for one, nearly threw the book at the wall when the first line of the first essay in the collection was a direct quote from the knotty and bizarre mind of Fredrich Nietzsche. But one of the things that I most persistently admire about Nelson, if not envy, is her ability to make reading feel like walking through an expansive forest of familiar names and ideas, whilst being guided by a compassionate friend that is familiar with the route. Casting aside any semblance of certainty or truth that I had previously grasped, I took Nelsons hand and trampled into the forest of cruelty a journey defined by three books, countless minds and endless questions.***With this mania we all have for depreciating everything, as soon as I have said cruelty, everybody will at once take it to mean blood, wrote Antonin Artaud in The Theatre and Its Double. The Theatre and Its Double. In this preface to his theory of the theatre of cruelty, Artaud attempts to counter the societal assumption that cruelty is unavoidably physical and visible. The great irony of this stance is that Artaud himself succumbed to the trope that he so passionately wished to sidestep, with much of his theatre representing a very literalist interpretation of cruelty, capitalising on gore.But despite Artauds theory in many ways manifesting as a regrettable lexical error, I cant help but think that there is some merit to his idea. The world is routinely swallowed by darkness, humanity the largest existential threat to humanity. Perhaps the theatre of cruelty is not a literal theatre, but rather the world around us.When we are confronted by cruelty, we become drunk on the need for justification. Why would someone do this? How could they think such evil thoughts? The criminal law is literally hinged on this principle, as the severity of punishment is qualified on the basis of a justificatory logic connecting mens rea to actus reus. Nelson unwittingly effaces the supposedly impermeable rationality of this system, considering cruelty not just in terms of what can be seen, but as a means of structuring thought. In this task, she is aided by a careful interweaving of the theories of Elaine Scarry and Emmanuel Levinas.Scarry contemplates vulnerability with a sense of child-like optimism, imploring that the natural response to beauty and fragility is the will to protect. This notion is perhaps best conveyed by analogy when a child finds a ladybird on a petal, they have the compulsion to guard it. They let it scurry across their little hands, watching in awe as it defies gravity and disappears onto the underside.Nelson problematises this position, borrowing from Levinas perception of the schizoid nature of human responses. In this version of events, the child realises that they are more powerful than the beetle, and their admiration turns into a volatile cruelty that sees the poor insect reduced to little more than a pile of guts and fragmented exoskeleton ground into the pavement.The fantasy of knowing is intoxicating. The belief that every action and every thought can be justified so long as we devote enough attention to it. But still, I picture the elderly woman from Newry, who like the ladybird is gentle and harmless. In my mind, she sits in her armchair with her crucifix, rosary beads and bible her frail fingers moving across the beads, keeping count of her devotions.Perhaps what I fear most about cruelty, is that no matter how hard I try, I dont know where it comes from. But then again, I dont think Scarry, or Levinas, or even Nelson, know either.***In my mind, all great writing allows the reader to glance into the inner-mind of the writer. This voyeuristic position rides on the assumption that the most interesting part of reading is seeing the author in conversation with themselves on the page. This can be seen quite literally in many works of philosophy, where the writer will disagree with and respond to their own arguments in pages bound by a single cover, as though they are their own most virulent interlocutor. However, in Nelsons work, this interaction is much more subtle, as Nelson the writer blends with Nelson the character, attempting to piece together disparate memories and theories into a perfect tapestry of edification. However, whilst Nelson is unavoidably at the heart of most of her books, her 2005 poetry collection, Jane: A Murder, speaks with a different voice, as she composes works of poetry from a combination of her own cogitations and the diary entries of her Aunt, Jane, who was murdered at the age of 21 in 1969.It is easy to fetishize victims of cruelty to position them as martyrs, eternally wrapped in the story of their demise rather than the stories of their lives. Nelson is supremely conscious of this, articulating that Jane is about identification not fusion. In view of this, she allows her Aunt to speak for herself through diary entries giving vitality to the life that came before the murder, not just the murder itself.In The Phaedrus, Plato asserts that writing is an act of mimesis that language itself is to blame for the distance from reality often reflected in literature. Whilst Jane, a collection that is predominantly fashioned from the private musings of a dead woman, appears to be mimesis in the purest form, I contend that Nelson manages to breathe life into a topic that has been waterlogged by taboo and sensationalism. The prose is bare, the number of words on a page sparse, the gaps left to be filled, immense.But Nelsons unique, personal voice slaps the reader into a state of attention in 2007s The Red Parts, which focussed on the re-opening of the trial of the 1969 murder of Jane, depicts an emotional navigation of how human beings come to terms with cruelty when the concept itself is naturally unintelligible. Blending true-crime drama with memoir, Nelson commits to contemplating the question of proximity to cruelty forced to struggle with the reality that she never knew her aunt Jane, whilst also being acutely aware that the victim of the brutality that was being detailed in the courtroom was someone that shared her DNA. As a reader, this reality made the image of a young woman with a stocking embedded in the skin of her neck, and a blood turning her auburn hair an even darker read, all the more resonant.Re-reading The Red Parts in 2021, a year that in many ways, exists under the shadow of cruelty, is almost sickening. I scroll through my Twitter feed and see an update from @DeadWomenAus that 11 women in Australia have lost their lives to violence so far this year. I think about the names that, unlike Janes, are erased from public consciousness, and I think of the project of wilful ignorance that bears its ugly head in the form of political rhetoric day after day. Anger is a terrible thing, it causes hate. says Jane. I wish I could talk this over with someone. The greatest cruelty of all is the silence.Whilst a consistent theme in all of Nelsons work, vital to The Argonauts is a contemplation of the role of language. This is perhaps most poetically expressed in Nelsons invocation of Roland Barthes, that just as the Argos parts may be replaced over time, but the boat is still called the Argo, when the lover utters the phrase I love you, its meaning must be renewed by each use. Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts, whilst one a book of poetry and the other a quasi-memoir, are bound by a similar consideration of the value, and even more importantly, the limitations of language. The discourse of cruelty, like the lover saying I love you is volatile. With every utterance, the emotional tone, the justification, the act, transforms to create a concept anew. Nelson references Joan Didions essay The White Album to contemplate this idea further. We tell ourselves stories in order to live says Didion at the start of the essay, only to end with the line writing has not yet helped me to see what it means. I came to Nelson with the hope that my understanding of cruelty would be clarified. Nonetheless, I still dont know what cruelty means. And for that, I am indebted to her.***Williams Carlos Williams in The Ivy Crown wrote;The business of love isCruelty which,By our wills,We transform to live together.But in these theatres of cruelty, I am left empty, searching for love I cannot find. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The farmboy stands at the edge of the world he knows. A wide vista stretches before him. He turns for a last look at home. He could be safe there, happy even but that is not what he was made for. He gulps and takes the step.Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D) has occupied a number of positions in the public imagination since it was first published in 1974. At times, it has been a source of moral panic, the supernatural elements of the game at odds with the insurgent Reaganite evangelical conservatism of the 1980s. Seeming to represent a manifestation of the various forms of moral dissolution feared by suburbanites at the time, D&D was described by Patricia Pulling, the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons as a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings. More recently, it has operated as a useful punchline, acting as a signifier of a certain type of person: a 35-year-old with pallid skin and gamer spine, putting on a wizard hat and talking about trolls in their mothers basement.Today, D&D enjoys a relatively good run in terms of public image. Likely aided by popular media such as Critical Role, tabletop roleplaying games have grown more mainstream, with the CEO of Wizards of the Coast (the company behind D&D) estimating current tabletop player numbers of its 5th edition at 9.5 million worldwide.The farmboy sidesteps the ogres hammer, as three fletched arrows fly into the beasts thick hide. He turns to see the ranger, cape flowing in the wind. They grin at each other, and the farmboy returns to the fray.While these periods in the public imagination are all indicative of Dungeons and Dragons social, cultural, and even political impact, they are secondary to what it is. Attempts to describe D&D can struggle to do it justice: describing it as a fantasy roleplaying game captures the narrative feel, but ignores the rules and processes that make up the game. Describing in detail the games rules and procedures may provide a better idea of what it entails, but can fail to capture the spirit of the game.At its most basic element, D&D like all other tabletop roleplaying games is a group of people working together to tell a story. That process is mediated by the rules of the game, and refereed by the Dungeon Master (or Game Master, or Keeper, or Master of Ceremonies, or Big Mack Daddy it seems almost like a requirement now that independent games come up with their own twist on the DM). At the core of any good tabletop roleplaying game, however, is the story. Whether its a search for answers in a city shrouded by mist, a quest to slay a dragon, or the passage of a ship through dangerous waters, the mechanics of gameplay exist to service the story.They enter the tavern, full of old smoke and creaking floorboards. The dwarf makes his way to the bar. The ranger makes her way to a man in the corner with a face worn soft by age. The farmboy follows.In one campaign I played, we were tasked with killing a giant snake that resided in a nearby cave. Soon into the combat we found that giant snakes are less easy to kill than advertised, but collapsing a cave on a snake is actually rather simple. So we did that.Every D&D player will have some story like this: an eventful adventure or a particularly memorable character. What can be striking is just how similar many of the stories are if not in content, then in the form the stories follow. This is because tabletop roleplaying games are not just sets of rules or patterns of cliches. They are a narrative form in and of themselves. It would be easy to dismiss this out of hand, to claim that tabletop RPGs, acting as the dumping ground of every trope imaginable, are simply the detritus of fantasy literature. This fundamentally misunderstands the nature of narrative form. Narrative form is not determined by substance (that is, the story that is told) but rather by means through which that substance is created and conveyed. Examined through this lens, we can see that tabletop roleplaying games are a unique narrative form as distinct as poetry, or prose (though admittedly less developed). The stories developed in a tabletop roleplaying game are done so collaboratively, improvisationally, and are mediated by a set of rules. None of these are unique features to the form on their own. Virtually any form of film or theatre requires the creative collaboration of a number of artists, improvisational theatre and comedy are widespread narrative forms, and video games are also mediated by a set of rules albeit digitally. Taken as a whole, however, these aspects make up the unique narrative form of tabletop roleplaying games.They creep through the echoing halls of the tomb. The old man had told them of treasure hidden in its depths treasure guarded by a lich. The dwarf carries a torch and leads the band, forcing its light into every nook and cranny as if to edge out any spirits hiding there. The farmboy stays back, and keeps his hand on his sword.These distinct aspects make up a type of story that can be exceptionally thrilling. The improvisational, collaborative nature of tabletop roleplaying games means that the beats of their plot are genuinely unpredictable. Player characters apparently have a universal desire to seduce and/or kill every creature they come across, which usually tends to interfere with the games story structure. While the Game Master may have an idea of where the story will go, the influence of the players and the referee nature of the games rules means that the actual direction of the plot is impossible to determine. Through the outcome of a die roll, a player can change the direction of a campaign entirely. This creates stories that are unlike those of any other narrative form yet often similar to each other.Like any distinct narrative form, tabletop roleplaying games contain tropes, like that of Chaotic Stupid, a character whose Chaotic Neutral alignment expresses itself in tedious wacky hijinks (in my first session of D&D I tried to set fire to another characters hair for this reason). Most of these tropes emerge from the collaborative nature of the storytelling. With advancing the plot the responsibility of every participant in the game, its easy for the story to get bogged down by players impulse to pursue the freedom that a tabletop roleplaying game provides. This can lead to the habit affectionately known as murderhoboing where player characters devolve into itinerant criminals who kill, maim, and thieve their way across the game world with little regard for the story, setting, or NPCs they come across. While some people see this as a predictable outcome of any tabletop RPG systems design, others have aspired to design RPGs differently.The lich bats the dwarf to the side with a casual drift of its hand. The ranger nocks an arrow, letting it fly into the lichs wretched frame. The lich turns to the ranger with a hiss cut short by a wild swing of the farmboys sword.The Forge was an online community of tabletop RPG creators and players, focused on creating narrativist games. Narrativist systems are tabletop games where the fun of the game emerges from telling a shared story. These are distinct from gamist systems based on the fun of competition with other players and the DM and simulationist systems based on the fun of following a game worlds internal logic. While these may seem like small distinctions that can be tweaked within the existing processes of a games system, the structure of a games rules provides an important framework to emphasise or de-emphasise certain aspects of play.The game systems created by the Forge community reflect this attempt to centre narrative in game design. Forge games have a wide range of genres, themes, and mechanics, but have some common characteristics: methods of conflict resolution that rely on the logic of the games story, not external dice rolls; a greater degree of narrative control afforded to players; and an emphasis of improvisation and collaboration in gameplay. Much like a piece of improvisational theatre, Forge games build on offers between players and GM to build the games story.From a narrativist standpoint, the resulting game is exceptional. Players are incentivised to lean into their characters emotions and arcs, and the aim of the game seems to shift from lets-see-who-can-kill-the-most-goblins to coaxing a sincere, moving story out of the minds of a few people and some dice. Some of the stories these games create can rival serious works of fiction for their complexity and depth. If you were trying to assess tabletop games based on their ability to facilitate quality art, narrativist games would certainly be the most successful. The question remains, however, as to whether that is how we should measure a games success.The farmboy sidesteps the sickly beam of light that has burst forth from the lichs fingertips, seeing the ground it hits start to rot. The elf and dwarf lie on the ground dying.The farmboy summons his last reserve of strength. It is now or never. He steps forward, darting his sword to the lichs gleaming phylactery, the blade travelling true and straight towards the amulet.He rolls a 1, trips, and falls.The truth is, much of the charm of tabletop roleplaying games come from how hackneyed they are. Murderhoboing may be an easy pattern of play to fall into, but thats because its fun. I wont pretend that compelling, emotional, and thoughtful stories usually come from a game that largely centres around dick jokes and carnage but I also wont pretend that playing that type of game isnt a joyful experience.One of my fondest memories in my time playing D&D comes from one dungeon that caused every member of my party to die, several sessions in a row. In terms of narrative, this was obviously not ideal. The repeated strain on both the players patience and the suspension of disbelief required to justify all of our new characters meeting again each week began to wear the story thin. But despite this, there was some satisfaction in coming back each week with a ridiculous new character, raising the stakes on what was acceptable.One week, I came back with a foppish rogue; the next, with a barely disguised expy of a hardboiled detective. Finally, the party agreed to play only wizards (mine was a gnome illusionist). From the perspective of a Forge designer, with the emphasis they place on quickly between important moments in the story, this weeks-long stalling on a perpetual meat grinder of a dungeon was not what a tabletop game should be. But it was fun.The farmboy lies bleeding out on the dungeon floor. Thoughts go through his head of his ma and pa, his dreams of glory, and how far he made it from the world he once knew. His eyes glaze over, and he breathes his last.This tension, between the desire for a quality narrative and a quality game, is difficult to resolve. This is not to say that either of these aims is correct, or even that they are mutually exclusive great joy can be found in a narrativist game, and a moving story can be found in any game. But the question of which gets emphasised the story or the game is central to the game design process.Realistically, the question comes down to that of the audience. The vast majority of games audience will be contained to the people that play them. This puts tabletop RPG players in the unique position of being both the creators of a story, and its primary audience and critic. In a way, this means there is a pretty simple answer: play the way you and your friends agree is fun. But I cant help but feel like tabletop games can aspire to be better, to make the most of a unique form of storytelling and create beautiful art thats also fun to play. Playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time as a pale, sweaty teen was the first time I had a captive audience to my imagination. It was the first time I really felt like I had the agency to create a story that moved, that entertained myself and others. Having that experience mattered to me. I hope it could matter to others as well.A new farmboy stands at the edge of the world again. Many more have stood where he stands. Many will again. In a way, it offers him comfort, that there will always be another one. He smiles at the thought and takes the step into a new story. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If, as Joan Didion said, we tell ourselves stories in order to live, then we tell the stories of others in order to better know how to die. How to leave a legacy.The biography is one such device. Last month, publisher W. W. Norton permanently halted distribution of Blake Baileys recent biography of American novelist Philip Roth after allegations surfaced that Bailey had groomed, harassed, and raped multiple women. Its hard not to relate these revelations to one of the main criticisms from which his biography suffered that he was uncritical of Roths misogyny, claims of which soured and followed Roth for much of his career. In fact, Ross Millers very frankness about Roths misogyny led Roth to end an agreement with Miller to initially write his biography. But any poetic justice in the mistreatment of women befalling the publication of Roths own biography is still deeply unsatisfying.This is because its unclear what will happen to Roths legacy in the wake of this incident. Bailey was granted exclusive access to archives and materials about Roths life, which may be unavailable to future scholars in light of his passing in 2018. Perhaps there are pages still left unturned in his personal history, now mired in Baileys prose, between which more about Roth could be discovered. Despite everything, why does this feel like a loss? Why is it so unfair that even just a moment of insight could be snared by Baileys crimes? These events serve as context for larger questions about what it means to us as readers to preserve the legacy of great writers in a certain way.Posthumous accounts of famous novelists in the Western tradition often serve to illustrate that great public works are made in spite of, or perhaps because of, private immorality. The collective history of many prolific white, male authors has invariably been one of mental anguish, narcissism, and chauvinism. When reading, it is important to historicise and put these men into context. But more than that, in the dialectic between author and reader that is shaping a legacy, we must learn how to reconcile the value of their literature, the truth of the person behind it, and the irredeemable fact of their death.This need not be wholly a question of cancel culture, of separating the art from the artist; yet another way the storm of the individual washes away rivers of manifold experience. Roland Barthes most deftly maligned how literary critics inflect the meaning of a text with aspects of an authors identity in his 1967 essay The Death of the Author. Barthes argued that readers must separate literary work from their creator in order to liberate that text from interpretative tyranny, where the experiences of the author serve as an explanation of some ultimate meaning of the work, handed down by the Author as God.Underpinning the need to sever this relationship is the fascination we have with it in the first place. Quite apart from how many writers blur the relationship between themselves and their characters apparent in much fiction particularly auto-fiction of writers like Proust there is an anterior question, and we ask it not of the abstract, critical reader but of you and me: many men of dubious character, whose private lives were charged and broken and mythicized, create the conditions for questioning not just whether and how this influenced their work, but why it even matters to us if it did. At the heart of all this tension, in the tangle of our understanding, is that it seems to matter a very great deal to us who is behind the stories we tell, both irrespective of and because of what their stories might mean to us.Consider how there is a scramble to publish a biography, make a tribute and publicise condolences after a famous persons death. As soon as someone dies we have to ascribe meaning to it. Our fascination is not even entirely with the individual, but with mortality. Why do we need to understand someone to bury them? It is because they cannot be redeemed. It is because all we have is what we can become until we are no longer. Understanding the person who has died is thus an end in itself. It does not excuse them, but it helps us to forgive ourselves for seeing ourselves reflected on the page.Although biographies are non-fiction, they invent. Lucasta Miller, the author of The Bront Myth, is mistrustful of biographies in her own account of the Bront sisters. She considers biographies a form of myth creation: what biographies invent they also reproduce for market consumption. This is another way that we reduce the reputation of particularly famous novelists into cultural objects which are sold as ideas or signifiers of genre or style or identity in a digestible form: read Jane Austen if youre a woman into classics and romance, read James Baldwin or Toni Morrison if you want to learn about race in America, read Jack Kerouac if youre cultivating your identity as a softboi. And while this is all true, in doing so we fail to appreciate what books do how fiction transmutes ideas into people and how those people become us. We instead materialise and thereby minimise what they merely are as products of the people that wrote them. It works, too personal branding infects a literary legacy. Just consider how unread copies of Infinite Jest tend to signal a kind of literary chauvinism; the ability to intellectually grasp male privilege, manifesting in performative displays of wokeness, because of how Wallace captures the disenfranchised white male in his work. It makes the rest of us deeply sceptical of these texts. To idealise, just like to hate, is to reduce someone to ideas about them. Fortunately for the writing itself, Didion suggests that fiction is in most ways hostile to ideology.Ernest Hemingways life is a fitting example of the idealisation of our favourite authors a man heralded as being at the forefront of war, surrounded by women and friends and bullfighting, whose sparse prose sparked a reckoning in American literature, pared back unto itself. The fact of his suicide is a lump in the throat when swallowing his personal history. Biographers continue to ask why, to decipher it as if it is some mystery, lest our ideal of Hemingway disintegrates. But it is no mystery a familial and personal history of severe mental illness, alcoholism, and complex childhood trauma scream the answer. Some would say that knowledge of his suicide requires reading something new into his work: an identity crisis, an obsession with mortality, trails of wounded women, won wars and lost bullfights. The darkness of his life discovered after his death now casts shadows across his pages.It may not even be controversial, merely disappointing, but it still shatters the illusion. To read Sofia Tolstoys journals and discover that her husband was cruel, critical, and inflicted much pain on her throughout the life she dedicated to him is to remind us that love, marriage and family may be no more than concepts in books. It is to render them unreal. In her words, I devote so much love and care to him, and his heart is so icy. To read T. S. Eliots love letters to Emily Hale during his first unhappy marriage, only to discover that he never married her after his first wife died and married Valerie instead. To think about how Hemingway dumped his first wife and child in Paris. Similarly, D. T. Maxs biography of David Foster-Wallace uncovers a portrait of a complex man surprisingly disinterred in the real-life concerns of many women he slept with. We ask, how can he write such exquisite prose and demonstrate such acute awareness of feeling and society, but be so inconsiderate of the people in his own life? Maybe sometimes people like the poetry of what they say more than they mean it or can ever put it into action.To discover bad things, especially after death, simply hurts. The question, always the question, is why does it hurt so much? The metaphorical death of the author is clearly made more difficult by their real-life passing. Jonathan Franzen provided his own account of David Foster-Wallaces suicide in The New Yorker. He described the suicide as performed in a way calculated to inflict maximum pain on those he loved most, demonstrating infantile rage and homicidal impulses. He felt that Wallace betray[ed] as hideously as possible those who loved him best. The brutality of imbuing selfishness into a suicide seeks to undermine any martyrdom Wallace achieved in death. The searing need to be honest about someone who has died, the bleak portrait of being hurt by someone that you loved, captures a much deeper kind of betrayal. But rippling on the surface is the same kind of suffering we, as readers, face when we grapple with the reality of who a writer becomes after and by virtue of dying. The pain may come precisely from the fact that we do not know them personally and we can only know them as a representation or projection of themselves. The lines across the pages are like those on the back of our hand, but we still seem unable to grasp or reach anything with it.In On Beauty, a novel itself about aesthetics and how the personal is always more real than the political, Zadie Smith remarks that the greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free. We are captured by the writers we love because they make real and legitimate what we are going through. To fall in love with a book is to be rewritten, in a slight and subtle way we may not even notice. There is no technology on Earth that can achieve what the novel can, no engineer like the author, no science like words. Because we emotionally invest in a writers work, our hearts get broken when we realise our captors have deceived us into thinking we were free to love them. Perhaps we cant anymore, because the pedestal on which they sit has been lowered, and in our culture we find it impossible to love and pity simultaneously, to revere and condemn at the same time.This is because we become complicit in elevating certain writers. We give cultural capital, money, time, respect, and literary status to those who have channelled the worst of themselves into fiction. In Franzens own words, Foster Wallaces fiction is populated with dissemblers and manipulators and emotional isolates. Roths work was similarly rife with constant self-reference, sexual perversion, and vindicatory portrayals of raw masculinity. Compounding those feelings of complicity, we are often guilty of romanticising the relationship between the beauty of a text and the sordid reality of the person who wrote it to make up for who the man was by what he created. Maybe he was just a bad guy. How can that change things?George Orwell explores similar notions in his review of Salvador Dals autobiography, Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dal. Dal recounts incidents of severely harming children and women; his grave sexual perversity and necrophilia also manifest in his work. In spite of this, Orwell refuses to fail to see any merit in him. Against the facts of his life is the recognition that he had very exceptional gifts, was a very hard worker and has fifty times more talent than most of the people who would denounce his morals. Although Dal was a visual artist, not a writer, the principle operates in the same way: one ought to be able to hold in ones head simultaneously the two facts that Dal is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other.But there is cognitive dissonance in holding these two thoughts in ones head that is not one of logic, principles, or aesthetics. Indeed, as Orwell notes, what is morally degraded can be aesthetically right. It is emotional. It is a kind of love. Sometimes it hurts too much to accept that both those things are that they must be true. But novels should neither be reduced to the aspects which best reflect the person who wrote it, nor entirely removed from them. In Orwells words, these two fallacies presuppose a false binary: either a piece of art is intrinsically a reflection of the artist, or it bears no relation because its meaning belongs to its audience. The relationship between psychology and art is not so simple as to fall on either side of this dichotomy. People are not the sum of their parts. Authors give us the best and worst of themselves. They might be one terrible moment. They might be a thousand ambiguities.Lets not pretend that we can ever be objective or innocent about art. We taint a piece of writing as soon as we begin to read it because it is not the first story we have ever been told. As Barthes explained, a work is eternally written here and now because the origin of its essential meaning is exclusively in the language and its impressions on the reader. What applies to literary criticism also applies to our modes of appreciation Milan Kundera speaks of poetic memory, the way we lodge into our minds and ascribe significance to that which we find beautiful and meaningful. It may be pretentious. It is certainly self-dramatising. But regardless of the significance you place on it, the process of reading, like remembering, like forgetting, is an act of interpretation.According to German philosopher Immanuel Kant, aesthetics is a retreat from everyday life and its ethical questions. It requires a stance of disinterestedness, a space of moral freedom. Art is singular, without comparison and non-purposive. We must let art be possible. This does not mean it has to stay in print, that it should ever escape necessary criticism or that its sales can be abstracted from the finances of the person who created it. The artist is not exempt from what they are morally culpable for in their personal lives by virtue of their talent. If the facts demand it, by all means, be appalled! As per Orwell, people are too frightened either of seeming to be shocked or of seeming not to be shocked, to be able to define the relationship between art and morals. Define that relationship for yourself, as we all must define our own morals. Nothing is worth admiring unreservedly. But we must not take away its capacity for meaning. Letting yourself be upset may be precisely a part of that. After all, as Wallace said, you get to decide what to worship.F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Nick Carraway, tells us that reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope. Why then feel the need to eulogise a writer when their work lives on to preserve what perseveres anyway, to make an ending out of theirs? When we do so, we attempt to pull together the strings of a persons life into some coherent narrative but it is fiction that there is such a thing. Lives do not end like plotlines. Resolution does not happen with time sometimes it never does. People do not experience arcs like characters they go through things. Sometimes they go forward, sometimes they regress and fall back upon themselves like waves. Adrift. Sometimes they dont go anywhere at all, except inwards and onto the page. Could that be enough?The most simple and morbid answer to why a legacy is important is that there is no answer. The answer is always oblivion. But as Sandra Newman said in her extraordinary novel The Heavens, as the character of Shakespeare, I am a fool, and my greatness is the mumbling of fools; a paper greatness that will burn and be naught. But there is no greatness else.Let it be enough. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Nestled in the inner-city, a world away from the polished lawns of suburbia, the early days of Glebe Markets were a hubbub of young adults seeking out the latest cultural trends. Students roamed the avenues, thriving in an atmosphere fuelled by dissent and alternative culture. Vitality sprung from every corner, and whispered its way through the streets.In the time immediately after its conception, Glebe Markets was the young persons market, the place to be. I worked there in my early twenties, and the culture was different then, said owner David McCumstie as he sipped his morning coffee. But it has always belonged to young people. Glebes culture has always evolved to fit the whims of newer generations, and I think that is spectacular.David is a tall, chatty man with salt and pepper hair, usually dressed head to toe in vintage finds. He sits up the back of the market, coffee in hand, watching the passing parade. Gaggles of teenage girls walk by, clutching bags overflowing with bargains. Young mothers scout for bohemian baby clothes and a group of musicians make their way to the grass. David reflects on the trends of recent years, with the Markets now selling vegan and cruelty-free products, upcycled and recycled clothing. Blending bargains that you cant walk away from with collectables that you could cherish forever, Glebe Markets has it all.Glebe Markets was born of a middle-class dream to do more, started by Bob and Judy McCumstie in 1992. The pair owned a coffee shop over the road and spent their Saturdays peering across at the empty schoolyard. It was unlike anything theyd ever done before, said David. My mother was a high school teacher, my father was an agricultural economist and a farmer. It was an exciting adventure.Judy could spin a great yarn. In those early days it was her tough exterior and gift of the gab that got the markets going. She rallied 40 stallholders from the competing Sunday market down the road, chatting to different artisans around town and encouraging them to pack up their goods and head to Glebe Public School. She has an amazing ability to be feisty and stand up to people, David gushes. Shes incredibly intelligent and determined.On the other side of the coin, Bob was the strong, silent type. He was the financial brains behind the operation. Shes the vocal one and hes the quieter, more thought-through side of things, said David. He brings the maths and the business, and a more peaceful and gentle energy. Ive always really appreciated that about him.Together, the duo were a force to be reckoned with. When it came to dealing with the stallholders they were a unified force you couldnt lie to them and get away with it, said David. Its nice to see a husband and wife team working so well together thats what marriage is all about.Glebe Markets was more than just a business for the McCumsties. The markets are about family, theyre my parents legacy, said David. Even before I owned the markets I was invested. It was their creation, it was ours. When David is out of town, his niece manages the markets, fielding calls and chatting to stallholders. My daughter jokes about how she may own Glebe Markets one day, he laughs. I give her complete freedom not to, but who knows what the future will hold.Over the years, the McCumsties have watched on as Glebe erupted with youth and life, bringing new people and new stories to their doorstep. In the early 1990s, Glebe was populated with, in the affectionate words of David, wild and crazy people. Glebe was a hub of youth counterculture in Sydney. University students flocked to Badde Manors for late night coffees and Nirvana played the Phoenician Club on the corner of Mountain Street and Broadway. Twenty-somethings in flannel shirts flooded out of overcrowded share houses into the markets every Saturday morning. Anarchists drove cars filled to the brim with punk paraphernalia. They would tear through the lawn, doing donuts in the parking lot with no care for those in the vicinity. There was even a time when the market was overrun by groups of young people who would set up tables and declare themselves a religion, attempting to convert passers-by to pray to newly-minted gods.That was the time of a different generation of people, of those unburdened by the precarious future we face now. They did not have to worry about HECS, or the job market or climate change, David mused.Though Glebe has since evolved, caught up in the flow of a changing world, it has always been a place for people to sit on the grass with their friends, an alternative metropolis and escape from suburban mundanity. Author and academic Vanessa Berry would religiously catch the train to Central Station almost every weekend as a teenager and walk up the hill to the corner of Glebe Point Road. Being in Glebe and absorbing the culture surrounding the markets and the records stores and book shops, I always felt like I was a part of something, she said. My friends and I would buy petticoats from the markets and dye them in the backyard. You could buy cheap clothes and play around with them, she adds, discovering what worked for you and what didnt.If you have ever been to Glebe Markets, you will surely find that the main attraction of community markets is the sense of anticipation not knowing what you will find. When people go to Portobello Road and The Grand Bazaar, when they go op-shopping, they go for the thrill of discovery. Perhaps there is room for a decorative oil lamp that summons out a genie, or a rare collectible, waiting to be found under a giant pile of clothes.That feeling of discovery and wonder can be felt in Glebe today; the stall-holders have made sure of it, ensuring that the past is not lost as it has been in many other pockets of the city. There was a symbolic aspect to the place as well, Vanessa reflects. It was going somewhere which collected all these interesting people and objects. It seemed to suggest a lot of possibilities.Its this air of possibility and a sense of romance that nourishes the market, more so than the handmade emerald sweaters and butterfly hairpins. Indeed, for some the Markets are a place of love. Sitting at a nearby coffee shop, rumours swirl about the early days of the market, and Bella and Robert, whose fairytale starts at Glebe Markets or so legend claims.The story starts in the early 90s, on the corner where the Four Friends coffee shop now stands. Bella was sitting at her stall when she met a very flustered Robert, who had been tasked with finding a last-minute gift for his mothers birthday. He happened upon the sweet smell of the candles, and the sweet face that sold them, and left with two tealight holders, a coconut candle, and a little strip of paper with a phone number. Their child told us the story excitedly before rushing off with her friends, their canvas totes filled with wonderful wares.So you see, there is a rich history to be unravelled here, if one would only take the time to listen. As we wove through the market, we found ourselves at the stall of Jacki Pateman, who has been selling clothes at Glebe Markets since the very beginning. I came from the Northern Beaches, so to be amongst it in Glebe, which was just such a happening place at the time. It was hugely instrumental in informing who I became as a young adult.Her stall, Jacky LeStrange Vintage, is a treasure trove of 1950s and 60s lingerie and white cheesecloth dresses. For Jacki, the 9-to-5 life that most people are content with wasnt an option. When she was nineteen, she sold all of the vintage clothes she had gathered out of the boot of her car. I had been op-shopping for years at that point, she said. After that, I quit my office job. I had decided that this was what I was going to do for a living, and I have never looked back.But the thrill of the buy isnt the only thing that has kept Jacki in the business. The people around me have kept me going like nothing else. I mean, people come and go. There are people from the very beginning that arent around anymore. Theyve moved on or passed away. But theres just a camaraderie between stallholders. Theres rarely any anger or animosity or jealousy or backbiting. It really is just a community of people who are all in the same boat, she said. While the COVID lockdown was on, there were a bunch of us that were very in touch and checking in on each other. People seeing if anyone was able to get JobKeeper and seeing how everyone was staying afloat. It comforted me to know I had these people in times of crisis as well.The community at Glebe Markets has been a constant pillar in Jess Pisanellis life. As a loyal customer for many years, she was welcomed in with open arms when she started Marlow Vintage about a decade ago. There are some people at the market that have been there since it started, and there are people who have been there for two years, she said. You get to know their family, you get to know when someone gets married or has a baby. It does have a really beautiful community.Jess told Honi that the community doesnt only share celebrations, they mourn together in times of grief. When my dad passed away, I was away for a few weeks. I only told one friend at the market but by the time I came back, word had got around. The outpouring of love and condolences and really lovely kind words was so beautiful.As we reach the top of the main aisle, we come across the tree community, a group of stallholders bound together by their prime location and love of a good puzzle. It took years of hard work and dedication to get in this prime position and now they reap the benefits of the steady flow of foot traffic and perpetual shade. Every Saturday morning, Liz Sledge, a loyal member of the tree community, parks herself under the large, leafy tree with the Good Weekend Quiz. Fellow stallholders make their way up to her shop, Sappo Trading, to lend a hand. First, Peter joined from his t-shirt stall across the aisle. His knowledge of Oz Rock has become indispensable to the operation. William and Chai, renowned for their cookies and cakes, began to contribute, and now Karen, purveyor of sugarcane juice, wanders up from the food aisle to help out.It becomes clear as we talk to stall-holders across that market that David is a beloved icon within the community. David bought the business from his parents about a decade ago. The sense of community cultivated by Bob and Judy still forges on, with stall-holders praising Davids commitment and spirit. Every weekend before Christmas, David braves the sweltering heat and delivers fruit cake to all the permanent stallholders. Multiple people told Honi that he is the true heart of the community.David has let the market evolve organically, Jacki said. Some markets stipulate you have to have excellent presentation. And David encourages it but doesnt require you to have a slick operation. It keeps us homespun.Because of the ways community markets have evolved, mainstream brands have filtered in and co-opted stalls from small business owners who sell authentic vintage clothes. Kara Otter looks like she just stepped out of an early Britney Spears music video. Shes been attending Glebe Markets for over a decade, and sells authentic early 2000s pieces under her brand Karamelon. Kara airs her grievances about the mass-produced brands infiltrating community markets and selling lesser-quality products for cheaper. It is hard to compete with clothes that are sold for $1, said Kara. When something is so cheap, you cant help but wonder what sort of profit one could possibly make.While other markets have strict rules for stall holders stipulating presentation and the products sold Glebe keeps its stallholders at front of mind, giving them a sense of creative liberty and freedom over how their stall appears and what they sell. It allows for a more vibrant way of being, and weve always been like that, David told Honi. You can end up with exploring and finding a new thing in every nook and cranny.From the outside, Glebe Markets looks almost identical to how it did in 1992. While the carloads of anarchists, cult leaders and punk-rockers blasting Smashing Pumpkins are all long gone, the air of vitality and wonder remains; it lingers in the brickwork, carried on in the chattering voices of the market-goers. If David (and even one day, maybe his daughter) has his way, Glebe Markets will continue to shape-shift and reflect the culture of future generations for decades to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The reclamation of physical space is a fundamental requirement in resisting colonisation, and is a necessary precondition in the campaign for Aboriginal sovereignty. Last year marked some of the first protests to occur on the Domain parkland or Djarrbarrgalli in traditional Gadigal language. Gathering in Djarrbarrgalli was momentous for the Indigenous justice movement as it represented the reclamation of traditional land for its original purpose as a meeting place. These protests in mid-2020, which drew comparisons between the treatment of Black people in the United States and here, took place away from the colonial monuments that litter most of Sydneys urban landscape including Hyde Park.The call to return to this space was instigated by traditional descendents of the area, who asserted their sovereignty and reclaimed the place as their own land after rediscovering its traditional name. These Gadigal descendents articulated that Djarrbarrgalli was a deeply important site of gathering and community in pre-colonial times, and to them it was the perfect place to come together today and continue fighting for justice and sovereignty.I sat down with Nadeena Dixon one of the Gadigal descendents who was part of this process to discuss how the reclamation of Djarrbarrgalli came about during the 2020 protests. We discussed the Indigenous experience within Sydneys urban fabric, and the historical importance of reclaiming physical space to counter hegemonic cultural ideas within the colonial system.***Seth Dias: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your family?Nadeena Dixon: Im Nadeena Dixon, Im an artist, an academic and a child of freedom fighters who have lived in the Sydney basin for 80,000 years. Im also an educator, so I think its important to talk and transcend the bullshit weve been fed through very limited [colonial] narratives.My mum is Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor; a Gadigal Elder. She was born in a time when Aboriginal people werent actually recognised as human beings in Australia, so for the first 14 to 15 years of her life she was treated as Flora and Fauna. At that time, Aboriginal peoples lives were completely controlled by government legislation and we were monitored by the Aborigines Protection Board a very oppressive and dehumanising regime that was placed on Aboriginal people. Thats had a huge impact on us to this day.My grandfather was Dr. Charles Chicka Dixon; he was heavily involved in the freedom fighter movement that brought about the 67 referendum that gave Aboriginal People the right to vote on their own sovereign land. He, being of the older generation, suffered extreme degradation, starvation, abuse and complete government control over his and all Aboriginal Peoples lives; adult people that had no rights, who werent even considered to be human. With the [child] removals policy we had lots of people, even in my own family, that were removed. They werent even able to form normal relationships because they had been institutionalised from such a young age, meaning they had no family structure or family environment to develop in. The impact [child removals] had on the psyche is far reaching through the generations, so we have inherited the legacies of intergenerational trauma, which is yet another reason to fight for justice.SD: 2020 was a landmark year for the Black Lives Matter movement both here and overseas. How do you think this has shaped or influenced the Indigenous sovereignty movement in Australia?ND: Weve always resisted as sovereign peoples who never ceded their sovereignty. We resisted from the very beginning. I suppose it hit this point where the world had to awaken to these realities. We realised that unless all of us are free, then none of us are free. This applies to all movements, such as marriage equality which came so late as well. Its like, why are we even talking about these things so late in the day? It feels like there is a great need for connection and meaning as a global community; we want to connect to something bigger than us. The same goes for climate action today as well its all interconnected. The planet doesnt care if were black, white or whatever. We have to come together and move above these illusions that separate us. The 2020 protests went a very long way in showing just how connected these things are and how united we need to be.SD: Last year saw a change in venue for many Indigenous justice rallies, with Djarrbarrgalli (the Domain) becoming a key meeting point. Can you explain why this shift occurred?ND: It was documented in the earliest colonial contact and mappings of the Sydney basin that all the prominent locations along the coastline had Aboriginal names. Growing up being a traditional descendent of the ancestors from this area, I always felt like our existence had been erased; and it literally had you know? Its been under attack from the very beginning of colonisation and weve been pushed out of the city over time. There were rulings made that enforced curfews for Aboriginal people they couldnt be within the city limits after dark. People were rounded up and put into missions mainly out at La Perouse, Western Sydney and other Aboriginal missions where they were basically monitored and surveilled. So all of our history and our beautiful legacy had just been erased from the landscape in such a short time less than 200 years out of 80,000 years of peaceful existence. We lived in another Black reality where we had such an awareness of these things existing, but the outer world didnt present or mirror any of that.The site of Djarrbarrgalli is significant because it was a ceremony site; it was documented and known to be a ceremony site and a very significant area for Aboriginal people to gather and talk about important business. Then later on during the 1930s, there were significant Aboriginal people that would go there and speak about Aboriginal rights. There is an area within the site where people would stand on speaker boxes; people like Donny Dodd, Pearl Gibbs, Jack Patten and other community people. These were leaders who came out of Salt Pan Creek, which was a significant camp community of Aboriginal people that refused to live on the missions and be under the control of the government. There was an autonomous community that was quite large and lots of the early resistance of the 1930s came out of Salt Pan Creek.***As Nadeena articulates, there is a significant historical precedent of physical space being used as a base for counter-cultural development and political education against hegemonic ideas. One of the best examples of this is Salt Pan Creek.Emerging in 1926, Salt Pan Creek was an autonomous camp of Aboriginal families and refugees. The new community had withdrawn from the Australian colonial project, rejecting the oppressive powers of the Aborigines Protection Board which required constant surveillance, containment and management of all Aboriginal people by settlers. Instead, they sought to establish a community where they could self-determine their future and launch a broader campaign for their sovereign land. The establishment of community and sovereign control in this historically rich place is seen by many as the beginning of the modern struggle for Indigenous Justice. Legendary Gumbaynggirr activist Gary Foley explains that the self-declared autonomy of Salt Pan Creek allowed the political growth and education of some of the foundational leaders in the movement. Historically influential Aboriginal leaders and some of those activists who spoke at Speakers Corner spent time there in the late 1930s learning and defining the modern Australian anti-colonial movement in Sydney. The political planning and education that came out of the Salt Pan Creek community culminated in the 1938 Day of Mourning protest. This was one of the first major protests held in Australia on the 26th of January, or Invasion Day, and is considered the first public rally in the modern fight for Indigenous justice. With a cultural landscape that is dominated by colonial ideology, the reclamation of any physical space to then practice and teach counter-cultural ideas of anti-colonial resistance, must be realised to achieve true justice for Indigenous People.***When asked about some of the major historical anti-colonial protests in Sydney and the importance of place to them, Nadeena immediately asserted the importance of land to community and gathering.SD: These major historical protests relied on important geographical bases of resistance, such as Salt Pan Creek, The Block in Redfern or La Perouse. Do you think Djarrbarrgalli could be the next site of resistance?ND: I think it is, because it holds that energy of memory and it holds that energy of business [and] of coming together to benefit the broader community. Its a place where we can hold space to seriously discuss these issues, so even within a contemporary context we can go there for business and for ceremony I believe its the peoples court. So were holding court there to say this is what we want to happen, the power is with the people there and the people alone. In so many ways, the government has become a dictatorship and were being forced to live in their constructed realities which we dont align to, and its a system that doesnt value or include us at all, and chooses to value settlers instead. I think its this idea of gathering where my people could come together from all different clans and groups and give reverence to mark time, space and ceremony. The place [Djarrbarrgalli] becomes a magnetised space where you can assert intention for your cause, in this case resistance, in physical reality. It can become a portal or space holder for these energies and causes to gather power; this is the importance of a place to us and our struggle.***Since 1938, we have seen many militant protests and celebrations of Aboriginal survival on days such as Invasion Day. Without a reclaimed place like Salt Pan Creek to organise and educate from, some of the foundational figures in the movement may never have had the space to learn to lead this campaign and instigate the movement were still fighting for today. Power is expressed and sustained in the reproduction of culture, which manifests itself in physical space; the act of establishing a new self-determined community in Salt Pan Creek allowed for the reproduction of counter-cultural anti-colonial ideas in a physical space. This could not have been done under the constant surveillance imposed on Indigenous People by the Aborigines Protection Board. Much like then, today we also need a place to connect and build community. While we may not live there, the connection to Djarrbarrgalli enables many of the same counter-cultural ideas forged at Salt Pan Creek to be expressed and refined. Without Djarrbarrgalli, those leading this movement are forced to educate and communicate in physical space that exudes dominant cultural ideas and could therefore invoke traumatic memories.The way physical space plays a fundamental role in perpetuating dominant cultural ideas can be seen across Sydney in two overarching ways. Firstly, the grid system and central planning arrangement here is an imposition of Eurocentric geometric ideals which can be observed across the colonial world. Settlers and early planners of the city believed that the grid system was a superior system which would allow them to position themselves in the centre of power and override the undulations of the natural landscape. Settlers then began a rapid process of containment of Indigenous People, pushing families and communities out into missions located on the outskirts of the grid system, where many still reside today. Early planners believed that the grid represented the European power of intellect and organisation. It is a clear tribute to Euclidean geometry as an urban form, a system seen in Greek, Roman and Victorian cities; imposing this system on the colonial world laid the physical foundations of Eurocentric cultural dominance.Secondly, we also see the perpetuation of dominant culture across this city in the form of cultural memorials. Sydney is rife with these, with statues depicting Captain Cook, Governor Macquarie and Queen Elizabeth scattered across the Central Business District. Memorials or monuments may seem like a background concept in our day to day lives, but for those not within the dominant cultural group for example, Indigenous People living on their stolen land they serve as a constant reminder of the trauma of the revered figures and the political ideas from which they are excluded. Geographer Philip Hubbard argues that Both literally and figuratively monuments and memorials set dominant socio-spatial relations in stone. Reclaiming space enables marginalised groups to express their culture away from physical reminders of their oppression.***Nadeena explains that there are abstract and physical forms of land reclamation. To her, both are equally important and need to be fully realised in order for true sovereignty to be achieved.SD: There has been a broader international movement to decolonise places by renaming them, would you support something like this for the Domain, and could the reclamation assist in the broader fight for Indigenous Justice?ND: I think naming is extremely powerful it connects the energy of the language back to the Country that its come from, that its always existed within. So even us speaking the name is giving it power, and were putting a whole different shift in consciousness back into the place, into Country as a living entity. Its not the case that we build the city over the country and then it becomes a nameless and story-less space with no history. But what happens [after 1788], and what has happened historically is the erasing of the human connection to it all. Were hoping that by renaming, reclaiming and speaking the name back into awareness that were bringing back the energy of the countless generations that existed there.SD: So in conclusion, what does reclaiming space mean to the Aboriginal community broadly?ND: Im part of this emergent school of thought known as design sovereignty. There are so many ways that we can unpack space from Indigenous perspectives and methodologies In contemporary society, were told that were nothing; just a number among many. The idea of space for community dialogue, ceremony, sharing the difficulties and celebrating the wins, and where we people can feel a part of something bigger than ourselves will bring nourishment, joy and resistance. [It] is a fundamental requirement of achieving justice for our people. [Colonial] society has taken so much from us that can only be brought back from the grassroots, and from community, but it all starts from reclaiming space and restoring true sovereignty over this Country. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Veiled in respectful silence, Taylor Square is surprisingly still, calm even. The sheer number of people that have turned up smother the occasional spot fires of nervousness that jump through the crowd. Bodies radiate quiet determination.Im going to get a little bit emotional because, as I stand here on this occasion, I am recalling that first Mardi Gras, says Mark Gillespie, microphone in hand, his voice filling Taylor Square.Gillespie is a 78er, one of the original protestors who marched down Oxford Street from Taylor Square on 24 June, 1978, to commemorate the Stonewall Riots. When police denied the marchers access to Hyde Park that night, where they planned to have speeches, cries of on to the Cross multiplied rapidly. Protestors broke through the police cordon and rushed on Kings Cross. Curious onlookers, stumbling from bars, watched on. Some joined the march. Some even joined the protestors in resisting arrest and fighting back against police when police turned on the crowd, brutally apprehending 53 people.This resistance stimulated the widely-held belief that the protest was a riot. In 1979, protestors marched again, cementing as a legacy Sydneys Mardi Gras Parade.It was protest and mass action that got us where we are today and its going to be protest and mass action that gets us the rest of the way, yells April Holcombe from Community Action for Rainbow Rights at Taylor Square on Saturday 6 March, 2021. Its a fierce assertion that the queer community has returned to its radical roots.The horde have already surprised police by occupying the intersection between Oxford Street and Flinders Street. Soon, we begin to march.An effervescent eruption of colour spills forth. A contagious bout of boogying ripples outwards like an earthquake, tugging at limbs. At the epicentre, electro swing emanates from a solar-powered wheelie-bin cum portable speaker. Chants gallop down Oxford Street ahead of the march like a first strike force.Bottoms and tops, we all hate cops!Were here, were queer: Were fabulous, dont fuck with us.When someone lets off a flare, pink smoke billows in the air like a satin bed sheet on a clothes line.The march is part carnival, part protest, and at least 3000 strong an incredible turn out considering the organisers scrambled last minute to advertise and legalise the rally. On Pride in Protests notice of intention to hold a public assembly, addressed to NSW Police, PiP put the number for the expected turn out at 900.Three weeks later, as I sit in Camperdown Park with Charlie Murphy, I ask her why the Mardi Gras march was important. Her voices wobbles and her eyes glisten.As a sex worker, she emphasises the importance of marching alongside Scarlett Alliance Australias peak sex worker organisation. After the protest, someone from Scarlett Alliance messaged Charlie, thanking her for giving them the opportunity to know what it would feel like for our communities to march in the 80s and 90s.Charlie cites their presence as evidence of the revitalisation of a community that had dropped out of the queer struggle. For her, sharing solidarity with other sex workers and trans communities was invaluable.Oscar Chaffey, queer officer at the University of Sydney, meanwhile, underlines the importance of this historic event in the evolution of their own identity. I went out in drag publicly for the first time at the Mardi Gras street protest and asked my friends to start referring to me with they/them pronouns. The queer community has always been fundamentally endearing to me for its colourful shades of regal defiance and beauty; it was ultimately the promise of belonging to these shades at our gay Christmas that compelled me to leave behind an inauthentic version of myself.* * *Photography by Aman KapoorCharlie is an activist, a trans sex worker and a member of Pride in Protest (PiP), the splinter group behind the (unofficial) Mardi Gras protest on 6 March. She is also on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Board (SGLMG).PiP was established in direct opposition to police presence at Sydneys Mardi Gras Parade and corporate pinkwashing. In recent years, the group has platformed motions at Sydney Mardi Gras AGMs critical of entrenched and taken-for-granted principles. Charlie describes these meetings as incredibly hostile.The tension behind Mardi Gras organising reached a climax this year. It resulted in the PiP led rally on Oxford Street on the same day, Saturday 6 March, as the official Mardi Gras Parade at the SCG. Relations between PiPs (two) members on the SGLMG Board and the rest of the executive reached a head in early March when board members voted at a secret meeting to undemocratically, unceremoniously and temporarily boot out PiPs two representatives on the Board Charlie Murphy and Alex Bouchet.The board granted neither Murphy nor Bouchet a right of reply, and there was no provision of evidence. Charlie believes the board acted unconstitutionally.Murphy and Bouchet maintain that they have been squeezed out of the frame in a political pincer movement, seemingly for having the sheer audacity to support a march defending queer rights.To say that Mardi Grass right-wing caucus view PiP as home-wreckers and gate-crashers, arriving late and uninvited to the house party with a posse of menacing, young hooligans, is no exaggeration. In the eyes of those right-wing members, PiP have rolled up with their own speakers to their doorstep, their residence, forced their way through the door, cut off the music and spray-painted their pristine white walls with scathing slogans, all to their own radical soundtrack. In their eyes, PiP have caused a stable queer community to turn on itself. The sacred, comfortable territory of the bedroom is now filled with screams and accusations.Charlie does not agree. They [the right-wing caucus] cant accept the idea that we are community members who have a valid voice, she says. Its not that we dont like what Mardi Gras is and what Mardi Gras could be. Its just that we dont like what they do specifically The thing that is hard for them to accept is that we like Mardi Gras too much. Thats why we are involved.PiP fight as much against liberalism in queer spaces as conservatism. Describing the ebb and flow of queer political history, Charlie suggests that the queer community fell into a more liberal version of itself during the marriage equality debate in 2017. While left-wing activists were involved in this public debate, the focus was on a liberal, human rights framework. Corporate power seized the opportunity to exercise its influence over the queer community, watering down radical messages. Since then, Charlie believes that united front politics have resurged in the queer community. People have returned to material questions and deepened ties with other materially-disadvantaged communities.When I place the same topic before Mikhael Burnard, another PiP member, they have a similar response. I would say the marriage equality campaign was very interested in working within the system It was saying: hey queer people please ask nicely. Please ask very politely and we will consider giving you rights.Photography by Aman KapoorAt the Trans Day of Visibility rally on 27 March, which PiP co-organised with a network of other community organisations, longtime PiP supporter and Greens MP Jenny Leong condemned trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), defiantly building a moat around the fortress PiP have built. You [TERFs] are not our friends, she screeched into the mic to raucous applause. You are as much a problem as the patriarchy is a problem.To bookend the period of stagnation in local, queer, radical politics, its possible to flick back through the archival albums further than Charlie suggests. As historian Robert Reynolds demonstrates in his essay Endangered territory, endangered identity, opinion pieces lamenting the loss of Oxford Street as a queer space peppered the pages of the gay street press in Sydney in the 2000s. One particularly polemical think piece from 2007, published in SX News, suggested that hedonism and selfishness had replaced earlier activism and solidarity and that the queer community was complicit in Oxford Streets demise. The writer, a resident atop Taylor Square, traced Oxford Streets devolution into a space filled with over-medicated males from the suburbs staking their territory Kath and Kim clones and the sirens and yelling [of] yet another crystal-fuelled fight or G overdose.Accurate or not, that anxiety touches on something PiP are very critical of the queer community selling its soul to big business (rainbow capitalism). This is evident both in the excessive corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras and gentrification on Oxford Street.What we are witnessing is a turning point in queer activism. From the perspective of Mardi Gras right-wing caucus, it is a terrifying cultural shift of seismic proportions. PiP, constantly emphasising the intersectionality of oppression, appears to be a staunch, younger, more racially and culturally-diverse generation fighting against an established generation of queers. Through their podcasts and rallies, PiP have platformed new voices, usually sidelined. Formerly incarcerated, gay, Aboriginal man Keith Quayle is just one example.In the eyes of PiP to generalise for a moment the right-wing Mardi Gras caucus grow fat in the ivory towers of a post-gay utopia. What PiP members see is an older generation who have priced out younger queers from Sydneys disappearing, inner-city, queer enclaves, assimilated into Australias middle class cosmopolitanism and given up the struggle. They have fooled themselves into believing that their sexual orientation and gender identities are almost, now, no longer important and no longer targeted. Academics including Alan Sinfield and Henning Bech have theorised that a gay identity, perhaps even a lesbian one, may be historical phenomena.PiP expose the frailties and privileges in such a worldview. Part of the current fracture in Sydneys queer community stems from PiPs recognition that the community is not comfortable and safe. This sanitised vision excludes more marginalised subsects of the queer community including trans women of colour and trans sex workers who are disproportionately subject to abuse.PiPs persistent campaign against trans violence could not be more timely. National watchdogs and reports suggest that trans violence has increased in neoliberal democracies in recent years. Since the Human Rights Campaign, the largest queer advocacy organisation in the US, began logging data on violence against gender non-conforming Americans in 2013, the organisation has reportedly never recorded a year with higher fatal violence than 2020. While data on violence against trans bodies is notoriously difficult to collate, due to underreporting, crime data being recorded in gender binaries and a failure of bureaucracy, data obtained by the Victorian Pride Lobby has revealed that anti-queer hate crimes spiked in 2020. One survey published in June last year suggests that trans women of colour in Australia are particularly vulnerable to abuse. They are more likely than other women to report having been assaulted by a stranger. They are also twice as likely as other women to be sexually assaulted 10 or more times.Only a couple of weeks ago, Australias trans community was rocked when news broke that a man convicted of manslaughter for choking and killing Mhelody Bruno, a Filipino transwoman, during sex had avoided prison due to a sentencing error. Many believed that this was not an honest error but a result of systemic oppression and a criminal justice system that is biased and brutal towards non-gender conforming people. (The man, a former RAAF corporal, was re-sentenced on 29 March to 22 months in prison.)Pride in Protest collaborated with Anakbayan Sydney and Migrante New South Wales to organise a protest and vigil in late March to demand justice for Mhelody Bruno. PiP issued a statement in which they located the death at the intersection of transphobia, sexism, and racism and within the context of Australias ongoing imperialism in the Pacific.Similarly, PiP campaign against police presence at Mardi Gras because they recognise that police actively contribute to discrimination and violence against queer communities. As Charlie points out to me, police rarely prevent hate crimes at the time that they occur. This year there were a number of homophobic incidences during Mardi Gras. ABC journalist Mark Reddie, for example, was walking home from a Mardi Gras afterparty near Oxford Street with a group of gay men when occupants of a car, cackling, threw eggs at them. When he tweeted and wrote a perspective piece about the incident, a number of people came forward with similar stories of egging and having bottles thrown at them that night.Photography by Aman Kapoor* * *Its a few days before Mardi Gras and I am sitting in a circle with an affinity group. A friend is furiously scribbling in a note pad. She interjects sometimes to clarify decisions, words shooting from her mouth like machine-gun fire. I keep leaning down to itch my leg.Albeit disconnected from the main organisers, we are creating lists of supplies to bring to the Mardi Gras march in case of police violence and brainstorming ideas about how to combat fash or alt-right media, should they turn up. An air of underlying trepidation pervades the whole meeting.Its been a tough year for activists. Police have been all over us. The navy blue uniforms of the Public Order and Riot Squad have been a perennial eyesore at even the smallest protests. The clip-clop of the Mounted Unit and the barking of the Dog Squad have become white noise. Under the guise of public health, Australian authorities have implemented techno-totalitarian state surveillance.One trans rights rally, organised by Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR), coincided with the peak of police brutality during lockdown. Police descended violently upon the crowd that day and broke the wrist of a trans PiP organiser; memories of which dont die easily.At PiPs Mardi Gras rally on Oxford Street this year, there were no arrests and no fines issued. This is not to say that the police behaved themselves entirely. There were two drug searches nothing was found and one police officer wore a thin blue line patch. But Charlie describes the police response as unprecedented.The reason? The community pressure was there. PiP received endorsements from various politicians Labor, Greens and an independent non-government organisations and 78ers. Aided by media attention, momentum was building like water boiling over in a pot.But the legality of the march was far from guaranteed. NSW Police had moved to block the march from going ahead, taking the organisers to the NSW Supreme Court. As Mikhael explains, PiP were unwilling to compromise on their position. We have a policy of not really negotiating when we can avoid it.Two days before the rally, after receiving advice from Greens MP Jenny Leong, the organisers applied directly to the Minister for Health Brad Hazzard for a health exemption. Keen to avoid an overflow of scalding hot water and burns injuries to queers and their allies they were undoubtedly going to turn up regardless of the events legality the health department granted PiP a health exemption mere hours before their court hearing was due to begin.Charlie suggests that the [NSW] health department wanted this to happen to prevent an explosive situation. When she discusses the value of the march, her voice crescendos and her words develop a sharper, steely edge. With a staccato rhythm, she proclaims: what we showed in this rally was, actually, if you fight back and you push back not only can you win arguments about reducing police presence at Mardi Gras, but, if you do so, you actually make your community more safe.This ripple effect, this armour, protects an entity far greater than just the queer community. In a post-COVID world, Charlie says that PiP have a responsibility not just to our community but every community that needs the right to protest.If we make concessions on the right to protest here, its going to have an effect on every rally that comes after us.Photography by Aman Kapoor* * *One criticism that has cropped up in conversations Ive had with left activists about PiP is that PiP focuses too heavily on lobbying the Mardi Gras Board and the parades symbolic politics rather than more practical or useful queer activism. While this may have once been true PiP began as a single Mardi Gras float advocating for refugee rights and the cessation of mandatory detention recent events suggests the opposite to be true. PiPs focus and ambition extend well beyond Mardi Gras.As PiP evolves, it is becoming, Charlie suggests, a broad mass movement inside the community centred on concrete demands, such as the nationwide decriminalisation of sex work, prison abolition and stopping Mark Lathams anti-trans Parental Rights bill. Already, PiP has gone some way towards solidifying a pink-black alliance.By contesting the leadership of the queer community and striking at its symbolic heart Mardi Gras Pip are poking eggshell fantasies and it has made them a few enemies. Mikhael issues a word of warning on the phone to me: They [Mardi Gras right-wing caucus] dont want us there because we threaten their hegemony. We threaten their control of the narrative and their corporate sponsors I hope that we keep scaring them.Threatened they certainly are. After the Mardi Gras protest, PiPs social media accounts attracted a mob of trolls and online vitriol. In late March, Pride in Protest publicly shared screenshots from the reactionary Pride in Progress Facebook group, in which two self-identifying Mardi Gras Arts Ltd employees wrote that it is their duty to fight and start rallying members against Pride in Protest.PiP arent interested so much in reshaping systems and institutions as they are in rebuilding them from the ground up. Perhaps there will be some collateral damage amid the dust storm that results from their demolition work. But its the possibility of something better a persistent optimism, not cynicism as many believe that drives the organisation forward. To Mardi Gras right-wing caucus, the vacuum of the unknown and the desolate cold of reality are still too daunting to consider.Perhaps Mikhael sums it up best.We wont achieve our pure liberation under a system where we have to ask for liberation. We achieve our pure liberation when we take it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CW: Graphic mentions of sexual and racial violence.Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, one of the only green community spaces in an area which has changed its face over decades of gentrification, is in some ways the last refuge of what was once working-class Newtown. The park, which is on Gadigal Country, holds a palimpsest of memories both national and local, visible and invisible, as multi-layered as the dirt beneath the picnickers and dog-walkers who frequent it daily.Used as a significant social hub with a playground and an open green area holding everything from community gatherings and rallies to the Newtown Festival, the question of crime has long been a defining point in the parks history. What many of us dont realise or often forget about the place affectionately dubbed Campo, is that its historic cemetery enclosed by a high sandstone wall once covered the park in its entirety. 18,000 bodies are buried just below our feet at the centre of life in the Inner West; their headstones and monuments, of which there are only 2,000, have been relocated inside the walls.Founded in 1848, Camperdown Cemetery was the main cemetery in Sydney after the burial sites at Town Hall and Central railway station filled up. During the early 20th century, the local council responded to complaints that the overgrown cemetery was a threat to public health by making intermittent efforts at turning it into a park. The proposal was rejected by successive governments and looked upon with scorn by the cemeterys trustees who were concerned with its historical and particularly colonial significance. It wasnt until 1946, after missing 11-year-old girl Joan Norma Ginn was found raped and murdered in long grass between headstones, that the conversion into a park was finally prompted. News stories from the time provide a glimpse into residents views that the cemetery was a rendezvous for undesirables, an uncared for blot on our community and the Newtown Jungle; attitudes which have uncannily re-emerged in the past decade.The site of the murder. Image Source: Daily Telegraph.When I attend a tour of the overgrown cemetery on a clear Sunday, I am greeted by birdsong and dappled light which dances from grave to grave, filtered through the many trees which have been planted in peoples memory. I notice the locals in attendance exchanging raised eyebrows over teenagers with dyed hair and goth outfits who are having a party amongst the tombstones. As we sit on the 170-year-old roots of the Moreton Bay fig tree at the entrance, a pair of attendees tell the group that they went to school with Joan Norma Ginns siblings. All they talked about was their sister who was murdered, the whole school was fascinated by it. The woman solemnly recalls the strong impression that a picture of Joan stuck up at Newtown railway station left on her as a child, and how it was later removed during renovations.In 1948, two years after the murder, four acres were cordoned off for the current cemetery. The above-ground monuments were brought inside the walls and a foot of soil was placed over the site, the bodies left in the ground where the park is today. Archaeologist Jenna Weston tells me the reason not everyone buried in the cemetery had a headstone may be because their relatives were unable to afford one. The common interments, where the government paid for the burial because the relatives couldnt even afford that, were not allowed to have headstones and they were mostly located outside the current wall, on the outskirts of the cemetery.While visible monuments give an idea of the wealth of some of the people buried in Camperdown Cemetery, many poor people were put in mass, unmarked graves. Little is known of their lives beyond their names and causes of death. During a measles epidemic in the mid-19th century, there were days where up to a dozen people were buried in communal graves. Sitting in the park with friends, I speculate with morbid curiosity about whose grave might lie just a few metres below us; its not easy to imagine death outside the realm of the distant and abstract, even when it is knitted into the fabric of a place.Wanting a better understanding of whose stories have been remembered and forgotten in the cemetery, I visit Fisher Librarys Rare Books & Special Collections where a disintegrating copy of Prominent Australians and importance of Camperdown Cemetery by P.W. Gledhill is stored. The Chairman of trustees from 1924 until 1962, Gledhill was devoted to the cemetery. It becomes abundantly clear from his foreword alone that the cemetery functioned not simply as a place where bodies were laid to rest, but served an ideological purpose in its commemoration of British colonisers. Gledhill wrote in 1934 that the trustees wished to safeguard and treasure the cemeterys monuments in order to inspire reverence for those pioneers whose self-denying and courageous exertions securely established the future of our Nation.One of the pioneers buried in the cemetery is surveyor-general Thomas Mitchell, whose recumbent tomb stands out in an unmarked grassy area and is flanked by a tall iron fence. According to Gledhill, Mitchells funeral procession in 1855 was the largest, save William Wentworths, that had ever been seen in Sydney. Like Wentworth, who founded the University of Sydney, Mitchell was abhorrently racist. Known for exploring the Darling River, Mitchell and his surveying party massacred at least seven Barkindji people on Mount Dispersion in 1836, later describing them as treacherous savages in his journal. In the hegemonic narrative of history, Thomas Mitchell is remembered for his valuable work as Gledhill describes it, while his involvement in the genocide of Indigenous peoples is either omitted or given little emphasis.In another section of Gledhills book called Early Australians: A Plea for Perpetual Gratitude, Secretary of the British Empire Union in Australia M. F. King writes, how good a thing it would be to collect the mortal remains [of the pioneers] and inter them in a vast mausoleum in a conspicuous part of Canberra. Quite the next best thing to this would surely be to see that the known resting places of their bodies are preserved for all time as properly cared for shrines of remembrance. One such place is Camperdown Cemetery.The excessive nationalistic appraisals of the cemetery which played a part in the decades-long conflict between the trustees and council over its conversion into parkland are almost laughable when read in contrast to the current usage of the space. One can only imagine how Gledhill and King would turn in their graves if they saw the political graffiti which emblazons the inside of the cemetery walls, or the swaths of young people who come to the park to drink in preference to the upmarket bars of King Street.The cemeterys landscaping and neo-Gothic sextons lodge, like the University of Sydney Quadrangle, were designed to have an English appearance. Not far from the entrance is a Gothic headstone in memory of colonial architect Edmund Blacket, who designed the Universitys main building as well as St Stephens, the Anglican church inside the cemetery. The sandstone buildings designed by Blacket needed lime mortar for the laying of bricks, and this was sourced by burning shell middens created over thousands of years by Aboriginal people, recorded to be structures 100 metres wide in some places along the coast. As Peter Myers writes in The Third City, Sydneys Second City is probably the largest urban system ever built from, and upon, an existing fabric directly constructed from the urban structure of a preceding civilisation.St Stephens Anglican Church. Image source: City of Sydney.Perhaps the most frequently visited and largest tomb at Camperdown Cemetery is the mass grave of the Dunbar shipwreck, which is adorned with a rusted anchor. In 1857, the Dunbar was wrecked at South Head during a night of heavy rain and strong winds. Out of the 122 passengers on board, only one survived. A day of public mourning was declared, the city closed down for a funeral attended by around 10,000, and most of the recovered bodies were interred in a single tomb at Camperdown Cemetery. Annual memorial services were held, and the Dunbar took its place in the settler-colonial imagination as a symbol of perseverance. In a 1952 meeting of trustees, Gledhill suggested that an avenue of 24 trees be planted to the memory of the pioneers of Sydney, including the Dunbar victims.If you enter the park opposite from the Courthouse Hotel, you might notice a stone plaque to the right of the footpath. This area is called Cooee Corner. The plaque is inscribed: this tree was planted to the memory of Mogo, an Aboriginal who was buried here on 9th November 1850. Little information is available about the lives of Mogo and the other Aboriginal people buried at Camperdown Cemetery, or why Mogo in particular is commemorated. After the annual Dunbar service in 1932, a pilgrimage was made to the graves of Mogo and William Perry, which were covered with shells from a Pittwater midden. During the memorial service, Dharawal man Tom Foster spoke and played a hymn on a gum leaf. Foster was known as a critic of the Aboriginal Protection Board which was responsible for racist child removals; he later went on to speak on the eve of the first Day of Mourning in 1938.In The reality of remembrance in Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, Hannah Robinson draws attention to the disparity between the commemoration of colonisers versus Aboriginal people, all of whom, bar Morgo, are buried in unmarked locations in the park. A peculiar Rangers League of NSW Memorial obelisk sits just opposite St Stephens Church as a tribute to the whole of the Aboriginal Race according to its inscription. Robinson writes This baffled me. The state of the monument which had been previously vandalised, and the grouping of Aboriginal people as a collective rather than individually being given burial sites, seemed to contradict this message.Newtown folk legend holds that the real-life Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens 1861 novel Great Expectations is buried in the cemetery. After an English lecture in second-year on the Victorian novel, I recall a friend telling me that the story of Miss Havisham closely parallels that of a woman buried in the park in 1886, Eliza Donnithorne. Donnithornes bridegroom was said to have jilted her on their wedding day, causing her to suffer a breakdown and become a recluse at her home in Cambridge Hall, on what is now King Street. The story tells that the wedding breakfast remained undisturbed until after her death, and that all her communications with the outside world were through her doctor and solicitor. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorderin 1946 tells that: When death at last came to Eliza, those who came to carry her to the greater peace of Camperdown Cemetery found her still clad in her bridal gown.One theory on how Dickens may have heard the story before writing Great Expectations, proposes that social advocate Caroline Chisholm corresponded with Dickens about it while she lived in the Newtown area. Other historians have suggested that readers of the book in Sydney gradually added details to the urban legend for which historical evidence is scarce so that it aligned more closely with the story of Miss Havisham.Donnithornes headstone is located in a shaded part of the cemetery, where an overgrown carpet of English ivy crawls through tombs cracked by tree roots. Constructed from marble and stamped with lead letters, it is clear that the cross-shaped headstone belonged to a family of wealth. We are told on the tour that when the headstone was vandalised in 2004, the UK Charles Dickens Society put money towards its restoration. Gesturing toward a row of headstones opposite the Donnithorne grave which are held up by wooden boards, the guide tells us that because sandstone is easily crumbled by vandals, the cemetery is in a state of graceful decay.In recent years, Camperdown Memorial Rest Park has been the site of increased police presence with residents demanding they put a stop to anti-social behaviour, which they say includes underage drinking, drug use, threats of violence, and public defecation after nightfall. A statement from residents to the Inner West Courier complained that The park at night, especially after 9pm, is being used like a pub. At the tour, our guide tells us that she often has to pick up condoms and syringes in the cemetery. In April 2016, police set up a command bus with four officers deployed as a deterrent to any crime that might arise. From the murder of Joan Norma Ginn to incidents of assault and harrassment today, the actions of the police have done little to deter sexual violence in the park.On 19th January 2018, a civil disobedience picnic with live music was organised by community group Reclaim the Streets to protest against a council proposal to implement alcohol free zones in the space. Reclaim the Streets argued that the proposal would disproportionately target young people, Indigenous people, and the homeless, and that it would have the opposite effect intended since violence in the park was occurring after the alcohol prohibition came into effect at 9pm. The removal of lighting at night to prevent people from congregating in the park has also been criticised as counterintuitive.The Sydney lockout laws, which were lifted in Kings Cross only this month, have also contributed to a changing cultural scene in Newtown and the park. The laws have been connected to an increase in queerphobic violence as a result of more people heading from the city to the Inner West for nightlife. Many queer people in the area will tell you that they, or someone they know, have experienced harassment and no longer feel safe in Newtown.The counterintuitive effects of increased police surveillance and laws combined with the gentrification of the area mean that the inclusive atmosphere of Camperdown Memorial Rest Park is under threat. With many who have fallen through the cracks of middle-class Newtown relegated to the park, the use of public space has always been an expression of the community it belongs to.As I leave the quiet park and re-enter the bustling, colourful streets of Newtown, I think of the thousands of stories buried in this place that have gone unwritten. While I had initially set out to research the stories of people from early Newtown like Eliza Donnithorne whose memories are preserved in the park, what I had not anticipated to learn about this place is how intertwined its history is with that of colonialism and class interest. There is nowhere in this country that is not a deathscape once you scratch below the surface of its monuments. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The question of whether an inherent degree of politics comes alongside being an artist is difficult to answer. Some art is openly and loudly political, some less so. However, in a country where art and culture belonging to Aboriginal peoples is stolen and mass produced for profit; where proceeds arent returned to the communities from which the art came; many Aboriginal artists have no choice but to be political with the art they create.Art and activism are perhaps never quite as intertwined as in Australia, where communal copyright is non-existent, and traditional art styles and cultural practices are not recognised as belonging to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples under colonial law.Alternatives exist, but the traditional laws of Indigenous peoples are not recognised by the Australian legal system. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property works as an alternative across the world to protect traditional Indigenous art and culture. However, Australian law only protects some aspects of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property. Works created by individuals are protected, while styles that belong to groups are not. Traditional languages, dances, medicines, or methods which have not explicitly been written down are also left without any form of protection.When I speak to Stephanie Parkin, Chair of the Indigenous Art Code, about navigating Aboriginal art and copyright, its clear that theres a lot of complexity involved when working within a legal system that doesnt prioritise community ownership or recognise cultural property.For a lot of artists, their works are statements of who they are as individuals and their positioning in their communities and more broadly within Australian society, says Stephanie. I definitely think art by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists is a powerful mechanism to convey those messages to the broader public. And yes, inherently, they are political in the context of where those artists are from themselves, and the messages and stories they convey.Stephanie works with Indigenous artists to ensure they know their rights when it comes to copyright law and licensing agreements. All artists have agency and authority in their own decision making processes, she tells me. And while the law is still in one sense trying to catch up, there is a way for people to do the right thing and to engage appropriately.The Indigenous Art Code is a voluntary code that artists and dealers can sign up for to show their commitment to ethical and transparent standards when dealing with Aboriginal art and copyright. The Art Code exists primarily for artists, to educate them on their rights when it comes to licensing agreements, and ensure they maintain agency in these transactions when they occur.Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative is an organisation in Sydney which works with the Indigenous Art Code, encouraging their members to subscribe to it, and encouraging them in their artistic careers otherwise. Boomalli has been important to artists Peta-Joy Williams and Darren Charlwood.The co-operative was established in 1987, its primary goal being to promote Aboriginal Artists whose language groups exist within the NSW state. They achieve this through education, protecting copyright, hosting exhibitions and supporting regional artists, who make up over half of their membership. Both Peta-Joy and Darren are Wiradjuri artists who grew up in and around Sydney, and who have a connection to Redfern, Eora College and Boomalli that has influenced much of their lives.The Art Code aims to prevent fake Aboriginal art and dodgy transactions between artists and sellers, which is a prominent and recurring issue within the Australian art world. Without being educated on the details of licencing agreements, Aborginal artists can often be persuaded to enter into agreements which see them losing income and copyright to their artworks.One such agreement, and probably the biggest case in Australian popular consciousness, is that of WAM Clothing holding the exclusive licensing agreement with the copyright owner, Harold Thomas, for the use of the Aboriginal flag for clothing, digital and physical media. WAM Clothing is part-owned by Ben Wooster, whose previous company was fined $2.3 million for selling fake Aboriginal art. This private copyright is a slap in the face, and means that sport teams, not-for-profits, community groups and activist organisations risk fines for using the Aboriginal flag. Its emblematic of a bigger problem with the way the rights of Aboriginal artists and art is conceptualised within the courts and the legal system.Beyond this private ownership of the flag, copyright has always been a significant issue for Aboriginal art. When Aboriginal artists are forced to work under the umbrella of colonial laws, it is difficult for ownership of styles and more abstract cultural knowledge to be properly protected. This is especially true of works belonging to a particular culture or language group, for which community custodianship is central, but not recognised under Australian law. If its different enough, but its in an Aboriginal style, most of the time there wouldnt be any recourse for artists to pursue it, says Stephanie. Thats one of the deficiencies of the Copyright Act. Australian copyright law was never created to protect Aboriginal culture or Aboriginal art in the first place.Darren and Peta-Joy, as Wiradjuri artists, both make it very clear to me when I speak to them that they are not dot painters. Im very much an anti-dotter when it comes to the stereotype of what Aboriginal art is. It really annoys me when people call themselves Aboriginal artists and they sit there and do dots. Thats not where that comes from, says Peta-Joy.Dot painting comes from the desert, so for Aboriginal artists from the south-east of the country, their traditional styles are very different. Its not my story to tell, says Darren. I know very clearly what I can and cant do, what I can and cant say.Darren is enthusiastic when he speaks to me, and its clear from the start that he has a lot to say about activism, copyright and culture. During our conversation, Darren talks passionately about the harm in telling cultural mistruths, of telling the story of a country youre not from and that hasnt been passed down to you. Its not the kind of cultural theft that first springs to mind when thinking about copyright in Aboriginal communities, but in using others stories to create art and make a profit, youre still taking one tiny fraction of a greater philosophy, belief and spirituality and using it to benefit yourself.There are hundreds of different Aboriginal nations and language groups across this continent, each with unique history, cultural practices and stories. Amalgamating them and blending them into one is harmful not only because it erases the nuances of cultural practice which make it more likely to be lost, but also because it waters down the connection that an individual has to their own heritage.Darren tells me about one artist in particular who is guilty of profiting off the stories of other Aboriginal groups. Hes someone who will just appropriate anyones story and then turn it into a money making venture, cloak it in a delusion that [hes] fighting for culture and that [hes] an activist when really hes just taking money away from communities.The person he speaks about is of Biripi heritage, but recently created an artwork based around a Dharawal story, which he then sold for an enormous price tag. Not a cent of that profit went back to the people whose story it is to tell. This is an oral tradition and a story that people still share, Darren says. You can trace it back and go and talk to the guys ancestors who this happened to.Darrens views on activism stem from his interactions with this artist, and with others like him. Hes very much of the mindset that the streets are not the only place where activism happens, and that its not always the best way to go about creating change, especially when some people are there with the wrong intentions to platform and benefit themselves at the expense of others.Nonetheless, he understands the necessity of demonstrating. In my family and in any Aboriginal family, you dont have to go through many degrees of separation to come across someone whos been stolen, someone whos killed themselves, or someone whos so caught up in being incarcerated and the police system that their lives are simply just that. This statement isnt easily digestible, but nor is the reality of what Aboriginal people in this country face on a day to day basis. New South Wales was the first point of colonial contact, and so much robust cultural practice and language has been lost as generation after generation have suffered ongoing colonialism and intergenerational trauma.Weve gotta do it, weve gotta march. But theres a line in the sand for it, and when you go over it you lose your point, Darren says. And its a really easy point to lose in Australia because we live in a racist country; we live in a country that wants Aboriginal people to fail.Darren is a teacher and program coordinator at The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, and his passion for his work is overwhelming. Darren understands he can make change by educating and engaging the kids who come through the gardens, and this is where he sees his purpose.For me, being an activist is still being here, still teaching culture, still being proud and still being seen. I do that through education You change little kids minds and you change the world.Darren spoke with conviction that the next generation are the ones who will address some of the systemic issues that impact Aboriginal people in Australia, and that educating them would make all the difference. We need to celebrate culture, embrace and love culture, teach it, live in it, thats activism, that is being an activist. That is what were fighting for and that is the desired outcome at the end of the day, he says.When I speak to Peta-Joy Williams, she tells me that she walks in two worlds. She shares a love of teaching with Darren, and much of her life has been spent connecting deeply with learning and teaching, predominantly at Eora College. She also has an understanding that reclaiming language is an essential part of continuing to practice culture. She learnt her language, Wiradjuri, only recently. Her great-great-grandmother was the last person in her family to speak Wiradjuri, and now Peta-Joy and her son have been the first to bring it back.I felt really empowered when I first learnt my language. It was like putting a piece of my puzzle back in, something that was taken away from me and I was reclaiming. And then to be able to share it and teach it with young people and elders was an amazing thing, Peta-Joy says. My end goal is to be walking down a street and hear two people speaking in Wiradjuri to one another.Peta-Joy tells me she needs a strong reason to create art. I cant paint because I see a vase or a bowl of fruit and I go look! I can do it, but why? I have to have a reason, she says. Politics isnt always the reason, but often she just needs to get a piece out, and cant rest or move onto another artwork until its done.Probably the most political piece Ive done recently is No Voice, which was the Aboriginal flag. Instead of the yellow sun in the middle, Ive got no voice written in yellow with the copyright symbol for the C.The fact that Aboriginal peoples cannot use a flag that should belong to communities reinforces the way that intellectual property law has failed the people it should be protecting. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property has been commercialised within Australias colonial context, and has often been used, as in the case of the flag, without respect or community consent, and in the case of the artist who sold a Dharawal story, without any form of acknowledgment or compensation for the community.There are gaps in colonial copyright law which mean that unless Indigenous people can meet the requirements of them, they are unprotected and their rights open to exploitation. Communities are suffering because of this, not only because it is shameful that non-Indigenous people are able to profit off them, but also because it allows the watering down and devaluing of tens of thousands of years of cultural knowledge and practice.Stephanie Parkin puts it perfectly. The artwork is more than just the physical piece or the aesthetics that people look at while its hanging on the wall. The value that it really has is the stories and the handing down of traditional knowledge and the understanding of family connection and understanding of why were here and what our purpose is.Editors note: This article was updated at 11:22 pm, 31 March 2021, to amend statements regarding WAM clothing. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Bertolt Brecht, the German modernist best known for his theatrical works, avant-garde dramatic theory and avowed Marxism, might not seem immediately relevant to an Australian audience in 2021. His poetry, difficult to translate and underappreciated in the English-speaking world, might seem even less topical, especially at a time when poetry as a medium appears to have fallen generally out of favour.Nonetheless, I would contend that Brechts poems, especially those composed in his exile during the 1930s and 40s, and published in the Svendborg Poems (1939), have a lot to say to us. For one, they are immensely enjoyable to read. Beyond this, they also encourage an estrangement from the familiar and seemingly inevitable social, economic and political institutions of our society, allowing us to historicise our own social role and act on the grim reality that confronts us without falling into despair. Brecht encourages us to reflect, even in times of crisis, on how people have created the circumstances in which we live and thus, how we as people can transform them. At a time of global pandemic, reactionary political trends and a global economy characterised by inequality and instability, Brechts poems suggest a valuable mode of thinking.IBrechts language is sharp, condensed and uniquely his own. He avoids the formal register and lyrical artifice that one finds in many other German poets (think Rilke), instead imitating the rhythm and feeling of spoken German, but without writing as any German would actually communicate. Brecht mixes this everyday German with archaic terms, commonplace sayings and bureaucratic jargon to create a unique poetic idiom. Perhaps the closest comparison, and what Brecht himself considered his greatest literary inspiration, is the vigorous language of Luthers bible. His language and the unsentimental sharpness of Brechts ideas makes him very enjoyable to read, even for those who are generally sceptical of poetry. There is a reason why lines such as Erst kommt das fressen, dann kommt die Moral [First comes eating, then comes morality] were so popular with audiences in 1930s Berlin. Brecht slices through the reader, presenting didactic political statements and unresolved contradictions in even measure, laying bare the contradictions at the heart of our social, political and economic institutions. In Questions of a Worker who Reads he asks:Who built the seven gates of Thebes?In books you will read the names of kings.Was it the kings who dragged the stones into place?And Babylon, so often destroyedWho rebuilt it so many times? In which of the housesOf gold-gleaming Lima did the construction workers live?Where, on that evening when the Chinese Wall was finishedDid the masons go? The great city of romeIs full of triumphal arches. Who set them up? Over whomDid the Caesars triumph? Did Byzantium, so much praised in songHave only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled AtlantisThat night when the ocean engulfed it, the drowningRoared out for their slaves.Young Alexander conquered India.Was he alone?Caesar defeated the Gauls.Did he not have so much as a cook with him?Philip of Spain wept when his armadaWent down. Did no one else weep?Frederick the Second was victorious in the Seven Years War. Who elsePrevailed?On every page a victory.Who cooked the victory banquet?Every ten years a great man.Who paid the bills?So many reportSo many questions.Antiquity and the middle ages, sitting at a comfortable distance from the present, throw into sharp relief the inequalities and oppression that Brecht sees all around him. The simple rhetorical questions force a reconsideration of historical narratives, but more importantly they suggest a reconsideration of contemporary narratives which are, Brecht suggests, themselves historical and hence changeable. Who built the gates of Thebes? can quickly become Who built the immense wealth enjoyed by our elites? The answer is much the same.In this way, Brecht carries over into his poetry the famous Verfremdungseffekt that is so central to his plays. This is, as Fredric Jameson explores, the estrangement or distancing effect whereby the natural and habitual are shown to be historical, constructed by human beings, and hence able to be transformed by human beings. This process distances his audience, including a contemporary one, from their assumed social, political and economic relations, and allows them to reflect on how they could and should be changed. The purpose is to instil what Brecht calls the most beautiful of all doubts:When the downtrodden and despondent raise their heads andNo longer believeIn the might of their oppressors!It must be acknowledged that his particular use of language also makes Brecht difficult to translate. Idiosyncratic simplicity and clarity of form at times comes off as banality. His setting of idioms and archaisms in unfamiliar settings can appear cliched. Meaning is often lost when the form is necessarily changed. The result is that, as Martin Esslin says, the champions of Brecht in the English-speaking world often appear to be overstating their case.Brecht himself used this to his benefit when, in 1947, he was hauled before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, accused of being a Hollywood communist. Having fled Hitler in the 1930s and moved to Los Angeles, Brecht insisted that he had written literature on the side of the workers and in the fight against fascism but had never been a member of the Communist Party. Brecht was telling the truth about his non-membership of the Communist Party. However, his ideological sympathies were clear, and his defence seemed to be faltering, when HUAC began to cite translations of his more revolutionary works. Brecht, however, simply objected to the translation, to the consternation of the Committee members and the amusement of the crowd.Mr Stripling: Did you write that Mr Brecht?Mr Brecht: No. I wrote a German poem, but that is very different from this [Laughter].Despite these difficulties, there is still much to be gained from reading Brecht in English. For the purposes of this article, I have relied largely on the translation of Brechts complete poetic works by David Constantine and Thomas Kuhn, published in 2018. These faithful renderings of the poems allow the Svendborg Poems to maintain a lot of their original power.IIFrom under my Danish thatch, my friendsI follow your struggle. In these pages I send youAs I have before, a few words The Svendborg Poems begin with a prefatory address from Brecht to his friends and comrades from his exile in Denmark. This sets the tone of the collection: reports from a time of struggle and despair from a man who has fled his homeland, addressed to his friends and comrades, as well as the next generations.This launches into the German War-Primer. These short poems address the people of Germany on the eve of the Second World War and are written in Brechts version of the classical lapidary style poems made to be inscribed into stone. Like a latter-day Horace, Brecht is minimalistic and punchy. These poems seem almost inevitable.The war that is comingIs not the first. Before itThere were other wars.When the last one was overThere were victors and vanquished.Amongst the vanquished the lowly folkWent hungry. Among the victorsThe lowly folk went hungry also.As Brechts friend, the critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin noted, these are slogans to be scrawled in chalk on concrete by a partisan who, by the time we are reading their lines has already fallen. The language is simple, the satire sharp. The elites are Die Oberen (The High-Ups) who live decadently while the vast majority starve. The war that the fascists are planning appears, for Brecht, to be eerily related to their peaceit will kill those who their peace has left over.Brecht soon moves from pithy slogans into slightly more ambiguous territory:In the dark timesWill there be singing?There will be singingOf the dark times.Brechts question seems poignant, his answer is jarring. At a time of deep human suffering, we tend to wonder whether there is still a place for singing, for beauty, for human creativity. This is an understandable sentiment. Yet in posing the question and then immediately answering that there will be singing of the dark times, Brecht estranges us from the tendency to lament the loss of beauty and instead encourages us towards action. Not only should we, the reader, be singing of the dark times as they occur, but we should act on the knowledge that, once the dark times have passed, others will sing of them. This view to the future turns the present into a historical moment, it leads us to historicise ourselves. In knowing that the eyes of those who come after will be trained upon us, we (hopefully) cannot help but see ourselves as active participants in a world that is being created as we speak. In two brief sentences we see the Verfremdungseffekt at work. Brechts emphasis on the future, and on seeing ourselves as historical actors, is emphasised further in a series of Childrens Songs with titles such as The child that wouldnt wash and Little begging song. Brecht, in response to Walter Benjamin questioning the inclusion of these juvenile songs in the supposedly serious collection of poems about the coming war, insisted that they remain. His reason was that In the fight against them [the fascists], we must leave nothing out. They dont have anything small in mind. They are planning three-thousand years of horror For that reason we cannot forget anybody. Grandiose as it may seem, Brecht was writing for the children to be born after the dark times in which he was living, for the possibility of new life itselfMoving from the war primer through a series of ballads and songs, Brecht comes to the third section of the Svendborg Poems, titled Chronicles. Brechts subject here shifts. It is no longer the coming war, at least not directly. Instead, he presents a series of slightly longer poems, dealing with historical and philosophical themes. The aforementioned Questions of a worker who reads establishes the tone, and Brecht continues in like fashion, contradicting expectations and unsettling the reader.In a dream he visits the exiled poets, and in the middle of an amusing conversation with Dante, Ovid, Tu Fu, and Heine, among others, a question comes from the darkest corner of the room:Hey you, do they knowYour verses by heart? And those who know themWill they prevail and escape persecution?ThoseAre the forgotten ones, Dante said quietlyIn their case, not only their bodies, their works too were destroyed.The laughter broke off. No one dared look over. The newcomerHad turned pale.In this matter, likely closer to Brechts heart than most of his readers, he still produces a valuable tension. An idea is presented or a question is asked. It is then contradicted or answered so as to cast it in a strange light. The poem ends without a satisfactory conclusion, and the reader is left discomfited.At times this constant tension and sharpness can make Brecht feel unrelenting, cold and even dehumanising to read. Brecht doesnt just deflate his reader, he punctures them. Addressing those who waver in the face of fascism, asking On whom can we rely? Is it luck that we need? Brecht answers contemptuously So you ask. Await/No other answer than your own!. But this is, to borrow from Benjamin again, part of Brechts satirical brilliance as he strips the conditions in which we liveNaked as it will be when it reaches posterity, their human content emerges. Unfortunately it looks dehumanised, but that is not the satirists fault. Brecht makes the reader tense, but it is a productive tension.The Svendborg Poems end with To Those Born After, one of Brechts best-known works. It is both a condensed recapitulation on the primary themes of the collection, and uncharacteristically personal. Really, I live in dark times! it begins, and Brecht proceeds to lament his own hypocrisy:They say to me: eat and drink! Be glad that you have the means!But how can I eat and drink whenIt is from the starving that I wrest my food andMy glass of water is snatched from the thirsty?Yet I do eat and I drink.Proceeding through an almost biblical description of how he passed the days Granted to me on this earth in doomed struggle against the oppressors, Brecht veers towards a confessional style. He even comes dangerously close to the cathartic purging of emotions through art that, in his polemics against Aristotelian poetics, Brecht argued vociferously against. But catharsis never arrives, as the poem ends with an ambiguous appeal to those who will emerge again from the flood/In which we have gone under. Brecht asks merely that:You, however, when the time comesWhen mankind is a helper unto mankindThink on usWith forbearance.Again, Brechts audience in 1939 is encouraged to historicise, to see themselves in the eyes of posterity, and to try and transform their world. But we, those who live in the world following the Second World War, one where humanity is not a helper to humanity, sit in an even more interesting position. We are those born after. We live in the world after the flood, a world that we have and continue to create. What have we made of it? The call to understanding from Brecht, is a call also to learn from the mistakes of his time. We should read Brecht, understand him, and begin to see ourselves as agents of historical change.IIIPoetry makes nothing happen in the words of Auden, however, it survives/A way of happening, a mouth. This is the value of Brechts Svendborg Poems which, as Brecht intended are poems expressing the disharmonies of society. They set up a series of questions with unsatisfactory answers, prompting a tension which leaves us unsettled but encourages us to look at our circumstances from the estranged perspective of history.This allows us to conceive of a response to times of crisis that goes beyond both despair and naivete, a clear-eyed questioning of social conditions and an unwavering commitment to our political principles, even as the world seems to descend ever further into darkness. As Brecht himself puts it in a poem titled simply Questions and Answers:Can truth be mortal, lies eternal?Without a doubt.Where on earth does injustice go unrecognised?Here.Who knows anybody who has ever achieved fortune through violence.Who doesnt?Then who in such a world could fell the oppressor?You. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Tear gas tastes how a razorblade looks clean, sterile but with a cold, vicious edge. It is a taste that became all too familiar for many in Lebanon throughout the first months of this year. We were having dinner in a central Beirut restaurant when a group of protestors streamed past in the street below. A white cloud of gas, mixed with the acrid smoke of burning tyres, drifted in through the restaurants open windows. Although we moved to a back courtyard and the waitstaff closed the windows, the steady flow of food from the kitchen continued uninterrupted and the backgammon games of patrons were unperturbed. This contrast of violence and chaos with the everyday, of living with the seemingly unliveable, has been a staple of Lebanese life since the days of the 1975-1990 Civil War.Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that this tolerance represents aloofness or apathy. Anger lies just beneath this surface of normality and runs deep across almost all of Lebanese society. Modern Lebanon stands at a crossroads of crisis, facing a swathe of challenges that decades of mismanagement and corruption by its leaders have left it perilously unprepared to deal with.Lebanon has been gripped by unprecedented mass protests since October 2019. Early on, hundreds of thousands of protestors gathered in a movement remarkable not only for its scale, but for its universality: cutting across the social, political and sectarian divides that have riven Lebanon throughout its history. Unlike previous protest movements, which were largely confined to Beirut, demonstrations were held in cities across the country.While initially sparked by a range of economic measures including a tax on WhatsApp calls, the movement was responding to far more systemic issues than international media implied in framing it as WhatsApp protests. Within a fortnight, the government had resigned. But the protests were not just a rejection of a single government, but of a broader political and economic system of corruption and clientelism that has robbed people of their livelihoods and young people of their futures. In Lebanon, the protests are described almost universally as a thawra revolution and while it is not an armed rebellion, it has certainly been revolutionary in the social awakening that it has precipitated.People throughout Lebanon speak of a sense of pride and unity felt in the early days of the revolution and of the emergence of a purely Lebanese national identity, free of partisan or sectarian connotations and caveats. Rather than singling out one party or sect, the revolution was a revolt against the entire political and social elite, neatly summed up in the ever-present chant all of them means all of them.The divisions these elite have wrought in Lebanese society, both economic and physical, are obvious to any visitor. Lebanon faced an extremely uncertain economic outlook even before the coronavirus ravaged what was left of the imploding Lebanese economy. Despite the universal denouncement on the streets of the countrys economic situation, the multimillion dollar yachts of the Zaitunay Bay yacht club in central Beirut paint an all-too-obvious picture of the extreme wealth disparities that exist. Not everyone has suffered in the days since the civil war politicians and businessmen have amassed vast fortunes, even as Lebanese citizens struggle to survive day-to-day.Art by Ash Duncan.Marks of violence and protest are spread throughout downtown Beirut, with broken windows, burnt-out banks, and protest art common sights, and behind it all, an overt military presence with squads of soldiers and armoured vehicles patrolling the streets. In the weeks after October, public spaces that had been co-opted by protestors, including the streets themselves, began to be retaken by the state. Demonstrations against a confidence vote in the new government on 11 February saw an almost complete shutting down of downtown Beirut by security forces.Barricades and security installations manned by soldiers brandishing automatic rifles and the occasional rocket-propelled grenade now draw dividing lines through the centre of the city, cutting people off from traditional gathering places and squares. The streets for entire blocks around the parliament have been barricaded by security forces for months, with an ever-greater fortress of concrete, steel and barbed wire insulating politicians from the people in the surrounding streets.As winter passed, however, the protests began to change in form and tone. Jubilant crowds of hundreds of thousands became smaller, more mobile groups of protestors, and violence became a more regular feature of demonstrations. A clear split began to emerge over the viability of the revolution and the use of violence to achieve its goals. In the eyes of some, violence was the only tactic to which the state would respond, and which could hope to achieve results. But for others, it was driving down turnout and playing into a government narrative that the protestors were vandals and rioters.More recently, Beiruts Martyrs Square, the epicentre of the protests, has been largely empty and quiet, despite the six-metre high fist that has become a symbol of resistance continuing to defiantly stand at its centre. Many have blamed the coronavirus, which arrived in Lebanon on 21 February, for the death of the revolution. A strict lockdown has prevented gatherings and the ruling elite have attempted to capitalise on the crisis by reclaiming what legitimacy was lost in the revolution.Yet the reality is that the protests were losing momentum even before the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in Lebanon. Despite occasional resurgences, particularly on the swearing in of the new government and the passing of their first budget, turnout had been falling through the winter and up to a week could pass with relatively little disturbance. With the eventual passage of the budget, it seemed to many that there was little more to be gained from street demonstrations.Arguably, a principal cause of this apparent failure has been the movements lack of structure or leadership, ironically a source of its strength in the revolutions early days. Without a clear political agenda or designated spokesperson, the revolution was able to attract mass appeal, serving as a conduit for the outpouring of all forms of political and economic grievances. It was immune to accusations of partisanship or sectarianism, and its momentum could not be stopped simply by arresting a series of figureheads. Yet this same lack of leadership hampered its organisational capacity and left it unable to produce a viable, widely accepted alternative to the present political structure. Against this background, the existing political elite remained the only body capable of filling the vacuum left behind by the governments fall.Further, others argue that a class divide began to emerge on the streets. Certainly, as the weeks wore on, those who continued to demonstrate were largely either those with the means to do so, or those who had nothing more to lose. But for many, the realities of survival did not permit them to remain on the streets as the countrys economic situation continued to deteriorate.One of the primary demands of protestors was the establishment of a technocratic government, headed by apolitical experts who could devise a solution to Lebanons political and economic woes. A new, supposedly technocratic government was sworn in on 21 January but was immediately rejected by protestors who denounced the links between a number of new cabinet members and existing political parties.However, from the beginning the desire for a technocratic government has faced serious questions over what form this would take, and indeed its viability in a country that has experienced a serious brain drain in the years during and since the Civil War. Given the persistence of the Lebanese oligarchy, there are few experts at the head of their field without some tie to the existing political structure. Most of all, the cause of Lebanons problems runs deeper than simple mismanagement. Any successful government would be forced to confront and address severe systemic problems, a task beyond the reach of purely bureaucratic solutions.The protests at their height. Photo: Reuters.Understanding Lebanons issues requires an awareness of the background of austerity and corruption that has defined Lebanese political history and social development since the end of the Civil War in 1990. Lebanon never went through a reconciliation process after the Civil War. Instead, plans for the countrys recovery, spearheaded by billionaire Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, focussed on extensive development and reconstruction, most notably in the devastated downtown Beirut area. Soldidere, a company in which Hariri had considerable financial interests, was granted almost unlimited purview to raze and rebuild the city centre in the name of progress.With limited government oversight, there was a near-total removal of boundaries between the public and private sectors. Reconstruction thus developed into an elite resource grab and economic free-for-all, entrenching corrupt clientelism that has directly contributed to the state of the countrys economy today.The historic Beirut downtown area has now been replaced with glass towers and the old souks with a gleaming mall selling expensive international designer brands. It is a soulless place, and nearly deserted. By some estimates up to 23 per cent of Beirut apartments are unoccupied, largely owned by international investors and wealthy members of the diaspora. Many of these apartments are in the downtown, which despite its emptiness and wide streets, feels sterile and claustrophobic.A significant achievement of the revolution has been the reclaiming of some of these public spaces for public use. A miniature tent city sprung up in Martyrs Square offering food and accommodation. Barriers to previously closed private spaces such as The Egg an abandoned, unfinished cinema overlooking downtown Beirut were torn down and the spaces converted into locations for public lectures and discussions.Many of Lebanons political issues are rooted in its confessional political system. Seats in the Lebanese parliament are divided along religious lines. The president must be a Maronite Christian, the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. Though this system was credited with securing social stability in the wake of the Civil War, in practice it has entrenched the political power of a small number of former militia leaders who were intimately involved in the Civil War and who now sit at the centre of extensive sectarian patronage networks.The legacy of colonialism continues to cast a long shadow over Lebanon, and foreign powers and interests have much to answer for in the perpetuation of these divisions and the exploitation of Lebanon and its resources. Under the control of the Ottoman Empire and, later, France, Lebanons early power-sharing systems, conflicts and current borders have all been heavily influenced by the geopolitical interests of foreign powers.Lebanese banks form a cornerstone of the political system, harnessing foreign remittances to provide the state with extremely high-interest bonds that have contributed to catastrophic levels of public debt. The government defaulted on loan repayments in March, much of them owed to local banks. While the revolution was a response to an already dire economic outlook, the coronavirus has pushed the Lebanese economy into total meltdown. An artificially high currency peg has produced no less than four parallel foreign exchange market rates. While officially the Lebanese pound is pegged at 1500 pounds per US dollar, the currency has collapsed in recent months and on the black market the rate is nearing 4000 pounds to the dollar. Sky-high inflation is now placing enormous upwards pressure on prices, raising living expenses to levels that were untenable for many even before the mass unemployment precipitated by the coronavirus lockdown.Particularly affected have been thousands of migrant workers who work under the exploitative kafala system of sponsorship and whose meagre wages, denominated in Lebanese pounds, are now virtually worthless. Even for those fortunate enough to have reasonable savings, extreme capital controls limit bank withdrawals and transfers to and from the country. By some estimates, half of the Lebanese population could soon be living in poverty. It is this economic catastrophe which will define any future protests and the course of Lebanese social and political development.The confluence of Lebanons crises has produced a moment of reckoning for the country and devastated its most vulnerable. The revolution failed in its attempt to establish a new political order. But its success in opening a new arena for political discourse in Lebanon should not be overlooked. The unifying sense of national identity felt in its early days, though brief, is deeply imprinted across Lebanese society. Whether the revolution will begin anew once lockdown measures are eased remains to be seen. There have already been demonstrations in cities around the country in recent days. If nothing else is certain, it is that Lebanons problems will not disappear, but neither will the anger of its people and their desire for change. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Two hundred and five years ago, Mount Tambora erupted.On April 6, 1815, the residents of the Indonesian archipelago mistook the eruption for a cannon firing in the distance, for an enemy attack on the East India Company, for the distress call of a ship in the ocean, for pirates. It was only the next morning, after a torrential downpour of ash rain did people begin to suspect a volcanic eruption. Tambora was widely considered to be extinct, but local indigenous people reported rumblings from deep within the mountain in the months before. The sound was so loud the people of Java thought it seemed impossible to come from so far away, and originally attributed to the mountains Klut, Bromo, or Merapi.Four days later, the volcano erupted again. An eyewitness described three flaming columns of lava shooting up into the air, and the mountain immediately being consumed by liquid fire. Molten rock and ash engulfed the surroundings, so much so that the darkened sky hid the incandescent mountain peak from view. Ash clouds thickened and lava bled down the slope, heating the air thousands of degrees, which caused it to rise. Cool air rushed down, giving birth to whirlwinds that uprooted trees, houses, families. The village of Tambora was leveled. Lava gushed into the ocean, and reacted devastatingly with the cold sea water: it threw greater quantities of ash into the atmosphere and created massive fields of pumice stones along the shore. These fields were carried off by strong wind currents, drifting west.Volcanic ash remained in the upper atmosphere for years after, blocking out sunlight and decreasing surface temperatures globally. Dark rain clouds loomed over Europe throughout the summer months, deeming 1816 the Year Without a Summer. There were reports of brown snowstorms in Hungary, the snow polluted by volcanic ash. Crops failed as the famine devoured, and record numbers of people starved to death.The same year, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Godwin (later Shelley) travelled to Geneva. Horrific weather conditions confined them indoors leading to ghost-story competitions beside fireplaces, where the likes of Frankenstein, Byrons human vampire, and Darkness were born. Byron also wrote the opening of Manfred and The Prisoner of Chillon, with Percy Shelley penning Mont Blanc and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.In recent decades, scholars of romanticism and climate change have turned to each other. British scholar and ecocritic Jonathan Bate analysed the role of climate change, namely the Tambora eruption, in John Keats work. In I stood tip-toe upon a little hill (1817) Keats spoke of air that was cooling which is a direct reference to 1816 being the second-coldest year in the Northern Hemisphere since 1400. In Ode to Autumn (1819) Bate questions Keats version of the season, using climate data and the disastrous effects on food production from 1816, to the subsequent stabilization of the climate in 1819 to explain its eroticism and lush imagery. Keats Listening to a Nightingale on Hampstead Heath (1845) Joseph Severn In all of Keats poems, his thinking about nature can be connected to his expression in poetry. In An Essay on Criticism (1711), Alexander Pope wrote that nature is at once the source, and end, and test of art. But unlike many other manifestations of it, nature is not always kind and tame, but fragile and unstable. Keats wrote in that manner not only because he was studying botany, and therefore arguably more knowledgeable than his contemporaries, but also because he was studying at a time where his life was fraught with uncertainty, when an irregular climate disrupted the norms of natural growth.The climate conditions of the present day are comparable to the shock experienced in the years after 1816. We, too, are living in fear of extinction, preoccupied by thoughts of how we do and how we should interact with the environment. But our circumstances are mirrored: where temperatures fell in the nineteenth century, they are rising rapidly now. People romanticised the Year without a Summer because it gave birth to literary masterpieces like Frankenstein, Darkness, and Ode to Psyche. What works will be inspired by our recent summer of fire in Australia, the Amazon, and in California? What epics will be composed in the wake of the Indian drought?Romantic literature stained the way people viewed nature. In 1924, American geographer John Kirtland Wright was the first to explore the impact creative literature had on socio-cultural and environmental phenomena. He wrote that some men of letters were endowed with a highly developed geographical instinct. He believed that, as writers, people train themselves to visualise regional elements most significant to the human condition.The Romantics created worlds of their own and fostered fixation on physical place in readers, capitalising on the fact that the kinds of scenery they seized was terra incognita in the neoclassical worldview. They emphasised hidden intellectual meanings of place, of experience, of attitude by depicting mythologized versions of reality. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, and Percy Shelley all believed their poetry reflected their imaginative vision and was therefore an emotional response to place and experience. Thematically, literature from this period exposed the chasm that opened up between humans and the natural world; the beginnings of the industrial revolution causing cracks in what was conceived as steady ground.In 1744, Joseph Warton published the poem The Enthusiast: or The Lover of Nature in which he explores the core ideologies of sensibility, and what eventually metamorphosed into romanticism. He criticised cities, formal gardens, conventional society, business and law courts, and praised the simple life, solitude, mountains, stormy oceans. He believed that poets owed their originality to nature, and that direct contact with the natural world was essential in order to experience the identical incidents of happening upon a lush valley and falling in love with a milkmaid or a forest nymph that formed the basis of romantic literary expression.William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads in 1798. It was inspired by incidents and situations from common life; but in this context common life refers to a serene rural man living in harmony with nature. This primitive existence was intensely subjected to over romanticisation and vivid imagination.But this was not the reality for common people and their relationship with the natural world became impossibly tangled with this fanciful recreation, obscuring the actuality of place. Wordsworths favorable manifestations of lush beauty and solitary pastoralism did not reflect how small farmers suffered, rural poverty, or childhood mortality. In the process of representing nature, one cannot help but think something was constructed to further the romantic vision.Romanticism is more than a specific movement that occured within the constraints of a decided time period. It denotes a half-century of cultural history, and is best defined as an intellectual continuum nurtured by the age of sensibility that impacts literature and art to the present day; however, in relation to the global climate, there are major trends like material ecocriticism that shun romantic ideals. Romanticism is characterised by an obsession with the emotional over the rational, and the natural world over an industrial one. All literature produced in this era did not adhere to the bounds of romanticism, and this would be easier to acknowledge if romanticism wasnt considered the periods greatest accomplishment. A single term cannot represent the nuances of the period; the revolution, the counterrevolution, newfound climate sensitivities, class struggle, industrialisation, slavery and abolition, imperialist war.There are six defining names within the movement: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. All of them poets, and all of them men. It would be inaccurate to say that male writers were simply more eminent in the Romantic era. Writer Alan Richardson believed that the lack of prominence of female authorship in this period is due to the colonization of the feminine and the attributes associated with sensibility. Feminist scholars have been unable to successfully write women into Romanticism because of the uncomfortable space women already occupied within the movement. Women are bound to men in romantic literature, their portrayals more akin to narcissistic projections rather than realistic representations.The Romantics do not erase the patriarchy or colonisation. Rather, they present these tools of oppression in muted ways, attempting to justify their many horrors. In The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), Werther took his life after a woman refused to marry him. In She was a Phantom of Delight (1807), a woman was sent to be a moments ornament. In the first extended study of the role gender played in the Romantic era, Marlon B. Ross argues that defining the appropriation of women is intrinsic to romantic ideology. Their works focused on the feminine, but not the feminist. The romantic poets embedded the patriarchal constructs of their own world into their preoccupation with the natural one. The movement condemns traditionally masculine ideals but not male power. La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1893) John William Waterhouse The range of women as a social class in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries is curious in the way they are represented. In La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1819), Keats talks about a woman who overpowers and seduces men miles apart from Wordsworths docile peasant women. In the real world, women were starting to enter factories and sustain indispensable roles on farms. The forest nymphs and milkmaids were performing domestic and industrial labour, the reality of their lives a far cry from the poets conception of them. In Wordsworths The Triad (1828), he presents masculine ideals of voiceless women manifested in three forms; a woman who possesses domes of pleasure, a domestic queen sitting by an unambitious hearth, a woman whose love can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill. In a letter to Sylvanus Urban, the fictional editor of Gentlemans Magazine, Keats wrote that women should abstain from reading novels as it will not teach them social virtues, the qualifications of domestic life, or the precepts of Christianity.These perceptions of women in the romantic era stem from their perceived direct connection to nature. Women function as motifs, as sexualised iterations of the landscape; as a Greco-Roman personification of Mother Nature. These women, like nature, were beautiful because they were wild and dangerous, untamed. In the beginning of La Belle, a poem heavily situated in physical space, the woman is full beautiful, a faerys child, symbolising idealism. But then she seduces the knight; she sings him a faerys song that connotes non-consensual persuasion and takes him to her elfin grot.Before the Romantics, nature was conceived in terms of order. The Baroque garden, emblematic of Italian Renaissance architecture, was at the apex of natural beauty with carefully curated geometrical shapes aimed to communicate mans preeminence over nature. But as the romantic movement took greater hold of the literary consciousness, these views shifted. As poets attempted to recreate literary experiences in place, people turned to peaceful lakes, open fields, and moss-covered cottages.Finding beauty in the concept of wilderness and disorder itself is conceived as a colonial fantasy. Edward Said defined the term orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient. Further, It is important to note that writers from the romantic era often wrote about foreign lands without actually visiting them; Percy Shelleys Ozymandias (1818) was inspired by a portion of a statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, rather than the physical place. Alternatively, Lord Byrons Childe Harolds Pilgrimage (1812) and Eastern Tales (1813-1816) were inspired by his tour of the Ottoman Empire, drawing parallels between the despotism there and the British Empires imperialism. Romantic portrayals of foreign spaces focused more on mystifying them, an action that informed early colonial tourism.In 1929, writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley published an essay titled Wordsworth in the Tropics. It is heavily reflective of the ways the romantics constructed fantasies of foreign landscapes. Huxley criticises the version of nature he was faced with in the tropics and areas which are less temperate than Europe; stating that the Wordsworthian who exports this pantheistic worship of Nature to the tropics is liable to have his religious convictions somewhat rudely disturbed. This represents a highly westernised view of the world, idealising the domesticated nature of Wordsworths lakes and showing contempt for the dangers nature presents. Colonialism is contingent on conquering lands considered untamed and unused. Huxleys colonial mindset was mortified to face a tangled, prickly, and venomous darkness where he expected peaceful glens and beautiful milkmaids. However, his response further criticises Wordsworths version of nature: believing that he was either nave or intentionally censored the truth. The idyllic landscapes in his poetry, according to Huxley, were because the god of Anglicanism had crept under the skin of things, and all the stimulatingly inhuman strangeness of Nature had become as flatly familiar as a page from a textbook of metaphysics or theology. As familiar and as safely simple.The Romantics portrayed an extremely selective and glamourized version of nature. Romanticism neglected all that did not fit into the constraints of romantic idealism and poetic conjecture and presented them as fact. They shared the philosophy of Spanish philosopher Jorge Santayana, who believed the immensity of the natural landscape to be unknowable; hence following that it was acceptable to hand-pick and emphasise certain elements and have confidence that it would always be true enough. They wrote about a mythical country that existed within the pockets of industrial development; another version of reality where rural peasants lay among flowers in the rising sun instead of toiling away at factories, copper mines, and slate quarries. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On September 20, 2019, Sydney came alive. The streets brimmed with energy as 80,000 voices came together to demand climate justice at the Global Climate Strike.The event was a monumental occasion for the environmental movement, marking an unprecedented level of public concern for climate change, the future of the Earth, and a lack of government action, but it was also profoundly important for me as an expression of my Christian faith.The memory I have of that day is fundamentally one of community. I joined a contingent of over 350 people from the Uniting Church who brought a unique motive to the protest, a belief in God, and a call to care for creation.Our participation in the global climate rally is not dissimilar to many other experiences I have had with my Church congregation. We have marched at Mardi Gras, Palm Sunday, International Womens Day and against the Religious Freedom Bill. Weve joined the nationwide prayer services for reconciliation before January 26.My religious beliefs are deeply interwoven with a mandate for social justice. If I am to follow Jesus, who was himself an activist, I must accept his radical call for an upside-down Kingdom. This call is widely accepted to be one of generosity and forgiveness, but to me, it goes further. It is a call to completely upend the value systems of our time, to enact servant leadership, not domination. To put the poor first, and not just those lacking capital, but those lacking power, as the translation of one Hebrew word for poor (ani) suggests.In practice, this means accepting people of low social status and social outsiders. We see Jesus take this up by welcoming prostitutes, tax collectors and Samaritans (an ancient enemy of the Jewish people). In todays context, I see this correlates to extending a hand to ostracised demographics such as refugees and people seeking asylum, people who identify as LGBTQI+ and Indigenous people.I strive to follow this example by joining social movements that support these marginalised communities in a subversive manner, calling out the hypocrisy and inaction of our political leaders. Jesus did the same. Before his death, he stood up to the religious authorities of Israel, condemning their sanctimony. The Scribes and Pharisees taught the law but failed to practice some of the most important aspects of it justice, mercy, and divine love. Many of our current politicians do the same, claiming to embrace diversity and multiculturalism but in reality ignoring those that do not look like them.I feel then an internal conflict, because I hear the Church preach compassion, but often fail to see this turn to action. The Church has undoubtedly become less visionary since the time of the first Followers. I have my own thoughts about why this is, but I want to dig deeper into the story of Christianity to try and pinpoint where this shift occurred and why Christians now accept a less revolutionary version of what Jesus was preaching. For me, the role of religion is in making our world a better place for everyone, that is the vision of Gods universal love, but Christians are not always united in this outlook.Missions, colonisation and Indigenous justiceThis investigation of Christianity will begin with truth telling, because the reality is that the Church has been complicit in perpetuating falsities and injustice. Part of understanding why the Church is not a force for social change lies in its history. In Australia, one example of this has been the role of missionaries in the colonisation of First Nations peoples.Missions, alongside reserves and stations, were one type of land grant that the government set aside for Aboriginal people to live in. They were operated by churches or religious individuals to provide housing (mainly because settlers had driven Indigenous people from their ancestral land), train residents in Christian ideals, as well as prepare them for work in largely unskilled occupations. The fundamental basis of such missions was a rejection of Indigenous culture and a belief that Western civilisation, religion, and ways of living were superior.In his book One Blood, Rev. Dr. John Harris reveals this low view of Aboriginal society by quoting a Wesleyan missionary, who described Aboriginal people as barbarians to whom had been assigned the lowest place in the scale of intellect, as well as a Lutheran missionary who wrote that (Aboriginal people) were the lowest in the scale of the human race.Harris also illustrates that early encounters of Indigenous spirituality were dismissed as inconsequential. He quotes one such missionary who writes [The Aborigines] have no idea of a supreme divinity, the creator and governor of the world, the witness of their actions and their future judge. They have no object of worship. . . They have no idols, no temples, no sacrifices. In short, they have nothing whatever of the character of religion or of religious observance, to distinguish them from the beasts that perish.Although not as violent as the biological assimilation promoted by Government administrators through the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, the social assimilation practised on these remote missions was still disruptive and came down to an inability to differentiate between the gospel and the missionaries ideals of civilisation. The strict regimentation and control of these homes undermined the very gospel the churches stood for which emphasises hope and grace. An inability to see Gods reflection in both Indigenous peoples and their way of life meant that missions added to the inequality of First Nations peoples.A piece of hope that comes out of this history is the presence of the Black Church in Australia. It comes as no surprise that the majority of Australians align themselves with Christianity, but, importantly, a majority of Indigenous peoples do too. Critically, this community did not arise simply because of missionary conversion, but also because Aboriginal people had encountered the creator God long before Captain Cook stepped ashore in 1770.Brooke Prentis, a Waka Waka Christian woman and CEO of Common Grace, explains to me that for Indigenous people, we believe in the Creator who passed down the laws. These laws dictate who the creator is, how to care for creation, and how to live in right relationship with each other. These are ideas core to Christian faith and the biblical principles we [Christians] are called to live by.She also tells me that unfortunately, the Church continues to be slow on the uptake of Indigenous justice because Indigenous knowledge is not always shared with the breadth of the Church. Part of what has happened is that Indigenous people havent been brought into theological teaching. This is when we realise the lens that we get taught theology through, it doesnt have to be white, male Christian lens. Lets look at the bible, as Uncle Rev Graham Paulson said, with Aboriginal eyes.Both historically and today, I see the Church reluctant at times to seek justice, resistant to the deep, institutional change that Jesus so vehemently fought for. Part of this seems to be a sense of ease and comfort, that God is there to make one feel good. However, the message of the Bible is not a comfortable one, but an agitational call to action. Jesus urges his followers to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him.Many Christians across the world are persecuted for answering this call. I am reminded of the shocking Easter bombings on Sri Lankan churches last year which killed 259 people. In stark contrast, most Australian Christians have never faced difficulty in expressing their religious beliefs. What then is the cost of following Jesus? For me it is giving up a life of self-advancement at the detriment of others, replacing the pursuit of money, power, security and self-gratification with a selfless solidarity with those excluded by society. This is by no means an easy undertaking, but something Christians should strive for.Conservatism within the ChurchI see a dissonance in the actions of the overarching powers of the Church. George Pell exemplifies this. Rising to prominence on a platform of conservatism, Pell consistently acted to protect the structure of the Catholic Church by silencing the many people who were sexually abused by clergy. When it was revealed that he himself perpetrated an abhorrent amount of abuse, it revealed a glaring hypocrisythat the conservatives who have the power to define what the Church is preach love and care whilst institutionalising and covering up a crisis of abuse. Not only is this outwardly harmful, but these behaviours alienate so many from the Church. I say that most Christian Australians can practice their faith without persecution because not all actually can. Ironically, it is the Church that is pushing away many of the faithful that wish to be there. Survivors of abuse, people identifying as LGBTQIA+ and women seeking bodily autonomy are often denied a place at the table through these actions. It is the Australian Christian Lobby doing this also, it is the Christians on campus at USyd who put up signs on Eastern Avenue telling women that they are murderers.Is this not the complete opposite of Jesus message? That no matter who you are, you are welcome in Gods Kingdom, not only, but most especially those that are vulnerable or marginalised? I believe the Church fails Christians every day when it judges the worth of others, something only God can do.Activism within the ChurchThe other side of this investigation is understanding the truly uplifting work that Christians do. I see many Christians in my community and across the Church answering this call, dedicating each and every day towards social change. Returning to the radical way of Jesus is about telling these stories and following their example.David Barrow, Lead Organiser of the Sydney Alliance, tells me, both historians and organisers understand that deep and long-term sustainable change in this country, many of the biggest things we take for granted often have two progenitors: one, the church and the other, the union movement. The union movement was built by Irish Catholics, atheist socialists, and Methodists. The campaign for Aboriginal rights, against nuclear arms, peace in Iraq, refugee movements, all of these issues have often been led by churches or Christians.One of these untold stories is that of William Cooper, who Brooke points out as someone not many Australians, let alone Australian Christians have heard of.Born in 1886, Cooper was a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man of faith and a prolific activist. In 1936, he set up the first January 26 Day of Mourning protest, which would soon become Aboriginal Sunday, an event observed in churches before Invasion Day. The tradition laid the roots for what is now NAIDOC week. Cooper was also the only private citizen in the world to protest Kristallnacht, the outbreak of Nazi Germany. He led a delegation to the German consulate in Melbourne to hand them a letter denouncing the violence carried out by Hitlers regime, a fact which is now celebrated by the Jewish people.He was this incredible Aboriginal man who was driven by a Christian faith, says Brooke. When we dont tell these stories, we miss out on the contribution to Australian society.Sadly, Cooper did not see his call for citizenship answered in his lifetime as it would take 30 years after passing until Indigenous people had citizenship rights.This ground-breaking activism should be an inspiration for Christians. Sadly however, when the Church focuses on fighting against things like marriage equality and bodily autonomy, it undermines the important work of people like Cooper. It is also an example of how Indigenous people, including Indigenous Christians, are still not equal in the eyes of the Church.I turn to David Barrow and Brooke Prentis for inspiration, because for me, they are current examples of faith being put to action.As Lead Organiser of the Sydney Alliance, David sees himself as a catalyser agent that works with partner organisations to come together for common good, which at the moment is a campaign for a fairer deal for international students and migrant workers who have been left out of Jobseeker payments. The Alliance also operates campaigns for housing, people seeking asylum, affordable renewable energy and work-life balance and draws its partners from across civil society including unions and other religious organisations such as the Muslim Women Association and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.When it comes to his faith, David says Jesus Christ was a prophetic messiah and saviour but as a man a carpenter and a community organiser. And even if Jesus wasnt, Paul definitely was. Fundamentally, the story of going from the periphery to the centre of power is the story of the New Testament.The challenge David puts to his community is recognising that faith is not private. Believing in Jesus is to follow Jesus in your life. If thats the case, you follow throughout your week. Not out of a sense of punishment, not about being Gods good books or brownie points for heaven, but a deep, intrinsic sense of purpose.Brookes work at Common Grace sees her lead a movement of over 45,000 Australian Christians which focuses on justice for people seeking asylum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice, ending domestic and family violence, and Creation and Climate Justice.She also coordinates Grasstree Gathering, an annual congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian leaders, a vision of Aunty Jean Phillips. I ask about Aunty Jean Phillips and how the leadership of elders in her community continues to drive her.I met Aunty Jean Phillips at the first Grasstree Gathering. She is still serving with over 60 years of ministry, often with no pay. She taught me to be present in and serve my community. She has developed other Christian leaders as well as extended a hand in friendship to non-Indigenous Christians to come on the journey with us. That was a huge inspiration and example to me.Those elders that have gone before me, they never got to see the things that they took action for, prayed for, achieved in their lifetime. So theres a responsibility for me to see some of the fruits of their work in todays Australia. I have to do what I can to honour their legacy as well as create a better future for the next generations.Thankfully, there is a growing response to the leadership in these positive expressions of faith. When I ask Brooke about how faith drives her in her vocation, she answers, someone once asked that question, effectively why do you do what you do, and I said because I know that God is up to something, and I want to be a part of that.There is an appetite in Christians to make a positive change. The stories of Christians both past and present lead a call to the wider church, to do compassion, not just preach it.As David says, it always starts with the people. If everyone is a child of God, then you start there. Then you realise, refugees are images of God, people seeking asylum are images of God, people affected by punitive drug laws (that dont lead to recovery) are in fact reflections of the divine. That if Gods creation is a reflection of the divine, then why would we let it be destroyed?If we want society to know us for the deep love we have for everyone, we must show that through our actions. Jesus was undeniably on the side of the ignored and oppressed, even when this threatened his reputation. It is time for the whole Church to join him. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> ULTRAVIRUS is a many-headed Hydra. Thorsten Hertog (aka Thick Owens), co-founder alongside Ella Parkes-Talbot, describes ULTRAVIRUS as a content aggregator, net label, ongoing party series and fashion brand. Another way of explaining ULTRAVIRUS is that it is a representation or an exaggeration of cybercultures. It feeds off soul-sucking consumerism, the vapid irony of contemporary youth culture, exemplified in meme culture, and the non-linear consumption of music and narratives in an internet era of information overload to present kitsch music aligned to our ravaged attention spans. Think hyperlink wormholes, internet-induced psychosis and cybermedieval avatars. If youre a little disorientated and a little confused, youre in the right place.While not grounded in any one location, ULTRAVIRUS skirts the edges of Sydneys DIY rave scene. I started the net label last year because I felt like there werent labels in Australia representing the sounds I was really interested in these kind of breakcore, gabber and hard tek sounds that I was hearing in warehouse spaces and that I saw a lot of bedroom producers making and uploading to Soundcloud I think labels are hugely important in functioning as an incubator for ideas but also as a platform for a scene.This homage to Sydneys warehouse and bunker rave scene is a sharp departure from outsider perceptions of the scene and a powerful statement addressed albeit indirectly to the global music hierarchy. Thortsen fires off a whole barrel of pot shots when I interview him. The first target is streaming platforms. The issue with Spotify is that there is an economic imperative to keep people listening as long as possible to boost advertising revenue. That has bred a culture of music that is very playlistable you know, the hang-out-at-home playlist or the Valentines-Day-romance playlist.New York Times journalist Jon Caramanica has disparagingly labelled this sound, with both pop and EDM variants, Spotify-core. Defined by emo lyrics, slow, chill beats, hip-hop influenced production and an early drop and chorus to satiate ever-shortening concentration spans think Spotify-sponsored artists like Drake, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence and R3hab this music is specifically made to be innocuous, little more than background music. You dont need to pay a membership fee to listen to ULTRAVIRUS releases. They are not available on Spotify. Both ULTRAVIRUS releases a five track EP, fetid in wingdings, and a ten track album, Plunderzone, released last month use a name-your-price model on Bandcamp. ULTRAVIRUS also uses a Creative Commons Licence so people can take the music and remix it and use it in their own art without having to pay royalties to the label or the artist. Thats honouring the early philosophy of net labels and the internet.I was really inspired by early 2000s net labels, which came out of this early utopian idea of the internet being a democratic and commercial-free zone. Obviously we know that that idea of the internet has failed. But people just downloaded and uploaded music in bulk for free. The artworks were super tacky and it was very DIY.Plunderzone album artwork, by s1m0nc3ll0. (Instagram: sx_s1m0nc3ll0.)Second in the firing line is the type of music Thorsten sees over-represented at clubs and some warehouse parties. Like the album artworks chaotic collages of colour and competing images the music ULTRAVIRUS platforms is intentionally offensive and abrasive. Almost all tracks are fast and jarring. There is breakcore, NeuroTrap, noise, deconstucted club, memecore and more. Tracks like Boutis DJ Snake and SPLITROACH/TERRORSLIDE/2049-2NXs HAKKEN PHOENIX go anywhere and everywhere, leaving themes, coherence and genre classification strewn by the wayside like a yardsale. So nothing like Spotify-core then.A bunch of Sydney producers provide the mesh for this enclosure of unhinged, avant-garde madness, reflecting the myriad ways in which alternative clubbing spaces encourage and breed innovation. Thrax, crack_lips, DJ BEVERLEY HILL$ and duo SPLITROACH/TERRORSLIDE/2049-2NX are all hidden gems of the warehouse scene. As a founder of group projects including Okra, Haus of the Rising Sn, Soft Centre and ULTRAVIRUS, which have utilised warehouses and reclaimed spaces, Thorstens imprint on the music of Sydneys underground is significant. Sitting in front of the camera, in front of a future audience I am interviewing Thorsten as part of a documentary on Sydneys DIY rave scene Thorsten appears comfortable. He is ambitious yet grounded, and extremely well-spoken. He cares. You sense that he really means every word he says. This capacity to talk with conviction without speaking loudly has undoubtedly helped people buy into what he envisions. But he has not done it all alone. In the last two years, a new wave of party curators have emerged in Sydney and laid down a bridge between experimental electronic sounds and hard dance, perhaps none more successfully than the team behind Soft Centre.Thorsten, alongside a network of like-minded artists and event organisers, has helped transplant the ethos of warehouse raves into a new, legal home the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre for the experimental music and art festival Soft Centre. With support from Liverpool City Council and funding from Create NSW, Soft Centre is a far more legal adventure. Boundary-pushing, Soft Centre puts local artists, sometimes with only a few performances under their belts, on a stage alongside international headliners, often at peak times. With over 1000 attendees, there is a sense that Sydneysiders appetite for challenging music is deep.Soft Centre, 2018. Photo courtesy of Chris McClymont.Resident Advisors (RA) recent documentary on Sydneys underground scene, meanwhile, suggested that ambient and house music distinguish the Sydney scene. According to the documentarys logic, Australias beautiful natural landscapes and beaches encourage music production centred on tranquillity and relaxation. Insightful and optimistic, but limited in scope, the RA documentary Real Scenes: Sydney shows just how easy it is for outsiders to misinterpret alternative clubbing cultures. To a vast cross-section of Sydney ravers, house and ambient do not represent the totality of the DIY rave scene. If Sydney has a distinctive sound, it is diversity, and ULTRAVIRUS is a testament.Thorsten describes the resurgence of hard dance and the burgeoning IDM and glitch scenes, while still niche, as a retaliation and protest against the huge saturation of nu-disco and house sounds and vanilla-boom-clap club music that dominates Australia.Sydneys hard dance revival is also due to our proximity to Newcastle and the Bloody Fist [Records] scene that existed there in the 90s, and the huge breakcore scene that exists in the Blue Mountains. These two cities pioneered these hard dance sounds. That has totally filtered back into Sydney.Sydney and its satellite cities have produced a long line of DJs and producers unafraid to mock the nations cultural cringe with their confronting styles of hard dance music. In 1994 in Newcastle (Australia), Mark Newlands founded the label Bloody Fist Records with two fortnightly dole payments. Cornered by smoke stacks, barbed wire, steelworks operations and concrete, the label became a production line of its own for a pinball machine of eclectic hardcore beats. The music was nihilistic and cynical. Records such as Straight Outta Compton were ripped off, rejigged and regurgitated with a blatant disregard for copyright laws (in this case as the thoroughly distasteful EP Straight Outta Newcastle). This DIY, cut and paste mentality shaped the production of Australian breakcore artists such as Passenger of Shit, Melt Unit, Toecutter and Noistruct. Australia has exported numerous house DJs, yes, but will these artists leave a legacy in an oversaturated market? Possibly. But if Australia has truly produced any distinctive sounds in dance music, it is the sheer lunacy of extreme, left-field artists such as Nansenbluten, Passenger of Shit and Anklepants. With their provocative, almost anti-intellectual, music, we seem to struggle to take pride in them. This perhaps helps explain why pioneering Australian hardcore artists including Geoff Da Chef (Blown Records) and Hedonist (Bloody Fist Records) still DJ and tour in Europe but fly under the radar at home. Industrial connoisseur Tymon cut his teeth in the Sydney rave scene in the late 90s before migrating to Berlin and releasing music through iconic labels such as Industrial Strength Records. He too rarely rates a mention as a cultural export. ULTRAVIRUS is therefore a continuation of what was already there. As Thorsten says: There is a perception that the warehouse scene post-lockout was ground zero for Sydney dance music. But what people forget is that there was a huge scene that existed before all that happened.It is precisely Thorstens style of DJing, which he labels as irreverent and rude, which encapsulates, if not Australias natural landscapes, the zeitgeist of a young nation forever unsure of itself. Self-mockery, tongue-in-cheek probes at authorities, unapologetic nods to Australias cultural cringe, larrikinism and a tinge of political commentary pulsate throughout local techno, hardcore and breakcore. DJs like Thick Owens bounce seemingly carelessly between silliness and serious critique.In September 2018 at the warehouse rave Grip: Interstellar Funk, Thorsten (as Thick Owens) began his set with a breakcore Metallica riff, dressing the discordant sounds in a patchwork shirt of news reports about pill-testing. I never want to see this event held in Sydney or New South Wales again. We will do everything we can to shut this down, says NSW Premier Gladys Berijiklian, just before Thorsten throws down a thumping, pitched-down Frenchcore kick by FKY.* * *ULTRAVIRUS is an eclectic entity and it is possible to go back even further in time than Thorsten does when searching for influences. The techno-hardcore spectrum has deeper roots in punk than quite possibly any other musical scene.Hardcore punk was a volatile critique of the stardom of 70s rocknroll, defined by dissonant melodies, shouted vocals, disruption, excess, irony, disdain for public and private property and outsider status in a capitalist system. In the face of commodification, political activism and direct action became essential for authenticity and ownership over the punk label.Dance music culture celebrates collectivism and, like punk, disintegrates the passive spectator/genius performer dichotomy embedded in rock. Long associated with direct action via protestivals, raves are inclusive, democratic and participatory. By bringing together musicians, performance artists, visual artists and lighting specialists, raves create a multi-sensory overload designed to stimulate in attendees altered forms of consciousness and new, healing ways of being. Recognising a particular contiguity between the harder ends of the punk and techno spectrums, Graham St John, a cultural anthropologist now at the University of Fribourg, has traced the continuation of anarcho-punk politics in Sydney with the emergence of what he labels techno terra-ists in the early 90s. As the 80s waned and the 90s took over, there was a sharing of equipment and personnel between the anarcho-punk scene, centred around Newtown and Redfern, and early techno artists and collectives such as Non Bossy Posse (NBP) and Vibe Tribe. At the communally-owned Jellyheads venue near Central Station, punk bands, DJs and live electronic acts shared the stage until electronic music stole the limelight altogether and Vibe Tribe was born. Around the same time, Bloody Fist Records emerged, which was a lot less political. But the label shared the same anti-authoritarian, anti-commercial ethos.The Vibe Tribe zine Sporadical. Image courtesy of Dan Conway. At warehouse parties and Vibe Tribe doofs, NBP sampled advertisements and radio segments. Tossing commentary on Indigenous land rights, social justice and environmental sustainability into a headwind of preprogrammed techno and trance beats, NBP pinpointed the dancefloor as the target of their sonic, political cyclone. According to Kol Dimond, a member of the anarcho-pop punk band the Fred Nihilists and later NBP, this was live finger looped mayhem. Besides the lofi psychedelics emanating from the chill zones at Vibe Tribe parties, the music was very techno and very acid generally anywhere between 140 and 160 bpm. NBP represented the same politics, same passion for systemic social change, just a different soundtrack. When 40 riot police turned up at the Vibe Tribe party Free-quency in Sydney Park in April 1995 due to noise complaints, the crowd anywhere between 500 and 2000, depending on who you ask repelled the police. With organisers rallying the crowd over the mic, they formed a circle around the speakers and decks, preventing the police, initially anyway, from cutting off the music. This was not a case of intoxicated revellers misbehaving. Kol asserts that it was a coordinated effort in an already highly politicised space just one of many plans inscribed in the Vibe Tribe manifesto to deal with skinheads or thugs or coppers. Non-violent resistance was the goal but scuffles broke out. According to one account, police couldnt deal with the concept of everyone being in charge. At 2am, having regrouped, police charged the dancefloor in a wedge formation with batons, shields and dogs and carried off the generator. Two punters were hospitalised, countless injured. The crowd remained in defiant assertion of their civil rights and a mob of bongo drummers turned up to make more ruckus. UNSW newspaper Tharunka covered the police brutality at Free-quency. Image Courtesy of Dan Conway.If there is a vague ideology behind rave organisation, it hovers closer to anarchism than a neo-conservative appreciation of small government. As football hooligans and bomber-jacket wearing skinheads with fascist and misogynistic inklings populated gabber, and techno became less revolutionary, in the early 2000s breakcore then in a darker form than the cartoonish popmash-breakcore that dominates today became a haven for decibel-addled ferals with alternative lifestyles and a masochistic passion for fast, abrasive sounds. It became synonymous, albeit briefly, with anarchist politics. Some claim it was a direct response to Neo-Nazism (see the documentary Notes on Breakcore). In Sydney, the collective and record label System Corrupt, containing within its ranks ex-Bloody Fist artists and ex-Vibe Tribe members, threw free raves in abandoned places. Shockingly subversive, event promotion included pornographic collages. Album cover for a 2001 DJ mix by Al Corrupt, released through System Corrupt.Spaces marginal to the functioning of society wartime bunkers, abandoned buildings, disused warehouses, motorway underpasses and marshland became stages for niche communities who otherwise struggled to find venue owners willing to take financial risks. Opening in 2008, the Sydney warehouse Dirty Shirlows, for instance, hosted cheaply-ticketed punk and breakcore gigs, regularly blasting experimental noises into the early hours of the morning, until police pressure and fines from Marrickville Council forced its (official) closure in 2012. The utilisation of alternative venues a legal grey space is unique to both punk and rave culture.Murray Bookchin in his polemical essay Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm argued that Hakim Beys concept of a TAZ temporary autonomous zone and temporary ferality exemplifies the lifestyle anarchism, social indifference, egotism and disinterest in revolution of young, urban professionals. While the TAZ has become a byword for the Freetekno movement, Bookchin suggests a TAZ is a passing event, a momentary orgasm, a fleeting expression of the will to power that is, in fact, conspicuously powerless in its capacity to leave any imprint on the individuals personality, subjectivity, and even self-formation, still less on shaping events and reality.Unlike Bookchin, I believe that certain raves (TAZs) at an abstract level encourage alternative ways of living and provoke critique of dominant systems and constructs. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, Sydneys underground rave scene certainly seemed on the precipice of commercialisation. With warehouse tickets costing between $20 and $60, occasionally even more, questions must be asked about the durability of anarcho-punk politics.High ticket prices can translate into a night of drug-fuelled revelry, connection and muddy shoes before the crowd returns to reality, re-energised and ready to ascend the corporate ladder. As public acceptance of dance music grows, increased prices of entry has seen digestible, non-confronting music tech-house and disco, for example enter the warehouse. Hardly the soundtrack of protest.The punk and rave scenes tend not to overlap in Sydney in the ways that they did in the early 90s, however, some recent events by Soft Centre, Hex Yellow and KEIU have seen a cross-over of punk bands and hard techno, and punks DIY attitude remains as strong as ever within the rave community. The story of punk and metal musicians transitioning from guitars and drum kits to drum machines, decks and mixers is startlingly common. But rave did not replace punk with the proliferation of acid house parties from the late 80s, as some like to believe. In recent years Sydney labels Burning Rose Records and Deep Seeded Records have championed hard techno alongside punk, darkwave and industrial projects, fostering tracks that mix anti-establishment lyrics and thrashing electric guitars with techno beats.The RA documentary Real Scenes: Sydney sparked furious debate about what represents Sydneys rave scene. By focusing on house and ambient, the film bypassed 30 years of history. Sydney, and New South Wales more broadly, has long been a hub for extreme music and radical politics. Thorsten claims Sydney is the capital of hard dance in Australia. ULTRAVIRUS could be viewed as a jaded postmodernist sigh utterly obtuse and irrelevant rather than an anarcho-punk battlecry. Indeed, ULTRAVIRUS probably wont change the world. But its emergence not just as a one-off event, a TAZ, but as a net label is an attempt, consciously or not, to solidify a punk legacy. The ways in which ULTRAVIRUS nostalgically harkens back to optimistic visions of the internet as a decentralised, democratic space cannot be ignored. The labels hybrid, edutainment events, which incorporate panel discussions and art within raves, suggest that founders Ella Parkes-Talbot and Thorsten Hertog have something more profound in mind than dancing blindly into a capitalist apocalypse. Reflecting the evolution of dance music technologies and rave culture, ULTRAVIRUS looks to the future while drawing on the past for solutions. In the face of mega corporations including Spotify and RA, Ultravirus is a bold reclamation of identity for Sydneys underground but one that is true to its roots. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This year on the 8th of March, International Womens Day, I watched on social media as people in Lebanon took to the streets of Beirut to demand equality. I listened to women cry out that and that . Citizenship and custody rights have been the target of feminist protests in Lebanon for years, but more recently there has been a trend towards focusing on workers rights. It is a known truth that equal pay for women, in regards to that of their male counterparts, is a ubiquitous liberal feminist demand. In Lebanon, workers rights are a feminist issue for reasons that surpass equal hourly rates. This is because, at the heart of the exploitation of workers in Lebanon (and more broadly, the Arab world), are issues of race and poverty that manifest in the deeply hidden and exploitative Kafala system.WHAT IS THE KAFALA SYSTEM?Within the Arab world, Kafala looks like a worker sponsorship system. Migrant domestic workers are hired as temporary guest workers, and are dependent on local sponsors for their housing and work permits. Typically, the sponsor serves as the workers legal guarantor and sole employer, as such, the worker cannot change employers without the sponsors consent. This also means that the sponsor has the power to send the worker back to their country of origin at any given point in time. Within the administrative framework of the sponsorship system, workers are effectively bound to their employers for the terms of their service. As a whole, it appears that the system, which has been described as a modern day form of slavery, oppresses in insidious ways. This is because the oversight of migrant worker rights has been extricated from labor ministries and diverted into the unregulated hands of private citizens.On discussing labour migration, attention is often focused on people from the Global South moving to the Global North for work. Much of the literature on said labour migration does not reflect the fact that considerably more people move within so-called less developed areas. Within the Global South, the Middle East ranks as one of the top destinations for labour migrants, and in 2005 the UN estimated that one in every ten international migrants in the world was in the Arab region. Amnesty International also notes that a large majority of migrant workers under the Kafala system are women.Supporters of the Kafala System have claimed that sponsorship exists in order to monitor migrant workers. This is despite a reality which indicates that the majority of workers are placed in high intensity blue-collar labour jobs in the construction and domestic fields.WHERE DOES THE WORD KAFALA ORIGINATE?ETYMOLOGYThe term Kafala has a wide semantic scope in Arabic. Within the Arabic language, most words are derived from three or four letter root words, which can assist in defining more complex words. In the context of Kafala, a definition has actually been imperative to understanding the way the system operates. Arabic words have different forms depending on context, and the root for Kafala, kf f lm (), means to feed, support, vouch for or warrant. Thus the literal definition of Kafala can refer to bail, guaranty, security or sponsorship (Wehr, 1994).RELIGIONThe Islamic definition of Kafala is of vital importance to understanding the ways in which religious governance is used by governments to mask and protect the system. In her thesis Exporting Subservience: Sri Lankan Womens Migration for Domestic Work in Jordan, Elizabeth Frantz says that in the Islamic tradition, Kafala has social, moral and business dimensions. Within Sharia relating to the Muslim family, Kafala refers to the formal agreement of providing temporary support for orphaned children until they become adults. This support has been compared to adoption, but has sparked interest within adoption discourse as the support until adulthood does not allow for inheritance rights. Islamic scholars understand it to be a form of legal guardianship rather than adoption (Frantz, 2011).Similarly, in The Islamic Principle of Kafala as Applied to Migrant Workers: Traditional Continuity and Reform, authors Ray Jureidini and Said Fares Hassan have tried to analyse and make sense of the relationship between religion and the modern Kafala system. Jureidini and Hassan discuss the way Muslim scholars have, in more recent times, extended the meaning of Kafala to a business contract where someone formally guarantees somebody else in terms of delivering goods or carrying financial responsibilities. This leads into the more general discussion that Kafala was intended to provide a framework of social solidarity based on trust and cooperation among people in various realms of their interactions.The most highly critiqued issues of the contemporary Kafala have indeed centered around the power, control and exploitation of the sponsor over foreign employees as well as business establishments. The criticisms have primarily been based on international human and labour rights law and conventions. It is in this sense that the new Kafala may seem to violate a key traditional Islamic condition and may be seen more as a business-oriented system rather than one of trust and protection. Yet despite this, the Kafala system lives on, thriving in countries that use the word of God as the law.GEOPOLITICS: WHERE DOES IT TAKE PLACE AND TO WHAT EXTENT?In the rare news reporting that has occurred on the Kafala system, it is evident that wealth is central to the survival of the system. Though this does not mean a lot in and of itself considering that most migrant workers would anyway be impoverished and desperately taking part in sponsorship in a hope to give themselves or their families a better life it is evident that even within the Global South there are disparities. According to Migrant Rights, a Gulf Cooperation Council based advocacy organization that aims to advance the rights of migrant workers, the Kafala system governs labor migration in all GCC countries, such as Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as for most workers in Lebanon and Jordan.Research and personal stories clearly reveal that Kafala is a system of control. There are not many ways that Kafala is regulated, despite the system being overseen by each countrys Ministry of Interior. The ministry in each partaking country not only oversees it, but enforces it as the system that regulates labour migration. Furthermore,in the Arab world, a workers immigration status is treated primarily as a security issue rather than a labor issue. On account of this, it is evident that there is no real reason for governments to oversee justice and be accountable for the exploitation of migrants.RACIAL DIMENSIONSThe International Labour Organisation (ILO) has reported that a majority of the migrants that travel for sponsorship work in the Arab world hail from South/Southeast Asia or Africa. This information alone is indicative of the complex racial dynamics behind the exploitative sponsorship system. In Lebanon, it is commonplace for maids, regardless of their ethnicity to be nicknamed, , Srilankeyeen. The word, literally translates to Sri Lankans, and this, partnered along with colourism and stereotyping, is a prime example of the way the Kafala system has a long history that not only exploits migrant workers, but targets specific communities.SAY HER NAME: FAUSTINA TAYOn the 14th of March 2020, six days after International Womens Day, 23-year-old Ghanain domestic worker, Faustina Tay died in the southern suburbs of Beirut. I remember scrolling through social media, seeing This Is Lebanon demanding an inquiry into Faustinas sudden death. This is Lebanon (TIL), is a project and advocacy group run by a coalition of former domestic workers and activists demanding the protection of migrant domestic workers, and an end to labour exploitation and abuse, with the aim to effectively end government-sanctioned, modern-day slavery in Lebanon.Faustina Tay had worked for Mona Nasrallah and Hussein Dia for 10 months before her death. Police reports initially concluded that Tays death was a suicide, with no serious investigation involved. TIL was in contact with Tay between the 6th and 13th March trying to protect her from abuse, and assist her in obtaining her promised salary which had been withheld from her during her time at the Dia household. Over 40 minutes of chilling messages were accumulated by TIL and Tays brother in Ghana, along with several text messages that recounted the continual abuse she faced at the hands of her sponsors.In the days following her death, Al Jazeera shared her story, which then began to rapidly circulate. Her story has been seen far and wide, including, quite notably by supermodel Naomi Campbell on Instagram. People said her name enough times that a new high-level investigation is being carried out.Faustina Tays story is unfortunately not unlike many other stories. Her shaken voice has been engraved into my mind, and as I write this, I close my eyes and can hear her say he said he sees me as an animal. He can do anything to me. No one will hold him responsible.The exploitation of migrant workers escalates when that worker is a woman. All of a sudden, she is not only a disposable worker, but another target for sexual harassment and assault. Testimonial evidence from Faustina Tay to TIL exposes how her sponsor Hussein Dia, and his 23 year old son, Ali Dia, were both sexual predators.Following her death, Hussein Dia told Al Jazeera that he never laid a hand on her, and also told the police that his family were God-fearing people and never harmed Faustina. They claimed to be completely unaware as to why their domestic worker would commit suicide. Furthermore, the report from the coroner declared that there were no marks of physical aggression or violence on her body and the only visible injury was a bruised scalp caused by falling from a high place.This is all despite the aforementioned text and voice messages to her brother and TIL where Faustina herself complained of pains and aches all over her body from brutal beatings she had received earlier, on the 12th of March. With photos of her bruising and wounds fresh two days before her death, it is evident that there are discrepancies with the facts, as well as the released police report and coroners examination.Faustina Tay desperately tried to flee her situation. She had, time and time again, requested her pay, and even requested to be sent back to Ghana with no pay, but the Dia family refused and instead asked her to pay $2000 if she wanted her passport.In some, but by no means rare cases, migrant workers turn to suicide to escape the severeness of their reality. However in this instance, TIL and Faustinas family have rejected the notion that her death was a suicide and call on the Lebanese government to bring the perpetrators to justice.According to Amnesty International, within the five million population of Lebanon there are currently 250,000 registered migrant workers. Amongst these workers, a large majority of them are women, who are often deprived of pay, basic rights and freedom. They are often emotionally, physically, financially and sexually abused by their sponsors, and do not have the resources to leave. These women, already at great risk, are now at even greater risk of being abused while Lebanon is under lockdown to control the infection rate of COVID-19.A month and a half on from International Womens Day, and a month from Faustina Tays death, it is critical that the voices of migrant workers are elevated and made central in the feminist cause. No more Kafala. Not another Faustina. Say her name. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As an historian with twelve books under her belt everything from a biography of the polarising poet James McAuley to an exploration of a sex scandal between a staff member and student at the University of Tasmania in the 1950s challenging or controversial topics do not seem to intimidate Cassandra Pybus. In her latest book, Truganini: Journey through the apocalypse, Pybus turns her eye to Truganini a figure believed for far too long to signify the extinction of Tasmanias Aboriginal population.Truganinis story tells a bigger story about Australian history. Common themes in our history form the backdrop violence, dispossession, environmental change and Indigenous land management practices. The way Pybus matter-of-factly references this context suggests the historical profession has gone a long way towards recognising these facts as fundamental. She is unafraid to use politically-charged terms such as guerrilla fighters and paramilitary organisations to describe Aboriginal resistance to the theft of land, women and resources.But these conflicts never overshadow Truganinis story. This was exactly Pybus intention, she tells me on the phone. The temptation of course is to foreground that stuff because again this is the sort of story we now find that we want to hear they werent savages after all and they could farm The story we always want to hear about them is that they fought back. We are never so interested in the accommodations that they make in order to live, in order to have families, in order to survive.Citing the labelling of the Aboriginal man Wooredy as a resistance fighter at one local gallery, Pybus asks: Why do we have to make them fighters? Whats wrong with trying to survive? What is wrong with trying to keep your family together? What is wrong with making adjustments to a world turned upside down?This process of prioritising violent resistance above all else dismisses anybody who doesnt do that. So you elevate certain sorts of people as opposed to other kinds of people or else you just lie about them and say they were great resistance fighters. Thats the issue that Truganini is up against all the time. You could never argue that about her. She gets short shrift because she cant be turned into a warrior who took up arms against the settler class.On the phone, Cassandra Pybus comes across as bold and forceful in her views; opinionated while still firmly grounded. This is perhaps thanks to her non-traditional career trajectory. After completing her PhD, Pybus moved into writing nonfiction narratives based on historical research. From 1989 to 1994, she was editor of the literary magazine Island. When the government introduced the Australian Research Council [ARC] professorial fellowships for freelance intellectuals people who werent tenured academics I applied for one of those. She ended up first at the University of Tasmania. She was attached to the University of Sydney until 2013 when the ARC professorial fellowship program was disbanded, at which point she returned to being a writer. As Pybus explains, Ive basically just been a writer and for 12 years I got paid an academic salary to do what I was doing off the smell of an oily rag before then.Pybus appears a maverick in the historical profession at once old-fashioned in her approach to writing history and revolutionary at the same time. She is unafraid to critique herd mentality. While Bruce Pascoes Dark Emu has become a bible for many Australians, Pybus takes issue not with the evidence or arguments in the book indeed the careful, Aboriginal management of land with fire peppers the pages of Truganini but with the specific use of Eurocentric nomenclature including agriculture and farming. Im not actually interested in making political points about that, she states during an aside.To take another example: Pybus detests the academic scaffolding of footnotes, and in Truganini: Journey through the Apocalypse footnotes are noticeably absent. The general reader doesnt much care for footnotes, I can tell you, she says. While her books are aimed at a crossover audience both general and academic, she prefers to be published by trade presses like Allen & Unwin rather than university presses.But Pybus has more complex reasons for treating the academic world with suspicion. It is not simply an issue of accessibility and readability. My view is that these are my sources. Ive been doing history for 50 years. If you wish to dispute with me about what Ive said here, you go and do the work yourself and then come back and argue with me. Is this not a reasonable position? [footnotes are] a scourge because people just work off everybody elses footnotes. You get to the point where nobodys been in an archive for the entire time of their academic career This is just a way of perpetuating a particular kind of narrative about the past. The people who really make big leaps and make changes have gone into the archives and done it themselves and come out with a different answer a different narrative entirely.She describes to me walking into a recent Australian Dictionary of Biography seminar at the Australian National University recently and making a speech about these worryingly restrictive trends in current historiography. According to Pybus, you could hear the gasps in the room.Just as it takes courage to poke your peers, it takes courage to take on Truganinis story. Telling the story of someone doubly silenced in the archives as both a woman and an Aboriginal person is no easy task. There is a limitation in the number of sources available and a scholarly necessity to decode what sources exist.So much of what we know of Truganini, we perceive through the lens of missionary George Augustus Robinson the supposed and self-described conciliator with Tasmanias Aboriginal communities who kept a detailed journal throughout his life. Pybus tells me that he was an inveterate writer and observer but one who was also about self-aggrandising himself and his extraordinary mission of going around Tasmania and rounding up all these Aboriginal people for resettlement in the Bass Strait. In Truganini she goes as far as claiming his journal entries are little more than imaginative constructs.Indeed, if we read settler accounts at face value, we fail to hear what Inga Clendinnen has termed the authoritative British voice-overs interpreting actions. These voice-overs drown out and mistranslate the dialogue of Indigenous actors. Ann Stoler, meanwhile, has famously demanded we reconceptualise archives not as sites of knowledge retrieval but of knowledge production, as monuments of states as well as sites of state ethnography as cultural artefacts of fact production. Historians must therefore read against and along the archival grain.Pybus seems well-equipped to do so, noting in Truganini: Robinson was fictionalising his charges into the parts he had made for them, miraculously transformed from nomadic hunters into meek Christian serfs.So it is a bumpy path as we walk behind Truganini, tracing her steps. We never walk alongside her because we can never truly know what she feels or thinks. At certain points, where there simply is not enough source material to know what happened, the narrative glosses over years in the space of a few pages.But even so the biography is thorough. Pybus rises to the challenges by presenting a nuanced, frequently moving, account of Truganinis life.When the narrative allows it usually while painting Tasmanias rugged landscapes the prose is vivid. This backdrop shimmers and breathes, forever shaping events as if a character in itself. Half buried in the sand, uprooted stalks of kelp are like splashes of dark blood against the white quartzit, ground fine as talc. Tendrils of kelp flounce lazily in translucent shallows that gradually deepen to turquoise, turning Prussian blue at the horizon. So begins the preface. I would love to be a fiction writer but thats not where my strengths lie, Pybus remarks to me modestly.The strength of Pybus writing resides, perhaps most importantly, within understatement; within the matter-of-fact descriptions of intense violence, heart-breaking trauma and inspirational resilience. This subtle style of writing is, of course, partly a necessity. Pybus avoids implanting herself into the narrative by speaking for Truganini. For her, this is a gross act of cultural appropriation beyond her capacity as a writer and beyond her right as a non-Indigenous woman. But her writing style is undeniably a skill she wields with care.The multi-talented Tasmanian Aboriginal artist, historian and writer Julie Gough has publicly advocated for Aboriginal people to reclaim their history so that white academics are not the authors of all our history and destiny. In the face of frustration like this, some may call Pybus dive into thorny, Indigenous issues foolhardy.Pybus concedes to me that the research process was largely not collaborative with Tasmanias Aboriginal communities. Its not that I dont believe the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has things to offer in this matter. But Im an historian and Im used to working with historical documents and setting myself the task of making the past as real as possible without engaging in myth-making or storytelling based in some kind of imaginative realm. It could be argued that by placing such emphasis on the written word Pybus is asserting a form of neo-colonial hegemony. But in a region with as fractured a history for Aboriginal people as Tasmania this is, to some extent, understandable, perhaps necessary.Truganini, photograph by Charles Alfred Woolley, circa 1866. Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia.Pybus acknowledges that writing such a book is a fraught business but stands by her solo research process. Later she asserts: As much as possible, as much as is feasible, we have to work with First Nations people But, again I think that we also have to keep a sense of our own integrity as researchers and writers too. This may be an outrageous thing to say. But Im really not prepared to give over my autonomy as a writer. My books are my books. Ill take responsibility for them.Her staunch defensiveness over sources appears to have paid off with commentary from all sides favourable. This may have something to do with her depiction of Truganini. I expected to get pushback, and it hasnt come Generally people have been very grateful that this womans story has been rescued from all the maudlin mythmaking about her.Historians and archaeologists have always intensely scrutinised the history of Tasmania (or Van Diemens Land, as it was once known), and Truganini: Journey through the apocalypse is not a project about excavating new sources but combatting conventional thinking.On Truganinis status as tragic victim, Pybus asserts: She wasnt anything of the kind. She was very wilful and clever. She was an extraordinary survivor. She lived to be nearly 70 at a time when women did not live that long as a general rule. She lived entirely on her own terms. The terms were circumscribed hugely by the disaster that had overwhelmed her culture and her people but nevertheless she didnt become, as might have been expected, somebodys servant or pet. She entirely was her own woman right up until the moment she died. She negotiated within the extremely limited range of options available for her at various stages in her life the best possible outcome.Pybus condemns the fanciful story that was built on and built on and built on to make the settler community feel much more resigned to the terrible tragedy that had happened Shes constantly being given to us as this perfect, abject, tragic figure whose only claim on our attention is that she was the last. I dont have a bar of any of that not that she was the last or that she was in any way an abject figure of pity.There is a ring of the late Inga Clendennin about Cassandra Pybus. Inga Clendinnens work showed masterfully how an historian could avoid present-mindedness while utilising interdisciplinary knowledge and cultural theory. She was a self-proclaimed scientific historian who condemned what she called history as patriotism or as group therapy. Hesitant towards historical fiction like Pybus, Clendinnen, in her quarterly essay The History Question, critiqued Kate Grenvilles Secret River for Grenvilles claim to historical accuracy and truth-telling. Yet Clendinnen was always imaginative (but not imaginary) in her writing and breath-taking in her storytelling ability. In Dancing with Strangers, Clendinnen described a brief springtime of trust in Australias history of race relations at a time when there was a near fetishisation among history-makers of Indigenous agency.* * *Pybus wrote about colonial, Tasmanian history in her first book Community of Thieves, published almost thirty years ago. She has returned to the region in Truganini: Journey through the apocalypse, focusing almost solely this time on the other side of the frontier, in what is an intensely personal journey. Pybus ancestors were close friends with George Augustus Robinson and complicit in dispossession. They received the largest freehold grant on Truganinis Nueonne country, owning land on North Bruny Island just outside Hobart. Seen in this way, the book becomes a search for atonement.But it is also a national story. This is not just a story of a settler family like mine. This is the Australian story. This is our founding narrative the brutal dispossession and destruction of ways of life and in its extremity the destruction of whole clans of people.This recognition prompted Pybus to include a plea in the afterword for all Australians to support the Uluru Statement and the demands within it. When I ask her if she believes historians have a moral duty to not just acknowledge the impact of their work on contemporary politics but to also engage in politics in their writing and daily lives, she answers in the affirmative. I think all Australians who are not descended from First Nations people have a moral responsibility to consider what is owed to the First Nations of this country. Historians who perhaps know more than anybody else about that question should be in the vanguard of that.Australian historians, or at least those confined within the carceral environment of university sandstone, have not always been at the forefront of reshaping perceptions of Indigeneity. In his renowned 1968 Boyer Lecture, W.E.H Stanner condemned the epistemic violence embedded in Australian historiography. Stanner suggested there was a pervasive cult of forgetfulness among historians who, in contrast to archaeologists and anthropologists at the time, arrogantly swept aside Aboriginal history in their research and writing: inattention on such a scale cannot possibly be explained by absent-mindedness. It is a structural matter, a view from a window which has been carefully placed to exclude a whole quadrant of the landscape.Numerous scholars now argue that what W.E.H Stanner termed the Great Australian Silence was confined largely to the professional history academy and to a certain time period the 1920s to 1970s when the profession defined itself as a science centred on the rigorous examination of written documents. Historians afforded Indigenous Australians a non-literate people little space in their texts but amateur archaeologists, museum curators, family historians, journalists and volunteers for local history societies, firmly grounded in place, near obsessed over the material culture and oral history of Aboriginal Australians. In their attempts to foster emotional engagement with the land, these antiquarians developed tortured, ambiguous relationships with country and First Nations people.This is precisely why historians such as Cassandra Pybus, who refuse to let public perceptions of her as a scholar define her identity or her writing, are so valuable. Sometimes we need independent thinkers like Pybus to challenge us, or else our minds remain closed.Truganini: Journey through the apocalypse by Cassandra Pybus is available now through Allen & Unwin. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Redfern erupted like a wildfire that Sunday. It was 5 October 2014, and the annual heatwave was in full swing. Everyone had been sweating over their TV screens for hours. The Tudor Hotel on the corner of Redfern and Pitt was packed to the rafters, old timers and blow-ins all jostling for beer in their green and red jerseys. Just like when Whitlam was sacked or Cathy Freeman won gold, any Redfern resident can tell you exactly where they were when the South Sydney Rabbitohs took out the Grand Final, 30-6 against the Bulldogs, their first NRL premiership in 44 years.I, for one, was sitting in the lounge room of my familys George Street terrace. I dont think Id watched a football game in my life. Nor had my sports illiterate parents. But when Greg Inglis scored that final try, we were on our feet shouting like die-hard fans. There was an audible roar from the street and we raced out our front door, just as Sam the local hairdresser and his wife Nadia did; just as Lisa, who was my age, 15, and her mother Chuntao did; just as Uncle Max Eulo rounded the corner in his cowboy hat, wide smile, twinkly eyes; and crazy Jennipher ran up the street brandishing a red and green flag as big as she was. The chant rose up: Glory, glory to South Sydney / South Sydney marches on. After years of being underestimated and pushed around, the suburb of the underdog was finally on top.I grew up in Redfern, two blocks from the station, a block and a half from Reconciliation Park. But the Redfern I grew up in is changing by the day, and the State Governments proposal to demolish and develop the housing commission at the end of my street will change it beyond recognition. The government plans to knock down 2,012 dwellings for people on low incomes and replace them with 6,800 apartments, in towers up to 40 storeys high.The plans are shockingly dense, says Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. They will triple the current density in the area to something more akin to development in Hong Kong or New York. Its a scale and size thats completely out of character for Waterloo and surrounding Redfern.This wont be the first big change to have swept through Redfern. People who live here can pinpoint the date they moved in by changes in the neighbourhood. There are people who moved in when the Surry Hills shopping village was still the Redfern Mall. There are the people who arrived before the Redfern Hotel became the Byron Map Gallery. There are people who remember when the Post Office was still a post office and you could buy heroin on The Block. My family history in Redfern precedes all that.My great uncle Pietro arrived in Redfern in 1909. He came from a tiny town in northern Italy, called Toppo, and set up shop in Regent Street, already a slum, soon to be known as Sydneys badlands. He created the mosaics for the Chapel of Irish Saints in St Marys Cathedral, carting his heavy tiles and tools from Redfern into the city every day in a wheelbarrow. One mosaic and 200 pounds later, he brought the rest of the family out from Italy, including my great grandfather.In the early 1990s, my mum first moved to Redfern. She was sharing a house with a violinist on Wells Street, between a funeral parlour and a laundromat (now a gin bar). The only bars then were on the doors and windows, says Mum. Kids from the housing commission would stick their hands through and grab anything in reach: jewellery, chocolates, small change. The main drag was filled with local shops, representing the melting pot of multiculturalism that was Redfern at the time. There was the Portuguese butcher, the Vietnamese bakery and the Lebanese family grocer, known for their good conversation and fly-covered fruit.When I was two, my parents moved from their Potts Point rental apartment into our terracotta terrace on George Street. Just like the neighbours to our left and our right, wed bought in Redfern because it was the only suburb a young family like ours could afford. We couldnt afford Newtown or Darlinghurst or Surry Hills, but people were still scared of Redfern, Mum explains.The hustle and bustle and sense of community on Redfern Street extended around the corner and we Redfern kids stuck together. Samia Piper-Larkings lived a few minutes away on Regent Street. Her dad was an architect, and helped out Mick Mundine at the Aboriginal Housing Company. We met in Ms Yanakouros kindergarten class in Ultimo and walked to school together almost every day. We strolled down Cleveland Street, took a right at Regent and wandered past the Lord Gladstone Hotel, then a sleazy pub with sticky carpet floors, and a ragtag group of old men leftover from the night before. I spoke to Samia again just recently. Remember at school, she said, people would be like, oh you live in Redfern, but we didnt think anything of it. In high school, girls changed trains at Central to avoid Redfern and were too scared to catch public transport to our houses.I dont remember when I first met the Pedersens (the neighbours two doors to our right). Theyre a family of long-haired, long-limbed, blonde athletic types. The eldest daughter Isabel was born 10 days after me and we were fast friends. We spent our Saturdays sitting outside our houses flogging goods to the neighbourhood. It usually involved baking. Our street distinctly lacked foot traffic but we didnt let that get in the way of good salesmanship. Eventually wed tire of sitting on the stoop, pool our earnings and head to the corner shop, which was run by a Palestinian guy called Ali, who arrived in Redfern not long after we did. Dad set him up with an immigration lawyer to help bring the rest of the family to Australia, back in the days when that was possible. One by one, sons and daughters, his wife and the occasional cousin started to pour in. Hazem, Alis eldest son, had a penchant for imported sweets, which was great for us kids, and an ambition to achieve Instagram fame. He now runs the Redfern_Convenience_Store Instagram page, which boasts 15,000 followers and a writeup in The Sydney Morning Herald. Redferns always been the place to go if you were looking for a break.Redfern is Gadigal land. Its been the location of corroborees and trading routes for thousands of years. When the gangs of convicts and settlers rendered the tank stream undrinkable, some Gadigal people retreated from the harbour and made Redfern their home. The Eveleigh Railway Workshops brought Indigenous people, seeking work, from across the country all through the 19th and 20th centuries. It offered job security and the prospect of a stable home to people who had been forced off their traditional country.Redfern was at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s and 70s. Its where Mum Shirl established the Aboriginal Medical Service, and where the Aboriginal Legal Service and the Aboriginal Housing Company were born. Its home to Paul Keatings Redfern Speech, where he declared: It was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.I meet Pam Jackson in the cafe beside Redfern Oval, halfway between the Rabbitohs training ground and the spot where Keating gave that iconic speech. Pam moved to Redfern in the early 1950s. She was 13 when her dad got a job at the railway. In the 1960s, she was one of the first people to live in the Matavai and Turanga Housing Commission towers at the bottom of my street. Curiously, the towers that provided social housing to members of the Indigenous community were named after spots where Captain Cook stopped on his voyage through the South Pacific.At the time of construction, the towers were state of the art. The brochure that accompanied them said they embodied the best and most modern thinking about the way people should be housed to give them the most pleasure and enjoyment as well as safety and comfort in their surroundings. Over time, conditions deteriorated and they gained a reputation as Sydneys Suicide Towers, but despite the negative perceptions, the neighbourhood spirit prevailed.Its just the community, always, says Pam. Walk down the street and know someone, walk into the shop and know someone. Its just that. Always.In January 2019, the New South Wales Government announced its plan for the redevelopment of the Waterloo Tower Apartment Blocks, where Pam has lived for decades. The government aims to demolish the entire Waterloo community housing precinct and replace it with a mixed urban village up to 40 storeys high.Sixty-five per cent of the new development will be privately owned, 30 per cent will be social housing and only 5 per cent will be considered affordable housing. Despite boasting increased social housing, the government is only providing 28 new social housing units.With a social housing wait list of over 50,000 in NSW, I believe this is a missed opportunity, and against the wishes of the community, says Clover Moore.Pam is the Aboriginal Liaison Officer for the Waterloo Tower Apartment Blocks. She brings the communitys concerns to the government with hopes of being heard. It will trickle down, it will trickle down, she says. The community feedback echoes Clovers call for increased social housing.The City of Sydney has proposed an alternative to the high-rise, high-density State Government plan. It would give the Matavai and Turanga towers a much needed refurbishment and develop the rest of the area with 4 to 13-storey apartment blocks. It would deliver 5,300 homes in total, of which 70 per cent would be social and affordable, and there would be dedicated affordable housing for the Aboriginal community.Bring it back to the days when social and affordable housing was easily available to Aboriginal people, says Pam. Their children are growing now and theyre having to move out to other suburbs. Redferns always been their heart and soul. Thats what I think and thats what nearly all of [the tenants] have said.According to Homelessness Australias 2017 report, while Aboriginal people make up 3 per cent of the Australian population, they make up 23 per cent of people living in homelessness. Despite the demand, the government has included no reference to specific Aboriginal social housing within its plan. This is, from my perspective from how I can see it, but I think theyre still teetering around on eggshells, says Pam.From 1973 when the Aboriginal Housing Company bought its first six houses with a grant from the Whitlam Government, The Block provided refuge and accommodation for the Aboriginal community. However, since 2004, when the bulldozers rolled in to level it for redevelopment, Aboriginal housing in Redfern-Waterloo has been scarce.Lani Tuitavake first arrived at The Block as a kid. She used to venture out from her home in Botany to the Aboriginal Medical Service with her mum.My background is Tongan, she explains. My mum, in the 70s, she was an illegal immigrant and wouldnt be comfortable going into a doctors surgery. She had an idea that the doctors would report her to immigration.Redfern, and its services, offered Lani and her mum security. The Block, to me, is a safe haven, she says. Everyone knew everyone. Everyone knew your kids. It felt, for me, despite all the hype and what have you, that there was a sense of safety.Lani has lived in Redfern for about 28 years. She started doing some cleaning and minor administrative work at the Tony Mundine Gymnasium on The Block. Today shes the chief operating officer at the Aboriginal Housing Company. Redferns a place that, when your lucks down, you cross paths with people. Thats my story, she says.Lanis perspective on the Waterloo development reinforces the community sentiment. What we want to see is more housing, she insists. And more housing for the Aboriginal community and other diverse communities that have traditionally made Redfern home. It would be good to see more [of these people] being represented, not just in murals, in artwork, but in providing housing for people and employment.In early 2015, we moved out of Redfern. The property market was starting to boom and Redfern was Sydneys hottest spot. We sold our house to a family from Avalon, whose Northern Beaches mansion had featured in Vogue Living. They wouldnt have set foot in Redfern ten years prior. Theyve now rented it out for a small fortune to a young couple and are negative gearing my childhood home.Since then my dad has refused to return to Redfern. It sends him into a depressive spiral. It takes an army to get him to cross Abercrombie Street. When you drive down our old street now, you pass a PR firm, two boutique gyms and three hipster coffee shops. Sometimes we take a peek at properties for sale in the neighbourhood with hopes of moving back. But Redfern now isnt what it was back then. And if the State Government has its way, it certainly wont be the same tomorrow.I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Redfern stands, and recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 2019, China reported its lowest rate of marriage ever, indicating increasing numbers of young Chinese people are choosing to delay marriage, or not get married at all. That change is more broadly indicative of the important changes in contemporary Chinese society: growing financial insecurity, acceptance of non-marital sex and increased independence of young people, especially young women, from their parents. Views of marriage have changed drastically over the last few decades, and many of todays young people see marriage as far less important than our parents generation. We interviewed young Chinese young people from diverse socio-economic and geographical backgrounds, and found that the concept of marriage differs from person to person. The Right AgeFor the young people we spoke to, about half said there was no right age to get married, and the other half said less than 25 years old. The average age of marriage has increased as more young people prioritise their careers. Over the past decade, Chinese media has increasingly talked about the problem of leftover women (), provoking increased anxieties over women who marry late, or choose not to marry at all. But many women face the double burden of meeting the expectation of getting married by a certain age and succeeding in their careers (for some young men, getting married earlier was seen as a career benefit: Getting married early may be better for an individual to focus on his future career but early marriage is just a personal choice, a male undergraduate tells us).In Ying Yues small hometown, there was a significant pressure to get married in your twenties. If you miss the best age for marriage, it will not be easy to find a husband to marry. I have an elder sister who is not married and is in her thirties. In the end, she can only choose those who are going to have their second marriage, or a less attractive partner.Getting married in your twenties is more strongly expected of women, particularly in poorer areas. One study indicates that most surveyed mothers prioritised having their daughters marry early over them having successful careers.But the burden of a wedding being expected before youre 25 doesnt only fall on women. For young people of any gender, particularly those living in competitive larger cities, getting married at the right age clashes with expectations of getting married when youre financially secure. That problem has only grown in recent years. Since the 2008 financial crisis, increasing numbers of Chinese people have begun to perceive their jobs as precarious, and therefore as unequipped to start a family. But many Chinese young people try to meet those expectations in novel ways: increasing numbers of young people, for example, have naked marriages () where they get married with the four nos no house, no ring, no car and no ceremony in order to save on costs and marry earlier.But many of the young people we spoke to rejected the expectation completely. My family is a remarried family, which has experienced both fragmentation and happiness, Nian Zhen* tells us. In my experience, a late marriage will be more stable because it has a certain material basis. Many of the women we spoke to also expressed that they werent sure if they wanted to get married at all, and they were fine with that. Even if I do not marry, it will not have a negative impact on my personal values, a woman undergraduate told us.A traditional Chinese celebration for babys 100days birthdayphoto source: Sherry WangChanging sexual relationshipsIncreasing acceptance of sexual relationships outside of marriage have also changed marriage trends. China is not as conservative as it used to be, especially in Chinas big cities, such as Guangzhou and Shanghai, where the sexual cultures are very open, Zhi Ruo,* a recent high school graduate tells us. Almost all the young people we spoke to said they approved of sex before marriage. Eastern and Western cultures are gradually approaching each other, one male student told us. It is more and more acceptable to have sexual relationships or physical contact outside of serious romantic relationships. Several people suggested that this change has been particularly significant for women: More Chinese women are abandoning their sexual preconceptions and feel free to have sex outside a relationship, a different male student says.But acceptance is not universal, differing along generational and geographic lines. As Zhi notes, China is a very large country, the degree of tolerance and openness to sexual behavior varies by region. One study indicates that young people from rural areas and from cities report having sex at similar rates (about 20% from each group described themselves as sexually experienced), but young people in rural areas can feel the judgement of small towns much more harshly. In a relatively small city like Wenzhou, everyones thinking is more traditional, Ying Yue*, a 23 year old mother, says. Few people now blame girls for having a private sexual life, especially in big cities. But here, if a girl has many boyfriends, or she has a lot of sexual experience, this may still be discussed behind the scenes. The topic of sex is a very grey area, Zhi agrees. It is not necessarily true that the backward places are more conservative, but you will face greater public pressure in these places and, therefore, you may not be able to accept open marriages or relationships.Slut-shaming remains deeply embedded in Chinese culture, Jingjing Zhang, who runs the Chinese feminist Wo Men Podcast, argues. But recent high profile cases of sexual assault, [such as that of Liu Jingyao] have caused many to discuss this shaming.Many of the young people we spoke to condemned the shaming. Many people use the term slut to humiliate and attack women, a young male Commerce student tells us, but I hope these voices will become less and less prominent. It is contemptible to use the word slut to humiliate women, and it is a personal humiliation, another male student told us. For some, sexual experience implied a woman was straying from traditional Chinese values. If a girl takes contraceptive pills, the first impression is that the girls mind is more westernised, that shes psychologically lacking in love or is more lonely.Several people surveyed described casual sex as westernised forms of relationships, carrying particular stigmas. I feel Western dating culture is too casual for me, Feng Mian, a second-year Arts student, tells us. Men are attacked because of their lack of sexual experience, and women are attacked because they have too much sexual experience, reflecting the inequality between men and women.But despite hope that views are changing, most of the young people we spoke to believed a womans value remained dictated by her sexual experience. Boys will use the good-looking girls they have had as a display of capital, just like how many people show off their game rankings, an IT Masters student tells us.That sad fact is particularly important for young women looking to get married. At the age of marriage, a different male student tells us, men are more likely to choose long-term partners with more traditional values, and will look down on girls who are slutty or sexually attractive. A wife who is a virgin remains highly prized by many people. The Chinese are still very traditional, Zhi concurrs. They will hope to have a partner with less sexual experience, and even a virgin complex. I think the virgin complex is really sick, Feng agrees.Photo Source: Zhiquan GanFamily ExpectationsMuch of the social pressure around marriage relates to ensuring your family is supported. There is still a social pressure that requires the care of the elderly, Zhi tells us, and that means you need to find another person to share the pressure of this care, as well as provide for the psychological needs of parents. Several respondents also referred to marriage as a social responsibility. Though arranged marriages have been banned since the Communist Party passed the Marriage Law of 1950 (a progressive piece of legislation that also legalised divorce), Yin tells us that many parents were still heavily involved in match-making for their children. In her hometown after graduation, [many young people] will marry through the arrangement of parents or a blind date, she says. One study indicates that, though arranged marriages have decreased over the past several decades, they remain relatively common, particular in rural areas.But as arranged marriages become increasingly uncommon for Chinese young people, their experiences of marriage become more different from their parents. My grandparents lived in an environment where marriage between members of the proletariat was distributed by the state and the couple would only know each other after marriage, Zhi tells us. I think this new era will be a lot more free, and most people choose their partners based on their feelings.Having parents had an arranged marriage was a common experience for the people we talked to. My parents were arranged to marry since they were born, Ying says. The first time they met each other was on their wedding day. My father sold a pig, and then married my mother as a gift. My mother felt like she was being sold. Her own marriage feels very different to her mothers, echoing Zhis sentiment that the era has a lot more freedom. I feel that my current marriage is very happy. My mother often tells me to be content and cherish my current marriage.Despite Shanghais Marriage Market (where parents advertise their unwed children on umbrellas in Peoples Park) attracting recurring exposs in Western media, the young people we spoke to indicated their parents were less involved in their love lives than in the past. Though some of the people we spoke to mentioned parental involvement in match-making and pressure, none told us that their parents had arranged for them to meet their current partners. Instead, unmarried people in relationships had largely met their partners alone and had begun honest conversations with their partners about their futures together. I already have a boyfriend and we want to get married and have a future together, second-year Arts student Feng Mian* tells us. Marriage can only be based on the fact that we like each other so much.Young people have increasing independence from their parents in making decisions about their partners, particularly those studying overseas away from home. The acceptance of sex education is increasing, and more and more people have the ability to think independently, an undergraduate studying in Australia tells us. More broadly, its increasingly common for children to leave the home before getting married, and gaining independence in doing so.Many of the young people we spoke also highlighted the importance of an equal power balance in heterosexual marriage. Only by feeling equal can you respect yourself and the other person peacefully, Yin advised us. A strong power imbalance will gradually erode a relationship. In my parents marriage, men and women are also equal. They disagree with the traditional gender roles that suggest men are outside working, females are inside raising children.an old Chinese family photo photo source: Lei Yao Everyone we spoke to emphasised the importance of knowing and loving their partners deeply before considering marriage. Marriage requires a deep understanding of the other party before marrying, one male student told us. Go out and travel together, live together for a year! Love is a necessary premise for marriage, a different student told us. It is impossible to imagine living with a person who one does not love for a long period of time.But many people also emphasised that marriage was a serious material transaction. The issue of property needs to be taken into consideration, Zhi tells us. From a historical perspective, marriage itself is a model of legally effective property protection.What does getting married mean today?Young Chinese people navigate complex social trends of increasing financial insecurity, independence of women, sexual liberation and less involvement of their parents in their love lifes. Marriage remains highly valued as important to family and community, with young people and especially women often facing rigid expectations about the appropriate times to marry. But many young people are rejecting, or at leasting questioning, the social expectations and redefining marriage as a celebration of individual agency, maturity and love of your partner. As one respondent put it, Most people havent grown up and dont know how to be a mature and responsible person. Only when one has the ability to love and understands the art of love can one truly love.*All names have been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It was 3am in the morning, Easter Sunday. All was silent except for the tingling sensation of the music from the evenings concert in my mind with the streaming moonlight casting its shadows. I was feeling exhilarated, inspired and moved. I was in the sleepy town of Bendigo, Melbourne in 1986 and I recall finding my home in his music. This was my first meeting with Pandit Ashok Roy. This quote comes from the creator of a WordPress dedicated to my grandfather. I would have preferred to recount his delicate, visceral performances, to have sat in crowds and felt liberated by the sense of community that typifies any potent music but his memories, for me, are shaped, transformed and deceived through the recounts of my family and his passionate supporters. You could read the above recount after any show, whether that be techno-heads drifting in and out of their bodies, watching lights being mutated into abstract shapes through trees, on the floor, in the faces of others; whether that be giddy teenagers exiting arena shows adorned in glitter or punks dwelling in the after-glow of bruised bodies and frail necks from a metal show. But reading the words, this was my first meeting with Pandit Ashok Roy, makes my stomach heave a lumpy, murky, scrambled feeling of weight and indirection, like a helpless object entangled in seaweed. We perceive most artistic mediums through images. Stories especially are grounded in their ability to help us bring them to life. Images are coherent and objective, words transform the way they are represented. But words can be misleading. Your own garden is different to the Garden of Eden. A few other mediums like music arent imagist and instead rely on symbolism. Music is a language in and of itself but one that is somewhat esoteric and, for the most part, very personal. Thus, to attempt to listen and moreover to appreciate this foreign language, we rely on our ability to be open and welcoming enough to digest its various intonations, deceptions and eccentricities. If we can do so, music has the ability to shed some sort of revelatory light on our own ability to accept difference, to see the world in a way that deforms our preconceptions, to realise things that may have gone unnoticed before. For many people, my grandfathers music was the catalyst for this defamiliarisation of their worlds. I never got to experience that; I experienced baba in a more fractured, more impersonal sort of way. There were many times that my brother and I went to his house. We went there for no other reason than to eat my grandmothers chicken curry. The place was two stories with tinted windows and a strong, mahogany door on the outside. Inside, the carpets were tattered. Walls cracked with water damage. The house reeked of spices and ash. My grandmothers black cat, Gopi, came occasionally to say hi but Im sure she could sense my trepidation at her discomforting yellow eyes and the slinky way in which she lurked in cobwebbed, dark corners around the house. There is one photo that I have of me as a toddler, seated beside my grandfather as he plays the sarod. I wonder whether this is the only one. Im sure he greeted us when we arrived for those lunches but as soon as my grandmothers amicable personality took over, he would retreat quietly upstairs and play his sarod, a 17-stringed instrument which is one of the most popular Indian classical instruments along with the sitar and tabla.Little me and baba. I recall a story my father once told me about the intensity of babas practising habits. He recounted it while looking outward, seemingly searching for babas presence amidst the slow-moving clouds, or the shallow blues of the sky. Apparently, and this happened more than once, my grandfather would light a cigarette just before the beginning of a raga and as he slowly became controlled by the whims of himself and the song, he would forget about the cigarette. It would burn to a stud and hang languidly from his mouth as the raga, often more than fifteen minutes, reverberated inside the cramped walls of his practising room.I try to picture his hunched over posture, eyes closed and flickering, in some sort of in-between space, ephemeral like the fleeting moment before we fall asleep. I try to picture the delicate way that his fingers pluck the thick chords, the pinky nail, forever long, that mutated into a pick. Sometimes, I try to feel the stiffness of his back, the ache that shies away after it is ignored for hours on end, the totalising vibrations of the intricate and whimsical sounds echoing from his equally whimsical fingers. I try to imagine what it might have been like to drift away from my body the way he might have done. To drift and be thrown around and suspended amidst the concoction of sounds spinning, crashing and exploding around the room like the frenzy of a beehive kicked by an irreverent child. I try to imagine these things but every time I do, hand wash, white lights, and sterilised smells try to unravel them. Babas penchant for cigarettes and dedication to his craft led to a leg amputation, numerous bypass surgeries, failing kidneys and the consistent accompaniment of a blood glucose monitor for his diabetes. By the end, in 2007, I think I was at home fast asleep. Years later, my parents recall that he died as soon as they left the hospital in the early hours of the morning, as if he waited for them to leave so that he could finally succumb. Its easy to think that baba was a shell of himself when he died deteriorated, weak, skeletal, even partially human because of his amputation but the way in which he seemed to exercise self-control even over his death, suggests a sense of exaltation that typified the sentiment people attached to his music. As easy as it is to create a shopping list of the physical detriments to his body, it is also easy to do one of his musical achievements. In 1987, the Sydney Morning Herald said, Ashok Roy is one of the great exponents of the Indian Sarod. He won the All India Radio (AIR) Instrumentalist of the Year Competition in 1960, toured Europe and the UK as part of the UNESCO Collection of Musical Sources, held a position with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), was an artist-in-residence at Monash University, taught at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), became the artistic director of the Australian Institute of Eastern Music (AIEM) and recorded two albums of traditional music with the ABC. Arguably, the culmination of his glittered career came when he was nominated for a Best World Music Album award at the 1997 ARIA Awards.Ashok with his guru, Ali Akbar Khan. Khan, nominated for five Grammys, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and alongside Ravi Shankar was a key figure in popularising Indian classical music in the West. It was an unintended consequence of my thought-process that the halfway point of this essay is defined by babas significant physical and musical moments because, for all the people that enjoyed a deeper connection with his music, these are the seminal moments that define the way in which I reason, understand and engage with his life. In the same way as I perceive him through sickness and his formal achievements, I could have easily circumvented any misrepresentations in defining my relationship with him by filling the essay, like the opening, with a long-winded collection of other peoples remembrances of him, his music, his personality and his teachings. To be honest, Baba/Ashoks memory belongs more to the world than it does to me, or maybe even my family. Ashok the man is trumped by Ashok the musician, and his presence throughout the world lives in minuscule moments of inspiration and nostalgia. Some dwell in the fact that his music was enchanting and a momentary transportation into a fantastical, heavenly world. Some remember him for his foresight, his ability to facilitate multiculturalism through music before it was a political fetish. Some simply appreciate his passion, his tactful teaching ability. Some bask in his artistry and indifference to popularity. Others see, hear and feel him just as one remembers a lover or a place: through random, abstract and often invisible smells or sounds, which bring a sudden and unusual sense of comfort that surrounds you like a coffin before vanishing as lightly and as insignificantly as a bird lifts of a branch.Ashok performing in Fiji with Bhagwan Pandey, as a cultural ambassador for India. Sometimes I wish I could tell my friends, or other interested people about a personal story I have with him, or a moment when I saw his performances in the flesh rather than recounting the aforementioned list of his achievements. I cant, and Ive decided that it is ok. In fact, it is sometimes nice to have your memories, your emotions dictated by others. In a way, they feel more trustworthy and real, not tinged, like my other memories are, by the deceptive way in which perspective changes with age and the haphazard, nebulous and illusory way in which we picture moments of our past. When people ask me what my earliest memory is, I say it was when I rode for the first time without training wheels. Aside from the cracked concrete outside my house, the maybe blue colour of the wheels and the manic churning of the pedals I remember nothing else. I sometimes think I hear the support of my mother, or the scrape of the surface, maybe even what the sky looked like but it is foolish to think that these are genuine. In the same way, I would hate to have the memory of my grandfather defined by gangrene, townhouses, long finger nails and curry. I need the memories of others to shape my memory of him and to allow the pervasive nature of his influence to seep into some of the actions of my own life. Its okay to be selfish in our remembrance. Its okay to manipulate and to plagiarise thoughts that arent ours and to shape them in a way that provides us comfort. There are so many things that cause discomfort, so is there any harm in occasionally deceiving ourselves to believe something that we werent ever in a position to believe? For me, the idea that my grandfather favoured artistry over commercial success is inspiring. When asked about him in an article for the ABC, my father said, it doesnt matter whether you are playing with an unknown musician in a caf in Enmore, what matters is that when you play together you should feel something in your heart. The feeling and love is what matters the most. If I read that quote in any other interview or magazine, I would have found it reductive and cliched. Its different when, for a very rare moment in life, I have an insight into the logic behind a clich. Someone told me that the work of a writer, or any artist for that matter, is to express what cant be expressed in words. I am sure my grandfather did that but it is the task of his audience to accept and to translate what they hear. At times when the intention of the creator is abstract, the onus falls on a responder to carry the work forward, to facilitate its transferral and to find relatability in its incomprehensible construction. Very few people will know the intricacies of strings, the way they fuse together, the purpose of the chikari, the technicality of slides and the only way to mitigate this lack of understanding is to lean on words like feeling and love that dont really mean anything in isolation but require something unexpected and so defamiliarising to what we know that we suddenly realise their true meaning. When I was contemplating writing this, I received some hesitancy from my parents. They asked me why any Australian student would want to know about an Indian classical musician who spent his life dedicated to an instrument that they probably never heard of. Most people probably dont and to be honest, I dont think I would have read something similar. I wrote this for myself and I only can write this for myself because I have nothing else tethering me to our relationship. It is a collective endeavour to commemorate but an individual one to relate. My story is singular, my relationship probably fractured, but it is via the nature of his music that this story unites with so many others. A mosaic can only find clarity when all the jagged bits are put together. I think my grandfather would have been proud to know of all these jagged geographic and mental interconnections formed by his lifes passion and to know that his memory lives on through words that try to understand a language that he crafted on his own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Parramatta Road. Many of us travel down it every day on the way to work or uni, but the mundane quotidian never dulls the enigma of this mysterious and storied stretch of bitumen. What happened to this once thriving high street? The Gateway to the West. The Kings Road. Now, the varicose vein of Sydney. Seemingly all that remains in amongst the abandoned buildings and boarded-up shop fronts are bridal stores, bead emporiums and bordellos.The Annandale Hotel is a hold-out of Parramatta Roads thriving past. A man I spoke to who only goes by Fish has been a regular at the Annandale for longer than anyone else at the pub could remember. He still describes it as the centre of the universe. The legendary live music venue played host to the likes of Jimmy Barnes, The Dandy Warhols and Jet in its heyday, and despite having gone into receivership twice over the past decade, it remains one of the only places on Parra Road that still showcases live music on a regular basis. Now owned by hospitality chain Oscars Hotels, which also owns the Empire Hotel, the Camperdown Hotel and the Petersham Inn, the Annandale has certainly fared better in retaining its heritage than its sister venues along the strip, which have been reduced to dingy pokie dens and strip joints. This comes on the back of a gradual disintegration of music venues rights to operate as council interventions; noise complaints and fire regulations have caused a widespread decline in the viability of live music venues around Sydney.Fortunately, music venues in the Inner West have a willing ally in the form of their mayor, Darcy Byrne. He introduced the Good Neighbour Policy that requires all noise and amenity complaints about pubs, clubs and small bars to be mediated before costly compliance action is initiated, as a measure to prevent live music venues getting shuttered in response to the Annandale Hotels 2013 collapse. This policy, along with the NSW governments removal of lockout laws and newfound appetite to foster live music, is encouraging for venues like the Annandale, even though Parramatta Road is a long way from the bustling incubator of arts and culture that advocates want it to be.In 2013, the former Leichhardt Council, along with other organisations with an interest in the area, conducted a report into the viability of developing Parramatta Road around Camperdown, Annandale and Leichhardt into a live music and cultural precinct. It called for promoting the viability of cultural venues such as small bars, music venues and artist studios and galleries, and improving public domain to complement increased pedestrian traffic and improve access and safety for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users.Shop owners such as Phil Thomson of The Vintage Record in Annandale were consulted for the report but have seen no increase in pedestrians walking past their shopfronts. You dont get foot traffic out here, man, he tells me as we sit in his empty record store at around lunchtime on a Friday. This is basically a destination area for people. You need to have a specialty shop and good quality service and good quality products that will encourage people to drive here.Mr Thomson has managed to stay alive through a niche but dedicated cohort of regulars, but many of the music shops, bars and record stores around him have shuttered in the 16 years hes been on Parramatta Road. Jacksons Rare Guitars was two doors up from us, Gallins Guitars was next to that, the Base Player was next to me here, the shop after that was a Sydney Guitar Setups, so we were basically surrounded by music stores. Slowly but surely theyve all just disappeared.The State Government has also had its turn at drawing up a plan to reinvigorate Parramatta Road. The Parramatta Road Urban Transformation Strategy, released in 2016 under the guise of the now-defunct UrbanGrowth NSW, also details improvements to be made to public domain amenities such as bike paths, pedestrian walkways, seating and parks. The $198 million government has set aside for it will supplement opening up to developers 8 precincts along the road from Camperdown to Granville, which will see an additional 60,000 apartments by 2050. The strategy has also set an affordable housing target of 5%, well below Inner West Councils target of 15% that they have set for the area.According to NSW Greens MP Jamie Parker, the strategy doesnt address the core root of the problem inadequate public transport that has left Parramatta Road a transport sewer. He says that Parramatta Road has been killed by shopping centres and the focus on using it as a thoroughfare, and by years of policy that has maximised the volume of traffic on the road.Parramatta Road is already fatally clogged up with cars, with the only public transport being the slow and unreliable bus service. Adding another 60,000 new apartments over the next 30 years without improving public transport infrastructure will only further increase the congestion on the roads. WestConnex may reduce some heavy vehicle traffic on Parramatta Road, but the induced demand created by the motorway will still result in clogging up bottlenecks that feed Parramatta Road and cars using it as a rat run to avoid the tolls.The NSW government announced last Friday that it would be selling off its remaining 49% stake in WestConnex to help extend its $97.3 billion infrastructure program, most likely to fund the currently unfunded Western Harbour tunnel and Northern Beaches link motorway. While WestConnex is a fundamental part of the governments strategy for revitalising Parramatta Road, its dismaying to see new toll roads once again being prioritised over public transport infrastructure and further adding to the inequality inherent in Sydneys transport network. Sydney already has the worlds most extensive and expensive toll road network, with some commuters from Sydneys outermost and generally less affluent suburbs straddled with upwards of $35 per day in tolls.While the government has promised greater public transport spending alongside building new roads, they have seemingly gone back on their commitments to improve public transport on Parramatta Road. Planning condition B34 of the WestConnex approval stated that at least two lanes of Parramatta Road, from Burwood Road to Haberfield, are to be solely dedicated for the use of public transport unless an alternative dedicated public transport route that provides an improved public transport outcome for the area, when compared to two dedicated public transport lanes on Parramatta Road, is approved. In 2016, Transport for NSW developed planning documents for a Parramatta Road light rail line, extending from the CBD to Burwood, before scrapping them without allowing for government consideration. Current Leader of the Opposition and then Labor transport spokesperson Jodi McKay said in 2019, They were required to have some form of public transport in place when the M4 East tunnel opens, and if that is not the case then they are clearly in breach of the consent conditions. The Department of Planning and Environment themselves have maintained that the condition does not specify a timeframe.As the government waits for WestConnex to be completed, their inaction on improving public transport on Parramatta Road will only further hurt the struggling businesses that remain. While buses are an important component in a public transport system, they are best when making up the capillaries of a citys transit flow, not a major feeder road like Parramatta Road. Whilst buses are slower, have a lower capacity and are more susceptible to traffic than rail, their advantage is in their lower implementation cost and increased flexibility, meaning more routes and greater coverage. But this is incumbent on having a reliable, high capacity arterial system to feed the capillaries. For high density areas where you also want to encourage foot-traffic, street-level light rail that doesnt require travelling down stairs or escalators is ideal.One proponent of the Parramatta Road light rail line is Colin Schroeder, Co-convener of Ecotransit Sydney, a public transport advocacy group that has been speaking out against the governments transport strategy for years. The government has dismissed the Parramatta Road light rail even though weve been proposing it for over ten years, he said. Ecotransit has listed the light rail as a priority project and estimated that it could remove tens of thousands of vehicle movements per day from the road, with the 7,500 per hour carrying capacity of tram lanes dwarfing that of a general traffic lane at 2,000 per hour. Such a development would be a godsend for businesses along Parramatta Road, who have seen foot traffic dwindle to near non-existent levels, driven away by the hostile landscape and its constant flow of heavy vehicles.Source: EcoTransitAccording to Mr Schroeder, the neglect of Parramatta Road is just one instance of a deeper trend in the state governments approach to public transport. The transport projects this government has introduced are mainly development driven, not transport driven, he said. And its not just this government, its been previous Labor governments as well.Effectively, the way public transport projects are selected in NSW comes down to how profitable they are for developers. Governments are no longer willing to acquire debt to construct large infrastructure projects, especially for public goods such as public transport. Public goods, in this neo-liberal political climate, effectively do not exist. Instead of developing the North West Rail Link as a heavy rail line as it was originally planned to be, and refusing the Gillard governments offer to fund 80% of a proposed Parramatta to Chatswood line, Hong Kong-based development firm MTR Corporation were contracted to build and operate a metro line in a similar model as the MTR Corp has constructed elsewhere in the world.The model of MTR Corp is something we are likely going to become accustomed to over the coming years. According to Mr Schroeder, it gives Sydney Metro corporation rights to develop all the property along their transport routes, rights to develop properties over their stabling yards and around stations Its set up for privatisation, and if it is privatised MTR Corporation will come in and complete the metro and have the property development rights along the route.The North West Rail Links conversion into a metro line has no clear justification. Metro lines are ideal for servicing high density areas and closely spaced stations. The carriages have longitudinal seating to allow easy access for large quantities of passengers and riders with disabilities, but this comes with less seating capacity. This means they are better for hop-on-hop-off, shorter distance travel. For example, the Paris Metro has an average of 582m between stops. The Metro Northwest averages 3.5 km between stops. A metro system is ideal in the high density, short distance geography of inner-city Paris. In the sprawling, suburban northwest of Sydney, the existing double-decker heavy rail lines would provide higher capacity service and would integrate with the rest of the heavy rail network without needing for passengers to change lines, or for the government needing to acquire buildings in the CBD. The decision only makes sense if you consider the governments plans to privatise the public transport system.Effectively, the Urban Transformation Strategy as it stands, without a light rail down Parramatta Road, is akin to applying a band-aid over a septic, dilapidated, graffiti-ridden wound. Inner West Council and Jamie Parker have both endorsed centre-running light rail or Autonomous Rail Transit, which would have the benefit over curbside rail in that it allows for on-street parking, creating a traffic barrier for pedestrians. Autonomous Rail Transit (ART), also known as Guided Electric Transit, essentially refers to electrically powered trams with rubber wheels instead of tracks that are guided along a dedicated lane by a similar technology to that in self-driving cars. Advocates claim ride quality and capacity matches traditional light rail without the disruption or cost of installing light rail tracks. By all accounts, initial performances of ART in the Chinese city of Zhuzhou have been successful. Trackless trams are predicted to cost around $6-$8 million per kilometre to install, compared to the $240 million per kilometre cost of installing the CBD light rail.Mr Schroeder maintains the relative value of tracked light rail over the trackless variety, if youre going to invest in public transport you should be investing in the best infrastructure at the most reasonable cost. You want to get the best result for the long term. He contends that the costs of installing ART infrastructure are still substantial, and the energy efficiency and operating costs are higher than light rail as steel on steel of rails is more efficient than rubber on bitumen.Given the state governments reluctance to invest in public transport and their failures to deliver light rail projects on time and under budget, ART might be the best option to ensure Parramatta Road doesnt end up missing out on the vital infrastructure that it desperately needs. With businesses continuing to struggle and investors further turning away, its essential that the government doesnt abandon its responsibilities under the WestConnex agreement. They must either commit to funding one of these options or face the permanent death of a once thriving high street.Until then, Parramatta Road will remain solely inhabited by specialty stores and vacant shop fronts waiting to be leased. As to the question of why so many bead and bridal shops? Well, perhaps some mysteries are best left unsolved. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For decades, the iconic Manning Bar was the heart of student life at Sydney Uni. We asked the (former) students who loved it to say their farewells.Anthony Albanese: Leader of the Australian Labor Party, former rabble rouserManning Bar was the scene of Informals, band nights (including Mental As Anything, The Allniters, and Died Pretty) and was a great place for lunch or a beer. What the hell is going on at Sydney Uni when bars are shutting?! It is beyond my comprehension how closing down bars at a university cannot be an ongoing concern. Cheers for the memories!Andrew Hansen consoles Charles Firth following an SRC election loss, from Uni (1997).Andrew Hansen: Editor of Honi Soit (1996); Comedian, The ChaserSince the announcement of Manning Bar closing its day trading, Im hearing many stories of triumphant theatrical successes that left Manning audiences hollering in delight. But my abiding memory of Manning is quite the opposite. What I recall is the astonishing series of failed stand-up comedy routines I was subjected to there in the 90s. The Manning management (the Manningment?) launched a lunchtime program called Five Minute Noodles, where aspiring student comics could attempt a tight five at the mic to see how it flew. I recall one poor student whose routine was so poorly received, he started to gush with sweat. It came like a Biblical flood erupting from his head. But bless him, he forged on to the sweaty end of his five precious minutes regardless. The stage then had to be mopped.Five Minute Noodles was also the first time I laid eyes on Chas Licciardello, who would later become a dear friend and colleague and nuisance. Unfortunately for those of us in the audience, Chas decided against sticking to the five-minute rule, instead preferring a slightly longer stand-up routine namely, fifty-five minutes. Every one of them hell. Thats as long as a standard comedy festival show, but it felt as long as a standard comedy festival. Mind you, it was tough going only for the audience. Chas seemed to be having the time of his life. The other thing that struck me was that for reasons known only to him, and which never became apparent during the routine, he performed the entire thing wearing a sombrero. Which is why I assumed he was Mexican for about the first eight years I knew him. I cant help wondering if part of the reason you now get cancelled for wearing a sombrero at a university is because it reminds everyone of Chass routine.But the most catastrophic failure was mine. My confidence unreasonably bolstered by a fairly warmly received Arts Revue that year, I decided to treat Manning Bar to my very own tight five. Only Id never written a tight five before, or even a tight one. I provided a true though embellished story of being unable to find a toilet at a party. My clueless efforts were justly met with quiet horror, even by the Manning Bar crowd who at that time offered Christ-like levels of forgiveness to weak performances. To mine, they offered Christ-like levels of crucifixion. And fair enough, too, as it was a lazy and dismal piece. It culminated in me describing how I used a rotating lawn sprinkler to wash my arse, circling around the stage doubled over and spreading my cheeks to my silent and dismayed peers. It was so bad, I submitted a written public apology to that weeks Honi Soit. On the upside, the experience taught me to swear off stand-up forever, which is why I remain a songs-and-sketches comedian to this very day.I cant help suspecting the eventual closure of Manning Bars daytime trading may well be traceable back to these dire performances. If so, please consider this my second public apology in Honi Soit.Andrew Hansens first apology in Honi Soit (1995).Amanda LeMay (1995-6):SRC Publications OfficerThis is the wedding of Kirsti and Davis Claymore. Davis played in one of the finalist bands of the 1992 Sydney Uni Band comp. Front End Loader along with Frenzel Rhomb. Neither won, except Davis won the bride. The cool kids of the early 90s Sydney indie rock scene were all in attendance. It was a lovely venue and we all definitely felt at home!Kirsti and Davis Claymores Manning wedding.Nathan Tyler: Manning Bar Manager in the early 2000sSad news that Manning Bar is to be no more. It really was the central hub of the campus from when the doors opened at midday. So many memories. Some of the most wonderful people I have met and known were a direct result from Manning Bar.The staffies were awesome. We worked hard(ish) and played hard. We would pack up the bar after a gig and watch the sun come up from the balcony, drinking beer. The bar staff were all such good friends we worked together and played together. A lot of the crew I used to work with are still really good mates 15/20 years after they worked at Manning.There are four children I know of as a result of staff meeting their partners at Manning. Mikey and Amy both met there as bar staff a few years before that and they have a daughter now. My wife Skye and I met there 15 years ago and we have three children.David Killick (Editor of Honi Soit, 1992) at Manning Bar, 1987.Rob Carlton: Comedian, actor, theatre sports hostMy most potent memory of Manning Bar was the Theatre Sports finale in 2001, that was set to occur the night after 9/11. Theatre sports at that time was always sold out, everyone had been really looking forward to it. But wed woken up to this horrible story, so it was difficult to imagine going through with it. We arrived at uni, and were thinking of calling it off. But I thought of Mannings history. Its a gathering place for students, regardless of race, or political or cultural background. Its a unique notion to be a student, and Manning is the perfect place to be and gather, to grieve and find joy together.So we went through with the show. I opened the show differently, it was a quite sbre beginning. The whole place was quiet, not knowing what was going to happen. And Id acknowledged what had happened, what a terrifying moment that was for the world, how dark it seemed. And then we went on with the show, to have one of the most joyful performances Id seen.Manning Bar c. 1970s. Source: University of Sydney archives.Sam Crosby (2001-5): President Sydney University Union (2004), former Labor MP candidateManning Bar was the canvas on which friendships and careers were painted.During the few years I spent there 2001-2005, comedians like Ed Kavalee and Jordan Raskopoulos kept audiences in stitches of laughter as they honed their craft during weekly theatre sports tournaments. Debaters, public speakers, and budding politicians came to hear then IR minister Tony Abbott debate the likes of firebrand union secretary Doug Cameron or Julia Gillard. Fuelled by large quantities of ice cold beer, the raucous gatherings were loud, but happy.During the day, the Manning Bar balcony, shadowed by a large jacaranda tree overlooking sandstone edifices gave students the quintessential Sydney University experience. A friend could always be found, or a new friend made, as students squeezed in a drink and a chat in between or sometimes instead of classes. Student politicians would accost unwitting first years unfamiliar with student elections. (Second years were older and knew better.) The earnest aspirant would learn the craft of persuasion and how to connect with voters. A healthy proportion of politicians who now make up both the NSW and federal parliaments learned their craft in that bar. Musicians would do their bit in helping populate the balcony as they too worked on their art, driving potential audience members outside. But amidst the cacophony, occasionally genius struck. You were reminded that this was the place The Whitlams developed their skills only a few years before. Long debates were had. Philosophy or politics or art or economics or whatever. This is what sticks. The facts gathered in the libraries and lecture halls generally fade, but the friendships forged in that bar endure.A packed Manning balcony from Uni (1997).Dom Knight: Editor of Honi Soit (1999); Comedian, The ChaserFor many students, going to uni really meant going to Manning Bar. Back then the carpet was sticky, the beer was the opposite of craft, and the nachos technically constituted chemical waste, but it all added up to something awesome. The balcony was where lifelong friendships were forged, political plots were hatched, unlikely and/or unwise romances bloomed, and the brokest students could always earn enough for their next schooner by collecting a tower of empty glasses.Bands comp, trivia and the biggest gigs took place in the evening, but we had entertainment every lunchtime as well, with indie bands like the Clouds and You Am I, to the Three Minute Noodles standup comp that launched a few lasting comedy careers amid many hilarious failures. Then there was the juggernaut known as Theatresports, which packed out the bar every week so students could laugh along as games originally designed to train aspiring actors in the subtle art of improvisation devolved into uproarious dick jokes. But many of those who jumped up on stage and had a go back then are still entertaining people for a living today. In the 1990s, that cruddy venue definitely didnt look like a cradle, but in hindsight, it was.The death of Manning Bar has been a long time coming the Unions renovation in 1999 expanded the space so it could host bigger, more profitable gigs that appealed to non-students, at the mere cost of the places atmosphere. When I was a grad student eight years ago, the campus comedy scene run by groups like Project 52 had already abandoned Manning for the much smaller Hermanns in Wentworth.But the main reason why students no longer drink at Manning is surely the dramatically different economics of student life. With degrees costing far more than they did when I was an undergraduate, and housing costs spiralling ever upwards, especially near campus, who can afford to devote hours to lunchtime comedy fiestas, or just kicking back on the balcony and enjoying a cheap mass-produced beer?I once wrote a novel about a student election called Comrades, and set the first scene at Manning Bar on a sunny afternoon, because it was absolutely the heart of the campus when I was a student. I assumed it would always be that way. Without Manning, I wonder how much heart the university has nowadays. And I pity the students who wont get to enjoy the sticky-floored, messy, disreputable but unforgettable delights of Manning Bar which is still the first place that comes to mind when I think about uni.Anne Britton (1977-81): SRC councillor, (1978-9) Sydney University Senate Fellow (1980), Ninas mum (1997-)Yeah there were the big events the bands, stand-up comedy, the parties and as widely reported, they were fabulous but my fondest memories of Manning Bar was simply hanging out, between and often during classes. There was a never a shortage of friends and acquaintances with whom to waste what now seems like an obscene amount of time discussing (and pretending to understand) literature, the meaning of life, the internecine struggles of student politics, and the latest outrage perpetrated by the Spartacist League who once labelled me in their weekly newspaper as a bilious bourgeois reformist with less morals than Trotskys assassin. For me, those salad days were to end when I moved to finish the final years of my degree at the unlamented Phillip Street Law School, a miserable light-deprived building in the Brutalist style. Young people are now criticised for wasting time on social media. They come a very poor second to my generation of students. Vale Manning!Rebecca de Unamuno (1993-8): Comedian, actress, theatre sports legendThis news makes me really sad. Manning Bar was where I performed stand-up and Theatresports for the very first time It was playing trivia, watching Corky and the Juice Pigs and other amazing comedians at Tuesday lunchtimes, rehearsing big dance numbers for revues, watching Battle of the Bands, eating $2 chips and gravy, collecting empty glasses for 20c until you had enough money for a schooner. It was where student election results were announced, SUDS mail-outs were collated. Where romances began and ended and where life-long friendships were made. I owe so much, including my career, to Manning Bar.Victoria Zerbst, preparing for Hack Revue (2016) at Manning.Victoria Zerbst (2014-7): Editor of Honi Soit (2016); Comedian, The FeedManning Bar was everything to me. My first ever date with a uni guy was at Manning Bar. That year (2014) I also played Schapelle Corby in Schapelle! The Musical on the Manning Stage. The musical also starred Alisha Aiken-Radburn as Renee Lawrence and featured legend journos Lane Sainty and Astha Rajvanshi in their stage debuts.I spent a week in 2015 writing sketch comedy from 8am-11am in Manning Bar for the Great Engo Revue of 2015 Engo Aid. In 2016 I went to Manning Bar to watch the results of the US election (the pics made the SMH). That year I also pissed my pants with joy watching my best friend get elected to board (Count on Courtney!) In 2017, Mary Ward (now at SMH) and I hosted Hack Revue, an ICONIC display of tragic hack sketch comedy for the USU election results. It featured an absolute banger about Cameron Caccamo sung to the song Say Geronimo! by Sheppard. I ate so many chips there. Drank so many beers. Watched too much theatresports and got loose at a couple of parties.Manning Bar was where I first wrote a sketch by myself for the first time. I sat by myself at a table with a beer in the middle of the day and pumped something out. I cant remember what but it was definitely bad.I also recently found a performance studies essay I wrote about the USU Soap Box at Manning Bar in 2017. There is some analysis about the space and its relevance to student life. Weirdly the essay got an HD which makes me sad reading back because its mostly bullshit. very poor second to my generation of students. Vale Manning!Shapelle! The Musical (2014).Peter McGrath SCManning Bar was a bit like Switzerland but much more fun, a centrally located lunchtime oasis of bad sandwiches, worse coffee and alcohol in which the various university faculties and tribes sought alcoholic refuge in unarmed neutralityor maybe more like the last African waterhole in a drought. Many an afternoon lecture was missed, or at least misunderstood.The music was a highlight. All free. Vague memories of Ann Kirkpatrick playing in the corner while no one noticed. A Friday evening residency by a band called Terminal Twist. One standout end of term party where Flowers covered every glam rock tune of the entire seventies and we all danced on the tablesOver forty years after I left campus my daughter took me back to see a gig by the Smith Street Band. A big production, unrecognisable from the simple seventies. Not worse, just different.Fisher Library still smelt the same though!Verity Firth, Jane Caro and Julia Gillard at Manning Bar (2016).Verity Firth (1992-8): Former Labor MLCI remember being swept off my feet (literally) by Robbie Carlton as we stormed our way to the Theatresports finals in 93. Gabbi Milgate of youre terrible Muriel fame was also in our team.I first met the Sydney University Labor Club on the balcony of Manning Bar. We were all reclining on the balcony after the results of the Honi Soit election. I was in the winning team a trot ticket and we had beaten the Labor Left ticket of the day. That team was headed up by John Graham, now in the NSW Upper House. Although I was part of the winning team I remember being intrigued by the Labor Left team. Later that year I joined the Labor Club and entered the life of student politics.I remember doing university debates at Manning, drinking far too much when I should have been at lectures, and seeing I dont know how many performances of Puppetry of the Penis a show that seemed to have a semi-permanent Manning Bar booking.Once an adult, I returned to Manning Bar in 2015 to host a conversation with Julia Gillard once again the bar was packed. It had barely changed in 20 years. It was like coming home.Manning Bar is an icon of Sydney University life. I cant believe its going. Vale Manning Bar.BandComp candids in Honi Soit (1987).Caleb Cluff (1984-9): JournalistI was part of a push of students in 1983-84 which included some brilliant people: Matt Ford (Pinky Beecroft) and Tim Freedman were among them. Matt realised Union funds were available to formally organised clubs and so formed The Love Club, to gain finances for libations.There were the band comps, in which my band Darlings of the Press competed and were promptly disqualified for having certain members of well known Sydney bands appear on stage with us. Ensuing uproar saw the night finish with all the members of competing bands that night get on stage to play You Cant Always Get What You Want.There was another night where about 50 guitarists got on stage Concrete Blonde played a gig there. It was so dangerously full Johnette Napolitano stopped the show. I was down the front and it was surging so much my glasses and cap came off and she stopped playing until they were returned. The Wimmins Collective would meet on the top floor. I learnt so much about how the world actually worked from some of those wimmin. Diane Dadich and others.It was a great place, and always full.Sketch of Manning Bar in Honi Soit (1992).Jason Monios (1994-2001)Ode to Manning BarO Manning Bar, student bar, student union.You were my youth, my childhood dreams of studenthood,self-righteous wankery that gentled me towards adulthood,schoonered me across the sea of peer groups and sobriety.First they tore you down, ripe for renovation:sanded your edges, cramped your spiky style,the best graffiti in the southern hemisphere taken.Then they broke the student union.A place to congregate, you had lost your congregation.The synapse never bridged, no leap from the lions mouthacross the corporations scaly neck.The character of a nations youth middle-manned, Howardised.Gig economy students broken by debt will never knowyour endless afternoons. You were always morethan a beer-soaked carpet, more than a student bar.You were my union of students.Students on the Manning Balcony, 1988. Source: University of Sydney archives.Dr David Smith: Lecturer, Department Government and International RelationsI remember Bob Ellis giving a talk there one lunchtime back in early 2001. He was so drunk he could hardly stand and he opted to read us an article hed just written for GQ. In the Q&A he predicted the imminent end of the Liberal and National parties (they went on to win the election a few months later).The crowd found him boring and incoherent but were keen to get him to do some of his famous rabble-rousing. Someone asked him what he thought of proposals to cut funding to the arts. He said the people responsible were like the Nazis. Cheers from the crowd. That they were like the perpetrators of genocide in Bosnia. More cheers. Then he thundered THEY ARE JUST LIKE THE PEOPLE WHO TOOK ABORIGINAL CHILDREN AWAY FROM THEIR PARENTS! Dead silence. He mumbled something about denying human potential and wandered off.Charles Firth in Manning Bar, from Uni (1997).Charles Firth: Editor of Honi Soit (1995); Comedian, The ChaserThe first time my wife ever saw me, I was standing on a table in Manning Bar. It was about 10am and I was, for reasons I still dont quite understand given my general lack of integrity, the chief adjudicator of the 1994 Easters Debating tournament. The trendy, hip event on campus.My wife claims I was dressed in a terrible flannie and a bit drunk. But come on it was 10am. Wasnt everyone?Ill be straight: my aim in writing this piece is to argue that Manning Bar added no value to the economy of Australia, nor did it benefit the careers of those who treaded its beer-drenched carpet. My aim is to strenuously argue that the countless hours I spent out on that balcony attempting to flirt with girls by impressing them with my knowledge of undergraduate-level feminist theory was a complete waste of time (it certainly felt like that at the time).And the cumulative days I spent trawling through that dank bar, lined with the tattered posters of famous bands whod passed through there, searching for empty schooner glasses to return to the bar to collect the 20c deposit was also a waste of time. Joyous and crazy. But it was time off. (And it did allow me to buy one more beer for the onerous price of $2.20).And the weeks and months of time I spent on stage there at lunch, trying out stand up (Five Minute Noodles) and doing Theatresports, or crafting new and innovative ways to offend the trots in the next cabaret night, were not a net-positive to the Australian economic output.That was not its purpose. Its purpose was to provide a place to meet, pickup, and most importantly, play.When I first heard of the passing of Manning Bar, I found myself justifying my sadness in terms of its productive output. From a cultural perspective, its undeniable. Without Manning Bar, Tom Gleeson might not have won a gold logie. Sarah Kendall might not be pumping out high quality BBC narrative comedies. I might have ended up becoming the feminist theorist I was training to be.Worst of all, without Manning Bar, Andrew OKeefe might not be Australias top rating game show host. Without Manning Bar, where will Australia get its game show hosts?The bar was always packed on Tuesdays. That was comedy day. My 11am lectures were inevitably across the other side of campus at Merewether, and so I had a mad dash at 12 to make to Manning Bar in time for the start of Theatresports or Five Minute Noodles or whatever the Union had dreamed up. I did consider switching degrees to Education, which was closer to the bar, but the Education Revue was always the worst, so I stuck with Arts.Tom Gleesons first standup performance at Five Minute Noodles was brilliant. He didnt tell anyone what was about to unfold. He just told Adam Spencer (who was MCing) that Adam should just keep calling out Malcolm? Malcolm? to try and find the next act, the character Tom had dreamed up a nerdy loser with a thick, ginger wig.Adam did this, looking as confused as he could, and then the audience heard someone in the toilets next to the stage Im coming, Im coming yelled the voice from the toilets. A few thumps and bangs and out of the toilet spilled Malcolm with his pants around his ankles, falling onto the stage in a mad scramble. At the time we thought it was ground-breaking work. Barry Humphries was nothing compared to this genius.In a slightly different category was Andrew Hansens first stand-up performance. It was a five minute performance so ahead of its time that it put him off doing stand-up for three decades. He opened with a guitar piece singing Piano Man. (I personally thought it was the single funniest thing Id ever seen. The rest of the audience didnt seem to have a funny bone that day.)I remember making it through to the Five Minute Noodle Finals one time, and I thought I was a shoo-in, at least for a place. I decided to seal the deal by launching into a highly distasteful and offensive bit about how someone should make a disaster movie about cleft lips. The audience enjoyed it. The judge, not so much. He had a cleft lip.In management theory, companies spend millions on consultants, getting them to tell them how to create moments of spontaneous, serendipitous collaboration between colleagues. Thats what Manning Bar created for free (as long as you collected enough empty glasses)At least it did, until 2012. After that, apparently its relevance faded, when smoking was banned, even on the balcony.My initial reaction hearing about the smoking ban was so what? There are plenty of substances that have been consumed in that bar over the years that were banned. But apparently it was quite strictly enforcedIt was evidence-based health and safety policy that brought Manning Bar down. Damn.Except. We all know its not what brought it down. There is no measure for what Manning Bar adds to Sydney University. Modern universities dont count spontaneous, serendipitous collaboration of students on their spreadsheets. They dont count play, or making mistakes or meeting the love of your life. Their models dont take into account that wasting time is good simply because its fun.Instead, they count money. And, it would seem, only money. Just like the rest of the world. Damn. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On 1 February, I woke up with an email notification telling me that my flight from China to Sydney was cancelled. That afternoon, Scott Morrison announced a 14-day travel ban restricting almost all people in mainland China from entering. Within a day, the plans I had for the upcoming semester had all been put on pause.This was the first time I felt that the novel Coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19, was so close that I was no longer an outsider. Instead, I was in the middle of it. The consequences had gone beyond small things like needing to put on masks or remembering to wash my hands.I first heard about the COVID-19 in mid-January, when it was only present in a few isolated cases. It was almost time for the Spring Festival in China a time meant for communal gathering, celebration and lots of red packets. Nobody could have predicted the extent of the viral outbreak, or expected the holiday to be marked by fear, panic and anxiety.Everything happened so fast. COVID-19s human-to-human transmissibility was confirmed on 20 January. Wuhan, the center of the infected area, was locked down on the 24th, British Airways stopped all its direct flights between UK and China on the 29th, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Global Health Emergency on the 30th, and one by one Singapore, the United States and Australia issued travel bans. Not just China, but the whole world sensed the threat.In light of all these sudden changes, many Chinese international students like myself didnt know what we were meant to do when so many things became immediately and frighteningly uncertain.Coco is a friend of mine. She had booked her flight from Qingdao to Sydney exactly on the 1st of February, the same day as the travel ban was announced. When Morrison was making his travel ban speech, she had just finished checking in her luggage and was making her way to the boarding gate.I remember suddenly panicking, she said. I hadnt yet boarded the plane, so Im thinking maybe I should just stay instead.The rollout of Australias travel ban was as confusing as it was harsh. If someone had a flight from China to Australia right on that day, or even right at that time, what should they do? Like Coco, the ban was announced, but her flight was still there.So many people were talking about it in the waiting area, and many of my friends were messaging me, she said. I had a connecting flight in Seoul, so at the end, I decided to fly there first and see how it would play out.When Coco arrived at the airport in Seoul, she asked the staff there to contact Sydney Airport about whether she would be able to enter Australia later. After receiving positive confirmation, she felt relieved and boarded the second half of her journey without worrying.She landed in Sydney on 2 February. She got off the plane, took an E-Passport ticket, passed customs, took her luggage and got out of the airport. There was nothing special. She then went back to her apartment in Sydney and we talked about all her experiences over a phone call. Her feelings were complicated; it was hard to use a single word like lucky or unlucky to describe the trip. At the time, I felt a bit jealous because at least she had been able to get back to campus and continue her studies. I was instead totally stuck, worrying but not being able to do much of anything.I am currently staying in Guangzhou, a city in Southern China about 1000 kilometres away from Wuhan. That seems like a fair distance from the epicentre of the outbreak, but Guangzhou already has 300 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of 13 February. The city is overwhelmed by a sense of anxiety and people are unsettled. Guangdong, the province where Guangzhou is located, used to be ground zero of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003. It was another contagious coronavirus similar to COVID-19, which infected more than 8000 people and resulted in 800 deaths.I was five years old back then, so I didnt have a clear memory about what had happened. I could only recall that there was a day when my mum stopped taking me to the kindergarten on the bus as usual, and she would get angry with me if I randomly picked up things on the street.Optimistically, I initially thought that Guangzhous past experience with SARS would have made the city more cautious, but calm when facing the COVID-19 in 2020. This could not be further from the truth.By late January, we were asked to stay at home as much as possible. The seven-day Spring Festival vacation for companies has been extended a further 14 days until 10 February. The education sector has seen an equally lengthy delay. From primary schools to universities, the starting date of the new semester was pushed back from February to March.To further prevent people from having physical contact with others, most restaurants are indefinitely closed; even McDonalds has become take-away only. We have started ordering grocery deliveries more than we have ever before. Masks and hand sanitisers have become so crucial in our everyday lives, but have been sold out for weeks. Clinics, pharmacies, supermarkets all have bold signs on their doors warning about the lack of stock. Each time I receive a parcel, I have to open it outside and throw away the packaging before I enter the house.The COVID-19 looks much worse, my dad tells us. In 2003, we didnt wear masks and we still went to work every day.One night my dad woke up with a sore throat and our whole family became paranoid. We were afraid of having COVID-19 in the family, which would mean that we all needed to be quarantined. Yet, we didnt want to send our dad off to the hospital either, due to the high possibility of contracting the disease there. Fortunately however, it was only a sore throat and it cleared very quickly.Questions like why me?, why now? and why my country? keep flooding my mind. Overthinking takes up lots of my time. However, comparing myself to people who are right in the middle of the outbreak, who are surrounded by death, panic and broken families, I still feel like Im a lucky one.Im very worried, Amy told me. She stayed in Sydney during the summer break, but her family is back in Shiyan, Hubei. The city is in the same province as Wuhan, which has around 480 infected cases as of 13 February.Amy was supposed to fly back to China on 23 January, one day before Chinese New Year. She booked her flight from Sydney to Wuhan and a train from Wuhan to Shiyan the week prior.My dad messaged the morning of my flight and told me that there are already 17 deaths in Shiyan because of COVID-19. He advised me that it would be better to stay in Sydney, she said. Im struggling, I dont know if I should go back or not.Amys flight was at 9:30 that evening. Throughout the day, she spoke with her family, friends and colleagues to make up her mind. Eventually, she decided to cancel her travel plans three hours before her flight, and so became the only lucky member of her family outside of the infection zone.Staying in Sydney, however, did not equal relief. Over the past three weeks, she has been trawling news websites as the first thing she does in the morning to read updated statistics on the number of infected, the fatality rate and the possibility of improvement back home.I can only message them, she said. I forward them like more than ten articles a day, especially after the city was locked down. News, information, how to recognise signs of the virus, how to protect themselves, how to eat well, how to properly put on a mask I send everything.However, she understands that her choice to stay was the right decision. Even if she risks the journey, she may catch the COVID-19 on the way and bring the virus back home. The last thing she wants is to pass the virus to her unsuspecting family. It would also get in the way of her new job in Sydney if she had returned to Wuhan, who knows when shed be able to return and get to work?If my family falls ill and needs me to look after them, I wouldnt care. I would definitely go back, she said. Watching her hometown severely impacted by the disease is not an easy thing to deal with; the distance has made her feel powerless.Amy works at Urbanest, a student accommodation building near the University of Sydney. It is almost the start of a new semester, so there are supposed to be many Chinese international students checking in. However, as a result of the COVID-19 and travel ban, the entire area has become much quieter than it used to be.Lucy is another friend of mine who is currently in Sydney. She departed from Beijing to Sydney at the end of January, and is now under a 14-day quarantine in her accommodation. She has been asked to stay in her room and cant go outside or have any physical contact with other people. All her food and groceries need to be ordered online. To pick up her packages, she can only use the back or side door of her accommodation, because there are always people walking through the front.I can only do some reading or video chat with my friends, she said. Its quiet, but there are times when I feel very depressed.Another issue she finds is that, during the quarantine period, it would be hard for her to ask for help if there is anything broken, or for any accident that might occur in her room. She still misses her family from time to time, since she is totally isolated under quarantine, but she told me, I know there is no such place which is perfect neither China nor here. I would have the support of my family if I was in China, but since Im here, I need to be careful and independent.By the time you read this, Lucy will have just finished her quarantine period, but I will still be stuck in Guangzhou and Amy will still be separated from her family. There are people in Wuhan still suffering and there are students still on pause. As long as COVID-19 continues to spread, the situation will be a struggle for all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Even if you dont know his name, you know his haircut. You know his wild kinetic dance moves and infectious energy. You have heard his passionate singing voice and his unique warmup routine. Youve seen him all over Twitter, YouTube and Facebook meme groups.Correll Bufford, Buff Correll online, is a viral American internet personality who has been uploading dance covers onto web streaming platforms for more than a decade, and his popularity has seen peaks and valleys over the years. Although most of his uploads have yet to break the ten thousand mark, his first ever cover a waist up video of him upper-body break-dancing to Beyonces Drunk in Love has garnered over 1.1 million views as of this month. What is perhaps more impressive than the visual delight of his dance moves is the consistency of his output; Correll often uploads multiple times per day, totalling around ten to twelve videos a week. 2019 marked a bit of a renaissance for his channel after he started taking song requests from Facebook and YouTube comments. Quickly co-opted by Patrician music groups and meme circles across the internet, Correll has now danced and sung his way through several Death Grips, Mitski, Radiohead and Doja Cat tracks.Despite the amount of Buff content freely accessible, he still largely remains an incomprehensible online enigma in the eyes of many. His social media presence as if not already bizarre enough consists of uploading sometimes over 100 selfies and mirror photos a day, counterpointed by the occasional link to a RnB track with the caption JOINT. As such, the lore surrounding his character has ballooned to an entire fictional universe. Conspiracy theories fly left and right about his extreme hairdo, the content of his funny-sounding vocal warmups, why he has a poster of himself up on the wall and why he always dances in front of a mirror. I was one of those conspiracy theorists, unsatisfied with mere speculation, and I needed to find out the truth.Correll was not an easy man to reach. Having hit the maximum cap for friends on Facebook, my best shot was to send him a DM and hope for the best. Radio silence ensued for over two weeks as my hopes of ever talking to him faded it wasnt that he hadnt seen the message, it was that he had almost instantly seen it and had ghosted me ever since. A full 18 days later, I woke up to a startling reply: Buff Corrells had not only agreed to an interview, but had sent me his phone number and a time I should reach him at.The following transcript comes from my hour-long conversation with him.*******Chuyi: How did you get started with making your videos? What motivated you to start posting them online?Correll: It was in 2010 and I was working out and I was trying to better myself, and I didnt like the music on the radio it had totally changed. I just didnt like the music, one of my favourite artists stopped doing his thing, and MJ had just passed away, so I really wanted to start doing music. I went through with my gym process and when I saw my abs I got so much confidence to follow through. I posted that Beyonce video, which was my first singing video, and got the biggest crowd reaction Ive probably ever gotten.Chuyi: So when you say you didnt like the music on the radio in 2010, what sort of music are you into?Correll: When I first started, I liked Ginuwine, Prince, MJ and George Michael. Because I had a predominantly black audience, I decided I needed to be making RnB videos and Ne-Yo type music. My first one-million-view video a cover of Drunk in Love got on World Star Hip Hop and thats where a lot of my early audience came from.Chuyi: What was their initial reaction?Correll: I got a lot of negative comments starting out. Everyone was just like what are you doing, why do you have a poster of yourself? Ive gotten a lot better at handling the hate throughout the years, but at some point it started invading my personal life. It got out of hand when my co-workers started talking about how I was the guy in the Beyonce video, and people looked at me differently as I got bigger and bigger.Chuyi: What gave you the persistence to keep going despite all the negativity?Correll: I just couldnt stop I wasnt really doing anything in my life and it was so much fun. When I was down and out I used to just drink, but this was better than that. Its become a real passion: I just keep doing it, it doesnt matter if Im not good at it and I feel I can keep going if I wanted to. Its about keeping a schedule and proving yourself wrong everyday.Chuyi: One thing Ive always wondered about is your schedule actually. How do you keep up to the pace of uploading multiple videos a day?Correll: I wake up at about 5am every day and eat oatmeal and bananas. I cycle to the gym Im a real gym rat, Ive been with a personal trainer for five years and I probably spend about 3 hours working out every day there. Once Im done with that I come home, I check whos commenting on the page and then get the equipment ready. I iron my pants, listen to the original song a couple of times and then just go for it. And depending on how Im feeling I might do three or four a day.Chuyi: You mentioned before that you work? What field do you work in?Correll: I used to have a job, cleaning and being a janitor, but not any more. You see, I was on Americas Got Talent last year and I actually got booed off the stage. It was so humiliating, and I remember walking off into the waiting room with everybody staring, and going back to the hotel and calling my mom. When I got back to work in Arizona, I was so ashamed of myself. I told myself you really gotta do better than that, man. I just couldnt get it out of my mind that I choked right there on the stage when I was so close to getting to a wider audience. So when I quit everything, it was so I could have more time to do my thing and improve my craft. Thats when I started paying much more attention to how I looked and sounded, so Im not really surprised that Ive gotten bigger. Its about proving that I am worthy to be up on that stage again.Chuyi: I think one reason so many people are drawn to your videos is because of your super energetic dancing. Where do you get the moves from, and what inspired you to start dancing?Correll: Dance is the most motivational thing you can do I think. Theres nothing quite like hitting a move right on the beat. I think most people have forgotten about dance Ive never seen anybody else putting out solo dance videos on Facebook, even though were all interested in what other peoples styles are. You used to have Soul Train and things like that, but not anymore. Its gotta be good music though, its gotta be something that really makes you groove. I dont think Ive borrowed my dance moves from anyone else, its just a form of personal expression thats unique to me.The mirror really helps I think if there was no mirror I dont think there would be Buff Correll. I remember once my teacher wrote to my father: if your son concentrated on his studies as much as he does his looks, hed be a straight-A student. But a mirror helps you see who you are, and visualise yourself. It connects me with my body. Thats helped me realise that Im different. Ever since I was a kid, I used to ask my father: is something going to happen to me? Am I going to change? Look at me now.Chuyi: Is your father a big part of your life?Correll: Yeah, I think so. I actually joined the military, because I wanted to follow in my fathers footsteps and belong to something. Wear the uniform, you know. But that time in training really made me realise that I was different, that I couldnt fit in. I was drinking and smoking cigarettes for so long and trying to hide myself and who I truly am, but I think Ive learned not to do that anymore.I get pretty put off when people think what Im doing is a joke, or that Im putting on a character. This is how I genuinely am Lady Gaga says Born This Way! People dont know my life, theyre not close to me. They dont understand.Chuyi: Wait, you were in the military?Correll: That was probably one of two life-changing experiences for me. I think a lot of people go into basic training you know, super serious and looking to do harm to themselves. But I was really enjoying the exercises and the food I was eating I wanted abs at the end of it, so I was just focusing on getting myself into the best soldier I could be. Actually, when I was out there on the field doing the chants and marches, I just couldnt stop dancing. I remember the drill sergeant pulled me out in front of everyone just to make fun of me. I couldnt help myself when you hear that Left! Left! Left Right Left! its like the beat hitting and it just made me go Oooooo!I think a lot of people enjoyed basic training, but the army is different its just like a 9 to 5 job. My first station was Missouri, and I really enjoyed that. But when I got sent out to Korea, thats probably what broke the camels back. I didnt feel like I belonged, and I never felt like I was in the community with the other soldiers. I was always broke, and I was just constantly smoking, drinking and eating bad. I would eat Snickers for a morning meal because nobody was telling me I couldnt do that. You know, even in the army I had a photo of myself up on the wall. I used to cut pictures of my head and put them on Michael Jacksons body. I was disappointed because I wanted so bad to be a first sergeant, which is what my father was. But at some point I was just sick of being unhealthy and not matching those images and so I had to come back home. I think it made Buff Correll stronger, and made me more determined to become my own different self.Chuyi: You mentioned two life-changing experiences what was the other one?Correll: When I came back from Korea I was very depressed. I went back to drinking, getting into gangs and messing around with women. People could see I had changed, and that I wasnt really comfortable. But then something else happened I was with a group, and we were doing our thing and constantly getting into fights at the club. Its a small town, you know, and there were some people that werent approving of that. I got shot at at a restaurant, and I remember running away from the scene thinking I cant catch a break, I cant do nothing that would prevent this from happening, I gotta change my life.That night, I went home and I threw away my phone, my cigarettes, my liquor, everybody I was kicking it with. I thought about going to the gym and I hired a personal trainer Diez was his name. All my friends were telling me Hey man, lets get back to the streets, lets keep doing our thing. But once I saw my abs that was it it went from this downhill spiral to having a choice. I either go back and get killed or keep doing this thing. I think when that gun went off I really got a kick in the butt.Chuyi: The posters on the wall of yourself, is that an empowering thing then? To show you how far youve come?Correll: People call it narcissism on my Facebook but I think its really important for me. When I wake up and the first thing I see is the poster of me, its like taking a step back and looking at myself. You never know whats going to happen the next day or the day after that, so having these old photos of myself gives me a lot of confidence. It shows me that Ive achieved something once.Chuyi: Whats the long-term plan for the Buff Correll project? Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?Correll: I think Im just gonna keep singing and dancing. I really want to dance for large crowds, and motivating people to dance as well. I see myself one day doing sell-out tours. Not in the immediate future, obviously, but Im going to continue no matter what happens. I want to get back on Americas Got Talent and prove the world and myself wrong.This interview took place in late 2019. Since then, Correll has been ignoring my DMs on Facebook. I have been trying to reach out for a follow up interview ever since. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In recent years, Chinas growing dominance and geopolitical aspirations have sent shockwaves across a world that is still coming to terms with what is perhaps a changing international order. And no where have these shockwaves been felt more keenly than in Australia. This is reflected in our media, a quick skim of which will reveal a fixation on our ties with China ,with numerous articles and segments put out on a daily basis updating the public on what is becoming an increasingly volatile relationship. Of particular interest is a concern about Chinese interference in Australian society. While Chinese interference in Australia seems all-pervasive and ever-present, it is actually a very recent national worry. Searching it up on Factiva, a news database, and localising it to ten major newspapers in Australia show that before 2017, unique articles which mentioned Chinese interference or influence, whether they be news or opinion, averaged around 15 a year, with some years not even breaking into the double digits. However, everything changed in 2017 with the Sam Dastyari donation scandal, which saw him resign from his Senate position after it was exposed that he had informed prominent Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo that he might be under surveillance by Australian intelligence agencies. Huang had previously donated around $44,000 to Dastyari, in a move that was suspected as being on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Later in 2017, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced laws aimed at cracking down on foreign interference, and the number of articles about Chinese interference had soared to 331 from only 40 in 2016. If 2017 was the year when the fuse was lit, 2018 was when concerns about Chinese interference exploded, the media fixation skyrocketing to 747 articles. And with two months of the year left, almost 500 articles about Chinese interference have been published in 2019 by major Australian news outlets.However, as fears about Chinese interference increase in Australian society, so have fears that this anxiety could potentially spiral into something far more sinister. The unavoidable shadow of the increased media scrutiny on Chinese influence is the risk of spreading Sinophobic sentiment across Australian society. The gravity of such a risk cannot be understated. 1.2 million people of Chinese heritage call this country home roughly 5.6% of our total population; Australia has the largest Chinese community percentage wise out of any country outside of Asia. At the locus of both these fears is a subset of the Chinese community in Australia the 150,000 or so international students from Mainland China who are currently studying at an Australian tertiary institute. How these international students have been represented by the media has been a glaring point of public contention. While some argue that criticisms of the scrutiny placed on them seeks to use race as a means of deflecting conversation on Chinese interference, others believe the discussion has taken on an inflammatory nature that will further isolate what is already a vulnerable group of people.Corpus AnalysisTo unearth the hidden ideologies and patterns behind the media discourse surrounding international students from China in Australia, Honi undertook a corpus analysis of the reporting done on this topic. A research tool from linguistics, corpus analysis examines language from the bigger picture, allowing for incisions to be made on a large body of texts a corpora to reveal patterns of language that would not be seen if these texts were read separately, sentence by sentence. More importantly, it allows for a more quantitative evidential basis for phenomena which we intuit from anecdotes or our own gut feeling. Media discourse in particular represents a treasure trove for corpus analysis, for it can tell a great deal about the underlying ideologies and beliefs held by a society in the way it frames certain current affairs issues. In the past, it has been used to illuminate how the medias use of language has reproduced and reinforced societal prejudices against groups such as refugees and transgender people.By using the terms Chinese student and its variations and combining it with the localising term Australia, we built a corpus of 95 news articles and 56 opinion pieces, all published in 2019, sourced from 10 major newspapers in Australia across different Australian states. We then analysed every instance in which the term Chinese student(s) appeared and the context it was framed by, in particular, noting the verbs which followed it. Our analysis found systematic language patterns which seemed to infer three separate categories in which the Australian media represents international students from mainland China as a commodity, as a victim, and as an aggressor.CommoditySitting at the forefront of national thought on China and the Chinese government, international Chinese students in Australia have become an avenue for the media to link foreign interference with Australias dependence on Chinese trade. They are framed as income for Australia, cash cows, whose assumedly wealthy Chinese parents contribute to an ever dependent national economy. In our reading of over 95 news articles, most language associated with depictions of Chinese international students referenced was quantifiable and economically focussed. Many articles focussed on shifting higher cost markets and the boosting of revenue. Out of the 170 times the term Chinese student(s) was mentioned, 82 of them were couched with economic language. In the same way a resource such as iron or coal would be written about, our analysis showed a preoccupation with Chinese students as a fee-paying commodity that must be bolstered in response to a flattening of growth that signals the end of a boom. And while it is clear that their presence on Australian campuses presents a risk (the word and its variations appearing more than 70 times), the majority of media references to risk are not political, but economic, and are often accompanied by terms such as over-reliance and dependence.AggresorWith Chinas growing geopolitical dominance and the advent of the Hong Kong protests, Chinese students have been deemed simultaneously both victims and aggressors. The media conceptualises them as aggressors, towards pro-Hong Kong protestors and Australias democratic institutions, yet they remain devoid of their own agency, shackled to an omnipresent and oppressive Communist government. In the corpus analysis of Chinese students in mainstream media opinion pieces, Chinese international students are linguistically associated with aggression, intimidation, spying and an escalation of tensions.Theyre also recognised as being disproportionately represented, living in Sydneys Chinese bubble and surging into Australian universities enmass while engaging in thuggery. In news pieces, this linguistic association is not as strong, but still visible. International students from China do not win political power in campus elections, but seize it. They do not go to Canberra for a pro-Chinese government rally, but descend upon it.Part of the problem is that, given the increasing commercialisation of news in Australia, there is a tendency to focus reporting on sensational events that can draw clicks and views while leaving out less eye-catching events which are equally important in painting out a complete portrait of the issue. This was noted in a tweet by USyd professor David Brophy, who remarked how pro-Hong Kong protests at USyd which happened without disruption, while attracting a significant physical presence of the main media establishments, generated no actual coverage.If you only cover HK activism when theres conflict, you risk creating an incentive for conflict, his tweet concludes, referring to a past protest which ended in physical confrontations between pro-China and pro-Hong Kong protestors, and was frequently cited by media as an example of Chinese student aggression.VictimYet paradoxically, media representations conceptualise this aggression to hide a deep vulnerability and passivity. Their actions, though seen as violent, are not spurred by carefully cultivated personal belief or rational thinking, but is the result of being mobilised or orchestrated by some larger organisation in the background the CCP. These conflicting traits of aggression and passivity often manifest in the same sentence, and can create an image of Chinese international students as being mindless fanatics. Likewise, more sympathetic media representations of Chinese students occur when they are the ones being spied upon or intimidated. Once again, the organisation behind this is the CCP. Further highlighting how intertwined these three categories are, representations of victimhood in Chinese people,brought about by Australian society as opposed to the CCP, is often coupled with references to negative economic consequences for Australia.Those Chinese people in Australia who sang the praises of local goods such as food, infant formula and healthcare products to their friends back home on WeChat and other social media sites boosting the China sales of many Australian companies are now also telling friends about the anti-China debate in Australia.China Trade Tide slowing, The Australian, 25th September 2019This reveals a wider societal thinking where we must care for Chinese people victimised by the CCP out of our commitment to Western liberal values, but when they are victimised by Australian society, we must care out of economic necessity.While deep-seated yellow-peril fears underlies some of Australias increasing societal paranoia against Chinese international students and the larger Chinese-Australian community, it would be inaccurate to attribute this anxiety solely on racial tensions. This is especially given that a sizeable amount of the concern regarding Chinese influence in Australia comes from the Chinese community itself. However, with it has come a trend of certain outlets airing out more inflammatory comments about Chinese influence through critics of Chinese heritage the seeming rationale being that their Chinese ethnicity both legitimises their opinion, and also shields it from any criticism. For example, in the latest edition of The Quarterly Essay, Feng Chongyi, a Chinese-Australian academic who was detained in China for a week in 2017, is quoted as saying;The majority of Chinese-Australians have been wavering politically They are Australian citizens but they have never shown that to the Australian public. But hundreds of thousands of them will come out to wave the red flag to welcome Chinese government visitors.Red Flag, Peter Harcher, The QuaterlySuch sweeping statements position Chinese-Australians as a potential fifth column in Australian society, characterising them as being more loyal to the Chinese state than to their home country. Putting aside the dangerous implications of the statement, it exposes the tenuous position many Chinese-Australians currently find themselves in a powder keg of legitimate concerns mixed with a growing paranoia about their loyalties.Nothing written in any of the newspapers analysed, even the most inflammatory of opinion pieces, can be said to be overtly Sinophobic. However, the underlying ideology reproduced through the language of the Australian media can be argued as being one where problematic, if not Sinophobic, inferences can be drawn and harmful stereotypes are perpetuated.Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations,The aforementioned incident in particular presents an alarming case study of how inflammatory reporting of Chinese international students can have damaging consequences for Australias Chinese community in general. In the Sydney Morning Herald article Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations, Chinese protestors at the event are reduced to jingoistic slogans and disturbing threats of violent. It states that the protestors were there to support Beijings policies in Hong Kong without explaining what these policies actually are. While it is undeniable that ugly confrontations did occur during the protest, the report prioritises eye-catching outbursts of violence from the protestors over an exploration of the motives behind their protest. Instead of featuring a protestor explaining their reasons for protesting, it outsources this work to official sources, the Chinese ambassador, thus framing the protestors as devoid of any real agency or independent thought. This is in stark contrast to an SBS news report on the same protest, which does not shy away from reporting on the violent actions and words of some protestors, but contextualises this with quotes from more moderate protestors giving reasoned explanations about why they attended the rally. While the SMH article generalises the anti-Hong kong democracy protestors as mainland protestors, the SBS article instead highlights the diversity of the attendees, stating that they were new migrants, international students and second or third generation Chinese-Australians. Finally and most interestingly is the question of translation. At the rally, a Chinese protestor is heard saying into a loudspeaker with regards to Hong Kong protestors; the SBS report translated this into get out while the SMH one translated it into the more inflammatory get the fk out. While an argument can be made for both translations, this example highlights how translation itself can be used as a tool to frame a news story in order to advance a certain narrative. Unsurprisingly, the SMH article elicited an outraged response from the Australian public. On the r/Australia subreddit, a A dusty corner on the internet where you can chew the fat about Australia and Australians with almost 380 thousand members, a post sharing the article amassed numerous comments calling for the mass deportation and surveillance of Chinese Australians. While some commentators were careful to distinguish between the different groups of Chinese-Australians, others used the article as an opportunity to air larger racial grievances against Chinese-Australians seemingly taking over Australia. More disturbingly, many of the top comments in thread seemed to suggest that race riots directed against Chinese-Australians were inevitable should these Pro-China protests continue.Let me know when the race riots are scheduled. Having scumbags on Visas, protest in a foreign land about the benefits of oppression, is something I feel is only resolved with beating. one comment reads.USYD Rants as a microcosmic forumThe mainstream anti-Chinese sentiment that has cascaded about the Australian public sphere of late is alarmingly recognisable in the online spaces in which University students engage. Facebook page USYDRants, the locally iconic hub of student sentiment produces a daily linguistic representation of student opinion. It is here that our original search began, where student thought is unedited and university bureaucracy is removed from the conversation.Whats particularly important to note is that the rise of these online blasts correlate with the rise of international student representation in student politics as much as they interact with the focus of foreign interference in the mainstream media. Since last year, when the University of Sydney Student Representative Council saw its presidency won by Chinese domestic student Jacky He and headkicker of one of the major international student factions on campus, Panda, a wave of foreign interference narratives have made gains in University campuses across the country. This year a government taskforce was released, a Four Corners report brought producers to Eastern Avenue and the university was forced to condemn an unregulated survey that asked students if international students should be restricted from student politics. The pages of USYD Rants reflects these transformations that now appear to be at the forefront of student consciousness.The rise of Sinophobic commentary in USYD Rants peaks in the same way that we have seen an emergence of anti-Chinese sentiment in the headlines of major Australian publications. The last year has seen an exponential rise in this kind of language and phrasing. Though the rants of individual students reflect similar anxieties of the Australian mainstream media landscape, these are more centralised, more individually punitive. The major panics of anonymous university student blasts are associated with either an invasion of what they deem to be their space or a depiction of Chinese international students as dishonest, lazy and deviant.In a study of up to 50 USYD Rants posted sporadically throughout the year of 2019, one can see a pattern of students considering international students positions in Australian universities to be undeserved; a breakdown, if you will, of the power and prestige of this sandstone edifice. Overwhelmingly, the posts either centred or included the use or misuse of language in education spaces. Over 90% of these rants suggested that international students should either be learning more English before they commenced their studies, that English was the only language that should be taught in university settings, that international students should not find it hard to get by with a foreign language and that standards of language and communication at the university were being pulled down by the presence of international students in tutorials. One rant for example reads, I dont understand the arguments that highlight the difficulties of living internationally and having to get by with a foreign language. This is a university, it should require the highest standards of language and communication. Though the rants, amassed together, paint a picture of the othering of international students by domestic students across the board, many of these ranters go to great lengths to separate themselves from the label of racist. One rant reads I dont understand how it is racist to expect a professional level of English ability from your classmates in a university course with English language instruction Ive had issues with people from ALL parts of the world in this respect.Geographically, the descriptions of these rants are often situated in the universitys libraries an environment overcrowded with hundreds of students desperately attempting to find a place to focus. The second most common location is the tutorial room in which group coursework encourages domestic student engagement with international students. In and outside of these spaces, comments on the admission of international students to degrees regardless of intelligence and the universitys reliance on international students are commonly discussed.The danger withinResearch has shown that the ramifications of interactions between Western and Chinese students can more often than not lead to more open hostility. As Henry Chiu Hail has noted in his 2015 research paper Patriotism Abroad: Overseas Chinese Students Encounters With Criticisms of China, assumptions of Chinese life and governance by Western students has more often than not left Chinese international students feeling isolated and disconnected from the country in which theyre studying. Anti-Chinese sentiment is no doubt rising in the West and it can now be found in our very own quadrangle, obfuscated by the language of our media. While Australia must remain vigilant about Chinese interference in our society, we must keep an equally vigilant eye on how the media we consume, whether it be newspapers or Facebook rants, perpetuates harmful ideologies about Chinese people, particularly international students. For if we are not, the greatest threat to our nations democracy is not some foreign actor, but ourselves. The newspapers used in the analysis are; The Advertiser (Adelaide) The Age (Melbourne) The Australian Financial Review The Australian Canberra Times (Canberra) Courier Mail (Brisbane) Daily Telegraph (Sydney) The Herald Sun (Melbourne) The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) The West Australian (Perth) Corpus analysis was carried out using AntConc, developed by Laurence Anthony <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Things move swiftly when you leave one country for another. There is no time to reflect in the immediate aftermath of arriving; the migrant is plunged into a quickening maze of adjusting and carrying on. As a child, your energy is spent going along with it all. Though of course, as a child, you dont think of it as spending energy; you dont think of it as anything in particular. Eventually, the weight settles.I have lived in Australia for 11 years now over half of my life. I moved to Sydney with my family about a month shy of my 11th birthday. We left behind Colombo and Chamma, my grandmother. While we lived here, Chamma lived there, in her flat. This separation, especially from Chamma, gradually came to weigh very heavily chronically on me over the next seven years until it was eclipsed by that other, final separation.I was recently re-reading John Bergers And our faces, my heart, brief as photos and came across a passage that had somehow passed by unnoticed the first time:Home was the centre of the world because it was the place where a vertical line crossed with a horizontal line. The vertical line was a path leading upwards to the sky and downwards the underworld. The horizontal line represented the traffic of the world, all the possible roads leading across the earth to other places. Thus, at home, one was nearest to the gods in the sky and to the dead in the underworld. This nearness promised access to both. And at the same time, one was at the starting point, and hopefully, the returning point of all terrestrial journeys.As the permanence of our emigration dawned on me, so my sense of migrant-hood crystallised; the two are inextricable being here and the memory of who and what was foregone to do so. Ammas attempts to have Chamma brought here as her dependent became the back-drop to our family life for the two to three years that followed the decision to stay here permanently. It was her main preoccupation chasing up documents, certifying copies, writing affidavits, medicals, liaising with family overseas and so on. Ultimately, to no avail, the visa application was rejected. Life became deeply coloured by the grief that sprung from being apart from Chamma. It seeped into everything; expanded into something without discrete borders. It came to be my avenue of accessing the very thought of her, of Colombo, and over time, also my own present. Knowing she was more-or-less alone after our departure, the thought of how dull and quiet life at the flat would have been, day after day, for years, aches my heart still.There was also the sharpening sense that I was lost to this society. My life was here my friends, school, my parents and brothers. But I was increasingly absent from it. The knowledge that I was now a migrant was not automatic, though once aware, I identified very strongly with the term, became conscious and vigilant of its implications. This acute alertness to the possibility of hostility, the possibility of being slighted, is difficult to halt and is in many ways also necessary for ones survival to the extent at least that this means moving through society with ones pride intact. The trouble lies in discerning between instances of white/western superiority from the artless to the covert that warrant being challenged and taking offence for imagined malign. Navigating the white superiority complex without resigning to a defensiveness that borders on paranoia is an art in itself a practice that can at times be violently othering. More and more I focussed on going back this idea of having some point of origin to return to; somewhere unspoiled by the disorienting, undermining after-shocks of emigration.Re-reading Berger got me thinking and writing about this again home, being away, being apart, returning something I have not done at length for some time now but used to almost obsessively. I dont know why or when I stopped. Certainly not because these things relinquished themselves of aliveness in my mind. I still feel the knowledge of that displacement, the force. More at certain times than others, but always, always. And maybe there was an element of fixation to the whole thing that I am better off without. Though I wonder if perhaps that is too harsh; I was desperate for how things once were, for our Iife in Colombo with Chamma. Knowing it was all still there or at least all the parts were, albeit scattered, so that hypothetically speaking, it could have been reassembled. But that is no longer possible. Chamma has been dead for some years now, and with her she took the delicate assemblage of tethers I had constructed between that place and myself whatever meaning I had imbued it with depended on her being there. After Chammas death, the grief that had become something of an anchor for me came unmoored. There was no longer even the possibility of returning to how things were. Life as it had come to be a day-to-day hinged on constantly looking back there for reassurance of wholeness, hinged on longing for it was undone.Emigration does not only involve leaving behind, crossing water, living amongst strangers, but, also, undoing the very meaning of the world and at its most extreme abandoning oneself to the unreal which is the absurd.Chammas short-term memory became more-or-less non-existent over my last few years of high school. She was leaving by and by. After high school I returned to Colombo for a year. I lived at the flat with Chamma and Sheela Achchi, our family maid. It was a relief to be back in their fold again. Of course, many things had changed. Having been away for so long Chamma no longer recognised me with much coherence. But many things also went on as they always had. The flat was airy and open, level with treetops, birds and squirrels at the bird-feed by day, bats and polecats by night; cats lazing around in the courtyard below. And while it may have been incoherent, and naturally far less articulate than before the dementia, our bond remained. The ease, the familiarity, the tenderness, the intimacy was unaltered; she was my grandmother, I was her grand-daughter.Apart from the comfort afforded by returning to (what remained of) familiar people and places and routines, for the most part, that year was spent feeling utterly alien in the country I had come back home to. I found myself unversed in its ways. Looking back now, I dont quite know what I was expecting at the outset, but it was a revelation. Living in Sri Lankan society again offered no homeliness in the vein none of the warmth and ease or specular scale that I had been hoping and preparing for. In a way, I suppose there never was a home to return to; it was lost to me from the moment we left. I am reminded of what Jhumpa Lahiri says in the introduction to her book In Other Words: Those who dont belong to any specific place cant in fact, return anywhere. The concept of exile and return imply a point of origin; a homeland. How fickle this point of origin is, especially when one is removed from it as a child. This is a time before you are able to set down roots, when your existence in a place has (as do most experiences during childhood) a kind of airy, lithe quality. This is an existence that is extremely relational and has little to do with ones own life (schedules, routines etc) which in turn, to use Arundhati Roys words in The God of Small Things, is yet to acquire a size and a shape.After the migrant leaves home, he never finds another place where the two life lines cross. The vertical line exists no more; there is no longer any continuity between him and the dead, the dead now simply disappear; and the gods have become inaccessible. The vertical line has been twisted into the individual biographical circle which leads nowhere but only encloses. As for the horizontal lines, because there are no longer any fixed points as bearings, they are elided into a plan of pure distance, across which everything is swept. What can grow on this site of loss?I sometimes wonder what it might be like to return to the flat again what it might be like to arrive, and for it to be empty. Ammas sister Chammas eldest daughter died many decades ago, back when Chamma was raising her children there. No doubt its been marred by her absence ever since even I, as a young child growing up there three decades later, was subliminally aware of my Loku Amma and the guarded tenderness that prevailed over her memory. But it also stayed alive, a place where meaning (and food and love and play forts) went on being made. And maybe this has something to do with it; maybe a place can be redeemed of loss if you remain, steadfastly (unthinkingly) physically rooted to it. To my thinking, the most complex struggle that a migrant contends with is the faltering continuity of their personal and cultural histories. The place that does the work of bringing you and who and what you are made of into one, a collective, is abandoned. The individual being and body are left to salvage and carry what is left. Chammas flat is still there but none of us are. In that sense it stopped being when she stopped being. We carry what we can of it but I wonder if this will ever meet the mark of the place, the archive and shelter, we have lost.What can grow on this site of loss? asks Berger. This is the question, and the task. I am no longer burdened by a sense that there is nowhere to return to; I no longer depend on the possibility. As Mikage in Yoshimoto Bananas Kitchen says, To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual in spite of it, I had become hardened So I suppose you can say that I go on as usual, in spite of it. Thinking now of the intensity with which I felt for that flat, for the knowledge that Chamma remained there I find, to my surprise, that I cannot access it anymore. It is here, but beyond my reach. Ive come to realise that loss, like most feelings, is not concrete or permanent in form; it waxes and wanes. And with this, so too does access to a place and its people when loss is your channel of reaching them. Im increasingly wary of its dependability as a means of attachment, of memory, of loving. I still think of migration as something akin to the death of a loved one. Except here the grief is prolonged, its progression truncated. You are left longing for something you have essentially even if unwittingly rejected. And which, inevitably will also reject you too. But these are the absurdities, the paradoxes we traverse as migrants. You give yourself over to the unknown at the risk of all that you know, all that you are sure and certain of.You know, darling, Chamma said to me once, one afternoon, when I look at you I feel and here she paused, considered my face like I know you. We were sitting on the settee in the hall. At that time of day the flat would be filled with sunlight. Chammas voice had a golden ring to it. That is one thing I remember most viscerally about her. Whether she was greeting, or scolding, or consoling You know, darling, when I look at you I feel like I know you. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At some bus stops around Sydney, you dont sit you lean.My friend Lily and I were waiting for a bus at Railway Square. Surrounding us were bodies heavy and tired, stained in sleep. Some with a coffee in hand, some on their phones. But most of all, they were all on their feet, either leaning or standing. We ourselves were crouched atop the glacial metal bars and transparent glass that made a temporary shelter for the bus stop. Hardly comfortable. It was morning and we were all tired but nobody was sitting.It was then that I realised I had seen this all before. Around the platforms at Town Hall and Central Station, if you dont manage to snatch one of the few benches, you are then left to either stand or to lean on one of those strange, lifeless wooden bars awkwardly situated a bit too close to the approaching form of transport. They were practically useless, as well as uncomfortable. Much like the bars that Lily and I were slanting our bodies over at that very moment.Why would anybody design something so useless? I posed this question aloud, when Lilys response made me realise that they were anything but.I think they are forms of defensive architecture, she said to me.Ever since, I havent stopped noticing them.Hostile or defensive architecture describes the design of various public structures that renders them unusable for certain purposes or groups. They are designed in an inconspicuous way to prevent undesired behaviours from being seen in urban spaces. The top-ranking menaces are often seen as homelessness and pesky skateboarders.The most prominent examples of hostile architecture are benches and seats that are designed to be impractical for any purpose other than sitting. A walk around USyd will expose you to an array of cases ranging from benches with undulant platforms around the Civil Engineering building, to those with protruding pegs next to the new Administration block.Other examples include plants in sheltered spaces, blockades placed on building corners that would otherwise shield from wind (check out the Sports & Aquatic Centre), the round terror blocks on Eastern Avenue, and the metal skate stoppers all over the handrails of ABS.Walk out further into the city, and youll see benches with metal handrails placed in the middle. Though varying in intensity, these seat designs are masters of their craft in preventing bodies from lying down, as well as stopping the path of skateboarders.There are also other commonplace architectural features in our cities that double as more subtle forms of environmental social control. Ultraviolet lights are installed in public toilets to forfend intravenous drug users, CCTV cameras are scattered through urban centres, and most recently, blue LED lights for suicide prevention at train stations in Tokyo.However, what categorises these designs as hostile is that their function is to selectively and directly exclude an unwanted group. In the case of the designs seen in Sydney, their most common purpose is to discourage rough sleeping and prevent the space from becoming a permanent shelter. In this city, the most significant unwanted group are the homeless.So how, then, does a city like Sydney become so hostile? How did our architecture come to express such an antagonistic attitude towards public displays of homelessness and poverty? To understand our current reality, we have to first trace back to why such attitudes exist.The O in homeless stands for OtherHomelessness has had a long history of being a signifier of Otherness. Those living this way have long been exposed to exclusion and disciplinary treatment. Bearing this identity often means living in unpredictable, and often unsafe, circumstances.The list of aims of the City of Sydneys Homelessness Unit notes objectives to prevent people from becoming entrenched in homelessness in the inner-city and to enact a compassionate and proactive approach to the management of public space. This points to a telling perception of displays of homelessness as either a threatening or unwanted part of our urban spaces. As Sociologist Robert Park wrote, In making the city we make ourselves. When our city is covered in anxious, inhospitable objects that aim to displace people, what does it say about our collective self-conception?Privatised spaces for paying peopleThe privatisation of space is another contributing factor to the preponderance of hostile architecture. In an increasingly privatised urban environment, security is perceived according to an idealised vision of which groups a city should serve and contain. In Australia, the mass privatisation of traditional public spaces are as ubiquitous as ibises in bins. It wasnt too long ago that the Sydney Opera House projected onto its sails a gargantuan, controversial advertisement for Racing NSW. Dr Steven Flusty, who documented the commodification and rise of hostile spaces in Los Angeles, noted that the intrusion of corporations into urban environments helps create a new kind of public space, where access depends on a persons apparent ability to pay. In these spaces, exclusivity is needed to ensure that nothing unpredictable disrupts the flow of capital. People are separated into groups of who can pay and who cannot. This is termed a process of urban securitisation where the definition of what constitutes a potential threat now extends to people who seemingly lack the capacity to buy.Urban spaces are also increasingly constructed according to an idealised public, in order to facilitate and encourage proper identities and behaviours. A way of attracting the right kind of people is to make them do the right thing. Take the seats in Pitt Street Mall as an example. Instead of a long bench, they are tiny squares, separated with strange rests that seemingly turns one away from the other. This makes it a strenuous task to even try to talk to the person next to you, much less relax and stay there for some time. The purpose here is to push people not to congregate, but instead to shop. Those who are meant to be there are kept on their feet; those who arent are kept out altogether.A hostile neighbourhood is a safe oneHostile architecture also serves as a symbolic means of thwarting urban anxieties. Since the late 1970s, there has been a process of urban consolidation in Sydney building up existing urban spaces rather than expanding to new areas. Whilst there is still a push for jobs to be in more expedient locations, the process is slow causing different populations to be simultaneously pulled away from these locations and into the CBD. The State Government can therefore slow down the expansion of the city, and hence, reduce the costs of infrastructure. The result is a rising, culturally diverse population in a limited area.The co-mingling of distinct social groups in a condensed area can create a cloud of anxiety. With diversity comes urban paranoia. People become concerned with crime rates and, in turn, homelessness. When people dont trust their neighbours, defensive architecture can be used as a tool for easing these fears and regulating the Other.It is interesting to trace this history back to the roots of defensive urban design itself. Evolving from Oscar Newmans 1973 work Defensible Space, the philosophy of these forms of architecture is to be designed not only to prevent crime itself, but also the perception of crime. Here, hostile spaces serve more as a means to ease anxiety creating a purchased, symbolic sense of safety in a concrete jungle replete with globalisation and discrimination.The consequences of ignoranceWhen youre designed against, you know it, explains Ocean Howell, a former professional skateboarder and assistant professor at the University of Oregon. Other people might not see it, but you will. The message is clear: you are not a member of the public.Hes right. The subtlety of many designs, along with our tendency to simply accept our environment, have caused these spaces to become something that we rarely notice in our everyday lives. It has also made defensive architecture a powerful tool of urban control that has insidious ramifications for how we understand our community.2017 saw the death of Tent City. The homeless encampment/community in Martin Place was forcibly removed, the reason being that they had left unacceptable impacts on the public. These impacts mostly involve making visible the systemic issue of homelessness and housing affordability that encumbered the idealised visions and aesthetics of the city. An interesting observation, though, is that just months earlier, the NSW Government revealed designs for two new towers to be built for the future Martin Place Metro Station. The new metro precinct will include an assemblage of shops, restaurants, and offices that expands its connection to Hunter, Elizabeth and Castlereagh Streets. Premier Gladys Berejiklians comments on the project emphasised the citys truly global capabilities and the fact that developments like this continue to elevate our status. It is hard not to see the link in our city planning between the displacement of homelessness visibility and the prioritisation of corporate interests by government elites.In 2014, when anti-homelessness spikes in London were facing a series of intense contestations from the public, Boris Johnsons first remarks when questioned about them was that they were not a good look.If these are the first reactions of politicians to the effects of hostile architecture, what does it tell us about the rights of homeless people versus the maintenance of a citys aesthetics and globalising processes? These examples are a sombre indication of homelessnesss low position on the hierarchy of socio-political importance something the implementation of hostile architecture has been informing us of all along.If not here then where?As of late August 2019, Sydneys temporary accommodation for the homeless has supposedly reached a crisis point. Data indicates that the number of people sleeping rough has dropped 9% compared to August 2018. Many more beds are being used in crisis and temporary housing, increasing by 20% providing now just 38 beds short of capacity.Despite the decrease of rough sleepers being a positive sign of the successful work of outreach teams, one cannot help but also draw a link between this and the increase in discriminatory spaces in our city centres. Where makeshift housing is a temporary solution to a systemic crisis, the implementation of hostile architecture in urban spaces can hardly be deemed as any solution at all.The structural exclusion of rough sleepers aims to simply displace them from view instead of offering stable solutions to confront the issue systematically. The focus is shifted away from the structural and systemic drivers of socio-economic inequality, and redirected towards what are deemed as undesired behaviours at street-level. As observed by Dr James Petty from the University of Melbourne, there is an ossification of surface over substance, clean appearance over informed or effective policy.Data from the ABS 2016 census showed an increase in homelessness of 13.7% in Australia, with NSW accounting for more than 73% of this national increase. It seems that hostile architecture and measures like the criminalisation of begging in Melbourne are ineffective ways by which we should be approaching the crisis that pervades the people that makes up our cities.Regardless, there are potential solutions to provide hospitality to our most vulnerable people. In Brisbane, a trial is being undertaken by the countrys largest car park operator, Secure Parking, for a car park to be turned into a pop-up shelter for the homeless. Its been noted that if the trial goes to plan, the organisation hopes to expand the project out into Melbourne and Sydney within the next 12 months.Though a good solution, it poses the question: why must private institutions provide these services when the provision of public housing should be the work of our governments? It is also a risk to entrust such a project to a private organisation that also relies on corporate help, when corporations have such a large role in the displacement of homeless people in the first place.Its like a game of once you see it. Once noticed, the effects of defensive urban designs and the root causes become clear to you in chilling layers of inequity. I can no longer see, nor appreciate, the aesthetics of the plants under the City Road footbridge in the same way. Nor am I able to sit on a public bench without acknowledging the privilege that I am granted in such spaces. But this is nothing compared to the insidious effects they have on a societys most vulnerable people. When cities are constructed for the benefit of those who can adhere to an idealised vision of an unblemished cityscape, the definition of urban diversity narrows, and so does our sense of morality.Hostile architecture not only points to the problem of structural discrimination and systemic injustice, but also exposes the incidental complacency, ignorance and prejudice that hides beneath our social preconceptions and attitudes. Our cities need more inclusive spaces, and for those in power to directly address social inequalities rather than simply sweeping them out of sight.Urban dwellers need to resist the pleasantries of ignorance. At the end of the day, it is all about taking the first step. An acknowledgement that all spaces are equal, but some are more equal than others.Look around. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You are immediately hit with a sense of grandeur upon first sighting the University of Sydneys New Law School. An expanse of green, geometric lawns sprawls out from the thoroughfare of Eastern Avenue to reveal a multi-levelled glass bridge, flanked on both ends by what appear to be stacks of orange shipping containers. All of it is seemingly suspended midair, frozen somehow in a state of perfect stasis. Cast your gaze below this floating glass prism and you see a lush window of Victoria Park. Cast your gaze above, and you see the Sydney skyline sparkling in the distance through the glass, tinted blue by the sky. In front of it all, rising from the lawns and into the sky, is a gracefully arched silver tower, its steel shell reflecting the colour of its surroundings with a distinct, metallic sheen. It splices this vision of glass and grass like an alien spaceship that has crash-landed on campus. But before you can piece together how this silver tower fits in with the rest of the building, the illusion is broken. A group of builders in high-vis vests surround the tower, some on the ground and others hoisted in the air by a crane. Although a spectacular sight from afar, up close you realise that the building is very much under maintenance.* * *Completed in 2009 by Australian design studio Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (fjmt), the New Law School building triumphantly asserted the presence of the Law School on the main campus. Previously, it had been located right at the heart of the Sydney CBD, directly across the Federal and High Court in a 16-storey building which featured a games room and two squash courts. During the move to the main campus, the then dean of the school Gillian Triggs, while somewhat reserved in her praise for the building (prefacing it with her belief that law could be taught in a barn) wrote that the new building presented an unprecedented opportunity to offer legal education for contemporary global legal practice. In the end, fjmts design beat out over 40 other entries in an international design competition. With its glass panes and timber blinds, it was celebrated by the wider architectural community with a whole suite of awards, cementing its success at redefining and reinterpreting the architectural dialectic between city and campus, as fjmt had said it would.So it would be a surprise, then, to learn that a decade since its completion, the Law Building is being used as a very different type of pedagogical tool in a first year architectural technologies unit as a case-study about what not to do when designing a building.When approached for an interview, Michael Muir, the coordinator of the unit, was initially hesitant to criticise the building, writing in an email that it was an ambitious project, and that aiming high means you have further to fall.They had a red hot go. Architecture is a tough business, he concluded.However, in person, Muir is much more open about his thoughts on the New Law Building. While he praises it for its presence on Eastern Avenue, he very quickly gets to one of the buildings main problems the heat.Its a long thin building facing east and west, and what happens in any building facing west is that you get a lot of sun in the afternoon. It might be 35 degrees and then you get six to seven hours of sun. It just gets hammered.Indeed, anyone who has tried to use the foyers in the building to enjoy a sunny day will quickly find themselves in something resembling a greenhouse. No matter how stunning the views are, of the city skyline or the campus sandstones, most eventually give up and retreat to the dreary confines of the law library below, defeated by the harsh sunlight that makes viewing their laptop screens almost impossible.In many ways, fjmt had anticipated this problem, which would have been obvious the moment they saw the topography of the site. They encoded a solution into the design through a system of timber louvres, which give the building its signature shipping container look. These adjustable blinds block out the harsh glare and heat of the low eastern and western sun while preserving and directing views when seated within, fjmt wrote. However, although Muir commends the louvres for the beautiful contrast they create with the glass, he says that the system is ultimately for nought as the glass itself is not protected with other materials.Less obvious than the external structure of the building are the problems emanating from its internal ventilation system. Originally, fjmt had proposed a design that would draw in and control natural air circulating through and around the interior, tempering the environment to cool and heat as necessary. They intended to do so through glass pane windows which, like the louvres, could be slanted open, creating two separate openings one on the top and one on the bottom. The idea was for cool air to go into each floor from the bottom opening, and then leave from the top. However, Muir points out many problems with this system the first being that air simply doesnt move in the way the model supposes it to. Inherent in the design is a confidence that the air, brought in by wind, will leave a room from the same side it entered. However, in the absence of any cross-ventilation, air just doesnt turn 180 degrees by itself.Air goes in and out of each floor, but gets hotter each time it does so, as shown in the diagram. Art by Lauren Moore.I use that as an example to try and convince students that the air moves like water. You dont see water go into a room and go back out again, it flows! he says.Combined with the small size of the openings in the windows, Muir says that only a tiny amount of air ever leaves each floor. But even if there was a way to redirect a sizeable amount of air out the same side from which it came, the ventilation system still wouldnt work. Muir explains that the assumption that cool air enters each floor is illogical. As the model itself supposes, hot air leaves each floor from the top. The problem is, when hot air leaves the top of each floor, it doesnt just disappear, but wafts into the floor above through the bottom opening of the window. So the air that enters the next floor is slightly hotter than the stream of air that entered the floor below. Accordingly, by the time the air ascends to the top floor, it carries three storeys worth of heat generated by human activity and sunA lot of air conditioning had to be retrofitted into that top floor it became really clear soon after the completion that it was completely uninhabitable, Muir adds.Law students might see similarities between this current fact scenario and a revision problem question for Torts and Contract II set out in the unit outline. Originally from the 2015 final exam, the question describes a contract between a building company and a health care enterprise for a new hospital which promises ventilating shafts to enable the circulation of air and the escape of hot air, drawing in cool air from a series of underground tunnels. Unfortunately, in the first summer after construction is completed, temperatures soar in the top floor, making it unusable, meaning they have to spend an additional $200,000 on air conditioning.In an email, Barbara McDonald, a professor at the Sydney Law School, confirms both that air conditioning had to be retrofitted, and also that the Law School has drawn inspiration from the whole situation for exam questions. However, McDonald is wary of placing all the blame on the architects.Many defects might arise out of the construction and maintenance of the building, or budget driven alterations to the design, rather than the original design itself.Indeed, looking at who ultimately bore the costs suggests that the builders were more culpable than the architects. While the original builder, Baulderstone, was acquired by Lead Lease in 2013, a university spokesperson stated that the latter agreed to inherit and accept all liability for the repairs.Muir, however, says that the problem of liability is probably more complex than what the resolution implies.There would be two sides to the story. One side would be the builders saying it wasnt worked out properly, the other side would be the architects saying the builders didnt do it properly.One particular sore point for the builders, he points out, came from the sheer complexity of the buildings facades. While the building looks like a floating rectangular prism on first glance (or prima facie, as law students would say), walking around it reveals that it has much more than six sides and is more of a collection of prisms stuck together than a single box. In contrast to the neighbouring Fisher Library, which is a proper rectangular box whose sides are largely the same, Muir estimates that there are more than 20 different sides to the law building despite it only being six storeys tall, and that many of these sides would have required different treatments and techniques to build.Theres nothing a builder likes more than doing one thing five hundred times over and over. Five hundred things once is a bit of a worry.The glass facade of the New Law Building.However, looking at the other competition designs, it seems that the builders would have had a hard time building the Law School regardless of which architects had been chosen.One of the other proposed designs featured sports stadium-like structures with a courtyard garden in the middle. Another showcased two buildings which, like continents torn apart by tectonic movements, are separated from each other to reveal a large forecourt in the rift. McDonald, who was on the six-person panel that chose the winning design, said that she strongly believed fjmt presented the best design, as it had been the only one that made use of the sloping site, and fulfilled the Universitys desire to open up the main campus to Victoria Park.She is, of course, referring to the spatial opening and stairs underneath the suspended glass structure. Hailed with almost messianic terms in fjmts design statement as a new entry to the university, with the splintered form fragments above, extending wide like an open door or hand that gestures invitation, there is indeed an alluring, sylvan intimacy of having Victoria Park so open to Eastern Avenue. A window in this corridor of buildings, students are presented with a calming, verdant vista of a different world, one where exams and readings can be swapped for a picnic blanket and a book you actually want to read. Tempted by it all, you walk down the grand set of stairs, under the glass bridge, and into the park only to be greeted by a rusted fence that obstructs you from a lunchtime spent under the shade of ancient fig trees.A gate was opened to join the Law Building with Victoria Park in 2018.That is, of course, if that scenario had played out before 2018. There is now a welcoming pause in the boundary fence thanks to a newly opened gate, guarded on each end by sandstone pillars relocated from City Road. But before it was built, students would have been greeted with a massive, architectural anti-climax where the park would be highly visible, but completely inaccessible. Original plans of the building show two gravel paths which join the campus with the park, but according to a University spokesperson, this was never officially endorsed. The reasons why are unclear. While a conservation report released by the University in 2002 did identify that the fence was situated in a sensitive site with regards to Indigenous archeology, it concluded after an inspection that any deposits would have been too disturbed by past constructions of roadways and parking lots to be intact. Muir believes the architects simply never received council approval for it, but adds that the building makes much more sense now that a gate exists.Moving inside the building, you are greeted by another set of problems. In some classrooms, tutorials are accompanied by the incessant dripping of leaking water, while in others, law students are transported back to the frenzied nights they spent in dark European nightclubs on exchange because they quite literally smell of smoke. Ironically, beside the moot courts, the most pedagogical part of the buildings interior seems to be the litany of potential torts waiting to happen. Sure, theyd probably injure a student, but theyd also give them a valuable real-world demo of what they study in class. For example, back in 2016, a sizeable part of the building was fenced off due to fears that parts of the ceiling would fall onto a student.At the heart of the building is the Turnbull Foundation Reading Room located in the library. Some affectionately call it Daddys reading room, others spitefully the cone of shame. While deeply polarising, this space holds an almost mythologised position in the culture of the Sydney Law School, so much so that you can almost glean what people think about their law degree based on what they think of it.Its nice and tranquil, one student says.Its oppressively silent, another retorts.Likewise, McDonald is a big fan of it, but Muir says it was a missed opportunity.Its a lot of work for just 20 people to sit in. he says.Walking inside, you cant deny how spectacular the spires pristine white walls and cathedral-tall ceilings are when sunlight pours in from the huge skylight. Unfortunately, light is not the only thing that pours in, and the reading room is plagued by perennial leakage problems that seem to arise every time it rains. So bad is the problem that it seems to have been shut off from use since the start of this year.The Law Library reading room under repair.* * *Despite the painstaking efforts fjmt went about to create a collegiate place of learning that would be open, inviting, responsive and supportive, their control in fostering such a space stopped with the buildings completion. While they can shape our experience through manipulating design elements, students and staff ultimately determine how the building is experienced, and the place it holds in campus culture. Former Dean Gillian Triggs had hoped that the new building would allow the Law School to hold clinical units on campus, aimed at giving students the opportunity to provide pro-bono legal advice to marginalised members of the community, much like UNSWs Kingsford Legal Centre. Unfortunately, this has not happened. While the school started offering social justice units in 2011, they are conducted at nearby legal centres rather than in the building itself.Interestingly, in other ways, the building has been a victim of its own success.While McDonald is a great believer in the buildings merits, she bemoans that the glass foyers never became the indoor gathering space they were originally intended to be. Far from being caused by lighting and heating problems, McDonald says the sun-filled space was so popular with university administration as a venue space for events that it became constantly booked out, preventing students from using it and developing a culture around it.It usually looks like an airport lounge at 2am with no passengers. Empty, characterless and cold.Irregardless, she says the best feature of the design, one which compelled her to choose it, is that it pushed the learning spaces and library underground, opening up a huge expanse for the now famous law lawns, which has become a prominent watering hole for students. Muir says that the buildings leakage problems ultimately stem from it being underground, which complicates the waterproofing process, but agrees that the lawn is a very successful part of the building. Walking down Eastern Avenue on a sunny day, it seems law students agree. However, when asked whether he thought the architects were successful overall in realising their ambition, Muir pauses to think before smiling.If I look around the university, the best space is still the Quadrangle, he says.However, it does a much better job than that weird thing on Eastern Avenue which has been recently built. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are three women across three generations in my family my grandaunt, my mother, and I who all left home for university at the age of 18, each at vastly different times in China. We tell different stories.1957 XiaolinXiaolin is my grandaunts pet name. She is the sister of my mothers father. I call her Laogu in Chinese. Until her, no one in my family had been to university.Back then, she was the cute one in the family. She was not tall, and she had big eyes and beautiful long black hair. Her journey began in Chenghai, a small town in southern China which sits by the sea and a place I still consider my hometown. She was leaving for a city called Guangzhou after 18 years in Chenghai. The two places were 500 kilometres from each other. But without a plane or train, the trip took more than 10 hours.1957 is a year that makes little sense to me. It is a world so distant from my own that I struggle to form a picture of what it looked like and how the move must have felt.My grandaunt says it was an era when men and women did not have equal rights. Things had changed by the time my mother and I were born. When she was younger, she saw many girls married off at young ages. Many of them didnt live happy lives. Many suffered domestic abuse.Those girls tried to run away from their husbands and return to their parents home. But it was forbidden. Their family would ask them to keep living with their husbands. There was no solution. The only choice they had was to accept it, and tolerate it.Education was my only way out, my grandaunt told me.But that was not easy.She started primary school when she was 10. She went through junior high and managed to get into the best high school in my hometown. She doesnt tell me exactly how she did it, but work hard is a common refrain in her wisdom and life advice.I wasnt a smart kid, but I did try to work hard, she says. And because there were only a few girls in my high school, we all thought we needed to work extra harder to show each other that there was actually a way out.She graduated from high school in 1957. In a stroke of luck, that was five years after China first established the college entrance exam. The exam gave rural students, like my grandaunt, an opportunity to gain higher education.So my grandaunt took the exam. It gave her the chance to leave Chenghai for the provincial capital of Guangzhou to study at university.On the day she left home, it was my grandpa, her older brother, who sent her off.Remember, dont put your head out of the window, said my grandpa.My grandaunt says these are the only words from my grandpa that she can remember from the farewell that day. It was a quiet departure, absent of the hugs that one associates with relatives leaving here in the West. But in one way, my grandpas words meant everything. In my own memory, my grandpa had the characteristics that occupied all male family members of his generation: he was responsible, supportive and organized; a serious man who cared about the family. The family was his lifes cause. He did everything for its health and longevity.But he would never admit to that. Words like I love you and Im gonna miss you were not in the instinctive vernacular of traditional Chinese families.This truth applies to me as well. Back at home, I have never had the courage to say I love you in Chinese to my family. That is the Chinese side of me.1987 YingyingYingying is my mothers pet name. 30 years after my grandaunt, she made the same trip from Chenghai to Guangzhou, also at the age of 18.Her dormitory room at Sun Yat-sen University was in an old building. It was hot. She arrived in the middle of a record heatwave. There was no fan in the room.At that time, I thought Guangzhou was the furthest place I could ever go, my mother told me. Shes telling me this over the phone. The last time I saw her was several months ago. Shes aged. Time has crafted some wrinkles on her face. But there are parts of her which have remained unchanged too. She still has short hair, a round face and a penchant for simple clothing. She is the same height as me.On the precipice of internal migration, my mother uprooted a comfortable and stable life for a new and uncertain one. She never imagined that Guangzhou would later become a place where she studied, worked and lived. Guangzhou is the city where I grew up.My mother got her chance to go to university through the college entrance exam as well. In those 30 years between my grandaunt and mother going to university, China underwent the Cultural Revolution. Between 1967 and 1977, the college entrance exam was cancelled. Aspiring students of this period were left behind, a lost generation.My mothers time feels clearer to me than my grandaunts, in part, because there is more data available for that period. In 1987, based on statistics compiled by Sina Education, there were 2.28 million students taking the same college entrance exam across the country as my mother. But only 0.62 million, 27 per cent of them passed the exam and had a chance to go to a university.My mother was lucky: she was born in a convenient time, she passed the exam, she entered her dream school and ended up studying her dream major. More importantly, she had a family who was able to support her four-year degree, a financial burden that most families couldnt bear in those years.As she left home, it was also my grandpa who saw my mother off on a bus. The station was not far away from home. It took them only 15 minutes to get to the station by bike.Your grandpa and grandma wanted me to bring everything, my mother says. My mother was planning to study an English major. My grandparents permitted her to take the only radio at home.My mother ended up carrying two huge suitcases with her, but there were no wheels on my bags, shesaid to me. Then she laughed and feigned jealousy over the more expensive suitcases I use when I travel now.Luck did not make leaving home easier. It basically means you left home forever, she says.China has a system in which people register their residency as a family, called hukou. When my mother moved, her residency status was altered from Chenghai to Guangzhou. Chinas political institutions continue to guarantee that once a person leaves home, they do so not just geographically or emotionally but also officially, bringing with it the emotional baggage inherent to all migration: a sense of undefeatable displacement and loss of belonging.Even though my mother wrote letters to her family every week, returned home once a year and received money from the family, the fact that she has not been an official family member on the residency paper continues to make her sad now, more than 30 years later. The change of residency made her lose her spot in the family and with it, her birthright and a part of her identity.It takes me a while to make sense of this contradiction in her mind. She has been living in Guangzhou for more than 30 years. She no longer feels like she belongs in Chenghai. In effect, the symbolism of Chenghai in her life no longer provides any practical comfort anymore. When we return to Chenghai for Spring Festival every year, she looks uncomfortable when we are forced to sit and maintain conversation at a dinner table with extended family members. My mother, father and I have become accustomed to a small family and returning to Chenghai, where an extended family resides, can be jarring for us all.But even if my mother has now lived in Guangzhou far longer than Chenghai, she still cant move on from the loss of home. Her nostalgia for Chenghai never disappeared, neither in 1987 nor now. I suspect those feelings will be with her forever. On the day she left home, just before she boarded the bus, my grandpa reminded her: Remember, dont put your head out of the window,Across 30 years, my grandpa who sent my grandaunt and mother off with the exact same words.It was not until recently, when my mother went to visit my grandaunt, that they discovered this fact. It was more than a coincidence. Both could only remember this single sentence. Everything else my grandpa had said on the day had been blurred by the incessant march of time.My grandpa proved to be the backbone of two generations of my family. He sent the girls in the family out for university, but lived his whole life in Chenghai, clinging onto the preservation of a place called home, and waiting for them to come back.2017My turn came two years ago.I am certainly the luckiest of us three. That much is apparent from the financial support my parents provide me and the opportunity of higher education given to me.I was 18 when I left Guangzhou to come to Sydney for university. Like many in my shoes, this was my first time being that far away from home, on my own, and for such a long time.My parents came to the airport with me and we went through the check-in process together. At the entry to the departure gate, we were silent. I didnt cry. That moment felt stunningly normal, as if I would return a week later, unchanged.This is my family. We never say goodbye in a cheesy way.But it was surprising that my mother asked for a hug. That was the first time we had hugged in around a decade. I gave her a big hug, even though it was probably awkward.If anything happens, just a phone call and a flight ticket and I will be there with you,That was the last thing my mother told me before I went on my flight. The words offered comfort, but I didnt give them a second thought, until later, when the full extent of the 7500 kilometres between us became obvious. I said goodbye and walked through the departure gate.I didnt look back. I was not brave enough to see how I would feel if I did. Looking back was an admission that I would miss them more. I didnt give in to it. And so, the responsibility and burden of missing someone was left on my parents as they watched me walk away. Three times Ive returned to Sydney after university breaks. Three times Ive I kept that habit and never looked back.I feel sad in my heart, my mother tells me when I ask her how the cycle of separations and reunions make her feel. Parents will naturally think that it is the best and safest for their child to stay at home, next to them.Meanwhile, she convinced herself that in fact, it was a good thing for me to have a chance to study abroad. You miss your child when she leaves home, but if she cant leave home, that would also be a problem, right? she asks, seeking assurance. My mother was the one who was leaving home those 30 years ago, but when 2017 came, it was her turn to send her daughter off.What were my parents thinking about back then, when I left home? my mother asks me. She knows I dont have the answer.After I walk through the departure gate, my mother and father have cultivated their own habits. They find a place in the airport to sit down and grab some food, and then they begin to wait. They wait until they see my flight take off. Theyve done this every time Ive returned to Sydney in the past three years. They have a three out of three success rate.Every time you leave and we go back home, it feels a little different. We see different things at home every time after sending you off, my mother starts to murmur. It sounds like crying.She uses the word different to substitute sad to convince me, and herself, that she is totally fine with me not being at home. But we both know we are not as fine as we pretend to be.I dont know whether you still remember or not. I once told you if anything happens, just a phone call and a flight ticket and I will be there with you, says my mother. I tell her I remember.I also said those words to your grandparents, but I dont think I will say it to anyone else in the future, she says. One is the person who I gave birth to, one is the person who gave birth to me, these are the only people I will give those words to.Much like how my grandpa only said remember, dont put your head out of the window to his sister and daughter, my mother gave her words to her daughter and her parents.I have come to realise that these words were not merely for my comfort. They were a promise which carried weight. My grandaunt is over 80 years old now. She has lived in Chicago for nearly a decade now. Learning English and fitting into a new country has not been easy, but she seems to enjoy it. It was snowing in Chicago a month ago and all the trees were coated in snow. On her balcony, she discovered two birds had built a nest. Soon afterwards, there were three blue eggs. Every day, she makes a habit out of tidying the nest.My mother has lived in Guangzhou for more than 30 years. It is the place where she studied, found a job, got married and had me. I have fond memories of her waking at 6am and making breakfast. Shes retired now. The habit of getting up early lingers.Very soon, it will be the summer break again and I will be returning home. My mother jokes with me that every time my father and her go to the airport to pick me up, even though my father pretends to be calm, he stays on his feet, and wanders around the arrivals gates, waiting to spot me. He cant sit still and wait.I laugh and play along. But in fact, I cant wait either. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Women have always been present in the musical world, but they are seen far more than they are truly heard.According to a recent report by UK classical music label Drama Musicas DONNE: Women in Music, curated by soprano Gabriella Di Laccio, only 2.3 per cent of the works programmed by internationally acclaimed orchestras in the 2018-19 season were by female composers.In classes analysing the history of classical music education, Clara Schumann is mentioned first as the companion of Robert Schumann, and second as a performer and composer in her own right. Hildegard of Bingen is often presented as a great standalone. Augusta Holms, an extremely talented singer of the nineteenth century, accomplished pianist, prolific composer, was endlessly praised by Rossini, Liszt, and Saint-Sans in her time, but is now mainly celebrated only on classical music radio stations on International Womens Day.There are legendary musical women behind the great composersfamous examples are Mozarts sister, Nannerl, and Bachs second wife, Anna Magdalena. There are several articles calling for the recognition of female composers, but one must ask whether these sudden and infrequent resuscitations of historical female composers really do much to change the situation in the long term. While female-only groups and festivals are often the only way female composers and performers can be heard, there must be another way to integrate female composers into the mainstream of education and performance. They should be considered as composers of worth and without consideration of gender, for it does not benefit composers to celebrate them for their femaleness instead of their musical talent.Jazz is another main genre of institutionalised music study that shows extreme gender imbalances. A 2016 study of the top five American institutions of graduates in jazz study (University of North Texas, The New School, The New England Conservatory of Music, CUNY Queens College, and Berklee College of Music) found that only 17.5% of those students were female.While it is far more common to see female classical musicians at the Conservatorium, the numbers remain comparatively low in the professional world. A 2018 study of the worlds top orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, and Vienna Philharmonic, found that only 31 per cent of 2438 full-time orchestra members were female. The Vienna Philharmonic had the highest imbalanceperhaps most audibly distinctive orchestra in the world, which jealousy protected its sound by maintaining the lineage of its players, the orchestra didnt allow a woman to join until 1997. The London Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic are, to some relief, far closer to total equality.As an attempt to reduce gender bias, orchestras in the 1970s began to incorporate blind auditions, at least in the early stages. However, the problem of gender imbalances in music is present long before auditions and professional exposureit begins even when children choose their instruments.Brass instruments have long been considered a mans instrument. Instruments with a low pitch range, such as double bass, are also considered more masculine than higher pitched instruments, like the flute or violin. Indeed, the same study found that only one of 103 trumpet players in 22 orchestras was female. 94 per cent of harpists were female. There was also a heavier concentration of women in flute and violin.There is history to this: before and during the nineteenth century, women were discouraged from playing instruments that could potentially distort the face. Instruments thought to be unlady-like when played, like the cello, or too heavy or powerful, like the tuba, were also deemed inappropriate for female musicians. Additionally, brass instruments were associated with the military, and the loudness and range of the instruments was thought to represent masculinity. Women were considered more suited to higher-range instruments with softer tone qualities as a result. Amateur training in singing and music, usually piano, was also considered the hallmark of an accomplished woman.In some respects, this mentality continues today: girls might find themselves encouraged to be vocalists rather than horn players, to play wind instruments rather than brass, and compelled to learn melodic instruments over percussion. It is not just the problem of how we perceive women in music now, and the often narrow opportunities they have, but that they are limited by societal norms before they even begin.The gendering of instruments applies equally to jazz. Women are very rarely on stage or, if they are, theyre typically a vocalist at the front of the band. It often seems exceptional for a woman to be a horn player or part of the rhythm section, perhaps with the exception of being a pianist.In her article on professional female brass players, Mary Galime discusses how history perceives and remembers female players. She notes that with great trumpet players of history, such as Wynton Marsalis and Louis Armstrong, skills are highlighted quite beyond gender and more about quality: All these novelties have transcended gender because history has allowed them to, but this has not been the case for female brass players. While a gradual shift in mentality is currently underway, she says, with internationally respected musicians finally being appreciated for the music they are playing, and how they are playing, it is still typical that the players and the audience are constantly reminded that they are, in fact, female.I spoke to Abby Constable, a drummer in the Jazz Performance degree at the Conservatorium, about whether she had ever felt limited in opportunities.In my experience I have no difficulties in being booked for gigs. If anything, I think some people are drawn towards the novelty of a female drummer, and I could never be sure, but I think there are some gigs I may be more likely to get because of this fact. But this is honestly speculation. I wouldnt want to get a gig because Im female, I want it to be because they like my drumming.Often in musical situations where she is the only female present, she maintains that she experiences very little gender discrimination:99% of the musicians I have worked with have always treated me as a fellow musician the same as any other male on the bandstand. There has been only one situation in particular where I have felt quite uncomfortable and treated differently due to me being a young woman, and it was from an older male musician. I feel uncomfortable to speak out about it, also because I dont want to lose work but I have said something in the past and he kind of brushed it off and laughed. In situations like those I am hyper aware of the fact that I am not a male.Like any other fields, most of what we have about the female experience in music rests in anecdotes. In popular jazz bars in Manhattan, I spoke to recent jazz graduates of the Juilliard School of Music, who told me about a particularly female-excluding phrase, dick on the forehead swing. They told me that they were often instructed during gigs to play to the ladies. I remember one night a very accomplished singer was invited to join the band. But after the rest of the band members did their solos, and she had made the return to the head of the song, she was interrupted by the sax player, who continued his solo over her voice. It wasnt clear whether or not it was intentional, but she made a lighthearted face at the audience, who laughed. Afterwards, her responses to praise were self-deprecating even to my friend and me, when she asked us for a light outside.I spoke to Tiana Young, a vocal student in the Conservatorium jazz program. She began classical training at age ten and started singing with the Central Coast Little Big Band at age fourteen. She talked to me about the differences between the classical and jazz performance worlds:From where I was in my training, classical was beautiful, polished, and elegant. I performed in concerts with orchestras and musicians who were poised, focused perfectionists. These concerts and competitions were serious affairs and the response to successful ones was equally formal, and somewhat reserved.At the same time, my experience with jazz was highly different. To me the music was much more relatable, raw, sometimes sexy, and much less postured. The lyrics of the songs were emotional responses to personal experiences (from my perspective) and as such, audience connection always felt more raw and close. Performance spaces were smaller, more intimate, but the response to success in jazz always seemed huge and equally raw.So as far as the negative experience, I have definitely had my fair share of sexualisation by older men in explicitly jazz musical contexts which is inappropriate in my work environment but I feel that this is a product both of the male dominated space, and the raw, exposed nature of the medium: no boundaries, both literally youre right up with the audience and metaphorically. This was present on the Central Coast where I grew up, Sydney, and Germany so Id say its safe to describe that as a fairly universal experience.On being a woman in a male dominated space, she said: I still have to remind myself that my voice as a vocalist and as a woman is just as important as the boys and that in an ideal setting a woman should be able to be as sexy or not sexy as she wants and not get treated as an object or as inferiorBut unfortunately lines become blurred and because its such a chill genre, perhaps compared at first glance to classical, I find that people push buttons a lot more.Its common in jazz for improvised solos to be competitive and to cut other players. I asked her about this, and she said: Yeah, but guys have the privileged position to take the heat, whereas us chicks are sometimes already 10 feet behind.Steph Russell, a recent vocal graduate of the jazz program, offered another perspective.Yes, I think singers are always treated differently to instrumentalists, but I think its hard to be treated the same. We just have completely different outlets for our creativity and we prioritise different things, such as lyrics, feeling and performance.On the increasing awareness of women in jazz, she said: From my first day at uni to my last day, I saw a big shift in the way I was treated, slowly becoming less intimidated and more comfortable within myself as well, which is a big factor. And in terms of the female to male ratio I dont really mind which gender I play with, whoever I find the most enjoyable to play with and the most friendly thats who Ill book.And one great aspect about being the singer: we get to choose the band 90% of the time.Whatever the individual skill of a female jazz singer, she is often sexualised for her image rather than appreciated for her knowledge. An academic article by Stang Dahl in 1964 referred to female jazz singers as the canary of a band an appealing female vocalist could attract greater audiences and promote the bands while bringing business to the venue. Musically, the role of the singer was to interpret and convey the lyrics, not to improvise, and since improvising is a hallmark of jazz, this would create a ranking between the members.There is no doubt about the skill and talent of famed singers throughout history, like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, which seemed to transcend that fact that they were female. Front of the band, the First Lady of Song and Lady Day, and several other vocalists, were pioneering figures. An entire generation of famous jazz musicians can be linked back to one woman: Mary Lou Williams, a pianist of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. An exceptionally skilled performer, she also wrote hundreds of songs for Duke Ellington, and helped train household names like Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. While she is not totally forgotten, such women seem to stand alone in history as exceptions and not part of the norm.A woman of colour in jazz would have also faced far greater disadvantages although jazz came from African-American communities in New Orleans, women were still excluded. It wasnt until the peak of the womens suffrage movement in the 1920s, and the development of the liberated Jazz Age woman figure, that women began to be recognised in jazz communities. Bessie Smith, for instance, was an early vocalist that inspired later generations of jazz singers. Several female jazz musicians were activists for gender or racial equality, often both. In 1964, Nina Simone performed at Carnegie Hall to an all-white audience. She sang Mississippi Goddam, a song about the racial injustices of African-Americans in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Another instance of jazz aligning with the Civil Rights Movement, happening at the same time, was Billie Holidays song Strange Fruit, a disturbed vision of lynching:Southern trees bear a strange fruitBlood on the leaves and blood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the poplar treesIn this sense, jazz became a platform with great potential to express both gender and race issues, and continues to have that potential. In October 2018, Berklee launched the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. The website states:The jazz industry remains predominantly male due to a biased system, imposing a significant toll on those who aspire to work in itThe goal of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice is to do corrective work and modify the way jazz is perceived and presented, so that the future of jazz looks different than its past without rendering invisible many of the art forms creative contributors.Institute is key by sincerely studying womens contributions to jazz history as part of an institution, alongside female educators, we are far more likely to see permanent change. Without any question of talent, it is hard to deny that female musicians have to work much harder to prove themselves in an environment that has adapted to benefit men. In the past, female groups would have been the only platform for female musicians to perform music. A group like Sydneys Young Womens Jazz Orchestra is valuable in that it alerts us to new ideas, rejects that certain types of music can only be performed well by men, and sets up the path for new young musicians, but still there is the problem of being on the sidelines. As Galime says, there is a fine line between possessing a quality that brings meaning and is remembered and being a novelty item that is cheaply bought, and momentarily appreciated.What music of all genres needs is a platform where female composers and musicians are granted the same institutional respect as males. It is not enough to have brief moments of respect for female musicians this quickly becomes a matter of simply being female rather than focusing on the merits of their music, and this is more detrimental in the long run to true cultural appreciation of women. Sometimes we are hopeful about the situation, and told that things are getting better. But it hardly means much when some of the greatest institutions of jazz, such as New Yorks Jazz at Lincoln Centre, still have no permanently employed women in the band. Emma Grace Stephenson, a jazz pianist currently living in New York, put it simply in a 2017 blog post:I get some opportunities because I am a young female, and reasonably good at what I do AND there are some opportunities that I dont get, because I am a young female, despite being reasonably good at what I do.It is a difficult situation to navigate: on the one hand, women are evidently excluded from institutions of music, but also most women would not want to be given the opportunity simply because they are women. It will always be better to be known simply as a great musician than a great female musician. The canon of Western male composers is cemented in classical music culture already but what we can change is the gendering of instruments, the balance of the sexes on stage, how we look at history, and perhaps most importantly, becoming undoubtedly skilled in whatever instrument in whichever genre of music. Women need to be incorporated into the mainstream of study and performance so that the quality and respect of their work transcends gender. Change begins with our institutions, so that a world of music that transcends gender is the one to be canonised in future history. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Nc cMurky WatersIn April I began writing poems to sound out my Vietnamese-Australian existence, and naturally they became about my father, my b. The unsaid words Id swallowed like fishbones found their way into the crooked lines. I have always felt a desire to understand why I feel so displaced in intimate spaces like my home, and disoriented amongst people dear to me like my family. And so, I went about writing and writing in an effort to find the answers within myself.My tutor called the collection of poems stoical, emitting a low level of sorrow. I have come to realise that my unspoken trauma seems to be inherited from my parents; their suffering so intricately tethered to mine. There is a Vietnamese proverb that reads i cha n mn, i con kht nc. When the father eats salt, the child thirsts for water. But it is hard to detail its depths when all I have are fragmented memories, and the aftermath of their personal experiences. And so, my resentment has given way to a desire to discover what has been purposefully cast away. To take what is as much mine as it is theirs.My most lucid childhood memory is our trip to the Family Court. I remember entering the courtroom with my mother, my me, and holding her fragile, pale hand before two tall, well-dressed men insisted I remain outside. I was escorted to the playpen to sit on fraying grey carpet with the other children around a set of fading building blocks. I am not sure if I had truly known what divorce was at the time. Id still find my father having Saturday afternoon naps on my brothers single bed, and sleeping on our couch early on Sunday mornings.As a child, my memories of my father were categorised into three types: him sleeping, him drunk, and him arguing with my mother. The first was often the aftermath of the latter two.There is a fair amount of footage of him dozing in our home videos. It seemed like it was all he ever did. At the sight of him sleeping, my older brother and I used the familys bulky film camera to capture his disgruntled expressions and drew on his face with whiteboard markers. Me would scold us for our actions. My a ny! His soul wont recognise him and itll become lost!It upsets me that these are the memories Ive held onto for a lifetime. B was hardly home, and when he wasnt arguing with me, it seemed like he was barely even physically present. And when I think about it now, I pity the younger me whose fathers absence in her childhood is reflected by his sleeping self. The role which I understood fathers to play in their childs life was instead fulfilled by my single mother, whose days and nights were dedicated to working twice as hard and loving us twice as much. As I watched her shoulder this burden on her own, the beginnings of resentment began bubbling inside me. I decided that I would love her twice as much, and what feelings I had left for my father would be bitten off, chewed on, and spat out.After I started high school, I only saw b on the weekends. Hes still your father, me would insist in response to my disdain and dismissal, you still need to see him. After all those years, she was still packing her cooking into plastic containers for him. He and I would sit across from one another and eat lunch, leaving our words unspoken and gorging ourselves on steak and dissatisfaction instead.Until my mother got extremely sick.I was 17 and my brother was 23, then. I sat still against the hard, plastic chair, my short legs barely grazing the ground. I remember counting the tiles that made up the hospitals white floors, and then counting my fathers frantic footsteps. His hard heels slapped the ground as he entered the hospital, and simultaneously re-entered my life as a permanent fixture.The first year without me at home was cold. It was my last year of high school my thighs chafed and yellow stains bloomed at the armpits of my white blouses. I only caught glimpses of my father in non-places the car, the hallway, the apartment elevator. With my door shut, we knew only of each others muffled existences. His feet padded down the corridors and the constant dialogue resounding from the TV was my reminder that he was there, being. I am not sure when I grew accustomed to his presence. But as time passed and I began to brood more and more about my own loneliness, I became curious about his too.Lam con l g?What does it mean to be a child?Lam (verb): To do, to undertakeAs May arrives, I schedule a meeting with Dr Lien Pham, a sociology lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, whose interests are in the language and identity of diaspora.I am swept up by the Autumn breeze as I hurry to meet with Dr Lien at a UTS caf. We choose a high table and sit on chairs that leave my feet far from the ground. I tell her honestly that Im not sure what I want from this talk, although I prepared frantically for our meeting, having read about how trauma lies in the memories we choose to share and those we dont. I ask her to define this disconnect and detachment the intergenerational trauma that I do not have the words to communicate.Ill give you an example through my experience then, Lien begins. She draws a horizontal line with her index finger across the table as she explains that for her, intergenerational trauma is found in the way her family has carried through a brokenness that can only be blamed on the disruption and separation brought about by the war. She tells me that becoming a refugee, staying in the camp for a prolonged amount of time and adjusting to a different lifestyle and culture had shattered her family dynamic. The family broke, she states firmly. We lost the focus. In their pursuit of freedom and of life, they had sacrificed the family unit. All of us went our separate ways in terms of who we are, she says. We became individualist.I feel a familiar emptiness rock me as we mull over how memories can remain shamefully foreign, even between people bonded by both blood and proximity. It pushes me to ask her what aspects of the trauma have carried through to her children. I see they are very much individualistic, she says quite easily. We dont go to family get-togethers every week so they dont see that collectiveness. They dont have that very collective big overall family to rely on, and I [can] see them become very individualistic.Individualism is a concept that is particular to the Western world. I too am aware that the conventional Vietnamese family experience is a more collective one, although I am not a part of one myself. A wave of empathy rushes over me as Lien recalls the rising and falling of her family life. What her family could have been has been brought to a standstill by the trauma, and whats left seems to be hidden within dull waters.What also intrigues me is her position as someone who shares both the experiences of the generation before and after her. It is a conflict that is distinctly shared by first-generation immigrants constantly negotiating between their past and present selves as they aspire to be the best children for their parents, and the best parents for their children. Although she expresses her unhappiness about her childrens lack of collectivist experiences, since Lien arrived in Australia when she was only eight, she also shares to some degree their experience of individualist Western culture.Im caught in the middle, she says. My mum strongly believes in the collective but in a very old-fashioned and very traditional Vietnamese way yet I have children who I cant demand that from because they dont see those values. I realise how easy it is to feel estranged from ourselves and the collective.As we bid each other farewell, I feel in her eyes a desperate encouragement to ask questions about my own family experiences. It seems that the most significant thing in understanding intergenerational trauma is recognising how personal it is. I sense a common understanding between us that the only way is to prod. Perhaps I can, I think to myself. After having bumped into these feelings again and again in my studies of transcultural conversations and postcolonialism, it feels only right for me to tread through these waters.V thng, v b thngAbout love, about woundsThng (Verb): To loveThng (Noun): To be injured, to be woundedIt is a Sunday and we are having Yum Cha at the Golden Palace Seafood Restaurant in Cabramatta, when a question about his refugee experience falls from my lips. Dad had enthusiastically agreed to the interview a week before, following my interview with Lien. It feels like the right moment; my eyes dart from the tables red and pink dcor to the rattling food carts as I await his response. My fathers eyes shine like crystal currents, intrigued. Yet he still says, Not right now. Its too loud in here.His voice is earnest. I accept it and place a prawn dumpling in my mouth, its skin scorching my palate. But suddenly, he starts speaking almost subconsciously about his journey.Unlike my mother who came here by airplane after marrying my father, B was a refugee who came to Australia during the depths of the war, living in the jungles of Cambodia for nine months before sailing away from the motherland at 16.My eyes mirror his. What do you want to know? he asks.When I prod about his first memories in Australia, he describes leaving the migration centre dressed in Red Cross donations with a belly full of begrudgingly eaten Australian food. My uncles had arrived a year earlier, as my grandmother had wanted to separate her sons to ensure that she would have at least one boy left with her at the end of it all. When I ask him if he knows of his brothers experiences, he tells me they have never spoken about it.I have felt the slick oozing tension between my father and his siblings. He is the youngest, and they bully and undermine him I have heard it in the tone of their phone calls, felt it seep through the doors of my grandmothers house.Although his words drip with anguish, they hold no blame. It is a strange unconditional love borne of obligation and tied by collective loss that is deeply familiar. B dont have the kind of [close] relationship with both of my brothers. Just because we never had a chance to grow up together.And yet, he constantly reminds me that they love me in ways I do not know.At the tail-end of my grandmothers life, she suffered from dementia and my dads eldest sister sacrificed her life and career to care for their mother. She has no family of her own. Whenever I visited my ba ni, my aunt handed me slippers at the door to wear inside, and pushed me into the vintage floral chair beside my grandmothers bed. Once seated, she forced a red envelope containing a $50 dollar note into my hand. Keep it, she shouted, and I thanked her in Vietnamese. But my aunt would often go long periods of time avoiding my father, without telling him what he did wrong. And when that happened, it meant my b wouldnt visit. I didnt spend a lot of time with my parents, like her, he mutters, slick with regret. But she sacrificed everything, so we have to appreciate that we have to.As much as my father became absent from my familys life after the divorce, it seems he was also absent from his own. He concedes he was irresponsible. But perhaps I can empathise with being a Vietnamese-Australian, and having to be twice more Vietnamese and twice more Australian than the ordinary Vietnamese or Australian. To always have to need to be rather than merely be is a suffocating burden for the immigrant.Nc trong (C cn hn khng)Clear waters (Something is better than nothing)We sit in silence in the car after we finish lunch. When we pull into our driveway, he drifts into his memories of his first day out of the migration centre. After my uncles came to get him, they brought him back to their two-bedroom unit, where he slept on the couch. B was with your uncles for five to seven years, he says. B was living like that. I recall all the times I watched his still form dozing on the couch throughout my childhood. It seems to have become his place of solace.Before we get out of the car, I ask him if he has any last words. Surviving is surviving, but you need to have quality time with your family. I wonder whether he is reminding me or himself.In an eager bid to understand my own conflicts about family ties and the pain associated with familial responsibilities, I have unknowingly delved into his. It remains true that I have inherited the tensions of the Vietnamese-Australian diaspora like heirlooms, daintily woven with pain and sorrow and tied meticulously by obligation. The fog draped river has left me resentful of my fathers ongoing emotional absence from my life and the expectations he projects onto me as his daughter, a granddaughter and a niece of a broken family. But I am unlearning my default instinct to remain silent in an act of obedience, and am realising that the obligation to my family that I have always shouldered, is one that is far beyond me and my capabilities. And as I walk underneath my fathers shadow that stretches long across me, I no longer assume the shapes it makes, but use the fragmented images my father has begun to show me to weave it accurately.As of today, my father and I no longer creep around each other. In the way he packs my lunch and ends his text messages with love u, I can tell he is compensating for the experiences that he once missed. And so, I allow myself to embrace the warmth that I feel in my chest towards him. At times, I still bear a stoic resignation towards him and his ideals, but I now know that he was robbed of understanding his identity as a father, a son, a brother and as his own individual person. Being a Vietnamese-Australian, he is caught between the spirit of collectiveness and individuality in spaces so intimate to his identity. And perhaps in plummeting into his murky waters, I have become tender to his traumas and tender to my own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The tradition of the spoken word has existed across aeons with the retelling of stories of creation myths and talking animals, of great dynasties and god-killers, of star-crossed lovers and poisoned goblets. Indian folklore talks of the bards recounting epics like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, of the romantic verses of the ghazal. These stories and more have been immortalised in the verses by Sufi poets like Amr Khusrau Dehlav, who was a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, and classical Sanskrit author Klidsa. These stories have been told in Arabic, Brajbhasha, Persian, and Awadhi and there are still echoes of these tales in local legends, printed on Kashmiri rugs, etched on the surfaces of battle shields and the hilts of swords.But there is so much more to Indian folklore than simply recounting epic stories of gods and wars. At a time where the written word was not prevalent, or not as easily accessible, oral tradition was the primary means through which people passed on culture, values, experience. Women in North Indian rural areas spoke critically of their place in society, of the traditions enforced upon them because it was custom, of the oppression they endured at the hands of patrilineal kinship: all of which they still experience in the present. Kali ki riti yahi (translation: this custom of a degenerate age) is a song by North Indian women, written down and recorded by British orientalist William Crooke in 1910. The song speaks of the difficulties women experience as they move from their mayaka (parents home) to their sasural (husbands home). A central aspect of a North Indian rural womans experience is the physical shift from her mayaka to her sasural this has been consistently capitalised on by male writers and directors and the shift in the power dynamics from her role as a daughter and sister, to that of a wife and daughter-in-law.This experience, though important, is understood differently by women of separate castes and at varying stages of life. In Pahansu and Hathchhoya, unmarried women sing of the future burden of becoming estranged and othered from their family, of being known as a pariah, and of having to put their husbands family above their own. This custom has also been critiqued by married women, challenging patrilineal ideals that dictate they are to be placed below their husbands family no matter what. While women orating as sisters belittle the marital bond, women orating as wives place emphasis on the dominance of the conjugal bond above the familial one. These contradictory aims give rise to divergent voices that, at the same time, resist the authority placed on men and resist the conventions of the patriarchy.A Sangeet is a North Indian pre-wedding event. It consists of singing and dancing, and is a celebration of the couples upcoming life together. Baithne ke geet, or sitting songs are sung during breaks in the performances. In a popular one, also recorded in Crookes anthology, the poetic persona of the wife sings: suno suno he sakh mer janam h dukh is ghar men / mujhe lar bhr kheto bhejen / jun tut hai batve bail buddha hai batve / mujhe khar hai rulve he dolon pe (translation: listen, listen, friend, my life itself is sorrowful in this house / they quarrel with me and send me to the fields / they tell me that the yoke is broken, they tell me that the oxen are old / they make me cry as I stand on the boundary of the fields). The song goes on for three more verses, wherein members of the wifes sasural continue to belittle her efforts at integration: they insult her cooking, they quash her efforts at getting a tertiary education, they feed her lies about her mayaka by saying her mother is dead and her sister has run away. Multiple other songs in the genre are similar in nature, each one chronicling the story of a wife who is miserable and cannot exist in the circumstances she is in anymore.There is no solitary female perspective recorded in folklore, or in real-world praxis. The solidarities formed by women are negotiated and equivocal because of the unique circumstances they face. Womens songs are constructed with careful emphases on gender and power, in voices that clash on themes like loyalty and autonomy.But there is little academic discourse on the subject. American cultural anthropologist Sherry Ortner has pointed out that academic researchers tend to focus on popular cultural forms like songs and proverbs, not going so far as analysing these artefacts and simply relegate them to footnotes. Cultural traditions that come out of rural areas are ignored because of the false widespread notion of uniformity in these communities and many times academics go as far as reducing them to the derogatory term peasant. But as has been explored, the experiences of rural women and the way in which they communicate them are diverse. They challenge academic and cultural assumptions of them; but the only contexts in which they exist are produced by agents of British colonialism.British academics and anthropologists were selective in their recording, only tending to analyse and collect information about people living in cities and those who have higher standings in society. The songs and stories I speak of today are tainted because of the people who resigned them to text, and it is a possibility that many of their meanings were lost in translation or edited for the purposes of convenience. While going through William Crookes translations, I found multiple words and phrases that simply did not fit or were translated incorrectly. Due to the nature of oral tradition, and the colonisation of India by the British Empire, there is much of my cultural history that has been lost. A myriad of the sources I consulted for this article are attributed to men with British names whose occupations mean little more than settler and self-declared expert. There are countless rural women whose struggles I may mirror but will never know, women whose songs captured the spirit of their age with abundance.Stories have more value than what is assigned to them. They are specks of memory preserved in the spoken word, negotiations with the material world sung in lyrical verse, desperate wishes of communities expressing their truest parts. There are, in fact, demons in the wood but these monsters are manifestations of injustices against people. Folklore passes on from generation to generation, and with it, as do the traumas we bear the burden of. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Hackneyed cultural stereotypes permeate the world of love and sex. As attitudes about intimacy progress away from heteronormative, patriarchal structures, Western perceptions of love and sex in Asia and the Middle East remain prejudiced.For this article, a survey was conducted to determine the pervasiveness of these attitudes among university-aged students in what is, for the most part, a multicultural Sydney. In response to the question, what are your perceptions of love and sex in Asia and the Middle East?, respondents stated:Generally more conservative than Western countries. The notion of transgender people and homosexual relationships are generally looked down upon or ostracised.Arranged marriages and relations are built only on a practical basis (family, kids and status) as opposed to love relationships.Sex is taboo, women arent free to be sexually expressive.Ostensibly, Western perceptions of love and sex in Asia and the Middle East are that of oppression and unprogressiveness. However, these respondents are not alone in their musings. In the West, there exists socially and culturally constructed stereotypes about the intimacy behaviours of people from Asia and the Middle East.For example, Khaled Diab writes of his experience as an Arab man receiving questions from Western women like have you got another wife in Egypt?, despite being in a monogamous relationship with his wife. A google search of Arab men in a relationship reveals headlines such as 6 cute things Arab boyfriends do that are actually super controlling or what should Western women be aware of when dating Arab men?. The profiling of Arab men as dominating polygamists is prolific. Arab women fare no better. A report through the Middle East Institute shows stereotyping of these women as inexperienced, opportunistic, weak, or dependent.Western women travelling to the Indian sub-continent are warned to refrain from friendliness in the event that men from the region mis-interpret this as flirting. Further, rape culture is posited by the media as a largely South Asian problem. However, this year the United States issued a security alert for Spain in response to rising sexual assaults in the country. Yet this hasnt altered the perception of Spanish men as swoon-worthy, in the same way it has for their South Asian counterparts. A google search of, Spanish men in a relationship generates results such as 11 reasons why you should fall in love with a Spaniard. South Asian women are characterised as being caught between tradition and modernity, running away from an apparent inevitability of arranged marriage.Chinese American Andrew Kung writes that he internalised Western stereotypes that painted him as passive, emasculated lacking sex appeal and a voice. He goes on to list other adjectives about himself such as effeminate and weak. On the flip-side Asian-Australian Jessie Tu describes her experience with what she describes as yellow fever, that is, predominately white men viewing her as submissive and accommodating, or as she puts it sweet in the kitchen, tiger in the bedroom.***This year, an international dating site identified the worlds most attractive nationalities. Swedish men achieved first place and ladies from Norway topped the womens charts. The top 10 for each gender category hailed from Europe and South America. This infers that perhaps there lies a dominant view that safe, successful, satisfying intimacy is Eurocentric. However, what many fail to understand is that European colonisation of the Middle East and Asia brought ideas of the patriarchy, abstinence and homophobia that were not otherwise present. Therefore, although colonisation is not the only factor that informs many of the aforementioned stereotypes, it certainly stakes a large influence.***The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight, a 15th century Arabic erotic text was written to encourage intimacy for pleasure. The text is divided into male and female segments so as to place equal weight on enjoyment for both genders. A.L writes of 13th and 14th century male poets Rumi and Hafiz who lived in what is now Iran. They both wrote homoerotic verses, as did Abu Nuwas, a Baghdadi poet.To learn more, I spoke to Dr Lucia Sorbera, Chair of the Arabic Studies Department here at the University of Sydney. Dr Sorbera explains:In pre-modern Arab literature, sexuality was defined mostly in relation to the act, more than the identity of the individual.She goes on to highlight:In pre-modern Arabic (and also Turkish and Farsi) texts, gender was not necessarily narrated according to the binary male and female. This would suggest that pre-modern Arab societies were open to a plurality of options.Attitude changes in the Middle East can be attributed to penal codes introduced by the British that punished homosexual behaviour. France introduced similar laws. Further, John Colville reminds us that texts like The Perfumed Garden were mistranslated when discovered by French colonialists, and shaped European views of Arab men as lustful and their women as objectified.***Between 400 BCE and 200 CE, a third sex is mentioned in ancient Hindu texts, the Mahabharata and the Kama Sutra. These people were known as Hijras. Annalysse Mason describes Hijras as a dominant transgender population in India, generally people assigned male at birth who identify as women. As Hijras do not conform to essentialist ideas of gender and sexuality, in early India they were considered divine beings or nirwaan, meaning closer to the gods. However, in the 18th century when the British arrived and saw a temple of Hijras for the first time, they experienced what Jessica Hinchy describes as Hijra panic. The colonial concern with Hijras was that their deviant behaviours would threaten the conservative British social and political order. As a result, the Criminal Tribes Act was implemented which outlawed Hijras and forced them into the fringes of South Asian society.***In 17th century Japan, daughters of the Samurai class were gifted Shunga on their wedding night. Kukhee Choo describes Shunga as a sex education manual that was also purchased by couples for entertainment purposes as it depicted sexual activity in all its forms. The explicitness of the Shunga reflects the sexual liberation of 17th 19th century Japan known as the Edo period. However, in the mid-19th century Japan opened its market to the Western world and Shunga was banned as it was deemed inappropriate by Western standards. This new period was known as the Meiji period. England was in the midst of the Victorian age and sexual frigidity was heightened. Consequently, Shunga slowly disappeared from the mainstream.***It is ironic that Western media now colours the Middle East and Asia as frigid and sexually unprogressive when it is colonisation that disrupted their liberal notions in the first instance. Sexual liberalism has existed in these areas for centuries.I asked Dr Sorbera why she thinks there is a lack of knowledge in the West about sexual liberalism in the East. She says:A hegemonic, monolinguist, Anglo-centric culture dominates the West, this doesnt allow for representations of the nuances of other cultures and the spirit of other cultures, there is an ignorance that we perpetuate about sexuality in other cultures This reflects the taboos that are still with us in the West, which are as complex and profound as all studies of sexuality and culture are.It is important to dismantle these colonialist narratives about the Middle East and Asia. It is also necessary to critically evaluate the narratives we receive about the rest of the world, particularly about intimacy, in a Western culture that can barely speak about 50 Shades of Grey above a whisper. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 2019, Universities Australia outlined a commitment to improving the sector that has, historically underperformed against their obligations to Australias Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Government guidelines require Australian universities to have plans to increase the representation of Indigenous staff to 3% of the total workplace; a goal few have yet met. This years Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted institutionalised racism in the university sector. In June this year, more than 100 former staff and students signed a letter stating NIDA was complicit in white supremacy and colonial violence by not doing more to support students of colour.This anger is not new. In October 2019, UNSW sparked outrage from staff and students when it refused to renew the contract of its celebrated Indigenous Programs Director, Tess Allas. The effective firing of Allas, one of few long-term Indigenous staff at the UNSW Art and Design (UNSWAD) campus, proved to many that UNSW was not fulfilling its promises to increase Indigenous staff representation.Students rallying under the banner of #StandWithTess started a petition that has gained 1,719 signatures and a boycott of UNSW galleries with the support of Australian artists including Richard Bell, Frances Bell Parker, Daniel Boyd, Vernon Ah Kee, Dianne Jones, Julie Gough and Joan Ross. Nevertheless, UNSW and UNSWAD Dean Ross Harley continued to ignore requests to explain why Allass contract was not being renewed. In 2018, UNSW management entered into an Enterprise Agreement with academic staff, which committed itself to a target of having 90 Indigenous academic and professional staff and to establish a financial compact that will guarantee dedicated funding [] associated with advancing Indigenous employment outcomes of at least $1.5 million by 2021.In spite of this, the 2019 UNSW Annual Report records only 0.80% of staff being Indigenous, or 25 people. This is well below the 2% Equal Employment Opportunity benchmark that UNSW set for itself. It appears UNSW has given up on meeting its goal by the nominal expiry date of 31 December 2021. Indeed, following announced cuts of almost 500 jobs, this number may be even lower. UNSW declined to respond to Honis request for updated Indigenous employment figures or provide a response as to whether management believe the goal would be met.UNSW management has been reluctant to accept responsibility for the decision. In October 2019, after exiting a meeting with Harley, Allas informed supporters waiting outside that the Dean had said the decision to cancel her contract was a budgetary issue, out of his hands, that was part of a restructuring directive from Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous Megan Davis. Uncle Vic Chapman OA, the UNSW Indigenous Elder in Residence and Fellow who had sat in on the meeting, expressed bewilderment stating, As Tess said in the meeting, it appears Faculty is, getting rid of the Aboriginal problem by getting rid of the Aboriginal people.In an email sent by Harley formalising the cessation of Allass contract, the Dean refuted that account. Misinformation [has been] circulating regarding the cessation of your employment, the email states. [T]he contracts not being renewed was a Faculty decision supported by the University. This was not a decision of the Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous.A spokesperson for UNSW told Honi that We are not able to comment on an individual staff members circumstance but would like to reassure you we are committed to Indigenous students and staff at the University.Uncle Vic described the failure to renew Allas contract as our Facultys Sorry Day and announced he would be stepping down as UNSW Indigenous Elder in Residence if Allas was sacked.Allass case highlights the particular challenges faced by First Nations staff within an already precarious sector. Despite being a member of staff for almost 14 years, Allas had only worked on two to three year fixed-term contracts. Fixed-term contracts give the descriptive illusion of job security, but in fact, the appointment is made for a specified term or ascertainable period.Allas has declined to comment on the matter.Before Allas contract expired, #StandWithTess campaigners organised a rally on campus protesting Allas removal. President of the Student Council, Jack Poppert, delivered a letter in person to Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs seeking a meeting with students. In the letter, shared to Instagram, Poppert states, We are concerned by the manner in which each of you have upheld the Indigenous Strategy as a defence of actions that we believe directly contravene its very principles. We have asked for attention. In return we have received mere signification.However, campaigners were met with silence. Despite a meeting with senior management, campaigners were told that the decision to restructure and centralise Indigenous programs and to sack Allas remained incontestable. In a final correspondence, Deputy Vice Chancellor Merlin Crossley states that the necessary management actions have been undertaken in good faith.In final correspondence with the Dean, Uncle Vic Chapman states:Dear Ross, until such time as you apologise to myself, Tess, Ruth and Tony for calling us liars, please remove me from your email list. Do not sent [sic] me anymore emails from unceded Indigenous lands. Still more staff have seen their jobs lost in the recent merge of the Art and Design faculty into the new Arts, Architecture & Design. One of these is Dean Ross Harley. But unlike precarious staff like Allas, he remains protected. In a leaked email to staff, VC Ian Jacobs applauds Dean Ross Harleys leadership and in recognition of his outstanding contribution to UNSW has awarded him with the title Emeritus Professor. Ross Harley currently chairs the NIDA Board of Directors. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is a tendency to class the philosopher as a sort of idle dreamer. An individual that spends their days invoking Rodins The Thinker, as they sit in their ivory tower and mull over trifling distinctions and hair-splitting semantics, all the while stroking their long, white beard. This image, the product of an ignorant conception of the ends that philosophy strives to achieve, is what fosters the assertion that philosophy as a discipline lacks utility and value outside of a mere search for knowledge for the sake of knowledge.Although I cannot earnestly contend that the study of philosophy produces the sort of definite answers that one could draw from disciplines such as maths or engineering, this is not a shortcoming. On the contrary, in a political, economic and social atmosphere built on uncertainty, our obsession with predictability and pragmatism actively reduces our conception of what is possible, diminishes the value of intellectual imagination, and perhaps most notably, threatens us with the prospect of floating through the world asleep. The world needs dreamers, because when first conceived, it is incredibly difficult to tell if a dream is truly idle or achievable. And so as not to fail in our endeavour to make the world a more meaningful place, we must cast aside our prejudiced notion of what is practical, continue to ask questions, and embrace the philosopher: the bold, curious and intellectually alive dreamer.In June of this year, the Government announced the Job-Ready Graduates Package, signalling a 113% fee increase for degrees under the umbrella of the humanities and social sciences (HASS). In response to the denigration of humanities in the package, over 100 of the most notable and respected professional philosophers in the country penned An Open Letter on the Importance of Protecting Philosophy. It is upon the foundation of this letter that I call on students to reject the misguided approach to funding undergraduate education, that is little more than a culmination of decades of devaluing the humanities, and discounting the impact of subjects upon which the wellbeing and flourishing of our common life depends. Whilst obstinately clinging to the defence of job-readiness to justify the package, the governments interpretation of what it means to be job-ready rides on a prophetic vision of the future jobs market; one that has fallen subject to the aforementioned prejudices that see value as reducible to pragmatic and measurable economic ends. Such a criteria openly dismisses the value of many soft skills that are held in high esteem by employers, common among HASS graduates, and absolutely fundamental to the study of philosophy, such as critical thinking, analytical skills and cultural competence.If employability is truly the incentive behind the governments fee adjustments, then in a world where we are told that we will have as many as 11.7 jobs before we reach 48, surely the skills that are most valuable are those that make us adaptable workers in a variety of fields. Technology will undoubtedly evolve, and new hard skills will irrevocably replace those that have become outdated. But the need for effective communicators, thoughtful compromisers, and skilful strategists in all areas of the workforce will never fade.Additionally, whilst the package boasts of lofty goals to transform and bolster the university sector in Australia, a severe lack of empirical foundations foster questions about the likelihood of the success of the initiative in shifting enrolments towards disciplines such as science, maths and languages. Nonetheless, the normative implications of the package could be perilous to the continued existence of philosophy as an independent academic discipline. As philosophy is not a well-established subject in high school, students often come across it at a university level by chance. From discussion with friends, tutors, lecturers, and from my own experience, it is almost a rite of passage for arts students to choose Reality, Ethics and Beauty on a whim during their first semester at university a subject that has served as a sort of philosophical Kool Aid; birthing philosophy majors, and keeping curious students coming back for more. But under the guise of a government that is in the process of actively condemning academic experimentation and uncertainty, students are less likely to venture into the realm of the unknown, and be accidentally enlivened by philosophy in the first place.Perhaps more than any other HASS discipline, what continues to plague philosophy is its characterisation as a sort of self-indulgent wankery that the humble taxpayer should not be expected to fund. I, for one, have found myself having to defend my discipline in alarmingly frequent conversations with companions that reduce philosophy to airy fairy bullshit that is out of touch with reality. However, one need only look at the list of subjects offered by the philosophy department at the University of Sydney to see how baseless this assumption is. Students are given the opportunity to engage with the political, aesthetic, rational and principled in subjects as diverse as the philosophy of human rights, literature, mathematics, logic and ethics, to name but a few. Additionally contrary to the popular assumption that philosophy remains disconnected from the real world, the content taught within these subjects is dynamic and receptive to current events, with The Philosophy of Medicine, a course on offer this semester, tailored to address many of the issues surrounding the current pandemic. In sum, when I asked Dr Sam Shpall, a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Sydney, to explain what philosophy is, he responded tell me the issue you care about most, and thats part of philosophy.A point returned to many times in my discussion with Professor Moira Gatens, as well as in her recent appearance on the Minefield Podcast, was that being job ready is but a tiny fragment of being human. And thus, what the Job-Ready Graduates package completely fails to recognise, is the integral role that philosophy plays in making our lives better. In the words of Bertrand Russell; contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe. The uptick in engagement with quasi-philosophical self-help books, podcasts such as the Philosophers Zone and the Minefield, and public celebrations of ideas and questions such as the Festival of Dangerous Ideas are but a blip on the map of public engagement with philosophy. However, what they point to is a profound public acknowledgement of the value of philosophy to our human inner-culture. A value that the government is completely out of touch with.But there is one thing about the discipline of philosophy that is more fundamental to its value than anything else. Funnily enough, it is also the thing that is the most commonly misrepresented. The philosopher. The bold, curious and intellectually alive dreamer that keeps the questions alive and the students coming back. It is because of these erudite scholars that I am able to see the intricacies and ideals that I would otherwise overlook, and it is because I study philosophy that I am able to question what it is that makes life truly meaningful. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last semester, as university students were plunged into quarantine, 17 were working with Indigenous organisations from their bedrooms and balconies.Through the interdisciplinary unit FASS3500 Service Learning in Indigenous Communities (SLIC), they developed solutions to high-priority issues such as funding shortages as well as social restrictions that have prevented many organisations from operating.More than any other university course, SLIC allowed for an exploration of Aboriginal self-determination and resilience on Gadigal land one participant says. It was a distinctly different interaction with the history and the land on which Sydney University stands.Run by the Universitys Indigenous Strategy and Services portfolio, SLIC aims to improve students cultural competence.But rather than learning in a traditional classroom setting, students learn in a community classroom, working directly with Indigenous people to address their identified needs and priorities.Despite some roadblocks over the past few years, SLIC has become stronger than ever, and its current educational approach demonstrates how cultural competence can be taught effectively, how well engagement with Indigenous communities can be facilitated, and how we can prioritise Indigenous perspectives in tertiary education.What does cultural competence mean?Cultural competence is defined in USyds Graduate Qualities as the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures.This is just one of many definitions. For Dr Demalza Marlin, an Academic Facilitator and Lecturer at the National Centre for Cultural Competence (NCCC) who is of Wiradjuri heritage, cultural competence is a process of ongoing learning.Its a capacity for self-reflection and self-assessment in order to engage in behaviours that facilitate culturally safe spaces, she says. This is particularly important for universities, which can be perceived as largely white institutionsEmerging in the 1980s in fields of health and education, cultural competence training has since become commonplace across a variety of sectors.The University committed to cultural competence back in its 2016-2020 Strategic Plan, collaborating with the NCCC to make changes to the curriculum and teaching. This includes working with staff to develop anti-racist teaching practices, as well as the creation of SLIC and several open learning environment units.We currently dont have an inclusive education system. Were working towards it and cultural competence is a piece of that puzzle, Dr Marlin says.Through cultural competence education we encourage people to become reflexive about their beliefs, values, assumptions, and social positioning, and understand all of that in a socio-political context.Is cultural competence training effective?Research has shown that cultural competence training can have a positive impact on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of participants.In one study, social work students demonstrated an increased awareness of racial privilege and overt forms of discrimination. In the health profession, it has been shown to reduce provider bias and improve patient-provider communication.However, the concept is not without its critics. Gordon Pon, an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work at Ryerson University argues that cultural competence can reinforce power imbalances by stereotyping, essentialising and othering minorities.This is especially the case where it is conflated with cultural awareness, a very different concept which tends to focus on the acquisition of knowledge rather than a set of attitudes and practices.Others criticise the fact that competency implies an endpoint, assuming that it is possible to learn a quantifiable set of skills or knowledge that will allow them to interact effectively with all people.Amy Cole, another academic facilitator at the NCCC, recognises that criticisms are valid. However, she believes that where it is done well, cultural competence education can be incredibly transformative.At the university, we dont focus on what particular groups of people do, think or act like. This could lead to stereotypes or lead people to make generalisations, she says.Instead, USyds initiatives aim to provide staff and students with the tools to critically interrogate the assumptions, values and expectations that they bring into all their relationships.Dr Marlin describes this as de-centring their world views: This kind of critical self-reflection helps people start engaging with cultural difference and diversity empathetically, without measuring it against their own norms.Service learning in Indigenous communitiesAlthough cultural competence at USyd is primarily targeted towards staff, SLIC is one of the main initiatives directed at students. It adopts a service learning model, a form of experiential education where academic learning is integrated with the fulfilment of community needs.The unit is made up of three main components: students first undergo several weeks of preparation, then spend a week living in a remote Indigenous community. Finally, they develop and present their solutions back to Community.Tribal Warrior Smoking ceremony for SLIC students. Photo courtesy: Cornel Ozies and Tom Cavdaroski.In the past, students have travelled to the Northern Territory, the Torres Strait, and Western New South Wales. Due to COVID-19, students who completed the unit last semester worked with local organisations online, with local organisations Gamarada Universal Indigenous Resources (GUIR) and Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation.The close partnership of students and Community forges truly outstanding relationships and remarkable educational outcomes, says A/Prof Evans, a Wiradjuri woman and previous academic coordinator for SLIC.Its a very active process of learning. The fact that you are working with Community creates a sense of obligation and reciprocity that is very sincere. This may not happen in a conventional learning environment where you are reading text, watching and listening to videos.Althea, who participated in SLIC last semester, says that service learning goes beyond a mere acknowledgement and appreciation for diversity in our community, and that it teaches you how to really listen to others, how to participate ethically and with humility.Another student, Ranuka, learned to identify more subtle forms of racism in the way she thinks and feels about Indigenous people: Ive always seen my own empathy as a positive part of my personality. However, even this is informed by a Western lens that on some level, sees those you feel empathy for as being below you.While the unit is not perfect some students felt that there was too much of a focus on assessment outcomes its overwhelming strength is its close connection to Community.The potential for harmBefore completing the unit, some students were cautious about the potential for harm or exploitation, especially due to widespread trends of voluntourism.I was very sceptical about SLIC to begin with, Ranuka says. I think the idea that a bunch of rich, white students could go out to rural Australia and come up with solutions for the issues communities are facing out there is delusional and paternalistic, and it made me uncomfortable.Other students were aware of SLICs unfortunate history. In 2017, Shane Houston was dismissed as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Services and Strategy) and replaced by Kylie Gwynne. This meant that SLIC was temporarily under non-Indigenous leadership, and several aspects of the initiative were changed without consultation.But today, the unit uses practices that are much healthier than what was previously seen. Indigenous academics have since regained control over the initiative, with last semesters coordinating and supervising team comprising A/Prof Evans, Suzanne Kenney, and Penny Viles.They currently work within the portfolio of Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver, a Wiradjuri woman appointed to the role of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services) in 2018.Further, academic staff spend a considerable amount of time collaborating with Community to ensure that they know exactly what students will be doing and that engagement is both safe and productive.We want to ensure that students contribute in ways that are of benefit to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities while respecting knowledge and knowledge ownership A/Prof Evans says.Shane Phillips, CEO, Tribal Warrior, speaking to SLIC students. Photo courtesy: Cornel Ozies and Tom Cavdaroski.Ken Zulumovski Hon DHSc was one of the community partners involved in SLIC this year. He is a descendant of the Kabi Kabi people, and is the founder and Managing Director of Gamarada.The program exists in a way that it is so open to Community, he says. I felt like there was a real acknowledgement and respect for the space that we work in, and understanding of cultural protocols; of how we as First Nations people do business our way.Adopting an Indigenous lensWhile the unit is marketed as an opportunity to make a real difference to Indigenous communities, SLIC puts more emphasis on teaching students how to form healthy relationships with Indigenous people.Students are briefed extensively by academics and community speakers in order to ensure that they not only have the tools to interact safely, but also a healthy outlook on the project.The idea that students can solve problems in Community can indeed perpetuate patronising and unhelpful ideas about the places they visit, however students are actively taught not to be motivated by that prospect.A/Prof Evans explains that their primary goal is to learn to contribute, to be humble, to listen carefully, and engage in behaviours that show respect to Community during their placements.The course flipped that notion of what can I get out of this? on its head, ensuring that our focus was on service rather than self-gain or reward, says Genevieve, another participant.This extends beyond physical interactions. As students prepare their final reports, students learn how to use Indigenous research methodologies and utilise Indigenous knowledge or property in a way that respects original ownership.And after the semester, ongoing relationships with Community are supported, with students getting the opportunity to continue working on their projects.Can community engagement be incorporated into other degrees?Currently, SLIC is a standalone unit available to students who are in their final years of university. Staff have ongoing plans to continue expanding the unit, however, it would still be restricted to a fairly small group of students.Ideally, there would be more opportunities for practical engagement with Indigenous communities built into peoples degrees.While this may be achievable at some point in the future, the main issue is how opportunities can expand in a way that doesnt place inordinate pressure on communities. There would need to be mobilisation and resourcing of communities before that can occur.However, service learning is not the only way that students can improve their cultural competence and understanding. The NCCC at USyd offers resources and workshops that are led by Indigenous academics, and local organisations such as GUIR run initiatives such as community healing circles that are open to non-Indigenous people.Additionally, changing aspects of our current educational practices can result in extremely powerful forms of incidental learning.Healthy practices in the classroomIn 2016, the New South Wales Education Standards Authority engaged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers to develop representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures in new NSW syllabuses.Similar practices should be translated to the university context for students and staff alike.In our research and writing as well as curriculum development, it should be questioned whether the same outcomes can be achieved by focusing on Indigenous histories, phenomena, people, stories and cultures.We also need to be constantly reminding ourselves to check our language, and use our words in a way that respects and elevates Indigenous people.When we talk about places locations, towns and suburbs in our essays, for example, we can continually recognise whose land those places are on, A/Prof Evans says. It would even be a healthy learning opportunity for students in university classes to be asked the question: whose Country are you on, and what do you know about that Country?And when discussing Indigenous issues, it is important that we are checking the authors of the sources we use in order to ensure that there is a fair representation of Indigenous ownership on topics that relate to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.All schools and disciplines should be looking for Indigenous perspectives and centering the voices of First-Nations peoples Genevieve says. There is so much wisdom in consulting these communities and allowing their voices to take priority in the stratosphere of education and pedagogy.Working towards better relationshipsUntil only a few decades ago, Indigenous Australians were excluded from tertiary education. Charles Perkins was USyds first Aboriginal graduate in 1966, and Indigenous participation in research and Western scientific traditions has only emerged in the past 30 years.Photo courtesy: Cornel Ozies and Tom Cavdaroski.So for A/Prof Evans, watching students develop an authentic connection with Indigenous culture during their degree is the most rewarding aspect of SLIC. These engagements are incredibly important as society is still working through their knowledge of past policies affecting Aboriginal people.While students that are passionate about the ongoing fight for Indigenous sovereignty may perceive themselves as having relatively high levels of cultural competence and understanding, the opposite is almost always the case.We have a long way to go in committing to learn from and listen to Indigenous people, especially at the University. It is important that we take every opportunity to improve our relationships with Indigenous people, land and knowledge in the classroom and beyond.This is a process that the University must actively support, both in its unit offerings, its funding of projects by Indigenous academics, and its upcoming strategic plan.I dont think anyone can ever be truly culturally competent, Cole says. But we all need to take responsibility for our learning.While taking this responsibility is a small step, changing our practices would mean that Indigenous people entering the university space can feel that their identity is seen, respected, responded to, and that we are reaching out to create the relationships that were denied for decades.Image courtesy: Penny Robin Vlies. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Prime Minster Scott Morrisons recent comments denying the existence of slavery in Australia reveal a sobering truth about Australias ruling class: they are unconcerned with confronting the persisting trauma and oppression of Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal Australians. Not only does this denialist rhetoric prevent political action needed to alleviate systemic Indigenous burdens, it disregards the condition and suffering of a people who nurtured a country we now inherit for millennia. Acknowledging responsibility is by no means an easy task, but attempts made by South African anti-apartheid administrators during the mid 1990s to exact justice and amnesty provide a cooperative starting point: the truth must be nationally recognised.The common inference of South African history sees the election of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela in May 1994 as the day which definitively and unquestionably vanquished the scourge of the Apartheid complex. Excluded from dialogue surrounding the complicated South African narrative is how modes of dismantling trauma were used to (theoretically) confront the past and implement restorative, instead of punitive justice to victims of a barbaric racial system. Lesser known figures of post-Apartheid administration Alex Boraine and Sisi Khampepe (alongside others) effectively established a commission of truth and eventual reconciliation (also known as the TRC) in 1995.The party of the nations liberation, the African National Congress (ANC), did not seek to trial, punish and shame its former oppressors. Neither were their crimes ignored. After fusing three human rights committees, international law and human rights violations committed by the National Party (NP) government since its election in 1948 were publicly addressed, acknowledged and denounced in a lengthy series of nationally televised hearings.High ranking officials of the Apartheid secret police (or Bureau for State Security) were interrogated and encouraged to publicly apologise for the brutal torture and death of political activists in custody. In a notorious case, six officials of the Bureau responsible for the murder of the Cradock Four were made to demonstrate methods of torture and vividly recollect their crimes.Eugene de Cock, commander of the counterinsurgency unit Vlakplaas, was subpoenaed by the commission. Without his testimony and admittance of guilt, stories of numerous erased lynchings would never have been brought to light, nor etched into national consciousness. Eugene de Cock was granted full amnesty as reward for transparency. The six Bureau agents pleas for absolution were denied. In this way, the TRC laid bare the savagery of Apartheid.In Australia, despite what Morrison may espouse, First Nation peoples and South Pacific Islanders were forced to labour on sugar plantations on the north-east coast and livestock properties throughout the country. These enslaved workers effectively enabled the cattle and farming boom in rural Australia. Indigenous people have been displaced en masse in a long-term scheme which replicates Apartheid legislature that annexed non-white properties and farmsteads, relocating 90% of black South Africans into desolate, designated homelands. Australias (continuing) child removal policy has seen generations of Indigenous children abducted from their parents. Eugenic practices legitimised by anthropological journals, charting racial spectrums and supporting ethnic assimilation, persisted throughout white occupation.The ghosts of the past haunt our present, as they do in modern-day South Africa, and colonial practices continue, as evident in the incarceration rate of Indigenous citizens. But recognising our countrys history of racialized enslavement, murder and marginalisation is the first step. Thereafter, government-sanctioned bodies must investigate and provide factual narratives about our past. They should encourage reparations.Various Australian NGOs and not-for-profit groups have initiated processes not dissimilar to the Mandela administrations with limited success. Reconciliation Australia, established in 2001, promotes and facilitates reconciliation by building relationships, respect and trust between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Through organisational and media influence and legal advocacy, Reconciliation Australia seeks to influence government policy.The Referendum Council, a state-appointed legal panel which sought to advise the government regarding constitutional reform, held two years-worth of dialogue with traditional owner groups. They made numerous suggestions to the Turnbull government in 2017. Among the recommendations was the abolition of section 25, which grants states the ability to exclude a racial group from elections (a dead letter due to the Racial Discrimination Act). Other proposed constitutional amendments included the enabling First Nations people to advocate directly to Parliament through section 116A.In response to the Uluru Statement, the Turnbull government claimed that additions to representative institutions was neither desirable nor capable of winning acceptance in a referendum, and the government did not remove section 25.Consistent undermining of Indigenous histories inhibits even the most incremental constitutional amendment. If we are to truly commit to the reconciliation of our fellow black Australians, we must pursue the truth first. With the Morrisson administration only further trivialising racial trauma, clearly a greater shift must occur in the Australian psyche.As Mandela would say, reconciliation is a spiritual process, which requires more than just a legal framework. It has to happen in the hearts and the minds of people. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Students and university bodies have fiercely criticised the Morrison Governments proposed cuts to tertiary education, which hurt low-income students.Last week, Education Minister Dan Tehan announced that students who fail 50% of their first eight subjects at university will be stripped of their Commonwealth-supported place. The draft legislation aims to prevent students with low completion rates from accumulating large debts with little qualification. However it will lock many low-income students out of their chosen higher education pathways.Undergrads struggling financially are far more likely to fail university courses. According to a 2019 National Union of Students study, more than a quarter of full-time undergraduate students regularly miss classes due to work commitments. A further 41% say paid work commitments negatively impact study.The requirement for struggling students to pay their future fees up front reinforces the adverse effects on low-income students.A lot of us simply would not be able to afford to go to uni without HECS, says student Leah Bruce. Low income students often rely on very little Centrelink a week or are not able to get Centrelink for some reason or another, so theyre working a lot of hours while still studying They would have to pick up second and third jobs.The Department of Education will be able to consider factors beyond a students control in removing access to HECS. These factors include unforeseen medical, personal or employment-related circumstances. However, it excludes adjusting to university life as an excuse for academic failure, placing substantial strain on students from rural, regional and remote communities.In 2017, Bruce moved from her home on the NSW South Coast to Sydney for university. When youre moving away you dont have the same support networks as people who grew up near the university, or people who grew up with families that always economically supported them, she says.The governments homogenisation of the university experience doesnt correlate with the different experiences of university students. It will disproportionately impact students with disabilities, those who are first in family and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.Student Eilish Wilkinson says, I dont think everyone is able to go home and do five hours of study because people do need to afford to live in places where the best universities are.The long, arduous and often stressful nature of appeals processes creates another issue for low-socioeconomic students. Those already struggling to balance paid employment and university coursework are unlikely to find extra time to successfully complete an appeal. Sydney University bureaucracy is often criticised by students for its inefficiency.These processes feel like theyre targeted to make life harder for students whose lives are already hard, says Bruce.The University of Sydney has criticised the Morrison Government proposal to strip funding from failing students as overly strong.We are concerned about what the introduction of such a rule might mean for our students in first year as they make the transition to university study and especially for students who are first-in-family, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and from rural, regional and remote communities who have to deal with the extra stresses of moving away from home, says a spokesperson for the university.Mental health support groups have also shared concerns about the impact of the policy. Student mental health is already poor. A 2017 Headspace study reported two thirds of students had dealt with high or very high psychological distress over the past 12 months.Clinical Psychologist Aliza Werner-Seidler of the Black Dog Institute told Honi: The first year of university is a challenging and tumultuous time. Research tells us that this period of great transition, often involving living out of home or in a different state for the first time, represents a heightened risk of mental ill health. Young people have to navigate a new environment and learning system, a new social network and changes to their living and working patterns. Adding additional financial strain could understandably contribute to any stress felt by students.The COVID-19 pandemic has weakened all sectors, but higher education has been hit by some of the biggest blows. Public universities fell between the cracks of JobKeeper and the proposed Job-ready Graduates program includes fee-hikes across the humanities. The new announcement creates further challenges. The policy will likely lead to unnecessary dropout rates and has the potential to discourage students from attempting more academically challenging subjects. In the wake of widespread underpayment scandals, universities will have to expand their workforce to provide greater assistance to struggling students.The policy marks a brutal switch in the sectors approach to failing students. Currently at the University of Sydney, if a student fails half their subjects, they are placed in the Staying on Track program before they become excluded from funding. The program attempts to identify and resolve issues impeding their academic success.The shift towards the economic penalisation of failure creates a culture where students can only try again if they have the financial means. Clearly this compromises equality of access in the education sector. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University Senate has recently approved a sustainability strategy for the next five years, which is to be announced in Semester 2. We are in a transformative period with the flux of a pandemic and a departing Vice-Chancellor. Students and staff overwhelmingly want USyd to do more in response to climate change, especially given a lacklustre history. It is unclear how the University will act on sustainability, investment, and advocacy. But as we hurtle towards irreversible environmental catastrophe, the need for the Senate to pursue ambitious climate action is clear.USyds sustainability historyThe Universitys past sustainability action has produced mixed results. USyds Environmental Sustainability Policy 2015 established a Sustainability Sub-Committee of the University Executives Financial Performance Committee. It also created the Investment and Commercialisation Committee, a Senate sub-committee, to develop an environmental, social and corporate governance investment framework.The same year, that Senate sub-committee approved a carbon reduction strategy. This came after 80% of students voted in favour of the University divesting from fossil fuels in 2014. The three-year investment target was slightly exceeded in 2018 with a promised commitment to address climate change in funds management.However, the following year saw the Senate invest $22.4 million back into fossil fuel companies such as BHP Billiton and Woodside Petroleum, according to a Fossil Free USyd freedom of information request. The Vice-Chancellors next university, UCL, has divested from fossil fuels and UNSW has committed to doing the same by 2025.In 2018, the University of Sydney had a $28 million energy bill with Stanwell Corporation and Origin Energy, companies that are primarily powered by fossil fuels. In comparison, UNSW Sydney will be 100% powered by renewable electricity by 2020.The current University investment strategy is similar to that of the Norweigan Sovereign Wealth Fund. It accounts for components such as methane emissions, but doesnt consider downstream emissions. This is problematic since 99 percent of the life-cycle emissions from coal-fired electricity occur downstream, which this framework doesnt account for. Comparatively, the hidden emissions of renewable energy are much lower than the savings from avoiding fossil fuels.What needs to be done?How the University emerges from the pandemic, with a new VC at the helm, needs to reflect a renewed commitment to sustainability and climate action. The financial impact of COVID-19 has already motivated the University of Sydney to serious action. In early March, our university halted all but the most essential maintenance, froze new hires, restricted travel, and cut staff and courses to save $200 million. There is an interconnectivity between COVID-19 and climate change and university leadership cannot respond to one and disregard the other. A positive step would be for USyd to join the 24 Australian universities that have signed the Talloires Declaration.Theres been staff momentum behind climate action, but this needs to carry through the pandemic. For example, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Duncan Ivison mobilised 500 academics to utilise their research expertise to address last summers bushfire crisis. This commitment is also seen in the staff behind Sydney Ideas through an event on August 11 discussing climate change as a public health hazard.Professor Rosemary Lyster, Co-Director of the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law, drafted the Law Schools climate emergency declaration earlier this year. She wants to see more students organising around this question of a climate emergency and deciding on appropriate actions to take.On Friday, July 31, a motion from students will be put to the University of Sydney Union Board of Directors to declare a climate emergency and commit to numerous internal and external actions. The Enviro Collective is developing a campaign for Semester 2 and planning actions to pressure USyd decision-makers.There is still more work to be done. Currently, the selection criteria for our replacement Vice-Chancellor are absent of words like sustainability and climate change, even though qualitative survey responses from the University community feature these terms prominently. Further, it is clear that the student voice in the Senate, particularly on climate change, is lacking in University decision-making.The student and staff perspective on the most vital issue of our time is clear, but it all comes down to University leadership. To act on the climate crisis in a principled and pragmatic manner, our Senate needs to declare a climate emergency, authentically implement the sustainability strategy, commit to transformative action, divest from fossil fuels, and ensure strong leadership on climate action in the new Vice-Chancellor.The sustainability strategyThis new strategy has been collaboratively developed by a team based in both the University Strategy Office and the Sydney Environment Institute over eighteen months. It focuses on three pillars: responsible footprint, research and education, and good governance.The footprint component aims to reduce waste as well as to change how and what the University purchases. This includes eliminating single-use plastics, sourcing 100% of electricity from renewable sources, reducing water use, changing food offerings on campus, and reducing travel. As a part of this, the University will develop guidelines for ethical sourcing and work to improve the investment strategy.The plan for education is to further embed sustainability themes into curricula and graduate attributes. This will tie into the work that researchers will do through the Living Lab program to demonstrate campus-based sustainability projects. Increasing the visibility of this work will be encouraged through sustainability-focused incentives for researchers.Underpinning all of this is a solid, inclusive, and transparent governance structure. This envisions a central Office of Sustainability to coordinate efforts across operations, research, education. As a part of this, there will be a review of investment portfolios with a recommendation to be made to the Senate by 2021.The strategy itself is ambitious and its approval by the Senate and University Executive is promising. However, the investment component of this strategy has essentially been tabled for later in the year. There is also concern on how much money the University will commit to the significant transformation outlined in the strategy.Uncertain financial commitmentThis strategy seems like a positive step, but its implementation is imperiled by the Universitys $470 million budget shortfall. Professor David Schlosberg, who chaired the campus-wide sustainability strategy advisory group, has expressed concern about how financial issues will affect all areas of the strategy, including an understaffed Office of Sustainability. Before the pandemic, he believed the strategy was cruising toward approval and significant investment by this July. Instead, a delayed approval has come with significant limits on what the University can invest in implementing the strategy.The recent bushfires were exacerbated by climate change; fossil fuel companies are responsible for one-half of the rise in average global temperatures. The University is financially compromised due to COVID-19, and fossil fuels have been the worst performing sector in the ASX 300 over the last decade. Divestment from fossil fuels just makes sense.Professor Danielle Celermajer, Director of the Multispecies Justice Project, recognises that there are counter-forces to change, including the Universitys current financial investments and its relationships with certain stakeholders. At the same time, though, there are many people right throughout the university and connected with the university who are committed to authentic and comprehensive institutional transformation. There appears to be a desire for transformative action in the University. Any changes to our investment strategy ultimately depend on how receptive the Senate is and how persuasive proponents of divestment can be. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In this years final nine elimination challenge on MasterChef, contestants were tasked with cooking Chinese, Indian, Mexican or Lebanese street food, under the guidance of a white chef. Charlie Carrington, of Atlas in Melbourne, revamps his menu every four months to feature a new cuisine he has encountered on his travels.In the second round, contestants chose a country and turned its street food into a fine dining dish. Judge Jock Zonfrillo lamented that while French cuisine might lend itself well to the challenge, Asian cuisines may not; Carrington added that the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine referring to Vietnams colonial past as French Indochina might help. Khanh Ong, a first-generation refugee from Vietnam, was eliminated after the judges thought his g kho gng, typically a Vietnamese peasant dish, lacked finesse. All the safe contestants chose France for the challenge.MasterChef has undoubtedly been a positive force for representation on Australian TV. Its introduced Australians to different food cultures and shaped our palates to become more adventurous. It presents a diverse cast as the norm, reflective of multicultural Australia, and it frequently casts people of colour as protagonists, whose heritage provides a source of pride, but does not solely define their character. The show in 2020 has pushed representation even further; it has appointed Melissa Leong as its first female judge of colour, showcased stories of refugees and immigrants, and aired an immunity challenge where all contenders were Asian-Australians.But MasterChef occasionally stumbles in moments like the street food challenge; or, more generally, when non-white cooks are told to elevate dishes to a MasterChef-worthy standard. In reality, that means more than just increasing the skill level involved in making the dish (and it implicitly ignores the skilfulness of non-European cuisines). Elevating a dish implies a certain transformation of the original recipe; tidying-up presentation and toning-down challenging flavours to suit a white, mainstream palate. In other words, it involves the gentrification of non-European food.The show certainly celebrates non-white cooks for presenting authentic flavours. However, it still demonstrates an expectation to follow fine dining conventions, especially in the final weeks of the competition when contestants are expected to have refined their cooking. This is despite the fact that MasterChefs alumni go on to launch varied careers that might not involve working in high-end commercial kitchens.The problem with cooking to fine dining conventions is that when high-class cuisine has historically been a white and wealthy domain, non-white chefs might be disadvantaged for cooking food from their cultures, the way that they want to cook it. And its not MasterChefs fault, but it is a symptom of how non-whiteness is viewed in the fine dining world.***Fine dining restaurants have a particular conceptualisation of food clean, sparse and immaculate, not a drop of sauce out of place. Food is treated essentially and elementally, as individual components which can be broken down into flavour profiles and textures. Techniques originally stem from French haute cuisine (literally, high cooking) in the 1600s, which catered to privileged clientele by emphasising high-quality unconventional ingredients, difficult cooking methods and rich, opulent tastes.This way of preparing and thinking about food is rooted in Eurocentrism. In the Good Food Guides 2020 Awards, French and Italian restaurants abound, as well as modern Australian, which seems like an amalgamation of classical French techniques and structures with Asian-inspired flavours and ingredients. But Asian cuisines are less represented, except for perhaps Japanese, and upscale African or Latin American restaurants are few and far between.Its not because non-European cuisines are less complicated. As Adam Liaw, former MasterChef winner, tweeted after the street food challenge, Asian cultures are full of elaborate culinary traditions and complex techniques. Thai food, for example, relies on a delicate balance of sweet-sour-spicy-umami flavours, and Japanese kaiseki dining is renowned for its meticulousness. Yet, youre more likely to find a plate of pasta than a plate of noodles in expensive restaurants. Non-European foods are viewed as inferior, requiring elevation through a European lens, and need a leg-up from European influences, a term which often hides devastating processes of colonisation or cultural erosion, or the label of modern or fusion cuisine, to pass the threshold from cheap takeaway into haute cuisine. (Of course, its possible to innovate and consciously modernise a dish while respecting its cultural roots, but the problem here is calling something modern to make it seem appealing or less foreign.)Asian cuisines are full of fine dining. Kaiseki, Confucian cuisine, Thai/Vietnamese court cuisine, almost any regional cuisine in China, Peranakan food It's just that the Eurocentric conceptualisation of Michelin, World's 50 Best etc. constantly ignores it. #MasterChefAU Adam Liaw (@adamliaw) June 14, 2020Fine dinings cultural hierarchy excludes cuisines for not conforming to Eurocentric standards. In many Asian cuisines, for example, flavour comes from infusing or mixing several things together think of Indian curries, Malaysian hawker noodles or Chinese soups and stews. The idea of treating food precisely, as separate components of a dish is not present.In addition, fine dining conventions reveal a specifically European perspective on sophistication and elegance in food, achieved through small portions over several courses. Many non-European feasts, however, are about abundance and communal dining maximalist Cantonese banquets, Middle Eastern mezzes or kamayan in the Philippines, lavish spreads eaten with ones hands. Its also not a coincidence that regular fine dining patrons tend to be white and wealthy, and that restaurants, to stay afloat, will cater to their taste.This leads to a problem, for non-white chefs, of trying to cook authentic cuisine in a historically white institution, tied up with facets of class, wealth and status. Notably, aside from modifying dishes to make them palatable to the fine dining crowd, chefs will likely not mention the original ethnic names of dishes on their menus, lest they be viewed as too unorthodox. Its a subtle way of reinforcing the status quo and shutting non-white chefs out.***Recently, Sohla El-Waylly, assistant food editor at Bon Appetit, exposed pay disparities and racist leadership at the company; and Alison Roman, a contributor to NYT Cooking, was accused of appropriating ethnic dishes without crediting their cultural origins, and disparaging Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo, two women of colour, for selling out by releasing cookware lines.These scandals have blown open the question of who gets to present themselves as experts in food. As it stands, white chefs, mostly male, hold much of the agency, power and mobility: Michelin stars heavily favour European restaurants, and in Le Chefs 2020 list of the 100 best chefs in the world, 86 were white, 83 ran restaurants in Europe, North America or Australia, and 97 were male. And it is relatively common for white chefs to cook non-white cuisines (Carrington at Atlas, Neil Perry at Spice Temple, Benjamin Cooper at Chin Chin and David Thompson at Long Chim): in the Good Food Guides 2018 Awards, 48% of Asian restaurants had a white head chef, and 60% had white owners.But non-white head chefs are relatively uncommon, suggesting that people of colour have to work harder to prove themselves, and even harder to serve authentic cuisine. As well, non-white chefs are rarely viewed as experts in white food, or are heavily expected to bring an ethnic spin, but cannot simply draw from or replicate cuisines other than their own. Theres also the fact that the majority of underpaid and exploited workers are non-white, partly because employers believe that many people of colour who are migrants, visa-holders or otherwise economically and socially vulnerable, wont pursue claims of wage theft.To be clear, the point is not that white chefs cant be skilled in cooking non-white food. But white chefs are easily viewed as experts on non-white food, especially when some have only temporarily travelled through a country. There is a real danger of white chefs extracting or appropriating aspects of a culture, making them trendy for a predominantly white audience (using the language and imagery of faux authenticity as a selling point), and profiting off of it. Its even more concerning when white chefs dont credit or tangibly support the communities they are influenced by, or when non-white chefs dont have the same opportunity to cook that same food in a fine dining context.Empowering non-white chefs as key voices in food is key. It involves pressuring food media to centre the voices of people of colour to progress the way it talks about non-European food. It also requires encouraging consumers to be conscious of foods political and cultural aspects, and industry reforms such as training programs for non-white chefs and overhauling Eurocentric award systems.Importantly, fine dining will not become less white or egalitarian overnight. Its still prohibitively expensive for most people, and comprehensive structural reform is needed to address wage theft and broader issues of socio-economic status. But food still captures the interest and imagination of many Australians, thanks to shows like MasterChef. We cannot abandon representation in fine dining altogether, because then it will remain as white and exclusionary as it did before. White male chefs will go on to receive accolades (including, one assumes, screen time on MasterChef to promote their restaurant), which will bring them greater critical and financial success, and so on it goes.Having more restaurants led by people of colour also helps normalise non-European cuisines, which could be peoples first exposure to new flavours and ingredients. Its important because it makes fine dining slightly less Eurocentric, makes frequent fine diners more receptive to non-European flavours, and empowers prospective chefs of colour to pursue food as a viable career and it has happened before, with chefs like Luke Nguyen, Kylie Kwong and Paul Carmichael. Representation of non-white chefs and non-white cuisines are interlinked, and are greatly important.Despite its exclusivity, fine dining still has an important role to push culinary boundaries and encourage creativity, as any other art form does. Its just that chefs and diners of colour should be able to enter that space too. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It goes without saying that the effects of COVID-19 have wormed their way into every sector of the economy. Amidst a backdrop of major international stock market slumps and looming economic recession, the coronavirus has rattled an already crumbling news industry, prompting fears that this will be the final downfall for local papers across the country.Since the pandemic, both Australian Community Media and Newscorp have terminated a large amount of community suburban and regional papers, temporarily and for good. Out of 112 papers forced to cease print, 76 of these titles have gone into indefinite recess and the remaining 36 have been made to shut shop altogether.During a global pandemic where news is literally life or death, we have seen people tune into the 24-hour news cycle rather than wait for a daily or less frequent local print. Even if loyalists wanted to support their local papers, distribution in lockdown has become near impossible, and advertisers have not been interested in a paper that is no longer in print. This is all following the losing battle over the last decade with social media companies for advertisers; one that has seen some of Australias most established print media publications, such as Australian Community Media suffer irredeemable 100 million dollar losses. All in all, the effects of the virus feel like the final twist of the knife in a decade long massacre of print community news.According to the Financial Review, the cease of the print press was forthcoming, with the move from print to digital a transition merely fast-tracked by the pandemic. At News Corp, the transition to digital-only newsrooms had been in the works since 2018 with the initial conversion of 16 print newspapers to cheaper online equivalents. News Corp chairman Michael Miller says the previous and ongoing changeover is in an effort to situate the news to where the audience is, though, the move is not one without casualties.Digital-only newsrooms have seen large-scale job cuts across the sector, as well as an increase in copy sharing among mutual metropolitan mastheads, that is, repurposing national stories instead of funding local news scoops. If you go online, community news publications all over the country look eerily similar. Its the same stories plastered on the front of generic-looking website templates alongside questionable pop-up ads, while local news goes underfunded and forgotten.Between 2011-2017 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found Australian newspapers had lost 10,000 of their journalist positions, with most being plucked from rural and regional areas, historically first to go when revenue runs dry. And now, since the abrupt cease of print press due to COVID-19, the Murdoch conglomerate went from having 1250 journalists covering community news to just 375. Moreover, when community publications still include that of local Sydney and other city papers, it is unknown how many journalists are on the payroll to cover the smaller regional communities across Australia.In the Hunter Valley region of NSW, my local paper the Maitland Mercury has ceased printing. This is a paper that has been around since 1843, making it only two years younger than the Sydney Morning Herald. It is the third oldest regional paper, preceded only by the Geelong Advertiser and the Launceston Examiner. These, alongside dozens of other regional papers across the nation, are news outlets that proudly showcase the voices and stories of regional Australia. And while last weekends footy results or reports about local community events might seem insignificant, the prospect of news deserts spawning across the country is one that threatens the health of Australian democracy.The term news deserts was coined to describe the desolate information landscape of communities when left without comprehensive news coverage. The ACCC found that in the last decade, newspaper closures had left 21 local government areas without a single paper or online news source to cover their stories. Of these, 16 were in regional areas.This is a massive blow to rural and regional Australia. Local newspapers are the beating heart of Australias small community towns and play a crucial role in their contribution to democracy. They keep the public informed on what decision-makers are doing and are a vital blockade to corruption, malpractice, and ineptitude of local government and private institutions outside the major cities.We have seen rural newspapers unearth local, original, and groundbreaking stories. With its own newsroom being slashed to just a third of the journalists in the last seven-years, the Newcastle Herald uncovered one of the biggest scandals of child sexual abuse in the Catholic diocese of Newcastle-Maitland. The same paper also investigated the medical traumas of local women that propelled a Senate inquiry into pelvic mesh devices in 2017 and looked into links between cancer and chemical leakages in Newcastles neighbouring Williamtown Royal Australian Airforce base. It is these reports that set the agenda for local television bulletins, not the other way around. And this is not isolated to Newcastle, bold investigative stories have come out of all the crevices and cracks of rural and regional Australia, equally worthy of being told and funded. The loss of this kind of journalism and community platform needs to be at the forefront of the projected losses when we talk about newspapers being defunded or terminated altogether.Without local papers, we threaten a total wipe-out of regional Australias voices and stories. While Sydneysiders can bank on seeing themselves covered in national or state publications, so many local stories will simply be forgotten. And although Australian Community Media and News Corp assert that most of these closures are temporary, by the looks of things after the pandemic passes, so too will the circulation and production of local newspapers. I worry that once we lose our community papers, we will lose the voices of regional Australia. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For the past month I have spent most of my time building for the Student General Meeting, and for the next week I shall spend most of my time building for the climate strike. But why?The odds may seem, at times, stacked against us, with the capitalist destruction of this entire planet looming larger each day. Im sure many of us feel disheartened hearing about Scomos government forcing through appalling plans to expand Australias gas industry. The only way to confront these climate crimes is by building a mass movement of the working class, and for us that starts here on campus. The SGM and the large-scale building efforts are simply the first steps in creating the opposition necessary to bring about a much needed green revolution.As we would all know by now the SGM was an incredible success, largely thanks to the relentless efforts of our members on campus over the past month. We stalled and postered every single day, and waged a strong propaganda war against the university in the final days before the meeting. We also called every single name that signed the petition for the SGM, and although not everybody that confirmed over the phone ended up attending, it was still important to create a solid base of support. The sheer scale of building required proved draining for many of us, but it was all worth it when it was announced that we had made the quorum of 200 people.The vote ended up passing unanimously with 227 students voting in favour (with supporters in the room taking us to over 250). At the time the SGM was meant to start, I was worried that we werent going to pull this off. We started with what seemed to be less than 50 people, and I was still yelling on the megaphone desperately trying to get more people to join us. When the march began, I still wasnt confident, but all that changed when I looked back and saw over 100 people behind me. At that moment, I knew that the building had been worth it. As Ive been reflecting over the past week or so, one question has stuck in my mind: what if it didnt work? Would the building have been worth it?Ive reached the conclusion that yes, it still would have been worth it. Building isnt just about getting numbers to one event, its about politicising society (or in this case the campus) and laying the foundations for a mass movement. On that last day before the SGM, you couldnt walk ten metres without seeing a poster for the meeting, or an announcement scribbled in huge chalk writing. We won the propaganda war. The university couldnt keep up with how fast we were spreading the word. That, for me personally, is the real win; that we started with a few of us on sparse stalls, and ended with a movement that had more willpower than the university had resources.The struggle obviously doesnt stop with the SGM. It also wont stop with the climate strike on May 21. Its time to use the collective power that we have built to generate even more collective power; to exponentially grow this movement. I believe that on-campus building will be the most important part. We will be in every lecture, poster every surface, chalk every flower pot. We will be out there every day until May 21 and every day after, until our movement becomes strong enough to overthrow this capitalist system.It may seem foolish to think that we can change the course of history with a stack of leaflets, some posters, and a handful of chalk, however, I strongly believe that this is where real change starts. So Id encourage you all to give it a shot, to take some power back in a very real way, and to make a change. It was the Lorax who put it best when he said Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. Its not. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I alongside several of my classmates recently had the privilege of visiting the Wandiyali Environa Wildlife Sanctuary in Queanbeyan, on the doorstep of Canberra. Our expedition to this privately owned, 400 hectare sanctuary provided our company with unexpected insights into the process of land restoration, and demonstrated how the efforts of just a single family, has made incredible progress in healing the deep scars of colonialism on a natural ecosystem.Upon arriving at the sanctuary, our band of nine was soon herded to the crest of a hill, where we had a spectacular view of the surrounding lands, including an ephemeral wetland that had been created following the heavy rains earlier this year. At this point, we fragmented into smaller clusters, and soon were all immersed in deep conversation with different members of the proprietary family, myself included. It was at this moment that I was acutely made aware of the indigenous legacy of the land.Right over there is a ring tree. Thats when the First Nations peoples would bind young saplings, and let them fuse together over time. We really dont know why this particular ring tree was created, but it still survives after 400 years.These words, whilst uttered casually, drove home the tragic loss of heritage, which had remained unbroken for 60,000 years. Our guide, David, continued on about the loss of native culture, and destruction of vegetation, that had transpired during the colonisation of the area. First Nations stories were lost alongside the undergrowth that housed Bettongs. Age-old legends disappeared with the creatures that inspired them. And yet, the tragedy did not seem to cause either of us pain. Because, we could see, for the first time in 200 years, this area of land once again provided habitats for Bettongs, and havens for wallabies. Great logs, and branches had been hauled in from highway developments, providing new homes for these once-prolific marsupials. The by-products of colonial expansion had been re-purposed to slowly heal this fractured ecosystem. And it was this resilient spirit of restoration that gave me hope that we still have a chance to heal this world.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Almost exactly three years ago, I published an anonymous feature article in Honi Soit. Three weeks ago, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the events described in that article. I didnt know it at the time, but my nervous system was immobilised at the time of writing. Since then, my brain has ping-ponged between anxiety and shutdown. Today six years into my undergraduate studies I have whiplash.In a nutshell, the article described the experience of having my drink spiked, hooking up with three guys, and emerging from a blackout on the Story Bridge. The police found me walking into oncoming traffic, braless and not wearing any underwear or boots.When I collected a print copy of my story in Honi, I was surprised by an inclusion from the editors, cw: sexual assault. I didnt know the editors would label my experience sexual assault. Sure, the night I wrote about involved some form of sexual conduct (I still dont know the specifics). A content warning made sense. But I did not set out to write a sexual assault article.I set out to write about leaving a hospital in donated sandals. Of going through the motions after life-threatening trauma. About why the legalisation of same-sex marriage reminds me of the worst day of my life. And how it feels to rely on your friends, without asking too much. The purpose of narrating my experience was to resist simplification.It took the next three years for someone to convince me that I had been the victim of a serious offence. There was no point conducting a drug test or rape kit at the hospital because there was no case. I know my case would not hold up in a court of law. The ethical definition of consent never crossed my mind. Since then, the most revolutionary thing my therapist said to me is: Proof doesnt matter. Your body knows what happened.Three years ago, I wrote:On Sunday, I re-order my favourite leather boots the ones I was wearing that night and never would have removed of my own accord. They arrive three days later. Wearing them when I return to the police station weeks later feels like a stupid, stamping victory.In those boots, I have travelled solo, earned a Bachelor of Arts, and moved house twice. But I havent trusted myself to function since 2018. In the original article, I asked whether autopilot or stoicism is the healthiest reaction to trauma. Unsurprisingly, volunteering at a refugee camp in northern France wasnt the ideal response. I have deflected, compounded, and ultimately failed to effectively process my trauma.Perhaps this is why the events of 2018-19 surfaced with such force after lockdown.At the start of this semester, social interactions began to spark intense dissociation. I would scan the Seymour Centre foyer before an identity revue and shut down. Everyone I saw reminded me of a precursor, a missing memory. What happened? Micro and macro-traumas converge. I try to connect the milestones:2015 High school, accepting that I dont like boys, so love is not for me.2016 Telling my best friend I love her in the Cellar Theatre.2017 Returning a bag of belongings, blank stare: I feel no urgency to be your friend again.2018 The police shake me from a drug haze on the Bridge and drive me to the hospital.2019 A warehouse in Calais, learning that a young Eritrean boy from our camp froze to death on a lorry last night.Returning to Sydney. Returning to the motions. To a global pandemic.I dont remember signing up for this timeline.When I spell out this sequence, it becomes clear that every moment of reckoning is connected. My psychologist changed everything by confirming that PTSD is compounded by developmental and vicarious trauma. She explains the polyvagal theory, which suggests why individuals with PTSD end up ping-ponging between shutdown and anxiety. Clinical psychologist Dr Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, explains why individuals can experience shutdown and dissociation in response to a life-threatening trauma. For me, feeling shutdown meant feeling frozen in time: despite everything that has happened in the last five years, in many ways I still feel 19 years old. As I write this, I realise that time is starting to un-freeze.Levine advises that emerging from the shutdown response can require a shudder to awaken the nervous system. My psychologist has warned me that this shudder means transitioning up the ladder from depression, to anxiety, to eventually feeling normal again. I like the ladder metaphor, and I like the ping pong metaphor. They make the mental fuckery of PTSD seem universal and manageable.Ping-pong explains why I still loiter around Courtyard Caf and resent my corporate job.Ping-pong explains the envy of watching my peers from 2016-17 start their lives.Ping-pong explains the self-doubt, the impulsive decisions.Every 20-something plays ping-pong.My experiences may be unique but my feelings are not. Everyone carries baggage. Self-pity is unproductive. One must rationalise, refuse to wallow.And yet some nights are hard. Some nights I cry myself to sleep, unable to breathe or explain my pain to my partner. After nights like these, I read my original article in search of something solid. In search of proof of the events that changed my brain.Today, I add this postscript. This feels important because, unlike law courts and hospitals, nuance is guaranteed in these pages. If I get the words right, the lived experience stays on the record. This is the value of testimony. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dominic Knight doesnt want you to read this book: he said as much at the Honi reporter induction. I cant imagine Penguin is thrilled about his active dissuasion of the only possible market for a yarn about USyds annual SRC presidential race, but so strong was his campaign against his own book that they got a sale out of me.Knight is not being humble: the book isnt great. The terrace facades of the inner city streets are better sketched than the characters who traipse them, and the politicking reeks of a garden variety Canberra drama (which in effect, it is). Reading it feels like stepping into a tableau of early 2000s Sydney, when classes were on campus, rents were reasonable, and VSU only lived in the nightmares of hacks. This would all quickly become obsolete, if not for the one constant of campus life: student politicians. Libdependents rort college votes and trots plan fruitless protests. Hacks warp the rules of chemistry and campus security to chalk every footpath, and grimy share house living rooms become agoras in the blink of an eye. Sound familiar?Ten years after it was published, and twenty after its meant to have taken place, the stupol commentary offered by Comrades feels as fresh as ever. This feels attributable, in part, to the keen sense of every student politician that their days in the game are always numbered. The spectre of graduation looms over the pages as it does over us, a reminder of the unshakeable transience of student life. The campaign becomes more heated, the factional friendships more intense, when you know with absolute certainty that none of it can, or will, outlast the short years you spend here.Looking up from the pages, it takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the physical differences between our world and Knights. The Redfern terraces are now filled with gentrified tennants, the lecture halls sit empty, the faculties gaunt and stretched. Though shyness has taught me to avoid them, I know the similarities are there: on the Eastern Avenue pamphlet rat run, behind the ABS Liberal corflutes, in the Groots contingent on the Law lawns and hawking Red Flag at every junction. Everything changes, nothing changes. Is there enough time to contemplate anything more than that? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I recently had an intervention with my wardrobe. It consists of black garments, blue jeans, and the occasional statement piece to interrupt the monochrome. Vintage t-shirts hang up scrappily soft to the touch from the wear of previous owners. The majority of pieces are second-hand (or stolen from my mums wardrobe in feats of espionage). It was discernible that I had cultivated my sense of style as a fluid extension of my identity.But over time, some pockets of clothes have ended up living in a state of neglect, having not felt the warmth of the sunshine, or an iron, for months. Some pieces became incongruent with how I presented myself. Others were bought out of impulse, or under the delusion that Id look good in hot pink.For the sake of my cluttered wardrobe, it was fortuitous when, on Wednesday 26 May, Fashion Revolution and Waste Fighters brought a clothing swap to campus. It was a space where people could bring clothes they no longer wear, and exchange them for other garments. In true wholesome and sustainable fashion, any clothing leftover was donated to charity.Inspired by the UKs Fashion Revolution organisation, the Fashion Revolution Society emerged this year with the objective of bringing sustainable fashion to campus consciousness.I spoke to Aya Richardson, the societys president, who referred to Fashion Revolution as a movement campaigning for, and raising awareness about, the social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry.The goal is to raise awareness on campus, [and] host events that are inclusive and accessible for everyone, she said.The society echoes the ethos enshrined in the Fashion Revolution manifesto: We love fashion. But we dont want our clothes to exploit people or destroy our planet. We demand radical, revolutionary change.I sauntered up Eastern Avenue with a comically large bag of old clothes. Tops, skirts, dresses, heels each had memories tied to them. But it made no sense letting them wilt in my wardrobe when they could move on to a new home. My pieces contributed to the colourful piles surrounding the stall, which were being carefully examined by seasoned and beginner thrifters alike. There was something gratifying about seeing people pick up something I had just put down.Shopping sustainably isnt just confined to avoiding fast fashion outlets. It relies on actively shopping consciously and rejecting impulse. Fashion is political. It is far more sustainable to cultivate ones own style, and with it, an arsenal of dependable pieces, rather than losing your breath (and perhaps your dignity) chasing the ever-spiralling trend cycles. Attending events like a Clothes Swap isnt only fulfilling it can prevent the fast fashion heavyweights from slamming the accelerator on grotesque levels of output.The people behind Waste Fighters and Fashion Revolution told me that the feedback from the event was phenomenal. People were keen to donate clothes and money, and to swap items with others. The leftover clothes were taken to Vinnies, and the monetary donations went to ActionAid Australia where the profits are sent to garment workers facing exploitation.With Richardson revealing that they are working with other societies and organisations, we can undoubtedly anticipate more events like these next semester. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The thought of inclusion and diversity which once brought up hopes and expectations of opportunities and rich learning experiences, has now turned sour. I find myself asking but where are we being included?. Where is this disembodied and almost figurative space that were being heralded to? I ask myself this as I sit in the common kitchen in a University accommodation, and watch groups barely interacting with each other while remaining within themselves. I ask as I watch group meetings take place and somehow White people always end up in charge or end up speaking the most. I ask as I walk down the street and a middle-aged White woman yells at me to go back where I came from. I ask as I watch my course reading list and see only European names. Have I failed? Is this my fault? Is it my fault for not having long last relationships with my White peers? Or finding our interactions upsetting after a point? I must have failed to include myself. After all, I was brought here by the gracious consideration of the University board who picked me from one of their many diversity priority markets (direct quote from a scholarship email). I should be able to fit in. It is my own shortcoming, perhaps, social anxiety or better yet, narcissism, that I am unable to find any sort of fulfilment in most of my experiences at University.I know that this is not an isolated experience. At best, international students from non-western countries will look at their white and diasporic peers and wonder what it is they need to emulate or embody while scrolling through social media and figuring out their next aesthetic. At worst, theyre isolating themselves and wondering where it all went wrong. In all these cases, the common ground is self-doubt. We blame ourselves for a system that is built to never truly include us. That is unless we become some sort of acceptable version of the other. We learn to dress, talk, behave and eventually think in the way the dominant (generalised) western culture expects us to. Intricacies and nuances of cultural difference are lost in the noise of hegemonic cultural imperialism. Internalised feelings of cultural inferiority become apparent and we no longer want to even speak as we did back home. We become the same people until all that is left is the difference of physical appearances. Some folks are brown, and some others are Black, some are East Asian, and some others are just the other (those that White people cannot be bothered to even vaguely categorise). We are included and then we become diverse.Cultural assimilation then becomes the expectation, the implicit terms, and conditions to the long document of our acceptance letters. If we dont assimilate, we dont last long, and quite literally, go back to where we came from. We dont thrive in any aspect of our lives because even our own people who manage to assimilate, expect the same from us. This is the insidiousness of cultural assimilation. It is what White systems of power use to justify themselves, and further assume a position of generosity by gifting us the basic human rights of freedom and self-expression. It brings into question why, when were discussing protests erupting globally, my teacher asks me to enrich the class with my unique Indian cultural perspective, but I am never asked to narrate readings in class, only my White peers. Why when I bring up discussions of racism, my White classmates stop responding and my teacher announces that it is just a matter of different opinions to alleviate the tension. Why I am championed as some sort of martyr or superior moral being when I express the trauma of being a person of colour in a White institution, but few extend genuine concern beyond classrooms.The disembodied space we are being included in is the abyss of western cultural imperialism and I am no longer asking for a seat at the table. Though I know proximity to whiteness has its privileges, it will never get us anywhere, because the table is not levelled, it is not skewed in our favour and never has been. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On the 17th of March 2021, an Asian grandmother, Xiaozhen Xie, was attacked in San Francisco the morning after the Atlanta spa shootings, where eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women. Through GoFundMe, her grandson raised about $1 million surpassing the original $50,000 target, which was meant to cover Xies ongoing medical expenses. Less than a week later, she and her grandson had pledged all the money to the Asian American Pacific Islander community to combat racism.Such an act exemplifies the collectivism that embodies the beating heart of many Asian cultures. Where Western countries tend to value individualism above all, collectivist cultures prioritise the well-being of the group, placing family and community at the centre of all traditions and social conventions. It permeates all areas of life, from our holidays to the way we treat our elders, even manifesting in our meals: dishes in the middle that are shared by everyone.My experiences growing up as a Chinese in a Western country are very clich. I viewed my culture often with a sense of disdain and shame, preferring to present as white and as Western as possible, wanting to fit in. When all I heard was that Chinese people ate dogs and were chronically cheap, the yearning to know and live my culture slowly but surely faded away. Yet, the collectivist values that were instilled in me were always an aspect of my culture that I embodied with pride and I often view them with a sense of romanticism and awe. The childhood stories I read of Western heroes who fought for the good of everyone were reflected in my family, my aunties and uncles, and the Asian diaspora in my community, as they raised children who were not their own, brought bags of long-unseen snacks from China for the elderly at the expense of souvenirs, and spread around the information of good schools and teachers, so that all could succeed.At home, I was taught to see myself, first and foremost as a part of my family, my community, and my society. My perception of myself therefore didnt focus on self-professed values but centred around what I can contribute as a pious daughter, a kind friend, and a responsible member of society. The encouragement to view myself as a part of something bigger also went hand in hand with the willingness to endure and persist, or in Chinese, eat bitter, if it meant that a greater fruit would come of it.It is through this collectivist lens that we can see how countries like China responded to COVID-19. While anti-lockdown and anti-mask protests occurred all over the Western world, very few appeared in Asia. In fact, in most East Asian countries, wearing a mask if you were ill was a common practice long before the pandemic. Such a practice ensured your illness wasnt spread and was expected as a sign of respect for your community. While the pandemic caused holiday air travel in the US to drop by 40-60%, Lunar New Year travel in China dropped by 74%, at a time when China had an average of 20 cases a day, where the US had 200,000 per day.The last year has seen attack upon attack on people like me, from the dubbing of the China virus to the Atlanta shooting. The last decades have seen viciously prejudiced media and stereotypes and the last centuries, villainising fear created by yellow peril. Yet, beyond what we have endured, beyond representations of qipao and Lunar New Year interspersed within accusatory commentary on foreign buyers in the housing market, beyond our skin tone and our accents, lies a culture so beautifully enrooted in the values of respect, community, and unity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The idea of Country, to me, extends beyond the typical definition of a Nation occupying a territory. In fact, when I hear the word country, I immediately think of the beaches of where I grew up the South Coast of NSW or better known as the Yuin Nation. Country to me is the smooth sands on the myriad of beaches within Jervis Bay, its also the tiny scattered rock pools, and the sprawling cliffs that extend across the coast.So when I hear the word country, I cant help but to think of my connection back to the Yuin Nation.I interpret my sense of belonging as my connection to the natural elements such as the land. It is knowing and feeling the presence of my ancestors within this land, but also seeing the effects of the past play out onto the modern-day land. To me, it is important to acknowledge (but not to dwell on) the past experiences of my family and ancestors.This stems from a conversation I had with my Nan, who experienced the effects of the stolen generation and intergenerational trauma while living down the South Coast on Yuin land. She told me she hates Nowra and the South Coast with a passion, for having to deal with the trauma inflicted by the colonisers, and growing up separated from family due to the stolen generation. After she explained to me why she hates the place, she stated that, No matter where I end up, Ill always have a connection to this place from our ancestors and, Jordan, you should always acknowledge where you come from. its special. I think I was only twelve at the time, but her words have always stuck with me since and I continue to carry on the message and the idea of Country as being something special and inherent to the First Nations experience.When I think about Country, I also think about the people who reside or have resided on those lands, and the communities. This leads me to bring up this important point; when a First Nations person thinks about Country and their own idea or interpretation, its not always a clear-cut positive train of thought. Our experiences are nuanced and carry lots of weight. To me: I think about the community, the family and how for my family, down the coast, they have been so affected and scarred from the intergenerational trauma that continues to accumulate into the present day. This takes the form of little fights here and there within and between family members. Its growing up and seeing family members, whether that be uncles, aunties or cousins, fight and not talk for months or even years.This would be upsetting to any Indigenous person; seeing family fight and not know how to make up. I think its really important to acknowledge that thinking about Country can be chaotic and that it can be hard sometimes.Acknowledging and respecting traditional values that were upheld on the lands as well as being mindful of the events that have taken place there, are all key to understanding what Country means to a First Nations person. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Your tutors voice echoes ominously inside your head: Remember, the assignment is due tonight. Duh, youd thought to yourself, but it doesnt seem so obvious now. Your fasting stomach rumbles quietly in protest against the assignment, and the four hours of sleep you had last night shows in the haphazard sentences you form. In the background, you start to hear the low buzz of people filtering into the house for Iftar.Bang! The door bursts open and in come a horde of children nephews, cousins, cousins of cousins and whatever momentum you had is lost with the cacophony of shrill demands. In the end, you do hit the submit button, but you cant shake off the feeling that you couldve done better.In Ramadan, Iftar gatherings are a staple phenomenon. From the art of distributing food equally, to taking that first sip of chilled orange cordial after hours of no food or drink, the whole experience is so unique. The communal vibes are unparalleled, and you wish you could prolong the moments of gratitude and utter bliss, encircled by those whom you love most.That is, until youre greeted by the deadline bug the pesky little arthropod inside your head that injects an unending dose of worry, stress, and anxiety into you, as if you didnt already know that the deadline for that assignment is so close, you can almost smell it. Suddenly, spending those extra hours with the family is impossible because if you dont start that assignment now, you wont be able to wake up before sunrise for suhoor. And if you dont get enough sleep after suhoor, youll show up to uni looking like a total zombie. Unless youre going for that all-year-round Halloween look, nobody wants that.Few can master the art of staying productive while juggling religious commitments, work, family time, and university assignments. Not everyone is an Ali Abdaal or Matt DAvella. Things can get hectic, and that ruthless productivity guru buried deep within may not immediately come to life, especially without the necessary doses of caffeine throughout the day.But for me, this year was going to be different. This semester I grit my teeth, assembled an arsenal of stationery, binge watched How to stop procrastinating videos on YouTube, downloaded the Forest app to keep me off my phone, and went completely military mode in preparation for Ramadan. I wouldnt let the deadline bug overwhelm me, and I certainly would not burn out just because I was fasting for twelve hours a day.This dedication lasted about a week. After that, my sleep schedule went out of whack, my energy levels plummeted, and my motivation hit rock bottom. Procrastination was my best friend, and the deadline bug, my greatest enemy.But it would be wrong to say that I didnt learn anything about myself during this time. Im more convinced than ever that everything I set out to do was indeed possible, all while fasting and setting time aside for faith and family. I learnt about University support services like the Learning Centre, and SUMSA (Sydney Unis very own Muslim students association) which host tons of events to make students feel safe and included during the Ramadan period. And if things arent looking up, the options for special considerations, simple extensions, or even just knowing that there are understanding tutors around, is always reassuring.As always, this Ramadan was interesting, challenging, draining, but above all, rewarding. At the end of the day, fasting students may well need to compromise, and prioritise, but were in luck, because thats exactly what Ramadan teaches us. Like me, maybe next year youll finally learn to strike a deal with the deadline bug, or otherwise swat it out of your life altogether. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CW: sexual assaultFor most of my life I have suffered in silence, left to wilt underneath the weight of lifes most unimaginable trauma. As a sexual assault survivor, I was taught by society and those close to me, to remain quiet about the trauma that almost killed me. I felt isolated within my own mind, trapped in a feeling that saying something would break me. But the hardest thing was not having my pain understood a feeling that most survivors can share.When you utter your darkest trauma, the fear that lines your stomach is one of indescribable proportions. The quivering of your lips, the tears that numb your face, the hands that never seem to stop shaking.I can still remember the day I told someone for the very first time. It took nine years. No one prepares you for the feeling of intense loneliness when you utter those words I was sexually assaulted. Looks of pity and attempts to discredit your story all add to the intense social isolation that your trauma immerses you in.Unfortunately, this is a common experience. I just wanted someone who could tell me I was going to get through this and to say it wholeheartedly with truth. I needed someone who had walked this twisted path before, and to hold my hand throughout. But sadly, not all survivors are met with that type of warmth.This feeling endured for three years, until I stumbled upon an Instagram page named Pieces of Marcelle.I remember flicking through her stories for the first time, in awe of her courage. She had found a way to regain the autonomy she had lost, through sharing the worst days of her life with her audience. Marcelles openness to show her emotional scars allowed me to feel that what I went through was real, that I as a survivor was allowed to tell my story.In the months that followed, we began interacting. It started off with a few story replies, and messages of gratitude. These turned into in-depth conversations, supporting each other on our road to recovery, offering words of comfort that finally felt authentic. The kindness, empathy and warmth Marcelle extended to me, helped me conquer the silence that mired my heart. It was through this compassion that I began to speak on what happened to me.During the recent disclosures of sexual assaults that have plagued Australian politics, I felt compelled as a survivor to provide my perspective, to identify to the people in my life the lingering effects sexual assault had on me. For the first time I had the confidence to tell more than just close friends and loved ones, that I was a survivor of sexual assault, that my story mattered. And there was Marcelle cheering me on throughout it all.Pieces of Marcelle is not just a one-sided Instagram page. It is a safe space where the voices of all survivors are shared, and no one is silenced into remission. It is through this community, that part of the weight I carried in silence began to ease.While I will always carry the inconceivable trauma of sexual assault, and there are some details I will perhaps never be able to utter, I now have a space where I belong. A space where I can share those details if I am ever ready to.For any survivors out there, who feel alone in their grief, in their agony, I promise you, you are not alone. While there are days it seems like we are screaming just for someone to believe us, remember that there is a community waiting to help you heal.And if you are reading this Marcelle, thank you. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Now that Im no longer an MP, I dont have to solve problems anymore, Tony Abbott declared midway through his interview with former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson at the inaugural Australian Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday. Its enough just to point at them.Abbott, like many of the other speakers at the conference, spent his time on stage meandering aimlessly through a vague and nostalgic ode to conservatism. John Howard quotes took centre stage as the retired Member for Warringah extolled the virtues of pragmatism, traditionalism, and the family unit.In his allotted half an hour, however, that was about all Abbott said. In fact, with a few exceptions, that was about all anybody said at CPAC. The A in Conservative Political Action Conference was noticeably redundant throughout.***Like most components of Australian conservative culture, CPAC was imported from the US. Familiar and foreign faces alike from Sky and Fox News adorned its speaking list; book signings and photo opportunities were conveniently included in the conferences pricey ticket packages (named, apparently unironically, the Reagan VIP Pass and the Iron Lady Pass). But a cursory glance at the history of CPAC, which was founded in 1973 by the American Conservative Union (ACU), suggests that the institution that graced Australias shores for the first time this year has only recently undergone a radical reimagination of identity.Matt Schlapp, chairman of the ACU, spent a considerable amount of time interviewing Republican Congressman Matt Meadows (with whom Schlapp shared a number of similarities extending far beyond name) about the virtues and popularity of Donald Trump. Meadows, relying on North Carolinian folksy charm alone to pad out his numerous speaking slots, delivered an extended sermon of anecdotes about his interaction with the President and painted him as a model conservative leader.It was only a few years ago, however, that the well-entrenched American CPAC welcomed a patronage that was far more fond of Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. An internal poll of attendees in 2016 reflected precisely this result. Fast forward to Sydney in 2019, and both are the butts of numerous jokes. Alongside Jeb Bush, the pair are dismissed as failed emissaries of the establishment, trampled and cast into irrelevance by the same populist fervour that ushered 400 attendees from around the country into the room on a weekday.Organisers were keen to bill the event as a catalyst for grassroots conservative action. From Mark Latham to Nigel Farage, the speakers were avowed subscribersof Trumpian populism (with the exception, perhaps, of speakers such as Senator Amanda Stoker, whose half an hour speech on industrial relations law reform failed to rile the crowd up as much as the thinly veileddogwhistlingof Ross Cameron). A resounding theme of anti-establishmentarianism percolated the 14 or so hours of oratory, and attendees were convinced that action against the establishment is urgently needed if the country is to stand a chance.Janet Albrechtsen dedicated her time in the spotlight to evangelising about free speech, inventing the conveniently reductive equation anger plus disgust equals contempt to explain the mindset of the broad left, which she argued is inherently unwilling to engage in a dialogue. Raheem Kassam, former advisor to Nigel Farage, spent most of his time mocking Kristina Keneally and the ALP for their attempts to convince the Home Affairs Minister to bar him from entering the country due to his suggestion that Scottish politician Nicola Sturgeon have her legs taped shut [] so she cant reproduce.The arrival of a small band of student protesters only served to vindicate the hive of conservatives at Rydges World Square. They seemed not to appreciate the glowing irony underlying their encouragement of direct anti-establishment action coupled with a simultaneous condemnation of the efforts of those protesting two former leaders of the largest parliamentary parties in the country. This irony also slipped by apparently unnoticed on Friday when, speaking directly to the media junket at the back of the room, Meadows lamented that journalists were no longer unbiased, shortly before introducing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to the stage. It was the same again when disgraced columnist and serial plagiarist Tanveer Ahmed boasted of his ability to bring a different angle to popular issues during a speech which, if actually written by Ahmed, offered evidence as to why he felt the need to obscure his intellectual efforts with the work of others in the first place.To a large extent, it was this lack of self-awareness coupled with Abbotts confession of retirement-induced apathy that defined the conference. Attendees were convinced wholesale of the evils of several different supposed bogey-men the government, according to entrepreneur and free marketeer Steve Baxter; global free markets, according to nationalist Farage without stopping to consider the inherent contradictions in the messages delivered to them. It was enough for everyone to simply point to a problem, without stopping to think too much about whether it really was the fault of elites or migrants, Boris Johnson or Teresea May, Malcolm Turnbull or the supposed rabble chanting outside. The only speaker to actually propose any kind of pragmatic solution to anything, Senator Amanda Stoker, was met with sterile indifference and impatience. The reality was that everyone in the room was just as much guilty of the indolent contempt Albrechtsen had so thoroughly accused the left of.***It would be cynical to call CPAC a simple money grab, though it certainly was. It would also be disingenuous to suggest that action played any major role in the conferences purpose. What became clear after two days at CPAC was that its very difficult to stir anybody into anti-establishment action when, in fact, you are the establishment. Many of the speakers spent a good deal of time recounting a highlights reel of 2016, and with good reason: what else is there to discuss now? It became clear after fielding a question about Boris Johnsons prime ministership that Farage would prefer to avoid the topic because it involves admitting that there isnt really anyone left to rail against. Similarly, Latham seems to have had the wind taken out of his sails to some extent following his election to NSW Parliament, unable to countenance his outsider identity with the inside of a chamber offering parliamentary privilege amongst a raft of other benefits.CPAC was a study in inertia. A group of people who never quite thought they were going to win, whether it was June and November 2016 or March and May 2019, are now struggling to shift gears; scrambling to imagine a world in which they have become the very thing they railed against. We can only hope they dont notice the A in CPAC anytime soon. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Being one of Indias largest cultural exports, Bollywood has undeniably played a major role in shaping the national identity and international image of India. The cultural pervasivity is almost inescapable, as the industrys biggest stars can be seen plastered on every street. They populate the public consciousness, making appearances in every form of media from soap commercials to being the owners of popular IPL cricket teams.Each language in India has its own film industry with its own cult following of prolific actors. These amount to around 28 unique industries, representing a different language or dialect and producing around 200 films per year. This creates an idiosyncratic climate where there are usually 5-6 films of different origin playing in the same theatre. However, behind the glitz and glamour, there is an element to Bollywood that is inherently detrimental to the cultural diversity of what was once a multifarious film industry.The often normative effect that Bollywood plays on smaller Indian screen cultures such as Tollywood (the Telugu film industry) and Kollywood (the Tamil film industry) and the advent of the Masala film genre has diluted the once thriving and unique film industries. Coupled with this, the industry is plagued with rampant plagiarism, with some plots being directly lifted from Hollywood, and even entire songs being stolen to be produced as a degraded rendition. Furthermore, individuals are able to make entire careers out of these practices profiting immensely by Indias relaxed to non-existent copyright laws .The immense amount of cultural hegemony that the Bollywood industry holds is reflected in the normative effect that it bears on all other film industries: it is often the case that other Indian film industries take after Bollywood specifically in terms of format and style, adapting as many elements as they can to mirror Bollywood film. This wasnt always the case. In the early stages of Indian cinema, each language developed its own unique industry for film.The Indian film industry was birthed in the midst of a British Raj (Colonial India): beginning in the art of silent films it then inspired filmmakers around the country to create their own visions in this artform. Many of the plots of these films drew from ancient poems, folklore and traditional plays from Parsi and traditional Hindu theatre. Dadasaheb Phalke was the first to produce a full length film, and is considered the original pioneer of Indian cinema. His movie Raja Harishchandra (1913), depicted a religious parable and set the precedent for most early films bringing religious narratives to the screen. The film premiered in Mumbai with intertitles produced in Hindi, English and Marathi.On the 15th of June, 1947 India achieved independence from the British Empire, also separating Pakistan as its own independent nation. As a consequence, the culture and arts sector of the country dove into what is considered the Golden Age of Bollywood cinema. Filmmakers depicted themes of working life, urban social struggles, political conflicts it painted the new India that was anti-colonial and independent, in its own unique cultural brush. Notable classics include Pyaasa (1957) by Guru Dutt, which depicts the romance between a struggling poet and a sex worker. Another exemplar is Raj Kapoors Shree 420, produced in 1955, illustrating the wishful hopes of a young boy from country Allahabad who pursues his dreams in the big city.The popularity of film in India was also evident in the flourishing of films that were produced by, and for, its multifaceted cultural and linguistic groups. The Tamil industry had its own equivalent in Kollywood, as with the Telugu industry in Tollywood. Tollywood, in particular, saw its roots in the renowned director Raghupati Venkaiah who is considered the father of Telugu film. The 1930s saw the beginning of a large following in Telugu films, propelling the film, its actors and directors into the mainstream. Telugu films would often centre around heavily politicised plots, delving into revolutionary undertones, even going insofar as to depict uprisings against the British Raj and highlighting the social friction spurred by the caste system. Raithu Bidda, produced in 1939 by Gudavalli Ramabraham, explored the historical uprising of peasants against their aristocratic landowners who were particularly powerful due to their relationship with British colonial imperialists who bestowed them princes. This film was banned by the British Raj. However by the time the 1950s and 1960s rolled around, the films became evidently less provocative, and appealed more to undemanding plotlines, jovial theatrics and music, and heroic male protagonists. Yet an almost cultural renaissance emerged during the 70s and 80s where movies such as Sankarabharanam and Maa Bhoomi reignited the social and political genre of film that was once thought to be extinct. These films were landmark developments within the industry creating a distinct brand for Telugu films.Despite a history of unique and vibrant film cultures, the once diverse industries slowly started producing the same genre of film over and over again, the Masala film. The advent of this type of film revolutionised not just its progenitor, Bollywood, but all Indian film industries, setting the tone for films for the next five decades to come. It was first experimented with in the mid 1970s in films such as Sholay (1975) where it became wildly successful. This type of film became increasingly popular during the 90s to such a large extent that almost every other genre, bar horror, was choked out of theatres. By the turn of the century, films under this genre, such as Munna Bhai MBBS, Rang De Basanti and Dhoom, were wildly successful.Almost all industries picked up this genre and started producing such films en masse, creating the formulaic homogeneity that Indian films are all too well known for in the present day. This was all at the expense of killing off the unique subcultures that each industry had developed. The rapid adoption and extreme saturation of the Masala genre can be linked to many factors, the most obvious being the cultural capital that Hindi has in India; it was once a language only spoken in the north of India and the rest of the populus was not privy to the language or had no exposure to it. This allowed for distinct cultures to emerge in their own language bubbles in each region, a phenomenon reflected in the film industries early on each language had its own screen culture. In more recent times, the blurring of cultural lines via the advent of instant communication and the increasing cultural hegemony of Hindi has resulted in film industries taking a similarly normative turn, caving into demands from audiences who crave the next Bollywood style film in their own language. Along with the domineering effect that Bollywood has on its sister industries, it has also fallen prey to a dangerous practice of plagiarism. This phenomenon is relatively new, originating in the 1970s often stealing from prolific Hollywood films, taking all but the actors and language. An early example of this practice was Dharmata (1975) where the plot was taken from Francis Ford Coppolas The Godfather (1972) and proceeded to be well received by the largely unaware audiences at the time. This is but one of many plagiarised films and, according to one study, there are well over 300 films that have been plagiarised. This practice is in fact becoming even more prevalent despite the tightening of copyright laws.The lucrative nature of plagiarised films attracts many directors as it is relatively low effort to steal the script of another successful film, and box office success is already assured. One such director is Vikram Bhatt, director of Raaz (2002), a remake of What Lies Beneath (2000), and Kasoor (2001), a remake of Jagged Edge (1985). Bhatt has blamed the audiences and their desire for American culture and pressure from the producers wanting multiple blockbuster films within months of each other, stating, Financially, I would be more secure knowing that a particular piece of work has already done well at the box office. Copying is endemic everywhere in India. Our TV shows are adaptations of American programmes. We want their films, their cars, their planes, their Diet Cokes and also their attitude. The American way of life is creeping into our culture. This predatory practice of feeding unknowing audiences repackaged and stolen media is even more prevalent in the Bollywood music industry. Despite their immense popularity, the Indian music industry had no hesitation in directly plagiarising iconic foreign songs such as Wham!s Last Christmas, the Macarena, the main theme from The Godfather, and ABBAs Fernando. It was no coincidence that this explosion of plagiarism was set off after the introduction of cable television in India. It made the hegemonic US film industry far more accessible to the populus, with cultural homogenising an inevitable consequence. This phenomenon seeps through the fabric of arts and culture in India.The lack of artistic integrity that pervades the mainstream entertainment industry begs the question as to why such practices are allowed to occur. The industries are undeniably nepotistic in their functioning actors are cast by their own family, films funded by royalty and dynastic family powers. Ultimately, at the root of Bollywoods unabashed plagiarism lies profit. The international film world in the late 80s and 90s had not yet familiarised themselves with the still obscure Indian film industry. This brewed the perfect conditions for money-centric industries to easily appropriate blockbusters and turn them into their own, only with Indian actors speaking Hindi rather than English. Under Section 52 of The Copyright Act 1957 of the Indian Constitution, an individual may reuse copyrighted work, if limited and used for specific purposes. This vague and easily manipulated law has irrevocably been jumped over by Bollywood, time and time again.The Indian film industry has undertaken many transformations, adapting to its constantly transforming, international context. However, it has been distastefully mired in both its Bollywood centric prevalence and the rampant plagiarism that has diluted originality and artistic creativity. Having its beginnings in the British Raj, to finally being liberated from its colonial bindings, and eventually entering the capitalist boom as a major world power, the artistic achievements of the countrys most prolific and game changing filmmakers and actors should be applauded. Films serve to reflect the world around us, and Indias best films have driven cultural, social, political boundaries to achieve just that. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content warning: sexual assaultEnd Rape on Campus (EROC) Australia and the National Union of Students (NUS) Womens Department have called upon Universities Australia, and Vice-Chancellors nation-wide, to commit to supporting a more ethical collection of data in the 2020 national survey into university sexual harassment and assault.The University of Sydney (USyd), along with 38 other universities, have confirmed they will participate in a follow-up survey to the2016 National Survey into University Sexual Assault and Harassment, as per the Reports recommendation.A USyd spokesperson confirmed to Honi that, we are liaising with Universities Australia and at this stage intend to participate in the next round [of surveying].Although the first surveys methodology was widely criticised for being unethical EROC has not yet had confirmation that the follow-up survey will use more ethical processes.In 2017, the Australian Human Rights Council (AHRC) released Change The Course: National Report on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at Australian Universities, based on data from a nation-wide survey of university students in 2016. EROC criticised the Report fornot passing itssubmission questionnaire throughethics-approved, for its methodology making underreporting likely, all the while subjecting participants to poorly crafted questions that could have easily worsened personal trauma.Moreover, according to a joint statement released by EROC and the NUS, there is currently a private tendering process to determine who will carry the survey out, meaning students are not being consulted about how the survey could be best conducted.EROC Director, Nina Funnell, emailed several Vice Chancellors in an email last week, including Michael Spence, saying that it is important that the mistakes made in 2016 are not repeated in 2020 and that VCs do not again expose their own students to unethical or poorly designed research which has the potential to cause harm.What were the mistakes of the 2017 Change The Course Report?EROCs inaugural newsletter, Blaze, provides further detail about the errors to be avoided in a second survey and report.The survey was designed in such a way that seemingly made under-reporting of sexual assaults or harassment more likely. Instead of following best practice and using behaviour-based questions, individuals were asked to label whether they had been assaulted, prompting many to downplay the true nature of their experiences. The questions were also only available in English and were not formed with cultural sensitivity in mind, making reporting all the more difficult for individuals without English as their first language.Moreover, the survey only sought out certain kinds of data, once again undermining the findings accuracy. The survey only called for testimonies from between 2015-16, excluding any experiences of students before then. Testimonies were not taken for off-campus cases of assault or harassment, even if the perpetrator was a university-member. The final reportomittedthe testimonies of under 18 year-olds from its quantitative data, only including them in its qualitative section.USyd Wom*ns Collective co-convenor, Jazzlyn Breen, said that mistakes such as not allowing those under 18 to be counted in the quantitative aspect of the survey show a clear lack of understanding of the issue at hand.Considering it is well known that students at university are often under the age of 18 when they begin and that women between the ages of 15 and 19 are 7 times more likely to be the victim of sexual assault in comparison to the overall population, this clearly undermines the accuracy of the survey.EROCs recommendations for the 2020 surveyWithout the assurance that the 2020 survey will be carried out by an organisation that has demonstrated expertise in conducting best-practice research on sexual assault and sexual harassment, EROC has given Universities Australia four recommendations.The research must be carried out by independent expertise according to Blaze, a Freedom of Information Investigation found that a Vice-Chancellor (who was also the outgoing Chair of Universities Australia) had been permitted to work on 2017 Report.The second report must be free from the methodological shortcomings of its predecessor. To aid improvements, EROC have called for a working group of interest groups, including their own representatives, NUS members, an international student advocate, and individuals with expertise in disability, LGBTIQ issues, the impact of sexual violence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and other culturally and linguistically diverse groups.Finally, unlike the 2017 Report, which was published without an impact plan EROC recommends greater consideration for how the findings will possibly trigger survivors in the community, overload under-trained Wom*ns and Queer officers with fresh disclosures, and expose inadequacies in sexual assault reporting hotlines.At a minimum, EROC demand that the second report be supported by, free training for student representatives and staff in Responding with Compassion and Vicarious Trauma, and the resurrection of the 24/7 1800 sexual assault counseling Hotline, to be run by a trauma expert body (ideally Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia).It remains to be seen whether EROCs recommendations will be embraced.EROC Australias inaugural newsletter, Blaze, can be found in part on the NUS Womens Department Facebook page. You can obtain a free full copy of Blaze by contacting nina@endrapeoncampusau.org.If you have experienced or are at risk of sexual assault, 1800 424 017 is the 24/7 telephone crisis counseling service from the NSW Rape Crisis Centre for anyone in NSW and their non-offending supporters.This article was updated 26 June 2019 to better reflect the errors of the 2016 AHRC national survey. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Recently, The Guardian publication updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately represent the environmental crises we are now facing. The original terms climate change and global warming, are now less preferable to the terms climate emergency, crisis or breakdown or global heating. The categorisation of opinion has also changed. A climate sceptic is now a climate science denier.These developments tends to raise broader questions about language and opinion. Would our thoughts change if we had more variations of the language we use to express it? Our thought decides what language we use, but how many of our thoughts have been shaped simply by the structures and rigours of language?Changes in thought influence a change in language, while language has the power to change and create new ideas. Hyperbole for example is useful when adding emphasis, painting vivid imagery or keeping someones attention: but unchecked exaggeration can become confused with reality.Editor-in-chief of The Guardian Katharine Viner said that these recent linguistic changes ensure the publication remains scientifically precise in its reportage, while also communicating clearly with its readers. The phrase climate change, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity, she said.This change in language, brought about in global publications such as The Guardian, follows the recent addition of daily global carbon dioxide levels to online weather pages. People need reminding that the climate crisis is no longer a future problem we need to tackle it now, Viner said in April.The language of politics in media is particularly malleable and prone to sensationalism and distortion. A specific selection of words can control an audiences response to the overarching messages of a party or candidate. Reporting on the election fallout, Guardian Australias political editor Katharine Murphy wrote about how both parties campaigns were certainly shaped by the climate emergency. She noted that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten referred to the process as a climate crisis in his concession speech, whilst Prime Minister Scott Morrison used the terms climate action and climate change. Sky News host Chris Kenny deemed The Guardians style change as insidious and alarmist, and stated that the changes were imposing a kind of groupthink.The idea that thought can corrupt language and that language can corrupt thought, is the premise of George Orwells 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language. A seminal work, Orwell discusses at large the profound effect of language on thought, especially when it is used unconsciously.A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. A reduced rate of consciousness developed through the framing of language is, as he says, particularly favourable to political conformity. This is widespread and not limited to any one particular tumultuous time in history, as Orwell notes. It is also not limited to politics as a whole. Worrying compromises of language and thought exist in the everyday vernacular:Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.Writing is a direct manifest of thought, which is why Orwell pushes for a clearer everyday use of language, urging that the meaning chooses the word and not the other way around. Language should express thought, not alter or prevent it. He ends his essay with a list of rules that he believed would clarify the language used, and demands an attitude change from the people accustomed to superfluous political language.At this point, it would normally follow that a reference be made to the control of language during the Nazi regime in Germany, and the later attempt to purge the language. One could go into great depth about this and quote several historical events and facts. One could also make many a grand statement about authoritarian control and supervised manipulation. But this would be a hyperbolic attempt to justify the argument for clearer, more conscious language, and it is quite beside the point. It would be surrendering to the unconscious exaggeration that endangers political discourse to begin with. Above any substantial parallels, fascist comparisons are all too common simply because they are easy to make.The attempt to purge language of its falsities and un-truths can also go too far as to exaggerate what is seemingly anti-fascist. Obsession with purity is the hallmark of a fascist mind, and it is easy to revert to non-thinking or compulsively motivated language. The best option is to recognise that language is not as fleeting and cerebral as we might think rather, it is malleable and has tactile consequences. In this way, we can monitor not just our own use of language, but also the language voiced by authoritative figures in the hopes of keeping language close to our own minds and thoughts. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disclaimer: Pranay Jha has previously coached both for private schools and private debating companies.A few years ago, it was common to see big-shot USyd debaters flash hundred-dollar bills on any given Wednesday, as they offered to buy round after round of drinks at Flodge. Debaters, unlike many of their peers, could quite easily afford to move into the Inner West at a young age, and remain untroubled by rising costs of living. Overall, being a university debater (or more specifically, an elite university debater) gave rise to a comparatively luxurious life. Today, while university debaters certainly seem less flashy, the amount of green and yellow bills tucked neatly into their wallet remains unchanged. It is no secret that the world of debating coaching is rather lucrative. As elite schools have begun to take the activity more seriously, demand for high-quality coaches has increased at a rate incommensurate to their supply. Given this, schools with deep pockets have been willing to dish out exorbitant rates for coaches (close to an hourly rate of $100 in many cases). Essentially this means that a few hours of coaching students on a Friday night will allow a university debater to lead a relatively comfortable student life.However, the main source of income for many debaters doesnt actually come from Sydneys grossly overfunded private schools. Rather, many debaters tend to earn the real, big dollars working long shifts on weekends for private coaching companies. And while private and selective school debating programs deserve the criticism Honi has previously levelled at them, it seems the private coaching industry is equally worthy of our examination.At a glance, private debating coaching seems quite worthwhile. It gives students whose schools dont have developed debating programs an opportunity to compete in an activity traditionally reserved for the upper echelons of society. In many instances, those students come from Non-English speaking and/or migrant backgrounds, and have parents who have likely faced hardships and discrimination on the basis of their English speaking skills. Given that, activities like debating and public speaking, in which parents can see their kids deliver speeches with little preparation are justly considered to be empowering. Additionally, success in the activity is highly regarded by university selection committees and looks favourable for students seeking to apply for scholarships to study abroad. Subsequently, parents could be forgiven for believing that doing private debating coaching will allow their kids to attain some kind of upward social mobility in the future.Debating coaching companies are certainly not oblivious to the aforementioned desires of parents. In many cases, they proudly boast the achievements of their tutors and note that many of them are studying at prestigious universities around the world. In terms of debating, parents are told their children will learn critical thinking and discuss issues about economics, international affairs and domestic politics. None of this seems very problematic except for the fact that it is incredibly misleading.The primary issue with debating coaching is that the coaches, albeit highly qualified, have little incentive to expend a lot of effort into their teaching. Having spoken to numerous coaches, private, debating coaching appears to be taken far less seriously than coaching at schools. Part of this may be explained by the fact that in private coaching, there is no competition or discernible end goal for coaches and students to work towards. Given most coaches have predominantly engaged in debating as a competitive exercise, the absence of winners and losers removes a degree of emotional investment from the outcome of their coaching.A highly successful university debater who spent a year working for a private debating coaching company spoke to the difference in attitudes between school shifts and coaching on weekends. The debater, who wished not to be named, told Honi, because it was on the weekend it psychologically felt like less of a serious job the metric for improvement [was] vague.They did, however, note that at least to some extent, private debating coaching was useful.Withouta formal competition for students there isnt much accountability for coaches. When a team is consistently losing debates in a school competition, there is a clear impetus to assess and reformulate coaching methods or change the teams coach. By contrast, in private coaching where the students do not necessarily even participate in debating back at school, there seems to be no method of tangibly tracking the progress a coach has made with their class.The absence of an incentive to win debates also appears to operate on a student, perhaps influencing them to take the weekend coaching less seriously. Emma*, a current USyd Debater and private debating coach, told Honi, I think its not very useful for kids, mostly because coaches are lazy but also kids dont really give a shit.Naturally, there are bound to be coaches who will work hard regardless of the above factors. There will also be children who find themselves improving their public speaking skills as they continue to go to weekend classes. Ultimately, however, it appears that regardless of whether a coach works hard or does nothing, there will always be an envelope filled with cash awaiting them.Beyond the attitudes of coaches and students, the conditions in private coaching colleges are not conducive to creating a productive learning environment. Classes for both juniors and seniors tend to be three hours long. While these classes give students an opportunity to participate in a proper debate, in a lot of instances they simply dont seem to have the attention span to focus for that long. This means that even where coaches are putting effort into their classes, it is quite difficult for students to absorb the information theyre receiving.Additionally, when children are stuck in a classroom for hours and the focus is purely on improving debating, they often complain about classes being monotonous. In some situations, this causes parents to pull their children out of private coaching classes. Subsequently, those in charge of coaching colleges have an incentive to make classes fun in ways that arent necessarily productive for debating or public speaking. Emma recounts her employers complaining about how previous coaches had been too boring, when initially hiring her. She says that she naively started off trying to be good but the kids only wanted to play hangman so eventually succumbed. Various other coaches described their job as glorified babysitting as opposed to actual coaching.The suffocating sense of boredom associated with private debating coaching isnt limited to students. Coaches described having to work 6-hour shifts, in cramped and poorly lit office spaces with no breaks. This often means that even the most well-intentioned coaches struggle to make it through an entire shift without losing interest.Of course, its difficult to feel much sympathy for debaters who are earning up to $120 an hour for work that, in the grand scheme of things, isnt too arduous. However, a closer inspection at the employment contracts (or lack thereof) for debating coaches may reveal other significant issues in the private debating coaching industry. None of the coaches Honi spoke to had been offered a contract or received payslips for their work. An ex-USyd debater told Honi there was no real discussion about contract [sic], the person just showed me my room and gave me cash. This seemed to be the case for most debaters working in private debating coaching. The absence of legitimate employment contracts means that coaches receive functionally no protections in relation to unfair dismissals, leave requests or superannuation. Although many coaches are elite university debaters who also coach students at high schools, for anyone relying on private debating coaching as a regular source of income, these conditions are highly worrying.Paying cash-in-hand without payslips, avoiding withholding tax from employees and paying incorrect superannuation all seem to be common practices in the private debating coaching industry. Such practices are also all examples of cases where concerns about tax evasion may be raised, as provided by the Australian Taxation Office.The astute debater would likely question what the comparative is. Although private debating coaching has its problems, at least it provides some opportunity for children whose schools arent wealthy or well funded to debate. A very obvious solution would be to provide greater funding to state schools so that they can provide extra-curricular activities, such as debating, to their students. This would remove the need for parents to seek external private coaching for their children. However, in the absence of such reform, debating colleges can quite easily restructure class sizes, class durationsand introduce greater accountability for their coaches. This may require debating companies to forego some profit. However, it would also mean that well-intentioned and hardworking parents arent sacrificing their income for a service that ultimately delivers their children little benefits, if any. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A freedom of information inquest by Fossil Free USYD has uncoveredsignificant details about the Universitys financial relationships with fossil fuel industries. With carbon dioxide concentrations increasing from 310 to 410 parts per million over the last 70 years, coinciding with grave changes to the climate and conditions for human and non-human life, the actions of our influential public institutions deserve careful scrutiny.The University of Sydneys (USyd) energy bill totalled $19 million in 2017. Last year, the University lavished $28 million dollars on Stanwell Corporation and Origin Energy, both of which primarily derive energy from fossil fuels. This marks a 43% increase in the Universitys expenditure from 2017-18. The University invested $22.4 million in the following fossil fuel companies: BHP Billiton ($9.35M), Woodside Petroleum ($5.9M), AGL Energy ($1.60M), Oil Search ($1.56M), South 32 ($1.30M), Royal Dutch Shell ($1.04M), Whitehaven Coal ($541K), EOG ($400K), CNOOC ($354K), CLP Holdings ($232K), and Santos ($137K).BHP Billiton was partly responsible for one of the worlds worst environmental disasters in Brazil just three years ago. A collapsed dam spilt 40 million cubic metres of mining waste, which travelled over 650 kilometres from the initial breach, killing 19 people. Royal Dutch Shell, involved in a number of the largest and most well-known oil spills, is no less notorious. In the 1990s Shell wilfully mislead the public about its degradation of Ogoniland and its complicity in atrocities carried out by Nigerian military forces, who shielded the company from protestors. A 2017 Amnesty International report revealed Shell was a central player in widespread and serious human rights violations, including the unlawful killing of hundreds of Ogonis, as well as torture rape, and the destruction of homes and livelihoods.Less well-known is Santos, a home-grown energy conglomerate operating in the Asia-Pacific. Santos recently proposed a flagship coal-seam gas project in the Pilliga State Forest of NSW. 23,000 submissions were received in response to their Environmental Impact Statement development application; 98% opposed the project. Whitehaven Coal, another national player with projects in Maules Creek NSW, is widely considered amongst First Nations title holders, local farmers and activists as the most disrespectful towards the environment and the inadequate regulation designed for its protection.All of these corporations burn huge amounts of greenhouse gases, contributing directly to human-induced climate change. Shell and BHP are among the worlds largest greenhouse gas emitters. Others have 100% of their assets in coal, oil and gas. Most have no concern for human and non-human rights. The University needs to take swift action to counter and delegitimise these companies, not subsidise them.While the University remains obstinate, students around the world are striking, Indigenous communities are continuing to resist theft and usurpation, and workers are demanding a just transition to sustainable forms of work. These are not merely minority viewpoints. The Lowy Institute tracked public opinion on climate change for over 10 years. Consistent with a rise in concern since 2012, 59% of respondents in 2018 agreed that climate change is a serious and pressing problem and so we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs.Our University is displaying scant regard for this public sentiment.The science is clear: human action is the most likely cause of observed warming since the 1950s. The rate of this warming is unprecedented. Climate change is resulting in the increased intensity, variability, and frequency of extreme climatic events like droughts, floods, and heatwaves. This contributes to the extreme and escalating rates of species-loss, sea-level rise, and reduced and inconstant rainfall. Those nations and communities that have contributed little to this quandary bear its worst effects. USyd administration are aware of this, yet they continue to satiate their addiction to fossil fuels.Asking that our University follows the many thousands of other institutions around the world in divesting from carbon-intensive companies is not an unreasonable request. Changing contracts is a simple and effective way to support the renewable energy industry and green jobs. It might seem like an infinitesimal contribution, but that does not vitiate personal responsibility. Bill McKibben, writer and co-founder of the climate campaign 350.org acknowledges that, divestment by itself is not going to win the climate fight. But its still effective:Weakening reputationally and financially those players that are determined to stick to business as usual [is] one crucial part of a broader strategy.The divestment movement has already exerted a palpable impact on the fossil fuel industry. It can severely delegitimise a companys social license to operate and impede its ability to raise capital. Peabody, the worlds largest coal company, filed for bankruptcy in 2016, citing the divestment movement as a contribution to their failure. A Goldman Sachs spokesperson acknowledged that the divestment movement has been a key driver of the coal sectors 60% de-rating over the past five years.USyd is falling behind its peers. Last year UNSW announced that, from 2020, the University would be powered by 100% renewable energy. Later in the year, UTS signed a power-purchase agreement with a solar farm in Walgett, ensuring that at least 50% of its electricity demand would come from solar. ANU has partly and La Trobe has fully divested. Changing energy providers is a matter of priority for management, and a simple one.Action from UNSW, La Trobe, and ANU did not come out of nowhere. Divestment was the result of sustained campaigning and pressure from staff and students in each case. Jelena Rudd, one of the indefatigable Fossil Free organisers at UNSW, believes that campaigns like fossil free are important to persevere with.They serve a dual purpose of achieving a tangible and immediate goal, as well as providing a familiar context for people to grapple with the systemic problems facing society, and the tactics we use to challenge them, Rudd has said.Fossil Free USYD is one of many groups that have formed on campuses across Australia to hold universities accountable to the generation they educate.Our student body and the country deserve better. We deserve management that backs up its talk about sustainability and climate change with action. It is time to unlearn leadership the self-centred, polluting practices of the past and to work with other universities and organisations in beginning a democratic transition. Our society needs to change, and divesting from the fossil fuel industry is a small, but necessary and practical step, one which USyd should be providing an example. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> White bodies are comfortable as they inhabit spaces that extend their shape Sara Ahmed, A Phenomenology of WhitenessClass participation mark systems, used in a range of USyd subjects, allow tutors to assess the performance of students in general class discussions. Generally, they are considered to be effective in assessing the effort a student has put into learning the weeks content.However, what often isnt considered is the ways in which class participation unduly disadvantages students of colour.Class participation marks are just one way in which university systems extend and accommodate whiteness at the cost of students of colour. This is particularly the case for students of an East Asian background, who may face structural barriers in the tutorial setting.There are many examples of teachers who cannot tell students of colour apart. In one recent, particular instance, a student of colour received lower participation marks than they had expected in their on call week, and as a result contacted their tutor. It was then revealed the tutor had mixed up their marks with another Asian student who was also on call that week. Had they not contacted their tutor, the error would have gone unnoticed. Even in this specific course alone, this incident was not anomalous. Just a week later, a different tutor confused two students of colour who were on call in their class.How can ones contributions be fairly valued and marked when their tutor cant even recognise them? The experience of students of colour is a frustrating one: hours of studying feel as if they have gone to waste merely because they remain invisible to the white structures in Australia. Naturally, the cost students of colour bear, works to the advantage of their white counterparts as tutors refuse to challenge the boundaries of their own cultural comfort zone. Somehow, the multitude of white students with common white names in a class are clearly etched into the minds of those marking class participation.The problem of course cant be reduced to individual incidents. Rather, individual incidents collectively demonstrate how institutions more broadly affirm some peoples ways of being over that of others. Without generalising or engaging in some sort of victimisation, its important to highlight that there may be several reasons as to why students of East Asian backgrounds may be structurally disadvantaged in the participation marks system. These observations have been detailed and affirmed by Li and Jias research on East Asian students participation patterns in their study Why Dont You Speak Up?, and several interviews with different USyd students.East Asian cultures place immense emphasis on principles of respecting ones elders and not questioning their authority, acknowledging that they have more wisdom and knowledge. These values shape the general classroom structure of East Asian schools, which focus more on the teachers knowledge and authority in educating students rather than engaging in a discussion where the teacher and students may be viewed as equals. In Li and Jias study, many international East Asian students stated that they were not used to the class participation in American classes because what they expected was to be good listeners in class and learn as much as they could.The respect for elders is also translated into the value of showing politeness and respect to other students. This is not to say that other students do not also respect fellow peers, but rather to illustrate the deep-rooted cultural ethos of respect embedded in East Asian cultures. This manifests in the way that students of East Asian cultures tend not to talk over, interrupt or talk before other students do, although some of these qualities may be necessary to thrive in the participation mark system. Thus, those who find it difficult to talk without being prompted or putting their hand up tend to perform worse than other students who seem confident jumping in to talk.Li and Jias study also observes that East Asian students seem to have high anxiety levels about simply talking in class, which inhibits their participation. Although it is difficult to pinpoint a specific, tangible cause, it is true that East Asian students are generally afraid of making mistakes. Thus, we tend to not ask questions and try to solve problems ourselves, even when we could ask for help because for some reason we are afraid of being wrong in front of others and thus want to make sure our answer is right before we say it. Many of those interviewed affirmed a reticence to contribute to class discussion unless they were certain of their answers. This is a trend that may stem from important cultural ethos and is supported by the fact that some students have the social confidence to speak up whilst others dont these others tending to be students of colour.These trends, of course, are exacerbated for international students who may already be self-conscious and shy about their English. Many tutors dismiss the contributions of international students in their classes by nodding and pretending to understand what they are saying even when they dont. But it is difficult, because on the other hand having a tutor interrupt to ask can you repeat what you said? may be necessary for them to clarify and allocate an appropriate mark, but can be so off-putting for somebody who is already nervous about speaking in a language that isnt their first. This is especially true given the expectation to speak fluently in such a short time if the tutor asks a question, students have to contribute immediately, otherwise someone else will speak up first.Most importantly, however, East Asian students will be more willing and able to participate in class when the context makes them feel comfortable to do so as Li and Jia explain. In my opinion, a better way to conduct class participation would be assessing presentations, rather than general discussions. Presentations involve an equal amount of preparation and effort, but actually, guarantee a designated time for all students where they can demonstrate their knowledge. In particular, it facilitates a greater level of confidence, especially for international students, because they can practice what they are going to say. The visual element of a presentation aids a tutors understanding of a students knowledge without cutting them off or interrupting them for clarification, or at worst dismissing their contributions.But the issue of tutors still not understanding international students may exist to some extent in presentations. Thus another method which could be implemented either as an alternative or in conjunction is the facilitation of discussion threads on canvas which require students to present their thoughts before and/or after the tutorial. A similar method was used in a 1st year Sociology course where students were required to post their answers to the question of the week using the given material and sources. This method could ensure students are given a designated space to demonstrate their knowledge and allow for them to spend as much time as they need in drafting their response, whilst also minimising the pressure of speaking in a limited time that unfairly impacts international students.Changes must be made to ensure that all students contributions are being fairly acknowledged in the current class participation system. Some simple improvements would involve making student name cards in class, releasing participation marks in all subjects so that students can raise enquiries if something seems wrong, and implementing a more accessible way of reporting issues such as an anonymous online form so that concerns may be raised without the difficulties of having to email and chase down multiple people. The student mentioned at the beginning of this article has not received any meaningful response regarding the incident that occurred, and sothus it is unclear that any action will be taken despite the sheer unprofessionalism and racist behaviour that occurred.Given the fact that so many similar incidents go unreported or are not acted upon, its obvious that we need to have better discussions on these issues. Both to validate the experiences of students of colour, and to make sure something is actually done. As students of colour we shouldnt self-doubt and self-blame but rather realise and point out that this is a problem in the university system, external of ourselves. That will make all the difference. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sydney University Sports and Fitness (SUSF) is a student organisation that operates in the millions per year, and yet, realistically, its quite difficult for the average student to engage with the organisation in any meaningful way.SUSFs primary goal is to be the leading provider of sport, fitness and recreation services to the University of Sydney (USyd) students, according to its own website. It runs sporting clubs and funds the Sydney Uni Sports and Aquatic Centre which boasts an indoor pool, six tennis courts, a multi-function stadium, a gym and more.However, in recent years, SUSFs managerial structure has faced significant criticism, from student activists, media and internal members alike. These criticisms involve the lack of oversight and transparency of decisions as well as the absence of any discernible policy which governs them.A recent SUSF Special General Meeting voted to reform its governance structure. The changes give management fresh hiring and firing powers over executives, previously held by the University. However, these powers come at the cost of giving the University a far more active role in the new managerial structure they now help elect board members.A significant challenge for the new board will be resolving major issues in SUSFs calculus when it comes to allocating its funding. Documents recently obtained by Honi reveal that SUSF allocated $249,167 to the Sydney Flames, a womens basketball team that competes in the Womens National Basketball League. This figure is disproportionate given SUSFs total expenditure from continuing operations in 2017 was $2,437,499. Providing the Sydney Flames team with 10% of total expenditure is made even worse by the fact that the team only has two USyd students in it.Additionally, considering the Sydney Flames is merely one among 41 SUSF sporting clubs, the $249k figure amounts provide limited attainable benefits for the wider student population.With this in mind, it becomes clear how much of student funding is being channelled into services which disproportionately benefit student-athletes outside of USyd.Considered in the context of extensive membership costs which involve individual faculty and club fees, the fact that SUSFs generous endowment is enjoyed by a select few becomes quite clearly annunciated.The dearth of easily accessible information such as SUSFs meeting minutes or internal management policies on the public record is concerning, particularly because it is largely funded by student money under promises to serve the USyd student body. This organisational opacity means that there can be little to no accountability for the practices of the organisation, including whether the abundance of funds made available to them are in fact being used to further the interests of USyd students, or whether, as in this case, seemingly arbitrary and unchecked decisions are made to grossly over-fund certain clubs like the Sydney Flames. The framework of SUSFs operations should be separate to the University much like its sibling organisations, the Student Representative Council (SRC) and the University of Sydney Union (USU).But in the absence of University oversight, SUSF could at least develop a clear model for funding allocation which mirrors the USUs policy on clubs and societies funding.Such a model consider the amount of USyd students in a particular team to be a relevant factor in the quantum of funding allocated. It could also make the provision of funding contingent on initiatives such as the promotion of gender equality and disabilities access.There is no doubt that SUSF is not strained for sources of funding. Not only does it receive the largest share of Student Service and Amenities Fees (SSAF) allocations, receiving over $5 million in 2018, but it also receives significant donations from Hockey Donors and Boatshed Appeal Donors. For comparison, USyds Student Support Services which provides free student welfare services such as Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) are allotted the smallest slice of SSAF. They received just over $55,000 in 2018; 0.3% of the total fund, compared to SUSFs 32%. On top of this, SUSF was granted a loan of $1 million by Sydney University itself in 2017.If SUSF is to make good on their claims to be acting in the interests of USyd students broadly, its new management must address significant issues in the way the organisation makes its decisions.Policies regarding funding to clubs and societies must be made far more concrete and transparent, and student voices on the board should be elevated with regards to them.When millions of student dollars are being funnelled into a service that promises to benefit us, it must at least attempt to be accessible to all students. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sport is supposed to be some sort of great equaliser. This is apparently why Australians love it so much its supposedly representative of our deeply egalitarian nature. But people of colour know better than to pretend that Australia is egalitarian so why then, do we pretend the sporting field is immune to the same white hegemony that so deeply imbues our broader discourse? What is it about the bright lights and garish scarves that stops white people from seeing colour?Raheem Sterling. Paul Pogba. Serena Williams. What have they got in common? Theyre successful black athletes, and all of them maintain a strong social conscience. Theyve also been labelled petulant brats by sporting media. This isnt an objective retelling of athletes speaking out, but instead white supremacy manifest in the language we use to cover sport.This isnt accidental in a lunchtime interview in 1988, American NFL commentator Jimmy Snyder articulated what he really thought of the players he covered every week. African-American players comprised 56% of the league in 1988, and 70% today.The black is a better athlete to begin with, because hes been bred to be that way And hes bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the slave trading where the owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid, see.This may well have been said 30 years ago, but the sentiment remains alive in the media today. In 2015, a study from the University of Missouri found that black athletes receive a tenth of the morally successful stories in media compared to white athletes. Of the articles discussing the skills and abilities of the players, white athletes receive twice the coverage of black players. This kind of media reporting translates into broader sports audiences reducing analysis of minority athletes to their ethnicity. In 2017, a pair of University of Colorado studies asked black and white college students to rate paragraphs and photos of professional quarterbacks based on parameters like physical strength and leadership. The research found that white participants assigned negative stereotypes to black quarterbacks, whilst assigning positive attributes such as leadership to white ones. The quarterback is the most important position on a football field, and is typically the leader of the team. The NFL has only five black starting quarterbacks in the entire league.This isnt only seen in the NFL. Raheem Sterling is a 24-year-old winger for Manchester City and England, having made his debut for Liverpool when he was only 17. Along with Frenchman Paul Pogba at Manchester United, these are case studies in the problematic language used to describe black athletes. Tabloids have run headlines chastising Sterling for (among other things) buying his mum a sink, daring to fly on a budget airline, forgetting to clean his car, buying a pastie, and eating an ice-cream. Whilst tabloid reporting is often entirely vapid, it is difficult to separate Sterlings position as a young, successful black man from the nature of the coverage he receives. Moreover, Paul Pogba is one of the most technically adept footballers in the world, so much so that hes able to spend up to 64% of his time on the pitch walking (more than any other midfielder in the Premier League) whilst still contributing as much as top players. Despite this, expert columns focus on his pace, power and muscularity to the exclusion of his technical ability. These are written in good faith but they nevertheless feed into the dominant discourse that the primary attributes of black athletes are physical, rather than intellectual. Sachin Nakrani notes that Pogba is average-sized for the modern midfielder, yet in comparison to similarly-sized players, he is far more often referred to in terms of his physical attributes instead of his craft.With 39 Grand Slam titles to her name, and being one of only three players to hold two calendar Grand Slams, Serena Williams may well be the greatest tennis player of all time. In the contentious 2018 US Open final, Williams received three scoring penalties which ultimately cost her the match. Williams has consistently said that many male players have not been penalised in the past for similar displays of anger and emotion. Afterwards, Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight penned a cartoon using historically racist iconography to depict a burly, exaggerated Serena throwing a tantrum and crushing her racket. After the racist image received heavy criticism, the Herald Sun ran it again the next day on the front page, headlined Welcome to PC World. The implication that the greater crime is not the racist vilification of a black woman, but the indignant response to Knight, is precisely what continues a cycle of institutional racial oppression.When we talk about the normalisation of racism in our media and language, it starts here: at the insidious descriptors used for some of the most prominent black athletes in our society. If we allow the language of media to go unchecked in talking about black sportspeople, it continues a cycle of colonially driven oppression through our media institutions. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a world where Republicans are gradually restricting the right to vote by creating new barriers for prisoners, working class people and people of colour, Australia seems a model functional democracy. Mandatory voting, elections on weekends, easy registration, voting rights for most prisoners, long enrolment periods and short voting wait times mean that Australia has one of the worlds highest voter turnouts.Additionally, Parliaments ability to restrict voting rights or registration opportunities are limited, the High Court finding such restrictions to be largely unconstitutional.That view, however, is incomplete. Although voting in Australia is far easier than most industrial democracies, voting remains incredibly difficult for the most marginalised. Tens of thousands of First Nations voters remain ineligible to vote because of cuts to AEC funding, the federal LNP is considering some of the same restrictive reforms American conservatives have implemented, and turnout rates amongst young people remain relatively low. Though subtler than American suppression, these policies reflect the choices of a political elite as to who is heard, and who is not.In modern elections, the Northern Territory (NT) is given relatively little attention. With only two electorates Solomon, recently won back by Labor from Country Liberals, and Lingiari, a Labor safe seat across the rest of the territory broader Australia rarely invest much energy into this corner of an election. A quarter of the NT population of approximately 250000 are First Nations rights-holders. The territory also easily has the lowest voter-enrollment rate in the country at 83.9% 12.3% lower than the national average, which means 26,731 adults are not on the electoral roll. When booths open this coming weekend for the federal election, 1 in 3 First Nations adults will not even be enrolled to participate. This reality should provoke major anxiety for the health of democracy in the region.Despite the longstanding under-enrolment of Territorians, the Coalition government chose to cut $1.5 million in funds to the NT Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) office, with a further $8.4 million planned in future years. Five staff were fired from the Enrolment Branch, and four in the Indigenous Participation and Voter Education Branch. In the face of countless communities that lack the infrastructure to cast a vote, these cuts can only represent state negligence, and arguably, malice.Most worryingly, enrolling approximately 20,000 people would easily swing a close election. Although Labor MP Warren Snowden has held the seat for decades, Jacinta Price, Warlpiri and Celtic woman and Country Liberals candidate, is expected to closely contest much of conservative urban Lingiari.However, poor engagement is harmful regardless of the influenced election result. Parties are left with less impetus to make adversarial policy for many of the communities living around the poverty-line across the NT. Ones right to vote is contingent on their right to have their vote genuinely facilitated this is especially true in communities manhandled by settler-colonial policies like the Northern Territory Intervention Act.In addition to refunding programs that promote community engagement, the AEC should establish direct enrolment across the NT. Direct enrolment programs use government lists to automatically enroll people unless they opt-out they are currently used to great effect in urban areas, including Darwin, however, are not used in most of Lingiari, where postal services are deemed too unreliable. In the context of compulsory voting, the Coalition governments refusal to protect the democratic rights of entire swathes of disadvantaged communities is voter suppression, plain and simple.In 2015 the Queensland LNP government passed legislation requiring voters to present government-issued identification in order to vote. The move mirrored voter identification requirements recently enacted in a number of conservative American states, which many have accused of disproportionately disenfranchising people of colour and poorer voters. Unsurprisingly, a study of the Queensland requirements found them to have excluded more voters in Indigenous and remote communities. More generally, turnout in the 2015 election saw the lowest Queensland turnout rates since 1980.Despite this drop in turnout, the federal Coalition has continued to consider such reforms. This is in spite of consensus amongst electoral experts that voter fraud is essentially non-existent. Whilst it is difficult to know if such requirements change the outcome of elections, they have not met the onus of proving that they are required.Access to voting also cuts across generational lines. Whilst a number of states have expanded postal voting, to account for older voters, NSW remains the only state to allow enrolment on election days, which appeals to younger voters. Queenslands identification requirements also reveal a bias towards older voters, as younger voters are more likely to vote in person.The groups we divert resources towards encouraging to vote, and the way our electoral policies are made are both political choices. Current electoral policies betray indifference on the part of both major parties to the votes of young people.These choices have clear outcomes. A YVote study of the 2016 federal election found that if young people had voted at similar rates to other age groups, it could have changed the outcome of ten marginal seats. Recent polling has demonstrated that age is more important than political ideology in terms of determining the likelihood someone supports action on climate change.In these ways and many more, Australian elites manufacture participation in elections, shoring up their continued hegemony and protecting their interests. Electorate boundaries are moved, just like America. We void the rights of prisoners with sentences greater than three years to vote, despite their incarceration being likely explained by their socio-economic environment. Even those eligible are not adequately engaged; in 2013, only 1 per cent of roughly 10,600 enrolment packs provided to NSW prisons for inmates to complete postal votes ahead of the 2013 election were completed and returned.We often question why voters dont support serious political action towards decolonisation, for wealth equality, or against climate change. Perhaps we must begin with those who cannot even vote. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Two weeks of SRC elections take place in September every year. The result? 35 student councillors, and an assortment of office bearers that are voted in at RepsElect shortly afterward. The most coveted roles are those with stipends: Womens, Education, General Secretary and most recently, Vice President. These positions are awarded two thirds of the Presidents salary, which amounts to $27,820, usually split between two office bearers.In other words, a select number of students are paid to complete various administrative and activist roles. The productivity and output of these offices varies year to year, and incompetent or absent office bearers are by no means unusual. We took a closer look at this years cohort summer activity.General SecretariesAbbey Shi (Advance) and Liam Thomas (Unity)Total Annual Salary: $27,820*As second in command of the SRC, General Secretary is a prized position for factions. Gen Secs manage the SRC budget and funding negotiations with the University, organise the SRCs presence at Welcome Week and hold positions on SRCs Legal Service board. Over the holidays Thomas and Shi tell Honi theyve interviewed candidates for a new SRC lawyer and have been putting together the SRCs merchandise and Welcome Week bags.One key test of incoming General Secretaries competence and dedication is putting together the SRCs Orientation Guide, a guide for first years with insights into courses, University management and the struggles of university life. How many General Secretaries does it take to make such a guide? This year, two GenSecs, one President, one current Honi Soit editor and one retired Honi Soit editor (Bob He, who was unjustly returned to the SRC offices to help in a last minute scramble to finish the guide on request of Abbey Shi).Disorganisation delayed printing past the SRCs publication deadline, meaning the General Secretaries overstayed their welcome in the Honi Soit office. Not that were bitter. It also meant that one article was recycled from the SRCs 2018 Counter Course, including an embarrassingly outdated reference to then General Secretary Nina Dillon Britton.This lateness is perhaps understandable considering Shis significant work in leading the USyd Chinese international students response to the recent travel ban. Over several weeks, Shi founded and circulated a petition (now with 4000+ signatures) opposing the ban, lobbied against the ban to media, spoke at a rally against Sinophobia related to the coronavirus and appeared in a University video.Vice PresidentsFelix Faber (NLS) and Charlotte Bullock (Unity)Total Annual Salary: $27,820*The role of Vice President has historically been symbolic: an unpaid position with CV appeal but a hazy role in the SRC. In 2018, as part of a deal to entice swing councillors to join a right-wing majority, the role became paid. Due to similar factional dealings (this time, a left-wing coalition) the VPs will be paid again this year.Its unclear whether thats money well spent. The role is in effect the same as General Secretary, paying four people for work traditionally done by two.But the VPs have done very little over the break. No one that Honi spoke to had seen Felix Faber in the SRC offices since his term began in December but he has found time to write a play. Charlotte Bullock has been slightly more involved, assisting with some of the SRCs Welcome Week organising.Perhaps a stipend could be justified if they could articulate a vision for the role. When asked about their plans however, the response was vague. The VPs said they were creating working relationships with external organisations, liaising with faculty societies (about what?) and attending University committee meetings, something VPs have done previously without a stipend.EducationJazz Breen (Grassroots) and Jack Mansell (SAlt)Total Annual Salary: $27,820*Climate activism is well and truly at the forefront of our 2020 Education Officers minds.During Welcome Week, the Education Action Group (EAG), convened by the two EOs, will be, as Breen describes using its resources to promote various campaigns and events as well as recruit interested people to help organise throughout the year. Its not difficult to pinpoint what specific campaigns will be focused on, especially as Mansell promises to participate in an occupation of a yet-to-be-unveiled climate criminals headquarters during Welcome Week. Mansell says this will be in his capacity as Education Officer.While Mansell and Breens personal activist work is admirable and undeniably significant, one cant help but feel that the conditions met by students that directly relate to their education are a footnote in the work the two have done thus far. 40% of articles included in CounterCourse have been published in other SRC publications, and little by way of other meaningful action has taken place over the holidays.Credit where its due, the pairs justification for this is at least partially persuasive. They argue the climate movement has provided student activism with the opportunity to not only rebuild itself, but soar to new heights of influence. With greater student involvement in the activist community, the EOs are confident that major threats to higher education, specifically funding cuts, will be met with more resistance once they rear their ugly head again.Mansell made a point of highlighting that currently, there is no explicit attack on higher education. Therefore, his and Breens obligation is to help build student activism in areas in particular need of mobilisation. This begs the question whether Morrisons travel ban on international students can be considered an explicit attack on higher education. Breen did mention the pairs involvement in the response to this but once again, this seemed more of an aside given Shis mammoth workload in dealing with this crisis.Breen and Mansell submitted separate responses to our questions. Is there trouble in paradise?WomensEllie Wilson (Grassroots) and Vivienne Guo (Grassroots)Total Annual Salary: $27,820*The most important duty involved in this role is convening the Womens Collective which, as per the SRC website, is the most active, left-wing and activist Womens Collective in the country. After last years inactivity, youd think that the 2020 Womens Officers would be working harder to vindicate this statement.Their time spent in office over the summer break appears to have mostly been spent on Growing Strong, the Collectives autonomously-produced annual publication. Beyond this, theres not been much else.Aside from a Welcome Week stunt to protest campus sexual violence theres little WoCo-spearheaded demonstrative action on the horizon. Though the officers have promised public action as well as a press release following Universities Australias 2020 survey into sexual assault, they havent made concrete plans to continue the anti-sexual assualt campaign that ran from 2016 until the end of 2018.When asked who they had met with over the summer, Vivienne and Ellie name dropped the Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) and a number of other campus based collectives. There was no mention of meeting with any members of University management, aside from members of the Safer Communities Working Group.It would seem that what was once one of the SRCs most active departments is now no more prolific than any of those run by unpaid OBS a sorry start to what should have been a big year for WoCo.PresidentLiam Donohoe (Grassroots)Total Annual Salary: $38, 521*Liam Donohoe is certainly a hands on President. If there were a critique to be made, it would be that he is a little too involved. Faced with a paid OB team that is barely functioning, Donohoe is taking a direct approach.Liam was heavily involved in the construction of the Countercourse handbook, the SRC anti-sinophobia rally and upcoming Welcome Week protest. He also seems to have organised the majority of Welcome Week from coordinating stalls to pushing the broader OB team to organise themselves.His response to the coronavirus, alongside Abbey Shi, is commendable. The SRC is currently leading the student response to the issue, and their work negotiating with University management, advocacy and activism have been substantial.Liams heavy involvement is due to the underperformance of his paid OB team, particularly the Vice Presidents and General Secretaries. With four people paid handsome stipends to do the work of two, Liam should be free to focus on managerial issues. In picking up the slack of his paid OBs in tandem with his already significant duties in management and advocacy (the man sits on 35 committees) we wonder does Liam sleep?The success of the firebrand save our union campaign promised big things for the 92nd SRC. Thus far, it hasnt delivered. Though by no means as messy as last year, the 2020 paid OBs are falling behind on activism and administration.The most concerning are the Vice Presidents, who have arguably done nothing to justify the substantial amount of student money that they have received. Grassroots have also proved to be underwhelming. For a faction that publicly prides themselves on getting things done, their OBs are doing very little.Despite this, and despite the initial overreaction in closing the SRC for several days, the response to the coronavirus has been one of the high points of the administration thus far. Where similar organisations have dawdled on the issue, Donohoe and Shis action has been decisive and swift.Ultimately, the first few months of the new administration have been lacklustre. With the rest of the year to redeem themselves, we can only wait and see how it all plays out.*As per 2019 SRC budget. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In an interview with NITV News on Monday, an elder of the Warramiri people, Terry Yumbulul, denied he authored a letter published on Andrew Bolts blog. The letter emerged from a phone conversation between Yumbulul and Josephine Cashman. In this letter Yumbulul denounces key arguments in Bruce Pascoes ground-breaking book Dark Emu and calls for an investigation into Pascoes Aboriginal ancestry.When asked if the letter misrepresented his beliefs, Yumbulul replied Yes. The whole lot of them. Contrary to the letter, Yumbulul states that he does not speak for all Yolngu people, only Yolngu Warramiri people. He also suggests the letter contains factual inaccuracies.It has since come to light that sections of this forged letter replicate, almost word for word, paragraphs in both a journal article and website.The repeated attempts by conservative forces to discredit Bruce Pascoe are part of a broader cultural war designed to disenfranchise Aboriginal people and deny Aboriginal people sovereignty.These attacks on Pascoes Indigeneity ignore the fracturing of familial ties under the weight of settler colonialism. They ignore a (continuing) history of child removal, racial violence, assimilationist policies and privileging written documentation, only haphazardly maintained, over Aboriginal oral testimony. Terrifyingly they suggest that only those with darker skin than Pascoe are authentic Aboriginal people.Andrew Bolt is just one in a long line of right-wing footnote detectives including Keith Windschuttle who have combed through the work of black armband historians to find instances however minor a slight misquote or a poor citation to suggest that historical investigations by a new wave of scholars intoxicated on postmodern theory lack credibility.Andrew Bolt is also just one in a long line of conservative shock jocks including Keith Windschuttle and Bettina Arndt who have, with the support of the Australian press, falsely claimed credentials and expertise they do not possess. When questioned by journalist Rick Morton for The Saturday Paper, Bolt evaded multiple times confirmation that he had read Dark Emu.Like any other book, Dark Emu is certainly not perfect. But eager readers must take some of the blame for miscomprehension. It is tempting, for example, to assume that what occurred in western Victoria underground food storage, the construction of huts with stone foundations and the development of complex drainage systems and fish and eel traps occurred all across Australia.But land management practices were diversified according to locale. This nuance disappears at times in texts such as Bill Gammages insightful best-seller The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Bringing together a wealth of evidence, Gammage argues that Aboriginal burning was a continent-wide phenomenon. However, his claim that Australia was a single estate erroneously suggests environmental history can be contained by as archaic a concept as the nation.As Professor Ian Lunt asserts in a blog post on Australian environmental history: Locality matters, and ecological observations historical and current cant be traded like swap cards across the country side.It may be that firestick management, while irrefutably a near continent-wide trait, was not used everywhere. It may be that, while First Nations people pursued meritorious ecologically-sustainable practices, they themselves were not completely immune to environmental destruction.The relentless pursuit of a grand national narrative homogenises highly varied Indigenous cultures and histories. It seeks to create order where nature is at once chaotic, dynamic, resilient and vulnerable. History, a notoriously conservative academic discipline, is an identity project that speaks to the nation perhaps more than the fields history leeks into anthropology and archaeology. If someone tells you they are an Australian anthropologist, you tend to take no notice of the Australian prefix. If someone tells you they are an Australian historian, your mind immediately jumps to Australian history as a field.The odd timing of the public fire ecology debate illuminates the disconnection between academics and the wider reading public. While the public views Dark Emu as a revelatory book which has terraformed the scholarly landscape, prominent historian Tom Griffiths has described the text as a compelling yet curiously old-fashioned account of Indigenous history.Little in Dark Emu is particularly new to students of local history. As early as the 1960s, paleobotanists, anthropologists and archaeologists such as Bill Jackson, Rhys Jones and Norman Tindale, and later historians like Rupert Gerritsen, were attempting to overturn the misconception that Aboriginal Australians were hunter-gatherers by provocatively applying the labels firestick farming and agriculture to Indigenous land management practices. This coalition of researchers have proven that Indigenous people have, for thousands of years, deliberately burned the Australian landscape in specific mosaic patterns to regenerate land, expose animal tracks and burrows, herd animals into specific zones and hunt. In certain regions, they constructed terraced gardens, cultivated land, created paths through dense shrub and built stone-walled dams and large-scale drainage systems.Certainly, the publication of Dark Emu and its subsequent transformation into a Bangarra Dance Theatre production, a childrens book Young Dark Emu: A Truer History and a planned television show represent watershed moments in Australian cultural history. Pascoe is a masterful storyteller with a background in both fiction and non-fiction writing. Where academics have failed to engage the public, Pascoe has a reach and a turn of phrase few academics share.It is this talent that makes critics so scared. When we acknowledge that nature what the invaders perceive as wilderness was always a human creation, we see the frail basis for terra nullius and settler colonialism in Australia. We see the frail basis for a lack of treaty with Aboriginal communities. We see that some Australians are so scared that they will go to any lengths to smear Bruce Pascoe. These Australians seem to feel no shame in centring intergenerational trauma and publicly picking apart Pascoes deeply personal journey of self-discovery.When Josephine Cashman requested Peter Dutton investigate Pascoes Aboriginal ancestry, claiming he was benefiting financially from his fabrication, the Australian Federal Police dropped the case almost immediately. The AFP were unable to identify any Commonwealth offences.While Josephine Cashman has been sacked from the senior advisory group for an Indigenous voice to parliament, the fact that she was able to obtain such a position underlines exactly why a vast number of Aboriginal Australians oppose constitutional reform and express skepticism of the Uluru Statement, and why sections of the far left do too.Not only has she attempted to silence Pascoe, she has suggested, with all its links to scientific racism and the militant policing of Indigenous identity, a formal register to examine peoples Aboriginality.The late Aboriginal elder Tauto Sansbury once estimated that 60 to 70 percent of Aboriginal people do not support constitutional change. Persistent bureaucratic paternalism, wariness of ceding Aboriginal sovereignty and resentment towards the lack of veto power if constitutional recognition, via the establishment of First Nations voices in decision-making processes, succeeds help to explain the preference for a legally-enforceable treaty. When you have Josephine Cashman representing you, is it any surprise that many Aboriginal people would vote no to constitutional reform?With Bolt, Cashman and co reviving the corpse of a fire ecology debate settled long ago in scholarly circles, and never questioned within Indigenous communities, you have to wonder whether the so-called History Wars will ever end. Its just the latest in a cultural war designed to disempower First Nations people. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In popular memory and historiography, where Indigenous presence is noted at all, Aboriginal and Mori involvement in maritime trades is often celebrated, perhaps with an eye on contemporary political empowerment, as an example of past multicultural success and Indigenous survival. While this recent surge of interest in Indigenous history is welcome, its focus threatens to overshadow an important story of dispossession, trauma and violence.The cruel irony was that, while sailors treated Indigenous seafarers with more respect than they were otherwise accustomed to and welcomed them as crewmates, as I explain in part one of this article, these same sailors were capable of terrifying outbursts of violence towards coastal Indigenous people.Writing this history helps us to recognise the limits of national boundaries and binary paradigms in historiography. A number of Aboriginal and Mori seafarers witnessed and partook in violence against other Indigenous communities. Their mobility and intermarriage with settlers and other Indigenous groups simply obliterate notions of a distinctive group of colonisers and colonised, of immigrants and emigrants, of active agents and passive victims.* * *Sailors during the Age of Sail were a boisterous, revolutionary lot; however, they were also frequently complicit in grotesque violence. This latter story has largely gone untold.The Raymond Terrace Examiner, describing the life of a famous local mariner, William Cromarty, reported matter-of-factly thatThe aborigines of the Karuah River were hostile and the crew had been injured by spears whilst the brig lay moored. As it was feared that the blacks might try to rush the vessel, at such a time, Captain Cromarty fitted an iron cannon to the brig, and this was loaded with grapeshot. During one desperate affray it was fired point blank.While we tend not to associate the ephemeral presence of maritime communities with competition for land and resources and conflict, it was a similar story up and down Antipodean coastlines.After cross-examining Mori informants in the early twentieth century, the anthropologist Herries Beattie recorded a violent sealing history in New Zealand. In one reprisal for theft and the murder of a white seaman on New Zealands west coast, sealers besieged a village and slaughtered all who did not escape into the bush. One sealer, Tommy Chaseland, became a frenzied fiend he seized a child, Ramirikiri, whose father and mother had been killed, and dashed her head on a rock. The perpetrators then sailed south and clashed with an innocent Mori community: The victims were shot down like rabbits [the] living were placed in a canoe and towed by the sealers round to Whareko, the next bay south of Milford; and there to finish the sport the canoe with its helpless crew was let go in the surf. The breakers dashed it to pieces, and not a soul was left living.The aggression towards the baby may be an exaggeration or a fabrication. Chaseland was a renowned part-Aboriginal sealer and whaler and Beattie may have projected onto this iconic figure his own racial bias about the propensity of Aboriginal people for gross violence.At the same time, some Aboriginal and Mori seafarers, like Tommy Chaseland, witnessed or themselves partook in violence against coastal Indigenous communities, reflecting a tragic way in which these sailors became absorbed into colonial projects.On 10 June 1804, the sloop Contest departed Port Jackson for Port Dalrymple. On board was a military detachment and Mongoul a native of Sydney. At Twofold Bay during the return journey, the master of the Contest ventured ashore with Mongoul. Leaving Mongoul to camp near the beach with two soldiers no doubt to establish amicable relations with local Aboriginal people a misunderstanding arose: three spears were darted at Mongoul, but were dexterously avoided. The soldiers fired over the heads of the Aboriginal assailants, successfully scaring them off. However, when relations again soured the next morning, the soldiers fired directly on the natives, killing one. This time the Aboriginal combatants chased the party off their land, throwing spears until the three intruders fled into the sea in their boat.In 1813, one Mori sailor, George, sailed in the Hunter to Fiji where the crew became embroiled in local politics and conflict with the Indigenous inhabitants. In the centre of the action, George narrowly escaped with his life.Bundell, an experienced sailor, sailed with Phillip Parker King on a survey trip around Australia from May 1821 to April 1822. In north-western Australia on 7 August 1821, while exchanging gifts with local Aboriginal tribesmen, the crew was attacked. Bundell pursued the assailants with a broken spear, possibly wounding one.However, participation in violent encounters with Indigenous groups did not necessarily equate to a loss of cultural heritage or blind support for an all-consuming form of colonialism. Mongoul, for instance, defended land at Stockton Beach, north of Kingstown (now Newcastle), against sailors who were inspecting a shipwreck in 1808.Chaseland was born in the Windsor district to an Aboriginal mother and white father. By 1823, after years as a shipbuilder, sealer and whaler in the Pacific, he was working as a Mori interpreter and second mate on the whaling vessel St Michael. By the late 1830s, he was managing a whaling station in southern New Zealand, having settled on Stewart Island and married a high-ranking Mori woman called Puna.* * *The harsh reality, captured in the satirical lyrics of numerous sea shanties, was that many Indigenous seafarers served in maritime industries renowned for their poor working conditions. Frank Bullen opened his account of a Pacific whaling voyage by describing his yearning in New Bedford for money and the sea. He felt deceived, however, upon realising that he was booked for the sailors horror a cruise in a whaler. The sailor Richard Dana immediately recognised a passing spouter in 1834 due to the slovenly look of its crew, sails, spars and hull.One sailor, describing first-hand the manufacture of oil on board a whaler in the 1860s, wrote:It is as if all the ill odours of the world were gathered together and being shaken up everything is drenched with oil. Shirts and trowsers [sic] are dripping with the disgusting stuff the biscuit you eat glistens with oil, and tastes as though just out of the blubber room you are compelled to inhale the foetid smoke of the scrap fires, until you feel as though it had entered your blood, and suffused every vein in your body. In Pacific fisheries whale blubber was transformed into oil at sea with a built-in try works. Oswald Brierly, South Sea Whalers Boiling Blubber. Boats Preparing to Get a Whale Alongside, c. 1876, watercolour. Image courtesy: State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. Owners and captains often left sealing parties on isolated outcrops and desolate islands throughout the Pacific and Southern Oceans for months and even years without adequate provisions. There are numerous recorded cases of Indigenous seafarers enduring such a fate. W. J. Linton, Boats Attacking Whales, c. early 1830s, engraving. Image courtesy: Alexander Turner Library, Wellington, New Zealand. The Aboriginal seafarer Boatswain Mahroot, when questioned in 1845 for The Report from the Select Committee on the Condition of Aborigines, remarked that whaling was dirty work, and hard work and that his kinsmen did not fancy it at all. Mahroots observation may not be applicable to all Aboriginal people (indeed, some Aboriginal whalers such as Tommy Chaseland achieved renown well into the 1850s), but Mahroot himself probably had little choice but to continue whaling in order to support him and his family.The transcription of Mahroots 1845 interview reveals a man desperately trying to carve a path for himself amid trauma, violence and disease. The interview is as poignant as it is inspiring. Mahroot gained the respect of colonial society for his willingness to work hard on the colonisers terms. He farmed, fished, sealed and whaled. However, despite his knowledge of tribal boundaries and environmental change around Sydney, Mahroot never underwent male initiation. The Aboriginal community at Botany Bay seemed to distrust him, refusing to allow sick Aboriginal people to visit the Sydney Hospital, despite his encouragement. The very fact that he was the only Aboriginal person questioned for the report suggests his proximity to colonial society. Striding across the bridges between cultures could be a lonely journey.Some non-white seafarers adopted European hierarchies of race or expressed their own ethnocentrism within the liminal zones of maritime work. Pacific Islander and Mori seafarers tended to look down on Aboriginal people. When Te Pahi and his five sons visited Port Jackson in 1805, they derided Aboriginal people for their nakedness, primitive lifestyle and trifling mode of warfare.Frequent Mori traffic to Sydney undoubtedly fuelled the dissemination of views on Aboriginal people. Historian Andr Brett argues that unregulated maritime traffic and European understandings of race contributed to an anomalous, annihilationist, Mori invasion of the Chatham Islands in 1835, outside traditional modes of warfare, enslavement, spasmodic migration and intermarriage. These Mori, displaced by the Musket Wars, killed one sixth of the local Moriori population because they viewed the pacifist Moriori as a lesser people than a rival iwi. Despite the array of words available to denote status, Mori applied a new, scornful term learnt from sealers paraiwhara (blackfella) to both Aboriginal and Moriori people. Paraiwhara indicated a status lower than that of any pre-existing word.Aboriginal sailors in New Zealand there were a number of them were thus doubly displaced. The travelling artist George French Angas noted the presence of an Aboriginal mariner on a schooner plying the Cook Strait in 1844:Black Charley who had heard much of the cannibal propensities of the New Zealanders, was afraid to go ashore for fear of being devoured: he always exhibited the most violent signs of fear whenever any of the natives came on board the schooner, fully expecting they would purchase him for a cooky or slave, to be killed and eaten. The young New Zealanders, on the other hand, were greatly amused at the dark colour of his skin and laughed at him calling him mango, mango, or black fellow.* * *In seeking and foregrounding the agency and humanity of past Indigenous people, who were dehumanised by dispossession, massacre, sexual violence and alcoholism, historians sometimes err. As Walter Johnson argues in reference to slavery and racial capitalism, historians force on the past anachronistic, Western conceptions of liberalism and political emancipation: By framing their discovery of the enduring humanity of enslaved people as a defining feature of their work, by casting their work as proof of black humanity as if this were a question that should even be posed historians ironically render black humanity intellectually probationary. By focusing too heavily on (de)humanisation, we thereby separate ourselves from what possibly defines our humanity exploitation and violence.Even the necessity of giving people history for personhood, sovereignty and citizenship is a culturally-specific non-Indigenous viewpoint. Many Indigenous communities, including Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, as per The Dreaming, possessed a vastly different, non-linear conception of time.Historian David Chappell critiques the binary polarisation of active agents and passive victims in Pacific historiography and the tendency for present-minded historians to upstream self-determination backward through time during an era of decolonisation. Non-Indigenous scholars gifted agency to Pacific Islanders while the latter were still clinging to victimhood for their identity. Is this academic emphasis, however altruistic, a veiled form of neo-colonial hegemony over cultural identity? Quite possibly.Indigenous sailors fill such little space within the national stories of Australia and New Zealand because they embody success neither by colonial standards nor by Western, liberal standards. With their propensity for mimesis, their isolation from easily identifiable, authentic, Indigenous cultures and their ambiguous contribution to shipping a key vehicle in capitalism, settler colonialism and frontier violence they do not reflect our expectations of what an active agent in history looks like. But perhaps this is not important.The search for a redeeming quality of agency applies a liberal conception of independence and choice that mattered little to Indigenous men during the Age of Sail. Maritime employment restricted freedom and rights for an oppressed proletariat who saw sealing and whaling as a last resort. The comparison of a maritime career to slavery or a prison sentence was common. White British sailors defined the corporal discipline of the Royal Navy and the omnipotent threat of naval impressment for merchant seamen in racial terms from the late eighteenth century, invoking the plight of plantation slaves to force naval reform. In Antipodean ports, and on ships, the lines between convicts and mariners blurred. But these liminal zones offered Indigenous sailors opportunities and, for some, a refuge and a home.Maritime employment gave Indigenous seafarers a new way to navigate colonial worlds that did not necessarily involve active resistance or accommodation. Their refusal to conform to colonial norms and expectations was usually financially generative and, strikingly, it resulted in respect, at least among close peers.But this home was never secure. While mariners might extend a hand towards their Indigenous shipmates, these same men created violent coastal frontiers. On shore whether on leave from a ship in port, working on a whaling station or scrambling across coastlines in the pursuit of seals the peace they experienced at sea might shatter into a waterfall of cascading conflict.Maritime employment offered a tenuous semblance of security in a violent world, outside the comprehension of contemporaries and beyond their prying eyes.This article is Part 2 in a two part series exploring the role of Indigenous people in colonial maritime industries in eastern Australia and New Zealand. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For a number of Aboriginal and Mori men who worked as guides, pilots, sailors, sealers and whalers in a Tasman world, the Age of Sail from the 1790s to 1870s in the Antipodes represented a unique, historical era of boundary-crossing, transgression and cultural entanglement.Their stories appear in academic journals and the odd book particularly in the writing of historians such as Lynette Russell, Keith Vincent Smith and Judith Binney. But they just as quickly vanish in general history tomes and public discourse, subsumed by nationalist metanarratives in Australia and New Zealand. While Henry Reynolds, the forefather of black armband history, has sought to overturn the misconception that Aboriginal Australians did not contribute to nation-building, even he is remarkably silent on Indigenous sailors.The lives of Aboriginal and Mori seafarers were entwined with frontier violence, shipwrecks and abandonment on rocky island outcrops. But there are almost no memorials for them and little public commemoration.Certainly, the number of Indigenous mariners was modest when compared to the hordes who became fisherman, farmers, shepherds and loggers. Why then bother examining the lives of Indigenous men who found employment and homes at the very edge of settler colonialism? Why bother capturing fleeting moments in history as still photography when more complete archives would allow us to indulge in vivid cinematography? These are precisely the questions I bombarded myself with as I wrote my honours thesis at the University of Sydney Fancy King Billy as a Jack Tar: Aboriginal and Mori Seafarers in the Tasman World during the Age of Sail.In asking myself why these stories were erased from history, I discovered a bigger story about settler colonialism in Australia and New Zealand and about how we choose to write history.Through the very process of migration, Indigenous seafarers prolonged nomadism, escaped surveillance, relocated themselves within urban environments and defied the geographic constraints placed on them by religion and the state. Maritime work brought them into contact with a rung of colonial society believed to constitute the dregs convict absconders, lawless adventurers and drunken sailors.Yet I found one description consistently missing in the disjointed historical records accusations that Indigenous mariners did a poor job or failed to live up to expectations.Before Aboriginal people pursued other occupations they adapted first to European ships. As early as 1791, an Aboriginal person Bundell sailed outside of Port Jackson on a European vessel. As early as 1798, David Collins praised their usefulness in maritime trades in his renowned journal. These Aboriginal sailors stood out at a time when most settlers perceived the work ethic of Aboriginal people as substandard.In 1848 William Henry Wells wrote that Aboriginal people at Twofold Bay are an active and intelligent race, and in their useful labours, in boating, and in various arduous employments on board the whalers, they certainly contradict the hasty conclusions which so many superficial writers have drawn in reference to the degrading facilities of the natives of New South Wales.We could nonchalantly brush aside the evidence which seems, on the surface, to merely reflect settler approval of Indigenous employment and assimilation into colonial society, regardless of whether they were actually efficient as sailors. However, this does not do justice, I believe, to the adaptability of Indigenous seamen.* * *Recognising the need to ameliorate the historical literacy of the Australian public and to bypass the heavily-policed border between history and archaeology as disciplines, scholars including Paul Irish and Billy Griffiths have transformed their PhD theses into accessible books free from the yoke of academic jargon. Inspired by their self-reflective sifting through old archeological studies, I argue in my thesis that Aboriginal and Mori tribes in coastal areas were not land-locked, culturally rigid and constrained by strict tribal boundaries. Aboriginal and Mori people had a legacy of adapting to environmental changes, embracing new technologies and migrating.Expertise in swimming and subsistence capabilities in aquatic environments gave Indigenous seamen a useful advantage over their crewmates. In the writing of Euroamerican mariners and settlers poor swimmers at best we find Aboriginal and Mori people leaping out of cabin windows into the sea and diving under boats to evade musket fire and capture. We find them salvaging shipwrecks, fording rivers and rescuing the drowning. Frank Bullen, who published a semi-autobiographical narrative, The Cruise of the Cachalot, based on his own whaling adventures in the Pacific in the 1870s, noted that the bravery of Indigenous seamen during whale chases centred on their confidence that they would not drown. Artist unknown, Whaleboat Showing Position of Crew, c. early nineteenth century, watercolour. Image courtesy: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Aboriginal and Mori sailors also possessed physical attributes or perceived physical attributes that aided their transition into the lung-busting work of the sealing and whaling industries. These traits included physical strength and superior eyesight.Cultural affinities with nautical pastimes and rituals storytelling, performance and the egalitarian division of rations and pay helped Indigenous seafarers integrate into maritime social spheres and probably prolong their maritime careers. In August 1840, one Mori man earned a position on a ship anchored at Queen Charlotte Sound by gaining the crews favour with public performance.Edward Jeringham Wakefield recounted:E Ware, had made himself a general favourite on board, and had apparently taken a fancy to the ship His activity and mirth, together with the rich humour which he displayed in executing some of the native dances, as well as in mimicking almost every one [sic] on board, earned for him the sobriquet of Jim Crow, which he retained during the whole time that he stuck to the ship. He had acquired his nautical knowledge on board a whaling-ship in which he had served. I have often seen him, in the violent gales which we weathered on various parts of the coast, out on the end of the yard-arm doing the work of the best man in reefing, and cheering the sailors to exertion by some broad joke or irresistible grimace. He was fully competent to do the work of an able seaman; and his good humour under all circumstances was invincible.As historians like Marcus Rediker and Jesse Lemisch have masterfully demonstrated, life on a deep-sea vessel in the early modern era isolated captain and crew alike from the norms of society, fostering new forms of consciousness. Rediker argues that issues of power, authority and discipline created a collective, oppositional culture a pioneering international proletariat of sorts among common seamen, who developed rituals and language that mocked and subverted the established order. Collective oppression often dissolved racial differences. In this unique, liminal space, Jack Tar, accustomed to working alongside different races, did not necessarily frown upon the playful antics of Indigenous mariners.Sailors in Pacific waters were of the same egalitarian, radical ilk. There is no shortage of information on maritime labour dispute in colonial, Antipodean newspapers. Logbooks and journals, which illuminate the interracial camaraderie of Antipodean maritime industries, show that Indigenous sailors had little trouble gaining promotions to positions such as mate or headsman, although captaincy usually provided a glass ceiling. A few Indigenous men even owned or managed whaling stations. I have found matter-of-fact descriptions of Indigenous seafarers dining in the captains cabin and playing cards with their shipmates.Ships were not always sites of perfect racial harmony. I document in my thesis cases of mistreatment, abuse, negligent captaincy and racial intolerance. But I also argue that it is difficult to conclusively assert that racism always created tension and conflict when Indigenous seafarers were part of a notoriously brutal capitalist machine. All sailors, regardless of creed, lived under the threat of flogging and creative punishments.Indigenous sailors situated themselves firmly within a working class, maritime culture and wholeheartedly adopted the habits and coarse language of their fellow sailors. But there are also fascinating descriptions of Indigenous mariners imitating colonial elites and aristocratic mannerisms. Here it is very much necessary to read against the grain. Colonial elites and supernumeraries used humour and farce to ridicule the proclivity of Indigenous sailors for mimesis. They couched Indigenous mimesis within the tropes of the ignoble/noble savage. In their eyes, Aboriginal and Mori people adopted European traditions, manners, clothes and slang in defeated recognition of Europes cultural superiority, conniving demonstrations of economic opportunism, or with child-like naivety.The flexibility of Indigenous seamen in public performance and their reconfiguration of identity according to audience and environment suggest something more complex than slavish subservience to a dominant culture, whimsical eccentricity or mimetic excess literary tropes that remain embedded via stealth within some scholarship. It is possible, perhaps probable, that Indigenous seafarers sensed the increase in popularity obtained via performance in a workplace defined by class antagonism a workplace in which yarning, singing, dancing, performance and rough language were key sites for the subversion of traditional, European norms. Mimesis was a subversive weapon in the armoury of Indigenous seafarers, used for the creative reconstruction of self, the fulfilment of Indigenous protocols outside the European gaze, the acquisition of material items and social acceptance.Nor was cross-cultural exchange a one-way street. Traffic travelled in both directions. By glossing over European imitation of Indigenous customs, researchers have replicated the nineteenth century preoccupation with perceiving mimesis as an exclusively Indigenous trait.Cultural hybridisation was not a uniform phenomenon engulfing all ships involved in whaling, sealing, exploration and trade. But there are fleeting references in historical records to white sailors adopting the customs, dress and languages of Indigenous people and forming entirely new, hybridised subcultures of their own often without the express authority of their captains.Sailors employed pidgin languages a mix of English and local words from across the Pacific to communicate. With remarkable mastery of language, Lascar, Tahitian and Aboriginal sailors acted as interpreters for sea captains seeking provisions in New Zealand. Some European sailors and beachcombers tattooed themselves in the fashion of their Mori and Kanaka shipmates. Haratio Robley, portrait of Anaru from Scrapbook of Maori Art, Vol. II, 1865, ink and watercolour. * * *Culturally and environmentally-specific factors in New South Wales and New Zealand the seafaring knowledge, mimesis, adaptability and strength of Aboriginal and Mori people, for instance were just as influential in compelling colonial employers to redefine expectations as the pre-existing racial tolerance and radicalism of maritime spheres.Indigenous sailors thus provide useful reminders and warnings about how we choose to write history. We must be wary of haphazardly pasting over the past an anachronistic conception of racism more applicable to the later decades of the nineteenth century. Scholars including Cassandra Pybus and Tony Ballantyne have shown that racial thought in the Tasman world was in flux in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.As the historian and anthropologist Ann Stoler reminds us: colonial cultures were never direct translations of European society but unique cultural configurations, homespun creations increasing knowledge, contact and familiarity lead not to a diminuation of racial discrimination but to an intensification of it over time, and a rigidifying of boundaries.I am by no means suggesting that colonialism was benign. I merely hope to illuminate some of the creative, ingenious ways in which First Nations people navigated its destructive force.While some mariners Manila-men, for example developed reputations for disruptive behaviour, there is no suggestion in the documentary record that Aboriginal or Mori sailors were a particularly unruly segment of the maritime labour pool.This is not to say that they meekly acquiesced. In September 1805, for example, the Aboriginal sailor Williamannan, named after the whaleship William and Ann, refused to board a sealing vessel until he had signed the customary articles of indenture to ensure his legal protection and payment at the end of the voyage. In 1811, eight days after returning from sealing at Macquarie Island, Boatswain Mahroot, another Aborigianl seafarer, successfully petitioned Governor Macquarie, claiming his employer, James Underwood, had breached a verbal contract about pay. Artist unknown, William Minam, Walamata Port Aitken Koonemetta, 1843, pencil drawing. Image courtesy: State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia.However, Aboriginal and Mori seafarers seldom chose to desert. Just as slaves and some African-American sailors equated naval impressment and service, notoriously brutal, with autonomy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, perhaps Aboriginal and Mori men found a home they cherished on the ships in rapidly changing worlds, marred by disease and violence.In finding this home, however, Indigenous sailors seemed to vanish from view. Like unstable isotopes, they inhabited a volatile space at the centre of colonial tensions. To colonial authorities, they showed a commendable inclination for mastering practical, economic skills and mirroring the European work ethic, but they also inhabited a shared space with rough itinerant workers, who represented dysfunction and chaos. By mastering European ways including language, manners, customs and laws escaping European forms of governance and creating new, hybrid spaces, Aboriginal and Mori sailors threatened the colonial project itself, which depended upon incorporating and assimilating Indigenous people into settler cultures through Christianisation, education and farming.It was easier for contemporaries to either view Indigenous sailors as obsequious impersonators and eccentrics or ignore them completely in their writing. This image has rendered them seemingly unworthy of critical, academic attention. But historians must seek to excavate their stories to provide colour and texture to people who, while they may shine bright in the minds of First Nations people, remain silhouettes in the eyes of the coloniser, silenced in bureaucratic archives which privilege the written word.This article is Part 1 in a two part series exploring the role of Indigenous people in colonial maritime industries in eastern Australia and New Zealand. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 2009 Victoria witnessed the worst bushfires in this countrys history, spanning 450,000 hectares, wiping out 2,000 homes and killing 180 people. I grew up in bushfire country, and I will never forget the sight of turning around at my local cricket oval to see the tops of flames rise above the bushland that surrounded my home. Over the course of the following weeks, I came to learn of the people around me whod lost homes, lives and loved ones; whose losses I couldnt fathom.Within a week, a Royal Commission was announced, the findings of which transformed the way that bushfires are addressed in Australia: a host of recommendations were made, including a quadrupling of hazard reduction burn levels, a restructure of emergency governance, as well as bushfire awareness campaigns and a reassessment of evacuation procedures. The reports recommendations were accepted in full, with almost $1 billion committed by the state government in implementing them.A decade later, Sydney is choking on carcinogenic smoke from bushfires that have scorched an area six times larger than those on Black Saturday. Air in one of the worlds supposedly most liveable cities is 11 times the threshold considered hazardous, and even on its good days is categorically unhealthy.How is this possible? Conservatives across the east coast have scrambled to blame the Greens (a party that has never seen government), as well as progressives more broadly, for their apparent city-focused ineptitude toward land management.This is a cynical, deliberately partisan distraction from the issue at hand. The plumes of smoke above New South Wales are a symbol of an utter failure of responsible governance, and a shameful indictment on a government that masquerades as the champion of everyday people.Ignoring the short-term, ideologically-driven administrative incompetence that saw cuts to the Rural Fire Service, and the Prime Ministers refusal to meet with emergency service leaders who warned him of the horrors of this fire season, this governments position on climate change should be rage-inducing. Every single one of us should be white-hot with anger at this governments cynical and obstructionist response to climate change. People have a right to ask and a right to answers, even as New South Wales burns.They also have a right to solutions, which have not been forthcoming from successive governments even after Black Saturday and as our understanding of climate change has further developed. Indeed, imagine a Premier having the audacity to insist she would not today discuss the role of climate change as peoples lives crumble to ash, as the sky above them turns a permanent shade of toxic yellow. Bronte wont burn; nor will Northbridge even as they choke, perhaps we cant expect meaningful, timely action from our politicians. Begging conservative governments to do the bare minimum on climate is futile: Morrisons Government might belatedly spend on fire service assistance, but is ideologically rooted in refusing to address the climate that exacerbates the fires in the first place.The question then is where our anger should be directed I would posit that it is the Australian Labor Party, who have demonstrated a marked lack of enthusiasm for not only anything resembling a Green New Deal, but indeed differentiating themselves from the Morrison Government on coal.A decade ago, John Brumby instituted a Royal Commission within a week, including terms of reference that spoke to the role of climate change in relation to the bushfires. The wealth of literature surrounding the link between bushfires and climate change has only become more extensive. How is it then, that a decade later, a Labor Party still dominated by Brumbys native Right faction has managed to flip its public messaging on climate from being the party of pragmatic progress, and into the Party that sees its return from the electoral cold in knocking back Gautam Adanis proverbial Cristal?It may well be that Brumby operated in an era of less explicit partisanship on climate, and therefore that there were less political implications for his invocation of climate change in an extremely sensitive time. It may be that Black Saturday was unprecedented in a way that these bushfires are not, and as such there is greater capacity for blind partisanship and commitment to vested interests in the political discourse. Nonetheless, we are now faced with the only parliamentary hope for meaningful climate action in government being apparently hopelessly committed to coal for the foreseeable future, having received $430,865 in fossil fuel industry donations in 2017-18.Another path is open. Pushing climate policy that centers working people is not only politically expedient for a Party that has apparently lost touch with its working base, but furthermore is existentially urgent. Particularly so for the marginalised communities that Labor claims to represent who are disproportionately affected by climate change. We must address the narrative that coal mining is an industry that by virtue of its existing prominence in working-class communities, must continue to be subsidised and supported by government, all for the sake of the re-election of a Labor Party that may as well have not been elected in the first place.It is the immediate investment into a Just Transition that provides secure, sustainable jobs that will see the election of a government with actual capacity for acting on climate change. This is not to suggest that replacing one neoliberal party with another will be the catalyst for the reversal of anthropogenic climate change, but simply that this Governments inaction can prompt us to seek electoral solutions in the climate crisis.Just maybe, then Ill be able to put aside the HEPA mask for a bit. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last week, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), effectively permitting fast-tracked citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, while excluding Muslim refugees from this naturalisation. The Act comes in the context of a litany of anti-Muslim measures passed by the Hindu nationalist Modi government, which was re-elected this year for another term.In response, students fromJamia Millia Islamia University, in New Delhi, and Aligarh Muslim Universities, in Uttar Pradesh, hosted protests which were met with police brutality, internet blockades, poor mainstream media coverage and evidence of hired non-police actors carrying out violence. Across the country thousands of students have mobilised in solidarity. The excessive use of force, including tear gas, lathi charges (wooden batons) and sexual assaults have been reported across campuses. Many students have been detained, beaten and denied legal help.Supporters of the CAA claim it is simply benevolently helping those Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Christian, Parsi and Buddhist migrants fleeing persecution in Muslim-majority countries. They now only need proof of 6 years of residence in India, as opposed to the 12 years Muslim migrants would need to gain citizen rights.However, Modi is known for his populist and right-wing agenda of defining India for the Hindus, despite it being a constitutionally secular and multi-faith country. Modis success draws on defining Islam as the other, utilising divisions forged by British colonialists, historical narratives of invasion, caste and class to polarise communities.The CAA clearly excludes instances where Muslims are minorities, notably the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, many of whom reside in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, and Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Act also excludes members of minority sects of Islam where they are persecuted within Muslim-majority countries.Recently, the BJP-RSS created a National Register of Citizens, piloted in Assam, which forced those living in the state to produce documentation papers of Indian citizenship or face deportation or detention in camps, echoing Australias Manus Island camps, Uyghur detention centres in Western China and to some, those of Nazi Germany. Around 2 million people now face statelessness and this will expand as the program is rolled out across the country.The move also follows the repeal of Article 370, a constitutional clause granting a degree of autonomy to the contested Muslim-majority state of Kashmir, which has led to severe repression of the Kashmiri population by the government. More recently, a landmark Supreme Court decision has permitted a Hindu temple to be built over the site of the now destroyed Babri Masjid (mosque), in Ayodhya.The CAA is just the latest manifestation of the Modi governments broader Hindutva project, excluding Muslims and undermining secularism in the worlds largest democracy. More broadly, it is indicative of growing religious-based discrimination within the country. Islamophobia has become increasingly mainstream, with reports of increasing instances of anti-Muslim violence. With India supposedly being the largest democracy in the world, it raises the question: where and when will the government respect the rights of its people to protest freely?An earlier version of this article mentioned simultaneous protests in Assam. Protests in Assam are separate from the protests discussed in this article, instead focusing on the dangers to local identity and culture from mass immigration. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The National Conference (NatCon) for the National Union of Students took place this year at Federation University in Ballarat, Victoria. Honi went along, and made it back to tell the tale (we know, were surprised too).The NUS is the peak representative body for undergraduate students across Australia, yet most have no knowledge of its existence and those that do have legitimate grounds for questioning its integrity, and asking what it actually does for students.Debates at NatCon were broken into eight policy sessions focusing on different topics (such as Education, Women, Unions)., Things were delayed on the first day, meaning that no policy was discussed or voted on until after 7pm (the conference start time was 2pm).Once the conference floor opened and speakers of all factions took to the microphone to accuse each other of wasting time, the tone was set for the rest of the conference.All policy chapters are not created equalPrior to NatCon, the outgoing General Secretary put together a 254 page policy book (plus other supplementary policies) to be discussed and voted on by the major factions present National Labor Students (NLS), Student Unity, Socialist Alternative, and Grassroots/Independents and the independents on the conference floor.With only a limited amount of time on the conference floor to discuss policy, it was difficult to get through the entire policy book. Despite time being divided disproportionately every year, there was little foresight from the factions at the beginning of the week that this would indeed happen again, and no real structures in place to prevent it.The policy chapter on education took upwards of five hours to get through, yet the queer and First Nations chapters were rushed on the last day of the conference, and the international chapter was voted on in only two blocs, with next to no discussion.There were varying levels of respect and composure depending on the policy chapter being discussed. In both the Womens and the First Nations chapters, the entire room behaved very politely to one another. In chapters such as Education, Welfare and LGBTI+, it was a completely different matter, with factions yelling, stomping, swearing and physically surrounding and intimidating each other. In policy areas where factions knew their behaviour impacted their legitimacy in speaking on the issue, they tended to remain respectful. These were generally also chapters where policy carried unopposed.SSAF WarsOne of the most important policy points at NatCon this year was concerning the Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF), the way Australian universities have funded student unions since the enactment of Voluntary Student Unionism. Currently, there is no federal legislation which allocates a certain amount of SSAF to the NUS.Although universities in Western Australia give 50% of their SSAF to student unions, this is not the case in the rest of the country, and it means that funding is a massive issue, which severely impacts the ability of the NUS to fulfil its function of fighting for students.Incoming NUS President Molly Wilmott was one of the most vocal advocates of lobbying state governments to legislate compulsory student unions in universities as well as minimum 50% SSAF. Having limited funded means we have less capacity to be organising against the university and against fucked administration, she said.Jews Against Fascism vs. Australasian Union of Jewish StudentsOne of the most contentious moments of the conference was discussion surrounding an amendment to ETHNO14: Fighting Anti-Semitism. The policy was moved by Hersha Kadkol and seconded by Vinil Kumar of SAlt, with an amendment made to change the second action point from: NUS will actively campaign against far-right antisemitism, and support and publicise campaigns alongside the group Jews Against Fascism, to also add the group The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS).AUJS then controversially moved to change this amendment in order to remove Jews Against Fascism from the policy altogether. This provoked anger from SAlt and the Grindies, not only because AUJS constitution lists its four pillars as Judaism, activism, pluralism and (the sticking point) Zionism, but because they saw it as a right-wing intervention to cut leftist Jewish organising out of the picture. The amendment to remove Jews Against Fascism passed solely from the support of Unity, arguing support of AUJS was needed in the fight against anti-semitism in universities. AUJS representatives who attended NatCon framed the conversation as a false dichotomy either you support AUJS and Jewish students, or you support Jews Against Fascism and you dont support Jewish students meaning it was easy to see why Unity wouldnt vote against the amendment, for fear of being branded anti-semitic (as SAlt was).Valerie (NLS) has called SAlt "one of the factions that is most guilty of anti-semitism in this union". A SAlt speaker labelled that attack as a "pot shot" in an attempt to "score points". #nusnatcon19 Honi Soit (@honi_soit) December 10, 2019Labor, Labor, LaborWith the majority of the conference attendees being either Unity or NLS, there was a strong Labor energy throughout the entire conference which never waned. SAlt brought forward a few motions throughout the conference which demanded the NUS condemned the actions of the Labor Party. These were never successful. When these issues were brought up, Unity often responded with chants praising the ALP. One policy in particular called on the NUS to condemn the Christchurch massacre and stand in solidarity with the Muslim community. A SAlt speaker stated: If you campaign for the Labor party, you spit on the grave of people who were killed by white supremacist terrorists. Nicole (SAlt) also related the El Paso massacre to the Christchurch shootings and stated that Labor has had a despicable role in building the confidence of far-right people around the world.Policy EDU35: Why Labor lost the 2019 federal election was a controversial discussion.In his speech, USYD Education Officer Jack Mansell (SAlt) called the Labor Party a decrepit pile of shit and said that there was no distinction between left and right. He was drowned out by Unitys ALP chants.Racist, sexist, anti-queer chanted the room At a conference dominated by ALP lovers and the left more broadly, Liberals were the minority, and a hated one at that. Two USyd Liberals, Laura Glase and Maia Edge, got up to speak against policies and were met with cries of hate that pretty much drowned out any opportunity to hear the arguments they were making. Laura spoke against Safe Schools, and Maia spoke against Mandatory Blood Testing for LGBTQI+ people. Despite the Liberals all voting against most motions in the queer chapter, including actions which supported queer collectives being activism-oriented and queer people feeling safe going to the bathroom at university, the rest of the floor voted for them, and they carried regardless. Anton Lukas, a Liberal from the University of Western Australia abstained or voted against most motions throughout the entire conference. Were unsure why he bothered coming at all.RatConGrassroots/Independents (Grindies) and NLS had struck a deal to support each others nominations for Education Officer and Womens Officer (respectively). However with the Grindies allegedly bailing on the deal, by Wednesday afternoon Unitys Humaira Nasrin was elected to the Womens Officer position unopposed. We reached out to Lincoln Aspinall, the Grindies member who was elected to the Education Officer position, for a comment but did not hear back. We did, however, receive this informative diagram of a rat by incoming USYD SRC Vice President Felix Faber (NLS).Given to G/I because they allegedly broke a deal with NLS to support their candidacy for Womens Officer, which went to Unity #nusnatcon19 pic.twitter.com/ztcJR2OKIr Grok Magazine (@GrokMagazine) December 11, 2019Is it Sam? Is it Michael? Is it me?Early on in the week, we reported on some uncertainty surrounding the role of Student Unitys national convenorship. In short, Michael Iroeche (La Trobe), national convenor and NUS General Secretary over the past year, and Sam Roberts (Swinburne), 2020 General Secretary and NUS State President for Victoria in 2019, were involved in a two-month struggle for the position.Unity National Convenor and NUS General Secretary are tied to each other, as a source told us. The Gensec position has gone to a member of Unity for the last 13 years, with the last five all being from Victorian campuses. The struggle was apparently settled by the end of last weekend, and, contrary to the assumptions of many, did not result in the delaying of the conferences first session.It did, however, give rise to some amusing jabs from NLS, including Disability Officer Will Edwards saying that while Unity might be 50% Team Michael and 50% Team Sam, they were 100% Team Scab. Ouch.Student media backlashOn the third day of the conference Ali Amin, from the University of Adelaide (Unity) moved a motion against student media, who he likened to Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Molly Willmott (NLS) spoke for the motion too, criticising a certain publication at the University of Sydney for the incredibly destructive interference from editors asking for comment who are not even in the state and have no idea whats going on. Honi thinks its ironic that a major part of this motion asked that speakers and faction members have right of response before publication, yet when we have reach out for comment, this is the response we receive.Will Edwards (NLS) wasnt nearly as subtle, using his time at the microphone to air all of his grievances with the 2019 Honi Soit editors. Its clear he has some unresolved issues with our predecessors! Awkward!Student media from Honi Soit, Farrago, the ANU Observer and Grok Magazine responded with a motion to be read to the floor, but Unity didnt sign it because it wasnt apologetic enough. Here it is anyway.Student Unity refused to sign this Student Media procedural motion. It asks for the announcement attached below to be read to the #nusnatcon19 floor. Unity demanded a right of reply this morning, and then denied us that very thing. pic.twitter.com/pqh8oA4qYa Farrago Magazine (@FarragoMagazine) December 11, 2019Your new execWeve already named a few lucky individuals who will be national officer bearers for NUS this coming year. Heres the full list:National President: Molly Willmott (NLS)Looks like we were spot on with our pick for this position. Molly was one of the more vocal members of NLS at this years conference, making sure to speak on several policies each day. In her nomination speech, she thanked the powerful women who have helped her along the way. This win will also see her hopping from one president role to the next, having served as president of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) this year. Following ex-nominee Jordan Mumfords (Unity) speech in which he claimed he would be the National President of the NUS for 2020, Molly clarified that she, in fact, would be taking up that role. Glad we sorted that out.National General Secretary/National Deputy President: Samuel Roberts (Unity)Samuel came out on top of the Unity convenorship debacle. This was probably why he thanked Student Unitys conventions in his speech conventions which Iroeche had broken by allegedly making a deal with NSW in order to gain support. He also promised to reconfigure the current structure of the NUS, calling it a relic of a pre-VSU (Voluntary Student Unionism) past. It seems that he took no time embracing a leadership mentality, as a source informed us that he had told his faction on Day 1: If a motion comes to extend to 11:30 then rip it up. I dont care if anyone else in Unity has signed it, if I havent signed it then rip it up.National Education Officer: Lincoln Aspinall (Grassroots/Independents)Lincoln was more or less at the center of NLS rodent-themed content which resulted from their broken deal with Grindies. His speech for his nomination was initially interrupted by rat noises, before NLS were told to be quiet. He went on to state that he would restore confidence in our staff and stressed the importance of an inclusive and welcoming atmosphere on campus.National Welfare Officer: Ali Thabit Mohammad Amin (Unity)Like his Unity pal Sam Roberts, Ali was also a member of NUS National Executive this year, serving as the State President for South Australia. In his speech, he vowed to work for students living below the poverty line, stating that it is too easy to be complacent. We cant say that he was one of our biggest fans last week one needs to look no further than his Twitter replies for evidence. He did say that we improved significantly throughout the conference, so it must have looked like we took his criticism on board.National Small and Regional Campuses Officer: Kai Lachlan Donaldson (Unity)If he wasnt noteworthy earlier in the conference, Kai certainly made an impression after coming up to speak to his nomination while wearing an Akubra hat. He didnt make himself too popular with SAlt after promising in his speech to meet with Mr Adani himself, (presumably Gautam Adani, founder of the Adani Group). Darcy Turner (SAlt), who withdrew his nomination, used his speaking time to condemn Kai and the rest of Unity for their joking demeanour, and his mention of his hometown currently burning was certainly a welcome wake-up call.National Womens Officer: Humaira Nasrin (Unity)Certainly giving one of the more interesting nomination speeches, Humaira opened by saying she wished the position didnt have to exist. Nonetheless, she promised to fight so the women after us have it a little bit easier. Like Will Edwards, Humaira also managed to escape exile from the floor. After being named three times and asked to leave during the first session of Day 3, Unity began chanting Bring back Humaira and Pull the quorum. You cant knock the loyalty.National Queer/LGBTI Officers: Natalie Acreman (SAlt) and Dashie Prasad (Grassroots/Independents)Dashie, who recently spoke at and was involved in organising the Global Day for Climate Justice rally in Sydney in late November, was not actually at the conference, and instead had a speech delivered by proxy. In it, they warned that the attempts of the right-wing media and government to oppress and attack queer communites would be met with a fighting force, and stated you will see radical organisation coming from me. Dashie was also vocal in their support for the inclusion of all gender bathrooms at UTS earlier in the year.Natalie also pointed to the Liberal government as one of an oppressive forces and vowed to harness the righteous fury of young people to mobilise behind the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights. Natalie was involved in setting up a Students Say Yes to Marriage Equality campaign at RMIT University in 2017, and has been a key figure in the fight against the religious discrimination bill in Melbourne.National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Officer: Kya Branch (Grassroots/Independents)Throughout the conference, Kya Branch was a respected figure and key speaker on First Nations policy. Kya spoke about how lucky they are to come from Newscastle University, where there is a very high population of First Nations students. We are a minority wherever we go in a post-colonial world, They said. They brought attention to the fact that Aboriginal Australians are being killed, and Torres Strait Islanders are being forced to leave their homes because of climate change. This year, the rights to the Aboriginal flag were sold to a private company. Kya promised to represent Indigenous students and campaign on some of these issues.National Ethno-Cultural Officer: Vinil Kumar (SAlt)One of the key talking points in many of SAlts speeches throughout the conference partuclarly Wednesady night was the climate rally in Sydney last week. Vinils speech was no exception, as he promised more rallies of the like and asked the other attendees where will you be? He noted that where this oppression, there is resistance, pointing towards multiple examples of this, such as in Palestine. And, just in case we forgot, he proudly declared that he was a socialist.National International Students Officer: Ivanka Dishan Su (Unity)Dishan has served as an international representative of the Deakin University Student Association. She said that her goal in 2020 is to, enrich experience of international and local students, actively participate in activities that assist them with a smooth transition both physically and psychologically. She said that she will fight for concession Opal cards and insurance and speak out against discrimination. I hope through the work in 2020, NUS will bring more cross-cultural opportunities on campus and community programs, she said.National Disability Officer: Alex Loyd Leighton (Unity)There was a bit of uncertainty regarding the election of this role. By the time voting had commenced, there were two remaining nominees: Tori Holliday (NLS) and Alex. However, the ballot results released by the NUS Secretariat deemed Tori ineligible, despite her seemingly having the vast majority of votes. Its likely that this was due to a ruling made by NUS Accreditation Committee which denied the eligibility of candidates from non-accredited campuses, allowing Alex to be elected to the role.Alex seems to have some grievances with Will Edwards, the previous bearer of this position, given that she criticised him for doing jack fucking shit in his time as an office bearer. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Follow the heart break and deal breaking live here. Factional discipline getting you down? Drop us an anonymous tip here.The NUS National Conference (dis-affectionately known as NatCon) is the annual general meeting of the National Union of Students, the peak representative body for Australian undergraduate students.Each December Australian hacks congregate at obscure campuses to debate policy, raise motions, and, most importantly, elect its Executive and Office Bearers. Unsurprisingly, paid roles (the President, General Secretary, Education Officer, Welfare Officer, Womens Officer, Queer Officers) are highly sought after, but the National Executive, other non-paid office bearer roles and State President roles are prized by factions too.Never heard of NUS? Thats perhaps not surprising. Despite its centrality to the 2014 campaign against university fee deregulation, and moments of prominence within the 2016-17 marriage equality campaign, the NUS has been criticised for its opaqueness, past financial mismanagement and the inaction of elected representatives.Importantly, not all student unions are a part of the NUS. Notably, the ANU Student Association (ANUSA) has flirted with re-accreditation and disaccreditation over the past several years (finally electing to re-accredit this year). The University of Sydney SRC is affiliated, however, paying upwards of $60,000 to the NUS to support its projects and for the honour of sending seven of our finest hacks to argue with other aspiring politicians.NatCon itself is notoriously opaque. Non-student media are barred, filming is routinely banned and unaffiliated observers are required to pay an exorbitant registration fee. The PlayersAt its core, NatCon is a factional brawl for control of the NUS for the upcoming year. Control of the largest amount of delegates is important, but because quorum sits at only 50% relatively small factions can often delay debates until they get what they want. These are the players to watch out for.Student UnityPercentage of NUS Delegates: 51% (54% including controlled Liberal delegates)Tipped to pick up: General SecretaryStudent Unity (Labor Right) will dominate this years conference floor. Though the tallies of exactly how many delegates each faction controls is something of an insiders secret, Honi has been told Unity delegates make up 51% of all NatCon delegates and will control 54% of delegates votes.Unity has apparently picked up 8 Liberal-aligned delegates, including three Liberal delegates from USyd who will either be voting with or proxying their votes to Unity members.Though Unity is now presenting a united front, it had been rumoured last week that Unity might split along the lines of the conservative Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) and the Transport Workers Union (TWU).The faction is notoriously disciplined however, so its perhaps not particularly surprising that the split hasnt eventuated, or that Unity hasnt talked to the press about it (though theyre always welcome to anonymously here). Theres always time for factional discipline to breakdown though.Honi has previously reported rumours that the three Liberal delegates would proxy their votes to Unity this year in exchange for Unitys support for a Liberal presidential candidate for SASS at its stacked AGM. But Honi can confirm that at least two Liberal delegates James Ardouin and Laura Glase are present at Ballarat NatCon, so may be voting themselves.Last year, Unity and SAlt controversially use Liberal ballots in key votes for the elections of key executive positions, NLS condemning the practice (despite previously having used similar tactics at USyd).National Labor Students (NLS)Percentage of NUS Delegates: 17%Tipped to pick up: PresidentLike Unity, NLS (Labor Left) is a nationally organised student Labor faction, that binds its members on votes at NatCon.In previous years its been relatively common to see NLS following Unity in a sweetheart deal, but Unitys dominance this year means it doesnt always need other factions support to pass motions. With only 17% of delegates, it seems itll find it more difficult to push through the motions it wants to see supported, or pick up important executive positions.But thats less important than the fact that Molly Willmott of NLS, the outgoing president of the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU), is tipped to be picking up the NUS Presidency. Labor Left has controlled the Presidency since 1987, including in 2017 when Unity also controlled an outright majority of delegates.Socialist Alternative (SAlt)Percentage of NUS Delegates Controlled: 12%Tipped to pick up: UnclearSAlt is the other large, organised faction on the NatCon floor, though is a revolutionary Troskyist faction. SAlt might be in a difficult spot, controlling the votes of only 12% of NatCon delegates. Though SAlt has previously picked up paid roles with a similar amount of delegates in the past, given a stronger showing of Grindies, that might prove difficult this year.Grassroots Independents (Grindies)Percentage of NUS Delegates Controlled: 15%Tipped to pick up: National Education OfficerThe Grassroots Independents, or Grindies, are a nominally progressive grouping that dominate UWA and ANU delegates. Unlike Unity, SAlt and NLS, Grindies do not bind on votes and are not a nationally organised unified faction.The sticking point for Grindies over the past few years has been a desire to implement Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess the work of the National Union of Students and its elected office bearers.Last year, an open letter signed by several prominent Grindies called for the enactment of NUS KPIs, though the letters impact was quickly undermined after the UMSU President and USyd SRC President, Imogen Grant (Grassroots), told media they had not been consulted before their signatures were added to the letter.This year, Lincoln Aspinall, an outgoing member of the NUS National Executive, and Conrad Hogg have proposed a motion to have the National Executive implement KPIs. A similar motion was unsuccessfully proposed last year, with the support of NLS.KPIs are likely to be controversial at this years proceedings, and are, frankly, unlikely to pass. NLS supported them last year, but SAlt and Unity have consistently opposed them.Controversially, Aspinall is tipped to be picking up National Education Officer a position that usually goes to SAlt or NLS. Thats a significant improvement from previous years, where Grindies have previously held only unpaid positions and roles on the National Executive.Sydney, RepresentIn Semester Two, USyd elected seven delegate running on Switch, Grassroots, Left Action (Socialist Alternative), Pump (National Labor Students), Boost (Liberals) and Unite (Labor Right).But, predictably, only three factions will actually representing Sydney students: Unity (Labor Right), National Labor Students (Labor Left) and SAlt.Thats because factions like Grassroots and Advance generally dont send students to NatCon, trading away their branding for NUS elections prior to elections for electoral favours (like support of their presidential candidates). Liberals only recently started contesting NUS elections, but appear to have proxied their votes to Unity last year.Disclaimer: Nina Dillon Britton is a member of Sydney Grassroots and is not affiliated with any national student political groups. Madeline Ward is a former member Sydney Grassoots and is not affiliated with any national student political groups. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A note from the EditorsThe air is hot with smoke, salt and summer rain. 2019 is drawing its dying breath. And now, another year is primed to rise on the horizon. Its December, folks. In the twilight hours of this years editorial term, heres a recap of the big stories in the year that was. Honi goes from strength to strength every year. This year proved, once again, that student journalists unafraid of speaking truth and willing to contend with the norms and acceptabilities of the time will go far in breaking stories that challenge the ignorance of the day.Keep reading.Baopu He, Pranay Jha, Karishma Luthria, Amelia Mertha, Nell OGrady, Jessica Syed, Liam Thorne, Joseph Verity, Carrie Wen, Annie Zhang and Alan ZhengWorkplace dramasThe seeds were sown for a workplace dispute early on, with staff and student researchers told of changes to research laboratories in the Anderson Stuart Building back in January. These changes would uproot the collegiality within the 130-year old building and they were cloaked in the tenuous justification of workplace safety advice. Management told staff they would be moved to undefined locations, and possibly the Australian Technology Park. The move endangered teaching and research quality, sources told Honi. The changes had come without consultation and constituted a breach of the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, the NTEU said. Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence offered a few concessions, but the NTEU took it to the Fair Work Commission and won. While consultation is secured, jobs remain on the line with up to 160 staff redundancies planned. Elsewhere, libraries saw opening hours cut, relentless managerialism and changes to staff health services. All the while, the new Sydney Operating Model and increasing casualisation sent the NTEU into red alert.Geopol1001The clamour of geopolitics came to the University of Sydney with the force and confidence dormant since the days of staff and student opposition to the Iraq War. Campus HongKonger community rallied in solidarity with family and friends at home, calling for the five demands and democracy now! in a rally in rainy August, just weeks after fights broke out between pro-China students and Hong Kong activists at the University of Queensland. After two cancelled protests, the protesters donned masks and echoed the calls of thousands who took to the streets and in other campuses nationwide. Resistance inevitably came from some quarters. On Eastern Avenue, the first Lennon Wall came down. The New Law School and the Graffiti Tunnel followed soon after. A motion in solidarity with Hong Kong was never passed by the SRC. A SUPRA meeting which was to deliberate a motion supporting students in Hong Kong was cancelled for lack of quorum. Liberal-aligned clubs refused to support Hong Kong student protesters, afraid of the consequences of rocking the boat with its SRC coalition partner and Chinese international student grouping, Panda.Gold stars for participationThe 2019 SRC administration is a shining example of what not to do if youve been tasked with the job of running a student union. Discontent with Jacky Hes presidency began before his term even really started. Four RepsElect meetings each produced their own unique havoc; indeed, fire alarms, fisticuffs, and fury at a certain Zac OFarrell have become enduring features of the mythology of the 91st Council. The now infamous stickergate also attaches itself to this mythology. In retrospect, members of the mod-Libs on campus citing WHS concerns when peeling off decades-old activist stickers from the walls of the OB room in December foreshadowed the sheer vapidness of the incoming administration.Council meetings followed a repetitive pattern: the President and Vice Presidents would table their reports, the broad-left would pick at inconsistencies and false statements therein lets not forget Jacky He accusing office-bearers of lying about his lack of support for a vigil for victims of the Christchurch shootings, despite evidence to the contrary and decry the hollow motions put forward by the right bloc. These ideological tensions came to a head when the right bloc proposed regulations changes to the SRC Constitution. The changes would establish new polling booths at the Abercrombie Business School, Holme Building and the Charles Perkins Centre, and remove voting booths at the Sydney College of the Arts and the Conservatorium of Music. They would have also granted the Electoral Officer the power to censor and suspend editors of this newspaper during SRC elections. Unsurprisingly, the left wielded procedural aspects of council meeting protocol like swords in attempts to thwart the passage of these regulations. Memorably, Vinil Kumar of Socialist Alternative slayed the metaphorical dragon in a lengthy filibuster.As the council expanded to 35 seats, the most strange meeting of the year was yet to come. In a meeting held in the common area of the United States Studies Centre, the SRC approved Electoral Officer (EO) Casper Lu a widely criticised choice due to Lus proximity to Vice-President Dane Luo; they were both on an SRC ticket together in 2017. Looking back, it was not this perception of bias surrounding Lu who emerged pompously and victoriously as EO that was catastrophic in the end. Rather, it was Lus sheer inexperience as Electoral Officer. He made a habit of being neither being able to correctly apply nor understand the very regulations he was tasked with interpreting, once having to rescind his original ruling.Lus odd presence in the SRC election was but a sideshow to that of the main contenders for the Presidency this year: Josie Jakovac and Liam Donohoe. The election was marred by several incidents centered around Jakovac: her interview with Honi in which she faltered trying to defend herself describing the French national football team as Africa, a leaked screenshot of a message she had sent in where she describes migrants as people who bring their war with them, and allegations of harassment against Chinese-speaking students. As if matters could not get worse, Honi found that Jakovacs former employer, Julian Leeser a key proponent of the Ramsay Centres Western Civilisation course dropped by at the Boost campaign fundraiser. Alongside the first broad-left coalition in some years, comprised of all factions bar Panda and the Liberals, who campaigned fervently in favour of Donohoe, so much was enough for Josie to lose the race. With a single RepsElect meeting managing to fill most office bearer positions back in October, its safe to say that the SRC is very much back in the hands of the left. Tories shouldnt fret you can find the bulk of Jakovacs independent campaigners on the executive of the USyd Conservative Club, where they have taken up a year long residency.The most stunning disaster of the SRC campaign was not the SRC race, but the Honi one. Watching the fall of Cream was like watching a plane crash you really couldnt look away. Here they were, ascribing to vague and abstract ideals of independence and political diversity, only to fall apart a week later, falling victim to the ills of that same diversity. A week after the Honi debate, in which John-Paul (JP) Baladi was unable to confirm whether or not any Arts students were on his ticket (despite the prevalence of Arts students being Creams criticism of Honi), Honi broke a story that demonstrated Baladis sympathy for convicted pedophile Cardinal George Pell, as contained within a rather reactionary post on the USyd Catholic Society Facebook group. Baladi was swiftly kicked off the ticket, then two other members Emma Goldrick and Austen Hunt dropped out. The remaining seven members of the ticket continued to campaign with no plan or indication as to how they would go on to edit the paper with only seven people. In the end, they hovered just below 40 per cent of the total vote, and lost the election. What an opera.All this comprised much of our surface-level coverage of the happenings within the SRC this year, but its prudent to comment on how exactly your student politicians functioned bureaucratically throughout the course of the year. This year saw the absence of any substantially new campaign from the Education Department from the SRC, despite office bearers being paid upwards of a near $13,000 stipend. The Womens Office, occupied by liberal-minded officers, failed to continue the campaign against sexual assault on campus in any meaningful way, merely leaving behind a legacy of tepid corporate feminism and homebrand pads in the bathrooms of the Law School annex. The only thing that is more of a waste of money than all this is the continued absence of Yuxuan Yang, in his second year as General Secretary, who at this point has amassed over $26,000 of student money through his stipend, and has been more inactive than a desk chair within the role. Great work Yuxuan.The workings of the 2019 SRC executive, whose meetings and decisions are ever murky and oblique, have actively stifled student interests. Its apparent that this year, the SRC executive has functioned as a clandestine body with interested parties therein exerting soft power to influence the design of the institution; among other things, going in camera numerous times to discuss the use of student money. The fact that a vice-president of the executive can be awarded a new stipend based on the subjective opinions of other members of the executive as to the veracity of their work ethic is questionable. The fact that two Secretaries to Council who are members of staff and not elected by students influenced decisions where money should be distributed reveals the inexperience of this years exec. Beyond this, though the word transparency doesnt spring to mind, the word incompetence does: collectives waited almost a week to hear back on their funding requests after the executive failed to meet which they are only required to do once monthly (onerous, we know).In light of this sort of conduct, its unsurprising that President Jacky He took to the extreme of censoring content published by Honi about his own behaviour. After this year, it would be smart to look past the usual yardsticks of engagement typically employed to gauge the success of any student politician: they can have a stellar attendance record, but what are they actually doing within their role?For his part, He spent less time in the office than presidents in recent memory, despite a constitutional crisis. He balanced his time running another organisation, the Young Chinese Engineers Association (YCEA) and at one point, made a trip to China to star in a reality TV show on the student dime. Rumours even circled that He who has been adamant that he has no affiliation with political parties had acquired a staffer job with Liberal Senator Jim Molan, one of the architects of Operation Sovereign Borders. Molans office joined He in denying these rumours. The older-sibling of the SRC, the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) saw the second year of rule from the Chinese-international student led faction Weihong for President / Infinity. Despite Weihong Liang taking the presidency once again, he left only days into his term, reportedly for a government position in China, although he has denied such allegations. Yanning Bai and Minran Liu took his position in the first meeting of the council year.Racism The mainstream media amplified its sinophobic dogwhistling this year, and the effects on Asian students at the University continue to be visceral and readily observable, leading to an anti-sinophobia rally in late October. Acts of racially motivated physical violence went up this year. Chinese students were attacked outside City Road on account of their racial background, racist posters were found in various spots around campus and anti-Chinese abuse was hurled at students in the Wentworth Building near the international students lounge. In the background, Honi reported on the presence of a neo-Nazi network on campus, spanning back as far as 2017, and involving campus members of the Young Liberals and other groups that student activists rallied against at the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference in August. An Honi corpus analysis unearthed some of the systemic ideologies buried in the mainstream medias reporting of foreign interference and a new foreign interference taskforce was slammed by the SRC.Foreign interference was a hot topic back in March when the United States Studies Centre (USSC) signed an arrangement with the United States Department of State. The arrangement allowed that institution of US soft power to conduct general political lobbying on campus. The USSC continues to take funding from US government bodies. SUSF goes even more corporateMeanwhile, this year saw the long-running investigation into Sydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF) continue as student dissatisfaction over SUSFs costs and its big slice of the SSAF pie hit a crescendo. Honi revealed back in April that a longstanding rental deal between SUSF and former president Bruce Ross was still in play, had undergone limited rental reviews and remained at a rate far below market value. We were told that the lease was in holding over status, the first sign that big changes were coming to the exclusive sports union. Changes came quickly thereafter. A major governance restructure was pushed through in May. SUSF would become SUSF Limited, take on a company board and give the university greater control of its direction. SUSF became the subject of an ICAC complaint but lawyers letters swiftly silenced our coverage. Senior members of SUSF were made redundant. Criticisms of SUSF continue on USyd rants. For now, its abundantly clear that a new path is needed for the embattled sports union.Free speech on discountThe fall-out of last years Womens Collective protest against Bettina Arndt including misconduct findings against two of the protesters involved manifested in ongoing debates surrounding free speech on university campuses. There was no threat to free speech, Robert Frenchs review found in April, but universities should implement a model code to enshrine certain protections. The ever-useful Minister for Education Dan Tehan made it his life goal to crack down on the non-existent problem. Vice-Chancellor Spence followed suit, establishing a task force which then recommended a revamped new charter of academic freedom. The impact of the new charter will continue to be felt in 2020.From December, the University brought disciplinary action against academic Tim Anderson for comparisons he drew between the state of Israel and the Nazi regime in lecture slides posted on social media in particular, the embedding of a swastika in an Israeli flag. Suspended and then fired, Anderson continues to fight the matter in the Fair Work Commission.Do you need essay help?The Universitys war on contract cheating found allies in government this year. Criminal penalties for contract cheating suppliers were proposed in April. Over the year, students continued to routinely receive targeted marketing EasyGPA, Yingcredible, KJEssay, amongst others in uni.syd inboxes. The USU signed a pact with the University, enlisting its resources to promote a uni-wide crackdown on students who engaged contract cheating services. According to a University submission, it was most concerned with international student participation in contract cheating. But the overall incidence of contract cheating, measured against other forms of academic dishonesty, remained low and disproportionate to the universitys response. In an investigation, Honi laid out a new angle on the issue that students who cheat were vulnerable and a solution for contract cheating needed systemic fixes, not mindless crackdowns and villianisation.The goings-on at Macquarie, UNSW and UTSBut Honi didnt merely stay bunkered in this University, at least, not while the biggest student movements in recent memory developed in other campuses. At the University of New South Wales, thousands took to the University Mall to ask Vice-Chancellor Ian Jacobs to cancel trimesters. Hundreds marched down Wallys Walk at Macquaries bushland campus, before occupying the Chancellery. Down on Broadway, the Traditional Chinese Medicine degree copped the axe, leaving close to 300 students in the lurch. In UNSW, the University acceded to the SRCs demands. At Macquarie, the Vice-Chancellor responded to the strikes, giving in to calls for an all staff town hall meeting. And at UTS, an eleventh-hour vote saved existing students enrolled in the degree.Our Randick neighbours saw a new special considerations rule implemented, attracting the ire of the People with Disabilities Collective and international students were conned by a corrupt student concierge company.The fight beyond universitiesAs New South Wales burned and wind and rain poured through the cities climate activism hit a new level of support with renewed calls for a just transition. 30,000 came out in March for the first strike and students incurred no penalties for participation. In September, 80,000 were in the domain, including a sizeable contingent of close to 2,000 University of Sydney students a success partially due to the immense amount of organising done by Spreading the Climate Strike group, who spoke to at least 190 classes in preparation for the day. Within the Camperdown grounds, Fossil Free USyd exposed the extent of University investment in the fossil fuels industry via a freedom of information request, revealing that in 2018, $28 million dollars was invested in Stanwell Corporation and Origin Energy, both of which primarily derive energy from fossil fuels. This is a marked difference from UNSW, which announced a $13.3 million divestment from fossil fuels. Climate activists were fighting an uphill battle, with extinction rebellion protesters detained after a sit-in on Broadway. Read Climate Strike Honi here.Much of the years climate activism pushed the importance of incorporating an anti-colonial approach in its politics. More broadly, the year saw significant energy from student activists given to various First Nations issues. The coronial inquest into David Dungays death in custody was followed, from preliminary hearings through to the handing down of findings an all-in-all devestating yet unsurprising outcome none of the officers that held him down as he shouted I cant breathe were recommended for disciplinary action by the coroner. Large gatherings organised by groups including Fighting In Resistance Equally, the Indigenous Social Justice Association, and the Anticolonial Asian Alliance were held for flashpoints including Invasion Day rallies, the anniversary of the Northern Territory Intervention, the introduction of racist adoption laws in the state parliament, the threat posed by a Victorian government road project to Djab Wurrung trees, the ongoing fight of the Bowraville families and TJ Hickeys family against police brutality, and the brutal and unjust killing of Kumanjayi Walker the last of which was partially vindicated by news that the offending officer had been charged with murder, now awaiting trial. Read this years Indigenous Honi here.Ramsay Street tumbleweedIn the midst of this, Spence took the front seat in pushing for alternative models in order to finally settle on funding from the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation after months of silence and uncertainty surrounding USydRamsay negotiations. In September, the Vice-Chancellor sent an email to staff about a new proposal for a major in Western Tradition that would be offered as part of the current Bachelor of Advanced Studies. The Ramsay Centre rejected this new proposal and the negotiations have once again ground to a standstill.While Spences Ramsay dreams may currently be in logjam, the USU finally took a stance on the issue more than a year after it was first raised by the student body. The USU Board passed a motion in late September urging the University Senate to refrain from implementing a degree in partnership with the Ramsay Centre if it impedes on freedom of academic thought and refuses to encourage critical perspectives on Western Civilisation.On the other fronts, Ramsays degree infiltrated the University of Wollongong under the cover of night. The Academic Senate resisted the move and the NTEU took management to court.The degree will go ahead.The University of Queensland fell to the Ramsay wave later in the year with an MoU signed and a degree in the works to start next year. But in the first general meeting of the UQ Student Union held since 1971 when students voted to strike against South African Apartheid 500 UQ students voiced opposition to the new degree.Colleges are still shit, to no-ones surpriseWhile the University gave itself a pat on the back after implementing its sexual assault reporting portal in August last year, issues surrounding the toxic culture of sexual assault and hazing on campus continued to emerge in 2019. Last December, St Johns College withheld its internal review into hazing and sexual assault. In February, Honi reported the existence of a loophole within the Universitys nascent sexual assault policy that would have permitted a 23-year-old tutor to have sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old student, despite this being repugnant to NSW law. Revelations that alcohol-fuelled acts of hazing transpired within St Pauls College during Anzac Day appeared as late as May 2019. St Pauls students got a slap on the wrist with the local watering hole shut down briefly. All the while, reactionary college residents continued to mobilise through mechanisms such as what has now become an annual Colleges for SRC electoral ticket. Inaugural meetings have taken place for the SRCs Intercollegiate Collective, borne through one college students election to council on that ticket in 2018. Although the University released a new alcohol policy attempting to police student consumption of alcohol, they were either unwilling or unable to extend the policy to college bars. What rights and privileges these people hope to accrue through this mobilising is ever unclear.All the while, protests against campus sexual assault continued with the National Day of Action in August.Clouding all of this is the revolving-door wardens of St Pauls College: Don Markwell, hailed as a progressive reformer, left the post around a year into his tenure, and Reverend Dr Edward Loane took his place, a return to Anglican leadership after only three semesters of its absence. What this means for the sincerity of the place in absorbing any progressive cultural change is unclear but far from promising. For now, St Pauls continues to flout its internal culture changes.Divisions within the colleges were also uncovered early into 2019 when Sancta Sophia College boycotted a greyhound racing event promoted by senior students at St Andrews College.Campus security insecure2019 betrayed deep flaws in USyds campus security. Most recently, head of Campus Security, Simon Hardman, has come under fire for homophobic conduct. In September, an Honi FOI request found Campus Security, under Hardmans supervision, targeted campus bathrooms where queer students were having sex. Two men were accosted by security staff in an accessible cubicle where they faced derogatory and homophobic slurs. In November, a tribunal found that he had been homophobic in his previous job as a superintendent at Newtown Police Station, referring four officers to extensive drug testing on the basis of their sexuality. These revelations have created discomfort in the student community with a petition circulated calling for his removal as security chief.Former campus security contractor, SNP Security, also fabricated up to $120,000 in fake timesheets, ICAC heard. ICACs inquiry named Operation Garda has yet to hand down its findings.A new security contractor Australian Concert and Entertainment Security (ACES) has since taken the reins.But uni fuck ups didnt end there. Student experience ratings at Sydney continue to slide with USyd falling to 39th out of 41 universities according to the 2018 Student Experience Survey.University management censored activists at UNSW where Cancel Trimesters posters were removed. On this campus, a vigil dedicated to the Christchurch shooting victims was removed by Campus Assist officers.In its pro-policing bent, the Uni invited cops on campus for an ill-fated coffee with a cop event in May. It was cancelled after Honi revealed that the event was under threat of protest from student activists.And to cap it off current Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence had his contract extended. Long may he reign, until at least 2022, it seems.Spences counterpart, Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson also came under the microscope. Thales a weapons company she chairs was found to have underpaid workers by $7.44 million. Little flak came from academic quarters towards Hutchinson. Times have certainly changed since former University Chair of the Graduate School of Management Nick Greiner stepped down after academic protest towards his chairmanship of British American Tobacco.US-U-SUCKThe year started off with a bang for the USU, but not quite the right type. The rebranding of O-Week to the Broderick Reports recommendation of Welcome Week was outshone by its controversial implementation of a new funding model for its clubs and societies. The membership fee for ACCESS was scrapped, meaning that students could join clubs for free. The exclusive ACCESS Rewards program was launched, for which students would need to pay a new fee to access discounts across USU outlets. But the overall benefits were never certain.The USU gave a lot of publicity to free access, marketing it as its crowning achievement in student engagement. What was less publicised was that the $1,000,000 funding for the access scheme was taken out of the contestable pool of SSAF, meaning it came at the expense of money for other student organisations. Meanwhile, as a major provider of service outlets on campus, the USU did nothing to make food more affordable on campus or take any noteworthy steps in reducing the cost of living. Welcome Week itself was also laughably corporatised, with major banks being invited to prey on students just months after the banking royal commission.The fallout from that new funding model seeped into the first few months of the year, with then-President Tai holding an open meeting to address the concerns of club and society executives. Indeed, the funding model was an issue that permeated into May, going on to dominate the campaigns of many an aspiring board candidate in the 2019 elections.The 2019 USU Board Elections saw victories for Panda and losses for the left. Libdependence persisted with Lib-dependent Caitlin (Cady) Brown making good use of preferences to secure herself a seat. Also leading to an opportunity for ambitious Labor Right frontrunner Connor Wherrett to secure a position as President of the USU. Lachlan Finch (Liberal) secured Vice-President, whilst Decheng Sun (Advance) became Honorary Secretary and Maya Eswaran (Switch) took Honorary Treasurer. It wasnt long after Tom Manasouridiss Board loss that things took quite a turn in the Unity inner circle. In a year marked by the rise of Sinophobia on campus, screenshots were released of Manasouridis commenting foreign interference stopped on a post announcing Wheretts presidency. Wheretts first act as president was to remain silent on instances of xenophobia in his own faction.Nevertheless, the work began for the new board and as they progressed it appeared the USUs marketing side transformed as well. One look at the latest photo of the board directors resembles a Ray White Real Estate ad.Meanwhile, a student allegedly took $12,000 from the coffers of three USU clubs.The USU overlooked the underpayment of international students at one of its own retail outlets, Epic Tea and was slammed by PETA for signing a promotional agreement with the makers of the Sydney horse race Everest Carnival.CEO Andrew Woodward went out the door, replaced by Alexis Roitman.In May, Honi reported that the USU saw revenue rise in 2018, despite reporting a near half a million dollar loss, with both Manning Bar and Hermanns operating at a significant loss as the flame of campus life continues to dwindle.Years of stacking continued, still to no ones surprise, in the Sydney Arts Students Society, with the moderate-Liberals dealing with their fateful friends Labor Unity to lock out the existing faux-faction of SASS kids. This was possibly in the hope of a final-hour surprise victory for the right in the SRCs RepsElect later that month.The SRCs core services were not in great shape. At one point, the Legal Service closed for a month after the disarray caused by the dismissal of the long-time principal solicitor.Find every edition this year on Issuu. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In Australia, we are lucky enough to have a fairly well-functioning healthcare system that ostensibly allows everyone access to the care they need, regardless of their financial circumstances. Unfortunately, our healthcare system still operates in a society that is rife with oppression. Some oppression is obvious like our continued racist treatment of Indigenous people within medical institutions some of it less evident but deeply damaging nonetheless. Thus, there arises the need for an intersectional approach that considers access to healthcare as well as other cultural and financial barriers in order to examine this issue in the detail it deserves.There is ample evidence of how women in general are disadvantaged by health services, but this grows exponentially worse when the women in question belong to any so-called minority group that is to say, if theyre not white, well-off, straight and able-bodied. Some of it is due to outright discrimination, but the effects of unconscious bias and inadequate education can be far more insidious.The explanation for the disparities in the healthcare system is complex and multifaceted. In some cases, its caused by blatant gendered discrimination. Roughly 70% of chronic pain sufferers are women, and studies suggest that women feel chronic pain both more frequently and severely than men. Despite this, pain is frequently undertreated in women, apparently due to archaic beliefs that women are predispositioned to be hysterical and less able to accurately report the degree of pain theyre experiencing. Horrifyingly, in a 2014 survey, nearly half of women with chronic pain were told that the pain was all in their head.Another common mantra largely heard from male doctors is that pain caused by female diseases like endometriosis is just a normal part of being a cis woman. It isnt hard to link these disturbing facts to the lingering misogyny of healthcare providers and the institutions that back them.Additionally, beyond a brief dip into the reproductive system, XX-chromosome physiology is rarely taught in medical schools. In fact, the regressive practices around treating females has earned itself the nickname bikini medicine, derived from the fallacy that the only differences between the sexes are the parts covered by a bikini the breasts and genitals. Fatally, this practice completely fails to recognise that, for instance, symptoms of issues like heart attacks can vary hugely between sexes. As a result, many diagnostic failures when screening tests or lists of symptoms do not include the symptoms or signs experienced by XX-chromosome patients. In fact, a study in 2000 found that cis women were seven times more likely than cis men to be misdiagnosed and discharged during a heart attack because their symptoms didnt align with the male-centric symptoms taught to healthcare staff.While its true that genetic factors can increase disease risks for people from a given ethnic background, it seems obvious that many disparities in healthcare suffered by women of colour are caused by social factors; statistically, women of colour have much higher rates of pregnancy-related complications and mortality. Additionally, misogyny experienced by African-American women is clear in the fact that they are 20% less likely to be prescribed pain medication, more likely to suffer strokes and less likely to survive them, and more likely to suffer mistreatment or under diagnosis of breast cancer. Hispanic women suffer higher rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Asian-American women are less likely to be screened for cancer, even though cancer is the leading cause of death in Asian-Americans. Theres plenty morestatistics to be quoted, but the trend is clear; in this white supremacist patriarchy, societal bias manifests in worse health outcomes for women of colour.Though it may seem counterintuitive to some, having any kind of disability can worsen your experience with healthcare. Reproductive and sexual health is a particular issue for patients with disabilities, with some patients with disabilities discouraged from having sex or bearing children, and even undergoing forced sterilisation. In addition, many disabilities are poorly understood, especially in the case of invisible conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome or neurological disorders. Such patients are often dismissed as lazy, weak or attention-seeking when they seek help. Similarly, healthcare staff may take prescriptivist approaches to treating patients with disabilities, telling them that they should lower their expectations of their life instead of encouraging them to demand the best possible treatment. Healthcare professionals should be working with patients with disabilities, but far too often, they ignore the lived experience of the patients theyre supposed to help.It is abundantly clear that our healthcare services are failing women across the board, and it is women of colour, disabled women and queer people who suffer most. We cannot boast about our healthcare system being one of the best in the world until we begin to address the deep structural oppression within it, and effect real positive change for the women and non-binary people who are being hurt most by its failings. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Below Deck is a moving, poetic new work by Sydney author Sophie Hardcastle. Its unlike anything Ive ever read before, engaging with the parallels between the destruction of our natural environment and the sexual and systemic violence experienced by women in a novel and compelling way.I spoke to Sophie earlier this month, shortly after the release of Below Deck.-Madeline Ward: Hi Sophie, thanks for your time! To get things started, I hear that youre a University of Sydney alumni. What did you study whilst here, and how has it shaped what you write?Sophie Hardcastle: I studied visual arts, when the SCA (Sydney College of the Arts) campus was at Rozelle. I did my undergrad there, and then my honours all in painting. I think it shaped the way that I was writing, in that the content and subject matter that I explore in Below Deck was what I spent my honours year exploring through visual art.I did a residency in Antarctica to research my novel, and then when I came back to do my honours year at Sydney Uni I explored Antarctica as a place, through my paintings. The novel is about sexual violence, but its also about the way that the exploitation and oppression of women has so often paralleled that of non human species and entities. The way we think about the environment has so often been linked in inescapable ways to the way that we think about women. I explored that in paintings for a whole year before I started exploring the same topics in writing.MW: Parts of Below Deck parallel elements of your own career do you find that drawing from your personal experiences has made your work more relatable?SH: Im quite a firm believer in writing what you know. That can often be in a very abstract sense: I did an interview recently for Below Deck, where I was asked the same question. I feel like when youve lived something through your body and your senses, for me personally its much easier and much more authentic writing about those experiences. I dont think I would have written about sexual violence in the same way, had I not experienced it. I do really rate authenticity, even if it is in fiction. The novel was well researched in that a lot of what Oli does and where she goes was inspired by trips that I intentionally did so that I would know what that landscape smelt like, and tasted like and so on.MW: In Below Deck, Oli has synesthesia, which affects her perception of the world around her, and in turn the readers. Why did you choose to include this in her character?SH: I have synesthesia, and I hear sound in colour. When I went to Antarctica, listening to the glaciers carving, I saw colours that Id never seen before. In my experience in the Coral Sea listening to whale songs and whales singing underwater I experienced colours that dont physically exist in the real world. When I came back and I was doing my honours year after those two trips, I was very much trying to work out how I can tell the story of these different spaces and different landscapes through my visual arts practice. I had all of these recordings of the sounds of these landscapes and then I was painting icebergs, glaciers and open oceans in the colours that I heard them in. Having explored these places through a visual arts practice for a year, when I came to write the novel it only made sense to me to carry that through, and keep using my synesthesia in that way.So much of the book is about who gets seen, and who doesnt, and whose story gets heard and whose story doesnt. I thought it would be an interesting way to see something that is so commonplace sexual violence is an epidemic and I wanted to show that through a different angle. Using synesthesia and writing Olis experience of the world through colour was a device I employed because it was a better way for me to show the scenes that are rendered very common, or that we see in the media in a different angle. Its also just a very natural way for me to write, because thats the way that I perceive the world.MW: Oli travels and experiences and experiences extreme environments: from the open ocean, to the Antarctic, to even hearing of Hugos work with deserts. To me, this made the upsetting banality of her experiences with sexual violence all the more stark. Do you find that communicating the everyday nature of sexual violence is more effective when contasted with such environmental extremes?SH: The way that the different men function was to show that Mac and Hugo who have this immense respect for the world around them, and they understand that entire ecosystems depend on each other and that we dont exist in isolation are two examples of men who extend their sympathies beyond the human experience to empathise and sympathise with non-humans. Theres Hugos work with deserts and Macs understanding of the ocean and sailing as a form of listening, and then in stark contrast you have the father who is the head of an oil company, and all of the boys in Sea Monsters who have utter disregard for the world around them and treat it as if theyre on a hierarchy, sitting above everything else. That then directly parallels the way they treat women in the book. A lot of the stuff about the environment and its exploitation, and climate change, was really me trying to find a way to communicate that in a way that moved people, because I believe that if we were purely rational beings we wouldnt be as deep in this [climate change] as we are. I was trying to use the book as a way to speak about these issues in a way that is accessible.MW: What I found most compelling about Below Deck is that it portrays the full scope of sexual violence from Olis experiences at sea to those with her first boyfriend Adam it really interrogates our societal understanding of consent. Especially when Cam asks Oli if she was raped or not, and she replies that it was somewhere in between. Why did you decide to take that particular direction in writing it?SH: I felt that it was missing, in a lot of the literature that I had read. I didnt want to do it to fill a space as such, it was more that 85% of survivors and victims of sexual violence we know our perpetrators. This idea of it being a stranger in an alleyway or someone who is not known to us makes us think that sexual violence exists somehow outside of society and that its not as commonplace as it is. I really wanted to write a scene in which it wasnt clear cut, because I want the reader to have to interrogate themselves and ask where the line is, because the borders are watery, and at what point did he cross it? I think where things are clear cut or black and white you miss out on the nuance, and you dont get to interrogate where the line is. We talk about the grey area of consent and yet it doesnt mean that its not a problem. I wanted to show that this still haunts us, that the grey area doesnt necessarily mean that its not as severe.MW: I think what I loved most about the book is the solidarity between the women within it. Oli forms really strong relationships with Maggie, Natasha etc., and it seemed to me that the greatest love stories in the novel are those of friendship, even between Oli and the men in her life. How important to you was it to emphasise the importance of friendship over romantic love?SH: I think the biggest thing that I didnt want to do is write a book where she finally meets a good guy and he saves her. I wasnt drawn to that, because I feel like weve seen it and I feel like its so unrealistic. When they have that scene when theyre in Antarctica and theyre all sitting round the table, sharing their stories. I thought of the idea while I was in Antarctica that was like were so fascinated by ancient glacial ice because its full of all these tiny pockets of air that have all these stories in it of distant or past worlds. I loved this idea of glaciers carving and all the stories in those tiny little pockets of air then going back into the sea, like a swirling pool of stories. I imagined all the women shedding their stories and things that were frozen inside of them melting and mixing together. So often we do survive sexual violence by speaking to the friends in our lives, and thats what gets us through. I really wanted to hone in on that, and not have a romantic relationship save the day and make everything fine.MW: I think it goes without saying that I really enjoyed this book, and for the most part I found it really relatable. I think where I struggled was with Oli herself Oli, as the daughter of an incredibly wealthy family, who is highly educated, studying finance, seems to me to be the same sort of white, wealthy woman that dominates our societal discussions around sexual violence and rape culture. Where wealthy white women dominate the headlines, and the issues that affect women of colour or working class women are largely sidelined or ignored, why did you choose to write a character that is already so visible in our discourse?SH: Im a middle class white woman, and I dont think I could grasp the nuance of what it would be like to be sexualised, and experience sexual violence and racism at the same time. I think there are so many incredible women of colour that would write that and have the nuance and understand that because thats their lived experience. I think theres something to be said for researching characters, but I didnt want to write through the eyes of an experience that is that different to mine. Oli is white because thats my experience, and I didnt want to take up the space where so many women would be able to write that story for themselves. I didnt want to co-opt that story. This book speaks to experiences of sexual violence but it doesnt speak for every woman, and it doesnt speak for every victim and survivor of sexual violence. Its a very specific experience, and I hope that when people start talking about it they dont generalise or universalise Olis experience, because it is her experience as a white woman, and that would inevitably differ if she was a woman of colour or if she was indigenous. So I really hope that when people talk about it they wont talk about it as being a book for all women or all young women or all millenials, or anything like that. I wanted to write an experience that I knew, and that I could grasp and do authentically, but it would be totally unrealistic for Oli to be interacting only with people who are white, cisgendered and straight, so I tried to populate her world with diversity, but without co-opting the experience of someone else in first person.Below Deck can be bought online. For information on Sophies other work, see her website. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Obvious Choice: MelbourneLiam Armstrong-Carrigan argues Melbourne is the place for sesh lovers.[1]Writing an impassioned argument for the supremacy of Melbourne nightlife during this extremely unclear time of SOCIAL DISTANCING has taken me on a very dark journey.[2] Although, I suppose being confronted with the reality that the best nights of my life are on hold whilst we try to avoid pandemic-induced collapse can also be seen as further proof of my case.So whilst the clubs are closing, raves are being rescheduled and the house parties are being placed in the freezer, Ill take a moment to spell it out for you all: if you like to sesh this is the place to do it in Australia.Im well positioned to compare notes as a member of what my crew in Melbourne ironically and problematically call the Sydney diaspora. I started going out exactly a year before the lockouts hit. I developed my drinking problem in the heterosexual horror shows of Bar Century and SOHO in the Cross, burst out of the closet with TBD hookups on the sticky floors of Arq and thankfully eventually graduated to the much more #truetome turns of the Inner West scene.Whilst I dont think it was a misspent youth, the rising statism and inability to get a drink on a weekend anywhere bar the Star Casino past midnight (the dogs once didnt let me in after Grassroots class of 2017 got an Uber XL from the Royal on a Tuesday) took me regularly to the Sunken Place. Every good night seemed to involve a very STRESSFUL pattern of the ticketed event taking you to 3:30am latest, before you had to endure an hour in the deadzone. If youre a Sydney clubhead of my generation you know what Im talking about the Witching Hour of 4am to 5am during which our options consisted of a brief kick ons or chaining cigs in a park over a hidden goon sack before we could finally burst into Club 77 for the morning shift from 5am onwards.By the time Id finished one half of a double degree Id had enough of dark fascist bouncers refusing me entry when I was barely lit and regularly passing out on the B1 Bus back to Narrabeen. I bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne even though my initial accommodation was a bone-chilling 12 person hostel room. At first, the main thing I noticed was that irrespective of my smaller social circle, my Facebook events were quickly more diverse and varied than it ever was in Sydney even more so when I started connecting with Melburnians. People here have less of the attitude that when you go out you stick like superglue to your mates. I can attest to this I made my best friends at a 24-hour rave at the incomparable Hugs&Kisses when we witnessed a GHB head fall three stories onto the pavement at 6am. No one said being a club rat was all roses![3]If I had to pick one reason why this is the city thats such a playground for adult children it wouldnt be the relaxed attitude I regularly key ketamine in front of bouncers or how the longer trading hours mean the team doesnt have to head out till 2am and still have a club to turn in if the riot police shut down the illegal park party. Its the fact the music scene is so superb it easily holds its own worldwide, from Paris to Berlin, in every disco Ive been in. When I asked a veteran party queen why, she provided a pretty compelling reason: in Europe, DJs can fly from city to city in often under an hour. Every weekend one can pretty much expect someone decent to be playing. In isolated Australia, we arent so lucky, so Melbourne developed arguably the best DIY scene in the world. The creativity, hard work and passion that has gone into creating such a vibrant self sustaining scene is something we should fight for harder then ever in the time of corona-induced disruption and devastation.Im not worried because I believe in our community if the underground scene can survive the recent spate of traumatic venue closures we can keep the lights on through a world war.[4] Because really, it doesnt matter what city youre in. You can have the best night in the world in a small town bar with the right friends. Melbourne does make having a good time easier, but the reason it passes the vibe check is because of the people that Ive shared these perfect nights with, little slices of time that felt so perfect I felt nostalgic about them as I lived them.[5]Dont worry fellow Australians, we love to share. So when we can all boogie freely again, Ill see you on the dancefloor doing the Melbourne step.[6][1] Dont worry - I hope this is my last appearance in this paper also. At least whilst Im still enrolled as an undergraduate. Please dont drag me in Who? Weekly for living so unclearly![2] Yes, the capitals are a reference to Trump telling me to do so in capitals on twitterdisconcerting times peoples!!! Please let this set off the revolution, Im over the dark world order![3] Dont worry, although the infamous Hugs plummeter bleed profusely out onto the pavement and spent a long stint in the ICU he was spotted six months later at a Richmond kick ons! If only we could say the same about Hugs, the 24-hour members-only best club in human historyplease become my fourth follow on Medium if youre interested in more XOXO analysis![4] I wouldnt wish the collective grieving set off by the loss of Hug&Kisses, Lounge and Crazy Arms to greedy land barons in short succession on my worst enemies![5] If youre interested in the concept of pre-nostalgia, go to the third article down in the authorial archive of the current SRC president. If youre DSPing this, hi Doon![6] An actual thing: basically everyone on the floor steps side to side whilst intensely looking at the DJ asking for more. Youll have to come see it to believe it real ones know what I mean xx.Image by Alan Weedon for LNYW.The Underground: SydneyRobbie Mason claims Sydney is more than lockout laws and empty clubs.Julia a DJ (Guilia), artist and party curator (Tactic) along with D-Grade sits on a white chair. Behind her graffiti and rusty sports equipment populate the space. We are within the skeleton of an abandoned stadium in Sydneys south-west an occasional rave location recording a film interview, guerrilla style. The interview is part of a documentary on Sydneys DIY rave scene. When I ask her if Sydney is stereotyped too often as being dead, she answers quickly and emphatically: In short, yes.Every time I went back and visited Sydney while I was living in Melbourne I would have an incredible experience. A lot of what I was experiencing at these [underground] parties were reasons why I moved back to Sydney Sydney is definitely thriving. There are multiple events every weekend that I have the choice to go to. I often want to go to two or three things in a single night. To be perfectly honest, we are spoilt for choice. A lot of people dont realise that.In New South Wales, lockout laws, red tape legislation, sky-rocketing policing fees for festivals, invasive strip searching, excessive enforcement of noise complaints and an atmosphere of uncertainty have smothered the entertainment industry like a fire blanket, extinguishing numerous music festivals including Defqon and Psyfari. The flight of creatives from Sydney to Melbourne is well documented. Stories like Julias rarely reach the media spotlight. But those artists who have stayed in Sydney or returned are definitely proud of Sydneys nightlife.When I interview Thorsten (aka Thick Owens) one of the founders of Okra, Haus of the Rising Sn, Soft Centre and record and fashion label Ultravirus I ask him the same question. His response: I think Sydney has one of the best underground dance scenes in the world, and I lived in Amsterdam for 6 months. Promoters in Sydneys underground scene regularly echo these sentiments both on and off record. Often they are simply repeating the words of international DJs who have performed in Sydneys illegal venues.While Kings Cross has become a yuppie-filled wasteland, bogged in a mire of gymnasiums and bougie cafes, drenched by the torrent of Sydney clubs which have closed since the introduction of the Liquor Amendment Act (2014), Sydneys nightlife has not so much died as relocated. From rooftop bars in the CBD to heaving pubs in Newtown, queer venues in Erskineville and raves under motorways and within the ramshackle remains of old World War Two bunkers, Sydney has it good.Sydney certainly does not possess a better bar or club culture than Melbourne. However, with lockout laws (only recently repealed) and severely underfunded creative industries, young Sydneysiders have self-mobilised to rescue the citys nightlife. The punk, rave and experimental art scenes especially have embraced alternative events spaces. Warehouse raves, squat parties and free park gigs have sustained Sydneys culture. The frequency and scales of these illegal events far, far exceeds those in any other Australian city.According to Thorsten, these alternative clubbing cultures are a stepping stone for early career artists, musicians and party curators as well as a pedestal in some way because they are also the ultimate destination for any performer. I couldnt imagine a better gig than playing at a packed warehouse. Sure, you can go to the next level and play at a big bush festival in Australia or even go the European festival circuit. But it doesnt have the same level of consistency or encouragement for radical experimentation.Throwing illegal, outdoor raves and warehouse parties with little pre-existing infrastructure has forced organisers to build and curate spaces literally from the ground up. Promoters have increasingly moved towards multi-disciplinary events involving performance art, video, dcor and more a skill and mindset Thorsten now uses for more legal adventures, such as the experimental music and art festival Soft Centre, which has fast developed a cult following.Julia explains that when people visit Sydney and she takes them along to underground raves, they are blown away and taken aback. However, due to the illegality embedded in many events and the lack of health and safety, Sydneys rave scene is not easily visible to an untrained eye. If you dont know someone who engages in them youre never going to know about them.Just as the design and curation of underground parties are creative and boundary-pushing, so too the music. If Sydney has a distinctive sound, its its diversity.Julia tells me: Sydney is generally a lot freer musically I do compare my experiences in Sydney to my experiences when I was living in Melbourne. Generally in Sydney there is a trend where you can play whatever genre you want weaved into a set. Its making things really exciting. I think that artists in Sydney feel like they can push boundaries a little bit more than they can in more regimented spaces or cities that are really well-known for one genre.A lot of the underground DJs are pushing harder and faster sounds. Its exciting especially for someone like me. My introduction to this scene was very much house music and 4/4 techno. It is rare that I actually hear that anymore.Thorsten, meanwhile, describes the resurgence of hard dance and the burgeoning IDM and glitch scene, while still niche, as a retaliation and protest against the huge saturation of vanilla-boom-clap club music that dominates Australia.So yes, if you want the best clubs and tech-house, go to Melbourne. But Sydneys nightlife scene is Australias worst kept secret. Whole communities only step inside a licenced venue for a dance once every six months, but go out once, if not twice, every weekend to dance and connect.In Sydney we go harder, faster, grittier and weirder in our music, and you dont need to worry about noise restrictions or security guards constantly hovering over your shoulder. Alternative clubbing cultures are entering the mainstream. Just be prepared to get your shoes a little dirty.Snapshot of a warehouse rave in Sydney, 2018. Image by Chris McClymont.The Underdog: CanberraNina Dillon Britton thinks Canberra has the best club in Australia.Theres a lot not to love about Canberra nightlife: the citys population is largely divided between public servants (many of whom have to report illegal drug taking to their employers) and newly arrived 18-year-old ANU college kids, whose idea of a good night out is fingering someone in the bathrooms of Mooseheads.But somehow, a small, dedicated and incredibly welcoming nightlife scene has flourished in a city largely known for its roundabouts. In most capital cities with huge nightlifes, you can stumble from party to club to rave in a constant search for something better, a friend, relocated from Sydney to Canberra tells me. But in Canberra, theres one really good event on every weekend night, and thats just where everyone is.At the moment, that partys to be found at 1-year-old SideWay (now closed due to COVID-19 but which just launched a new Club Virtual online). I would say that [its] the most intentional club space I have ever been in in my whole life, artist and DJ Julia Harris says. Owners Fin and Tim are DJs themselves, and the bar has quickly become central to the Canberra underground DJ scene.But the smallness of the scene means the bar hosts everything from underground DJ collectives and experimental live electronic music, to drum and bass or disco nights. Music subcultures that might be siloed off from one another in bigger cities begin to merge. The audience for each and every event is supportive and open to a diverse pallet of sound, which creates a very inclusive environment within the city, Jesse Odom, organiser of perhaps Canberras hottest party, Box Cutter, tells me. Theres intense cross-pollination between scenes here, Canberra based DJ, Blanket, says.That smallness, in a scene filled with awful people, could quickly become claustrophobic and incestuous. Sydney bars attracting a clique of just-graduated Eastern Suburbs or North Shore private school kids are the third circle of hell. But instead, its incredibly welcoming. One night out with strangers (I ended up there with a friends ex that Id met once, three years ago), involved being introduced to every new arrival at the club, strangers buying rounds and passing around bumps a world away from Sydney nights out, where you stick to a ring of friends, anonymous, in a club crowd.Perhaps more importantly, that creates a supportive space for artists in what can be a cut-throat industry. Its so encouraging! Canberra-based artist, DJ Genie, tells me. When Im DJing it feels like Im playing for my best friends. We all music share, music critique and you usually know at least 50 70% of people on the dance floor. Vessel Collective (organised by Blanket, Niamh McCool, dot mason and Steph David), for example, provides a supportive space for women, people of colour and queer students to learn how to DJ and hone their skills. Though barriers to artists outside the scene remain, theres an openness thats unique. In terms of how Canberra is different, the music scene is really small which I love. Its very much the more the merrier. People want more DJs playing, more parties to go to, more people making music.Unlike other major cities, its artists themselves, rather than aloof club-owners and booking agents, who shape the nightlife. Its a largely DIY scene. No one I know has a booking agent, most people are part of a collective of some kind, Blanket says.When I tell people back in Sydney that the best club in Australia might just be in Canberra, Im met with disbelief and accusations of being facetious. But take the 4 hour bus down, and you might just be surprised. A vibrant arts scene is flourishing there like blue-green algae in Lake Burley Griffin.Image from Orbit Facebook page.The Unexpected: BrisbaneLachlan Redman loves Brisbanes diversity.Not sleepy, definitely not hollow. Brisbanes nightlife is best described as vibrant, diverse and evolving. On the surface, its easy toassume its second rate compared to the neighbouring nightlife mecca of the Gold Coast. This might have been true a decade ago, but Brisbane has been going through a period of unseen growth for quite some time now. There has been a plethora of new, innovative and original bars open up around the CBD, often in places that require neighbouring businesses to pick up their game too.Split across a very compact CBD, Brisbane has a few main nightlife districts in places like Fortitude Valley, Eagle Street Pier, South Brisbane and the inner city. While these districts all have their own unique feel, you wont ever feel like you dont fit the mould; people arent arrogant about where they go, its open and friendly. Because Brisbane is so compact compared to major cities like Sydney and Melbourne, you dont ever feel like its a mission to get between these spots. The temperate climate in Brisbane is another major bonus for its nightlife scene it allows for confidence when youre going out. At its coldest, Brisbane is still completely t-shirt friendly and at its hottest, I think you appreciate ice-cold refreshments even more.If youre chasing the dance music scene then Fortitude Valley, The Valley as it is known as by the locals, is the way to go. With some trap caves and dance clubs like Prohibition open past the normal 3am lockout time, regardless of where you started, chances are youll end up here. Brisbane does relaxed bars really well too; South Brisbane neighbourhoods are a hotspot for microbreweries and locally-owned bars, all with their own gimmicks. Inner-city Brisbane is your best bet for a night out if rooftop bars, back alley dive bars, and whiskey bars all tickle your fancy. Eagle Street runs along the river offering up dressy cocktail bars and more multicultural venues that are all treated to the city view.You might be wondering whats not so hot about Brisbane, it cant be perfect? Well, its not, and in a funny twist most of the biggest pros end up being the biggest cons. The fact is most venues have a single type of target audience or vibe, so you have to keep moving in order to keep the night fresh. Going out in Brisbane really relies on keeping an open mind and following whats in sight. The new infrastructure thats promoting this surge of growth has come in the form of redeveloped alleys, arcades, and former hotspots, and while Im not complaining that this is finally happening , its still very much in progress. Its not uncommon to find your favourite hangout change hands and be replaced by something completely different without any announcements.If you can look past the Under Construction sign that Brisbane currently has hanging around its neck, youll find more than just a fine night out, youll have a collection of experiences. Or in the case of a really good night, possibly none at all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I am full of so many wants. Too many to prioritise; and so they all feel desperate. Most of all, I always thought I wanted to write. But that wasnt enough; I wanted everything I wrote to be better than the last. I wanted it to be more intellectual, more engaging, more professional. These expectations were a given, because what is the point of doing anything if I know I have created something better in the past? That, of course, is the worst thought I have ever had. It stifled my growth, prevented me from writing for months, kept me from doing something I believed I enjoyed so much because there was no chance of it being perfect.The concept of the magnum opus, the masterpiece, dates back to the seventeenth century. It is considered to be a creatives greatest work, the best thing they will ever produce. This status is bestowed upon said piece of work based on critical acclaim and appeal to the masses. There are many archetypal masterpieces: Gian Lorenzo Berninis Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Sandro Botticellis The Birth of Venus, George Eliots Middlemarch.In a way, those artists are immortalised in their respective great works, defined forever in relation to a sculpture, a painting, a novel. In alchemy, the ultimate goal is known as the magnum opus. It is the process of using prima materia to create the philosophers stone, the elixir of life. The concept is used as a model for the individuation process and as a device in art and literature. The aim is to attain self-realization, communion with divinity, and spiritual immortality. Or, better verbalised by Donna Tartt in The Secret History, to live forever.The term has been misused so often recently that the gravity of it is almost lost. I see people tweeting about a TikTok being their magnum opus, posting about a loaf of baked bread being their magnum opus, boasting about a 3D-printed frog being their magnum opus. My first thought was: who are you to decide this is your great work? I just accepted that it was commonplace to have someone else determine what the best thing I ever do will be. I was so focused on ticking off imaginary boxes, waiting to be seen, wanting to be recognised. My second thought was: who am I to decide you can do better?My creative process is a strange one. The pressure to create is ever-present, clinging to me like acrylic paint on a white t-shirt. But writing is never as easy as finding something I am interested in and putting it on paper; I have to obsess, find out everything anyone could ever know about it, fill at least three pages of my creative journal with possible points a future me would make, wait for a sign from the universe. Days, weeks, months pass. The only questions I ask myself during this are: is it better? Is it worth it? Is this the best you can do? Idea after idea came to me, begging, blossoming, beseeching. I have abandoned hundreds of stories because I thought of something better, hundreds of concepts I didnt bother enough to develop because I saw something slightly similar, hundreds of drawings left unfinished because I couldnt get the perspective right.There are more things we create than art. Forming relationships with other people, and building a healthy one with myself will always be the thing I am most proud of. There are so many nuances of creation, of bringing things into existence, and most of them have nothing to do with museum displays and bestseller lists.My magnum opus will never be something I write, or draw, or paint, because neither of those things is the best I have to offer. I am not, nor will I ever be, the sum of art I produce to entertain other people. The concept of being worth what you can offer is a neoliberal idea that shouldnt have any place in the world of art. The only reason I write, the only reason I am able to write is because of the people around me. I need to let go of my magnum opus, and come to terms with the fact that truly great things arent quantifiable. I dont need to be prodigious, better, more. I dont need to concede agency over my work and let other people decide what is most valuable. The relationships I have chosen are the best of me. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the 8 years since Velociraptor released their first album, frontman Jeremy Neale has been busy and not just with music. Beyond his two solo albums, Neale has also found time to write a comic book (T-Rax: the dinosaur DJ who is also a billionaire) and an anti-capitalist musical. With the release of his latest album, We Were Trying to Make It Out, we sat down to chat synths, socialism and Bernie Sanders.Madeline Ward: You wrote this album in Brisbane and New York as such an important figure of the Brisbane music scene, was it nice to get out and write music in another city?Jeremy Neale: Yeah, I think so. It was like when youre in your life, youre very reactive, and youre reacting to things as theyre coming at you and making decisions based on that. So then when youre getting away you get an objective birds eye perspective on your own life. So it was like oh this is what Ive been doing for the last 10 years, now I can see what its been in a story context and what the trials have been of that. Getting away led to writing a record that was encapsulating a large period of time in a lot of ways, because of having that birds eye perspective on it.MW: The first half of We Were Trying to Make it Out reminds me very much of the jangly guitar driven indie rock that had a moment in the early 2010s, bands like Hungry Kids of Hungary, Last Dinosaurs, Ball Park Music and (obviously) Velociraptor to what degree would you say this period of music/these bands are an influence on the music youre currently making?JN: Its hard to escape it gets embedded in your DNA. I just cant get away from guitar music, as much as I appreciate listening to other types. I just naturally write on guitar and then I write from those influences. It was always the same things which underpinned my core, which is that I love The Ramones, I love 60s pop melodies. I guess that music did have its time, but for me its like an all-time songwriting kind of thing, with what constitutes a good song. So thats what I end up doing, and then I grab a few more influences as I go along. I had a lot of static influences, but then I had a few things enter that DNA in the last few years. They end up being bands that have been from decades gone anyway (laughs) so it doesnt add anything ground-breaking to the sound, but I find these bands like Prefab Sprout, which is this 80s band Ive become totally obsessed with in the past few years, and thats entered its way in, and thats what the title track of the album is heavily influenced by.MW: The latter half seems to be strongly influenced by a lot of the sounds wed associate with the 1980s, particularly Still Want You Around Me. What I find really interesting about this is that the album is also dealing with a lot of the personal effects of living in a capitalist society, which is something that a lot of the music of the 80s was engaging with as well. Is lyrical depth something that youre more interested in exploring these days?JN: It takes a lot to be comfortable to say what you want to say, I think in some ways in music as well. These issues have always been a thing for me, because its my life and my day to day, and these are the true boundaries in music. I always thought that acknowledging that theres a lot of struggle in doing music wouldnt be received particularly well, like I should keep it light? But then I thought nah this is real! Its very hard to do music if youre in the working class and its very hard to exist in the working class, because theres not a lot of time left for you and everything is really fucking expensive (laughs). I just thought there was nothing more important that I could write about in this record.I didnt really think about those two things about the sonics of that time matching up with the intention behind the record. Still Want You Around Me is an interesting one because the catalyst for that was that I wanted something that felt as good as the Toploader song Dancing in the Moonlight.MW: Something I find really interesting about the album is that it seems to very much be engaging with the nature of the music industry and making music in Australia. With so many Australian success stories we tend to focus on what its like to Make It, rather than how hard it can be as a band or a musician trying to forge a career how important was it for you to engage with this?JN: In a broad sense, I think Ive been really lucky with the opportunities Ive had with many different facets of Australian music. I have nothing to complain about in that regard, but I think in the bigger picture what we do see is a survivors bias. We hear about the same artists all the time and theyve made it from nothing, or perceived nothing, and therefore its achievable for everybody its not.What is achievable is pleasing yourself, which Ive found is the one thing you can do in music: making things for you and hoping other people will find it. In terms of the grand scheme of things, I think maybe why you see people fading out or away is that I dont think that its common knowledge how expensive music is to do. Its been devalued, in a way, because its always there, its on in the supermarket when you do your shopping and its free.As an artist its not until you change your expectations, or decide what you want from music, that you can find a sense of peace in just doing what you want to do. But that takes ages that took me ages too, because I really wanted for a long time to just be a musician. But then I found a much nicer balance by having a day job and then doing exactly what I want to do. The highs are still there, but the lows arent so low, because you have that balance. Its like having these spheres in your life, and you have lots of them being full, so if ones not particularly working at that time its okay, because you still have a great time playing tennis at the tennis court. You love your reality TV and that spheres always there for you.MW: We Were Trying to Make it Out engages with mental health, particularly the strains that working people are under. Was it important to you in writing that you linked the personal effects of the political?JN: I think its an important thing to touch on. I think the main thing that I wanted to say is that the record isnt me having a whinge, Its me trying to say that if this is how youre feeling, someone else is feeling it too. Its supposed to be an empathetic warm hug. The main message, and why I made the title of the album We Were Trying to Make It Out, is that I thought that best encapsulated self kindness, which is that if things dont work out, just still find a way to be kind to yourself. Because self talk is the most important thing. If you can control that, you can at least have a chance against the rest of it. That and cardio.MW: By bringing these themes of anticapitalism together with catchy melodies and anthemic, danceable tunes, do you feel like youre helping make them accessible to people that otherwise wouldnt engage with them that much?JN: I hope so but then I do wonder what value things are enjoyed at as well. Whether there are lines that people grab on to, or if theres an overarching theme. If its like (laughs) ah great, finally. A record for the working class.MW: An indie-pop record for the working class.JN: Endorsed by Bernie Sanders! We Were Trying To Make It Out is now available on all major streaming platforms. With the advent of COVID-19, Jeremy Neale has cancelled his upcoming tour dates. Hes been live streaming shows on his Facebook page in the meantime, and his record is available for purchase from Bandcamp. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Pssst! Over here! Yes, over here. Quickly now, there are eyes everywhere. Eyes and ears which would very much like to get their hands on the many curios I peddle. Why is that you ask? Well, funny you should say.A greeting is a powerful thing: kings, mountains, and cities may fall before it. A well chosen greeting is like a well honed knife. It can do all sorts of things. But like any knife, a dull blade does very little at all. Saying hello does as much good as a glass hammer. And hi and hey leave a recipient feeling uninspired. These greetings have been bounced back and forth between generations of people, and while once they might have meant something, now their power is all but extinguished. But with death, comes life. New greetings hold sway in these lands. Greetings of a dark and terrible power. I dare not speak their name but if I must, I will.Chief among their ranks: howdy. Hailing from the west, over the vast plains of the most northern America, howdy is a sharp blade indeed. From the ancient tongue of the Cow Boys (thought to be an evolutionary precursor to our current race, though scientists are divided on the subject), howdy was originally a casual greeting issued from horseback. Certain arcane gestures are thought to have accompanied it, such as the forward angling of ones hat or the crack of a whip. These are of course not necessary to the greeting, but it is theorised they lend it further power. Today it is used by those wanting to appear cool, casual or country. It is perhaps the most powerful of the ancient greetings.Beyond the dusty deserts and frontier lands of the far west lies the sea. A vast expanse of water where nothing can be taken for grantedexcept this. The greeting of choice for all honourable seafaring people is ahoy. It should only be issued while wearing a captains hat, a blue woolen turtleneck and a black overcoat. Failure to do so will result in plank walking which is thought to be some kind of carpentry challenge. We know that these sea dwelling people utilised a piece of ancient technology called boatery which they used to transport bananas across great distances and at the time a bunch of bananas was called a hoy. The phrase therefore originated from a captains customs declaration where they would claim to be transporting a hoy or multiple hoys.The greetings explored so far have been specific to a certain location or circumstance. Salutations, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable in any situation (or at least we are led to believe this by translations of ancient text found on what the predecessors called laptops). This greeting is suitable everywhere and anywhere. It maintains a balance between formality and joviality, which is a difficult thing to do. Not much more is known about this particular phrase as many records of its use were destroyed in the great flooding of the GFC.These three are but a taste, my complete collection is in the back. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I think about towers, I think about Rapunzel locked in one, surveying an alien landscape, driven half-mad by her desire to escape into the configuration of space before her. I envisage Robert Louis Stevensons dark tower in the House of Shaws, with stairs ending halfway to the top. I see black ivy creeping up the Tower of Flints, its sinister long shadow in daylight a bad omen. When I think about balconies, I think about Verona. Juliet Capulet standing on Thomas Otways balcony, moonlight illuminating her skin, Romeo Montague looking up at her with a yearning desire. I picture Florence, Prince Padema sitting desolated as he curses everything. I see the French Quarter, Stanley Kowalski calling for his wife with heaven-splitting violence. When I think about windows, I think about the lagoon outside Jean-Paul Sartres Venetian window. I hear In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, the song exploding from a boombox below Diane Courts bedroom window. I see Ted Mosby triumphantly holding up the blue french horn, yelling about his love for Robin Scherbatsky.When I think about towers and balconies and windows, I think about love.As architecture and human culture evolved, so did symbols of romance. With the process of adaptation, appropriation, and revision, the tower turned into the balcony, which turned into the open window. Essentially, all of them serve the same purpose and form the same narrative.The History and Fall of Caius Marius is a tragedy written by Thomas Otway, the man we are indebted to for Shakespeares infamous balcony scene. There was no balcony in Romeo and Juliet, and there was no balcony in Shakespeares England. How, then, does the balcony, the visual synecdochic for the play, tie in so tightly with a scene that existed for a century without it?Audiences are less concerned with specifics of the source text, and more with modern adaptations that evolve to place themselves in the current era. That being said, Otway borrowed so heavily from Romeo and Juliet that David Garrick used the way he staged the appropriated scene in the mid-eighteenth century for Shakespeares tragedy. He immortalised the visual iconography of the balcony scene with the sketch of actor Spranger Barry from his adaptation, suitably titled Two Lovers Courting. And from there sprung forth the countless creations and recreations of it; from blurry pictures of cats to travellers visiting Casa di Giuletta in Verona, the pseudo-balcony built to appease tourists.It is interesting to note that audiences prefer Juliet on the balcony instead of by her bedroom window. Windows, unlike balconies, allow people to watch without participating. But balconies put people on display: they can be viewed during their act of viewing, they are accessible. Juliet believed she was alone and spoke of her true feelings into the night, not knowing that Romeo was in the garden below her, gazing at her delicate form, listening to every word she said. The balcony parallels the pedestal, elevating virtuous Juliet above Romeo, continuing the extended religious metaphor of her being a saint he worships. Juliets balcony is liminal yet open; a means for Romeo to enter it and start what they believe will be a long and loving life.In comparison, Sartres Venetian balcony restricts him. In Venice from My Window, Sartre experiences a crisis of existence. He is sitting, looking out into the world, disoriented because Venice doesnt seem to have a horizon. The view confines him, prevents him from projecting, condemning him to short-sightedness. He is captive to the thirty metres he can see before him. But Naples is different. In a letter to Olga Kosakiewicz, Sartre reflects on the balconies in Naples, calling them streets that simply existed in the air, little pieces of boulevards lifted to the second story. He believed them to be respiratory organs, not ornaments nor luxuries. Balconies allow people to live, in part, outdoors. They eat and sleep and vaguely watch the spectacle of people passing by. There is open communication between the balcony and the street; the need to go inside is almost redundant.The first windows were small and dingy. They allowed limited light and were mainly used in sacral architecture, as daylight was perceived as divine presence. This religious vision of the art world was established by the Church in the Middle Ages, tying the symbol of the three windows in the Church to the Holy Trinity, as shown in paintings like Scenes from the life of St. Catherine by Giuseppe Arcimboldo and Holy Family by Lorenzo Costa. But this changed with the intellectual revolution of the Renaissance. Italian glass blowers began to produce large tripartite (or, Venetian) windows which were viewed as the frame of a completed landscape, ready for examination. Following this, windows in the background of portraits became very popular. The soft, domestic interior lit by natural light became a key motif for romantic artists; the person peering longingly outward awaiting a lover to appear below the best-loved character. Most times, the window was positioned as a light source, such as in Woman reading a letter by Pieter de Hooch. Still, at other times the window was the focus of the piece, as in The Return of Odysseus by Pinturicchio, all the action taking place through an open window.The window itself is the sole motif. The romantic innovation of the pure window-view contrasts a vast landscape and domestic interior with each other. Together, this brings the confinement of the indoors with the incongruous limitlessness of the space outside. The aesthetic position of the window turns us into observers rather than passive watchers. In doing this, the window also exposes the character behind it to vulnerability. It is an insight into their home, their routine, a window into their soul, if you will. A person looking out the window may sometimes see themselves reflected in the glass, the unexpected image offering insight into their own self. While large windows are incredibly revealing, they are also a tool in the hand of the observer. They let light in from the heavens, and allow people on the inside to be active participants in interactions with the outside. A small window yields more privacy but restricts the view of the outside world.The balcony and the open window remain prevalent motifs in literature and art, because it is there where all the amorous peripeteia occurred: where grand gestures of love were made by lovers forsaking their names and blasting boomboxes, where people waited silently for a spared glance, where serenades were sung and hands asked for in marriage, where everything could change.The symbol is so well-embedded in romance that it is hard to attribute it to a particular source. Such movements tend to sprout from collective attitudes and forms of expression, rather than an individuals cry of a eureka moment. It is a rare motif where art, literature, and film borrow from each other to create whole worlds of meaning. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are many things we remember from the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80s without failure. For those of us who witnessed it first hand and for those of us who understand it through the pictures, stories and, more arbitrarily, a profound and indescribable connection to our lost chosen family whom we never met, there is a lot that we will never forget. We remember the faces of people who lived with HIV/AIDS pictured in sensationalist media. We remember that it took President Ronald Reagan nearly six years to even mention AIDS publicly and we remember subsequent inaction from governments all over the world. One thing we seem to forget about this tumultuous time for our community is women.There are probably a few reasons why we do not remember the women who found themselves in the middle of an epidemic that seemingly targeted gay men. In 1981, medical professionals almost completely overlooked women in research on the disease, aiming all their focus at symptoms that presented in men rather than women. This limited access to information and treatment has not only led to the rise of cases of HIV/AIDS in women but has also contributed to the lack of understanding of what it was to be a woman living with the disease during the epidemic. Despite the fact that women living with HIV/AIDS in the 80s in the continent of Africa far exceeded the amount of men and by 1997 women accounted for more than half of cases of HIV/AIDS globally, we have nowhere near as many personal accounts or memories passed down by women.The homophobic framing of the epidemic as a gay-related immune deficiency or gay cancer resulted in the redirection of fear of HIV/AIDS itself to the people thought to be most at risk of contracting it a narrative which caused discrimination against the gay community and neglect of the women who lived with HIV/AIDS. In a world where the epidemic was treated as a universal issue, we may have had stories from women who lived with HIV and who died of AIDS-related illnesses. What is perhaps most worrying is the number of undiagnosed women whose stories, because of homophobic panic and reactions to the epidemic, remain untold.Another way in which women are forgotten is in the way we assume the fear of gay communities and homophobia was a universal feeling during the epidemic. Despite the divisive narratives medical professionals and governments created in order to create fear in seemingly unaffected demographics, many heterosexual HIV negative women were instrumental in the fight against the epidemic and homophobic discrimination. Some of these women were more visible than others. For instance, Elizabeth Taylor ran an illegal distribution of powerful but unapproved drugs to treat HIV/AIDS out of her Bel Air home. She even shamed President George Bush stating, I dont think President Bush is doing anything at all about AIDS. In fact, Im not even sure if he knows how to spell AIDS.Some lesser known stories of HIV negative womens involvement in the epidemic are outlined by Victoria Noe in her book Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community. She highlights the work of Rosa E. Martinez-Colon who helped educate people of all demographics in Puerto Rico about the challenges that people who lived with HIV/AIDS faced. Noe also writes about Trudy James, who aimed to bridge the divide between people living with HIV and religious groups. Noe herself appeared on the front lines, working with AIDS service organisations.One story in particular alerted me to the importance of women in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and this is the friendship of Nora Burns and David. Nora met David in a gay club in Boston in 1979, standing on top of a speaker with no shirt on. The two struck up an instantly fierce and intense friendship, and they moved to New York City together after graduating from college. Through her friendship with David, she found her home in the gay community of New York. However, what is most important about their friendship was her undying loyalty not only to David but to the community he welcomed her into. Nora did not turn her back on this community when the epidemic began and, after David died of AIDS related illness in 1993, she remained a fierce ally of the AIDS community.This story is particularly striking for many reasons. It demands the visibility of women in the gay and AIDS communities and also asks us to remember the solidarity that women have historically shown for these communities. It is also striking because she continues to tell this story to this day.Through her Instagram, she archives not only her intensely important friendship with David, but to other gay people during the epidemic. Through sharing intimate photos and stories from a past well never truly fathom, she brings to the foreground the importance of friendship between women and gay men during the epidemic. She also has performed a one woman show titled Davids Friend which, among New York, disco music and sexual liberation, discusses the importance of her friendship to David and others in the community she was adopted into.Remembering Noras and many other womens involvement in the HIV/AIDS epidemic is vital in dealing with a past we may never come to terms with. It is in remembering these slightly less visible but undeniably important memories and stories that we can truly honour the women who, when they werent burying their loved ones, comforting them when no one else would and leading education on the epidemic in order to eliminate misinformation, were our friends in a time where it was dangerous to be. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A gaunt young boy wearing only a loincloth walks barefoot in the scraggly foreground, carrying a pot of water on his head. He sees a note nestled in the sand. On one side is a photo of Rajnikanth, a famous Indian actor. He bends down precariously but carefully to inspect it. A gust of wind blows the paper out of his hand, causing him to stumble. The water on his head crashes to the ground and is rapidly swallowed by the parched clay ground. The boy crawls desperately towards the soaked dirt, frantically digging with his bare fingers to recapture what is now the uncapturable.A still from the opening scene of Thaneer Thaneer.This is the opening scene of the film Thaneer Thaneer (Water, Water in Tamil) released in 1981, which depicts life in a village in Tamil Nadu, India, affected by severe water shortages. The plot follows the desperate attempts of the villagers to improve their water supply and highlights the apathy and corruption of politicians and broader society towards their plight. It was directed by K Balachander and produced by my maternal grandfather PR Govindarajan, a man I never met. It won two National Film Awards and a Filmfare Award South for its empathetic depiction of rural India and its scathing portrait of the political elite.I recently watched it, as part of a holiday goal to see all my grandfathers movies: a flailing attempt to improve my comprehension of my mother tongue, Tamil, and to contextualise the stories I had heard about my Thatha. Our familys claim to fame was that my grandfather introduced Rajnikanth into movies, who started off as a bus conductor and is now one of the most iconic Indian actors of his age: an ironic allusion to the opening scene of Thaneer Thaneer, where Rajnikanths fame sits heavy against the gravity of the water shortage.What struck me about Thaneer Thaneer was its parallels to life today. But with research I realised that these parallels were not unique, but rather indicative of a cycle of exploitation, greed and political dislocation in the southern Indian state.Tamil Nadus capital, Chennai, now approaches Day Zero, where demand for water will outstrip supply, threatening the lives of millions of people in Indias 6th largest city.Chennai was originally a rich network of wetlands, which have since been polluted or paved over by overdevelopment and an expansion of the automotive industries which hub the city. The four main catchment areas which supply the citys water have shrunk dramatically to less than 1% of their capacity.In part this was due to dryer monsoon seasons, but largely, it is a story of government mismanagement.Lax regulations on groundwater drilling has seen an 85% decline in Chennais bore water levels over the last decade. Indias use of groundwater exceeds that of both China and the US combined. Whole new sections of Chennai like the IT corridor are not even connected to the main water grid, relying instead on expensive private tankers to deliver water.Yet for the poorest areas of the city, the price of private water deliveries is out of reach. People have to travel tens of kilometers for wells and line up for days to receive a measly supply from municipal lorries. The ability to drink, bathe, cook and clean is now a luxury for some families. Coextensively with climate change, this will only worsen.Water scarcity has never seemed like something that could threaten my life in Sydney. But watching Warragamba Dam fall to its lowest levels in 15 years over the most recent catastrophic summer reminded me of the preeminence of water to human existence.Water in the motherland has always been precious, contested, scarce. A site of much political energy. Norms around water use are different: in knowing that you cannot drink tap water, people are generally more discerning in how they use water, youll likely have a bucket bath instead of a shower. Yet in writing this, the salience of my outsiders gaze becomes clear. I have only ever experienced these things as a visitor, from the perspective of an upper middle class Tamil Brahmin family.A still from Thaneer Thaneer.Thaneer Thaneer aptly mocks this profound caste and class divide, through the arms-length way in which journalists and politicians interact with the most vulnerable in such crises. In one scene, a city-slicker in all-white, speaking a more polished Tamil hitches a ride into the remote town, Achipati, on the back of a bullock cart which the locals had built in order to collect water. The journalist asks the villagers why they chose to boycott the last political elections. The villagers explain how the wealthy politicians always promise they will give them water. They never do. Another scene illustrates this through a comedic visual metaphor where a request from a villager given to the local politician is passed off down a line of bureaucrats. This indifferent approach of politicians, where villagers are left to fend for themselves, derided in the movie is reproduced in Chennais political scene today, which has been criticised by activists, NGOs and the scientific community. It is clear that the loyalties of the political class are contained to each other; the villagers have only themselves to rely upon.Further, the actress Sarithas character in the film embodies a markedly feminine and nourishing figure: a symbol of a divine Mother Earth. A scene shows her character swiftly but strongly juggling three pots of water and an infant child, as she crosses kilometres of barren land in search of water. The use of the ghatam, a Carnatic instrument made of an earthen pot in the score produces a rhythmic, guttural sound matched only by her quiet intensity. The way her characters needs are deprioritised, despite carrying the stresses of the village, are a metaphor for the treatment of the Earth: an enlightening comment on both the gendered divisions of labour in India and the state of its environmental conservation.A still from Thaneer Thaneer.Like many diaspora, I must consume my culture through things like movies, language, family and music against the overwhelming Western hegemony which permeates all other inputs in my life. But this deepens on a personal level where my grandpas movies not only serve as a conduit into village life (a life familiar to my grandparents), but also between the space I inhabit and the imagined space which I reconstruct from my familys (hi)stories.The movies my grandpa produced often had transgressive political themes: I wonder was this just expediency or did they speak to his political persuasions? What would he think of me or this article? The Tollywood of today is commercialised, slick and sanitised, like most modern mainstream cultural industries. To enjoy the caliber of his movies is also to appreciate a different era of filmmaking. When he passed away, my mum had just married and migrated to Australia at age 20. I think of another possible world in which my Thatha hadnt died so young, where my family had stayed in Chennai.Climate change exists in this liminal state in our collective consciousness happening around us, hurtling towards a point of no return. Yet, Thaneer Thaneer focalised an experience of disparity that left my throat dry. Rich people are bathing in swimming pools while the poorest die from deprivation. Indias reliance on, and exploitation of, groundwater is unsustainable. Until this baseline stress is addressed with sustainable management, rather than a feckless race for growth, people will continue to suffer. As regenerative as it has been for me, personally, to explore my grandpas film, I do not want Thaneer Thaneer to remain a relevant reflection of the world we live in. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Many people havenever heard of locksport. Its a niche hobby, some might say a strange one; wecan even call it underground for its obscurity. Yet, people around the worldare meeting upin seminars, conferences, and competitions to practice it. Simply put,locksport is recreational lock picking. It is the hobby of opening lockswithout keys for fun. It is a bit like solving jigsaw puzzles. Each lock, likeeach set of puzzles, has a different personality that poses a unique challenge.Locksporters need to first understand how each lock works. Then, with theirhands and tools, they try to conquer their locks of choice. Some purchase lockpicks on the internet or in retail stores; some make their own. Most of thetime, they pick their own locks and they do it for enjoyment. It has nothing todo with thievery or breaking in. Although locksport is a global phenomenon, Iwill focus on the Australian scene here. Nowadays, lock picking enthusiasts call their hobby locksport opening locks without keys for fun. Although we can find many historical examples of recreational lock picking, the exact origin of modern locksports is contestable. The term locksport was probably first used by a community with the forming of Locksport International in 2005. The word locksport itself, though, might have been coined years ago. The purpose of the term was to distinguish hobbyists from thieves and other unethical lock pickers. The modern hobby of organised recreational lock picking dates back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. David De-Vals book, Lock Picking, was published in 1987. In 1991, a Roof and Tunnel Hacking group based in Massachusetts also published a pamphlet, The MIT Guide to Lock Picking. It was one of the first widely available lock picking instructions. The rise of recreational lock pickers also coincided with the rise of the internet. With Facebook groups, YouTube channels, blogs, and websites, locksporters grouped their own communities and shared knowledge. TOOOL (The Open Organisation of Lockpickers), one of the first international locksports communities, was first formed in 1999 in The Netherlands. Now, TOOOL communities around the world hold monthly meetings. Notably, there are over 1000 official TOOOL members in Berlin. They gather for seminars, general meetings, and competitions. In Australia, the TOOOL community meets up in Melbourne. Lock and security enthusiasts also hold regular conferences around the world. Last year, theOzSecCon, a conference dedicated to locksport and physical security, was heldfrom 14th to 16th of June in Melbourne. The conference included talks,professional training, workshops, and competitions. I talked to Topaz Aral, anorganiser of the event. Topazis a computer security and penetration testing professional. He said althoughmany lock picking enthusiasts are IT professionals, locksporters often comefrom diverse and surprising backgrounds. We have one person coming inpresenting at the conference who I believe is a mechanic or a tow truckdriver, Topaz said. Hes done some amazing research.Topaz was 13 whenhe picked his first lock. Its kind of like a puzzle, he said. Usually,beginners learn to use lock picking tool sets first. It requires a little bitof practice, a little bit of time, to get competent at it. Most people thinkTopazs hobby is cool when they first learn about locksport. Others getsurprised its a thing and question its legality. Im not a lawyer but thelegal advice tends to suggest that it is perfectly legal to have this as ahobby, Topaz said. The TOOOL websitehas outlined the laws of many countries and states in relation to lock picking.Its legality, therefore, depends on where you are inthe world. In general, as long as locksporters arepicking their own locks and not using their skills to commit theft, trespass,or other criminal actsit is likely to be legal. Morally speaking, I wouldcompare lock picking to martial arts. Hobbyists can choose to use their skillsto challenge their mind and body, or they canbe used for dubious means. As most skills could be adapted for questionabledeeds, I think lock picking itself is not a concern. Instead, we should worrymore about the moral quality of those involved. The TOOOL website points out ifsomething from the locksports community is likely to endanger public safety,such as the development of a new, dangerous technique; then, ethical andpossibly legal actions should be taken. Locksporters, in general, use theirskill only in recreational waysthey are decent humans from diverse backgroundswho have discovered a love for lock picking in different ways.Alex Holmes, amember of the Facebook group, Australian Locksport Guild, shared his experiencewith me. Alex, a private investigator, could already pick a lock when he was injunior high school. His interest in locksport originates from seeing it in amovie or a video game during childhood. He emphasises that privateinvestigation work should never need lock picks. Mr. Holmes skills wouldenable him to identify levels of security and enter vehicles and otherobstacles within a few minutes. His favourite type of lock picking issingle-pin picking, preferring quieter methods over noisy tools like bump keysand snap guns. Another Facebookgroup member, IT professional Sean Rodden, first discovered locksport throughthe YouTube channel LockPickingLawyer, which has over 60 000 subscribers. Heenjoys picking locks because it enables him to use his hands and it provides anoutlet for creativity. He finds crafting his own lock picks very rewarding. Thecraft side of locksports offers a relaxation away from the routine of hisoffice day job. It is more convenient than other workshop hobbies such ascarpentry because the required tools are portable. He added that he neverpicked locks outside of the hobby. For apartment residents like Sean, locksportis ideal because it doesnt take up space; practicing it requires only a lockand a lock pick. No one can give anexact reason for why, throughout history, some of us are so fascinated by lockpicking. In a way, our desire to open locks without keys is a metaphor forhumanitys longing for freedom. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote at the beginning ofThe Social Contract: Man is bornfree, and everywhere he is in chains. Perhaps due to the constraints imposedon us by our world, we yearn to loosen our shackles. In proving that no lockscould restrain us, lock picking acts as a cry of freedomit becomes an act ofdefiance. In another way, locks can also symbolise security. Through alwayschallenging the concept of impregnable security, we find that nothing canreally be kept safe. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, lock picking shows us the worldis an oyster: theres always a way to crack it open. While the illusionof perfect security is dead, recreational lock picking is becoming morepopular. Locksporters must use their intellect, their hands, their skills tomeet every challenge each lock poses. I think part of being human is to beplayful, to solve puzzles, and to create challenges. So, as long as we arehuman, some of us are bound to pick locks. Not necessarily because it meansanything, but only because it makes us feel alive. Lock picking is like many things we do a source ofpleasure and a way to fulfil our human potential. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Emilie Bickerton, author of a history of the magazine, declared Cahiers du Cinma a dead sun in 2006. Cahiers has therefore achieved something really remarkable in the past week a death from beyond the grave. On the 27th of February, its entire staff resigned in protest against the magazines sale to a group of shareholders led by banker Grgoire Chertok; these shareholders included eight film producers.The magazine was begun in the 1950s, under Andre Bazin, and with a roster of no-name critics including Jean Luc-Godard, Eric Rohmer, Franois Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol all of whom went on to be core members of the 1960s French New Wave. Despite the publications decline in reputation in recent years the more irreversible nature of this self-destruction seems tragic for film culture. And yet, also stirring, an act containing something of the quality of those energetic polemics which made Cahiers the most important journal in film history.It wouldnt, however, be too difficult to find the actions of the editorial board excessive. At least two items of protest may strike one as business as usual. The new managerial team wanted to make the magazine a little more chic and convival critical without being insulting, as well as looking into new partnerships with organisations in the film industry, in particular the Cannes Film Festival. It should be noted that the two pre-eminent English language film magazines seem already to have succumbed to such directives Sight & Sound and Film Comment are published by the British Film Institute and the Film Society at Lincoln Centre respectively. The more obvious problems are the conflicts of interest created by having film producers on the board, as well as fears that the boards ties to the Macron government would restrict Cahiers critical attitude towards the administration. Overall, it seems worth conceding that the situation itself is not exceptional it is firmly within the bounds of what wed expect to occur in modern journalism but the act of quitting is quite remarkable, especially when considered as continuous with the history of the journal.A fierce independence is at the heart of Cahiers du Cinma. The initial group of critics were held together by a set of shared tastes and beliefs that were considered, at the time, quite radical and which had to be fought for to be accepted. Most important were the politique des auteurs and the concept of mise en scne. To establish film as a personal art, they uncovered the signature of certain auteurs throughout their oeuvre. To establish the merits of cinema as an art form, they were attentive to what was cinemas own the organisation of visual elements into mise en scne. The two lines of argument enriched each other. In contrast with that impoverished, dominant criticism concerned only with ideas and themes, auteurist criticism took the film, or in fact the auteur, as a whole and elucidated an attitude towards the world. Their guiding lights were Renoir and Rossellini, but their taste was particularly influential in the re-evaluation of Hollywood filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and John Ford as serious artists.By the 1960s, Cahiers had essentially won the war. The major critics of the 1950s period had become world-renowned filmmakers. Their theories and tastes were spreading. The magazine was seen to be in decline Godard claimed that it was due chiefly to the fact that there is no longer any position to defend. And yet behind Godards back, the 1960s Cahiers writers were forming a position. They found new life in refining, revising, and overturning the ideas of the 1950s in particular, by politicising them, with an increasing urgency up to and in the wake of May 1968. Cahiers was thus heavily influential in the move towards structuralism in film studies. This was the magazines second Golden Era, but it wasnt to last. By the mid-1970s, there was a feeling that Cahiers had to get commercial again, and this is seen as the beginning of their decline proper.The 1960s period is instructive, because it shows us that independence is not merely to do with concrete threats, such as those facing the journal today. There are impediments to independence, but independence is not achieved simply by their removal. It is an act in itself. It is the taking up of a position.What masks the absence of independence in film writing is that phenomena Jonathan Rosenbaum calls a cultural confusion of criticism with advertising. As cinema becomes a more marginal form, its institutions necessarily integrate. Distribution and criticism become entangled economically, but also philosophically, both seen to be engaged in a noble battle to preserve cinema. There is scarcely any effort though to define what that cinema being preserved is. In other words, cinemas excellence is assumed, and explained in received terms. It is not necessarily that critical values are all wrong, but rather that films are received in terms of a continuous proof of the mediums vitality, rather than a gesture towards its potentiality. This prepares the way for the ecstatic reception of academic films like Bong Joon-Hos Parasite and Celine Sciammas Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but leaves Angela Schanelecs unclassifiable I Was at Home, But unattended.In Jean-Luc Godards 1960 film Breathless, a very memorable Jean-Pierre Melville claims that he would like to become immortal and then die. All brands, including Cahiers, are of course immortal. Now though, Cahiers have done the decisive, fulfilled Melvilles maxim, and died. Other publications shouldnt follow suit, but certainly the relative similarity in their different positions should be considered, and our appreciation for and recognition of independence strengthened. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Pranay JhaLiam Thorne2019Honi SoitNUSSRCThis article was originally written in English and can be read here. 68%SRCLiam Donohoe2018Imogen GrantSwitch Run Student Representative CouncilDonohoeUnityNLSDonohoegrassroots ()switch (), DonohoeDonohoeHoni2019(Sexual Harassment officer) Jazz BreenGrassrootsDonohoeRiverview), DonohoeSRCgrassrootsHoniSRCSRCSRCSRCDonohoeSRCDonohoeJacky HeSRCSRCDonohoeGrassrootsDonohoeDonohoeDonohoe2016socialist alternative)PandaJakovacDonohoeDonohoeOLEsJakovacDonohoeOLEOLET1137 Australian Perspectives: Rugby LeagueDonohoeDonohoe20172018Grant2020 DonohoeOzHarvestSRCWelfare Week Health Day DonohoeHoniDonohoeDonohoeDonohoe5View the questions from this years quizzeshere.Honi is hosting theannual Presidential Debate on Wednesday 18 September from 1pm at Hermanns.Submit a question to your candidateshere.Got feedback or goss? Send us atip. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Editors Pranay Jha and Liam Thorne are not involved in the 2019 coverage of the Honi Soit, NUS and SRC elections.Quiz Score 79%Diversity isnt an explicit selling point for Fit, unlike Cream, but theyre nonetheless the first ticket to discard a 50/50 gender ratio in recent years. Fit are running on a hot pink colour, and their muscular logo bears quite a striking resemblance to past tickets over yonder at UTS anyone remember that ill-fated albeit visually striking Flex for Vertigo bicep from 2016?All members of the ticket have written for Honi. Some members of Fit have familiarity not only with the paper, but with the SRC with Nina Dillon-Britton, Lara Sonnenschein and Madeline Ward having had paid-office bearer roles in past years. This institutional proximity to University-related bodies has likely led to a focus on investigative journalism on Fits policy platform, such as the implementation of a specific investigative reporting group, alongside every establishment tickets war-cry of holding student politicians and University management to account. Like Cream, Fit are intent on keeping the multilingual section in the paper.We couldnt tell you why, but the revival of comedy is also on the Fit bucket list, and they have taken to the age-old method of sourcing a specific SUDS-adjacent comedy editor in the form of Matthew Forbes. Theyre also interested in hosting more live events whatever those are, given Honis natural budget constraint. One of Fits more redundant policies is no doubt the plan for a weekly delivery service for USyd alumni which would see copies of Honi posted to jaded ex-hacks for a small fee. This would be fine, if it werent for the fact that this weeks edition of Honi would probably be placed online well before last weeks Honi arrives in your mailbox.Most of Fits policy agenda tread a safe, establishment-oriented line, recycling ideas that are consistently pushed every year on year. Small steps like a better advertised anonymous tip line are listed without any clarity on how or in what form. Fit also promise to translate Honis biggest news stories into Mandarin, which already happens more than regularly on this years new Honi WeChat.Therein lies Fits weakness: Most of their policies revolve around enhancing the paper in its current form, with some tweaks here and there. Rehashing old policies misunderstands the structural barriers which impede some of those ideas.Fit have evidently outperformed their opponents in the quiz with a score of 79 per cent. They were readily able to answer some of the more complex questions of the quiz, such as the number of board directors on the SUSF company board as of 2019. They managed to name five other student publications of different universities, many of which harbour existing personal relationships with Honi in terms of syndicating content and cross-campus coverage. They showed familiarity with the internal processes of Honi, correctly identifying regular sections, and where liability is found in the case of defamation.However, and perhaps concerningly, they faltered on more simple points of knowledge, which are arguably essential for prospective editors to have. Fit could neither name the current president of the National Union of Students (NUS), nor their faction. Lamentably, NatCon, the annual conference of the NUS involving student delegates from all over the country, is the first large event covered by new Honi editors.Beyond this, Fit were also unable to correctly name the current CEO of the USU, the size of the SRC Presidents stipend, and the year in which Vice Chancellor Michael Spences term ends.Fit have the requisite writing and editing experience to edit Honi, alongside a feasible policy platform, even if it is a little bit superfluous here and there. Their result in the quiz is commendable, but it nevertheless demonstrates some deficiencies of knowledge.View the questions from this years quizzeshere.Honi is hosting the annual Honi Debate on Monday 16 September from 1pm at Hermanns.Send Cream and Fit a question here.Got feedback or goss? Send us a tip. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Editors Pranay Jha and Liam Thorne are not involved in the 2019 coverage of the Honi Soit, NUS and SRC elections.Quiz Score 39%Well get this out of the way first as weve reported, no members of Cream have written for Honi Soit. The bulk of their campus-based writing experience arises out of two members being regular reporters for Pulp, alongside some involvement in Dissent and the nascent USyd Women publication and adjacent media Enid. Much of their reporting experience lies is in non-editorial roles and we cant help but notice that theyve misspelt pursuasions in their policy statement. Correct spelling isnt all that necessary when editing a newspaper, so lets not dwell on that.There is benefit in some of Creams policies. Theyve implied that they will uphold the recently introduced multilingual section in promising increased content by international students for international students. We are sure that there are some people on campus who enjoy university related sports events, coverage of which Cream have also promised. Discussion is generally a good thing, and in line with this idea, Cream would like to see more debate and panel events.While Creams promise of including USU club and societies reports is a peculiar addition into a paper published by the SRC, it may, at least, indicate a general interest in increasing engagement with the student body in clubs and societies, even if that means acceding limited paper space to external organisations, creating conflicts of interest and compromising the papers ability to cover major C&S fuck-ups.The groups limited proximity to Honi Soit makes itself apparent in the rest of their policy platform, which can be sliced into three neat categories: 1. Uncompromisingly vague; 2. Things that already exist; and 3. Literally recycled content from anonymous USyd-centric internet forums.Institutional knowledge isnt the only attribute required of an Honi ticket. But a degree of know-how certainly helps prospective editors understand the practical possibilities and realistic limitations facing Honi. On this front, Cream want to write about, inter alia, things that impact [students] and uni life. So broad are these two descriptors that we have no doubt that Cream, or anyone else who ever edits a student newspaper for that matter, will easily fulfil this election promise.They have pledged to improve student writing with submission feedback something Honi editors have done as part of the pitch commissioning process since, well, time immemorial. Cream are also interested in having regular online content, which has also been a feature of the paper ever since Honi went digital.The fact that some of these policies are vague to the point of lacking substance, or are things that have been a part of the Honi process for years, suggests that Cream have a grave lack of understanding of how Honi Soit works and has worked for years. As for the utility of re-publishing top USyd rants/love letters? Well let you make your mind up on that one.Coming in with a 39 per cent score, Cream have outright failed the newly implemented Honi Quiz.Cream failed to identify the inverted pyramid as a commonplace and widely-used structure for news articles, incidentally taught annually to reporters at Honi training events. In attempting to identify the ex-SRC lawyer who was controversially dismissed back in June, Cream named Michael Koziol, who is in fact a current reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, and was an editor of Honi in 2012 worrying, as it is the SRC legal service that often provides guidance as to the legal risks of running particular stories in the paper.Cream were also unable to register that students and staff of the Faculty of Medicine have been facing eviction from the Anderson Stuart Building throughout the entirety of this year. Nor did they know the names of both Universities that have implemented the Ramsay Centres Bachelor of Western Civilisation. Were sure that both of these pieces of knowledge are well and truly within the ambit of reporting for students about things that impact them an aforementioned Cream policy but the groups actual knowledge of the things which are currently impacting students is incomplete.Creams quiz result ultimately demonstrates a tangible apathy towards prominent issues faced by students at the time of their candidacy issues which are likely to spill into their editorial term, should they be elected. That apathy is a politically-motivated outcome of a ticket more obsessed with the papers role in federal politics than student issues. Cream knew that prominent Liberal Julie Bishop had assumed the role of Chancellor at the Australian National University (ANU) recently, but incorrectly thought ANU had partnered with the Ramsay Centre.In tandem, Cream come across as being out of touch with Honi Soit. That may be because they might not read Honi Soit or because they dont like Honi Soit in its current form. Maybe they would like to change Honi Soit. All of this is their prerogative as a ticket. The point still stands that they fatally lack the requisite knowledge that forms the bulk of some of the policies they wish to espouse.View the questions from this years quizzeshere.Honi is hosting the annual Honi Debate on Monday 16 September from 1pm at Hermanns.Send Cream and Fit a question here.Got feedback or goss? Send us a tip. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Editors Pranay Jha and Liam Thorne are not involved in the 2019 coverage of the Honi Soit, NUS and SRC elections.A Chinese translation of this article can be found here.Quiz score: 68%SRC presidential candidate Liam Donohoe has been hailed as this years uniter of the broad left on campus. A self proclaimed mediocre debater, ex-editor of this most iconic of left student newspapers, student politics progressive hack and 2017 member of the General Executive under Isabella Brooks presidency. The reality of that unification, however, appears to be one of pragmatic opposition to the Liberals rather than ideological support for Donohoes cause.In a two-fold race perhaps more polarised than many in recent memory, the support of centre and centre left factions Unity (Labor Right) and NLS, who were evidently devoid of a suitable candidate, have appeared at a good time for Donohoe. In their lack of candidate, Donohoe has found an opportunity. But the factions continue to work disparately, with the ideology of Grassroots, what Donohoe deems the left and Switch, the centre left being the only exception to this factional separation. Notably, the Labor factions played no role in the development of Donohoes policies.Perhaps to bridge this gap, perhaps to make himself more electable, Donohoe has formed a campaign that seems to be just as much about providing student services as it is about supporting activism. This, he tells Honi, is the reason his faction moved to preselect him over Grassroots forerunner and 2019 Sexual Harassment officer Jazz Breen. In a departure from recent Grassroots candidates, Donohoe pointed to his experience managing Riverviews debating program, one line on his CV amongst more than 18 activist-related CV lines and a pledge to resource the collectives to ensure a comprehensive program of activism.Donohoes knowledge and appreciation for the structure and historical legacies of the SRC is a product of his longstanding proximity with the organisation as well as Grassroots immense institutional knowledge. He played an active, even explanatory role in Honis interview with him. When asked what the organisations most important achievement has been, he tactically avoided the activist-services distinction that has plagued Grassroots candidates in recent years, instead citing the SRC legal service. Donohoe later gave vague answers to a question about the Legal Services long standing governance issues. He also failed to identify which SRC service was misrepresented by incumbent Jacky He in an SRC report this year. But Donohoes positioning behind the SRC as a services-activism provider is strategic. On one hand, it serves to dampen right-of-centre criticisms that Grassroots is purely activist. On the other, it emphasises Donohoes branding as a fix for this years core services drawbacks, including the lawsuits, departures and upsets which have embroiled the Legal Service.Donohoes history with the institution are certainly a credit to his experience, but that history involves uncompromising relationships with other factions. While his politics have certainly changed since a brief flirtation with the Socialist Alternative back in 2016, Donohoe, who tells Honi he has embraced more pluralist attitudes, had heated exchanges and near-physical clashes with Panda and Liberal bloc late last year. In the event, Jakovacs bloc becomes opposition on next years Council, its hard not to see them returning the favour: pulling quorum, obstructing motions and complicating Donohoes overall policy agenda.Donohoes knowledge of emerging issues, including OLEs, is more limited than Jakovacs. That much is obvious from the fact that Donohoe could only name the widely-memed OLET1137 Australian Perspectives: Rugby League OLE in the quiz. Although no fault of his own that he is a student later in degree progression, that may highlight a weak point in Donohoes ability to advocate for younger students.The spirit of bipartisanship under a Donohoe presidency may survive, however, guided by historically popular policies like the implementation of a specialist sexual assault lawyer which attracted the support of numerous factions in 2017. Although practical circumstances have impeded these plans before including under Grants leadership in 2018, a vacancy in the Legal Services arm, increasing demand, combined with increased campus attention ahead of the 2020 national survey on student sexual assault may well bolster the prospects of this policy getting over the line.The rest of the policy agenda is well-considered, but suffers from several practical impediments. Donohoe wants to develop a free food bank, borrowing from OzHarvest, an organisation which students can already access. He has pledged regular stalls along major thoroughfares aimed at improving the SRCs visibility, but those ideas were loosely sketched and lacked the concreteness of a Welfare Week or Health Day, this years SRC outreach program at the Mallett Street Nursing Campus which Donohoe commended.Donohoe treaded carefully around the recent debates of sinophobia on university campuses, telling Honi its a very complex issue and Im not going to pretend I have all the answers. A testament to his maturity, Donohoe acknowledged that the international student concession campaign had elicited little material gains. Whilst he noted international students as one of the factors changing student interests in the last decade, he believed conditions had improved, telling Honi I think its easier, I dont know this for sure, to be an international student now than it has been previously.Having promised deferral of next years studies if elected, Donohoe has pledged to be a 5 day a week, 9-5 president, a welcome change from this year and a shame that it comes after our tragic departure.View the questions from this years quizzeshere.Honi is hosting the annual Presidential Debate on Wednesday 18 September from 1pm at Hermanns.Submit a question to your candidates here.Got feedback or goss? Send us a tip. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Editors Pranay Jha and Liam Thorne are not involved in the 2019 coverage of the Honi Soit, NUS and SRC elections.A Chinese translation of this article can be found here.Quiz score: 52%Like many before her, Josie Jakovac is a member of the Liberal Party who is running as a self-described Independent. To many, this will be no surprise. The so-called trend of Libdependence has pervaded student politics for some years now, particularly in the realm of the USU. Candidates touting this approach have often claimed to have separated their private political convictions from their candidacy for the sake of serving the interests of students. By now, it almost feels redundant to note this strategy, given its status as a permanent fixture in the Liberal playbook. For Jakovac, however, this kind of duality appears to be an unignorable feature of her candidacy.Take, for example, the issue of international student Opal card concessions. It goes without saying that the NSW Liberals have been unambiguously intransigent on the issue for some years now. During her interview, Jakovac was initially evasive when asked whether she would support efforts to lobby the state government to change its stance, purposely conflating a promise to advocate with a promise to deliver. Once the distinction between these two promises was properly established, Jakovac was still equivocal as to whether it was something she would support, promising only to lobby for international students. It was only after being presented with a hypothetical scenario in which the council specifically requested for this kind of advocacy did Jakovac concede that, if such a scenario arose, she would consider adopting a stance aligned with the efforts of international students.To this extent, Jakovacs promise that her own private political thoughts and opinions will have no sway on [her] presidency seem to ring true. For some, a willingness to concede when the interests of students and personal beliefs conflict will likely be genuinely commendable. This is similarly the case in Jakovacs commitment to maintain the autonomy of Honi Soit despite being a member of the Evangelical Union herself, Jakovac said that she would not have censored a controversial Honi cover published earlier this year which depicted the former Cardinal George Pell being hanged.Jakovacs willingness to separate her own interests from the demands of the job does not always manifest in entirely selfless ways, however. One example is the issue of time commitment. As of this year, the SRC President is paid an annual stipend of over $42,000 now above the equivalent of a minimum wage salary. Jakovac has declared that a central tenet of her policy platform is ensuring that for every dollar of their fees that the SRC spends, [students] feel a direct benefit. Despite this, Jakovac is quite honest in admitting that she harbours no intention to drop her study load whatsoever next year, committing already to a full time Commerce/Law schedule if elected. Jakovac dismissed concerns that her proposal performing two full-time commitments was physically impossible. This may nonetheless leave some voters unconvinced, given the size of the stipend and the expectations that come with the role.Perhaps one of the most notable examples of this recurring theme is the disparity between Jakovacs policy to stamp out racism and her own praxis. In July 2018, Jakovac lamented Croatias loss in the World Cup final, labelling the French national team Africa, a reference to the ethnicities of various players. Jakovac asserts that she was not aware of the offensive undertones of her statement at the time of making it (even going so far as to label her 2018 self a dumb kid), and has demonstrated to Honi that she was immediately contrite. Though its clear Jakovac has not and does not harbour any of the malice she is seeking to stamp out, it remains pertinent to ask whether she is best suited to carrying out such an ambitious task given the recency of her self-confessed lack of knowledge on the topic.Beyond this, Jakovac should be commended on the impressive upwards trajectory that has led her to her nomination for president. Having only been at uni for less than half the amount of time as her opponent, Jakovac has cultivated an impressive CV: shes been both a councillor and a member of the General Executive in this years SRC and is actively involved in a number of clubs and societies. As noted in our analysis of Donohoe, Jakovac displays a stronger ability to identify emerging issues facing younger students, for example Open Learning Environment units. Similarly, Jakovac displayed a more specific knowledge of the student sexual assault crisis than her opponent in the presidents quiz, correctly reciting statistics relating to the prevalence of the issue.As with any student election, voters in doubt would do best to make their way onto the campaign trail and seek out candidates to find the answers that these pages cannot provide them.View the questions from this years quizzes here.Honi is hosting the annual Presidential Debate on Wednesday 18 September from 1pm at Hermanns.Submit a question to your candidates here.Got feedback or goss? Send us a tip. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Editors Pranay Jha and Liam Thorne are not involved in the 2019 coverage of the Honi Soit, NUS and SRC elections.Stay tuned for Honis interviews with the presidential candidates and the results of the presidential and Honi quizzes.The cats out of the bag. The hacks are ready to descend upon Eastern Avenue and their socials are up and running. Theres no turning back now for the 79 tickets in this years SRC race.Honi knows that the beginning of online campaigning is an anarchic mix of last-minute photoshop and artificially excitable personas. It is, after all, the first hurdle for the contenders of the SRC race. Most brands have passed this test with flying colours (except Advances new brand Pro-Team, who failed to launch any public social media presence), but early exhaustion has set in for some, and it seems rather unvirtuous mistakes have been made. Were here to fact-check the main brands in this years race.PandaPanda has come a long way since its first foray into the electoral arena in 2017. For one thing, it has dropped Warriors from its name, and its page Panda for SRC 2020 has doubled its Facebook likes from 2017, jumping from 80 to 160. Beyond a video that appears to have been made using Windows Movie Maker, Panda claims that Jacky He was the SRCs first international student as president, a claim which is categorically wrong.Although He is the first to win the presidency with the support of a substantial international student base, he is a domestic student, he holds permanent residency and he went to high school in Sydney. Its not clear whether this error was made as a result of falsities told by He or whether it is an oversight made by a new generation of Panda campaigners.Pandas social media team seem to have realised this error because a WeChat article was amended to say He was the first chinese student who won the Presidential Campaign in the entire 91 years history of SRC, a claim which is, again, categorically incorrect. Vanessa Chan served as SRC President in 1979-1980. Some of these mistakes can be credited to the fact that Panda is a relatively new grouping and lacks the institutional knowledge of other more-established factions.Panda also alleges that it did a lot this year in its video without the specificity that other factions have given to setting out their historical records. In 2016, Labor brand Stand Up went as far as to publish a Buzzfeed community post outlining 10 things it claimed to have achieved for students. Pandas WeChat campaign cites the fact that it established the SRCs WeChat platform and hosted Orientation Week, a pizza and beer party, and a recent free breakfast event.Panda is contesting the election with the most tickets it has ever fielded, doubling to 10 from 5 in 2018, in a sign that it is gunning for the majority to lead the SRC alone, akin to what former SUPRA President Weihong Liang achieved with Infinity this year.Pandas WeChat presence is also up and running, helped along by an early article penned by the SRCs official WeChat page last week which claimed Panda represents all international students and omitted Advance. That article was taken down on request by Electoral Officer Casper Lu.Noticeably absent from socials is Panda-offshoot Cupcake which is being managed by current Panda Councillor and Wom*ns Officer Crystal Xu. Cupcake have promised Chinese breakfast on Eastern Avenue, hot water on every Fisher Library floor, free instant coffee before exams and a female leadership mentoring program.The Labor Factions (Pump and Unite)Right out of the gate are the Labor factions, whose socials are planned meticulously by caucuses every year. This year proves no exception. Pumps campaign materials, authorised by current SRC Education Officer James Newbold (NLS), are colourful and excitable. With promises as aspirational as lobbying to raise Newstart and cancelling OLEs, its fortunate some of Pumps policies, like advocating against the Universitys draft alcohol policy in order to Keep Happy Hour, and pledging Wom*ns spaces at satellite campuses, are on the more achievable side.Pump toes the Labor party line in a way which, if Labors current effectiveness is anything to go off, will face an uphill battle on campus as well. Conversely, Pumps campaign video is a walking, jogging, awkward forward-rolling high-spirited emulation of Fit for Honis sports-themed video. Pumps video features a cameo from USU Board Director Nick Forbutt and a few of yours trulys articles this year. Pump, like the presidential candidate it supports, promises an end to the organisational turbulence that has defined this years SRC.Speaking of toeing the ALP line, enter Unite. Aligned with Labors official student faction, Labor Right/Unity, Unite has promised policies which Liberals have advocated for in the SRC, including improved Wi-Fi on campus and ending Saturday exams. Unites policies are rounded out with a rhetorical flourish, headlined by its emphatic pledge to make USyd more compassionate. It remains unclear when Unite will begin doing this but were sure that this compassion wont begin on the hustings with annual SRC elections seen as far more contentious than semester 1s USU race.BoostBoost have opted for the format oft-favoured by presidential candidates with a conservative bent: drone shots of the Quadrangle, and closeup shots of several University of Sydney signs around campus, as if to mimic a promotional video made by the University itself.The video somehow goes for a whopping four minutes, and at times, it feels like Jakovac is trying to recite her entire policy document as fast as possible without stopping. We see a pastiche of candidates on Boost tickets who state their name and ticket name. We then segue into a commercial, Brand Power-esque presentation of her policies, with each appearing cleanly on the right of the screen as she explains them.Among the policies Jakovac describes in the Boost Your Studies section of the video, many already exist. Jakovac wants to provide lab coat loans to science students, but the SRC already offers lab coat loans theyre advertised alongside the nascent textbook subsidy program on the SRC website. Jakovac was supposedly involved in the implementation of that program, so one would think that she might already know this.Similarly, in the Boosting Student Welfare part of the video, Jakovac proposes new caseworkers for international students and satellite campuses. While the former idea has merit, Honi understands that SRC caseworkers do already make regular visits to satellite campuses.A bulk of the promises have comparative adjectives placed before them to denote some kind of improvement: more free counselling, better support for special consideration and credit point transfers, bigger welfare week and health days, and so on. As is evident, theres little explanation as to how anything will be more, better, or bigger.For example, the SRC doesnt provide mental health services (as we were all reminded after current SRC President Jacky He incorrectly stated the opposite in one of his Honi reports). Its uncertain how Jakovac will implement more free counselling services on campus will she lobby the University to employ more staff within CAPS? Even if she does lobby the University if elected, theres no guarantee that theyll do what she asks of them. Will she herself see to the employment of an in-house SRC counsellor? If so, where? There simply isnt enough physical office space in the SRC. There are a myriad of potential issues with this policy, none of which are addressed in this video. But there you go. More free counselling.What is probably the most bizarre part of the video is no doubt the thirty or so seconds devoted to international student issues, during which Jakovac, SRC President Jacky He, and a few others engage in a painfully awkward exchange of some kind of transcultural baked good we cant tell whether its a cookie, a brownie, or a chocolate truffle.Having borrowed a brand name used in lacklustre campaigns of old (see: veteran hack Cameron Caccamos 2011 disaster and Chloe Smiths effectively uncontested 2015 campaign), we can only give Jakovacs Boost our best wishes.The Left Bloc (Grassroots and Switch)The Left Bloc has taken the thematically consistent stance of using the same display photo, albeit with different colourations. The photos employ high school visual analysis techniques, using vector lines to draw a viewers eyes to Liam Donohoe backlit by the afternoon sun and on higher ground than the F23 Admin Building, the home of University power. Make of that what you will. Switchs social presence is decidedly and unashamedly activist. In its first two days, Switch has called for donations to the Djab Wurrung Embassy and also condemned the Monash Student Unions decision to lock out international students from running in the annual election.Grassroots page follows a very similar tone, although student services have been given greater prominence in its video with an emphasis on better legal services and better mental health services. According to their video, the only similarity between the Left Bloc and its opponents including the Liberals and the Ramsay Centre is a penchant for three-word slogans. Independent, activist and experienced. Perhaps, not all three are entirely true in Grassroots case. Donohoe told Honi in his interview that he couldnt remember whether he was still a member of the Greens, having attained membership to take part in internal party ballots. However, by all measures, his membership would have expired a year ago if he failed to renew it.Pro-TeamAdvances new brand, Pro-Team, has yet to come out with public socials at the time of publication. Their only presence has been isolated to private posts like that made by USU Honorary Secretary Decheng Sun.Pro-Team has either labelled itself or Liam Donohoe the true progressive one, its unclear to us.Please also support my best friend Liam Donohoe for SRC president. I dare say hes a person who understands how exactly SRC can help students to the largest extent but with minimum cost. Although from a Caucasian background, he fights so hard against racism, Sun said in his Facebook post.Cream for HoniCreams campaign has begun with lactose-induced enthusiasm. At least we know these wannabe editors are willing to put in the hard yards, and by that we mean cover themselves in food. Cream may hope the theatricalities of this dessert-themed stunt will distract from the fact that they still have no experience writing for the very paper they wish to edit, and seem to have no plans to stack their Honi CVs in the coming weeks.For one thing, this video is certainly enthusiastic. Theres a collective energy that suggests a united front in the push to revamp this paper to something very different to what it currently is. In this completely visual montage devoid of voiceover, Cream turns inwards in a policy game that will look to highlight Clubs and Societies, introduce love letters and provide study tips and tricks for students. If this team are to be our new editors, students may end up with an eerie hybrid publication next year of USU news outlet PULP, the USyd Love Letters Facebook page and C&S newsletters.Sporty coverage is a high priority for Cream. They promise to work with Sydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF), an organisation subject to an ICAC complaint as well as a long-running Honi investigation into everything from its major governance changes to its funding allocations.Creams fast-paced debut screening is no doubt effective, as is their quality cover photo. The brand of this campaign is well-planned despite their teams policies and quiz results leaving a little to be desired. That salmon pink campaign colour and the fanciful, fun allusion to all things sweet may nevertheless be timely with the emergence of Spring. We would also like to ask why this team would even consider putting whipped cream on a cornchip. Its not a dip.We might add that Creams video and their pastel colour scheme are reminiscent of the culinary mood of one such Spice campaign from back in the day. But culinary concerns aside, its obvious to us that Cream member Ben Hewitt has had cream photoshopped onto his face in Creams cover photo. The photoshop job, perhaps symptomatic of a lack of Adobe competency on Cream, is as glaringly obvious as it is different to Fits cover photo, who we can be sure have at least all met before the campaigns commencement. Logistically speaking, Creams socials havent been very coordinated, with ticket members applying frames to old DPs before rolling out new display photos a day after.Creams ice cream branding also reminds us of 2016 establishment ticket Scoop. But as a ticket with almost no engagement with Honi, its possible that Creams thematic allusion is unintentional, especially since members of the ticket have described this paper as pretty trash.Well the first to admit that Cream has gone the extra mile. We only ate our chillies after all.Fit for HoniFits contribution to the online campaign race is a nostalgic Lets Get Physical plan for a newspaper in seven aerobic exercises. Though we appreciate their ode to the classic tracksuit, we cant help but find similarities in their sporty logo to previous Stupol campaigns. Retired USU Secretary Claudia Gulbransen-Diaz reached her USU board victory in 2017 with a fiery red muscle logo, that Fit might as well have just inverted on Photoshop. As weve mentioned, the logo also matches that of 2016 UTS Vertigo Campaign Flex.Fits branding isnt the only thing that feels eerily familiar. Most of their promises are not daringly original more news, more multimedia content, more multilingual. Fit hopes to reintroduce an Honi podcast but weve beaten them to it, having brought Rag Off to life only a matter of weeks ago. Their other promises of multilingual content, GIPA workshops, an events section, a comedy revival and video content are also recycled from previous tickets. Fits objectives seem based around continuing pre-existing parts of Honi, rather than coming up with new ideas. When they do have more novel policies, they seem questionable in terms of practicality or necessity. A paid Honi Soit delivery service? Would anyone pay for a free student newspaper when digital copies are readily available on various online platforms?Like many a fun-filled aerobics class, Fits video looks to ensure that its participants will be satisfied with their gainss. One other promise suggests that the Fit team will be raising their heart rates and ensuring that all Honi editions are delivered to every satellite campus, even though satellite campuses already receive copies of Honi.With this promise to bring Honi to satellite campuses and another commitment to platforming more student performance, one would assume that their Conservatorium member, Grace Johnson, will be a major voice in the development of this satellite campus reportage. However, Johnson is notably absent from this weeks fitness class, not featuring in the video at all. Furthermore, Fits two international students are pigeonholed into a twelve-second segment on the multilingual section.The vintage joketastic fanfare of Matthew Forbes out-of-sync audio is, we have to say, a little daggy though its inclusion does thematically match the 1980s splendour of Fits exercise routine. Perhaps this means we should expect some brilliant video coverage from this ticket or perhaps this only reflects the introduction of some fairly flimsy comedy. Only time will tell.Polling opens on campus between 24 and 26 September.Got complaints? Send us mail at Editors@honisoit.comWant to sue us? The SRC Legal Service is closed so nows your chance! Write to our lawyers at Editors@honisoit.com Got tea? Send us an anonymous tip here. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The first line in Aracelis Girmays poem & begins with the symbol itself: & isnt the heart an ampersand / magnet between the seconds of days. She relates the ampersand to a longing for connection. She calls it a mouth, a muscle. A highway. In an interview with The Rumpus, she revealed that the ampersand reminded her of the quickness in the Spanish y. As an Eritrean-Puerto Rican-African American writer, Girmay is a woman of many cultures. For her, and many other marginalised writers, the ampersand represents multiplicity within itself.Greedy mouth,Hungry machine, timeMachine. Round & plum-ish in its parts, beautifulanimal whose limbscross strangeMy fascination with ampersands began with this poem. In my copy of Kingdom Animalia, a single blue sticky-note is eternally stuck to its corner, as a constant reminder of the colossal greatness in something small. I began to look at poetry as more than words, more than feelings. The lines of each stanza were little buildings rising out of the earthly spine; every ampersand, a window. They started to appear in poems of my own first out of mimicry, then out of necessity. Adhering to literary conventions meant that the ampersand was absent in my formal writing. I associated it purely with poetry, where the words belonged wherever I put them, for whatever reason. Intuition. A gut-feeling: I liked how it looked in print. How it took its shape through softness, a fluid line dancing around twin curves. I also felt quite fond of conjunctions, as the loneliest words, always needing to connect. But there was more to this than an aesthetic choice, and I was drawn to its recurring presence in poems by writers of colour.In &, Girmay draws the link between our lives and the symbol that signifies closeness. The ampersand suggests either disruption or proximity; binding words closer together, while also disrupting the natural flow of letters. Its use remains heavily contested in contemporary poetry. As the only symbol in a line of letters, its effect is unsettling, and sometimes isolating. This feeling of displacement is explored in diasporic writing, often through the use of unconventional literary techniques by authors seeking to disrupt the traditional norm. Although the ampersand can simply be read as a tool of discomfort, its existence in poetry particularly poetry from the peripheries is much more layered and complex.The ampersand began as a character formed through two letters joined together, also known as a ligature. Another definition for ligature is the act of binding, or the thread used to stitch a blood vessel. In its very conception, the ampersand evokes images of the heart and the living body. In its shape, it curls around itself. As Girmay poses, the heart would rather die than keep its two arms all to himself. The ampersand therefore represents the middle space between connection and duality.This notion of multiplicity is central to intersectional feminist theory. In Borderlands/La Frontera, Chicana feminist Gloria Anzalda critiques the Western philosophy of a divided self that is manifested through hyphenating ones identity. The opposing state is the new mestiza, a plural being with the tolerance for ambiguity. It redefines borders in the formation of a unified identity, encompassing culture, gender, race, and sexuality. The ampersand itself is a vehicle for hybridity, illuminated by the language of marginalised writers. It represents a shared feeling through the light of liminal spaces, with an almost unspeakable presence.In Immigrant Haibun, Ocean Vuong simply states, Sometimes I feel like an ampersand. Feelings and memories are expressed, not through words, but through a single symbol that is a paradox within itself. What does it mean to feel like an ampersand? From a distance, Vuongs poems explore migration and collective trauma. A closer reading reveals phrases that are painfully stitched together with a tenderness for life and living. His poem Untitled (Blue, Green, and Brown) unfolds on the day of the 9/11 attacks, while also reflecting on the deaths and drug addictions of Vuongs queer friends. He relates personal and public grief in a way that transpires intimacy. His lines are always sharp with impact in the quietest way, like the tension of a blunt knife pressing against skin that refuses to break: I only earned one life. & I took nothing.Separated by both an ampersand and a full stop, the two contrasting proclamations have a unique relationship. Replacing the ampersand with and seems to imply that there is a thought and an action. I only earned one life, and I took nothing. I am this, and this is the result. However, the ampersand does not only allow unity in contradiction; it simply serves no contradiction. The two fragments on opposite sides of the ampersand exist through each other. It is not a consequence, or an action, but a very natural parallel between two individual concepts. The ampersand becomes both the bridge and the water. Visually, the words are placed closer together. Yet there is a feeling of separation in the heavy placement of the ampersand between life and I. There is the danger of collapse. Always, the danger of collapse.As a queer woman of colour, my poetry often reflects images I associate with my own life constructed through fragments and a constant desire to connect. Like the ampersand, we measure both distance and intimacy. The body becomes a site of conflict. Every word, an outstretched hand. Lonely in the most abstract ways. Sometimes, I feel like an ampersand. There are so many questions that follow this sentence. Maybe it answers itself. There is no finality to the ampersand; it is always open to what comes after. We try to make sense of a symbol with no sound, we fold it into language. You read it aloud and the meaning is lost. And, and, and, its lesser self. Sometimes, I feel unspoken. Sometimes, I feel like I am waiting for something that will never come. An unfocused image. No end, or beginning. Still, the running heart, the moving line. Twin lovers holding each other, arms sheltering myself. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres an old photograph from the late 60s that sits atop my parents lounge room windowsill. Its a snapshot of my mother, her two sisters and their cousin as children. In the snapshot they are sitting on a park bench, their hair is amess in the wind. Theyre staggered in frozen movements, one laughs and the other smiles directly into the camera. Separated by only a few years, theyre already completely distinct despite having spent their whole lives together. This photograph in particular is almost iconic in my mums family. There seems to be a copy in all of the four subjects houses. You could call it one of our familys most popular primary historical sources.My mothers family are eager conversationalists; the stories told and retold around Christmas fried potatoes and brandied pudding are connected in a multiplicity of repetitive and benign ways. As a group we are absurd in our normality arguments are passionate and ridiculous, political views are disparate. A myriad of careers, passions and temperaments amass together in an intricate map like all families. As a network, we all find comfort in hearing stories about our relatives; my mother and her siblings and cousins never seem more connected than when theyre discussing their shared histories. These conversations can last for hours despite the very obvious truth that the next generation have heard almost all of them before.A few months ago my mother received a phone call. Our cousin had been contacted by a woman from Melbourne who shared the same mother as the rest of the five siblings in our family. At birth, shed been separated by force from her mother, my grandmother, and adopted out at the request of my great grandfather under the 50s societal expectation that wom*n were not to have and keep children out of wedlock. My grandmother was taken to a home for unwed pregnant wom*n. She would keep this confidential from her whole family even after the day she died. The news of a new relative spread very quickly amongst my tight knit network of relatives with confusion and a blurred combination of excitement and bewilderment. This woman, my aunt, had found us through the online genealogy website, Ancestry.com.Most members of our family, before then, had not crossed into the online world of hereditary curiosity. We seemed content, perhaps naively so, in our own circle of first hand stories. These, to us, were considered the whole truth. One of my mothers cousins however, in her curiosity to submit an Ancestry DNA sample would leave a trail that allowed our long lost relative to identify and eventually approach us.***Genealogical websites have become a kind of pastime for thousands of Australians. They are a blurred hybrid of social media and historical archive wrapped up in an image of transformation, verisimilitude and a leafy green logo. There are various reasons that people are moving in to these networks to map their own online family trees. Most join out of easy curiosity; no expectations and no considerations. For some, my aunt included, these websites are a small part of a long period of research and discovery.The genealogical websites available have harnessed a mass market of emotional, hereditary inquisitiveness, or what journalist John Seabrook calls the comfort of connectivity, to create a business that is internationally thriving. Like any business venture, the organisation works in correlation with a range of external stakeholders. Users are promised travel discounts to visit ancestral hometowns or meet distant relatives with Airbnb, they gain access to external archives through their subscription to these websites and are used to promote the work of academics. Recently, Spotify and Ancestry collaborated on a project that offers users a playlist based on their own Ancestry.com research. It offers a soundtrack of their heritage. Currently, Spotify does not have individual access to users DNA and customers can manually input regions, into the playlist generator, Ancestry.com outlined in a statement to Quartz. Regardless, its hard to ignore the trivialisation of family bloodline and heritage in these sites.In particular, the most marketable element of this global program is its now major direct-to-consumer genetic DNA testing project. For $129, users can send in a sample cup of their urine to an Ancestry lab that will in theory, use genetic variations to identify percentages of cultural heritage. The website suggests these discoveries mean something particularly meaningful to each individual. They suggest that everyone will learn something individualistic and that these percentages are always accurate.One of the real flaws inherent in these programs is the way the organisation simplifies the intricacies inherent in cultural and racial difference. By sending in your sample, Ancestry.com offers the opportunity to discover your ethnic mix. Even though someone, as told by Ancestry, may have a 2% heritage connection to a culture other than Caucasian, this does not mean they have experienced the cultural disadvantages or limitations experienced by that cultural group. Ancestry has, as of yet, not made any steps to rectify this element of the program and educate those users investing in the genetic testing available. In fact, at present it continues to encourage them.In April of this year, Ancestry.com removed a video advertisement after it reached viral infamy as a culturally insensitive and whitewashed depiction of African-American slavery. The video, set in the antebellum South in 1857, told a revisionist love story of a African American slave running away with her white oppressor. The Ancestry title read: uncover the lost chapters of your family history. Being a genealogical website, this organisation failed to account for the fact that wom*n of colour in these contexts were subject to rape and violence from white men, not love, and that escaping to the North would have made no difference to the way this woman was treated in the late 1800s. It also suggested that the only way African American wom*n could escape slavery was with the help of a white male saviour and ultimately ignores any understanding of intergenerational trauma. This ad is also particularly misleading because at least for the Australian Ancestry.com website, the archives and materials available to users remain mostly white-centric, distinctly connected to the histories of white convicts and their families. For people of colour, there remains far less archival information available to them for discovery.Just as the organisation simplifies its depiction of identity and culture, it also somewhat subversively advertises itself in a way that projects aspects of discovery, transformation and learning that ignores the emotional and trying issues that often come with finding lost family members and understanding familial trauma. For many users, an enjoyable learning experience is all Ancestry.com will turn out to be. A game as such, an opportunity to figure out which family member owned an extravagant townhouse in the English highlands or why and how their great, great, great grandfather divorced his wife. But predominantly, the structure of these networks fails to warn or limit the behaviour of its users. Privacy in this context is a real issue. Of course everyone has a right to know their background, but the open forum nature of these networks propels families into a world in which nothing remains secret.A friend of mine began looking into her and her partners ancestry a few months ago through an online genealogical website. When she enthusiastically explained this to her partners grandmother, she was met with an anxious reaction and a request to discontinue her research. There are stories and networks in families that are still yet to be explained. Ancestry.com, as a global enterprise, can reveal these stories before families are ready to hear or speak of it. This becomes particularly damaging when DNA genetic testing can reveal the distressing health issues of families before that network have had a chance to discuss it.There are limitations to this website that transfer across class, race and age. If these materials are online, they should be available to everyone, not trapped behind a particularly expensive paywall that limits discoveries to a select wealthy and computer literate few. The network itself, a digital interface of thousands of archives and DNA materials is still an online platform, and as such, still at risk of hacking. There is a strange tension in these networks that conceals information from those who deserve to see it and leaves that information at risk of being accessed by those who should not have it.Clearly there is a certain way that this platform should be used. Despite the way Ancestry.com mass produces results, and the fact that the accuracy of these sites remain unproven, they still helped my aunt in her attempt to connect with us because she used the limited tools available to her to confirm information she already knew. She may have discovered us through the genealogical networks of my cousins DNA submission, but when it comes to the important archival materials: family photos, histories and stories, it will be up to us, her family, to describe their significance. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Throughout 2019, the University of Sydney (USyd) has been working on a draft update to its current Alcohol Policy. First created in 1992, and last updated ten years ago, the policy leaves much to be desired. Declaring an intent to minimise alcohol-related harm to the individual [and to] property, and to preserve the reputation of the University in the community, it does not specify ways to achieve harm-minimisation, or passages to follow should someone breach the policy.The draft released to the University community for consultation thus comes as a necessary change. Yet there are good reasons to mistrust the proposed changes. Despite espousing to better secure student safety, many of the details appear paternalistic in their restrictions of what adults can drink at university, and come without the support of much needed broader and more rigorous attempts to attack cultures of sexual assault. In prioritising alcohol consumption as a means to make campuses safer, policy discussions continue to err away from deeper sexual assault cultures.The core of the draft recognises alcohol as creating risks in university-environments. This makes sense; even over the past four years, Australian universities and their residential colleges have been lambasted for their structural failings to prevent sexual violence in their premises. The 2017 AHRC National Report on Sexual Assault and Harassment surveyed over 30,000 students, and found that a number of students described alcohol being used by the perpetrator to commit sexual assault or sexual harassment. Moreover, a deeply concerning picture emerged about the role of alcohol in college and university residences.On the face of it, the draft policy seems to make positive inroads into making campuses safer. Unlike the previous policy, a misconduct process is explicitly engaged should the alcohol policy be breached. It, for example, specifically prescribes disciplinary action for any action intended to impede an individuals right to choose not to consume alcohol. The draft also aligns USyd policy with NSW criminal law, establishing that, Intoxication will not be considered as a defense or as a mitigating factor in any disciplinary action against a student or staff member. Moreover, the draft provides definitions for the specific obligations of members of staff, be it university staff, or bar managers and senior managers, regarding their responsibility for students welfare.Beyond these initiatives, however, the efficacy of the draft in making campuses safer for students falls into significant doubt. For one, the foremost actionable policy resulting from the draft is a possibly paternalistic ban on the sale of more dangerous forms of alcohol. It laybacks, slammers, blasters, shots or bombs ready to drink pre-mixed spirit products with more than 5 per cent alcohol, and mixed drinks with more than 30ml of spirits or liqueur. In addition, events may no longer provide more than one free drink to any student outside of a meal, which if enforced, would likely significantly impose upon clubs and societies that hold, for example, weekly subsidised drinks as a meeting place for their members.Honi spoke to End Rape On Campus (EROC) Australia co-director Nina Funnell regarding this element of the policy. While also welcoming some of the drafts initiatives, Funnell posed questions for the core of the drafts policies.It is important to realise that alcohol doesnt rape people, people rape people, Funnell said.If we want to prevent sexual violence, we must tackle the factors driving it: gender inequality, a need for proper consent training, and tackling the power and entitlement of those who perpetrate sexual violence.Funnell posited that the draft did not go far enough in its requirements for staff or student training in consent, or in requiring staff to be useful bystanders: training staff to be first-responders to sexual assault, and in how to interfere in moments of drink-spiking.More broadly, while the University did implement a compulsory Consent Matters Module for students to complete in 2017, it has been met with significant criticism over how effective its design is: while compulsory, the module can be opted-out-of; not being a face-to-face training, there is no way to guarantee active engagement with its content; and it is neither evidence based nor specific to Australian contexts.Funnell stressed that in approaching alcohol-related sexual misconduct, or violence, blanket bans make no change to deeper cultural problems. The insufficiencies of the policy in its impact on deeper cultural reform are no more stark than in the absence of any policy pertaining towards residential colleges. While a University spokesperson explained that we consulted closely with the residential colleges in developing the draft and invited all colleges to take up the policy in full, the fact that colleges like St Pauls or St Johns do not legally exist on university lands, and have distinct governance councils, mean that the alcohol policy has no influence over them.While the University attempted to assuage Honis concerns by stressing that all residential colleges and the University are signatories to the Liquor Accord, which governs the sale and consumption of alcohol on our lands, existing research suggests such a stance is insufficient. In 2018, Funnell and 2016 USyd SRC Wom*ns Officer and current PhD candidate Anna Hush authored the Red Zone Report into Australian residential colleges, detailing a long history of students suffering at colleges. Importantly, the report stresses that, whereas other reports like Elizabeth Brodericks review of cultural change at St Pauls have an overarching focus on alcohol and binge drinking culture, rather than rape culture or toxic masculinity, we must remember that, alcohol is not a cause of sexual assault, although it may often be a contributing factor, or a tool, used by perpetrators.This year alone, despite St Pauls having espoused in its Cultural Reform Review to have largely removed hazing rituals from its halls, Honi reported that St Pauls College Anzac Day hazing rituals still occurred, encouraging drinking-till-vomiting, and consuming spirits from a live squid.If you really want to address sexual assault, when you have students with pro-rape groups [like St Pauls College in 2009], you can have the best alcohol policy in the world but it wont change the attitudes of problematic men, Funnell said. Cultural change must include reforming how individuals are educated and must target their leadership.It is positive that the draft makes attempts to fill in the dire inadequacies of the current policy, however at its core, it remains unable to move beyond the availability of alcohol as primary explanation for negative campus behaviours. Ultimately, the draft alcohol policy USyd is circulating makes no firm commitment to impose cultural reform regarding the place of alcohol in residential colleges, or broader universities.The University told Honi that it was currently working on a toolkit to help students and staff implement the policy. How impactful a few workshops can be on ingrained patterns of male-privilege and alcohol-abuse, however, remains to be seen. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It is well established in the media that international students face certain disadvantages in Western universities, especially to do with language. This is an obvious drawback in situations where students are required to participate in class, give marked presentations, and submit academic essays. But how does this go in a music degree, where most international students are admitted on a performance basis? Despite most students being talented performers, and with the university generally having a high English requirement (IELTS 6.5), there is still a dis-advantageous gap of understanding for some students, even when studying the so-called universal language of music.Recently, teachers across the Conservatorium created a new expectation for students to address their audience before they perform, including introducing the work and the composer. Previously, students would simply walk on stage, perform, bow, then leave. The new expectation was introduced to keep in line with current practices in concert halls and chamber settings.Briefly discussing the work prior to performance benefits the audience in the way that it offers some history, context, understanding, and perhaps key things to listen out for, such as structural diversions or interesting tonalities. But playing to professors and fellow students in a class setting, this practice compels performer to understand, at least partially, the background of any given musical work. This is extremely different to the way most East Asian students were taught, which make up the majority of the piano cohort, at least. There is less emphasis on holistic learning about music and more about striving to achieve the end result playing, rather than complete understanding. This is doubly difficult for international students not yet fluent in English, since they are able to perform the piece flawlessly, yet they are unable to introduce their piece at a level the teachers/markers find acceptable, let alone eloquently express their interpretation of the pieces meaning.Tertiary education often comes as a shock. We leave the guided instruction of our secondary teachers and we are suddenly expected to engage in discourse and independent research. At the Conservatorium, it first comes in doses, perhaps which edition of the score you choose. Shortly into your degree however, alongside theoretical and historical study, you are confronted with a huge responsibility of the choices you are expected to make within your performances. You are expected to interpret the piece according to historical convention but also to justify your choices, like bringing out certain melodies over others or choosing a particular tempo.This is encouraged by teachers predominantly through descriptive or metaphorical language, and you are also expected to express independent thought. While there are obvious limitations between English-speakers and international students, this goes beyond language barriers and into the very conception of learning, practice, and the music itself.I spoke to Wendy Chen, a student from Hainan in the Music Studies degree, majoring in classical piano. She talked to me about overcoming such differences.The main problem is as a Chinese, the way I think is different to Western people and those academic words that appeared in the class. We have totally different ways to think and express.Wendy described the different styles of teaching she encountered: in Hainan, teachers would typically explain their meaning through playing any particular passage or instructing the student to play louder or softer here. But coming to the Sydney Conservatorium, and learning from a European teacher, she said, You need to have a good understanding of English, he always uses metaphors. I was super confused about what he was trying to teach me, when he asked me to stay in the garden and think. I didnt know what he said, he just wrote down all he wanted me to know and I used Google to translate after class.I learnt from the same teacher for some time, who often told me to not over-practise and instead to watch the grass grow That will do more for you than another hour of practice. This seems to stem from a well-known quote attributed to concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein:Never practice more than three or four hours a day. No one can concentrate longer than that, and you must spend the rest of your time learning about life and love and art and all the other wonderful things in the world. If a young person sits in the practice room all day, what could he possibly have to express in his music?This is a completely different mindset to those trained to believe that only diligence and academic rigour leads to success. On this, I spoke to Ryan Tu, an international student in his fourth year of the Horn Performance degree.So, back in my hometown, I had a pretty straight forward music education. It is like, do whatever the teachers tell you. Like the teacher tells me to learn a piece, I learn a piece. You kind of rely on the teachers a lot. But after coming here, the teachers would actually ask, why do you want to learn that piece? How do the different notes and phrases function in the music? Like how all the little details fit into each other. I think it gave me a more in-depth insight into music and more freedom to learn.The history of different composers and their pieces were one of my biggest difficulties when I started studying in Sydney. Back in Hong Kong, I only learned the surface of their backgrounds. After coming here, there is a lot to learn.Unlike a mathematics or engineering degree, where there is less reference to meaning and language, the way we learn, play, and perceive music, is heavily informed by our language and culture. While there are increasing numbers of international students in Australian universities and more Western teachers, and even institutions, there remains a divide in communication that even music cannot always reconcile. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For the past month I have spent most of my time building for the Student General Meeting, and for the next week I shall spend most of my time building for the climate strike. But why?The odds may seem, at times, stacked against us, with the capitalist destruction of this entire planet looming larger each day. Im sure many of us feel disheartened hearing about Scomos government forcing through appalling plans to expand Australias gas industry. The only way to confront these climate crimes is by building a mass movement of the working class, and for us that starts here on campus. The SGM and the large-scale building efforts are simply the first steps in creating the opposition necessary to bring about a much needed green revolution.As we would all know by now the SGM was an incredible success, largely thanks to the relentless efforts of our members on campus over the past month. We stalled and postered every single day, and waged a strong propaganda war against the university in the final days before the meeting. We also called every single name that signed the petition for the SGM, and although not everybody that confirmed over the phone ended up attending, it was still important to create a solid base of support. The sheer scale of building required proved draining for many of us, but it was all worth it when it was announced that we had made the quorum of 200 people.The vote ended up passing unanimously with 227 students voting in favour (with supporters in the room taking us to over 250). At the time the SGM was meant to start, I was worried that we werent going to pull this off. We started with what seemed to be less than 50 people, and I was still yelling on the megaphone desperately trying to get more people to join us. When the march began, I still wasnt confident, but all that changed when I looked back and saw over 100 people behind me. At that moment, I knew that the building had been worth it. As Ive been reflecting over the past week or so, one question has stuck in my mind: what if it didnt work? Would the building have been worth it?Ive reached the conclusion that yes, it still would have been worth it. Building isnt just about getting numbers to one event, its about politicising society (or in this case the campus) and laying the foundations for a mass movement. On that last day before the SGM, you couldnt walk ten metres without seeing a poster for the meeting, or an announcement scribbled in huge chalk writing. We won the propaganda war. The university couldnt keep up with how fast we were spreading the word. That, for me personally, is the real win; that we started with a few of us on sparse stalls, and ended with a movement that had more willpower than the university had resources.The struggle obviously doesnt stop with the SGM. It also wont stop with the climate strike on May 21. Its time to use the collective power that we have built to generate even more collective power; to exponentially grow this movement. I believe that on-campus building will be the most important part. We will be in every lecture, poster every surface, chalk every flower pot. We will be out there every day until May 21 and every day after, until our movement becomes strong enough to overthrow this capitalist system.It may seem foolish to think that we can change the course of history with a stack of leaflets, some posters, and a handful of chalk, however, I strongly believe that this is where real change starts. So Id encourage you all to give it a shot, to take some power back in a very real way, and to make a change. It was the Lorax who put it best when he said Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. Its not. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I alongside several of my classmates recently had the privilege of visiting the Wandiyali Environa Wildlife Sanctuary in Queanbeyan, on the doorstep of Canberra. Our expedition to this privately owned, 400 hectare sanctuary provided our company with unexpected insights into the process of land restoration, and demonstrated how the efforts of just a single family, has made incredible progress in healing the deep scars of colonialism on a natural ecosystem.Upon arriving at the sanctuary, our band of nine was soon herded to the crest of a hill, where we had a spectacular view of the surrounding lands, including an ephemeral wetland that had been created following the heavy rains earlier this year. At this point, we fragmented into smaller clusters, and soon were all immersed in deep conversation with different members of the proprietary family, myself included. It was at this moment that I was acutely made aware of the indigenous legacy of the land.Right over there is a ring tree. Thats when the First Nations peoples would bind young saplings, and let them fuse together over time. We really dont know why this particular ring tree was created, but it still survives after 400 years.These words, whilst uttered casually, drove home the tragic loss of heritage, which had remained unbroken for 60,000 years. Our guide, David, continued on about the loss of native culture, and destruction of vegetation, that had transpired during the colonisation of the area. First Nations stories were lost alongside the undergrowth that housed Bettongs. Age-old legends disappeared with the creatures that inspired them. And yet, the tragedy did not seem to cause either of us pain. Because, we could see, for the first time in 200 years, this area of land once again provided habitats for Bettongs, and havens for wallabies. Great logs, and branches had been hauled in from highway developments, providing new homes for these once-prolific marsupials. The by-products of colonial expansion had been re-purposed to slowly heal this fractured ecosystem. And it was this resilient spirit of restoration that gave me hope that we still have a chance to heal this world.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Almost exactly three years ago, I published an anonymous feature article in Honi Soit. Three weeks ago, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the events described in that article. I didnt know it at the time, but my nervous system was immobilised at the time of writing. Since then, my brain has ping-ponged between anxiety and shutdown. Today six years into my undergraduate studies I have whiplash.In a nutshell, the article described the experience of having my drink spiked, hooking up with three guys, and emerging from a blackout on the Story Bridge. The police found me walking into oncoming traffic, braless and not wearing any underwear or boots.When I collected a print copy of my story in Honi, I was surprised by an inclusion from the editors, cw: sexual assault. I didnt know the editors would label my experience sexual assault. Sure, the night I wrote about involved some form of sexual conduct (I still dont know the specifics). A content warning made sense. But I did not set out to write a sexual assault article.I set out to write about leaving a hospital in donated sandals. Of going through the motions after life-threatening trauma. About why the legalisation of same-sex marriage reminds me of the worst day of my life. And how it feels to rely on your friends, without asking too much. The purpose of narrating my experience was to resist simplification.It took the next three years for someone to convince me that I had been the victim of a serious offence. There was no point conducting a drug test or rape kit at the hospital because there was no case. I know my case would not hold up in a court of law. The ethical definition of consent never crossed my mind. Since then, the most revolutionary thing my therapist said to me is: Proof doesnt matter. Your body knows what happened.Three years ago, I wrote:On Sunday, I re-order my favourite leather boots the ones I was wearing that night and never would have removed of my own accord. They arrive three days later. Wearing them when I return to the police station weeks later feels like a stupid, stamping victory.In those boots, I have travelled solo, earned a Bachelor of Arts, and moved house twice. But I havent trusted myself to function since 2018. In the original article, I asked whether autopilot or stoicism is the healthiest reaction to trauma. Unsurprisingly, volunteering at a refugee camp in northern France wasnt the ideal response. I have deflected, compounded, and ultimately failed to effectively process my trauma.Perhaps this is why the events of 2018-19 surfaced with such force after lockdown.At the start of this semester, social interactions began to spark intense dissociation. I would scan the Seymour Centre foyer before an identity revue and shut down. Everyone I saw reminded me of a precursor, a missing memory. What happened? Micro and macro-traumas converge. I try to connect the milestones:2015 High school, accepting that I dont like boys, so love is not for me.2016 Telling my best friend I love her in the Cellar Theatre.2017 Returning a bag of belongings, blank stare: I feel no urgency to be your friend again.2018 The police shake me from a drug haze on the Bridge and drive me to the hospital.2019 A warehouse in Calais, learning that a young Eritrean boy from our camp froze to death on a lorry last night.Returning to Sydney. Returning to the motions. To a global pandemic.I dont remember signing up for this timeline.When I spell out this sequence, it becomes clear that every moment of reckoning is connected. My psychologist changed everything by confirming that PTSD is compounded by developmental and vicarious trauma. She explains the polyvagal theory, which suggests why individuals with PTSD end up ping-ponging between shutdown and anxiety. Clinical psychologist Dr Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, explains why individuals can experience shutdown and dissociation in response to a life-threatening trauma. For me, feeling shutdown meant feeling frozen in time: despite everything that has happened in the last five years, in many ways I still feel 19 years old. As I write this, I realise that time is starting to un-freeze.Levine advises that emerging from the shutdown response can require a shudder to awaken the nervous system. My psychologist has warned me that this shudder means transitioning up the ladder from depression, to anxiety, to eventually feeling normal again. I like the ladder metaphor, and I like the ping pong metaphor. They make the mental fuckery of PTSD seem universal and manageable.Ping-pong explains why I still loiter around Courtyard Caf and resent my corporate job.Ping-pong explains the envy of watching my peers from 2016-17 start their lives.Ping-pong explains the self-doubt, the impulsive decisions.Every 20-something plays ping-pong.My experiences may be unique but my feelings are not. Everyone carries baggage. Self-pity is unproductive. One must rationalise, refuse to wallow.And yet some nights are hard. Some nights I cry myself to sleep, unable to breathe or explain my pain to my partner. After nights like these, I read my original article in search of something solid. In search of proof of the events that changed my brain.Today, I add this postscript. This feels important because, unlike law courts and hospitals, nuance is guaranteed in these pages. If I get the words right, the lived experience stays on the record. This is the value of testimony. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dominic Knight doesnt want you to read this book: he said as much at the Honi reporter induction. I cant imagine Penguin is thrilled about his active dissuasion of the only possible market for a yarn about USyds annual SRC presidential race, but so strong was his campaign against his own book that they got a sale out of me.Knight is not being humble: the book isnt great. The terrace facades of the inner city streets are better sketched than the characters who traipse them, and the politicking reeks of a garden variety Canberra drama (which in effect, it is). Reading it feels like stepping into a tableau of early 2000s Sydney, when classes were on campus, rents were reasonable, and VSU only lived in the nightmares of hacks. This would all quickly become obsolete, if not for the one constant of campus life: student politicians. Libdependents rort college votes and trots plan fruitless protests. Hacks warp the rules of chemistry and campus security to chalk every footpath, and grimy share house living rooms become agoras in the blink of an eye. Sound familiar?Ten years after it was published, and twenty after its meant to have taken place, the stupol commentary offered by Comrades feels as fresh as ever. This feels attributable, in part, to the keen sense of every student politician that their days in the game are always numbered. The spectre of graduation looms over the pages as it does over us, a reminder of the unshakeable transience of student life. The campaign becomes more heated, the factional friendships more intense, when you know with absolute certainty that none of it can, or will, outlast the short years you spend here.Looking up from the pages, it takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the physical differences between our world and Knights. The Redfern terraces are now filled with gentrified tennants, the lecture halls sit empty, the faculties gaunt and stretched. Though shyness has taught me to avoid them, I know the similarities are there: on the Eastern Avenue pamphlet rat run, behind the ABS Liberal corflutes, in the Groots contingent on the Law lawns and hawking Red Flag at every junction. Everything changes, nothing changes. Is there enough time to contemplate anything more than that? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I recently had an intervention with my wardrobe. It consists of black garments, blue jeans, and the occasional statement piece to interrupt the monochrome. Vintage t-shirts hang up scrappily soft to the touch from the wear of previous owners. The majority of pieces are second-hand (or stolen from my mums wardrobe in feats of espionage). It was discernible that I had cultivated my sense of style as a fluid extension of my identity.But over time, some pockets of clothes have ended up living in a state of neglect, having not felt the warmth of the sunshine, or an iron, for months. Some pieces became incongruent with how I presented myself. Others were bought out of impulse, or under the delusion that Id look good in hot pink.For the sake of my cluttered wardrobe, it was fortuitous when, on Wednesday 26 May, Fashion Revolution and Waste Fighters brought a clothing swap to campus. It was a space where people could bring clothes they no longer wear, and exchange them for other garments. In true wholesome and sustainable fashion, any clothing leftover was donated to charity.Inspired by the UKs Fashion Revolution organisation, the Fashion Revolution Society emerged this year with the objective of bringing sustainable fashion to campus consciousness.I spoke to Aya Richardson, the societys president, who referred to Fashion Revolution as a movement campaigning for, and raising awareness about, the social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry.The goal is to raise awareness on campus, [and] host events that are inclusive and accessible for everyone, she said.The society echoes the ethos enshrined in the Fashion Revolution manifesto: We love fashion. But we dont want our clothes to exploit people or destroy our planet. We demand radical, revolutionary change.I sauntered up Eastern Avenue with a comically large bag of old clothes. Tops, skirts, dresses, heels each had memories tied to them. But it made no sense letting them wilt in my wardrobe when they could move on to a new home. My pieces contributed to the colourful piles surrounding the stall, which were being carefully examined by seasoned and beginner thrifters alike. There was something gratifying about seeing people pick up something I had just put down.Shopping sustainably isnt just confined to avoiding fast fashion outlets. It relies on actively shopping consciously and rejecting impulse. Fashion is political. It is far more sustainable to cultivate ones own style, and with it, an arsenal of dependable pieces, rather than losing your breath (and perhaps your dignity) chasing the ever-spiralling trend cycles. Attending events like a Clothes Swap isnt only fulfilling it can prevent the fast fashion heavyweights from slamming the accelerator on grotesque levels of output.The people behind Waste Fighters and Fashion Revolution told me that the feedback from the event was phenomenal. People were keen to donate clothes and money, and to swap items with others. The leftover clothes were taken to Vinnies, and the monetary donations went to ActionAid Australia where the profits are sent to garment workers facing exploitation.With Richardson revealing that they are working with other societies and organisations, we can undoubtedly anticipate more events like these next semester. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The thought of inclusion and diversity which once brought up hopes and expectations of opportunities and rich learning experiences, has now turned sour. I find myself asking but where are we being included?. Where is this disembodied and almost figurative space that were being heralded to? I ask myself this as I sit in the common kitchen in a University accommodation, and watch groups barely interacting with each other while remaining within themselves. I ask as I watch group meetings take place and somehow White people always end up in charge or end up speaking the most. I ask as I walk down the street and a middle-aged White woman yells at me to go back where I came from. I ask as I watch my course reading list and see only European names. Have I failed? Is this my fault? Is it my fault for not having long last relationships with my White peers? Or finding our interactions upsetting after a point? I must have failed to include myself. After all, I was brought here by the gracious consideration of the University board who picked me from one of their many diversity priority markets (direct quote from a scholarship email). I should be able to fit in. It is my own shortcoming, perhaps, social anxiety or better yet, narcissism, that I am unable to find any sort of fulfilment in most of my experiences at University.I know that this is not an isolated experience. At best, international students from non-western countries will look at their white and diasporic peers and wonder what it is they need to emulate or embody while scrolling through social media and figuring out their next aesthetic. At worst, theyre isolating themselves and wondering where it all went wrong. In all these cases, the common ground is self-doubt. We blame ourselves for a system that is built to never truly include us. That is unless we become some sort of acceptable version of the other. We learn to dress, talk, behave and eventually think in the way the dominant (generalised) western culture expects us to. Intricacies and nuances of cultural difference are lost in the noise of hegemonic cultural imperialism. Internalised feelings of cultural inferiority become apparent and we no longer want to even speak as we did back home. We become the same people until all that is left is the difference of physical appearances. Some folks are brown, and some others are Black, some are East Asian, and some others are just the other (those that White people cannot be bothered to even vaguely categorise). We are included and then we become diverse.Cultural assimilation then becomes the expectation, the implicit terms, and conditions to the long document of our acceptance letters. If we dont assimilate, we dont last long, and quite literally, go back to where we came from. We dont thrive in any aspect of our lives because even our own people who manage to assimilate, expect the same from us. This is the insidiousness of cultural assimilation. It is what White systems of power use to justify themselves, and further assume a position of generosity by gifting us the basic human rights of freedom and self-expression. It brings into question why, when were discussing protests erupting globally, my teacher asks me to enrich the class with my unique Indian cultural perspective, but I am never asked to narrate readings in class, only my White peers. Why when I bring up discussions of racism, my White classmates stop responding and my teacher announces that it is just a matter of different opinions to alleviate the tension. Why I am championed as some sort of martyr or superior moral being when I express the trauma of being a person of colour in a White institution, but few extend genuine concern beyond classrooms.The disembodied space we are being included in is the abyss of western cultural imperialism and I am no longer asking for a seat at the table. Though I know proximity to whiteness has its privileges, it will never get us anywhere, because the table is not levelled, it is not skewed in our favour and never has been. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On the 17th of March 2021, an Asian grandmother, Xiaozhen Xie, was attacked in San Francisco the morning after the Atlanta spa shootings, where eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women. Through GoFundMe, her grandson raised about $1 million surpassing the original $50,000 target, which was meant to cover Xies ongoing medical expenses. Less than a week later, she and her grandson had pledged all the money to the Asian American Pacific Islander community to combat racism.Such an act exemplifies the collectivism that embodies the beating heart of many Asian cultures. Where Western countries tend to value individualism above all, collectivist cultures prioritise the well-being of the group, placing family and community at the centre of all traditions and social conventions. It permeates all areas of life, from our holidays to the way we treat our elders, even manifesting in our meals: dishes in the middle that are shared by everyone.My experiences growing up as a Chinese in a Western country are very clich. I viewed my culture often with a sense of disdain and shame, preferring to present as white and as Western as possible, wanting to fit in. When all I heard was that Chinese people ate dogs and were chronically cheap, the yearning to know and live my culture slowly but surely faded away. Yet, the collectivist values that were instilled in me were always an aspect of my culture that I embodied with pride and I often view them with a sense of romanticism and awe. The childhood stories I read of Western heroes who fought for the good of everyone were reflected in my family, my aunties and uncles, and the Asian diaspora in my community, as they raised children who were not their own, brought bags of long-unseen snacks from China for the elderly at the expense of souvenirs, and spread around the information of good schools and teachers, so that all could succeed.At home, I was taught to see myself, first and foremost as a part of my family, my community, and my society. My perception of myself therefore didnt focus on self-professed values but centred around what I can contribute as a pious daughter, a kind friend, and a responsible member of society. The encouragement to view myself as a part of something bigger also went hand in hand with the willingness to endure and persist, or in Chinese, eat bitter, if it meant that a greater fruit would come of it.It is through this collectivist lens that we can see how countries like China responded to COVID-19. While anti-lockdown and anti-mask protests occurred all over the Western world, very few appeared in Asia. In fact, in most East Asian countries, wearing a mask if you were ill was a common practice long before the pandemic. Such a practice ensured your illness wasnt spread and was expected as a sign of respect for your community. While the pandemic caused holiday air travel in the US to drop by 40-60%, Lunar New Year travel in China dropped by 74%, at a time when China had an average of 20 cases a day, where the US had 200,000 per day.The last year has seen attack upon attack on people like me, from the dubbing of the China virus to the Atlanta shooting. The last decades have seen viciously prejudiced media and stereotypes and the last centuries, villainising fear created by yellow peril. Yet, beyond what we have endured, beyond representations of qipao and Lunar New Year interspersed within accusatory commentary on foreign buyers in the housing market, beyond our skin tone and our accents, lies a culture so beautifully enrooted in the values of respect, community, and unity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The idea of Country, to me, extends beyond the typical definition of a Nation occupying a territory. In fact, when I hear the word country, I immediately think of the beaches of where I grew up the South Coast of NSW or better known as the Yuin Nation. Country to me is the smooth sands on the myriad of beaches within Jervis Bay, its also the tiny scattered rock pools, and the sprawling cliffs that extend across the coast.So when I hear the word country, I cant help but to think of my connection back to the Yuin Nation.I interpret my sense of belonging as my connection to the natural elements such as the land. It is knowing and feeling the presence of my ancestors within this land, but also seeing the effects of the past play out onto the modern-day land. To me, it is important to acknowledge (but not to dwell on) the past experiences of my family and ancestors.This stems from a conversation I had with my Nan, who experienced the effects of the stolen generation and intergenerational trauma while living down the South Coast on Yuin land. She told me she hates Nowra and the South Coast with a passion, for having to deal with the trauma inflicted by the colonisers, and growing up separated from family due to the stolen generation. After she explained to me why she hates the place, she stated that, No matter where I end up, Ill always have a connection to this place from our ancestors and, Jordan, you should always acknowledge where you come from. its special. I think I was only twelve at the time, but her words have always stuck with me since and I continue to carry on the message and the idea of Country as being something special and inherent to the First Nations experience.When I think about Country, I also think about the people who reside or have resided on those lands, and the communities. This leads me to bring up this important point; when a First Nations person thinks about Country and their own idea or interpretation, its not always a clear-cut positive train of thought. Our experiences are nuanced and carry lots of weight. To me: I think about the community, the family and how for my family, down the coast, they have been so affected and scarred from the intergenerational trauma that continues to accumulate into the present day. This takes the form of little fights here and there within and between family members. Its growing up and seeing family members, whether that be uncles, aunties or cousins, fight and not talk for months or even years.This would be upsetting to any Indigenous person; seeing family fight and not know how to make up. I think its really important to acknowledge that thinking about Country can be chaotic and that it can be hard sometimes.Acknowledging and respecting traditional values that were upheld on the lands as well as being mindful of the events that have taken place there, are all key to understanding what Country means to a First Nations person. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Your tutors voice echoes ominously inside your head: Remember, the assignment is due tonight. Duh, youd thought to yourself, but it doesnt seem so obvious now. Your fasting stomach rumbles quietly in protest against the assignment, and the four hours of sleep you had last night shows in the haphazard sentences you form. In the background, you start to hear the low buzz of people filtering into the house for Iftar.Bang! The door bursts open and in come a horde of children nephews, cousins, cousins of cousins and whatever momentum you had is lost with the cacophony of shrill demands. In the end, you do hit the submit button, but you cant shake off the feeling that you couldve done better.In Ramadan, Iftar gatherings are a staple phenomenon. From the art of distributing food equally, to taking that first sip of chilled orange cordial after hours of no food or drink, the whole experience is so unique. The communal vibes are unparalleled, and you wish you could prolong the moments of gratitude and utter bliss, encircled by those whom you love most.That is, until youre greeted by the deadline bug the pesky little arthropod inside your head that injects an unending dose of worry, stress, and anxiety into you, as if you didnt already know that the deadline for that assignment is so close, you can almost smell it. Suddenly, spending those extra hours with the family is impossible because if you dont start that assignment now, you wont be able to wake up before sunrise for suhoor. And if you dont get enough sleep after suhoor, youll show up to uni looking like a total zombie. Unless youre going for that all-year-round Halloween look, nobody wants that.Few can master the art of staying productive while juggling religious commitments, work, family time, and university assignments. Not everyone is an Ali Abdaal or Matt DAvella. Things can get hectic, and that ruthless productivity guru buried deep within may not immediately come to life, especially without the necessary doses of caffeine throughout the day.But for me, this year was going to be different. This semester I grit my teeth, assembled an arsenal of stationery, binge watched How to stop procrastinating videos on YouTube, downloaded the Forest app to keep me off my phone, and went completely military mode in preparation for Ramadan. I wouldnt let the deadline bug overwhelm me, and I certainly would not burn out just because I was fasting for twelve hours a day.This dedication lasted about a week. After that, my sleep schedule went out of whack, my energy levels plummeted, and my motivation hit rock bottom. Procrastination was my best friend, and the deadline bug, my greatest enemy.But it would be wrong to say that I didnt learn anything about myself during this time. Im more convinced than ever that everything I set out to do was indeed possible, all while fasting and setting time aside for faith and family. I learnt about University support services like the Learning Centre, and SUMSA (Sydney Unis very own Muslim students association) which host tons of events to make students feel safe and included during the Ramadan period. And if things arent looking up, the options for special considerations, simple extensions, or even just knowing that there are understanding tutors around, is always reassuring.As always, this Ramadan was interesting, challenging, draining, but above all, rewarding. At the end of the day, fasting students may well need to compromise, and prioritise, but were in luck, because thats exactly what Ramadan teaches us. Like me, maybe next year youll finally learn to strike a deal with the deadline bug, or otherwise swat it out of your life altogether. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CW: sexual assaultFor most of my life I have suffered in silence, left to wilt underneath the weight of lifes most unimaginable trauma. As a sexual assault survivor, I was taught by society and those close to me, to remain quiet about the trauma that almost killed me. I felt isolated within my own mind, trapped in a feeling that saying something would break me. But the hardest thing was not having my pain understood a feeling that most survivors can share.When you utter your darkest trauma, the fear that lines your stomach is one of indescribable proportions. The quivering of your lips, the tears that numb your face, the hands that never seem to stop shaking.I can still remember the day I told someone for the very first time. It took nine years. No one prepares you for the feeling of intense loneliness when you utter those words I was sexually assaulted. Looks of pity and attempts to discredit your story all add to the intense social isolation that your trauma immerses you in.Unfortunately, this is a common experience. I just wanted someone who could tell me I was going to get through this and to say it wholeheartedly with truth. I needed someone who had walked this twisted path before, and to hold my hand throughout. But sadly, not all survivors are met with that type of warmth.This feeling endured for three years, until I stumbled upon an Instagram page named Pieces of Marcelle.I remember flicking through her stories for the first time, in awe of her courage. She had found a way to regain the autonomy she had lost, through sharing the worst days of her life with her audience. Marcelles openness to show her emotional scars allowed me to feel that what I went through was real, that I as a survivor was allowed to tell my story.In the months that followed, we began interacting. It started off with a few story replies, and messages of gratitude. These turned into in-depth conversations, supporting each other on our road to recovery, offering words of comfort that finally felt authentic. The kindness, empathy and warmth Marcelle extended to me, helped me conquer the silence that mired my heart. It was through this compassion that I began to speak on what happened to me.During the recent disclosures of sexual assaults that have plagued Australian politics, I felt compelled as a survivor to provide my perspective, to identify to the people in my life the lingering effects sexual assault had on me. For the first time I had the confidence to tell more than just close friends and loved ones, that I was a survivor of sexual assault, that my story mattered. And there was Marcelle cheering me on throughout it all.Pieces of Marcelle is not just a one-sided Instagram page. It is a safe space where the voices of all survivors are shared, and no one is silenced into remission. It is through this community, that part of the weight I carried in silence began to ease.While I will always carry the inconceivable trauma of sexual assault, and there are some details I will perhaps never be able to utter, I now have a space where I belong. A space where I can share those details if I am ever ready to.For any survivors out there, who feel alone in their grief, in their agony, I promise you, you are not alone. While there are days it seems like we are screaming just for someone to believe us, remember that there is a community waiting to help you heal.And if you are reading this Marcelle, thank you. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In Prison by Any Other Name, Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law warn of the creeping expansion of the prison-industrial complex, moving beyond bars and cages into our communities. This process of extension has been aided by technology, with the use of bracelet monitors worn on the wrist or ankle being a particularly unsettling example. Indeed, after decades of dissent, there have been several other alternatives to incarceration that have been hailed by governments and corrective services as effective ways of managing our rapidly growing prison population.Measures such as Intensive Correction Orders which see people placed in home detention, to psychiatric hospitals that detain people experiencing mental health crises, are often perceived to be a compassionate, more desirable alternative to incarceration. In reality, they are punitive measures that extend systems of incarceration under the guise of compassion/conditional freedom.In 2019, 157 people in NSW were subjected to electronic surveillance in an effort to divert people from the prison system. However, as New York Times columnist Michelle Alexander writes, youre effectively sentenced to an open-air digital prison. Stringent restrictions on mobility as well as stigmatisation of bracelet monitors make it nearly impossible for wearers to attain employment or housing, attend school and maintain a connection with social networks.Electronic surveillance disproportionately impacts Indigenous Australians, reproducing the racialised outcomes seen in prisons and custody services, including deaths in custody. Thus far, there have been at least three cases wherein an offender has died while being monitored, including an Indigenous man who died in 2011. An inquest found that out of fear of being reincarcerated, he began to inhale butane as a way to conceal his substance abuse.Ankle monitors are one of many indicators of the growing trend of e-carceration intensifying state punishment through the use of new technologies. However, this shift has largely escaped public scrutiny. Ruha Benjamin explores this phenomenon in her book Race After Technology (2019). Labelling it the New Jim Code, she observes how technology works to reinforce and reproduce racism while posing as neutral tools of progress. The desire for objectivity, efficiency, profitability and progress fuels the pursuit of technical fixes across many different social arenas, she writes. [But] tech fixes often hide, speed up, and even deepen discrimination, while appearing to be neutral or benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era.Indeed, we are seeing a wave of technological solutions that purport to address various issues with our criminal justice system, such as the less documented use of predictive policing in Australia. Introduced by the NSW Police in 2005, the Suspect Target Managing Plan (STMP) uses an algorithm to calculate how likely a person is going to offend, categorising people as either low risk, medium risk, high risk or extreme risk. This information is used by police to intervene even before a crime takes place.Although police have been secretive about what information and criterion are used to classify people, similar technologies are based on indicators such as historical criminal activity, age and postcode. Such data reinforces existing racial hierarchies and frequently directs police to neighbourhoods with high Indigenous populations. A report by the Youth Justice Coalition of NSW found that out of the 213 people subject to an STMP nomination in 2014-15, 44% identified as Aboriginal.In one instance, David, a 15-year old Aboriginal young person, was singled out by the algorithm. Police cars routinely parked outside his family home, knocked on his door to question him and his family, and criticised his whereabouts. This caused ongoing problems for his family. One of Davids siblings developed an anxiety disorder and was unable to complete his HSC. His mother also reported that the constant police presence and stigma led to their lease not being renewed.James, another young Aboriginal person who was also put on the STMP despite having no criminal record, was also subjected to repeated police attendances at his home. Justification for his searches often included the time of night and his location. One afternoon after being stopped, James questioned the polices power to stop him. The police proceeded to capsicum spray and arrested him. In both these cases, predictive policing would have resulted in these young people being placed in a higher risk category for recidivism.Despite being championed as preventative measures, there is little evidence that prison populations are dropping as a result of these punitive technologies. The number of prisoners continues to grow, Indigenous people remain over-represented, and it was found last year that in NSW, 50.6% of all people released during 2016-17 returned to prison within two years. Additionally, young people who are experiencing targeted policing experience distress and are finding participation in therapeutic justice and diversion programs like the Koori Court difficult.Notably, the police target a person, they are not formally notified that they are on the list, there is no way for them to confirm their place on the list, and they cannot appeal their classification. This creates a new form of incarceration, one based on the presumption that one has already committed a crime and subsequently, the intrusive regulation of everyday life. In his book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault writes that such asymmetrical surveillance measures are modern iterations of the panopticon 18th-century prisons designed to allow a single guard to observe all prisoners at once, without inmates being able to tell they were being watched.Such regulation is now being extended beyond law enforcement, with the ongoing trials of the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) employed to restrict peoples economic freedom. After its introduction in 2016, people under the CDC will see 80% of their welfare payments quarantined to a debit card, which cannot be used to buy alcohol, gamble or withdraw cash.Although then social services minister Paul Fletcher argued that the card has the potential to provide a stabilising factor in the lives of families with regard to financial management, this outlook masks the cards long-term harms and punitive nature. This form of income control is yet another technological fix that adopts a carceral logic, essentially trapping people into poverty. For a majority of people on the card, their existing financial challenges are exacerbated. Another independent study has found that participants often do not have enough cash for essential items, are unable to shop at preferred outlets or buy second-hand goods, and are having cards being declined even when they are supposed to work.Furthermore, the Government has indicated that the card is selectively being rolled out in locations where there are high levels of both welfare dependence and drug and alcohol abuse. Once again, this disproportionately targets Indigenous people in remote areas. Before trials were extended last year, at least 78% of cardholders identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and this number is expected to increase as the program continues to be extended.Social awareness about the carceral system is growing, particularly due to ongoing protests in the Black Lives Matter and Indigenous Justice movements. As people search for more humane or compassionate alternatives to physical imprisonment, technological solutions may seem enticing. But incarceration in itself does not work to stop crime, and technologies that are designed by and operate within the prison-industrial complex will only serve to strengthen carceral systems. As these technologies permeate more and more aspects of society, from the tracking of movements to restrictions on debit cards, their uses become more covert, entrenching state punishment as part of the architecture of everyday life.We must not only be critical of our justice system, but also the ways it strives to expand its reach in new and horrifying ways. Technology has never been scientific and objective; in the context of carceral technologies, its design is inherently encoded with the oppression against black, Indigenous and people of colour. Rather than imposing more control, technologies should be utilised in areas where it has the potential to be emancipatory rather than punitive, including restorative justice and community services. But without dismantling our focus on retribution and punishment, no device or algorithm can slay away centuries of injustice. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> COVID-19multiculturalism / <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It is no secret that Australian universities have a high number of international students. Education is, after all, Australias third largest export. From the sheer number of USYD rants about us to the righteous Honi articles defending us, within your first few weeks of uni you can glean that our place in the USyd community is a hotly debated topic. I realise that this article is just adding one more to the mix, but I will still take this opportunity to discuss an issue that I havent seen being talked about openly yet. But first, lets analyse the premise.You can probably blame this high rate of emigration on global colonial history. Had the British not colonised most of the world, their language wouldnt have become lingua franca and most countries wouldnt have exclusively taught English in school as a second language. Had that not happened, students would probably have the freedom to study the language that caught their fancy, and when moving to study abroad would have distributed themselves among a wider array, rather than exclusively preferring English speaking countries.I flew from my English-medium school to this country, with a blind hope that I would fit in with domestic students. This assumption, that emigrating to a country with a common language would be simple is misplaced. The first few weeks at uni taught me that speaking the language doesnt really mean speaking the language.I learnt this the day when I made a joke that I would have in a similar situation back home, but no one laughed. I learnt this when I asked a question that would have made immediate sense back home, but my tutor stumbled for a few seconds until I rephrased it. I learnt this the day I emphasised the wrong part of the sentence when telling a story and encountered expectant faces instead of comprehending ones.Another effect of colonialism is that my English speaking skills gave me clout back home. Being fluent in the white mans tongue was considered a serious skill and indicated my place near the top of the social chain.English skills are intrinsically tied to class and status. Private schools tend to push English skills and the undertaking of an English board of education more than public schools do, and so, English proficiency is usually a sound indicator of affluence. The idea of being a global citizen is intrinsically linked with how well one fits in countries which are populated by white people.This positive association with English proficiency means that the move to an English speaking country was a potent culture shock for me, as I was no longer treated as a smart and capable person who could articulate herself well, but as someone who needed to be accommodated. Beyond just meeting people who avoided directing questions towards me in conversations, I encountered well-meaning white people who rephrased my words so that others could understand them. I was no longer seen as self-sufficient, I was seen as someone who needed help. When I talked, instead of encountering actively engaged faces, I encountered those dreadful encouraging smiles, telling me Yes, go on, we are making the effort to understand you because we are good, welcoming people.Suddenly finding myself at the bottom of the social chain because of the same language skills which had previously put me on top was the biggest shock. It was a betrayal. I was left feeling defenceless, because the one reliable weapon I had always had to express myself and my capabilities was the very thing that brought negative attention to me now. I used to freely participate in conversations to share my ideas, but now opening my mouth only advertised to everyone how different I was from them. I couldnt just slide into conversations anymore; my inputs were received as clunky and awkward and my presence changed the whole vibe.I was thrown into a trench, so I tried to rationalise my way out of it. And I realised certain things.The culture shock I was warned about was exactly what I was experiencing right now. And I was experiencing it through the one thing I thought would mitigate that shock. Language isnt separate from culture. Language is, in fact, a medium for culture.How you speak is a direct reflection of who you grew up with. The cultural references you use arent even the least of it. You may learn grammar and structure at school but the words you really use are something you learn from the people around you. You pick up the sentences they choose. You pick up the framing, modulation, emphasis, and intonation they use. You use the same accent. So even when it is the same language, it evolves in different ways from region to region and into remarkably different dialects. If you use the dialect as someone else, you both immediately understand each other. Anything different from what youre used to, and it takes you time and effort to parse it, even if that time is just a few seconds.This creates a subconscious exclusion, that is (mostly) not done on purpose. It is a simple matter of a person having an affinity for someone who is similar to them. People didnt choose to not get on with me. They just got on much faster with others who were like them.This is not to say its impossible to make friends. Its not. I eventually found people who naturally looked through all this. People with whom I connected on a different level, and became close with, where language was not a barrier.But I should also keep in mind that it wasnt just them who improved my sense of belonging here. It was also me, and the months I spent getting comfortable with myself. It was all the conversations I had with myself to reaffirm my identity and better understand my position, not just in a new country, but also in life. It was me who learnt to parse my multiple identities in multiple languages and learnt to love and be proud of all of them.It isnt easy, it takes multiple attempts, and is still sometimes overwhelming. But that was a risk I took when I uprooted myself for a new experience. And maybe there is something to be gained from that in itself. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I first began my degree at USyd, I was immediately intimidated by the stature of my peers. I was surrounded by high achievers who likely performed better than me in high school and would continue to do so in university. Orientation Week events furthered my vision of the perfect business student: high WAM, interning at a big corporate firm, juggling a busy social life, with a bunch of extracurricular activities to boot. All I wanted was to secure my future in the same way that these perfect students did. This benchmark of success was all I calculated my worth on, and it played into a culture that tended towards toxicity, particularly for someone who was beginning an arts degree at the same time, but not valuing it as highly.Its a mindset that many business students fall into. There are a whopping 22 student societies associated with the USyd Business School, almost one for every discipline. I still remember wandering around the Abercrombie building on Welcome Day, packed with booths of people vigorously advertising their respective societies. Joining a society is strongly encouraged, with welcome events and my business school mentor stressing the importance of partaking in this culture. If, as a first year, you find yourself seeking advice from older business students, chances are that theyll tell you to get involved in a society. While this mindset is echoed throughout other faculties, in the business school it comes with an agenda beyond making friends and fuelling your interests: building your resume and forming corporate connections.Sam*, a fourth-year Commerce/Laws student who was involved with Sydney University Business Society (SUBS) believes some people who get involved are there only to get another CV point, which is a shame considering the impact these programs could have. SUBS had a reputation for being exclusive before I applied for a position, and I felt my experience in SUBS was cliquey. Harrys* experience with Enactus was similar: The higher-ups seemed more concerned with getting awards or seeing how they can boost their resume, rather than the actual social enterprise and opportunities to help people. That left me somewhat disillusioned as it made me feel like theres some ulterior motive for many people, especially those in charge, to take advantage of people who want to make an actual impact.Nevertheless, these societies do have value. As Harry* continues: I got to work on a real project and employ skills and knowledge that I learned from uni. Furthermore, they provide connections to reputable corporations. These firms take an active interest in USyd societies. Society partnerships with the Big 4 (PwC, EY, KMPG, and Deloitte) actively promote climbing the corporate ladder as a desirable future. One pathway students take is a cadetship, where they transition immediately into full-time work and pursue studies part-time. It can be incredibly jarring for students coming straight out of high school, who are not accustomed to the 9-5 working life.The USyd Business School itself encourages corporate internships, offering International and Local Partnership Programs (IPPs), where students experience working full-time for six weeks, or three days a week alongside studies for an entire semester. I myself did one of the international programs, where I lived and worked in Shanghai for six weeks while undertaking a business internship at an international English-speaking company. Within these six weeks, the idea of work hard, play hard became a lived experience. I had little time to breathe and recharge, as I was constantly trying to make the most out of my surroundings and explore the city in the limited time I had. Living in a country where I didnt speak the language and had little guidance from the university felt like getting tossed into the deep end in an attempt to teach us to swim.Sam also completed the Shanghai Business Immersion Program. While I loved the feeling of being independent, exploring a new city and learning a new language, those benefits were only peripheral to the actual internship experience. The people in charge of the program were disorganised or out of their depth, and I felt the internship didnt teach me valuable or employable skills. Most of the time I was left with only menial tasks, or nothing at all, which made me and fellow students feel like the Program was designed to exploit our labour. The program was also subject to several complaints by my cohort, and requests to change workplaces were common.My own experience echoes these sentiments. While its true that I gained more independence and first-hand knowledge of the 9-5 working life, its not the only or necessarily the best avenue to gain work experience. Large corporations often provide interns with menial work, which can result in frustration and even imposter syndrome, as we question why we were even hired. I experienced this as an intern in an international risk compliance company. Upon reflection, I realise that the most important lesson learnt didnt result from tasks I completed at work, but the experience of managing my time when faced with full-time work. Knowing this, I wouldnt strictly recommend such a program. Theres value to be found in other avenues for instance, I learnt more in my role as a retail assistant as I gained first-hand experience in managing a store.Not all companies provide the same experiences, however, as Sam explains. I worked part-time at a prominent airline company in 2019, and I loved my experience. The work itself was really exciting and interesting, and I felt like I was contributing to real-world projects. They invested a lot in creating an inclusive, attractive and LGBTQ-friendly culture, and it reflected in the people I worked with. Im still optimistic about potentially entering the corporate world and wanting to stay long-term. Its a matter of finding the company with the culture and role that suits you.Furthermore, Harry*, who works at KPMG, explains: Theres more structure and clear direction on what you are doing and if you have questions, theres usually answers. It certainly feels more stable, especially compared to smaller companies or uni life. However, That structure can feel constricting, especially with the large bureaucracy of time sheets, and mandatory learning modules and long unnecessary video meetings and long paths to get simple things done. Culture also becomes very simplistic and inoffensive and plain.For Shannon*, who works at EY, its about clicking with the right people. The people and culture at EY are what makes it a great place to work. They hold several social events, and they also have extracurricular activities you can participate in including volunteering, joining teams such as Digital and Innovation and Maximising Wellbeing, which work to create initiatives to improve either the efficiency of the actual work, or to make EY a better place to work. However, large companies are quite hierarchical, and it may be quite difficult to work closely and meet those at more senior levels, particularly partners.The juggling of university, extra-curriculars, and work can also cause a lot of stress. It did for Harry*, who explains: I didnt manage them very well. There was a point during university where I was the exec on multiple societies, still working on social enterprises, working on getting my grades up and eventually working an internship. There came a turning point, where I became burnt out and depressed and decided I didnt want to do anything anymore. It took a long time to recover. By the end I had realised that the work I had done in the name of ambition was not worth it.That last statement is a sobering thought, and one that I somewhat relate to. In my earlier years of university, I had tried to join such CV-boosting, cliquey societies and dreamed of following the perfect business student path of Big 4 internship to grad program. I prioritised my business degree over my arts degree, buying into the rhetoric that deemed commerce as superior to the arts, and commerce students more successful. In doing so, I neglected my passion and focused heavily on building my resume for future grad role recruiters.I think my biggest takeaway is that different paths work for different people, and what we view as the most successful path doesnt necessarily equate to the one that brings you the most fulfilment. We shouldnt reduce our involvement in university societies to a simple CV booster, but seek value in the experiences it creates. Most of all, its important that we maintain our mental health and distance ourselves from an unhealthy obsession with perfection and climbing to the top. For me, Ive found the experience of working in a small firm especially rewarding as it allows me more responsibility and opportunities for progress. Ive also learnt to dedicate time to things I genuinely enjoy and am passionate about such as writing and hosting a SURG.FM radio show, rather than chasing CV boosting opportunities. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Respectability is a means of distinguishing who has worth in society and who does not. It suggests that in order to gain respect, some of us have to act differently from how we act amongst our own people.In his examination of black respectability politics in America, Herman Gray proposes that the politics of respectability establishes normative desires and sets the preferred terms of social engagement and access to the dominant culture. To identify as a respectable black subject, Gray argues the individual must follow the appropriate morals and manners of hetero-normativity and distinguish oneself from the non-normative practices of the working class and poor. According to Fiona Lee, these normative rules that determine respectability conform to white middle class values. What is essentially a reflection of class and culture takes on the form of moral respectability. Thus, ethnic minorities, whose manner of speech, behaviour, and dress do not conform to white middle class values, are often overlooked or deemed as lesser than.We might wonder, then, what are marginalised writers doing when they include swear words and graphic sexual references in formal writing?In the afterword of Mercedes Engs long poem Mercenary English, Echolocation: In Conversation with Fred Moten, she is asked whether she is concerned about the formal problems presented by the use of the word motherfucker. To which she replies, I see a poeticness to the word motherfucker. In utilising expletives and vernacular in her poetry, Eng and many other marginalised writers repurpose the English language as a tool for surviving colonialism, performing what can only be deemed as an act of creative political resistance.Eng presents sex work both in and outside the parameters of respectability in her poem post hooker micro.macro. She writes about her departure from sex work, and her pursuit of an education in creative writing and poetry. Under the section II. My Affective Labour, Eng affirms the mutuality of sex work and writing by deeming them both acts of a mercenary nature, which require an exertion of emotional labour to produce or modify ones emotional experiences.now my body of intellectual workis aboutthe workI didwith my bodyso Im sellingwith my bodyAlthough conventions of respectability might present this narrative as one of moral progress, where one leaves a degrading profession in pursuit of respectable work, the embodied nature of both sex work and writing in its use of the mind and the imaginary is illuminated. She validates the legitimacy of sex work as a commercial activity that is equal to writing in its mercenary pursuits.By drawing on graphic sexual references and asking unsettling questions, Eng speaks to the manner in which respectability is also defined in gendered terms.post hooker micro.macro sees Eng recall an experience with a client named Charlie and wonder, is it bad that I cant remember the exact alley? / Should it be burned into my memory, just like my clean date? / I cant remember that shit either. She mocks the parameters of respectability that only see sex workers as victims of hard consequences and therefore in need of saving. We are urged to ask: what are the conditions of being visible? And what does it cost to be recognised or worthy? To make visible is an exercise of power. Where the poem rejects the normative powers that determine the boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, it also speaks of a refusal to erase the unsettling, yet real experiences of diasporic communities.When our erasure is lived, and our bodies are the frontier zone, what lives on from the violent loss of marginalised individuals? For ethnic minorities, the English language can be repurposed as a tool for surviving colonialism. We can re-map lost historical connections by reshaping public imagination and voice, and make visible the overlooked experiences of our diasporic communities that exist outside parameters of respectability.For Eng and many other marginalised writers, it is in our rejection of moral respectability, formalism, and the values of dominant white culture, that we can take back our bodies. It is in our provocation of unsettling feelings, shock, or offence upon encountering expletives and graphic sexual references in our embodied work, that we can take back our visibility. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney has connections with significant points in Deaf history, from the building of the oldest Deaf school in Australia to the coining of the name of the language itself.If you enter the Institute building via the front archway you will see stonework reading then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped and the tongue of the dumb sing. This is a remnant from the buildings use as a school for children who are deaf or blind. In 1860 Thomas Patterson, a Deaf man, established the first Deaf school in Australia, now known as the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC). Shortly after, the Institute building was built for the school to give capacity for boarders. The school resided in the Institute building from 1872 for 90 years until the site was purchased by the University of Sydney in 1961. The school moved to North Rocks.Thomas Patterson had been educated at the Edinburgh Deaf and Dumb Institution and had also worked as the secretary and treasurer for the Edinburgh Deaf and Dumb Society. As a result, he brought the Scottish sign language and teaching methods with him. Different schools were established in Australia by different teachers and some Deaf children went to the UK for school. Thus, Auslan was influenced by British, Scottish and Irish sign language.Over time Auslan developed its own characteristics and unique signs. Residential schools, including RIDBC, contributed to the development of language variations. For example, the sign for library looks like a hair clip. This is because the librarian at a Victorian school wore a hairclip and the sign for library became associated with her sign name. Auslan now also has influences from American sign language. From 1860 onwards the school taught blind students as well as those who were deaf. Next time you visit the building or walk past, consider its history. Imagine the Deaf children signing in the halls and running up and down the steps, and classes over the years both spoken and signed.The term Auslan itself also has connections to the University of Sydney. Auslan is made up of the words AUstralian Sign LANguage and was coined by Trevor Johnston, a linguist who finished his PhD Auslan the Sign Language of the Australian Deaf Community at USyd in 1989. Trevor Johnstons work on the linguistics of Auslan has helped with the recognition of Auslan as a natural language distinct from other Signed or spoken languages.Now the university has a sign language society. It was started at the end of 2018 by students learning Auslan. It aims to facilitate others to learn of Auslan and develop understanding of the Deaf community and culture, as well as to provide a space for Deaf and hearing people to communicate in Auslan. Since 2018 it has enabled over 80 students and staff to start learning sign language and about the Deaf community. The Society works with Deaf organisations to facilitate classes taught by Deaf trainers who share their language, culture, and experience. While beginner classes are not being run this semester, the society plans to run them again next year and can offer advice on getting started. They also run a conversation group and have a petition to ask the University to run Auslan as an elective subject and as a language major.You can check out their website at https://sites.google.com/view/usydsignsoc/homeA note on languageDeaf and dumb was historically used to refer who were deaf. Dumb was used to mean mute. It is no longer appropriate terminology. Many people who are deaf do speak and people who are deaf are certainly not dumb by the modern meaning of the word! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dear Premier,My name is Theodore Tsolakis. I am writing to you regarding the notification published on the Transport NSW website announcing that the M10 bus route will be withdrawn.I attend the University of Sydney. I am a second-year student, and I am blind. Independence is extremely important to me. To travel to the University of Sydney campus in Camperdown which I attend, I take the 397 bus, which departs very near to my home in Maroubra, and I change to the M10 at Maroubra Junction, which takes me the rest of the way to the university. My commute on this route is quite safe, simple and convenient. Currently, I do not need to walk to another stop when transitioning between the two buses. The M10 bus route is the only direct route to the University of Sydney from Maroubra. Until my classes were moved online in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my commute to university took a little over an hour.Due to my disability, to learn this route I required and received extensive training from an Orientation and Mobility Specialist from Guide Dogs NSW/ACT covering travel by bus between my home and university, including learning about the various transportation options available to me. This training was funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and cost several hundred dollars and occupied many training sessions. All of this training will become redundant because of the withdrawal of the M10 bus route. I will now need to receive more specialist orientation and mobility training from Guide Dogs NSW/ACT to learn about the new public transport options for travelling to university, requiring further NDIS funding.A stable and consistent travel route is particularly important for a blind commuter. The current commute is usually between relatively quiet and uncrowded bus stops. When something changes or goes wrong, I often feel disoriented and anxious. I have experienced several instances of buses not stopping, even when the bus has vacant seats and I am clearly visible, and sometimes bus services do not appear to come at all. This makes it extremely difficult for me, and has on occasion extended the length of my commute by an hour if I cannot make a connection.A commute from Maroubra to the University of Sydney without the M10 route would result in a longer journey, with me travelling into the CBD in Sydney or Railway Square. Both locations are extremely busy, and the connection to a bus to the university is not close to where I would alight the bus from Maroubra. I normally travel at peak times, so it is very likely that there will be many other passengers around me, which will make the process of locating the bus stop very challenging, and also difficult for bus drivers who may not see me when they are in a queue of buses lined up at a busy stop. Neither of these two options would provide me with a safe, reliable or time-effective alternative to my current commute.Unlike other students who have other travel options such as riding a bicycle to university, I am at the mercy of public transport.The light rail is also not a viable option for me to travel to university as it would require three transfers in each direction. The light rail stop near Central Station is not close to the bus interchange from which I would catch a bus to university and would require me to cross busy, crowded roads. The design of the light rail stops does not seem to have been made with any thought to its accessibility for blind commutersit is dangerous to cross to them since they are in the centre of the road; it is difficult to find the correct place to cross to reach the stop; and while crossing the tracks, my long white cane has caught in the grooves of the tracks. Prioritising the light rail above other modes of public transport negatively affects the sector of the population for whom public transport is essential. It is unfortunate that the introduction of a new mode of public transport will make Sydneys public transport network less user-friendly for people such as me.I would like to implore the Government to consider reinstating these bus routes as doing so would positively affect the options for people with disabilities for a safe and direct commute to their destinations and my commute to university. The termination of the M10 bus route will adversely affect the independence of my commute along with its safety, length and convenience. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The disability communities position within the working class has always been complicated. For over 50 years, disability activism has placed a huge emphasis on securing the rights of disabled people to just get a job in the first place, whether it was Joan Hume being employed as the countrys first wheelchair user to be employed by a teacher in 1973, to the fights for accessible workplaces and communal spaces that go on to this day. In addition, there has been a well-documented, and long history of antagonism between our community and the union movement. Unions have long been some of the main opponents to continued deinstitutionalisation of disabled people, usually citing the importance of the sector for support workers.And yet, I argue that a movement aiming to achieve justice for disabled people is not only compatible with a socialist workers movement, but necessitates one. Ableism as it exists under modern capitalism is a result of class conflict, of the capitalists assertion that the worth of all others is commensurate with their economic productivity. As disabled people, we are automatically considered less efficient than those that share our God given place within cycles of production. We are worth less, and as a result, worthless.Take the supports that currently exist for disabled people in Australia. We have the disability support pension, which has long sat below a living wage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the blatant disregard for disabled lives has been even clearer, demonstrated by a bipartisan project to block the Coronavirus Supplement being extended to DSP and Carer Payment recipients.The NDIS, on the other hand, is sold to us as a program designed to assist disabled people to get the support they need so their skills and independence improve over time. What does this look like in reality? This heavily marketised system relies on the private sector to sell products and services, which disabled people can then use allotted funds to buy. In order to buy them, however, the NDIS recipient must first successfully argue why a product would better enable them to contribute to society.. Criteria that must be met include showing how a given support will contribute to an increased community engagement (or, preferably, an increased income), and demonstrating its value for money. The latter is particularly difficult for those seeking specialised physical supports, like recurring sessions with a trained exercise physiologist, and the proofs required can themselves cost thousands of dollars spent on acquiring reports from completely different specialists.Furthermore, the marketised structure of the NDIS has meant it is totally ill-equipped to respond to what community participation actually looks like in environments outside of a typical suburban, nuclear family context. Research that came out in 2018 by Scott Avery showed how First Nations communities, particularly those in the Northern Territory had been completely underserved by the scheme. Not only did a lack of private corporations nearby mean there was little recourse for spending the funds allocated to people, the scheme didnt cover the things that people needed to help them to continue living comfortably. One man interviewed said, swags and blankets is something that our families ask for all the time, help with making sure that theyve got somewhere warm and safe to sleep at night, and thats a really practical thing and weve done that for years. Now the NDIS is coming and theyre saying, no, theyre saying, we dont buy swags and blankets for people. Thats not reasonable or necessary. But if youve got nowhere to sleep, of course swags and blankets are reasonable and necessary.In the workplace, despite decades of deinstitutionalisation, the hyper-exploitation of disabled workers is rampant. Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs) employ disabled people, usually intellectually disabled people, at vastly reduced rates. As a result, the current minimum wage for a disabled person in this country is $89 per week, though this can be less if the company has an award that covers SWS workers. The justification for this practice goes back to the history of ADEs. Originally called sheltered workshops, their new name was the result of rebranding in the 1980s during a wave of activism and legislation that threatened their raison dtre as places of normalisation. To adjust to the new neoliberal era, they framed themselves as service providers. The service? The opportunity to be employed. They claim that there is an intrinsic value in work, irrespective of what the work is and the workers role in it. Giving disabled people the opportunity to contribute to the nations economy brings meaning to their lives. If this framing seems unreal, note that this framing is uncritically replicated by the Department of Social Services on their website. Consequently, ADEs are able to wring value from disabled people, force them to work for miniscule wages, and then turn around and tell them to be grateful for bringing some meaning to their lives.Of course, economic exploitation of disadvantaged groups has a long and varied history. The term prison industrial complex emerged in the 1990s, for instance, to describe the ways in which value was being violently extracted from prisoners by private companies. As Angela Davis revealed in her book Are Prisons Obsolete, the expansion and proliferation of private prisons occurred alongside the expansion of this capitalist value extraction. Violence, and punitive policing she argued, was the state reacting to the needs of neoliberal capitalist expansion.Karl Marx observed that, in their pursuit of profit, capitalists rely on paying workers less than the value that they create. This difference between the value workers create, and what they are actually paid, he called surplus value. Marx argued that, in order to maintain economic growth, bosses needed to find ways to increase this surplus value. In disabled people, as in the prison system, capitalism has found a source of hyperexploitable labour. This is not about giving these people a sense of value and worth. This is fundamentally about profit.Exploitation and abuse of disabled people is rampant, and the fight to end it is intrinsically intertwined with the fight against capitalism. It is true that some disabled people are members of the capitalist class. I dont care about them. Their money is able to buy them far more freedom than my comrades and I will ever enjoy. For the rest of us, I invite you all to come and link arms with your comrades in a united working class fight for collective freedom. Our struggles, at their core, are the same struggle. Liberation for one group can only come with the liberation of all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disclaimer: percentages were rounded down.Twice every year, Eastern Avenue becomes a sea of multi coloured, branded bliss. Its confronting and often sickening, but above all it is ripe for intense data analysis. In order to pry open the juicy secrets that lay behind our universitys elections, my crack team and I have looked at the USU, Honi Soit, and SRC presidential elections from 2015 to 2020 and analysed the colour data in the process. Because as we all know, colour is crucial.The first thing that arose from my investigations was that the colour blue was the most popular, comprising over 20% of campaigns. This could either indicate the soothing qualities of the colour blue, or the enthusiasm of on campus Liberals (though the credibility of this theory is tempered somewhat by the fact that only 29% of blue campaigns are Liberal affiliated).The next most popular colour is of course pink. This is mostly due to the repeated and egregious selection of pink branding by Honi Soit tickets. Almost 50% of Honi Soit tickets used pink as their primary campaign colour during this period, which in this reporters opinion is simply too much.Green, yellow and red all come in at around 10% as they are the go to pigments for three of the most consistent factions on campus (Grassroots, Switch, and the Labor trio). Tragically, for the many fans of beige out there, it is the least chosen colour out of them all, clocking in at a miserable 1%.But thats just the frequency of each colours use, ostensibly the least useful information one could glean from this data. For all you electioneers out there looking for a double, chocolate dip, waffle cone scoop, Ive got something for you.If you want to win an election: use grey. According to my research, if you campaign with grey, you have a 100% chance of winning. Its impossible not to: just ask the two people who ran with grey during this period. They probably wont have time to chat as theyre most likely still riding the immense high of their electoral success, but its worth a try.On the other hand, if you want to really make sure your campaign is a failure: run with beige. Youll have a guaranteed 0% chance at success. Maybe your faction has pressured you into running, or youve found yourself on a Honi ticket stacked with the problematic and undesirable, or you just dont have the time to be a BNOC. Regardless, if you want an instantaneous escape from these responsibilities, just grab your campaign slogan, whack it onto a beige background, and BAM! Youve got yourself a landslide defeat.But these are hardly reliable data pools: Grey was used by two campaigns (Esther Shim in 2016 and Jacky He in 2018) and beige by one (Cameron Hawkins 2016 bid for USU). Not exactly numbers to inspire confidence. If you look at the big hitters (any colour with 10% or more representation in the total pool of campaigns), a combination of black and white or blue are your best bets. With black and white you have a 66% chance of success, while with blue you have a respectable 58%. If theyre not your speed though, pink, red, and yellow all hover at around about a 55% success rate. But whatever you do, dont pick purple! Of the legitimate campaign colours (sorry beige and grey), it has the most dismal chances, sitting at a miserable 28%.What does all this tell us? Absolutely nothing. The most important thing Ive learnt from this experience is that of all the traditional factions on campus, the Liberals have the lowest average quiz score, with a resounding 44%.Conflict of interest: the author of this piece likes pretty colours. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Swapnik Sanagavarapu has been provisionally elected as the President of the SRC for 2021, as the sole candidate in an uncontested election. He scored 64% in our quiz. This is our profile of him:Swapnik Sanagavarapus election to President of the SRC is historic in at least three respects: it is the first time a SRC President has been elected without competition in at least 50 years, it is the first time Grassroots will have held the SRC Presidency for two years in a row, and Sanagavarapu will be coming to the office in the midst of a global pandemic.Our interview with Sanagavarapu, much like his rise to presidency, was uneventful. With the vanishing of any opposition, so too goes the need for Honi Soit editors to create contrived downsides to compare him to a much worse candidate. That means we can say this: Swapnik Sanagavarapu will probably be a good president.Students content with Liam Donohoes presidency will likely be pleased by Sanagavarapus. Indeed, Sanagavarapu is something of Donohoes political protege, and was initially recruited into Grassroots by Donohoe after meeting at a debating mixer. Its no secret that Im very much like Doon, he tells us in his interview. Both are charismatic former debaters, both have considerable experience in Grassroots election campaigns, both enjoy (perhaps too much) sparring with their political opponents, neither had a paid Office Bearer position within the SRC prior to election, and both (I guess we should mention) are dudes.Sanagavarapu was interviewed by Nina Dillon Britton and Matthew Forbes.Sanagavarapus view of Donohoes presidency is unsurprisingly favorable. Even what he deemed to be the current presidents biggest weakness trying to do too much sounded like he was doing a job interview on behalf of Donohoe. When asked how he would differ from Donohoe, Sanagavarapus answer was not much. He plans to delegate more work to other Office Bearers a task that may be difficult if the lack of work from this years General Secretaries and Vice Presidents is anything to go by and lobby for permanent funding for Donohoes popular initiatives, such as the mutual aid network.Sanagavarapu has already begun to work closely with Donohoe, sitting in on the Academic Board, acting as the President in July when Donohoe was on leave, and assisting with the SRCs submission to the Senates inquiry into the Higher Education Bill. He has been a councillor for the last two years, a member of the General Executive this year and served as Global Solidarity Officer (after getting rolled from Ethnocultural Officer) and co-convener of the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) last year, effectively rehabilitating the group.However at the time, a female co-convener complained that Sanagavarapu and other co-office bearers had done less than their fair share in the role. Sanagavarapu said he regrets letting some of his tasks fall onto others, and cited institutional constraints working multiple jobs, full-time study and a 90 minute commute that would not exist with the Presidents approximately $40,000 salary. Though less experienced than Grassroots candidates of recent years, all of whom have had paid OB roles prior to running, Sanagavarapus experience in the organisation, and the institutional experience of Grassroots would well-equip him for the role. His quiz results in this area were largely correct, though he crucially missed that the SRC is an unincorporated entity which impacts his legal liabilities as president.Swapnik was initially hesitant to put his hand up for the role while Grassroots was looking for a candidate earlier this year. He attributes that to the fact that his degree progression is fucked. It is for the same reason that he says he might have to, for reasons he could not tell us, take one or two units next year. Though this would be a break from previous Grassroots presidents, this is a far cry from Jacky Hes absentee presidency through which he studied full-time. Previous NLS president Isabella Brook, took two units per semester and was regarded as generally capable in the role. When asked whether this conflicted with Grassroots criticisms of Josie Jakovac last year, he said that his criticism was not that she had planned to do any units at all (which might have been manageable) but that she planned to study full-time.Most of Sanagavarapus policies centre on campaigning against cuts and racism, and for environmental action and greater support for international students. Some of Sanagavarapus presidential ambitions seem out of place in the context of the pandemic, though that may well be attributable to the fact that it remains uncertain exactly what effect this will have on the SRC and campus life next year. When asked whether his proposed SRC stall would be feasible if most students remain off campus, for example, Sangavarapu admitted that may be true but detailed an online communications strategy. There are several omissions from his policy statement, notably there is no mention of anti-sexual assault campaigns. In his interview, Sanagavarapu said this was not because they were not important but because they had dropped off this year.Swapniks knowledge of the broader University sector context, and the University itself was left wanting. His quiz scores were low in these areas. Importantly Sanagavarapu will be coming to office in a context of massive university funding and staff cuts. That context will ask more of him than most of his predecessors. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to rise to the occasion.The full interview transcript can be found here.Presidential Quiz1. What proportion of FTE staff has the Faculty of Arts and Social Science proposed to cut? [1]30%2. Name the electoral officers for the SRC elections for 2017 2020 [4]Paulene Graham (2017), Karen Chau (2018), Casper Lu (2019), Geoffrey Field (2020)3. List the names of all the SRC caseworkers [5]Mel Da Silva, James Campbell, Lorna Pringle, Breda Lee, Sharon Maher.4. What is the 2020 NUS affiliation amount? [1]Currently budgeted for $58,400.5. Describe one way that an SRC President can be removed from office. [1]Via petition with 500 signatures, followed by a 2/3 majority at a General Meeting.6, A recent proposal to merge schools within the Faculty of Medicine and Health would see how many FTE staff cut? [1]17.57. What proportion of international student fee revenue does that University project to take in in 2021? [1]At the time of quiz, 65%.8. When did USyd introduce a new Freedom of Speech charter? [1]20209. What does TEQSA stand for, and what is the role of the organisation? [2]Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. Maintain10. Under which SRC President was the legal service introduced? [1]Elly Howse11. In what year were SRC regulations prohibiting SRC / Honi preference deals introduced? [1]201412. When does the University of Sydney enterprise agreement expire? [1]202113. Who is the current National President of the NTEU and who was their predecessor? [2]Allison Barnes, Jeannie Rea.14. Name the current branch presidents of the USyd NTEU, and USyd CPSU [2]Kurt Iveson (NTEU), Patrick OMara (CPSU).15. Who is the Universities Australia chair? [1]Professor Deborah Terry16. Which NSW State Minister has the higher education portfolio? [1]Geoffrey Lee17. What is the maximum Youth Allowance payment, not including the coronavirus supplement? [1]$79318. When is the coronavirus supplement to Centrelink payments due to expire? [1]December 31 2020. Note: Will be lowered from $550 per fortnight to $250 per fortnight from 25 September 2020.19. Who is the chair of the Academic Board and what is the Boards role? [2]Associate Professor Tony Masters. To advise Senate on academic matters.20. How many protesters were fined at the campus NDA rally on 28 August? [1]1021. How many staff does the SRC employ? [1]17. Including casual staff, the Electoral Officer and Electoral Officers assistant. Arguably electoral staff are not employed by the SRC so 15 would have also been accepted.22. Describe the case decided in February of this year by the NSW District Court involving a former Honi Soit editor, and the SRCs involvement in the case [2]Massarani v Kriz. Patrick Massarani, a former member of the University of Sydney Senate, brought a defamation claim against former Honi Soit editor Georgia Kriz for suggesting in an article he had sexually assaulted someone. The SRC was, amongst other parties, initially named in the complaint, but was dropped prior to the decision being handed down. SRC legal service represented a former Directors of Student Publications.23. What kind of legal entity is the SRC? [1]Unincorporated association24. A recommendation of the 2017 Broderick report was that a review would be held into college culture again in what period of time? [1]3 years25. An ICAC inquiry this year found that the Head of Campus security accepted what bribe? [1]Money and a pin ball machine26. Is the University eligible for JobKeeper payments? Why/why not? [2]No. Universities have been included for several different reasons, most recently that they have not 50% losses in revenue.27. Who currently sits on the Board for the SRC Legal Service? [2.5]President, General Secretaries, Admin Manager, Principal Solicitor of the Legal Service.28. What proportion of FASS subjects were paused this semester? [1]8%29. Per social distancing regulations, how many people are allowed to be inside the SRC offices at the moment? [1]44 in rooms. Approx 50 including hall. Either accepted.30. Name the staff representatives on the University Senate. [3]Associate Professor Maryanne Large, Professor Stephen Simpson AC, Dave Burrows.Disclaimer: Iris Yao is not involved with this years coverage of SRC, NUS or Honi Soit elections. Nina Dillon Britton, Madeline Ward and Lara Sonnenschein are former members of Sydney Grassroots. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Are you seeing anyone? my friend asks. Its neither uncommon nor unkind for them to ask, but I know my answer isnt the one they want. No, I reply. Its a little disappointing, because now we have to find something else to talk about.The experience of love seems like the only thing that human beings have not been able to destroy. Instead, we have built cities in our head around it. When being single is defined as the absence of a relationship as a city with no centre it can be a little disorienting to feel yourself floating, untethered to another person.A childhood of fairy tales, adolescence of romcoms and young adulthood of sitcoms and Sex & The City have given significant cultural voice and a gracious sense of normativity to being single. Self-love and self-partnership language and practices have been a more recent example of this. As a result, stronger friendships, self-awareness and self-knowledge have become the corollary to single life. Notwithstanding this inherent power, it still contributes to constructing the idea that being single is a defined state of being, a type of personhood and a way of moving through the world.To define your life as stages and measures of romantic entanglement or commitment can feel disempowering and reductive of where you might be in relation to any given person. When you kiss your ex in the back of a cab after running into him on a night out, and you ask yourself, What are you doing? why are you necessarily doing anything? When you spend all day drafting a nonchalant message. When you get broken up with and dont know why. Implicit in the constant pressure to define your experiences is to fit another person within certain objectives and, in so doing, take ownership of them. Its hard to take ownership of something you feel like youre chasing, or something you dont yet understand.The binary of being in or out of a relationship might be the way most people operate, but the existence of a binary should not diminish the ambiguities and complexities of emotion experienced both in and out of love. Yet within established states of un-attachment, we still prescribe sub-states: emotionally unavailable, currently on Hinge, keeping things casual, self-destructive behaviour, heartbreak, heartbreaker. Bordering these states are the questions that keep sailing in: what youre looking for, whether youre putting yourself out there enough, why youve been single for so long, if youre ready for something new. These questions dont have fixed, or necessarily apparent, answers. They are all valid and important questions, but, again, they place our relationship status at the centre of our relationship with ourselves.When a relationship is a destination, being single is presupposed as a temporary holiday spot. We all need to visit once in a while, perhaps on a Friday night, for a few months, or, for some of us, we take a year or two off, before we settle back into the routine, safety and security of our everyday lives and lovers. But when a relationship is a destination, being single is also the car breaking down on the side of the road, always missing the train, running out of time to get there fast enough and forgetting to enjoy the journey.Whenever something is called a journey, it immediately acquires a sense of illusion, or fantasy, or ridiculousness. And it is. Because love doesnt make sense. People have no idea what they mean to one another, and sometimes people choose to be single as much as they choose to fall in love.Who decided that I was waiting? When does ambivalence become apathy? When does not caring become shutting yourself off? When does caring become desperation? Does feeling empowered, and like you dont need anyone, actually stem from a place of cynicism? This constant pull, down a spiralling staircase of self-reference, into a library of what was and what could be, is the force of internalised pressure, cultural consciousness and external excitability about relationships.A friend of mine said that its okay to still enjoy something about which you do not feel completely powerful in every way. Maybe we were talking about sex, maybe we were talking about being single, maybe we were talking about love. Its not really that important. The beauty is in the fact that it could mean so many things, and to so many people whatever your relationship status so will you. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The British Royal Family are in the news at least once a week, after Prince Phillips death and Meghan and Harrys interview with Oprah, make that everyday. When I hear of the royal family, I cant help but think back to the shocking turn of events that precipitated when Meghan and Harry visited my high school as royalty.I spent my entire first week of year 12 not in class but in my schools dance studio, rehearsing for a special performance that Friday as part of the dance ensemble. We were told that it would be part of a media release for the Department of Education and the NSW Premier would be visiting, but we knew nothing else.Soon enough though, the Daily Mail leaked that the (ex) Duke and Duchess of Sussex would be visiting Macarthur Girls High School, and by Thursday night screenshots of the news flooded the Snapchat stories of everyone at the school. Group chats went off with OMG GUYS!, NO WAY IS THIS LEGIT.Suddenly there was an explanation for why this dance was prioritised over year 12 classes, why the SRC spent roll call picking BluTac off the walls, and why our groundskeeper was planting new flowers all over the school. It explained why we were told to polish our shoes, have tidy uniforms and be ready to present our ID card to get past security into school the next morning.After a week of rain, the sun finally showed, and it beat down relentlessly; so much that the black lino flooring was covered in paint rags and towels to try and keep it cool. But once the media and helicopters arrived, the covering was removed in fear that it would be a bad look for the school. The staff knew the lino flooring would be hot after the Premiers speech, but said we would be fine and that blue gel packs would be ready for us. It sounded like warm sand, and we didnt think much of it.As I stood there waiting for my cue in the music I felt a tingling of heat and pins and needles, which soon developed into a feeling so hot that it was numb, like someone was pinching my skin with an industrial clamp. I wanted to run off, but there were cameras everywhere, a helicopter, and Meghan and Harry sitting right in front of us on wooden lunch benches that were painted brown to cover the mold.We danced barefoot to the point of second-degree burns. If you touch a hot pan you drop it and run your hand under cold water, but our feet were not afforded such luxury. I wanted to get my feet off the damn lino, but instead I had to ignore that instinct with the entire world watching, and just let them burn.A couple of us were in tears half way through the routine. The dance was terrible, and after three minutes of bare feet on a hot iron, we ran to the sick bay with snotty tears and burning soles. I didnt anticipate the burns to be so bad until we took our feet out of the ice buckets and saw the huge blisters all over them. The food tech teachers frantically emptied freezers for any ice they could find, because blue gel packs werent going to cut it.It was hysterical. As eight of us crammed into a sick bay with three chairs, one of the event managers told us to cry quietly so that the media wouldnt hear us. He gave us the obligatory, beautiful performance, girls comment, and that was the last we heard from the organising team. We never filled out an incident form.Sitting with our feet in buckets of iced water, we scrolled through our phones to see if we made it onto any sites, and found a video of our performance on the Kensington Royal Instagram. People commented, Why are they crying?, with replies assuming we were feeling the emotion in the music, until a student commented, they burnt their feet because the floor was hot.This post is no longer available. It was deleted in minutes. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Oh, I love the pretty designs on your head!How do you even wear that? Nice colour though.I feel so sorry for you arent you hot in it?Did your dad force you to wear that?And the list goes on. Im sure every Muslim woman, whether she chooses to wear the hijab or not, has come across the likes of these questions. Personally, as a Muslim woman who wore the hijab by choice in 2009, took it off by choice in 2015, and hopes to one day wear it again by choice, it baffles me that, even today, the social understanding of hijab is so limited. When I chose to wear the hijab, I was not compelled by my father, brother, uncles or any other male relative. I wore it because I felt I was ready, and that the hijab allowed me to focus myself religiously at that point in my life. This, I believe, is an experience non-Muslim folk must understand. Many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab. A good friend of mine, who wears the hijab, describes it as a constant connection to God. My mother speaks fondly of how the hijab centres her when she faces difficulty in her daily life. My aunt states that the hijab acts as a source of guidance for her, allowing her to discern between good and bad. I wore it back in 2009 because I was exploring my connection to God, and because it made me feel safe and proud in my identity as a Muslim woman.Now, before any of my fellow Muslim haram police jump down my throat: I remain proud of myself as a Muslim woman. I chose to take off the hijab when I was fifteen years old an act that I know the Muslim community criticises to no end. At the age of fifteen I was suicidal and suffering from PTSD. My hijab had, unfortunately, become a reminder of a horrific schooling experience. I am now at a stage, nearly six years later, where I have learnt to separate my trauma from the wearing of the hijab. For the last six months, I have toyed seriously with the idea of wearing the hijab again. I felt no shame when I wore the hijab it was one of the most beautiful parts of myself. However, at the same time, I am not ashamed of my decision to remove it, because that was exactly what fifteen-year-old Lina needed to heal. When I do wear it again, I will wear it as a proud Muslim woman.I have shared my story because it is crucial to understand that Muslim women around the world do not need your approval to be the women they want to be.To my non-Muslim folks: please stop with the white feminism. A modern, liberated woman should not be equated solely with someone who feels comfortable in their nudity. My mother is a modern woman. She is a modern woman who wears the hijab, lives life according to her rules and takes shit from no one. I do not look at my hijabi friends and aunts and pity them. They do not pity themselves. Yes, we sometimes collectively struggle with finding modest clothing and yes, Western beauty standards impact us. The demonisation of the hijab as a tool of oppression is orientalist and deeply Islamophobic. The misinterpretation of the hijab as a tool of oppression enforced on Muslim women by tyrannical men destroys Muslim womens agency in the rush to liberate them. Instead, listen to Muslim women when they raise issues. Hold space for us to explain and advocate religiously and culturally appropriate solutions. Stop with the Eurocentric problem-solving of widely hyperbolised and misunderstood issues.For my Muslim folks: its not cool when we as a community suddenly appoint ourselves haram police over other fellow Muslims. One of the most common judgements we love to pass is: If shes going to wear the hijab like that, itd be better if she didnt wear it. Discussing whether a Muslim womans hijab is appropriate or Islamic enough is insulting and, frankly, arrogant. Its discouraging for Muslim women who may be experimenting with the hijab for the first time, who may want to wear the hijab, or who are struggling with their physical identity as a Muslim woman. Islam holds space for culture to be relevant in the way that certain Islamic customs can be interpreted hijab happens to be one of them. Whether its a turban-style scarf or black niqab, respect what each woman chooses to wear.So what it really comes down to, is this: let Muslim women be the women they want to be. Period. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I was 10, my dad read me Frances Hodgson Burnetts The Secret Garden. As he was reading, I held Burnetts world in the palm of my hand and saw every part of the garden in its technicolour beauty. Ive always felt like I carried the garden around with me, like one day I would form a world of my own and finally leap from its pages.Like many searching for a place to conquer their literary desires, I chose to study English at university. Whilst this choice was perhaps an unwise collaboration of naivety and budding intrigue, I was glad to be doing something I was actually interested in. The first novel I distinctly remember reading was Homers Odyssey. Homer was pretty ballsy, writing 300 odd pages on Odysseus- who gets a three sentence summary in The Iliads Sparknotes page. Im not here to write an in depth critique on a book written over 1000 years ago, but I do want to highlight that this book may just have been the beginning of the end.By the 4th year of my 3 year degree I was turned off by even the thought of reading. I found myself incessantly analysing every text I turned to. Is Tarantinos blatant foot fetish really an homage to early Marxist theory? Does the green curtain really just symbolise envy? Is the Rainbow Fish a queer visionary? And what was my Klepstad Ikea wardrobe manual really trying to tell me?Late last year I was wandering through a book shop, the name of which I wont disclose (this is an unsponsored post so no name dropping) when I stumbled upon They Wish They Were Us. I was enticed by the plaid cover and the solid 3.5/5 it boasts on Goodreads. It chronicles a group of 17 year olds finding out what really happened to their friend that fateful summer 5 years ago. It was riveting, enticing and most importantly- completely devoid of anything complex.There is a certain peace in the incessant tropes of Y/A fiction that is hard to find in other forms of literature. Protagonists are beautiful outsiders, whose parents are constantly out of town; they are high achievers who have fallen in love with someone unexpected. Perhaps they have just moved to a new school and their history teacher has been acting a bit strange since their new friend went missing. Y/A fiction is often cringey, blatantly unoriginal and entirely formulaic; it was just what I needed.I never discovered if Moby Dick really was just a euphemism for the heightened male egomaybe Ill never know. What I do know, however, is that I will continue reading, just so long as they remake the book into a feature film starring Halsey. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A few weeks ago, I walked into a Miracle Supermarket for some late night snacks. I wandered around the aisles looking for familiar treats such as coconut jelly (rau cu da in Vietnamese) or mung bean-coated sticky rice (xi v). But I was instantly sold when I stumbled upon a nostalgic, red and yellow tin of Choco Pies.The sumptuous treat a crumbly cake with a crispy chocolate covering and a creamy marshmallow core, is an iconic staple in Korea and Southeast Asia, which of course includes my homeland, Vietnam. Seeing it on the shelf cued primary school memories; finishing class, holding a copy of either Doraemon or Black Jack, and visiting the local sweets kiosk for a Choco Pie.The story behind this hugely popular confection is no heroic, rags-to-riches fairytale. Like many other household snacks, Choco Pie was owned and created by Orion Confectionery, one of South Koreas largest food companies. Founded in 1956, Orion went on to dominate the South Korean confectionery scene alongside other conglomerates Lotte and Crown. However, it was not until 1974 that the firm created its piece de resistance that was the Choco Pie. The cake was inspired by its British and American contemporaries, the Wagon Wheel and Moon Pies. But unlike its rivals, Orion aggressively expanded Choco Pie distribution across China and Southeast Asia by building factories in China, Vietnam, and Russia.In addition, Orion deployed a range of branding strategies specifically catered for different markets. For instance, in China, the company avoided the romanised Chocopie, instead calling it Hao Li You Pai ( ) meaning a good friend, and inserted Ren () which denotes altruism and virtuousness in Confucian philosophy to appeal to the countrys strong underpinning of family life. In Russia, the pies nutritional profile was adjusted to cater for breakfast, seeing that locals preferred Choco Pies with tea. For Orion, despite its direct inspiration from Georgias Wagon Wheels, it resonated with public demands for an alternative to American imports as Orions revival coincided with the emergence of Chaebol capitalism.Choco Pies fame is perhaps best encapsulated in its appeal in the most personal of settings the home. As of 2018, Vietnam consumes the most Choco Pies out of any country exceeding even its home, South Korea itself despite having only been introduced to the country in 2005. The treat is so ubiquitous and popular that it is sometimes used as an offering on ancestral altars alongside traditional assortments of fruits and ph. Of course, it is hard to escape the irony delicious South Korean capitalism juxtaposed against the humility of Confucian ancestor worship.The story of Choco Pie represents a curious intersection between nostalgia, familial spirituality, and capitalist iconoclasm. Although these may seem irreconcilable, such dissonance may represent an opportune alignment between the self-sacrificial impetus underpinning ancestral worship, commercial novelty and Southeast Asias rapid economic transformation. In a way, that sweet and beloved tin of Choco Pie on the altar is a quasi-spiritual celebration of trendy capitalist innovation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Until now, it had been more than a year since dancing had been allowed in Sydneys local venues. An experience that would strike many as a rite of passage in ones final year of school was positively unattainable for many, making its resurgence a surreal experience for the niche group that graduated amongst the past years insanity. And yet, it is one that feels profoundly natural. As someone who only truly felt it for the first time last Friday night, it stands out as profoundly familiar, even as a newcomer. The simplest way to describe it would be to say that it feels absurd to imagine that it hasnt been the norm for these thirteen months, and even stranger to imagine it disappearing once again.As a musician myself, it is easy to distinguish the stark difference that one feels when sitting down to music, and being able to roam freely. It affects the energy, the volume, and even the actual speed of the music in the best ways possible. A band has no reason to extend themselves one more time deep into a song if theres no means to react plainly dancing makes the audience an instrument to be played. The emotion of a crowd is just as important to the quality of music as that of the band. This is something you can feel as a member of both crowds, as I did on one night soon after restrictions were lifted being first a musician and then joining the audience for the following act. The greatest difference I noticed on stage is the new meaning that dancing brings to rhythm. You can feel this most in the emphasis you have to put into the flow of your music, with dancing allowing any individual member of the band to take a back seat or even stop playing in light of the percussive force delivered by strangers some thirty centimetres away. I felt this strongly myself, often leaving my band, Alpha Goose, on the stage to join the audience towards a songs end, allowing the rhythmic energy of the dancefloor to carry the tune far longer than would be wise or enjoyable without them. This exchange gave a purpose to our performance that we previously deeply desired.Frankly, dancing is as important to music performance as the music itself, and its role as an artform is meaningless without being able to influence and affect people and the way they act. Dancing is much less a practice of tradition, and a natural element of human celebration and communication leading my experience playing to a dancing crowd on Friday to be nothing short of revelatory.However, theres also the crucial impact that dancing has on the viewer, which I also experienced in the viewing of the band that followed us, Starcrazy, that night. As I swapped roles between performer and admirer, I realised the profound similarities between the two. As Ive already stated, the audience exists as no less than a main instrument to a performances extravagance, and as such my role in the music being produced didnt seem to diminish no matter where I was in the room. In this setting, where dance was previously absent, I had the right to add rhythm and feeling, which was inaccessible to myself when playing guitar and singing. The freedom I felt when dancing allowed me to add extraneous percussion and exaltation at any point I felt necessary. I was not bound by a score, and in this sense a dancer is the true conductor of a concert. The hollering and mindless movement delivered by the 150-odd sweaty forms present on the night had more power over the band than vice versa. Put simply, in dance, the line between observer and performer is banished.Thus, overall, I can recommend nothing higher in this time than to experience such a feeling yourself. After so long without it (or rather, without feeling it before) it is easy to dismiss the role dancing has in music and human expression. We listen in our headphones, our cars, our stereos, but the only way to truly feel musics power is to be there. In a time where physical interaction is progressively rarified, there is nothing more important than to become a tangible part of this expression. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Women are angry. Western media announces this time and time again, briefly casting its eye over the rage that imbues the everyday experience of being a woman.Within this statement is the message, normalised in our society, that where women prefaces angry, the anger is irrational, excessive, threatening, and somehow worthy of a headline. And yet, angry women are nothing new. Its ironic that in a context where we are denied anger, its women, not men, who have so much to be mad about.I have always been an angry person, and yet I write little about it. Its odd, but I cannot recall ever deconstructing my rage, or another womans, on the page. Since I was a toddler, my frustrations were converted into white hot rage that rattled door frames and burst pillows at the seams as they were walloped against furniture. The reasons would be trivial: taming my thick curls, or my father teaching me a difficult piano piece. It could kindle out of nowhere, clawing its way out of my throat in words sharpened to cut, and I would relish the satisfying thunk of them landing in their target, despite the guilt that always followed. I still often do, though it lands me in more trouble now as a woman, rather than a small girl.Anger is a primitive part of the spectrum of human emotion, and studies show women are no more or less angry than men. It has evolved to promote survival by triggering our fight-or-flight instinct, inspiring recklessness. Anger hormones, in the right context, can also improve sports performance, political negotiation, business decision making, and trigger creativity. Women relinquish the power of anger, a part of our evolutionary toolkit, when were taught to conform to gendered norms of emotional expression.Anger remains the emotion that is least acceptable for girls and women because it is the first line of defense against injustice, writes Soraya Chemaly in Rage Becomes Her (2018). When we get angry, we violate feminine qualities of passivity, maternity, compassion, softness, and subordination to masculine power. An angry woman is not a woman, says patriarchy. Shes a bitch, psychopath, madwoman in the attic, witch, mean girl, or a femiNazi. She is shrill, or annoying. She wont give us a smile.Posing this topic to certain men, I was affronted with the argument that the stigma around womens rage has dissolved. That its a fable more relevant to the 20th century than our own. But any claim that the campaigning of several feminist waves has destigmaised womens anger belies the omnipotence of the Western patriarchy today. In fact, this is the same argument wielded against 21st century feminism, claiming its superfluity.In fact, the male gaze is far more powerful when it is invisible. When society tells women they cannot be outwardly angry - that its more socially acceptable to be sad - that same anger is directed inward, upon ones inability to measure up to social standards. In such a way, depression, anxiety, self harm, and low self-esteem are pathologised as symptoms of girlhood, evidence of womens innately insufficient biology, according to feminist theorist Angela McRobbie.Male anger, and associated violence, is shorthand for the hypermasculinity and emotional repression that men are rewarded for in imperialist-patriarchal culture. The anger glorified in ancient stories of battle, heroism and honour, such as Homers The Iliad, differs little from the bloody pornographies of modern warfare depicted by todays historical films like Gallipoli (1981) and Dunkirk (2017). These images permeate male-dominated action films, religiously-followed sports, and the rhetoric of male political figures.Yet womens anger continues to disempower them, vilified by patriarchal systems of meaning. A 2008 study by Harvard Kennedy School found that professional women suffer a decline in perceived competence for displays of emotion in the workplace, while men expressing anger are more likely to be hired and given more autonomy at work. Serena Williams was infamously criticised for outbursts on the tennis court as issues of race and the angry black woman stereotype were brought to the fore.In the political sphere, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard were notoriously demonised in their election campaigns by political opponents and the media, intent on sustaining the sexist narrative that angry, powerful women are manipulative, licentious, too emotional to make decisions, and even sub-human.There are exceptions, you might say. Gillards rage-filled misogyny speech has racked up millions of views on Youtube, and Australian of the Year and sexual assault survivor Grace Tames passionate speech at the National Press Conference was positively received by mainstream media.Yet this proves the socially acceptable expression of womens anger is excruciatingly narrow. It is demarcated by whiteness, calmness, eloquence, being cishet-passing, and often attractiveness. Theres little, or no, space for outburst, or intersectional difference. It is an exception to the rule, not equality.Women are angry, says the media. If this statement is valuable in any way, it must be as a reminder to hold onto our anger and stoke its flames. Because womens anger is above all else human anger. It is transformative. It is our fight-or-flight instinct, in a world where the odds have always been stacked against our survival. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres little doubt that weve all been staying at home longer than usual during the current pandemic. Amidst economic and social disruptions, one of the more amusing corollaries of our extended time in isolation has been the rise of quarantine hobbies. Whilst others baked banana bread or learnt how to crochet, I decided to try my hand at another craft pen-palling.At its simplest, pen-palling is the act of writing letters regularly to a stranger, often in a different country. Email and other digital variations exist, but the tradition has always been rooted in postal correspondence.The first step in my pen-palling journey was, unsurprisingly, to find a pen-pal. In the past, I mightve had to scour the classified ads of newspapers or periodicals for candidates but living in the age of the internet meant there was no shortage of websites I could use instead. After a few failed attempts with people across various continents, I managed to get into contact with Josef, a boy my age from Manchester. We swapped addresses, and regular correspondence ensued.Save for a few instances of Gen Z incompetence such as the time I mistook a gummed stamp for a self-adhesive one (and spent several embarrassing minutes trying to peel off its backing) my experience pen-palling so far has been nothing short of wonderful.There are so many reasons why one might look for a pen-pal: it exposes you to different cultures; it allows you to explore the world vicariously through the eyes and lived experiences of another. You might also want to use it to practise a foreign language or to connect with a kindred spirit halfway across the globe. These are all pertinent points, especially in our current climate of travel restrictions. Communicating with Josef opened my eyes to the Mancunian cultural scene (The Smiths!) alongside the fascinating differences between our lives at a quotidian level.But in addition to these apparent benefits, I also gained insight into some of the other qualities of snail mail pen-palling which make it so intrinsically enjoyable. If you will, the magic of the pen-pal experience.IndelibilityIn the digital age, we often find our fingers hovering over the backspace key, both literally and figuratively. We have the liberty of going over our existing paragraphs, tweaking the structure of our messages, changing a word here and there. This is great, but it can also lead to hesitation. When you write a letter, the ink is indelible on the piece of paper. Your sentence isnt retractable. Whats there is there, in all of its irrevocable glory.This proved to be a source of personal anxiety when I first started pen-palling. Unhappiness with the phrasing of a particular sentence led me to scrap the entire page it was on. But I soon learnt to embrace the indelibility. My letters became more organic and flowing, a stream of consciousness in written form. Pen-palling helps you gain confidence with your message construction and fearlessness with your expression.Meaningfulness and PatiencePen-palling allows for more meaningful conversations. The effort and time it takes for a letter to be delivered warrants a message more substantial than lol or wyd. Theres a degree of deliberateness to it as well you are choosing to write specifically for the sake of the message as opposed to the reactionary or pragmatic nature of instant messaging.Dont get me wrong, this isnt a rant about the downfalls of social media which youve heard ad nauseum. Without the immediacy of the internet, I wouldnt have even gotten into contact with Josef. But in our current era of perpetual connectivity and always on culture, theres something to be said for the delayed gratification which snail mail brings. The anticipation of waiting for a letter makes it all the better when it finally arrives. Not to mention the sheer excitement of receiving something in your mailbox that isnt a bill.There are even apps out there, such as Slowly, which recognise the value in slower pace communication. Slowly attempts to recreate the pen-pal experience digitally by delaying the messages sent between users. But nothing beats actual snail mail.AuraIn a 1935 cultural criticism essay, German scholar Walter Benjamin famously argued that the mechanical reproduction of art diminishes its aura. In other words, it is stripped of its authority and authenticity.When your messages can be easily forwarded or copied and pasted, how authentic are they? What effect does the ease of reproducibility have? Think about the canvassing DMs you receive from people during stupol season or the generic university emails sent out to everyone.Contrastingly, there is something so personal and intimate about a handwritten letter. It has its own essence, evoked by factors such as the scent of the paper or the individuality of someones handwriting. When you hold a letter, you hold the very same letter which your pen-pal held a few weeks ago, the same letter that travelled across the world from abroad to your doorstep. As Benjamin would assert, it has a unique presence in space and time. It has an aura.The postal medium of snail mail also allows you to enclose physical objects and gifts with your letter. Polaroids, annotated maps, brochures, coin frottage artworks they all enhance this experience to the next level.Tourist in Your Own CityAs much as pen-palling teaches you about other places, it also works the other way round. In the process of telling Josef about Sydney, I inadvertently found myself gaining a renewed appreciation of the city. Whether it was the specific species of the eucalyptus tree in my neighbourhood or historical facts about the Harbour Bridge, my attention to detail became heightened. Pen-palling provides you with fresh perspectives on the mundane and insight into the regional idiosyncrasies of your hometown.The pen-pal experience is truly remarkable. There are nuances of the craft and the enjoyment it brings which cannot be expressed in words. For anybody considering finding a pen-pal, I could not recommend it more. The magic of pen-palling is something you need to experience firsthand. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You are going to write a story, you declare. You sit at your desk, back straight. It will be great, your magnum opus! People will cite it in their biographies as a formidable moment. The story will inspire piles of Bildungsroman literature and Netflix will fight for the rights. Fan wikis will pop up to codify your work, picking apart each and every detail for morsels of lore. And youll be invited to sit on panels, speak at conferences, and participate in Q&As with seminal authors of the genre. This will be your greatest dream come true.But how does it begin?I have been thinking a lot about writing lately. Of the specifics, the little decisions you dont realise you have to make until you start writing. And in that spirit, I have spent my time going through various forms of writing advice in search of a better place to start. And, invariably, I happened upon narration. The first step is picking a style to write in and giving your character a voice. There are only two options: first person and third person. Writing in the second person is famously regarded as a feat on par with chasing clouds.But the first person perspective limits you. The writer is trapped in a single persons head and cannot offer nuanced perspectives on situations without unrealistic dialogue that sounds like an inner monologue being forced out loud. Writers get stuck in the monotony of a single viewpoint, and all their books start sounding the same. And the third person, in the opinion of someone who has used it on multiple occasions, is a cop out. Its simply too easy!The main argument for the second person is its immersive experience. For this reason, it has been used extensively in non-fiction self-help books. Its easier to say, You will wake up in the morning and make a kale smoothie, than it is to say, They will wake up in the morning and make a kale smoothie. The words are speaking to the reader directly like I am talking to you right now. With this exchange, we are having a conversation to which you are beholden and which you are compelled to finish.But much like a conversation, there should be a natural end. In my excursions into the genre, I have found that it reaches its fullest potential when the pieces are fast-paced and short, with plots that revolve around everyday things that the average person can relate to. The second person has been likened to a ballad for a lover, but the effect can be lost in long-form writing when used indulgently. Your hands blaze with a brilliant white light as you scream and tear the sky in two, fails to engage the reader by page 401.Some books have attempted the task, like Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney. But even when a book accomplishes this lofty feat, immersion isnt necessarily a good thing. Bright Lights, Big City was so intense, I did not finish it and do not think I ever will. The book screamed at me, the narrators anxieties and fears ringing in my mind.The second person is a world of its own, but the line between immersion and exhaustion is a thin one. While writing long-form pieces, you find that it is actually quite hard, that characterisation is almost impossible, that being the object of your own story is uncomfortable. You do not read books for yourself; you want a character you can follow, someone you can experience from a safe distance away, in a place you can escape to. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Impecuniousness has demanded that I navigate this La Nia without the protection of an umbrella. As a result, I have developed an increasingly close acquaintance with the norms and nature of New South Wales rainfall developing a farmers predilection for measuring millimeters and refreshing radars. Accordingly, I will recount some of my recent rainfall experiences.Last Week (Rain as Comfort)Last week, in the midst of a once-in-fifty-year rainfall event, I sat down and read fiction for the first time since the last time it rained. The downpour cleared away at least briefly the stagnancy of Sydneys fetid early autumn, allowing for an early sampling of winters indulgences: tea, doonas, fiction.Performative wintering is an art well-practiced by certain Sydneysiders, and puffer jackets and designer raincoats soon were promptly whipped out of closets with an air of self-satisfaction to make their season debuts under extravagant umbrellas.To Sydneysiders with roofs that dont leak, this sort of rain is mostly an ambivalence, a public transport inconvenience at worst. More a conversation starter than a cause for concern.In this environment of Scandi-LARPing, of rain as a fashion opportunity, it is difficult both literally and figuratively, to gauge and understand the scale and effect of rain just beyond Sydney. My rain gauge only takes 150mm. Much of the North Coast took over 200mm on a single day.A house floating down the Manning River on its owners wedding day seems from Surry Hills more like the makings of an apocryphal pub tale than a real personal and local tragedy. Only the news that the couples dog went down with the house has the effect of provoking much sympathy.CricketJames Joyce wrote: In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sounds of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.Rain and cricket go hand in glove. For the amateur cricketer, a working proficiency in meteorology is a basic of the pastime. One quickly gains an understanding of precipitation percentages, vectors and variabilities of local wind patterns, and an intimacy with isobaric charts.Every year at the SCG Test it rains. Each year a different rain: fine mist, socked in soaking, southerly buster. But the patricians in the Members dont mind it at least reinforces their claim to be a traditional (read: English) test ground. And regardless, they spend the time pissing up in the bar, drinking out of glass schooners, gazing from the balcony at the plebs in ponchos, plastic cups in hand, rain pick, pack, pocking on the old tin roof.Southerly BusterHeat settles in the Sydney basin on rancid summer days. Weatherboards warp and floorboards stick to bare feet. Non-air-conditioned Sydneysiders lie defeated in syrupy air on couches, in backyards, at beaches, bobbing up and down in the water. We chew up time in stagnant silence, waiting for the sound and action of the southerly buster as it blows up the coast.A good buster is an event to remember.Two RainsLes Murray, Honi Soit alum and poet of the Manning River region, writes best about our rain:Our farms are in the patched blue overlapbetween Queensland rain and Victorian rain(and of two-faced droughts like a dustbowl tap).The southerly rain is skimmed and curledoff the Roaring Forties circuit of the world.It is our chased Victorian silverand makes wintry asphalt hurry on the spotor pauses to a vague speed in the air,whereas, lightning-brewed in a vast coral potthe tropical weather disgorges its lotin days of enveloping floodtime blasttowering and warm as a Papuan forest,a rain you can sweat in, it steams in the sunlike a hard-ridden horse, while southern rains absorbedlike a cool, fake-colloquial, drawn out lesson. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a news report by The Guardian, a protester monologues into the camera. Behind him are the graffiti-laden walls of Seattles police-free zone. He condemns the medias depiction of the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) as a space of dysfunction and violence and distances the project from agitators and anarchists who want to fuck shit up.This opposition to anarchism is jarring. CHAZ was a near clear-cut example of a temporary autonomous zone, as proposed by anarchist writer Hakim Bey in his 1991 manifesto T.A.Z: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Clearly, anarchism is still a dirty word.Yet, while not always labelled as such, anarchism is undeniably in vogue. In recent months, anarchism has surreptitiously crept into our everyday lives: from the establishment of CHAZ, to calls to abolish police and prisons, to the proliferation of mutual aid initiatives as coronavirus blanketed the globe.Considered a brand of socialism by theorists such as Peter Kropotkin and Noam Chomsky, anarchy promotes the reappropriation of the means of production and the redistribution of wealth. But anarchists staunchly opposed to all forms of power and hierarchy steer well clear of party politics and bureaucratic, centralised modes of decision-making, thereby distinguishing themselves from democratic socialists or Soviet-inspired Trots.Residing within the shadows of capitalist societies, anarchism remains misunderstood and frequently misrepresented. In the words of Hakim Bey, the medias vampiric thirst to satisfy its junk-sickness for spectacle and death has made anarchism a blood-sacrifice a synonym for lawless dystopias.Nor has anarchism found a home in academia. Distrustful of a technocratic elite replicating the behaviour of ruling classes, anarchism has developed an antagonistic relationship with academic institutions. Anarchism is sometimes mentioned in passing by lecturers, but more as a curiosity a utopian fantasy unworthy of critical attention. More often than not it is ignored altogether.Anarchism centres on praxis. More than an ideology, it is a lifestyle, represented not within the dust-laden pages of an esteemed academic journal but around a campfire at a bush doof, and around the table of a crumbling street-corner pub.The proclivity among practicing anarchists for criminal behaviour including squatting, hacking, culture-jamming and reclaiming private property and public space means little self-documentation of activities. While anarchism may occupy physical space, it has rarely occupied the imaginative space of a nation state at work. With the links between anarchism and oral, cyber, DIY and criminal cultures, anarchist stories rarely enter state archives and public memory. This fuels the perception that anarchism represents nothing more than a utopian, escapist fantasy. Yet anarchism is about experimentation and delving into its recent past can present unique opportunities for learning.* * *The early 2000s is a salient period in Sydney squatting history, driven by a post-Cold War scepticism of state socialism, a growing anti-globalisation movement, post-Olympics gentrification and the success of the Broadway Squats (February 2000-July 2001). Sometimes the community reaches a critical mass of people who are up for it, says activist and artist Peter Strong. He suggests that squatting as a lifestyle and protest against the politics of urban displacement progresses in waveform and cites the occupation of the derelict, art-deco cinema christened the Midnight Star Social Centre (February 2002-December 2002) as the end of an era.According to Mickie Quick, who joined the Broadway Squats, people were looking at the social centres of Italy in the 90s fantastic spaces quite a lot like what is happening in Seattle right now with a lot of social services for communities.From February 2000, a fluctuating number of squatters usually around 30 occupied a row of empty buildings owned by the South Sydney City Council intended for demolition. At the end of August, mere weeks before the Sydney Olympics were to begin, the squatters were discovered, kicking off a series of heated face-offs between the squatters, who barricaded themselves in, and police and council members.The squatters exploited the international attention on Sydney and the fact that it was the council evicting people to go to the media and go hell for leather, Quick explains. These tactics worked in the short-term but it was only after relentless lobbying that the residents obtained a caretaker lease. We went to every single council meeting to raise our case and battle for it, claims Quick.The Broadway Squats were unique at the time because the inhabitants were open about their activities, and the caretaker lease solidified this legacy. In Europe, it was easier and (somewhat) more socially-acceptable for people to legally squat an empty building a wartime legacy of mobility. In Sydney, stricter criminal trespass laws meant that the story was different. You got one knock on the door from the cops and you had to leave instantly.Quick describes the Broadway Squats as truly interdisciplinary. The squat action brought together students, architects, lawyers, plumbers, locksmiths, artists, musicians, anarcho-syndicalists and computer programmers in a festival-like atmosphere, and they received support from the Construction Mining Forestry and Energy Union (CFMEU). By dumpster diving at Broadway Shopping Centre, the squatters opened a caf with a voluntary donation policy. It was a celebration and rejection of the waste of consumerism and capitalism.Some residents formed the collective Squatspace, opening a gallery in an old locksmith shop. In contrast to the minimalism, white walls and polished wood of Sydneys high-end galleries, Squatspace hosted a flurry of one-week-brief art shows and political film screenings. Free party culture reigned supreme, transforming the space into a cavernous construction site. According to Quick, artists were wrecking right into the space with site-specific installations. On any weekend, you might be greeted by the politically-infused hip hop of Elf Tranzporter, Izzy and Monkey Marc (later to form the iconic group Combat Wombat with DJ Wasabi). Or perhaps you would endure the aural assault of Toecutter inaugurating his latest batch of broken beats at a System Corrupt party.Within days of obtaining their caretaker lease, however, the occupants were evicted.Activists took this legal precedent with them when they occupied the Midnight Star Theatre several months later. From the outset, the occupation was focused on offering services to the local community rather than permanent housing. Certainly, activists took shifts guarding the building around the clock and Strong recollects that there were a few little rooms here and there. But it seemed pretty temporary. Just people crashing there crisis accommodation.The Midnight Star was a social centre, a non-exclusive place of community, not a squat. It became a central node linking an underground network of anarchists, graffers, Indigenous agitators, party people, urban explorers and crusty punks a network that branched off like fork lightning via anarchist bookshops (Jura Books and Black Rose), protestivals (Reclaim the Streets and Ohms Not Bombs) and community radio (2SER).The view of the Midnight Star from Parramatta Road, Homebush. Photograph courtesy: Robbie Mason. Strong looks back fondly on the Midnight Star. Different groups would meet and have meetings and it was a unifying of those kind of left groups all coming together in the same space, rubbing shoulders and sharing ideas.The social centre hosted the after-party for the Sydney Anarchist and Autonomous Conference, pirate film screenings, raves, punk, reggae and hip hop gigs and, like the Broadway Squats previously, Squatfest the agitators response to the corporate spectacle that was Tropfest. Food Not Bombs used the theatres industrial-sized kitchen to produce vegetarian meals for activists and community drop-ins. The Sydney Housing Action Collective (SHAC), meanwhile, a group of law students from UTS investigating squatting-related solutions to housing, curated a squatting expo in a side room, documenting Australias rich history of squatting.However, Quick says the story of the Broadway Squats and Midnight Star Social Centre is dispiriting. While the ideas were brilliant, the Midnight Star was a small flash in the pan. It fell over after really not a very long time and it has remained empty Thats 17 or 18 years of what could have actually been a really successful social centre.Strong echoes a common belief when he asserts that the police clamped down on squatting because they feared that Sydneys dilapidated buildings were fermenting political dissent. In December 2002, just two weeks after a WTO meeting in Sydney, riot police evicted the occupants of the Midnight Star. The subsequent Balloon Factory Social Centre in 2003 lasted only three weeks.Anarchism has received criticism from socialists who viewed the post-leftist and individualist streaks that emerged within anarchism in the 70s and 80s as an active obstruction to leftist organising and a disdainful turn away from class struggle. But the criticism was not only external. In 1995, in his introspective essay Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm, green anarchist Murray Bookchin frankly reflected on anarchisms rising individualism. Ad hoc adventurism, personal bravura, an aversion to theory oddly akin to the antirational biases of postmodernism, celebrations of theoretical incoherence (pluralism), a basically apolitical and anti-organizational commitment to imagination, desire and ecstasy were suffocating the movement. The black flag now becomes a fashionable sarong for the delectations of chic petty bourgeois.But perhaps not all is doom and gloom. While the Broadway and Homebush squats did not enable squatting to enter the mainstream or reshape criminal trespass laws in practical ways, they were not necessarily, as Bookchin wrote, more orientated towards ones own self-realization than achieving basic social change.Politically-conscious partying and art production were methods for squatters to engage a wider audience and transform worldviews. Rather than disconnecting from the world and receding into a privileged bubble of apathy, the squats, for a few brief moments, brought together diverse communities.The links were particularly strong between Indigenous protest and the underground party scene. We had just gone on the Earth Dream in 2000, says Strong, where the inner city anarcho-dance party protest thing went bush and connected with Indigenous peoples struggles and anti-uranium mining.In 2002 Strong co-organised Living Dream a fundraiser for Canberras Aboriginal Tent Embassy at the Midnight Star with the anarcho-sound system crew Ohms Not Bombs. Aunty Isabel Coe came along and she spoke. There was an opening fire ceremony outside The Victoria Park Embassy in Broadway had been an Aboriginal Tent Embassy during the Olympics and she very much spearheaded that occupation.Living Dream poster. Image courtesy: Peter Strong.The Midnight Star Social Centre allowed for, perhaps even encouraged by its very nature, the continuation of what charismatic millionaire Tony Spanos had begun in the 90s engagement with First Nations communities and disenfranchised youth through his philanthropy and ownership of the Graffiti Hall of Fame, a meatworks-cum-rave-venue.Its not unfair to say a level of pessimism has pervaded anarchism. Quick remembers raging at old Glebe squatters who would come to the Broadway Squats for events, having forsaken squatting. But he cites burn-out culture as a key reason for his inability to contribute fully to the Midnight Star Social Centre. Others claim the Midnight Star participants prioritised social events too heavily.In a world of ever-increasing surveillance, paranoia and non-cooperation too are becoming distinguishing features of anarchism. Hakim Bey believed that a bit of natural paranoia comes in handy and suggested autonomous groups avoid publicity at all costs. But if todays events show anything, its that perhaps there are more anarchist sympathisers out there than anarchists themselves believe. Indeed, despite some bad press from the Daily Telegraph, the Broadway squatters were able to wield the media as a weapon in their fight against eviction. We must take note. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With all the chaos brought on by COVID-19, economics seems to be having a bit of a moment. Welfare payments are doubling, billion-dollar stimulus packages are the new normal, and it would be fair to ask: how might we pay for all this spending once the crisis is over? The real question though is: how do we ever pay for anything? If we can print billions at the press of a button to save the economy from a pandemic, could we not do the same to save ourselves from climate catastrophe? Indeed, we could. The time for radical structural change has arrived, so just how do we make it happen? The last few years have seen a shift in the popular consciousness, and some genuinely transformative ideas are now on the negotiating table. Since a team of progressive US Democrats announced their Green New Deal (GND) in February 2019, the plan has been adapted by social movements and left-wing political parties around the world, acting as a catch cry for climate action. At the same time, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has emerged as a prominentif contentiousnew way of understanding the peculiarities of modern capitalism. Both have gained mainstream appeal for their focus on how capitalist economies can be made to work more sustainably by no means a revolutionary aim. But what makes these new ways of thinking powerful is that they are both exciting, flexible, and within reach, and can be used to pave a realistic path towards a genuinely radical future. The strength of the GND idea is not so much in any one particular version of it, but in its broader symbolism as a redrafting of the social contract a chance to democratically draw together the various strands of progressive thought under the banner of societal and economic renewal. In the strongest iterations of the GND, broad themes of climate action are interwoven with commitments to Indigenous justice and workers rights, all of this rooted in clear, simple plans that would make a tangible difference to peoples lives. At the heart of the GND is a jobs guarantee. This is, arguably, the lynchpin of a just transition to a sustainable society. A jobs guarantee that provides people with secure, stable, and dignified work is not just possible, it is a moral and economic imperative. A national jobs guarantee would bring people left behind by the transition away from fossil fuels into the fold, while addressing many of the bread and butter concerns people have with this process. It would create and provide jobs through a vastly expanded public service from critical community work that has been devalued and defunded for so long, to the high-skilled labour needed to rebuild public infrastructure. These jobs would be provided to anyone who asked, boosting productivity and strengthening the economy in the process. This program, and the rest of a GND, could be paid for by the same debt that will see us out of the current coronavirus crisis a healthy debt, that is backed by the productive capacity of the nation, and itself allows us to maintain and improve this productive capacity. This is the core idea of Modern Monetary Theory: that debt is the natural state of a modern capitalist economy, and that rather than being paid back, it only needs to be managed by controlling inflation and keeping employment high. This moment of crisis should help us to realise that economics is no more a science than history or philosophy rather, it is political. Just as neoliberal politics shaped the economy to work for the rich, so too can we reshape it to work for all. Guided by a strong, democratic GND and a jobs guarantee, a new understanding of the nature of modern economics should be our stepping-stone to a stronger, sustainable, eco-socialist economy. If activists can seize on this moment, it could be an opportunity to bridge the gap between the future we need and want, and the future that has been left to us. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A couple of weeks ago, I was walking through Newtown on my daily government-sanctioned exercise when I noticed something. Strung from a small block of apartments was a banner reading: Were all in this together Sydney. Though it was a sweet sentiment, it felt eerily similar to the tokenism echoed by many mansion-ridden celebrities on social media. Despite the apartments not having private pools or stone columns, I felt a twinge of the same distaste seeing that sign in the Inner West, a queer paradise sitting on stolen Indigenous Gadigal land.Many queer youth have made Newtown their home, drawn in by the supportive haven it offers. However, this, as well as its artistic and creative culture, has also drawn in a different and more financially stable crowd. The bitter reality is that well-off families and professionals are still able to afford the high rent throughout the COVID-19 crisis. But the people who are responsible for Newtowns vibrance and diversity, the Indigenous people who hold sovereignty over this land and young queer people, are being disproportionately affected by the crisis. In a time where connection and community are needed most, this queer paradise is being threatened.There are many social factors that put queer people, particularly queer people of colour, at a higher risk of extreme hardship during isolation and quarantine. Queer people already face higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, health inequalities and estrangement from their parents compared to the general population; all of which are likely to worsen during the course of the shutdown.The same structures of oppression that existed before COVID-19 do not magically disappear. These structures continue to make people who are marginalised and from low socioeconomic backgrounds more vulnerable. This ensures that these are the people suffering the most from this pandemic.Down the road from that well-intentioned sign is a half-empty share house with rainbow flags hanging from the windows. According to the National LGBTI Health Alliance, 51% of LGBTQIA+ young people including 71% of young gender diverse people between the ages of 14-21 do not live at home with family. With job cuts predominantly affecting young people who work part-time and casually, they are one of the groups under the most financial pressure right now.With the dramatically increased rates of youth unemployment under COVID-19, many young people are being forced to move back in with parents in order to avoid homelessness. For many, this is a frustrating but manageable option; but for others moving back home can be dangerous.Many young queer people are now being forced to choose between two equally bad options. They can either live somewhere safe and supportive but with an increased financial burden and risk of homelessness, or lose all access to safety for months in order to not bankrupt themselves. For the queer students moving back home, the sense of freedom and safety promised by suburbs like Newtown, or by virtue of living with people they choose, is now being stripped from them.Those who are still closeted or not accepted at home are now completely on their own. Financial independence, support structures, and health services are out of reach because for many queer people their isolation is absolute. For many, safer spaces like Newtown were their only opportunity to access healthcare, given that queer people were already less likely to seek it out often due to fear and previous trauma. These spaces are especially important now as many would feel uncomfortable getting coronavirus testing elsewhere.Considering that queer people already had disproportionately higher rates of disability, substance abuse, cancer, and HIV infection before the global pandemic, moving away from their usual queer friendly practioners can lead to poorer health outcomes. In effect, it condemns queer people to the possibility of worsened health conditions during a crisis caused by a virus that can be deadly to those with pre-existing health conditions.With this necessary isolation comes a constant state of fear, potential physical danger, and emotional stress. Those who have to return to the closet to move back home are now forced to hide under constant surveillance. Sadly, this means many must pack up any queer memorabilia or clothing. Contact with the queer community has all but disappeared when Zoom calls with queer friends means whispering behind the backs of queerphobic or unaware family members. But it is not just social support structures that are being uprooted by quarantine; professional support is also affected. Many queer people are in situations where they are not able to talk to their therapists on the phone for fear that their new housemates might overhear. Additionally, some trans and gender diverse people have to access important lifesaving hormones in secret.Exposure to any of these scenarios is likely to have a negative impact on mental health. Young queer people have some of the highest rates of depression and anxiety in the country, and the pandemic disproportionately harms them.For those who cannot move back home, there are many more issues to be faced. Trans people face higher levels of abuse than other members of the queer community, and finding safe employment and housing was already difficult before the pandemic. Now, with an increased national reliance on government welfare, trans people attempting to navigate the application process are at risk of being misgendered and dead-named. The legal process to change their names is too arduous and some would not be allowed to change their gender on their birth certificates without surgery. Nevertheless, the process to change gender with Services Australia, including Medicare and Centrelink, only requires a statement from a doctor or psychologist; however, non-binary genders arent recorded.Along with these barriers, people under 22 are also further disadvantaged as they are normally classified as dependent on their parents for Centrelink, making access to welfare harder if they are socially estranged from family. Although there are exceptions for situations where it is unreasonable to live at home, the onus of proof remains on the person.It is undeniable that the queer community is being hit hard by social isolation. For many, leaving high school and being able to attend university is a massive opportunity to explore facets of themselves that they previously could not have. It is a time when many students can comfortably explore their sexuality for the first time. Some are finally safe to come out, and it is often one of the first times young queer people can meet others who have similar experiences.While the internet is a fantastic resource for queer education, it is used in tandem with in-person interactions and experiences where queer people are provided the best opportunity to flourish. In lockdown, first year queer students are being denied these formative experiences including Birdcage and other quintessential queer social events.These safe spaces are being forced to close their doors just as the gaybies were filling in their eyebrows or putting on their first binder. Being around other queer people is so important for many young queer people that even though not being able to go to parties is not the end of the world, being shut out of all queer social interactions is devastating.Overall, the pandemic has clearly affected the large majority of people. However, to say that everyone is in the same boat is an oversimplification. The people hit the hardest by financial and emotional instability during COVID-19 are those who were already facing insecurity and health inequalities. Sending a message of support can be great but only if we remember that some people are having a much harder time. Until we acknowledge this and work to combat all the different inequalities people face, remember, we are not all in this together. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Non-binary people have been largely underrepresented in research, policy, and healthcare initiatives. While we are making strides in access to social, legal, and medical gender affirmation for all gender diverse people, non-binary and gender queer people are still less likely to access desired gender affirming healthcare than binary transgender people.There has been an uptake of the term gender diverse among sexual health academics in an attempt to break away from the binary gender trap. It is an umbrella term that includes anyone that is not cis-gendered, or doesnt identify fully with the gender they were assigned at birth. This includes binary transgender (BT) individuals those who identify as male or female. Non-binary and gender queer (NBGQ) has also been taken up to identify the subgroup of gender diverse people who are not binary transgender.Attempts have been made to include people beyond the binary by using terms like transgender, trans* or trans umbrella, but ultimately the opposite implied by the prefix trans makes identifying as non-binary a little confusing. For this reason, there are many people who identify somewhere outside that binary and dont feel that these words apply to them. On the other hand, many do feel like they are part of the trans community or would like to be. NBGQ or gender diverse are now being used in academic contexts to be more inclusive, but the research is still catching up to the communitys understanding of what non-binary even is.Some of the most up to date gender research estimates that up to 53.5% of gender diverse Australians identify as non-binary rather than binary transgender, yet most past research has been focused on BT folks. Many studies on health and gender diversity have recruited transgender people without creating subgroups, which creates two issues. Firstly, they did not distinguish between binary and non-binary participants, and secondly, the specification of transgender may have led potential non-binary participants to believe they werent welcome in these studies. This kind of exclusion from research makes it impossible for the scientific community to have realistic data on the unique needs of non-binary people. Unfortunately, the necessary changes made in legislation and norms in healthcare on a larger scale often rely on data that supports the need for change. We are doing more now, but theres still a long way to go.From the research we do have, NBGQ and BT people experience different barriers to health and healthcare, different social and economic barriers, and even differ in the ages at which they come to understand their identity. Many of us are familiar with the story of the trans kid who has known since he was three that hes really a boy. However, with NBGQ people, the average age of realizing their identity is older than it is for BT people. This could be related to social factors that reinforce the binary as well as differential developmental processes for these two groups. NBGQ people are more likely to be housing insecure and less likely to have familial and social support than BT people, which impacts everything from mental health to access to basic healthcare.When it comes to the way we approach gender related healthcare, its important for everyone from GPs and nurses to gender therapists to have at minimum a basic understanding of gender diversity. Activism in social acceptance is invaluable, but for things to change in healthcare, we need activism in research. We need comprehensive studies that prove why healthcare workers need to be trained in gender diversity as a rule.All healthcare should be approached from a gender-sensitive lens. The role of educator is often left with the patient, as their GP, psychologist, or other doctors might know very little about gender diversity. NBGQ people are often left behind when it comes to sexual healthcare, in part because NBGQ people may feel uncomfortable going to doctors generally. Specifically for sexual health issues, they are more likely than even BT people to encounter insensitive and misgendering language use. Similarly, they may not feel confident negotiating safer sex with partners, as gendered terms and roles can induce feelings of dysphoria. If sexual health is hard to deal with at home, and harder with a GP, its easy to imagine the impact this could have on the sexual well-being of NBGQ people.A simple improvement is to ensure that intake forms include a preferred name and pronoun section. If you go to a GP for the first time, you may need to list your legal name and the sex on your legal documents, which is often difficult to have changed to reflect your gender identity. However, if my GP reads that I prefer to be called Julz, even though my legal name is Julianne, and I use they/them pronouns, they can then integrate that into their first meeting with me and avoid making me feel more uncomfortable than I need to be. All medical professionals can be encouraged to always use preferred names and pronouns, and ask if there are any changes to make sure their files are up to date. As language around gender changes, and enbies learn to better self identify, they may need to make these changes on occasion.Gender diversity training resources for healthcare workers exist, but in most cases they are optional. Resources in NSW like Transhub are great places to search for doctors that already know this stuff but realistically not everyone has easy access to supportive doctors. We shouldnt be required to seek out specialists, or go far from home, when all we need is a GP, nor should we be required to see a local GP and be misgendered on our visits.In addition to more training within general healthcare, we need to consider improvements we can make to access to gender affirming healthcare for NBGQ people. Gender affirmation is multifaceted, covering the ways in which a person may choose to more closely align their life with their gender. Gender therapy, social gender affirmation, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), gender-affirming surgeries, and legal gender affirmation are all potential aspects of gender affirmation. While none of these processes are necessary for someone to live as their gender, they can be valuable for reducing dysphoria and taking steps toward socially affirming your gender.Legal gender affirmation is the process of changing your name and/ or gender marker on legal documents, such as your birth certificate and drivers license. In NSW, your gender marker can be male, female, or other gender. This is an incredible update that opens up legal affirmation to more NBGQ people. However, this change currently requires the individual to have undergone at least one gender affirming surgery. While there are differences between NBGQ and BT groups in desire for gender affirming healthcare, NBGQ participants that do hope to access these services are less likely to have done so. Because fewer NBGQ people have access to these interventions, and not all NBGQ actually want gender-affirming surgery, it is impossible for many NBGQ to have their gender and name changed legally. This can be detrimental to their mental health and can result in a reluctance to access healthcare resources, apply for new jobs, or generally socialize in unfamiliar settings. This is also relevant for many BT people, but they are both more likely to desire gender affirming surgery and more likely to have already had surgery.Considering the barriers NBGQ people face, its not surprising that NBGQ people in NSW are less likely than BT people to be socially, legally, or physically affirmed in their gender. Assuming that all gender diverse people want or able to access gender affirming surgery is discriminatory and insensitive. Policies that result in fewer barriers to legal gender affirmation wouldnt just be good for enbies, as BT people would also benefit.Pressuring someone to make the choice between potentially unnecessary or inaccessible surgery, and being unable to change their gender markers, is no small decision. Legal, social, and medical affirmation should be available to all people in whatever capacity is appropriate for them. NBGQ people are frequently told that they are not real. Like the ever-present plight of bi-erasure, we are often told to pick a side and we shouldnt have to.Its important, as policies and norms evolve, that we keep in mind that all aspects of gender affirmation should be available to gender diverse people. With fairer policies and more educated healthcare workers, NBGQ people can work with their doctors and psychologists to make decisions around gender affirmation that are right for them. If we arent gathering sufficient gender research, this community will continue to be underserved as we dont really understand their needs. As long as healthcare workers arent required to have gender diversity training, enbies will continue to be misgendered and feel unwelcome. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is a song from 2002 which starts off with the lyrics, He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?. Given that it was one of the most popular songs of its time, you would probably know that it is Avril Lavignes Sk8er Boi. While the song is not trying to denigrate queer people, those first lines reveal an awfully prevalent social norm, heteronormativity.Heteronormativity, for those who do not know, is the idea that people are supposed to be attracted to the opposite-gender assuming a strict gender binary. Though the existence of heteronormative assumptions is easily attributed to historical norms, especially the ideologies in conservative religions, it is not often further questioned why this is the case.A possible answer to this is perhaps from the claims made by conservative religious groups. Many religious fundamentalists use their religious texts to claim that their God/s dictate a heteronormative human natures. Though this is a somewhat substantiated belief, as someone who grew up in evangelical and pentecostal churches, I argue that this view lacks deeper scrutiny.While religious texts do often contain heteronormative references, these texts are not necessarily singularly coherent or consistent. In larger and heavily edited texts, like the Bible, there are many different possible interpretations, requiring people to pick and choose which parts to abide by or ignore regardless of whether they are conscious of it.Therefore, there is a tendency for many religious groups and people to read their own selves into religion. For example, in 2018, a group of psychologists studied this and found that American Christians chose faces of God that were reflective of themselves. (The faces of God in America: Revealing religious diversity across people and politics)In this sense, religious heteronormativity, and by extension societal heteronormativity do not necessarily come from religion itself. Rather, it is a matter of individuals in positions of power privileging their own identities and experiences. Straight cisgendered people who were likely ignorant of queer people wove their heterosexuality into religious dogma. Sadly, this harmful dogma is then blindly treated as divine law by some religious congregants, who privilege their personal sense of meaning over others welfare.Over the years, this increasingly vicious dogma has inflicted serious harms through unscientific conversion therapy, societal rejection, violence and hate crimes. While a majority of Australians have moved away from a religiously motivated heteronormativity, many heteronormative assumptions still persist. The most common of which is that queer people are often stereotypically portrayed based on heteronormative assumptions of binary gender expression.As such, feminine presenting people are meant to feel attracted towards men, masculine presenting people towards women, transgender people are meant to conform to their gender norms, and other queer people such as bisexual, asexual and non-binary people do not really exist. Many people, including queer people, assume other peoples gender and sexual orientation subconsciously, almost reflexively, based on how much they conform to gender norms.Indeed, I too have been assumed to be straight many times as I am generally perceived as more masculine than feminine. In one such incident, right before the full brunt of COVID-19 in Australia, a friend of mine, who I was at the beach with, jokingly asked if I was talking to my girlfriend after I had spent some time away using my phone.While this action was not meant maliciously, it illustrates how assumptions of heteronormativity persist even when people are not queerphobic. This is because even though people are generally more tolerant, our popular culture, just like many religious cultures, is still controlled by straight cisgendered people who view the world through themselves. However, good intentions do not negate harm. At that moment, I felt unacknowledged, but I also did not want to risk coming out.While differing lived experiences can make it difficult for people to look past themselves, assumptions made about other people do not exist in a vacuum. Though they are not at the level of harm caused by religious dogma, casual heteronormative assumptions do cause distress and can lead to the erasure and othering of queer people. In light of this, if we want a world where we all can feel safe being ourselves, we all need to disband heteronormativity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Of all the grave sins made known to mankind, the practice of sodomy is definitely in the top five, possibly top three, worst abominations of all time, historically speaking. What remains little understood is the evolving societal conceptions and tolerence towards homosexuality. Those great biblical sins that still loom large today in the collective consciousness such as gay sex, sex work, and witchcraft are in fact ahistorically imagined as being linearly condemned throughout the centuries. Even within the early Christian clergy, homosexual behaviour was fairly openly documented by members of all-male monasteries up until the 12th century. Homosexuality itself was not conceptualised as a fully-fledged and distinct sexual identity until the Victorian era in the West, when it was classified as a mental disorder rather than theological sin. The evolving nature of social responses to such practises can be clearly linked to shifting and increasingly unstable social and political climates which threatened the established political order. Homosexuality, alongside a myriad of other social phenomena, simply provided the perfect scapegoat to blame for societal upheaval.Before the pathologization of homosexuality in the 18th century, European societies did not have a clear cut conception of queerness. Sodomy was understood to be an immoral act, but the Bible makes little reference to this, of the 35,527 verses in the Catholic Bible, only seven 0.02% can possibly be interpreted as prohibitory of homosexual acts. The infamous tale of Sodom and Gomorrah stands out, but unbeknownst to many, the twin sin cities of yonder were not razed to the ground by God due to sodomy, but instead for being inhospitable and arrogant to foreigners Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. Though sexual deviancy is strongly implied, not once is sodomy explicitly stated. It would be 1500 years before Philo of Alexandria equated the story of Sodom with homosexuality.Analysing early Christian views of sex highlights how volatile these attitudes are, and how much social circumstances of the time influenced them. In the first two centuries AD, when Christianity was still primarily an ascetic cult, all sex was abhorred. The Essenes, one of these early groups, did not believe marriage to be compatible with piety and would prevent one from receiving deliverance. The Marcionites in 144 AD denounced family life, marriage and sensual pleasure and believed this distinguished them from barbarism. It would not be until Christianity transformed into the official religion of the Roman Empire, over the course of the 3rd century AD, that sex within marriage was officially sanctioned as holy. Augustine of Hippos treatise On the good of marriage argued for the three goods of marriage children, fidelity and sacrament. He put forth the claim that celibacy ought to be enforced for clergy only. If not for this radical departure from the ascetic origins of Christianity, the new faith was much less likely to have taken root and gained a mass following amongst Romes previously pagan adherents.When homosexual acts were criticised by the early ascetic Christians, it was often alongside very long treatises on similarly sinful acts, of which nearly all notions of sensuality were included. Rather than the act of homosexuality being intrinsically wicked, it has been theorised that this early condemnation arose due to the subversion of increasingly rigid gender norms and hierarchy. A man engaging in a passive female position during homosexual sex was deemed unmasculine to which Philo stated was the greatest of all evils. Despite this, early Christian priests and monks are known to have written of their same-sex affairs and desires without facing punitive punishment. St. Aelred of Riveaulx, a widely beloved English abbot, was widely known to be gay, and wrote openly on his ongoing physical and emotional relationships with men in the 11th century AD.Since the fall of the Roman empire in 465 AD, the Catholic Church rose to fill the vacuum of power. The middle ages saw the peak of the churchs influence and wealth. But this all-encompassing grip on power was not destined to last. The Empire was continuously subject to destabilising forces like invasions and civil war, and first began to falter significantly in the 12th century. The 4th Lateran council assembled for the purpose of internal reformation and the expansion of church powers. Amongst the most notable reformations was the enforcement of yearly confession for all Christians, which signified a shift in the churchs focus of interest and increased obsession with moral purity and renouncement of sin. Greater vigour and attention was given to the demonisation of sodomy, which began to be explicitly condemned. Theologians such as Thomas of Cantimpre stated that gay monks would be beset by demonological visions rather than the comforts of heaven at the end of their life. Severer penalties became more frequently issued by civil authorities at the behest of the church and homosexual activity within the clergy as well as in broader society was forced underground.This increasing social hostility would grow into a rising tide of conspiratorial aggression and oppression which reached a fever peak with the witch trials of the early modern period. Previously tolerated and respected herbal folk healers were now considered devil worshipping heretics, alongside scientists and atheists who posed any perceived destabilising threat to the paramountcy of the churchs authority. Extramarital, homosexual behaviour was viewed as a direct subversion of the sanctity of marriage, and thus a destabilising force to the very reproductive and transactional foundation of society. Thomas Aquinas widely influential natural law theory, which conceptualises the primary intellectual argument against homosexuality that is still invoked today, claimed that not only is sodomy a legal and religious transgression but unnatural according to the intrinsic moral law of nature. The core of this argument has since been invoked frequently throughout history and in Australia, as recently as the 2017 marriage equality plebiscite.All of these shifting values and sweeping reformations were triggered by great socioeconomic shifts in Europe. As cities grew more affluent, they became increasingly pluralistic and therefore divided. The black death and 100-year war also induced the end of feudalism and the golden age of the churchs authority. The rise of mercantilism and invasion of the Americas introduced new empires and directed wealth towards burgeoning nation states rather than the church. The enlightenment would further critique and dismantle the theological basis of the churchs monopoly over knowledge and truth. As seen repeated many times over throughout history, times of great social change and unrest give rise to intensely dualistic ways of thinking, increased hostility to outsiders and greater suppression of acts deemed destabilising to the reigning social order. When the dominant hegemonic power senses attack, it seeks to assert its authority and moral integrity through its opposition to an opposing evil force. The greatest evil that the Catholic Church could conceive of was the devil himself, made manifest through various forms of social upheaval and fought through the scapegoating and persecution of minorities and revolutionary thinkers. The era of McCarthyism in US history followed the precedent set by the inquisition, complete with corrupted trials and virulent conspiracies. The new demonic force to be reckoned with was communism, as its very existence threatened to destabilise the established capitalistic order.Homoeroticism would again flourish during the Renaissance, with many great artists only thinly shrouding their reverence and desire of the male form within their artworks and sculptures, often commissioned and funded by the church itself, such as Micheangelos David and his Sistine Chapel nude frescos. According to Foucault, with the advent of modern medicine, science, and psychology amongst many other newly developed modes of analysing the world, the 19th century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case study and a childhood, in addition to being a type of life form and a morphology. While this evolved definition was perhaps a departure in the right direction from religious condemnation of the previous millenia, homosexuality was still academically conceptualised as a medical affliction and was penalised just the same, if not harsher. It would take until 1973 for homosexuality to be declassified as a mental illness in response to radically shifting sociopolitical circumstances, such as the sexual revolution.By overviewing the evolving nature of social tolerance and hostility towards homosexuality throughout history, we are reminded of how all notion of sin is socially constructed and not based in any legitimate objectivity, but rather is formed as a defensive psychosocial response to the uncertainty and change inherent within the world. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Standing amidst a crowd of newly-found friends under the Mardi Gras night sky, I could not feel more at home. I marched with the No Pride in Detention collective, armed with blaring music,Homos against Scomo shirts, and signs naming Australian atrocities against queer and trans refugees. As floats passed by ours, we erupted in cheers and the occasional boo, understandably aimed at the Liberal Partys entry but surprisingly to me, Labors float as well.As an international student living in suburban America, where performative wokeness and a corporate, centrist Democratic party are idealized, I at first dismissed such vocal criticisms of a left-leaning party as counterproductive. However, I joined in on their criticism after learning of Labors frequent pivots on important issues, including their unwavering support for the coal and gas industries. And now quarantined back in the US and shocked to learn that RuPaul leases water and mineral rights on her Wyoming land to oil companies I decided to apply that same energy to the intersection of queer and environmental politics in my home country.Its no secret that radical centrism has been at the heart of leading queer institutions in the US for generations: the banger Human Rights Champagne Fund should get you caught up to speed. However, whats often lost on our community is the effect this phenomenon has on modern climate and environmental movements. Its one thing to preach intersectionality on a college campus, and its another to stand idly by while authorities are instructed to stop two-spirit activists opposing Obamas Keystone XL pipeline by any means. The environmental implications of being queer are huge, and much more all-encompassing than praising paltry corporate sustainability efforts and posting a shirtless photo on Earth Day to top it off.Queer and trans people have always been disproportionately affected by climate and environmental disasters, and the gap will continue to widen as financial, social, and legal institutions with histories of discrimination are stretched to their breaking point. Traditionally, American cities regarded as queer-friendly, safe spaces are located near significant bodies of water, leaving them vulnerable to increasing flooding events and natural disasters. As climate change spawns increasing numbers of climate refugees, those most harmed by displacement are people whom structural inequalities have already rendered vulnerable. These differences divide our queer community along lines of race, class, and gender identity, harming those who are less likely to avoid incarceration, less likely to receive adequate healthcare, and less likely to find housing.The case of Sharlie Vicks exemplifies how climate disasters and queer and transphobia are interlinked with one another. Sharlie Vicks, a black, transgender woman living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, was forced to swim for her life when a levee broke, traveling 1.5 miles to reach higher ground. After spending multiple days on an overpass, she and her two cousins one of whom were trans were transported to Lubbock, Texas. However, when Sharlie and her cousin went to womens showers after talking to a volunteer, they were arrested for criminal trespassing and sent to the Brazos County Jail. Sharlies story served as a wake up call to LGBTQ+ Americans of the trans communitys unique vulnerability to discrimination during climate disasters. As a result, the Houston trans community now compiles a list of households that would be willing to take in a trans refugee every hurricane season.Horrific as it is to hear how unjust institutions such as the police and prison system upended the life of a trans climate refugee, not much has changed since 2005. Increased rates of homelessness, urbanisation, and exposure to pollution among LGBTQ+ people sound the alarm for disproportionate rates of environmental injustice within our community. With increasing rates of climate-related disasters, instances of queerphobia against those most vulnerable in our communities, particularly those of color, will rise accordingly. Climate activism must be intersectional, and we must prioritize the queer and trans voices that have been resisting the worst of our materialistic, capitalistic society for generations.Our mission is to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ people battling inferior health conditions, environmental racism and labour exploitation caused by unethical corporations and perpetuated by political machines, both Republican and Democratic. However, this solidarity of community is often trumped by a solidarity of class through poor identity politics. The 2020 Democratic primaries are an excellent example of how this directly affects both climate and environmental policies.The entrance of Pete Buttigieg, a young, gay progressive from the US heartland, electricified the Democratic primaries, and his steady demeanour and outsider status earned him many supporters from more leftist members of the party. However, as the race narrowed, it became clear that Buttigeigs politics stood in direct opposition of many who shared his queer identity- he sought to become the defining moderate in the race through weak attacks on leftist policy points, such as Sanders Medicare for All. Additionally, climate-related issues revealed the flaws in his progressive facade; his $1.5-2 trillion climate plan and 2050 net-zero emissions goals paled in comparison to other competing goals, most notably Sanders $16.2 trillion plan and 2030 goal to decarbonize power generation and transportation. Though Buttigieg performed well in the first two states (both predominantly white), he drew criticisms for falsifying support from black voters, and for his anti-black, pro-cop mayorship of South Bend. His subsequent failure to gain support from voters of colour prematurely ended his campaign. However, the greatest environmental crime Buttigieg committed was by endorsing the Democratic stalwart Joe Biden for the nomination, and symbolically abandoning all of his former altruistic goals in favor of toeing the party line.This decision, along with that of Amy Klobuchar, reinvigorated a zombie-like Biden campaign to unify the centrist side of the party, which until then had been delivered a solid beating from Sanders, who proved that the message of a Green New Deal can lead to electoral success in any state. With this thorough rebuke of any sort of leftist climate policy, Buttigieg chose to side with fellow political elites rather than the most marginalised members of the queer community. Once again, hopes for a publicly-owned 100% renewable energy grid, nationwide fracking bans (and eventually the end of all fossil fuel extraction), and increased public transportation investment were all dashed with Buttigiegs shift of support. Buttigiegs ability to hide behind his identity while directly betraying his own queer community mirrors the actions of many high profile LGBTQ+ figures, including Ellen DeGeneres, who befriended Republican and war criminal George Bush, venture capitalist Peter Theils unwavering support of Donald Trump, and yes, Miss RuPauls fracking farm.Neither the pushback against the corporatization of Pride, which conflicts with its history of anti-government riots and protests, nor pinkwashing a marketing technique created to depict a corporation or political organization as LGBTQ+ friendly and by extension, inherently ethical is new. Numerous organisations, most notably the Reclaim Pride Coalition in New York City, have attempted to re-politicise Pride events by rejecting corporate influence. However, little has been done to eradicate oil and fracked gas influence in corporatised Prides, which give these companies a sense of approval and moral standing from our community where it does not exist.A successful student-led movement that can be used as a model to push back against oil and gas corporate involvement in queer spaces can be found in the UKs 2015 National Student Pride. When it was known that oil and gas giant BP was slated to be a sponsor of the event, student activists organized to form No Pride in BP. Throughout 2015-16, the group wrote letters to the NSP board, educated the general public on BPs actions against the queer community (including contributions to queerphobic politicians and investing in decidedly anti-LGBTQ+ regimes), and participated in public demonstrations, where they pretended to wash other members in pink soap to highlight how BP uses LGBTQ+ support to cover up their environmental crimes.Though it took time for No Pride In BP to lay the groundwork for their campaign and educate the general queer community about National Student Prides decision, the group was rewarded in 2017 when the board dropped the polluter as a sponsor of its annual Pride.In a year of postponed Pride events, I look forward to a 2021 in which the Queer community organises together to finally resist an enemy which divides us along matters of race and class and destroys us through the business as usual nature of capitalism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Water is a fundamental resource for sustaining life around the planetthus, increasing commodification of water is threatening our ecosystems and communities. While issues surrounding water allocation are not new, the rapid growth in animal agriculture is putting more strain on our water resources than ever. Animal agriculture is one of the most significant contributors to the climate crisis. Not only is it a major cause of land clearing, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions, it is also responsible for up to a third of all freshwater consumption in Australia. The Water Footprint Network estimates that beef production consumes twenty times more water than fruit and vegetables, cereals or starchy roots. Additionally, it takes around 800 litres of water to produce just one litre of cows milk. As cattle require significant amounts of feed to convert to body mass, significant amounts of water are required for animal consumption and crop irrigation. However, the economic value that animal agriculture brings to the economy continues to be used by governments as justification for its destructive impacts. Every year, the beef industry alone makes almost $17 billion, and production continues to grow at an immense scale. This has contributed to the poor health of the Murray-Darling Basin, an important water source and one of Australias largest and most diverse river systems. Dairy farms, along with cotton and rice industries, use trillions of litres of water per year in the basin alone, causing river flows to drop at an extremely worrying pace. Further, reduced water quality, associated with runoff of fertilisers and pesticides, is causing Australian flora and fauna ecosystems to suffer. There has been a 50% decrease in wetland bird species, and 450 plant species are threatened with extinction through salinity. The runoff from animal agriculture has also caused a rapid increase in algae blooms, creating ocean dead zones and mass suffocation to marine life. With Australia facing record levels of drought and low rainfall due to the growing impact of climate change, over-extraction is pushing Australia to the brink of a water crisis. Those in rural communities, who are still recovering from the most recent bushfires, are most vulnerable to such crises. In towns such Menindee and Pooncarie, drinking water is mainly sourced from donated supplies as their tap water is undrinkable. At times, water supply has been completely cut off, forcing residents to survive on emergency reserves. It is impossible to balance sustainable water usage whilst feeding the population under a capitalist model of food production.Capitalism monopolises water allocation, allowing agricultural industries to use up huge amounts of water all in the name of private profit. If we truly want to use water sustainably, industries must stop being over-dependent on our water resources for profit. Governments and corporations need to employ values of respect and balance in decisions about water allocation, invest in technologies that improve water efficiency, and move away from water-intensive agriculture. It is crucial that we start to incorporate Indigenous knowledge in water planning, and fundamentally rethink our relationship with water. In particular, we need to recognise how valuable our river systems are in a number of intertwined waysthey are a part of a culturally significant landscape, they provide a lifeline for regional and rural communities, and they have the potential to sustain future water-related business and employment.If the water is healthy, Country is healthy. If Country is healthy then the People and Culture will be healthy.As this Indigenous proverb outlines, protecting water is not just about sustaining life, but also sustaining the development of communities. If we dont allocate our finite supplies of water more justly, we may soon be left thirsting for the worlds most vital resource. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As we have come to grips with COVID-19, epidemiologists, conspiracies and economic turmoil have dominated the news cycle. While this may be appropriate given the significant impact of this crisis, it also leaves the general public without the critical eye of the fourth estate. As Australians turned their eyes to Italy and China fearing what was to come, state governments turned their eyes towards deregulation and the environment. In mid-March, as many feared the prospect of unemployment, Daniel Andrews and the Victorian Labor party lifted the moratorium on onshore gas drilling in Victoria. This was completed under the guise of introducing stronger environmental legislation, as it was coupled with a ban on fracking within the Victorian Constitution. This exercise in misdirection not only allows for the extraction of conventional gas to resume, but also tries to paint Victorian Labor in a good light for banning fracking, a move which could be overturned with a change of government or change of heart. Not to be outdone, Gladys Berijiklians government has used this time to approve an expansion of Peabodys Metropolitan mine in Helensburgh, NSW. The proposed expansion involves mining underneath the nearby Woronora reservoir, a reservoir that provides drinking water to approximately 220,000 residents of the Sutherland Shire and North Wollongong. The project has become a cause for concern over possible subsidence, which could lead to water loss and water contamination. Professor Stuart Khan of the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UNSW states: From a water quality perspective, I dont think any of this mining should be happening in the drinking water special areas. In light of the recent drought, any sensible person would think that developments which could contaminate and deplete our sources of drinking water should be off the table completely. An attempt was made by local environmental and public interest groups to reject the proposed expansion. A petition, which garnered over 10,000 signatures, was set to be debated in the NSW Parliament. But in the spirit of democracy, it was ignored as COVID-19 saw the suspension of Parliament. Thus, the project was approved without proper consideration or due process. Sadly, this pattern does not stop here. At the time of writing, the highly criticized Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999) is under independent review, with community submissions being made from organisations such as the Australian Conservation Foundation as well as USyds Enviro Collective. However, Environment Minister Sussan Ley has already claimed that the government may change the nations environmental laws before the review is actually completed in October, which would render the whole process redundant. The Government has conveyed a desire to deregulate and remove green tape in an effort to stimulate the economy following the current pandemic. One suggestion may be to stop spending $41.8 billion on fossil fuel subsidies, or more radical still, make the fossil fuel conglomerates pay their fair share of tax. Looking ahead, it is pivotal that we stay vigilant and continue to critique our governments that clearly value their stock portfolios more than they value the environment, their constituents and, most of all, our democracy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In August 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will conduct Australias 18th National Census. The census is run every five years by the ABS and is a chance to collect crucial data about the entire population. The census questions cover topics including marital status, occupation, languages spoken, and family size. The data gathered is used to inform policy development, funding and resource allocation, upcoming research, and evaluate government programs. Notably absent from past censuses, and the upcoming one, is any question regarding the sexuality or gender identification of those surveyed.Every census cycle, the ABS consults with the public, various organisations and government bodies to consider changing the questions to better reflect the needs of current society. All the same, the topics and questions have remained the same since the 2006 census. This cycle, the ABS has undertaken extensive consultation regarding new topics for consideration.From April to June 2018, public consultation saw over 400 submissions received from different stakeholders. A broad range of questions and topics were suggested, including gender and sexuality, disability and career status, education and training, and unpaid work. These topics were then analysed against criteria including whether the topic can be efficiently and accurately completed by households, if there was no other suitable alternative for the data in question, and if the topics would be considered acceptable by census respondents. Gender and sexual orientation, amongst seven other topics, were found to warrant further consideration, and were then analysed with regards to their potential inclusion, focusing on the burden to respondents and the cost of collecting and analysing information.As a result of their consultations, the ABS found that data on gender and sexuality would be useful to all levels of government, and that the Department of Health and the Department of Social Services require this information. Despite this, and the lack of large-scale sources on data and sexuality, the ABS recommended that the government not include questions on sexual orientation, however non-binary will be added as a response category to the question regarding gender. While this is a definite improvement, there still remains no question or response option which allows for respondents to indicate that they are intersex, transgender, or genderqueer.What makes the census so powerful as a data collection tool is obvious; unlike surveys, it can collect data from the entire population, rather than relying on a subset of respondents, which often poorly represents the entire country. Censuses remove many of the biases which often underlie surveys. In particular, selection bias is eliminated, which generally arises in surveys when the selection of individuals or groups for data collection isnt properly randomised, meaning the data will not be representative of the entire population. This is also compounded by the existence of respondent bias, in particular when the questions asked are of a sensitive nature, as they would be in this case. When dealing with a sizable, variable, and historically disadvantaged subset of the population, it is necessary to collect the most accurate data possible.Inclusion in the national census would be symbolically significant with the government acknowledging the existence of LGBTI people as an important part of Australias population. Far more importantly however, this data has enormous potential to inform government policy and services, including housing and health, as well as services provided by advocacy groups or within the queer community. Without widespread and reliable data, organisations struggle to provide resources to support LGBTI people in specific and sensitive ways. The LGBTI community is one which has been made vulnerable by the purposeful disengagement of government; a lack of data only serves this purpose and reduces pressure on the government to provide necessary services.The most obvious use of this data would be gaining accurate knowledge on the proportion of Australias population that are LGBTI. Current estimates put this percentage from as low as 2% to over 10%. The accuracy of current statistics is particularly poor for trans and gender diverse people, with survey techniques frequently failing to distinguish between non-cisgender identities, forcing people to respond inaccurately and obscuring the true spread. Small scale surveys with a limited sample size often require the entire set of data to be coupled together, further obscuring demographic information such as age distribution, which is necessary to know because LGBTI people, like the general population, have different needs at different ages.Another extremely important use of this kind of data is for allocating funding for social services. The LGBTI community is disproportionately likely to need and use these programs, especially services such as health and housing. LGBTI people are at least twice as likely to experience homelessness than their non-queer counterparts, which is compounded by the fact that homeless shelters are often faith based, and discriminate against queer people. Information on housing and homelessness would prompt the government to address this issue, and ensure that there are homeless shelters and housing which are safe and inclusive for LGBTI people.In many areas, LGBTI people have poorer health outcomes than the general population. This includes higher incidence of mental health problems, smoking, HIV positive status, disordered eating, substance abuse, and a higher likelihood of experiencing violence. LGBTI people may also be at higher risk of cancer, including breast, prostate, and liver cancer. This disparity in health is likely due to actual or perceived queerphobia, which may result in inferior care or an avoidance of health professionals. Census data on LGBTI people would demonstrate the gap that already exists, and may be useful in pushing back against the Religious Discrimination Bill, which will exacerbate queerphobia in healthcare. There are multiple national programs such as the Aged Care Diversity Framework, and the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, which consider LGBTI communities to be vulnerable groups who must be prioritised for action. Such data would allow these programs effectiveness to be evaluated over time.If included in the 2021 census, these questions would likely be accepted in Australias future censuses. This means we could see trends over time in both societal makeup and social attitudes. Questions about same-sex couples have been in the Australian census since 1996, and in this time, the number of same-sex couples living together, according to census data, has quadrupled. This is likely due to both an increase in partners living together, and an increased willingness to self-identify, reflecting improved societal attitudes towards queer relationships. Census data would also be analysed to reveal the intersections between gender and sexual orientation, and education, work, religious affiliation, occupation, and income, as well as where queer communities are living. These trends could be tracked over time to see how they change.The Australian Government appears to have taken on board the ABS recommendation not to include these questions, despite the clear importance of this data, and its potential use in all levels of government. Why, then, did the ABS recommend non-inclusion of questions regarding sexual orientation? The ABS cited a desire to keep the burden we place on responding households to a minimum, likely referring to potential confusion arising from the questions. Another reason cited was that respondents may have a lack of trust in the government, leading to privacy concerns which could reduce the accuracy of the data. This potential decrease in accuracy, due to mistrust or misunderstanding, would likely be able to be adjusted, as other areas of data are, to account for the expected undercalculation. In addition, in the small-scale testing which was undertaken with the relevant questions, it was found that the adverse reaction wasnt significant enough to impact either the quality of data or response rates. Even in the case of partial undercounting, this datas benefits extend beyond finding the net amount of queer people, to their patterns of location, demographics, education and occupation. Ultimately, even if the ABS concerns are correct, this data would still far surpass current data about LGBTI Australians, and would be of immense value to the community.At this point, public consultation is over, and the questions for the 2021 census are being finalised. They will be released later this year, but we do know that there will be no questions regarding sexual orientation, and no potential response to indicate being a binary transgender person, or intersex. Including these questions should not be unthinkable for the government. Both New Zealand and the United Kingdom, countries we see as politically and socially comparable to Australia, are including questions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, including transness, in their 2021 census. Australias reluctance on this matter will see sexuality and gender diverse people waiting until at least 2026 to see ourselves represented where it counts, in the data which informs policy and social services. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My eyes want to close. I can feel my body shutting down, welcoming the arms of lethargy around me. The light from my phone screen hurts my eyes, even though it is dimmed, even though I have installed different screen tints. And still, I open up another news article. Still, I watch just one more video. Just to stay up a little later.I learned of the term Revenge Bedtime Procrastination a few months ago. I often find myself making some such excuse for not going to sleep when I am so clearly tired; I need time to relax before going to sleep, I wont have other time to be able to indulge in the TV show, the game, the podcast. The list goes on.The revenge part of Revenge Bedtime Procrastination emanates from the idea that we are resisting or attempting to compensate for a lack of control in our day to day lives. For me, this agency so often comes at the cost of my next morning, where I will be tired and lethargic. And this pattern of behaviour seemed to peak at the beginning of quarantine.In the past Ive found it useful to put a label on my maladaptive behaviours, to better understand them, find resources on them and explain them to myself and others. It helps to find communities of people also struggling. And so, when I came to a possible explanation of behaviour that I usually dismissed as a result of a lack of self-restraint and discipline, I spoke to people about it. My social group it seemed was filled with people who also over-commit their time to activities and people outside of their own needs and wants. And yet, I wondered: what about the sanctity of time spent to oneself? Shouldnt there be a case for engaging in the gentle ease of activities without the expectation of it being productive or working towards a goal? And, why do we feel we can only participate in these behaviours at night?While I undervalue the opportunity for rest by denying it for myself, staying awake is one of the few methods I have of delaying the next oncoming day, where I again will force myself into a schedule that feels uncompromising. And now, when we as a society are encouraged to stay home and avoid travel, I am surrounded by the pressure and monotony of walls around me. No longer do I, like many, have the physical distinction between work, university, and time for myself. Left without those boundaries and suffering as many do with a continually growing to-do list and feelings of obligations that I must always be working, I have found myself taking solace in the liminal space of witching and twilight hours. I cannot stop myself from seeing night time as distinct, though it involves no actual change in my surroundings. The world is different at 2am. It is quieter. There are no expectations, no reprimands. And this shift in my frame of mind has allowed me to build my own world where I can waste time and spend it how I like to.In a way, it is quite lovely to slip into the blameless world of After Dark where it is too late for the brain to be working. I tread the line between meditation and numbness in a time that is decidedly my own. And yet I like to sleep. I know that staying up wont put off the next morning; it will only make it worse. I feel at once disappointment and resentment at a culture that has raised me to feel guilty to take time for myself, to an extent where I feel the only time I can do it is at night, like hiding under the covers with a book and a torch when I was little. If Im going to stay awake, I want it to be for that child-like enthusiasm for the end of a chapter, not some awful mix of guilt, anxiety and despair.I wonder, as I watch icons dash on and offline, how we each make the trade-off between sleep and our daily obligations, freedom and the need for discipline. I dont want to romanticise poor habits or unhealthy sleep schedules. Yet there is something oddly comforting about the fact that, while I am staying awake, luxuriating in long moments of unbroken silence, there are others with me keeping the midnight vigil. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Watching period dramas, specifically Jane Austens cinematic adaptations, has become as regular of a task as breathing in my household.This is far from idyllic, however, as following each Austen adaptation, we have a routine crisis regarding what to do about dating apps. Should we redownload? Should we delete? This has led me to believe that Austens couples, who find love amidst the socially restrictive landscape of the Georgian gentry, promise something similar to the culture of technologically mediated, digitized dating apps. That is, the ability to forge meaningful, lasting communications with people within a standardized, groomed and mediated landscape. Like a seesaw in this digital playground, the direct connection and weighty relation that each has on the other, is part of a cultural milieu whose seeds have been sown far before this year of increased social distancing and digital dependence.It would, however, be wrong to say that lockdown hasnt played a part. Dating app memberships have hit their highest numbers this year and tech companies are working to make their interfaces embody the presence of their users and those they connect with online. Tinder is in the process of incorporating a face to face video call option, whilst new international apps like String have people communicate through voice notes instead of texting. Adding to the integration of the digital into our own embodiment are Skin-on interfaces, synthetic skin phone cases, and Bond bracelets, where couples across the world can send each other a buzz on their wrist to let them know theyre thinking of them. With interfaces like these, the personal becomes woven with the digital, and every emotional sentiment can be expressed through technological extensions.The potential for these technologies to trap you in a state of constant availability 24/7 may be why my household leans on Austens dramas, where communication is restricted to the occasional ballroom party, chance encounters and painstakingly crafted handwritten letters. Similarly, does the obsession with Austens dramas arise because we get to watch people (albeit, white, hetero people), who never would have matched on apps fall in love? Mr. Darcy would have thought Ah, she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me! and thus would never have met Elizabeth. Additionally, Austens often used enemies to lovers, trope, based around the recognition of anothers character over time, wouldnt work if mediated digitally, because Austens romantic portrayals arent dependent on liking each other first, whereas this is an essential first step with dating apps.Whilst historical and cultural differences have likely contributed to the comforting nature of Austens dramas amidst our digital culture, I think that the reason we see-saw between Austens works and dating apps is due to their immense cultural similarities. Hollywood adaptations of Austen are sprinkled with passion through dramatic tension and beautiful actors, which only make her protagonists love story more alluring due to the socially restrictive logic of capitalism and commodification that characterises these marriage tales. Impacted by Britains industrial Revolution, Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, two years after Austen was born. Austens marriages are therefore presented as bound to a transactional structure. Women exchange subservience and beauty for a mans social standing, property and wealth. However, backdropped by a world where marrying your cousin is a valid choice in order to live in stable accommodation, Austen offers her protagonists alternatives, by sowing the seeds of fantasy and allowing romance and autonomy to grow within this restrictive culture of courtship.The dating app framework also prioritises status, class and character, through short bios, curated images and text etiquette. Like Austens work, dating apps too offer a promise of freedom and romantic autonomy within those boundaries. Additionally, the reification of relations, and commodifying communications between people, is demonstrated in the instant transactional qualities of dating apps and Austens common yet unfavourable and fast courtships, such as Lydia and Mr. Wickham, or Mr and Mrs Bennet. The user as a commodity is also heightened by the storage of personal data and reduced privacy by apps (akin to Mrs. Bennet spouting your single business to everyone at the party).The digital landscape and Austens middle-class society of rules and regulations both work within stringent boundaries. Whilst Austen provides the possibility of fantasy in her novels, as she sows the seeds for romances that work both against the status quo and favourably within the rather infertile land of restrictive Georgian society, dating apps advertise the digitized landscape as a free field sown with seeds to find the one(s), distracting users from their moderated frameworks. These fantasies coincide in the cinematic image of Darcy walking across a hill to Elizabeth in the films final act, as the unregulated wild rain resembles the possibility that, despite foggy digital interference and the raining down of other chances and other people, real connections materialize. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In my opinion, Edward Saids exalted standing among the intelligentsia of yesterday, today and tomorrow is as illustrious, legendary and marvellous as his prose, intellect and charisma. One only needs to read his Orientalism to understand the immense impact his scholarship had on the academic fields of post-colonial study, literary theory and cultural criticism.However, to a young twelve-year-old Mahmoud growing up in Fairfield, Western Sydney, those grand academic terms meant just as much to him as his homework; that is, not much at all. Rather, my first experience of Edward Said came not from his magnum opus, or his enlightening essays or even his consensus busting New York Times pieces. In fact, I was first exposed to Saids prose in his Homage to Joe Sacco where he praises a medium I knew far more than the intricacies of post-structuralism and post colonialism: comic books.Now, I very well understand that Said specifically praises Saccos remarkable comic Palestine, which beautifully explores the plight of the Palestinians, and does not entirely engage in a general celebration of the comic book medium. Yet the first half of his homage was an impeccable description of what made comic books so perfect. Comic books with their untidy, sprawling format and the colourful riotous extravagance of their pictures were a radical way of making sense of the world around me: a shabby Western Sydney suburb.I dont remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.When reading Said, I tend to feel lost. Saids vision and intellectual foresight is so sharp, it is almost impossible to one-up his writing or experiences. However, unlike Said, I do in fact remember the first comic book I read: Alan Moores, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins Watchmen. I also remember exactly how I felt: liberated and subversive.You may be wondering how a twelve-year-old managed to get access to such gritty and dark series. Well, Fairfield Library was a rather busy place and the librarians could only focus their attention to the onslaught of demands coming their way. This provided a few avenues to wander over to the adult section and read Moores legendary work in the privacy of a chaotic community centre.The panels, the non-linear structure, the darkness of this world on the brink of World War III was such a liberating experience. These heroes of Watchmen were flawed, each with a morally incomprehensible view of the world, and challenged the moralising I detested from community leaders, politicians and teachers. The existentialism and consequentialism the comic book illuminated was subversive. It was by virtue of a neon coloured comic book that I had begun to think about what power, political action and thought could bring about in societies on the brink of collapse. There was not going to be a perfect Superman that would better my working-class community. There was only going to be individuals, warts and all, doing what they thought was best. That lesson had a two-fold advantage: you would not hold individuals to an unfair standard, and you would not be disappointed once their veil of idealism faded.Comics played havoc with the logic of a+b+c+d and they certainly encouraged one not to think in terms of what the teacher expected or what a subject like history demanded.I distinctly remember the first time I had seen what the Arab Spring had entailed. My father and I had attended a typical consultation with my local GP who was of Egyptian descent. Children of the Arab diaspora know that when two Arab men are in close proximity of each other, a discussion pertaining to politics is a virtual certainty. The GP had told me to wait outside so he could show my father images of the Egyptian Revolution. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the door was not entirely shut, and his computer screen faced the rooms exit. I caught a glimpse of Guy Fawkes mask as well as bloodied protestors of all ages.I had seen that mask before. Where? Fairfield Library. As soon as the session ended, I rushed to the library and picked up Books 1, 2 and 3 of V for Vendetta. That comic book epitomised the tension between anarchism and fascism in a way that my history teacher would disapprove of. It was not academic or pristine or neutral if there ever was such a source of such quality. It was through this comic book that I had began to engage with the Arab Spring, the political economy of the Middle East and the lived experiences of the refugees that had called Fairfield their home.This was not a logical process. There was nothing orderly about a superpowered anarchist revolutionary within the confines of a dazzling comic frame inspiring a process of such political superimposition. But alas, that is what is so grand about these pieces of eye bursting art: they did away with the logic of a+b+c+d that policed, and continues to police, my mind.I knew nothing of this then, but I felt that comics freed me to think and imagine and see differently.There was a mundanity in my life that was hard to escape. To cope, I would daydream drawing upon Doctor Who and Spider-Man comics. I would imagine I had a Tardis, flying through time and space with the Doctor. Those glorious panels of daleks, stars, planets and technological behemoths were the building blocks of mental adventures that allowed me to think, imagine and see freely. Comic books vitiated the structure education instilled in my mind.Even beyond the fun of space and time, these comics with their outrageous art and stories were an avenue where I could experience the vicissitudes of life. Fairfield was Queens. Peter Parker was me. In my daydreams I would collect the wisdom of a grassroots hero who was honest, plain and battled with the day to day struggle that is adolescent life. The fact I had learnt of the nobility of struggle from a teenager who was bitten by a radioactive spider is, in my opinion, cringey as it is endearing.All in all, there is no logical link between Edward Said, comic books and life in Western Sydney. But what better way to honour comic books then by playing havoc with logic of a+b+c+d? Is it not this that makes comic books an affair of liberation and subversion? Is it not this which inspires us to think, imagine and see differently? In a world where policing extends beyond the boys in blue, where policing of all forms pierces its way into our psyche and our creativity, perhaps we may benefit by drawing on what makes comic books, in the words of Said, a hugely wonderful thrill. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Kimberl Crenshaws analytical theory Intersectionality addresses that gender, race and class overlap and create systemic oppression specific to those intersections. Equality in opportunity can only be achieved after factoring intersectionality into data analysis.Unfortunately, due to disabled people of colour like me lacking representation, we end up with inaccurate disaggregated data and ultimately, insubstantial equal opportunities and diversity policies. For instance, The Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 needs to be amended through an intersectional lens considering a truer intersectional picture of employment status and wage discrimination against women with disabilities and/or LGBTQIA+ identifications across all classes and cultural backgrounds.A 2017 study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission revealed that disabled Bangladeshi and Pakistani men in the UK were experiencing a pay gap of 56% in comparison to white British non-disabled men. Without calculating data through an intersectional framework, Australias real pay gaps will remain hidden.Historian David Walker provides one explanation for disabled people of colours lack of representation in data analysis. He claimed the key theme of the Australian narrative was repressed anxiety. This anxiety stems from a lack of belonging and a culture of racial exclusion.The umbrella term people of colour in Australia includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and negatively racialised settlers. People of colour in Australia have, and still are, dealing with prejudice and the historical adversity that their communities have endured. Australias history was founded on devastating frontier violence directed against the continents First Peoples. In 2019, ABS data revealed that 29.7% of Australian residents were born overseas and migrated to Australia. Even when migrants finally start to feel at home in Australia, media rhetoric and politicisation against racialised migrants easily distorts this perception of home and induces anxiety.As a result, people of colour have adopted a survival-of-the-fittest mindset where priority is given to overcoming class struggle and racial discrimination, while other marginalising factors, such as mental illnesses, are viewed as a moral weakness. Seeking psychological help is deemed unnecessary and even shameful in many communities. Although this stigma is widespread, it is particularly evident amongst people of colour.When a disabled POCs community does not value their struggles and views them undesirably for being different from abled community members, it compounds the adversity we already face. I myself only got diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Anxiety at the age of 17, months after my HSC, and after repeatedly asking my parents for treatment. When I went to get a referral from my Indo-Malaysian General Practitioner, she responded sceptically. She suggested that I was probably just falsely self-diagnosing. I am grateful for my parents and their support, but had I been heard, diagnosed and accessed support earlier, school might not have been as hard for me.ADHD and Anxiety have genetic components and often run in families, so it is possible that I have undiagnosed relatives who never received the help they needed. A 2016 report published by The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) emphasised on correctly identifying migrants with disabilities for successful provision of care. European Social Network (ESN) critiqued FRAs finding of German health screenings conducted in migrant centres that neglect consideration of disabilities.FRAs report also pointed to the flawed access to care in European countries with limited resources and capacity for migrants with disabilities. To overcome this, there are several disability-identification initiatives that have been implemented for migrants. In Sweden, health screenings now must consider the past and present physical and mental health alongside any disparities the individuals have experienced. Likewise, the Protect-Able project pushes for effective early screening of asylum-seekers. Australia could too benefit from identification support tools for migrants with undetected disabilities.Of course, for this to happen, Australias migration policies must first move away from their blatant discriminatory standpoint against disabled migrants. Our Migration Act (1958) is the only area of the Australian legal system that is exempted from the Disability Discrimination Act (1992), allowing for visa refusals merely based on disability status. This is disappointing in itself. The immigration systems discrimination absurdly lends out to exclude disabled people from simply visiting Australia on holiday. Australian Lawyers for Human Rights and Down Syndrome Australia launched a March 2020 national campaign for policy reforms. Before disability identification support tools are implemented for migrants, basic human rights and protection of migrants and refugees with disabilities needs to be administered.Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People, says that effective governance requires us to approach the problems that we face from an intersectional lens. Hence, effective policy-making, along with the ultimate goal of equal opportunity, can only be achieved through an approach informed by intersectional analysis. Currently, international data is failing disabled people of colour. There were 2,022 complaints and 69,397 incidents filed under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Quality and Safeguards Commission between July and December 2019. However, the lack of disaggregated and disambiguous data means that we do not know how many of those reports concerned people of colour, and therefore have no understanding of the specific experiences of people of colour on the NDIS. This is particularly important given that people of colour and people from non-English speaking backgrounds are struggling to access the NDIS. A recent paper from Settlement Services International noted that only 7 percent of NDIS participants identify as culturally and linguistically diverse, compared to 23 percent in the Australian population.By actively neglecting the specific needs of remote Indigenous communities and using a standard model across Australia, NDIS disregards First Nations Peoples varying support requirements amongst their differing communities. The NDIS initially estimated a quota of 20,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people eligible for the scheme; however, the First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) estimated the actual number to be around 60,000. FPDNs CEO, June Riemer, critiqued this underestimation and questioned the exclusion, when you dont even recognise your First Nations in the constitution why would the service sector give any credit to First Nations people and their culture, if our own government doesnt? Australian regulatory bodies continue to act in discord towards the process of Aboriginal sovereignty and self-determination. Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) refers to the First Nations Peoples right to access and collect data pertaining to them and their ancestors. However, to date, our government limits the First Nations Peoples access to information. This is merely one other government regulation that demonstrates the exclusion of First Nations Peoples.Unlike other people of colour communities, First Nations Peoples consider disability to be a community problem, rather than a personal one. Although some Aboriginal languages have created words for impairment (such as nyumpu), most Aboriginal languages do not have a term for disability reflecting their social stance on disabled members of the community being no different from the abled members. However, there are evident systemic racial prejudices in the Australian health care sectors towards disabled First Nations Peoples . For example, treatment for Indigenous people with disabilities in hospitals are delayed, and individuals are labelled as drunk or under the influence of other substances.To implement an intersectionality-informed approach in public policy-making, data needs to be disaggregated keeping ages, disabilities, socio-economic status, sexual identity and migrant status in consideration. Contextualising data is essential, or else policy-making will continue using ambiguous data that does not represent the true conditions and policies are going to remain ineffective in solving the real issues.Although I dislike limiting myself to my race or disabilities or any labels for that matter, I was compelled to write this reflective analysis through a disabled POCs perspective. Ending the marginalisation of disabled people requires radical change in social infrastructures and in the public imagination, which views us as defective or requiring charity. It is necessary that people of colour reject stigma around psychiatric and physical disabilities and encourage seeking support or treatment. People of colour must stand in solidarity and work towards equity and justice for disabled people. Disabled people across all cultural backgrounds deserve to be heard. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My father was no stranger to booze. It sounds pretty bad when I put it that way, but he was usually responsible about it. Most of the time, he listened to one of us before it got too much for him. My sister was usually the first to speak up. I can still see her at twelve in my head; her lips pursed and eyes dark, staring at my father. Then my mother would step in, whisking away the half-full shot glass as she wiped the table with thinly veiled disapproval.I didnt say much. Partly because as the youngest sibling, my leverage wasnt great, but also because it was interesting hearing what he had to say.Alcohol is the great truth-teller, he would hiccup between sips of baijiu, So dont get too drunk if you need to lie.Some nights, if hed had just the right amount to drink, and felt charitable, he would nudge the glass towards me. I was around seven years old the first time.Try it.I raised the glass to my lips, only for the full force of the liquor to hit my nose first. My father laughed when he saw my shriveled expression and snatched the glass from me.Why do you even like it? I asked, clamping two fingers over the bridge of my nose. Just to get drunk?He chuckled. The taste. Its very rich.No, it isnt! I said, still recoiling.He downed the remnants and smacked his lips.When you get older, youll understand, he said. Chi ku. Quite literally: swallow bitterness.My fathers drinking habits didnt align with what Id heard from other people. For one, he seemed to actively avoid drinking around holidays, especially Christmas. When my mother offered him a drink, hed flat out refuse.I never asked him about it. He was fun to be around when slightly tipsy, but blackout drunk was a different story. I could count the times hed been wasted on one hand, and I had no desire to fill another.Perhaps Id have figured it all out then, if Id just been more observant.***My mother and father worked weekends, selling wares at street markets. Work would often start before the sun had even risen. They would make their way through the showground parking lot, saying hi to some of the friendlier faces before arriving at the few small squares of dirty asphalt they rented. The back of the van would come up, and they would transform that empty space into a sea of tables and racks. It started out with just clothes, but as rent hiked and the wallets of customers tightened, business expanded. Anything from nail polish to hardware to cleaning products was fair game.It was grueling, relentless work all year round. The showgrounds tin roof radiated waves of heat in summer, and retained the cold from icy winds during winter.By the time I was ten, my parents had taught me how to sell, barter, and talk to customers. While other kids went to the beach or the park over the weekend, I recounted tales of petty thieves and demands screamed by middle-aged aunts and uncles.My sister and I used to call it the magic castle, because you could find almost anything you wanted in the endless sprawling lanes of knick-knacks. We sank our teeth into kebabs and played tag with the other kids whenever we werent working, just happy to be out of the house and not studying.The novelty wore off as time passed. Working weekends was especially bad when we were in high school, but my mother and father did all they could to keep us at home poring over books and laptop screens. Im sure it was a luxury, but it certainly didnt feel that way back then.A single Saturday evening stands out among them. My father and I had just finished a particularly grueling workday in late December, and were headed to a charcoal chicken joint for a quick dinner. My mother and sister had returned to China the Friday before to visit an ill grandparent, so I would have to pick up the slack for a good part of a month. Given the festivities and the prospect of a month-long break on the horizon, I didnt feel so bad about putting hours in at the market.After we finished eating, we stopped in the courtyard of the local shopping mall to admire the decorations. It wasnt much just a plastic tree, adorned with a few baubles and some careless drapes of LED light bulbs.It was there and then that my father told me he hated Christmas.When I asked him why, he sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. I watched his eyes trace the outline of the tree, from the base to each extending branch.I came here for the first time in December, he said, Your mother and sister still had to sort out their passports, so it was just me here for a few months.I sensed a dam breaking somewhere inside my father. The stories spilled. Cautiously, then all at once.He told me about the only stable job he could land after touching down in Sydney, cleaning floors and bathrooms in the high-rises along Oxford Street. He recalled the endless meals of instant ramen and stale bread the only hearty food he could afford with what pay he could save after he wired money back home and paid rent.I heard about his long train rides back to Cabramatta; how his knees would shake as he alighted from the train, apologising to the person beside him, who had to breathe in the sharp smell of ammonia that latched onto his overalls like parasites.The sun had set by the time my father fell quiet, and the tree finally lit up. The wrinkles on his forehead looked like deep crevasses in the feeble white light.Still, my father said, after the silence had become deafening. It got better. And then we had you, and then it was a lot better.He flashed me a smile. I tried to return it, but it came out as a grimace. I trailed him as we turned away and headed back to the parking lot. His gait was uneven. In the half-darkness, it looked like he was staggering.***Most of our inventory came from a wholesale factory in Merrylands. My father often went there strictly for business, but he couldnt resist picking up a few things for himself or the family if something caught his eye.When he brought in the light-up advent wreath for the first time, my mother nearly fainted. My sister launched immediately into the logistics of hanging it, while I simply laughed at how stupid it looked. After much trial and error, we decided that the best place to display it would be on the window of the dining table, much to the chagrin of my mother.Still, it provided a nice source of ambient light as we ate dinner on Christmas Eve. My father prepared a few seafood dishes, and my sister bought a bottle of ros from a liquor store in the city. For once, my father indulged himself on a holiday, and for the first time I was asked to join him. I swallowed a few mouthfuls with much difficulty, while he made his way through three flutes and a shot of bourbon before my mothers stare finally forced him to stop.My fathers gaze was set firmly on the advent wreath. He hadnt said much about it, but I could tell he adored it, despite how cheap it must have been. If you got close enough, each individual LED looked hideous, but from afar they came together in a fairly pleasant way.What do you think? Not bad, eh?He turned to me, his vision clouded yet decidedly clear. He couldve been asking about anything at that table. Maybe he was searching for reassurance, seeking answers as to how we got this far, with the odds piled so high. I knew deep down that it wasnt my answer to give; it was his burden to carry, and it would always be impossible for me to boil it down to just one response.Instead, I told myself to be honest, though I suspect the champagne may have played a part.Its beautiful. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The three hour plane ride from Tokyo down to Okinawa always feels longer than the nine hour ride from Sydney to Tokyo. Im greeted with thick air as soon as I get off the plane, and the gentle, tinny strums of the sanshin echo endlessly throughout the terminal. I read and re-read the signs that warn me of accidentally smuggling out Okinawan potatoes as I wait for my luggage.As I step out of the gates, ykoso is replaced with mensre, rmen with Okinawa soba, and a horrifyingly efficient train system with Route 58 and backed up box cars.Ive never technically lived here, but coming back is always comforting. The sky feels lower and more vast here. Ill reach up and fluff the clouds. Ill drive alongside the ocean with all my windows rolled down whatever season it is (except for typhoon season). Sydney is physically my home, and in mainland Japan Im just another small human within millions, and a tourist at that. But being in Okinawa with my family is something very precious.My mum always taught me that we are uchinanchu, and that means were different to mainland Japanese people. I grew up immersed in Japanese culture, but my mum made sure to teach me about our Okinawan heritage toothat its important for us to understand and honour the past.In 1879, Okinawa was annexed by the Japanese. Before it became incorporated into Japan as a prefecture, it was the Ryky Kingdom. A tributary state to China, the dress, language, and culture was distinct to the tiny island. As soon as it was annexed, policies were put into place to assimilate the people into Japan, with the main focus being the eradication of the traditional language. My great-grandma could only speak Okinawan, my grandma is fluent in both Okinawan and Japanese, and my mum is only conversational in Okinawan. I cant speak it at all. The disappearing language from our communities is one of the biggest ways that the younger generation are detached from older generations, and how traditions get lost in the past. Revitalisation efforts within the community have sprung up since the late 1990s, but with the teaching of it still banned within schools by law, most of the younger generations cannot speak it at all.Okinawas relationship with Japan, and more recently the US, is complex and hard to know if youre only looking at the surface. Okinawa is now a popular holiday destination for Chinese, Korean, and mainland Japanese tourists, and its modern rebranding as a resort getaway hides the often painful history. But once you venture out of places like Onna Village, where streets are lined with hotels and scuba diving agencies, or the shopping strip of Naha city, it becomes hard to ignore all of the fences.Fences line many of the main roads, separating locals from American military bases. They remain on the island, even after the end of the US Occupation of Okinawa in 1972. Despite being less than one percent of Japanese land, over 70% of American military bases in Japan are located in Okinawa. These camps are closed to locals except for holidays like the 4th of July and New Years Eve, and loud rumbles of military planes are the norm. My little cousin likes to point out the Osprey planes from our balcony. My mum always sighs, and tells me the situation is so complicated.Okinawa was the only inhabited place in Japan where battle took place during World War II. A quarter of all Okinawan civilians lost their lives during the three month battle between the American troops and the Japanese Imperial Army. Many of the civilians evacuated into the jungle, and whole families hid inside of traditional tombs, as well as in deep caves throughout the island. Not only were they caught between the two powers, but imperial propaganda encouraged local communities to commit mass suicides before they could be captured by American forces, in honour of the Japanese emperor. The role of the army in these mass suicides has not been acknowledged by the Japanese government, and these events are erased from school history textbooks.Feelings towards Japan and the US vary throughout the generations, but my elders remind me not to forget these events in the past, and to recognise how they still manifest in our communities today.A few weeks ago I talked to my grandma on the phone, and asked her how she would describe Okinawa to someone who has never visited. After a moment of thinking, she replied that she thinks its a good place. Its close to the ocean, and quiet for the most part. When I asked my mum the same question, she replied in almost the exact same way. Her memories of running through sugarcane fields, climbing banyan trees, and living by the ocean contrast so greatly to the world she found outside.When I think about what Okinawan culture is to me, I also think of the landscape. The castle ruins atop the many mountains. The narrow alleyways of homes with protective shs out the front. The road signs with place names that mainland Japanese people cant read. While many things change, some things also stay the same. Pieces of Ryky are still left in Okinawa in both big and small ways. Im especially reminded of this during Obon festival in the summertime, when our ancestral spirits visit us for three days. This year my auntie sent us photos of the family shrine and the traditional feast that she had prepared. She told us she had done tt for us too. My cousin posted videos of eis passing by his house, and it made me miss how the streets rumbled as people sang and danced and drummed into the early hours of the morninga steady heartbeat carrying the past, through us, into the future.add <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, or so the saying goes. This encapsulates a common impasse the inherent irreconcilability of capitalism, the system that governs our lives, and the need to avert the impending doom of climate catastrophe and ecological collapse. The phrase, popularised by the late Mark Fisher, lays the foundations for his concept of capitalist realism, the common sentiment of resignation that there are no alternatives to our economic system, that we have reached the end of the world, or of history. The most potent takeaway upon seeing past the veil of depressive stupor, however, is that other worlds are not only possible, but worth fighting for.Yet, it is not enough to hold onto this notion in the abstract. Concrete visions of post-capitalist worlds lie right in front of us in speculative fiction and, in recent development, the sub-genre and movement of Solarpunk. Renewable technologies integrated harmoniously with the built environment stained glass panes containing solar cells, buildings bestrewn with green gardens and foliage. Solarpunk paints a plausible world in the not-so-far future where humankind lives in harmony with ecology without the need for a post-dystopian retreat into a pristine wilderness. It is a politics of hope that rejects the alienation of industrial capitalism and atomisation of the individual. Instead, it opts for the creation of new social relations in a society where false scarcity has been abolished and self-actualisation becomes the primary form of labour.Following in the footsteps of its Steampunk and Cyberpunk predecessors, Solarpunk examines the relationship between radical advances in technologies in this case renewables and how they mutually reinforce the radical transformation of society. If the Cyberpunk of the 1960s and 70s with its imaginary of a dehumanising high-tech future served as a dystopian warning of the current path of decay under capitalism, Solarpunk presents itself as the solution. Though initially aesthetically similar to Steampunk, it orientates itself away from the nostalgia for lost retro-futures, towards what could be.The lineage of Solarpunks social content stretches far back, owing much to the imaginaries and social relations of non-Western societies and the practices of Indigenous peoples. Utopianism lays the basis for its literary lineage; built upon the approximation of ideals rather than a flawless endpoint or idle political action. One of the first literary examples is found in News from Nowhere, authored by textile designer and socialist activist William Morris in 1890. Following a socialist revolution, Morris imagines a society where labour is no longer waged, and instead is driven by leisure and self-actualisation. Influenced from his involvement with the Arts and Crafts Movement Solarpunk also hails the return of craftsmanship and artistry. What we see in Morris work is the mutual importance of imagining new worlds through literature and art, and the political action needed to realise change. Later on, the writings of Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin examined the interplay between science fiction, ecology, and utopia through the lenses of Feminism and Afrofuturism.What differentiates the recent conception of Solarpunk however, is that it seeks to unify and ultimately realize an alternative to capitalism amidst the fall of 20th century socialism. One aspect heavily linked to its popularisation on Tumblr is its aesthetic unity Solarpunk is a revolt against the capitalist realism of sterile iPod futurism and the finance blue of homogenous skyrises. Stemming from a 2014 Tumblr post, its artistic sensibilities have been tied to a renewed Art Nouveau, Afrofuturism, the films of Hayao Miyazaki, and other imaginaries that reflect the reunification of science with culture, spirituality, and nature.The punk suffix carries a quality of rebellion, for Solarpunk this is the recognition that to bring about a world that we would thrive in, as well as one where future generations can prosper there needs to be some sort of radical uprooting of the status quo. Solarpunk serves as a sort of hyperstition; a type of fiction that seeks to manifest its existence in reality by rewriting the social historical narrative of progress. This doesnt mean it serves as a strict blueprint and nor will it autonomously arise. Hyperstitional futures form a navigating tool one that orientates and spurs us onwards through the hope for an alternative future and the will to fight for it.The Solarpunk movement has yet to bloom and its politics in bridging the gap between the present and future requires development. The Lefts collective vision for emancipation is fragmented, especially in the sphere of environmentalism where it is overshadowed by a subconscious acceptance of ecological collapse itself a form of capitalist realism. The futures we strive for are only conveyed in the fleeting moments of protest and prefiguration. It is time to present a coherent vision that challenges the monopoly capitalist realism has over the cultural imaginary. In these times, hope itself is a desperately needed political act. In the words of Mark Fisher, emancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a natural order, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> All watercolours by Isla Mowbray.Whilst reflecting on lockdown I kept thinking about the absurdity of it all. The necessary separation from our friends and our external lives. The anxiety of leaving the house.For many of us, we had probably never spent as much time inside as we did in the months from March to July.I wanted to capture the unique spaces we were confined to, so I asked five women to send me photos of a part of their house which was significant to them during lockdown, and to share the story of that significance with me.All five women reflected on their privilege and recognised that many people have, and will continue to face hardship as a result of COVID-19. Lockdown was a pluralistic experience and the perspectives that are shared here represent singular perspectives.During quarantine Olivia Niethe returned to her family home, a small beach village six hours north of Sydney. The picture shows a beautiful collection of all the things which became important to her during this time. Propped up on the left is a surfboard which she hadnt touched for two years. She described the nostalgia that getting back into this hobby bought her and added that the ocean, swimming and surfing became a huge part of getting through isolation. To the right of the board is a crocheted rug which her Mum has made for each child as they left home. On top of the rug is a stack of novels (one being The Secret History which she highly recommends) and some piano books. Olivia noted her initial frustration of not being able to play the piano as well as she used to. However, this feeling was overcome by the joy she found in playing when she removed expectation.For Olivia the move home brought with it conflicting thoughts and feelings. It was a space so closely tied to her younger self and identity, so coming back felt like she was going backwards, re-entering a time of her life that shed moved so far from. But after reflecting, she realised that the space gave her the opportunity to be with her own thoughts, desires and emotions. She described how over the past two years she hadnt stopped, constantly keeping up with social expectations, university and work. Looking back on her time spent at home in lockdown Olivia said, I feel so grateful for what that space allowed me to be, allowed me to think and foster and do. I didnt think I needed that space and I definitely came to appreciate it from a different perspective. Phoebe Wolfe noted that 2020 was a start to the new decade, a time to turn a new leaf, but the absolute irony is that weve all been forced to feel this stagnation. Change is often marked by events external to us, but Phoebe commented on how lockdown forced us to acknowledge the internal changes. She also explained how, for her, staying in the same space meant staying in old habits and old identities. So, at the start of lockdown she decided to change her room around, painting her walls and rearranging the space. She said, It felt like it was a different space even though it was the same room Ive grown up in for 10 years.I asked Phoebe how she feels about her room presently. She replied, Ive felt the urge to change it again. When I walk in it feels like Im back in isolation. For Phoebe there seems to be a strong association between the layout of a space and its connection to a particular time. She described how were still in limbo, we could go back into isolation at any moment. This made me reflect on how the future feels suspended between two outcomes: the first being the gradual return to life outside of lockdown, and the second, the lingering thought that COVID-19 cases will rise and well have to return to isolation. I noticed a pair of pointe shoes hanging on the pink room divider in her room. When I asked Phoebe about them she explained that shed watched a YouTube video of Alexa Chung going to a ballet class in New York. Feeling inspired she looked up the ballet teacher from the video and found that she was running online classes. There was a discounted pandemic price, so she logged on and rekindled her old passion for ballet.Anthia Balis also felt the need to change her space around during lockdown. She told me that she hadnt changed the layout of her room in years and said the first time I changed it around I couldnt help but feel anxious. I think its a thing about change. But then I eased into it. And now Im just enjoying the space. We talked about the interplay between a person and their space. Even small things that seem trivial, like the position of the bed in the room, can affect the way we feel. Anthia said that her room was a reflection of my mental and emotional state. If Im feeling aligned my room will be neat. In July Anthia curated an exhibition for Verge Gallery called pause.play. As part of it she interviewed people on their experiences in lockdown. To me, she described how it made her realise that life is weird because we dont get to ask everyone deep questions. But the beauty of the interviews were that they enabled me to get to the deep stage quite quickly. She goes on to describe how it was so lovely to hear how other people were doing. It was such a comfort being able to relate to them.Kavya Nagpal said she became more conscious of the small moments in her day. Little sensory experiences started to mean so much. The feeling of morning grass on bare feet, the spotted shade underneath the washing line and the afternoon sun soaking her room in light. For Kavya, quarantine allowed her to take a break from the constant rush of life. The minutes and hours saved from what wouldve been time spent commuting allowed her to exist in her space in a way she hadnt before. She described how the house became the literal perimeter of what I was allowed to occupy space in, so I started exploring it a bit more. She went on to describe how slowing down reinstated a balance and allowed me to take account of things that matter. She said, now I have time to enjoy a morning sipping chai in the sunshine or chatting to Nani (her Grandmother).We talked about how our world provides an overload of stimuli: chatter on the train, the frenetic feeling of a jostling city crowd, short and awkward hellos to acquaintances we bump into, the abruptness of advertisements on the street. But in isolation the chaos of life was simultaneously peeled back in our physical worlds, though perhaps increased in the invisible online one as we constantly read updates on the status of the global pandemic. Kavya described how there are so many subliminal messages that we are affected by. She mentioned how the world delivers you some existential angst Theres a lot of beautiful things but there are also a lot of experiences that I feel are very subliminal. Often, we dont have control over what tacit experiences were exposed to. We may be left with an emotional response of which the cause seems unclear.Violet Hull sent in a photo of her familys living space. At the time of taking this photo the afternoon sun was pouring in through the window, trickling through the plexiglass shelf and casting interesting shadows over the space. To the right of the shelf is a fresco that Violets Mum created. The bottom of the piece is laced with smashed glass from a car that her Mum had collected on a street in New York. In the foreground of the picture are two silver metal caf tables which operate as their dinner tables. The tables can also be moved into a big square, two separate squares, one long table or an L shape. Violet said they are the most versatile tables ever.During lockdown Violet decided to bring her mattress into the living room. She told me; When you cant rebel out in the wide world I guess the only thing you can do is say fuck you to living expectations and put your mattress on the carpet in front of the TV. She also described how there was a different morning light in the room which was refreshing. It took a long time for my parents to kick me out, she laughed.Violet commented on how her surroundings became a familiar blur. However, she mentioned that there were still moments where I noticed things that Ive never noticed before. She was referring to an artwork on her shelf, a word piece, which shed only just come to read.For me, the white square box of my bedroom allowed me to exist in an expansive aloneness. Contrary to feeling confined I felt a peculiar freedom in the way that my thoughts and feelings were able to unravel at their own pace. This time gave me a greater capacity to reflect, an act which had become increasingly rare in my life as I felt a persistent push driving me into the future while I unintentionally abandoned moments from my past.For some of us the enforced quietness that trickled into our minds and rooms sparked a desire to change and shift the spaces that we had control over. Maybe this rearranging was an attempt to mirror the perpetual chain of new experiences that we face in our lives outside of lockdown, trying to recreate a sense of change that we are so used to experiencing.In lockdown we excavated memories and moments from our past. It may have been a forgotten pastime or perhaps it was an uncovering of something that was always in plain sight but there hadnt been the time to observe or experience it before.We all responded to this time spent in lockdown in unique ways, however these interviews revealed the many similarities of this isolated collective experience. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In August university students were hit with the announcement that they could lose access to the HECS scheme if they fail more than half their subjects in a year.Education Minister Dan Tehan argued that the proposal was designed to prevent students repeatedly failing courses and accumulating debt to taxpayers in the process. But this obscures the reasons why students fail.Most students arent failing a bunch of courses because theyre serial failers. Its often because of disadvantage or devastating situations that are beyond their control. And when faced with these problems, they arent offered the support they need from their universities or the Government.Weve chronicled real stories from students who have failed subjects due to hardship, and who would be impacted by Tehans proposal.***Hannah I couldnt go in to uni because I was worried about seeing him.One afternoon in semester 2 of first year, I left class with a friend and another guy in our tutorial. We were waiting for a light, and the guy spent the whole time staring directly at my boobs. Direct eye contact, not even trying to be subtle about it.It feels stupid that it affected me the way that it did. It usually wouldnt even register, but I slipped back into old coping mechanisms, due to a similar but more serious incident.I spent the next couple of weeks super panicked. Id leave during breaks and try to get away from campus for a second. One day, I was sitting up the back, and caught him turning around and staring at me again. I left and puked in a bathroom.I talked to one of my tutors. Weird was the word I think he used, but he told me it wasnt black-and-white sexual harassment in terms of university policy. He told me to just try and get through the class. He was trying his best, but I think staff need to be supported to know how to respond.It put me in a headspace where it was incredibly difficult to concentrate. I could show up, I could practice, but I couldnt do any work. Everything required so much more thought and energy than normal.Sometimes I couldnt go in to uni because I was worried about seeing him. I almost failed an assessment because when I woke up that morning, I thought I wouldnt cope if I had to present in front of him.I felt like it was such a small thing to lose a lot of progress over; that it was my fault I let myself get so affected. I didnt want to deal with the fact that I hadnt dealt with it in the first place. It had taken a lot to stop thinking like that.I ended up absent failing a history subject and another subject. I considered appealing them, but felt too ashamed to do anything.I had a good experience with CAPS, luckily. My counsellor had done trauma work before, which was a miracle; otherwise, it wouldve been a lot harder to admit, I cant say exactly what Im thinking, but I need you to fix me.I was pissed when I first heard about the governments proposal. I think the Libs either dont have the lived experience to understand what it would do, or the empathy to understand what it could do.Its cruel. Youre going to cut out people who have the most trouble adjusting to university life, who have an incredible amount to offer, but havent had the opportunity to do so. Thats the expectation theyre trying to set up that if you cant survive first year perfectly intact, then you shouldnt be at uni at all.If they had booted me out, I dont know what I wouldve done. I really dont know. There was no way I couldve afforded it.Im doing much better now. Its been up and down, because, shockingly, six sessions of therapy did not fix me. Therapy is expensive, and work right now doesnt lend itself to consistency.But there are so many things that help. Sometimes, when things are a little crazy, the first step is trying to clean and control parts of your space. Playing music, with people who I felt comfortable with, made me feel very safe. And, particularly when it first happened, friends were incredibly important. Oftentimes youre just lying to yourself when you dont talk to anyone, when it endlessly makes you feel better when you do.They didnt get to cut me out of the system. Im still here.Sam No one bothered to check in with meI was assaulted in the middle of a trimester last year. I had a quiz due that was worth 35%, but I completely missed it because I was in bed, locking myself away from everyone.I emailed my tutor about what happened. He seemed to be really supportive in class, so I thought he would understand; but all he said was that he was sorry it happened, and that I needed a medical certificate or police report for the quiz back up. I could tell that the email was a generic copy paste.I ended up failing that unit, and there was absolutely no option to appeal it. Missing this quiz made me even more miserable.The tutor never followed up, which I thought was odd. If someone came up to me saying they had been assaulted, I would be doing everything I could to follow up with them and make sure they were okay. I ended up calling Deakins wellbeing services a few days after, but they were fully booked out for two months.Before this, my WAM was at around 94. I had set myself up well for a very competitive grad year given my results and my appraisals on my clinical placements. Now thats all gone down the drain, and my WAM is somewhere in the 60s, I think. I have a very strong feeling that no one will take me and that I wont be able to get into the program that I wanted.After that, the university told me they wouldnt be renewing my scholarship since I didnt meet the conditions. It wasnt a lot of money, but I needed that for textbooks. I was lucky that my family provided some money.We dont get to choose where my placements are. They put me in a forensic nursing hospital. Im expecting to see a lot of assault victims and I am terrified of how Im going to react to that environment.On top of everything, I recently split up with my boyfriend because of issues stemming from my situation. I just feel like my whole life is now not going to plan, and the uni is not helping; in fact, its making me incredibly anxious about everything.No one really is going to care enough to listen. Theyre going to tell me that thats where Im going and to suck it up. Ive fallen through the cracks, and its not fair. I didnt choose what happened to me.Earlier in the year, I came back from a cruise, so I had to get tested for coronavirus. I missed a mandatory practical, to which I emailed them, and said, I have to isolate until the results, which back in March took over a week. They were incredibly understanding, and even had someone from their wellbeing office follow up with me 3 days afterwards, which just absolutely astounded me.I got assaulted, and I told someone, and missed class, and failed a unit, and no one bothered to check in with me. But I got tested for coronavirus, and then they bothered to check up on me? It doesnt really make sense. It absolutely blows my mind that they wouldnt do that for a student whos been through a very traumatic experience, and who has good reason to miss class.I dont know if my tutor didnt believe me, so didnt escalate it; or whether he did escalate, but they thought I was lying. I felt really unsupported; like they werent taking me seriously. I dont know if they thought I was being lazy, or that I wouldnt bother going to the police or a doctor which I did, but I couldnt get what they wanted. The wellbeing system that they have is incredibly backwards.***Alex All they did was send emails that made me too scared to ask for support.When I started uni last year, my inability to focus really started to cause problems. The change in learning style was huge. I found it really distressing that I couldnt keep up with my classmates, even though I felt like I was able to understand the work just as well as them.I started failing subjects pretty quickly. I failed all but one of my subjects in first year, and got an email a few weeks after semester finished saying that if I didnt get my act together Id be kicked out.Neither of my parents have university degrees, so they werent really across how to assist me with adjusting from high school to uni successfully and easily. I struggled with study a lot in high school, but felt like I got away with it because of natural ability.I hadnt received any support from the uni or my tutors. All that Id gotten from the uni was fear mongering, to be honest. The only thing they did for me was send me emails that made me too scared to ask for support.I think that if the email I received at the end of semester 1 in first year had asked whether I was doing alright and offered support, then I wouldnt have kept failing.I think I took such a hit to my ego that I had a lot of anxiety around even starting assignments. I was so ashamed by my lack of ability to focus, because thats how the uni made me feel. So I stopped going to classes and stopped attending work, and then pretty quickly it became more like getting zeros.I think its really telling that I got an HD in the only subject I passed, because I had a tutor who followed up with me and a course coordinator who really cared about making it an open space with information about special consideration and support for peoples personal lives. I honestly think that if the entire university structure was like that, then I and so many others wouldnt have failed.I met up with an academic advisor who was really supportive and set me up with a plan, but theres only so much those meetings can do. In reality, the uni needs to assist you to make appointments with people like counsellors, because it wasnt until this month that I finally cracked into getting the support that I need.It was an 8 month process of battling through various administrative issues of trying to get support for myself, while also trying to not get kicked out of uni. It has been an incredibly isolating and lonely experience.I think that when a student fails the uni has to ask why, rather than just telling them to stop failing. There is always a reason beyond laziness.Im feeling really good now. I finally have the support that I need my GP is totally across all my issues, I have a really good therapist and a really good psychiatrist.But I had to figure all of that out for myself. I wish someone had explained to me how to get there.Christian The hardest part was telling my mum.I was new to Sydney. It was meant to be a fresh start. I didnt know anyone in my classes. One day, I woke up early Saturday morning in Camperdown Park not remembering much of the night beforehand. I dont know, maybe I hadnt eaten that much at dinner.I honestly didnt think anything of it that was until I got home. My heart froze. I looked down and saw so much blood in that toilet.I was scared. I was confused. I didnt know what this would mean for my relationship with my boyfriend, with my body, with myself.I remember sitting in a windowless room at the Sexual Health Clinic and asking the psychologist to steer clear of any definitive words in documentation excusing me from the tutorial I was missing. And what are you even meant to say to your tutor about something you dont remember? Hey, I think I was raped but Im really not quite sure.I waited so anxiously for my blood results. What if I had gotten something? By the time they eventually arrived Id fallen far behind on my readings. Honestly, I was barely making it to class let alone out of bed.The hardest part was telling my mum. How do you tell the one who sees you as the best little boy in the world that youre failing out of law school, let alone what had happened?I never ended up sitting my final exams.When I heard what they were thinking of introducing for students, it brought me right back to that place of shame. I had been so scared of saying it out loud, not because I was afraid of what would come out but of what I would hear back.Everything flies around your head the nurse urging me to wear a condom next time I did that again, my partner asking if Id cheated on him, the email placing me on academic probation.I lacked so much belief in myself to keep going. In some ways I still do. It took me so long to accept that failing isnt an indicator of character, but of crisis.I honestly dont know what I would have done with one more voice telling me that that moment defined me, that maybe I didnt deserve the things I had once before. In times where your world is so shaken, students need support not sanction.*Names have been anonymised. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Shaping my identity in my early twenties has been difficult since I am currently dealing with this nagging feeling that Im stuck between two worlds. I am known among my relatives as the white girl in a black girls body, since the way I speak and my mannerisms make me seem very foreign. At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement and recent conversations surrounding race have also made me painfully aware of my unavoidable blackness. No matter how educated I am or how white I apparently act, I am still a black woman and will still be seen as such.Growing up in Australia, it has been hard to assert my identity as an ethnically Fijian person. Apart from attending Fijian churches when I was a kid, I have remained largely disconnected from the community.. Whenever anyone asks me where Im really from, the answer gets stuck in my throat. I may be born of Fijian parents, but I have no real connection to their homeland. As irrational as it seems, I dont feel comfortable claiming an identity that doesnt belong to me.A great deal of this disconnection goes back to language. Being understood and being able to communicate helps me to feel a stronger sense of belonging. I was never taught Fijian, which didnt pose an issue in communicating with my parents since they were both educated in English. Ive asked my parents many times why I was not taught the language, but have received different answers over the years. I was once told by my mother that it was a useless language.This idea continued to play in my head whenever I ended up in situations where I was the only person who couldnt speak Fijian. A cousin of mine lived with us for a few years. Whenever he and my parents spoke the language to each other at the dinner table, it effectively locked me out of the conversation. It was hard to not feel like a guest in my own home. I know that its never personal, but it was still a greatly upsetting and isolating experience. My dad makes a point to primarily communicate with me in English, but I hear my mum speak more Fijian than English. The fact that she primarily speaks a supposedly useless language that I dont understand makes me feel very distant from her.As one of the primary ways of maintaining a connection to ones heritage, the fact that I dont know the native language of my parents makes me feel like I have no right to claim my Fijian identity. I have heard stories of people in a similar position to me being able to reconnect with their cultures through language lessons. While I find that to be beautiful and inspiring, there arent many resources to help me learn the language in a way that will stick with me long-term, apart from a Fijian-English dictionary Ive found in my house.Nonetheless, I know that language isnt the only way to engage with ones culture. I used to try to do this primarily through religion, since Christianity is another strong pillar of Fijian culture. Though since discovering my bisexuality when I was 16, even that avenue feels compromised now. After the media storm concerning Israel Folau and his religious opinions concerning homosexuality, which most of the Pacific Islander community stands by, it is clear to me that I will face scrutiny and criticism from my family if I were to be open about my sexual orientation. It now also raises the question of whether I will be able to remain connected to my Fijian family in the future, or whether my identity and my values will further distance me from them.Sometimes I fear Im overthinking this, but these worries and thoughts still feel so real and tangible to me. I cant simply ignore them or pretend theyre not important. I dont want to end up completely cut off from my family in the future. I love them and cherish them despite our differences. But continuing to hide parts of myself means further cloaking myself in shame, and its not fair to continue to force that on myself either.I dont know how to talk to my parents about this. I fear doing so would make me sound like I am ungrateful for everything they have given me. Their hard work is the reason why I am able to live comfortably, and I hope they know how incredibly proud I am of them and of everything theyve achieved since moving here. I also fear that I might come off like I am blaming them for this, but I know there is no one to blame. I know that this also has a lot to do with the ways I think and make sense of the world, as well as how my parents raised me. I know that my parents love me wholeheartedly and unconditionally, even if they disagree with or dont understand some of my lived experiences, growing up here. I know that theyve done the best that they could with what they knew, and I love them for that. I have become an honest and well-rounded person and a lot of that is thanks to them.Part of it is wishful thinking. Even if I were to start intensively learning Fijian today, theres no way I can make up for roughly twenty years of cultural disconnection. I sometimes wish that things had turned out differently, though maybe I will find a way to feel comfortable and secure in my identity whilst staying connected to my family. I might not know how that will work, but Im eager to figure it out. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A Chinese translation this article appearshere.An experience I will never forget in my life is the first time I attended the Sydney Mardi Gras. It was in 2016, and I was shocked when I saw a fabulous sea of rainbow spectrums, filled with people wearing shiny, colourful costumes some dancing on the floats, and others marching to loud music. Around them, thousands of people on the street shouted and jumped for joy. I was impressed and enticed, not only by the festive atmosphere of the parade, but also by the openness towards queerness in Australia. Being from China, this was something I had never seen before. In China, homosexuality was illegal until 1997, and was only declassified as a mental disorder in 2001. However, many in China, especially older generations, still consider queerness an illness that requires a cure. Before 1997, people caught engaging in homosexual acts could be prosecuted under the vague crime of hooliganism. This attitude can be seen in a famous 1996 Chinese movie called East Palace, West Palace, which depicts the story of a gay man caught at a Beijing public bathroom, who is consequently detained and beaten. But, even up until now, 22 years after LGBT+ sex was decriminalised, social attitudes towards queerness still remain generally intolerant.In 2017, Australia legalised same-sex marriage, but simultaneously, the Chinese government banned public discussions around LGBT+ problems and experiences online. In 2018, Sina Weibo one of Chinas largest social media sites stated that the platform would remove comics and videos with pornographic implications, promoting bloody violence, or related to homosexuality in order to create a positive and harmonious community environment and comply with the countrys cybersecurity laws. The decision to ban LGBT+ related content was only reversed after an overwhelming number of complaints flooded online.Chinese censorship bodies have released new regulations for content that exaggerates the dark side of society and now deem content that features queerness, extramarital affairs, one night stands and underage relationships as illegal to be shown across screens. Consequently, depictions of LGBT+ people on television, social media and other mediums has also been banned as part of a cultural crackdown on vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content. The governments decision has since become one of the most talked about topics on social media, and sparked an enormous amount of backlash from young people. Something that is little known is that the history of same-sex love in China has not always been one of intolerance.Same-sex love has been documented since ancient times, and research by scholars suggests that it was thoroughly normalised in society prior to Western influence from the 1840s onwards. Even several Chinese emperors are speculated to have had same-sex relationships with others. According to the Han Dynasty historian, Ban Gu (AD32-92), Emperor Ai of Han expressed his sexual orientation by stating, By nature, he [I] did not care for women. A famous love story between him and his male lover Dongxian a court official has become emblematic of queer relationships in China today.The story tells of how Dongxian fell asleep on top of Ais sleeves after the two were resting in the same bed. Rather than waking Dongxian, Ai carefully cut off his sleeves to get out of bed the next morning. Owing to the fame of the story, Dunxi, also known as the cut sleeve became a euphemism for same-sex relationships in China, and has featured prominently in Classical Chinese literature.However, fast forward to almost two millennia later, queerness became largely invisible during the Mao era because it was viewed as both an illness and a crime. However, recently, with the extensive discussion of LGBT+ issues and the legalisation of same-sex marriage in numerous countries around the world, discussion on this topic has re-emerged in China. It wasnt until 2019 that the Chinese government broke their silence on the treatment of LGBT+ individuals. The government recently accepted the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Reviews recommendations regarding LGBT+ rights that demand the protection of the rights of Chinas LGBT+ population. China accepted all five recommendations regarding LGBT+ rights made by the UNs Human Rights Council, and claimed that they had already been implemented. Whether these official actions have materially bettered the lives of LGBT+ individuals in China remains to be seen. Although the conversation surrounding queerness in China is increasingly becoming more open and the governments attitude is becoming positive, a lot of LGBT+ people nevertheless refrain from revealing their sexual orientation to wider society.Queer people in China usually face enormous social pressure to start their own family and begin producing children. With the absence of a free press and the pervasive presence of a political regime that is cautiously neutral at best and discriminatory at worst, many LGBT+ Chinese choose to hide their sexual orientation with fake heterosexual marriages, also known as cooperative marriages. There are two types of cooperative marriages. One is a marriage between a gay man and a lesbian, but under the guise that both are heterosexual. The other case is where a gay man marries a straight woman who is unaware of his sexual orientation. This situation is more common and is said to make up around 80 per cent of queer relationships. Such marriages often cause irreparable harm to both sides, with the relationship often tragically dissolving, and accompanying risks of suicide and self-harm are also present.Xi Chen, a Chinese student at the University of Sydney studying Cultural Studies, commented that fake marriage allows for little happiness to either party within the marriage, and does nothing but temporarily ease parental anxiety about their child being abnormal. She also offered a bleak view on the reality of many Chinese LGBT+ individuals, saying that people keep doing this is because the situation is so bad, if they dont fake-marry, theres no other way to endure life. There is a common perception in Western society that the main challenge of being an LGBT+ individual in China is the Chinese governments erratic stance towards the LGBT+ community. However, in reality, it has less to do with our governments stance and more to do with familial pressures.David*, a Chinese international student at USyd, described the pressure of coming out, saying, I only tell my sexual orientation to a few of my best friends. I feel so much pressure because Im gay and because Im concerned about my future. Straight people get married and have kids, while I am not able to. Chen said that although China is gradually starting to accept and understand queerness, traditional Confucian family values to marry had have children still represent a major obstacle for LGBT+ people.I see this tendency as a somewhat collective parental attempt to try and fix queerness parents hope marriage and having kids (and heterosexual sex, that goes without saying) will make their homosexual children normal. This hope, however, wont come true, because queerness is not pathological and does not need fixing.Sadly, I also know some parents who know their childs sexuality deep down, but will still force their children to marry, because their childrens happiness seems insignificant before the need to continue the family lineage.While the Chinese are normalised to the idea of fake marriages, it is still shocking that such a large proportion of LGBT+ Chinese youth choose to fake-marry just to evade familial and societal fears of ill treatment and isolation. LGBT+ individuals are still in a vulnerable position mainly because their families refuse to understand them and constantly try to correct their sexual orientation. If families and society could just listen more to their childrens opinions and respect their sexual orientations, they would be able to lead better, happier and more fulfilling lives. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As I glared at the television late one Friday night watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding for the 26th time that shameless tribute to ridiculously chaotic yet lovable Greeks I didnt want to believe it. But as my focus shifted to the TVs reflection, my mother yapping on the phone to her mother while waving a wooden spoon at my brothers bickering in the corner of the room, I had to wonder could this really be us?But what this colourful film fails to acknowledge is how we came to be the loud, food-crazed community we are today. Three days and three coffees with my grandparents later, the truth slowly revealed itself.It all began when the Second World War sabotaged my pregnant great-grandmothers plan to migrate to Australia in 1942. Robbed of food, medicine, and innocent lives, the Greeks were merely collateral damage during the brutal German occupation. The ruthless famine that followed destroyed over ten percent of their population.Amidst the chaos, my great-grandmother had no choice but to give birth in Greece, launching my grandmother into uncharted territory. Once the war had ended and the soldiers swarmed into ships sailing back to Australia, she spent 6 months living in Egypt with her mother and big sister, waiting for their boat to arrive. But at the ripe old age of five, she realised she wasnt the only thing being hosted (and unwanted) in a foreign place. Measles had declared a new war, so in true Greek fashion she was banned from leaving her room by her own mother in case the authorities took her away. This motherly protection did indeed pass through the generations, but unfortunately for me (a mere fourth generation Greek), the digital age brought a whole new level to the strict Greek parenting thing, which nowadays manifests in the form of location services.After a month-long journey to Australia, they found themselves in a small country town in the central west. Having never spoken a word of English in her life, my grandmother was sent straight to an English-speaking school. One thing us Greeks are known for is our larger than life community, but considering there was only one other Greek family in town, learning the language and making friends was no easy task. They all knew we were different, my grandmother recalls, but that didnt stop her from topping class by third grade.Thankfully her academic success grew alongside that of her social. One of her school friends even gifted her a lamb, which roamed around their backyard until it got too big and had to be sent back to the farm. I guess this sentimental companionship is what encouraged my grandmother to let my mum care for their neighbours goat in Greece every time they visited. That is until one year, when mum waited (as per instruction) until the last day of their trip to visit the neighbours, only to be told by my grandparents that the locals had eaten poor Lefkoula. Evidently, my ancestors didnt think like us. They couldnt think like us, growing up having to benefit from every good that they possessed in order to survive, which meant no emotional connections to their livestock. This is probably why the closest I got to owning a lamb was in the form of a stuffed toy.But whilst my grandmother rarely suffered discrimination in the country, my grandfather had a rather different experience at his selective school in Sydney, most accurately summed up by an encounter with his Year 9 Math teacher. After questioning a test result of 0/10, the teacher called him to the front, grabbed and stared at his test paper for a while, and proceeded to cross out every letter of my grandfathers surname except those that left the word ass embedded in the middle. After bravely contesting the result a second time, the teacher saw that the calculation was correct despite using a different method, and settled for 8/10.This taught my grandfather from a young age that his 10/10 wouldnt always equate to 100% in the eyes of others. But that never stopped his or my grandmothers fight for equal treatment in a foreign (and at times, intolerant) country, paving the way for generations to come. Its difficult to accept the fact that Ive benefitted from my ancestors suffering, but I will never take their sacrifices for granted.So yes, we celebrate two Easters on separate occasions, and yes, we dye eggs red and crack them against one another until the last uncracked egg stands, and yes, we dance around in circles to accelerating music in five-inch heels that leave us with blisters and aches for the next three days. But at the end of the day, its more than crazy gatherings and seemingly futile traditions that underpin our culture. A lot of history and hardship has brought us to what we are today; were loud because we are proud. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its just before 7:30 am. There is a line in front of the Vietnamese bakery and everyone is patiently waiting for the mornings fresh hot bread, which, partnered with cool, sweet iced coffee, is the most perfect breakfast. Close by, a similar aroma wafts in the wind. I am standing outside the coffee shop watching as the Arab uncles down their second or third short black with their fifth or sixth cigarette, praying that I dont miss the train waiting for my coffee.Bankstown, or as some people know it, The Area, is both chaotic and serene in the early hours of the morning. At 8 am, most older folks have been awake for about two to three hours and are enjoying the start of a new day. However, 8 am also means the rush to work and school. The hustle and bustle of this morning commute is often disturbed by the rickety old trains being at least five minutes late, each one groaning in a complaint as they make a sudden stop to accept hundreds of city-bound passengers. I cant remember the last time I saw a new train going to the city at 8 am. Its like they want us to suffocate on our journey towards making something of ourselves.Often hailed the murder capital of Australia, Bankstown is the place I was born and raised. Between crowded communal weekly barbeques, and the car park at Bankstown Square on Thursday late nights, I have watched the culture of The Area resist and grow despite feeling like almost everyone in this country is against it. According to the news, Bankstown has been home to a lot of violence. Headlines relating to Bankstown always showcase drug busts, links to terrorism, and murder. Being a suburb that is populated by immigrants, much of the finger- pointing is always directed at a specific wave of migrants. At first, it was the Greeks, then the Arabs and finally the Asians, each bringing with them an apparently new social problem in their failure to assimilate. Its as if no matter where youre from, if you dont mould your existence to become this countrys version of palatable, you will be rejected. Perhaps Bankstown in itself is rejected because it is home to this countrys version of rejects.Despite this, there is no other place you will find this awake at 7:30 am. It is all warm smiles, hands full with fresh baked goods and, above all, love.In Bankstown, loyalty and respect are the law. Everyone is a cuz, a bro, a sis, an aunty, an uncle. These laws transcend race and ethnicity. This idea was brought up in a casual chat I was having with my friend the other day. He had recently been in contact with a friend from primary school who he hadnt spoken to in a while. They ended their conversation with, Any trouble [redacted name], you have Lebo friends mate, dont be shy to use em if you need anything let me know. If youre from The Area, you become family, and once those bonds are made, theyre made for life. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A long day of classes draws to a close. Im standing on a packed purple train carriage with two hours left of my commute. Scrolling through Facebook I catch up on what I missed back home. A wedding announcement, full time jobs completely different but incredibly familiar lives. Its comfortable. With the help of the network inside my phone Im always connected to the comforts of home.Uni is spoken about as a place where we face challenges, where the possibility of new experiences abound and where we make the friends of a lifetime. I first arrived at the University of Sydney (USyd) barely knowing anyone in Sydney, leaving the world of my high school and small town behind. Naturally I was eager to chat in the moments before class, but the harsh silence of the tutorial room was often far too intimidating. It was easier for everyone to sit quietly with Facebook in hand.Social media has allowed us to remain firmly connected to what comforts us despite being immersed in confronting new situations.Being a student from regional Australia, social media helped Molly become acquainted with her new environment. However, she found that social media limited more long-lasting, significant connections on campus. I added a few people on Facebook and would talk with them about assessments, however that was the limit of the friendship, she said.Social media has changed how people interact on campus. Rob* is in his final year of a Bachelor of Arts and believes that Social media connects students without the need for physical interaction, he says, people are becoming more lonely.For Rob, staying in touch with friends from home in Sydneys south western suburbs came easier than making friends on campus. People from your area have the same contextual upbringing as yourself. You both share the same social environment and it helps make connections to one another easier and more relatable.Research from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has found that Australian schools remain divided by socio-economic and geographic disparities. Metropolitan students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds outperformed regional students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, according to their latest report. When students make it to university, this disparity becomes socially clear as students are naturally drawn to those capable of empathising with their previous experiences.With social media allowing us to stay continually connected to people that share our upbringing and experiences, isolation dawns upon those who do not bring their home networks into university life.For many students from regional areas or low socioeconomic backgrounds the already developed groups at university are intimidating and isolating. Most of Robs friends selected other universities, and without the familiarity of his home group, breaking into the already established circles at USyd was a challenge. University life at USyd seems to be predominated cliques of people who know each other from high school, and it can be really difficult to break into these friendship circles.Rob sees that people become more accustomed to their cliques of friends as they communicate over social media in closed groups, and people arent as keen to go out of their way to meet new people on campus.Molly knew that when she moved interstate for university, social media would help her connect to campus. However, she also saw social media as the buffer which kept students in their comfort zone. If an awkward situation arises, our automatic response is to look down at our phone, scroll through social media, or even fake a phone call just to avoid a situation. It has come to a point where we find our comfort and validation in social media she said.After I moved to Sydney, campus life became more accessible. But I can still remember how lonely it was to be in a new place without anyone from home to start uni with. I remember how much I wanted to chat to the people sitting next me, or for the person sitting in front to just turn around and say hey. We all know the familiar dead silence that resides before a tutorial begins. Although it remains daunting to risk the first move and put our phone down, we may well discover that the person next to us is just as thankful someone broke the awkward silence as we are. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its the middle of the night. Youre at a half-decent party in the Inner West. Youve had a couple drinks, are wearing a costume that you threw together at the last minute, and youve just realised that a number of your friends are missing. Theyre not out in the garden smoking a dart, not having a dance in the lounge: they have vanished and cannot be reached, no matter how many times you Facebook-call them. You venture through the sharehouse, past rooms lit with fairy lights, past the line for the bathroom, until you pass a closed door. No light comes through the bottom of the door, and when you turn the handle, it isnt locked. From behind the door a crashing hiss echoes every thirty seconds or so.This is the nang room. Your friends are here. They have been here for years. They have forgotten who they are, how they came to be here, what life was like outside of the nang room. All they want is to chase the next nang, and so you plant yourself beside them, accept a balloon handed to you from frozen fingers, and follow them into the ether.After ten days of rough seas Odysseus and his crew land on the isle of the Lotus Eaters. They take shelter, eat and drink, and Odysseus sends some of his men further inland to see what the islands inhabitants are like. He doesnt hear from his men: having eaten the lotus flower they have forgotten about home, forgotten their quest, and desire nothing more than to remain there, eating lotus flowers.The nang room is our modern day island, nangs our lotus.Nangs are the sober mans drug. A nang has an intense high of about 15 seconds, followed by a few minutes of lasting reverberation, before its all over and youre returned to mostly lucid brain function. In that 15-second intense high, you see god. Your mind resounds like a brass bell struck by Quasimodo in the tower of Notre Dame. Any sound or stimulus bounces around back and forth, shaking you from a cosmic plane far away back down to your tiny human existence. If youre happy to breathe in something that isnt oxygen for a minute, youre rewarded with the most transcendental high you can get without ingesting or injecting anything into your body.The nang room is a notorious party location. At some point during the night someone will start it up, picking a select few people to join them. Generally speaking the people who kick off the nang room are those who have come prepared, who have bought their nangs in bulk and are ready to settle in. Once drawn in, its near impossible to leave. Nangs are just so easy to keep doing. As long as someone there is happy to keep inflating balloons and passing them around, you can spend hours there.There is something truly intoxicating about the nang room, much like the intoxication of the lotus flowers. Its hard to describe the experience to someone who has never done a nang, and its harder still to justify the hours spent downing nang after nang, laying inert on the ground, listening to Tame Impala or Gang of Youths. The experience comes hauntingly close to capturing the mystique of the strange, mythological island of Lotus Eaters.There is a sense of community in the nang room: its much more fun to do a nang as a group than on your own, and so the group waits patiently as balloons are inflated for everyone present. One person will be handling the nanginator or cracker, braving frozen fingers as they push out nang after nang over the course of the night. Their reward is the final balloon to be inflated, those balloons inflated first in the round having slowly deflated as they wait. For this reason theres a subtle politics surrounding the capacity of the nang room, too few and the room takes on a sad, almost desperate feeling, too many and physics is working against you. You can, of course, go in rounds: get half the room set up and going as you prepare for the other half, but the timing doesnt quite work out. The thing is, when youre doing a nang, time feels infinite. 30 seconds of a song feels like a symphony, and so its only when youre watching, not doing a nang yourself, that you realise how fleeting the experience truly is. So sure, you can give half the group nangs and set them loose, but they will be done and ready for the next round before youve had a chance to crack even a single other nang.The nang beast is especially single-minded in its pursuit of nangs: one nang is never enough, because as soon as youre done, you want another. And another. And another. Its not just the nangs: in this environment balloons become a priceless commodity. If there arent enough balloons for everyone then the choice is made for you: there can only ever be as many nangs as balloons, rounds become mandatory.It isnt uncommon to see gentle, blissful nang beasts, turned paranoid and selfish: there is no nobility here. If someones balloon pops that sometimes seals their fate; no one waits, no one stops, no one sacrifices their balloon or nang for them. Moments after finishing a nang, still descending from the astral plane, a friend could ask if you have a balloon to spare. They may know you have a balloon, having just finished a nang, but you will not want to relinquish your balloon for fear you will never see it again and oh god without a balloon you may never nang again. And so, still disoriented, still dumb and happy and floating down to earth, you will mime having lost your balloon, holding it securely in the palm of your hand. You will think you are a master of deception, but you are not. You may consider yourself to be a good person, but on the isle of nangs all morals are discarded in favour of sheer selfish hedonism: all in pursuit of the next nang.Odysseus drags his men from the island. Weeping bitterly, they board the ship to continue their quest. But in the nang room, there is no quest outside the door. No family or friends awaiting your return, no gods to appease or kingdoms to save. Your quest is self-contained in the nang room, your family and friends are the people around you holding up their balloons before inhaling in unison to climb the wave of euphoria together. Other boats may sail past, parties will come and go, but the nang room will always be there, waiting for you to taste that first nang, and be enticed to linger there forever. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A stone bench sits on the walkway above the inner courtyard of the neo-gothic Anderson Stuart Building, home of Anatomy and Physiology. A small plaque on the benchtop commemorates the 43 years of service of Anatomy Technician Barry Lockett. Its a beautiful vantage to enjoy the late-afternoon sun, overlooking the central courtyards palm trees. Anatomy staff fondly remember Locketts regular smoke breaks there, perhaps too many, says one with a grin and smile. After all, the bench is an unassuming place, and in its quiet locale, is easily overlooked as a place for reflection. As University management now takes steps to evict researchers from wet labs in the building, the same peaceful courtyard has only recently transformed into a place of action. Posters with the words Hands off Anderson Stuart! cover nearby windows.Small vignettes of simple stories, not grand narratives, colour the importance of the building for those affected by the Universitys ongoing relocation plans. The bench and its plaque are emblematic of the heritage listed building and its namesake in the Universitys founding Dean of the Medical School. A scratch beneath the surface of the buildings grand faade, stained glass windows and sculpted sandstone or a moment taken to cast an observant eye over its physical features, reveals a wealth of humble secrets.A stone raven has kept watch over Eastern Avenue from high above the eastern entrance for 130 years, a testament to Anderson Stuarts own humour and a jesting nod to his nickname amongst students, coracoid (from the Greek for raven), a zoomorphic reference to Stuarts prodigious nose. A second, modern, raven roosts on the tranquil Body Donor Memorial Fountain within the inner courtyard. Ghosts of the past inhabit every corridor of the building, gazing down from portraits of prominent academics and staff, including the formidable Mrs Ann Macintosh who shaped the Discipline of Anatomy for over 50 years with her generous bequests funding the refurbishments to the buildings JT Wilson and JL Shellshear Museums. For her tireless commitments to preserving the schools history and reputation, her desk still continues to sit in the Shellshear Museum.The unavoidable immediacy of the buildings history entrenches tangible links to the past that cannot simply be ignored. These links are a reminder that staff and students do not work and study in isolation but contribute to an ongoing history in which each individual plays a part, however small. Growing corporatisation of universities risks sacrificing these links in the name of efficiency, without regard for the importance of the past to influencing the future of our university and creating a sense of place.Cutting up the dead is a sensitive business. The Anderson Stuart Building makes clear that there has been an ongoing and long-term commitment on behalf of Anatomy and Physiology leadership to create and maintain a culture of respect in research and teaching. When students walk past a memorial fountain dedicated to those who have offered their bodies to science on their way to dissections, it gives pause and room for reflection on the historical and personal context which they work within.The affection for the building felt by those who conduct their research within, Anderson Stuart therefore comes as no surprise. It is impossible to feel disconnected from a sense of place and community in a workplace surrounded by personal reminders of those who have come before. While perhaps each individual story fails to cross into thresholds of grandiosity, collectively they forge a richer and more insightful portrait of the past and better reflect how most students contribute to the ongoing history of the university in the small stories that make up our own lives.We would do well to reflect on and remember the role that physical reminders of our history play in maintaining an academic community. To ignore this would be to forget what gives buildings such as Anderson Stuart their value their status as places of teaching and learning at a human scale. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> To begin with, I in no way believe I have to justify myself and what I believe to anyone. But I will say that Ive given it much thought lately. On my first day at the University of Sydney I was called oppressed and a terrorist by a young white woman at Victoria Park. I was minding my own business and walking to my first class of the year a philosophy lecture from which I remember the first question asked was Does God exist?. Although I dont recall a time where being Muslim was not political, having grown up in Bankstown, I was always surrounded by a strong and vibrant Muslim community. Perhaps I didnt realise it at the time, but my first day at USyd marked the beginning of a confronting process, through which I became more conscious of who I am. Suddenly, it seemed to matter a lot more that I wore a Hijab, didnt drink or do drugs, that I was visibly Muslim.In my first year, I did not make any friends at university. Along with being anxious about peoples preconceived ideas surrounding Islam and refugees, I was also somewhat insecure about who I was. I am naturally an anxious person but some sheltered part of me didnt realise the actual disdain many people felt towards migrants, Muslims and Western Sydney. I distinctly remember one of my first year Geopolitics classes where the discussions on asylum seekers actually made me really upset because I was one of two people who outwardly spoke against the cruel and inhumane ways of offshore detention. It was only after a year of growth, being upset and several arguments in my government and IR classes, that I decided to join in on some student political movements.My first impression of the political spaces at USyd was pretty much the same as many people. During Orientation-Week I was pressed by some members of the Socialist Alternative who began their conversation by asking What do you think of the Muslim ban?. I must admit I was a little shocked that they would even ask me that considering the fact that I was visibly Muslim. However, as I spent more time in political spaces on campus, unfortunately, such questions started to become more familiar.Ive actually been asked questions on everything from Do you hate Jews? to What are your thoughts on abortion? and quite frankly Im over it. Theyve happened both slyly and overtly and its sad because Ive literally never heard anyone relate to this. I dont like politics. But having an identity that is inherently political, whilst studying a degree in politics puts me in a position where I have no choice but to speak out.Towards the end of my first year of university, I joined the Wom*ns Collective who were perceptive to my hesitance regarding student politics, specifically with how white it is. I quickly found that USyd Woco was extremely proactive in organising activism surrounding women on campus, prompting me to become a more active member in my second year. USYD WoCo is probably the most active collective and organising body within the SRC and they focus a lot on activism surrounding women on campus. However, despite their important work, I noticed that being in those activist spaces did not necessarily alleviate the anxieties and pressures I felt because of being Muslim. In fact, at some points being in those mostly white, left-wing spaces made me feel further pressured and anxious.This pressure came in a different form though. It became such that I wasnt just self-conscious and hyperaware of my identity but that I also needed to perform to a certain standard of progressiveness. It became such that I would do things to prove to white left wing people that I wasnt conservative just because I was Muslim.Im not conservative at all. And Ive never felt the need to ever say that out loud or justify myself. But now that I am fully immersed in those spaces I cant help but wonder why I (one of the only visibly Muslim people involved in activism on campus) feel like I have to prove myself worthy of being in organising spaces when no one else has to. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Shit, theyve closed Bercy. I stumble off onto an unknown metro station in the cold, bleak Parisian morning. No map, no wifi, but I swear to god, the French authorities will not stop me getting to this protest. Not for the first time this week, I silently thank my former self for taking high school French seriously. Just down the street. 600 metres. Have fun and be safe yes? The station master offers me directions with a warm grin.One, two, six a dozen police vans filled with armoured thugs lines the pavement. Ahead, a roadblock. Not the easy stroll I had hoped for. Ten riot police hold the fort, they seem overdressed for 8 am on a Saturday. A few fellow pedestrians ask for directions, they receive stern grunts in response.Thirty minutes later, I find the gilets jaunes. Hundreds of them, milling around in the square, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, chatting to one another. Its a lovely sight people gathering in the quintessentially French tradition of protest and political expression. Almost all the protestors have inscribed their vests with unique verses of resistance. Some carry Roman numerals to mark their loyal weekly participation in the uprising, while others call for Macrons resignation, a rise in the minimum wage and an end to corporate tax evasion amongst other demands. Many abhor the violence of the police and their leader, Christophe Castaner, the interior minister.The people also carry slogans rejecting the propaganda that slanders their movement fires et deters, femmes prcaires, femmes en guerre, fierce and determined, precarious women, women at war. I dont often take the mainstream press too seriously, but perhaps subconsciously I had absorbed the idea that the protesters were dangerous, that they were sexists, even covert supporters of Marine Le Pen. As I peer on my tiptoes looking for my friend, I catch myself somewhat surprised at the kettle of yellow bubbling before me and make a mental note to ignore the opinions of Le Monde journalists in future. Emmanuel Macron is clearly le plat du jour here. The detested French president, whose popular approval has sunk to record lows, just diagnosed the problem in France as too many people who dont know the meaning of hard work. And have they tried eating cake? Despite appearing to making concessions in December, Macrons overwhelming response to the Yellow Vest movement has been intense police violence. Its been somewhat effective, many are afraid to come to the protests for fear of violence and the media can continue to paint the participants as villains. However, the brutality has also fed the anger of the revolt. Last week a video of a former professional boxer beating back an armed officer with just his fists went viral after he and his family were teargassed. Today, many carry his name, Liberez Christophe!. Everyone wishes they could knock em down like Christophe.The people here want change, but they call it by different names. Some carry anti-EU flags, in protest of its neoliberal, anti-democratic nature. Many others call for the RIC, a new form of democratic process, which they believe will allow them to take back the power through better-informed structures But most overwhelmingly, the gilets jaunes call for the end of the rule of the rich, and more for the French lower classes. They demand corporations pay their taxes, a substantial rise in the minimum wage, no taxes on low-income earners and, most importantly, down with Macron the ruler for the rich and powerful. I strike up a conversation with a woman handing out stickers. Shes from the NPA, a Trotskyist, anti-capitalist organisation, and notably part of the only organised political force I can see here. Where are the CGT?, I ask, shaking my head because I already know the answer. Even after 10 weeks of consistently mobilising thousands of people to march against the government, the French trade unions, traditional organs of struggle, are nowhere to be seen. She sighs, the unions still arent on board. The CGT speak sometimes in favour of the protests but refuse to call for action. Its a stupid mistake because their members are here, their members support the movement. But the leaders, they want to make deals with the government and keep their seat at the table. They think you win by being respectable. And in the eyes of the world, this is not respectable. But this (she gestures to the crowd) is how we can win something. Its tragic, really. After milling around for what feels like too long, the people begin to move. Nobody knows where were going or when to start, or even someone who might. We turn into a tunnel and fill it quickly in our thousands. In the tunnel, together, our voices join and strengthen. We all sing old men, young women, black, white and brown. The most popular chant, and the easiest for me tous ensemble, tous ensemble eh eh! all together! The NPA crowd adjust it slightly tous ensemble tous ensemble, grve gnrale! general strike! Emerging from the tunnel I hear a trumpet start. A brass band have come along and are playing a classic anti-fascist song Bella Ciao. People dance, clap and sing along, our breath floating like clouds in a sea of yellow. Chatting between bites of baguette and chants, my friend Oscar and I try to decipher the different symbols and insignias as we march; a flag of Brittany, various French manifestos (handwritten on cardboard), vests, flags, and numbers, 77, 89, on vests (perhaps far-right codes?). Innumerable tricolour flags wave in the breeze. It seems many gilets jaunes believe they stand in the supposedly true French tradition, of revolution and liberty. I cant help but wince at the nationalism, but its far from the far right presence I was expecting. Our English chatter attracts attention. People stop to ask where we are from and welcome us to the revolution. A couple approaches us and are thrilled to hear our accents they lived in Brisbane for a few years and miss the beaches. The woman introduces herself as Marine, but not like the evil one. They talk with us for hours about the ins and outs of the yellow vests, their views on the parties, what should happen next and the supposed concessions so far. The left is deeply discredited both in this march and France more broadly here. Beyond the abstention of the unions, the recent history of the French socialist party is not easily forgotten. Before Macron came to power in 2016, the similarly despised Hollande also tried to ram through detested neoliberal reforms. Originally, many invested great hopes in Hollande and saw him as a Corbyn-esque social democrat. Indeed, Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the 21st Century, wrote a reflection on the 2012 election entitled Will Franois Hollande be remembered as the Franklin Roosevelt of Europe?. It was not to be. Hollande succeeded in pushing through the massive expansion of the police state and reforms to the labour code, the latter through dictatorial powers of presidential decree. Whilst the socialists arent popular, the right is far from guiding the movement. Marine spells it out to me, Gilet Jaunes is not left or right. We tried both, and look what it gave us. More than anything we are angry. Shes not wrong. A poll released by France 2 TV found 33 per cent of Yellow Vest protesters said they were neither left nor right. Some 15 per cent described themselves as extreme left and 5.4 per cent said far right. Here in Paris, members of Groupe Union Defense, a far-right student group, have been pushed out from Yellow Vest events after chanting racist, sexist and homophobic slogans. Such an assortment of political opinion is inevitable given the organic nature of the uprising, but there are many internal battles being waged for its future. The lack of involvement of political forces that have capacity beyond spontaneity is clear to all. No more so than at the end of the march, where we find ourselves 5 hours later, at the famous Arc du Triomphe, an enormous traffic interchange and the site the yellow vests have fought to reach week after week. So what happens now? We wait for a sign, as numbers slowly dwindle. After such a long march, Oscar and I choose to dip into a McDonalds, hoping to catch up with our new friends later.As we wait for our fries, dozens of people start to run past the window, chased by clouds of rolling, rising tear gas. I stand by the window, filming until someone pulls me away the police just smashed the glass door, its better to stand back. I wonder where Marine and her partner are, where the American academic got to, or any of the smiling faces we met. The McDonalds begins to fill with gas. Children are crying, holding their faces up to their mothers, who wipe their eyes and noses and mouths with water and ice. Outside, the riot police move in lines, head to toe in black armour and matching masks, as if to imply their prey are the real threat. They begin to move past the window in formation, through the gas clouds, to the Arc. Behind them, a water cannon pulls up. We watch from the top floor window and for hours the two sides battle. At times it seems the yellow are pushing back, armed with nothing but fists and fireworks. I feel like Im watching an invasion from on high, cheering the supposed barbarians. We stand in the road to watch for a while, until our eyes are too stung and necks too sore from trying to catch a glimpse. Back to the metro, where five stations are now closed and hushed voices talk hurriedly of yellow disturbances. Across the world, the parties of the establishment are failing to provide an alternative to a system in crisis. Our illusions in them cant wear much thinner. Even in Australia, sheltered from the economic crisis that has wreaked havoc elsewhere, Labor and Liberal chase each other to be the better friends of big business and worst enemies of refugees and the climate. The failures and sell outs of social democracy has meant this anger has lingered and grown cancerous in places, fuelling a catastrophic reemergence of the far right. But in Paris, I saw how crisis can breed resistance and an alternative. The Yellow Vest movement is an outpouring of this energy; unbound by institutions, but unsure of direction, and uneasy about politics. Those who seek to change the world should welcome the uprising with open arms and take notes from its defiance and success. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As part of a $48.7 million package celebrating the anniversary of Captain Cooks first voyage to Australia, the Federal Government will give the Australian National Maritime Museum $6.7 million towards the circumnavigation of Australia by a replica of Captain Cooks ship, Endeavour. The government will also contribute $5.45 million to the Cooktown 2020 Festival. This announcement exposes the dangers of politicising history and forcing the past to fit into a pre-determined nationalistic metanarrative. The past is full of precipices, jagged rocks and churning seas. When politicians interfere with the representation of history, their rose-coloured visions of empty, sweeping plains jar with reality.Scott Morrisons gaffe on radio that the journey of the Endeavour replica will be a re-enactment speaks to a pervasive naivety about our countrys history and an inability to come to terms with the violence, dispossession and ongoing trauma of white invasion. It illuminates the prioritisation of patriotic chest-beating over fact.Cook did not circumnavigate Australia. Matthew Flinders and his crew were the first people to circumnavigate Australia. They began their journey on 22 July 1802 and finished it on 9 June 1803. Bungaree, a Kuringgai man, was part of that expedition, making him the first Australian-born man to circumnavigate Australia. A Cadigal man, Nanberry, went as far as the Great Barrier Reef with Flinders and Bungaree. In his journal, A Voyage to Terra Australis, Flinders praised both Aboriginal men: I had before experienced much advantage from the presence of a native of Port Jackson, in bringing about a friendly intercourse with the inhabitants of other parts of the coast; and on representing this to the governor, he authorised me to receive two on board. Bongaree, the worthy and brave fellow who had sailed with me in the Norfolk, now volunteered again; the other was Nanbaree, a good-natured lad These men were always close at hand, mediating between cultures, fishing and boldly striding out to initiate contact between suspicious parties. Flinders wrote that Bungaree was a constant attendant in his boat when he ferried between ship and shore during the expedition. Australia has a black history. But we seem reluctant to celebrate these alternative stories. There is no public commemoration for Bungaree. Matthew Flinders cat, Trim, also sailed around Australia. Multiple statues of Trim, exist; two outside Australia. There is even a novel written in which Flinders and Trim, but not Bungaree, feature as central characters. While there has been increasing acknowledgement of the contribution of Aboriginal guides to land-based expeditions, historians, such as Keith Vincent Smith and Lynette Russell, have only very recently unearthed stories of the employment of Aboriginal sailors, pilots, guides, sealers and whalers. Bungaree was just one in a long line of black, maritime pioneers. Similarly, Cook was one in a long line of European explorers to chart Australia, and he was by no means the first, as Nick Brodie masterfully illustrates in 1787: The Lost Chapters of Australias Beginnings.A Spanish expedition passed through the Torres Strait in 1606, possibly sighting the Australian mainland, the Dutch travelled down Australias western and southern coastlines, reaching Tasmania, in the seventeenth century and Macassan traders from Indonesia were trading with groups in the Kimberleys and Arnhem Land from at least the seventeenth century. All of these nautical and economic feats are arguably more impressive than what Cook achieved. But many Australians would be hard-pressed to recollect names such as Willem Janszoon, Dirk Hartog, William Dampier and Nicolas Baudin.As the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the wave of vandalism on Captain Cook statues across Australia suggest, Australians are clamouring for public acknowledgement of this nations diverse, multi-racial and often dark colonial past. Perhaps telling stories like Bungarees are a better starting point than promoting a repetitive three cheers version of history that, in the case of the Endeavour funding, is not even historically accurate. Furthermore, Bungarees story is uniquely Australian.While Morrison promotes his latest attempt at fostering nationalist pride, divers and researchers off the east coast of the United States are salvaging and examining the Endeavour wreckage. The Endeavour was renamed Lord Sandwich II and functioned as a troop carrier for the British in the mid-1770s. In 1778 the Lord Sandwich II, by now an unkempt prison ship, was scuttled in Newport Harbour during the American War of Independence. The legal ownership of the vessel falls to the State of Rhode Island. Holding the Endeavour close as an Australian icon prevents us from seeing the wider picture. When viewed through a less magnified lens, the Endeavour, caught between warring factions on the other side of the world, symbolises the provinciality of Australia in global history. Thus, Australia is left with the invention of historical fact in the name of re-enactment and probable future difficulty obtaining the rights to show any part of the real Endeavour on local soil.The government has pledged that some of the allocated $48.7 million will go towards Indigenous history projects, but it remains to be seen exactly what these are. So far the government has only announced funding for the Endeavour replica, the Cooktown Festival and a $3 million upgrade to the Botany Bay region, which includes building yet another Captain Cook monument. It is also unclear whether these projects will acknowledge the dynamism of Indigenous history across deep time, focus on post-1788 history, promote a tokenistic story of unchanging Aboriginal cultures prior to the arrival of European settlers, or a combination of these.If we want a story to celebrate as a nation, why focus on a ship that heralded white invasion? There are plenty of explorers with less antagonistic legacies. Why not Bungaree?Monuments, commemorations, public performance and re-enactments in Cooks honour solidify a particular version of events that are appetising to our current Federal Government. This official collective memory has the capacity to overshadow private grievances. Graffiti is a sign that our governments must not take ownership over public spaces for granted. Not all of us want to continue to kneel at the altar of figures like Captain Cook. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The 26th of January is a confusing day for Indian diaspora in Australia. On the one hand, it is significant as the day which marks the Indian states transition into an independent and sovereign republic. On the other hand, it is also a day on which many of us ironically celebrate the genocidal creation of modern Australia by the same people who colonised us.Popular discourse often frames colonialism as a historical relic; a sordid period in Australian history that has been overcome by reconciliation. A common refrain for those seeking to absolve themselves of colonial guilt is that their ancestors were not directly involved in the horrific actions of Australias colonial past. This is especially true in the case of marginalised groups, who, in the process of distancing themselves from their oppressors attempt to minimise their position in broader structures of subordination. As the child of South Asian immigrants living in Australia, this rings especially true. I have seen my community regularly vilified, marginalised and excluded by White Australia. But as Patrick Wolfe writes, invasion is a structure, not an event and all of us living on illegitimately occupied land share some complicity in the ongoing process of colonialism. Therefore, it seems necessary to interrogate my communitys relationship to the settler-colonial edifice that stands atop the ashes of Aboriginal Australia.In discussions of racism, White Australians point to the existence of model minorities successful people of colour who supposedly invalidate the existence of white supremacy. They argue that the upward social mobility of some immigrantsis evidence that Australia is the lucky country, with equality of opportunity for those who are willing to work hard and assimilate. Regrettably, these narratives are internalised by rich people of colour, who see their path to economic advancement as universal and facilitated by some luckiness unique to Australia. These same people of colour have a stake in accepting the narrative that success is guaranteed for those who are willing to work for it. Shaped by their experiences of hardship in foreign lands, they would rather believe that their success is the product of a system that rewarded their sacrifices, rather than that of mere circumstance, privilege or just random luck. From this thinking, it follows that Indigenous communities are themselves at fault for their lower standards of living because they were unable or unwilling to take advantage of Australias luckiness. What is forgotten is the racist policing, genocide and intergenerational trauma that has actively prevented Aboriginal communities from truly participating in Australian society.Indians are one such model minority. In the 2011 census, the median individual weekly income for Indian-born adults was $125 more than that of other overseas-born populations, and even $66 more than the median for Australian-born adults. Indian immigrants, who in most cases came to Australia in search of a better life, believe that the opportunities they have received necessitates an obligation to Australian society. As a result, they buy wholesale into the notion that Australia is a multicultural melting pot. Problematically, this convenient narrative requires a wilful inadvertence to the fact that Australian capitalism (and their economic success) has come at the cost of violently excluding First Nations peoples.I remember a story from popular community newspaper India Link about 2015s Australia Day celebrations. It exalted the fact that chants of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie/Oi, Oi, Oi were heard alongside Bolo se nihal (A Sikh call of victory) and Laa ilaaha illallah, Muhammad ar-Rasool Allah (The Islamic declaration that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his final messenger).However, alongside Oi, Oi, Oi, more sinister colonial refrains are also echoed. While Indians tend to embrace Australias perceived multicultural identity, many also propagate racist attitudes and colonial ideas about Indigenous people. Settler-colonial societies often confer the status of honorary whiteness to their most loyal functionaries, and this is especially true for right-wing Indians. Following a precedent set in the US by the likes of Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley rich, white passing Indians such as Dave Sharma have been given the status of honorary whiteness in exchange for an undying loyalty to reactionary politics. Concomitantly with the rise of the fascistic BJP/RSS government in India, more and more Indians are becoming increasingly conservative and accepting the mantle of honorary whiteness in Australia. At an interpersonal level, it is not uncommon to hear about the supposed laziness or alcoholism of Aboriginal people, while dispossession and genocide are never mentioned.Like a great many issues, the unwillingness of Indians to recognise the illegitimacy of Australias colonial project can ultimately be traced to the intersection of caste and class. Those who are privileged enough to emigrate to Australia are mostly upper-caste Hindus with education and wealth. They themselves are complicit in the system of Savarna (caste) which oppresses Dalits (formerly known as untouchables) and Adivasis (Indigenous people). For these people, there is no historical memory of degradation and oppression, no understanding of solidarity and a natural affinity for the oppressor rather than the oppressed. This extends to their understanding of Australias relationship with its Indigenous inhabitants.Ultimately, the narratives of the model minority obscure the fact that Australias relationship to South Asian immigrants has largely been one of cultural hostility. Instances of violence against Indians came to the fore in 2008 and 2009, after a string of racially motivated attacks in Melbourne against taxi drivers and international students. White Australias underlying hatred for South Asians reared its ugly head again in 2018, with the brutal bashing of Pakistani international student Abdullah Qaiser in Newcastle.It seems ironic that Indians should have an affinity with the cultural myths of white Australia. In fact, it was the same Anglo colonisers who oversaw the systematic destruction of Aboriginal civilisation who stole $45 trillion from India and condemned it to a state of abject poverty. In light of this, we ought to show solidarity with people engaged in the same struggle against colonialism that we undertook because ultimately until the wrongs of colonialism have been righted, this country can never be lucky.Solidarity is not an act of charity: it is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objectives. Solidarity is an assertion that no people is alone, no people is isolated in the struggle for progress. Samora MachelFor more information on the Invasion Day Protests:https://www.facebook.com/events/1750661138392701/For more information on the USyd contingent to the Invasion Day Protests:https://facebook.com/events/303479187185364For more information onFIRE Fighting In Resistance Equally:https://www.facebook.com/FIREFightingInResistanceEqually/ <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Daniel Andrews, as a constructed personality, is twofold. In one corner, managed by more liberal media such as the Herald, is Sad Andrews, a well meaning public servant who, despite his mistakes and misjudgements, bears the tribulations of Victorias second wave of COVID-19 as Atlas does the sky. In the other corner, managed by more reactionary media such as Sky News, is Chairman Dan, the would-be architect of the eradication of all liberties, whether social or economic, and the death of small businesses everywhere. This fight is, of course sensationalised, but is not without a level of truth on either side. One side sees him forego ADF support in an attempt to create jobs, the other sees him send five hundred cops to public housing towers with no solid evidence of the virus. But Andrews is, like all politicians, nothing if not his record; particularly his time under Alan Griffin of the Griffin Left of the Victorian ALP in the 90s, which reveals much about why he is the way that he is today.Alan Griffin was elected to the house in 1996 as the member for Bruce after the abolition of his former electorate Corinella. This flipped the seat from the Liberals for the first time since 1955. It was aided by the influx of new Labor voters from former Corinella, and was a thin silver lining in what was a thorough rinsing of Paul Keating by John Howard, their two seat counts mirrored at 94 for the Coalition, 49 for Labor. Andrews entered the Victorian ALP in this tumultuous time. Freshly graduated from Mannix College (of Monash University) with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in politics and classics, he immediately became an electorate officer to Griffin, now Leader of the Opposition, serving as his Parliamentary Secretary. Much of his work here was engaging in factional disputes over ballots, preselections and power. His reputation quickly began to loom large; Good Weekend (of the Sydney Morning Herald), quotes a long-term Labor player as saying, Daniel was the first one to go to war in every internal battle. He was the first one [] saying, Lets kill that person. Additionally, Geoff Lazarus, a Greens member, even goes as far as to say that Andrews had a reputation as a branch stacker for the left; Andrews denies this, but grants that [f]rom time to time there will be acts of bastardry. Earlier this year, he was forced to sack his self-described good friend Adem Somyurek after demeaning comments about Gabrielle Wilson and accusations of industrial-scale branch stacking in the Victorian ALP.In 1999, he began working at the partys head office as a State Organiser, becoming Assistant State Secretary in 2000. From 2002 he grew like a pre-teen on HGH; elected the state member for Mulgrave, he was immediately made the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, became the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Consumer Affairs and Gaming in 2006, Health Minister in 2007 then Leader of the Opposition in 2010. Interestingly, his first experience with a pandemic was handling swine flu as Health Minister in 2009. Whilst he only spent four years as Opposition Leader, he was not always Dan The Man; in 2012, focus groups described him as the guy who looks like an accountant and hunches and up to his fairly scraped-by victory in 2014 he consistently struggled with polls. Per Newspoll numbers, the day before the election he was working a 38% approval and 43% disapproval rating, very discordant with his pre/early-COVID numbers. To overcome his stagnating reputation, he revealed something which may shock and discredit you: hes not wearing a tie at all. That is to say, for the campaign makeover he cast Dorky Dan to the wind like rags and became Debonair Dan, who wears his top button undone and is actually totally different and way cooler I promise.Of course, its not uncommon nor is it scandalous for a politician to be focus groupd, but it does certainly conflict with his earnest, working class aesthetic. Hes an oxymoron when understood with regards to his identity and politics, unless of course you understand that he adopts whichever politics, framing or image which he thinks will make him most powerful, within reason. Of course, hed never go renegade and become a reactionary because he does have vaguely left-wing convictions but, to return to his Good Weekend profile, Paul Keating describes what Andrews sought from him in 2012: About the getting of power and the use of it [] He had a hunger for power and the leadership gene. Asking Paul Keating about using and keeping power is like asking Louis XVI how to keep having a head but the point stands that Andrews is, above all else, interested in power, and the means through which he seeks it reaches back to what he learned in his earliest days.Essentially, Dandrews is a bully. In party factions, secrets are held close and thinly veiled insults are common. In parliament, Andrews is smug and guarded, with a penchant for personal attacks; this is one thing when dealing with the Victorian Liberals, a shady bunch as evidenced by Michael Sukkars recent branch stacking allegations and particularly Michael OBrien, but as a consequence of this he very rarely tells people what they want to hear. Successful freedom-of-information requests were at their lowest point in five years earlier this year, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, and Andrews has drawn the ire of the public recently due to his lack of transparency, and outright lies, regarding the failures of his hotel quarantine procedure and enforcement of subsequent lockdowns. He is still yet to provide a real justification for sending five hundred police officers, rather than health workers, to public housing towers with no evidence of an outbreak, whilst failing to even test their residents in a comprehensive way for weeks. Andrews desperately needs someone to blame for this crisis, but all that he grasps turns to dust. He tried to blame the security workers, with accusations that they socialised in an unsafe manner, but as it happens the first case in the Rydges Hotel, the patient zero of the outbreak, was a night manager and far more credible reports have surfaced that posit the security workers werent properly trained, staffed or supplied with PPE for their work. He tried to blame the ADF, asserting that no support was offered or even available; official documents since released show this to be a lie. He even tried to blame the police, stating he introduced the curfew to help police prevent gatherings, but the commissioner was never briefed on it before it began. In factions, one can avoid accountability through being subsumed into a group identity; as Premier, Andrews holds the same distaste for being held to his actions but has no such place to hide.As the Victorian second wave comes under control, calls for a royal commission into Labors handling of the outbreak continue. On 27 August, Andrews accepted major concessions to his attempt to extend his powers to call a state of emergency and per Essential Poll numbers on 8 September only 50% of Victorians consider the states response to COVID-19 as good, down from 75% on June 15. Daniel Andrews imperiousness is gone with the wind, replaced by a masked but unmistakable desperation as he scrambles to recover what he lost in this second wave. He has, at least for a time, stopped blaming the virus on individual workers and will appear in front of the Judicial Inquiry into the Hotel Quarantine program in Victoria. As that royal commission has shown, the second wave is far from his doing alone, rather the fault of many different departments, but his former strategy to be the calming presence in the storm is now untenable when so many are so mad at him. Andrews has never been one to obsess over his legacy, but his legacy has, in a matter of some few months, devolved from that of a socially progressive leader who brought an infrastructure boom and economic prosperity to the state to the man who brought the pandemic to Melbourne and blamed it on anyone and everyone but himself. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are a total of 68 tickets this year. Switchroots account for almost half with 27 tickets. Unity (Unite) and NLS (Pump) have put forward four tickets each, while campus Liberals have formed 10 different tickets (TIME), which appear to be mere re-namings from last years BOOST campaign. International student representation remains strong with Penta (previously Panda) and Phoenix accounting for seven tickets. Who is Phoenix? We have no clue, except that it was founded by our esteemed colleague and multilingual editor at Honi, Lei Yao. Last years council saw the seats dominated by Switchroots, Boost and Panda. With a similar proportion of representation in this years nominations, we expect little to change this year.Though most tickets submitted policy statements, one seemingly serious ticket (Equality End Bias) did not send a policy statement in time for publication, begging the question: why even try? There is a certain level of homogeneity in most policy statements, which are reflective of current issues facing students: staff cuts, the use of ProctorU for online exams and related concerns around student data privacy and fee hikes; racism on campus and BLM issues; making a more environmentally-friendly university; and elevating the interests of international students.The usual few joke tickets havent gone anywhere, serving no other purpose except to give 2 to 3 seconds of fame to USyds seemingly inexhaustible supply of genius comedians. Our favourites are Divorced Dads for SRC and Legalise It. Punters would be remiss to overlook these tickets though: Divorced Dads currently have more Facebook likes than Liberal outfit Time for SRC.The CV sections for ticket members are a chance for stu pol enthusiasts to humanise themselves and prove their credentials. Almost all fail miserably. Most read like Tinder bios for which we would certainly swipe left. We notice many people appreciate food, which is, well, a fundamental human trait we all share. There are also many avid dog lovers. Similarly, cherishing your pet is not a cute personality trait but part and parcel of being a normal, functioning human being.Multiple ticket members mention either working at a fast food outlet, as if this presents any transferable skills for campus rabble rousing, or adoring fast food meals. Sorry to break it to you all: working at Maccas at 16 and occasionally devouring a Zinger Burger does not make you a member of the working class or give you any street rep. Well also add that although some feel it necessary to still talk about their ATARs at university, albeit plummeting their social capital, the same goes for your high school achievements. For those unfortunate enough (us) to read your CVs, please remember that being a Prefect, or even worse, a Peer Mentor at your high school doesnt make you a big shot we all know its just code for I was a snitch in high school.The Engineers tickets (3 in total) unfortunately dont do much to reform the stereotypes that marr them. In an era where engineers are condemned constantly on USyd rants for their morbid personalities, their CVs cant convince us otherwise. Isabella Anderssen (Engineers for Equity) advertises that they are weirdly good at Sudoku (cool, but like, this isnt an Australias Got Talent audition); Riley Vaughan is proud to have been offered free shirts by Ribs and Burgers (haha nice bro do you eat bulk wings at Hooters as well?); Cole Scott-Curwood says mastered weeks 4-7 #jchan (what?). Other lowlights across the board include: Kedar Maddali (Grassroots Against Course Cuts) thinking their role as a Pokemon Society Executive has any relevant experience and Xinyi Huang (Phoenix for Well Being) writing that she is allergic to ALCOHOL. Our deepest condolences. Try ket instead?Unsurprisingly, the CVs that plague the Liberal tickets make us want to cave in the wall of a cop shop with a sledgehammer. James Ardouin (TIME for Student Services), seems to have a disturbingly inflated sense of self, describing himself as a thorn in Liam Donohoes side 2019-present. Our response: who the fuck are you? Georgia Lowden (TIME for Women) is a Big fan of SASS, Subski and my dog (Poppy <3) are there any three more obvious red flags for a Liberal? Tully ORegan (TIME for First Years) thinks hes pretty funny with some stale blokey humour. The end of his CV reads: Losing it Fisher (ashamed), King of a late night Yeeros run. This is the kind of man we imagine walks around campus with egg stains on his shirt and still thinks placing whoopie cushions on the lecturers chair is hilarious.NUS remains relatively generic and uninteresting. It is dominated by tickets from various positions on the left-spectrum, with one Liberal ticket (TIME) and what appears to be a joke ticket, Aladeen (End White Supremacy), whose policy statement opens emphatically by suggesting Democracy sucks! Thanks, Naziul. We hope your politics are a little more original than those of your namesake.All in all, this years election promises to be just another election. With the majority of students off campus, expect more vapid and shameless self-plugging to dominate your social media feeds.Voting opens 9:00am AEST Tuesday 29th September and closes 6pm AEST, Thursday 1st October. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With a historic year, comes a historic SRC election. This years election is the first time that a presidential candidate and Honi Soit editorial team have been elected uncontested, and the first time either election has been held online. What does that mean for the state of stupol?Online electionsIts difficult to assess how online elections will shape this years outcome. In opposing them, Socialist Alternative pointed to strong returns for right-wing candidates in Wollongong elections they transitioned to online voting. That seems based on an understanding that progressive candidates fare better in in-person elections because they are more motivated for gruelling days of walk-and-talks than CV-stacking independents or Liberals. Moreover, Honi has previously reported campaigners using stand-over tactics in the online Senate elections, pressuring students to vote as they watched.The SRCs election system might avoid stand-over scenarios: unlike in Senate elections, students must enrol prior to the open of voting. And though online elections would intuitively favour more popular candidates with large social media reach (as opposed to ones with small groups of dedicated campaigners), its not clear that that would always disadvantage progressive campaigners. Drew Pavlou at the University Queensland won the online Senate elections in a landslide; Switchroots candidate Prudence Wilkins-Wheat topped the polls in this years online USU elections.Uncontested electionsThe fact that Honi Soit elections are uncontested is no great break from previous years. The last genuinely competitive election for the editorship was a three-way battle in 2016. Previous years have either seen serious tickets face off against jokes (in 2018 Spice for Honi bested Pictures of Spiderman and Honey Soy) or have seen tickets marketing themselves as representing a number of political persuasions fell apart after their Christian members were cancelled for saying horrible things (in 2017 Mint disbanded after a member endorsed a homophobic Facebook comment; last years Cream did the same after JP Baladi expressed support for George Pell). That is in part due to the difficulties in putting together a group of 10 people that are (a) electorally viable, (b) sane, and (c) competent to edit the paper. As documented in this years gossip columns, the 10-person ticket lends itself to a strategy of poaching people from other tickets, destroying the tickets chances before they even form.So it is far more surprising that at USyd, which frequently sees the most competitive student elections in Australia and has spawned more federal front-benches than we care to count, only one person cared to contest the presidential election. This is the first time it has occurred since at least 1970 (Honi does not consistently report on election outcomes prior to this).In his interview, president-elect Swapnik Sanagavarapu attributed this to the general withdrawal of students from campus life during pandemic isolation. There are, for example, less tickets contesting this years election than last year (68 compared to 93 last year), and many international students have not returned at all this year.Another factor, though, is a shifting electoral strategy from progressive grouping Switchroots to form large factional coalitions who are promised paid positions in exchange for their support of their candidate. Though a number of candidates had been rumoured to be eyeing the presidency General Secretary Abbey Shi from the now-defunct international grouping Advance, Vice President Felix Faber from NLS, and SRC Councillor James Ardouin from the Liberals all evidently thought it unlikely theyd win, or their factions saw it less risky to back Grassroots. The creation of a stipend for Vice Presidents in 2019 now means there are six paid non-autonomous Office Bearer positions within the SRC to be dealt away to different factions. This makes large factional coalitions, like the five backing Sanagavarapu this year, viable. Last year, Switchroots Liam Donohoe was supported by five additional factions, four of which were delivered paid OB positions at RepsElect.It is also possible the uncontested election is the outcome of a general decline in stupol involvement. Where did all the BNOCs go? Honi asked in 2018, arguing that the vibrant stupol culture that had formed in opposition to Abbotts 2014 proposed deregulation of university fees had faded away over time. Elections themselves are competitive, but less involved than in the past. Reforms passed in 2017 limited the in-person campaigning period to one week prior to elections, making unlikely previous election stunts like bringing a double bed as a prop to Eastern Avenue, or caf-bashing every lunch for two weeks. Other factors, like the increase on penalties for late assignments in Arts passed in the same year, no doubt undermined a culture of fucking off classes to pester passers-by for a semester.Taking a much longer view, USyds obsession with elections has declined over time. Through the 90s, upwards of five candidates would regularly contest presidential elections. The 1997 documentary Uni, which captures that years SRC elections cycle, shows campaigners using drag queens, cars with speakers attached and elaborate lecture bash skits in their campaigns.Though many victims of a walk-and-talk might celebrate that change, more than coloured shirts on Eastern Avenue are lost as student politics shrink. Almost a thousand fewer students voted in SRC elections after the election period was shortened. This year, Bloom and Sanagavarapu will come to office with most students not knowing, and not having a real chance, to know they exist.Nina Dillon Britton is a former member of Sydney Grassroots. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As COVID-19 case numbers continue to remain relatively low and controlled in New South Wales, we have begun to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and prepare ourselves for the way out from a generational health disaster. Throughout the pandemic, there has been a marked shift in our relationship to authority, and our relationship to police in a way that is distinct from any kind of response before, and which is deeply uncomfortable, particularly amongst the left. This is particularly disconcerting because the speed with which we have rushed to allow police to make and enforce public health matters is utterly incongruous with the reckoning with police that the rest of the Western world is currently undertaking. Osman Faruqi recently discussed our nations historical relationship to policing, noting that the law and order auctions of the 1990s in New South Wales took advantage of a concept called penal populism: the basis of the political strategy of being tough on crime. In essence, we eat it up it gives legitimacy and validation to the visceral feelings of anger we have, particularly when we see crimes of particular seriousness in the public eye, crimes committed by a minority we dont like, or otherwise significant unfairness.No more transparently has this been seen than in Victoria, where a second wave took hold of the states population, ravaging its aged care homes and its precarious workforces. The phenomenon of public health or COVID-compliance being categorised as a police matter is almost entirely unique to Australia, and Australian penalties for non-compliance are some of the harshest in the world. But it is in Victoria where the stage four lockdown has shone a white-hot spotlight on our relationship to authority, turning traditional political understandings on their head.The enforcement of the lockdown in Victoria has been justified by a line of attack from both the Government and its agencies that blamed particularly young people and ethnic minorities for not following the rules, sowing the seeds of discontent and division in the community that preceded harsher crackdowns on protesters and individuals. The flashpoint for this in the wider community was the pre-emptive arrest of Ballarat anti-lockdown protestor Zoe-Lee Buhler, a video of which was viewed over 7.5 million times and drew immense sympathy not just to the broader anti-lockdown cause but to conspiracy theorists arguing that this is simply one element of Dictator Dans assault on civil liberties in order to execute his nefarious, corrupt plans for Victoria.The myth that the Victorian second wave stemmed from disparate ethnic families across the south-east and west of Melbourne having super-spreader iftars has been completely debunked by the ongoing hotel quarantine inquiry, showing that the primary factor above all else has been precarious labour conditions. Despite this, the line taken by the Andrews administration until very recently has been the idea of the general public not following the rules, providing space in the discourse for the otherwise generally impotent Victorian Opposition to stake claims that socially-distanced protests such as the Black Lives Matter rallies were the source of the second wave, and providing a veil for the racism that their opposition is rooted in.Perpetuating a discourse in which working people are blamed for the spread of a virus that can be ultimately controlled by management has wider ranging implications beyond the Victorian border. Whilst no government wants to deal with the crisis that played out in Melbourne, it has been used to justify increasingly harsh police responses in NSW. This has built to a point where decentralised groups of less than 19 socially-distanced, masked students have been unduly and inappropriately targeted on campus for protesting fee hikes and course cuts last week.The 2018 Victorian state election was one in which the Victorian Liberals chose to run a negative law-and-order campaign centred around the two-headed attack dog idea of the African gang; the (myth) that gangs of African youth, predominantly with South Sudanese backgrounds, were running around suburbs like Broadmeadows and Pakenham terrorising local communities. Whilst this was entirely based in falsehoods, innuendo and misrepresentation, the Andrews administration chose to address it. $2 billion. 3000 more cops. Two new prisons, including one youth prison. Fast-forward to 2020, and the Andrews Government is looking to push through a new bill, providing police with the power to make preemptive COVID-based arrests, despite the Victorian 14-day case average dipping below 40 at the time of writing, the lowest point in the last three months. With such a consistent pro-cop disposition, the question of why the supposed most progressive state in Australia continues to vote for policy like that propagated by Andrews needs to be interrogated; the 2018 state election didnt occur in a vacuum, and it paved the way for what we see today.It is difficult to trace the basis of the law-and-order fixation in Victorian politics, but the modern state of play is identified by Gay Alcorn as being rooted in then Opposition Leader Ted Ballieus declaration that no civil society should tolerate being eaten from within by the cancer of sickening violence. He won the following election on a similarly reductive approach to crime and harm minimisation, putting thousands of armed guards at train stations. This has gone hand in hand with stricter bail laws and mandatory minimum sentences, taking Victoria from a relatively innovative state in the justice space to one of the harshest, most punitive jurisdictions in the country. Nonetheless, the idea that the ALP need to get tough and shake off a conception of being soft lefties is not one necessarily rooted in nuanced political strategy, nor in progressive principle. Before the pandemic even started, we saw moves from the Palaszczuk administration in Queensland to specifically target environmental and human rights activists, based on claims such as booby-trapping that werent substantiated by evidence, as well as more generalised crackdowns on bail laws in March, particularly targeting youth.In a regular political environment, the penally populist approach is typically a winner in a nation of cops with a majority of white voters who simply are less affected by police violence. However, this is not a regular political environment; we have begun to see the breadth of police violence and scope of their creeping attacks on civil liberties begin to affect classes and demographics it hasnt before, or at least not to this extent, and there is a groundswell of public anger at white people being treated how the rest of us have been all along. Andrews approval rating has plummeted from 75% back in June to 49% in August, despite ongoing strong support for many of the draconian measures imposed under stage four restrictions. This suggests a dichotomy between voters understanding of the impacts of giving such powers to police and the figures who enact them. Politically, this is dangerous territory for the Andrews administration, and it along with other state governments, would do well to learn from the political impacts of aggressively pursuing increasingly punitive enforcement policy towards the back end of a pandemic. We know voters have short memories, but it would take a monumental effort from Andrews to drag himself into another term in 2022 given the extent to which the federal mismanagement of the pandemic has been conflated with his own leadership. Whilst he may be saved by the seemingly endless incompetence of the Victorian Opposition, who have called him a dictator from the rooftops as they simultaneously call for the army to take over, lost their own rigged Facebook polls, and called for the mass culling of Australian fruit bats to eradicate coronavirus, there still remain political consequences for the punitive, harsh and excessively draconian measures being pursued by the Andrews administration, many of which are at odds with his clean-shaven image as Australias most progressive Premier.If we want to walk out of the other side of this without anti-protest laws that permanently suffocate our nations democracy, and police powers that torment and scar the bodies of minorities around the country, then we ought to interrogate our progressive politicians far more robustly and with far more nuance than we have. Its not about water drops in Twitter handles, or #StandingWithDan. Its about recognising that conservatives are hell-bent on using the pandemic to tear us apart; next week the Morrison Government will plunge 2.2 million people into poverty, and Gladys Berejiklian has backed in a police force that will shut down protests seemingly at will and with little regard for public health. In order to counter that, our progressive politicians need to do a lot better, and it doesnt come from #StandingWithThem, it comes from holding them to account. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The SRC elections in recent years have seen significant change, particularly surrounding Chinese international students and their representation within USyd student bodies.In 2018, Pandas Jacky (Yisheng) He had been elected SRC President largely through Chinese international student support. Furthermore, voting for the SRC Presidential Elections increased from 3576 cast votes in 2017, to 4085 in 2018, and then to the high of 5362 in 2019. Finally, there has also been a change in the political balance of power; mere months after their inception, Panda gained 25% of all votes cast in the SRC elections of 2017 a share of votes even greater than any single domestic faction at the time.Coronavirus has significantly shaken up the campaigning process and the voting procedure for both domestic and international students in this years election. However, the other, the more dramatic change could arguably be the complete disintegration of Panda as a faction just three years after their establishment, which follows the footsteps of Advance (a rival faction which had previously also vied for the representation of Chinese international students). Due to the fact that Panda obtained 7 of 33 total seats in the 92nd Council of the SRC during last years elections, and the status quo of Panda was the largest university faction for a time, this disintegration is undoubtedly momentous for the student community as a whole.With the benefit of hindsight, this sudden, abrupt demise of Panda could be attributed to a series of dramas and scandals plaguing the faction, which all occurred within the public view.In March 2020, it was revealed that a USyd SRC Helper Account on Wechat originally created and controlled by Pandas SRC councillors with the purposes of aiding students with the handling of sensitive issues such as academic dishonesty had been privatised and taken over by a migration agency without approval from the SRC Council. This follows the prior refusal of these Panda councillors to requests demanding the SRC Helper Account be handed over to the 92nd SRC Council in the beginning of the year for their continuing operation in service of the student body.In May 2020, during the USU elections, whilst the campaign for Pandas nominee, Jiale (Wayne) Wang, was off to a successful start, it was soon derailed by allegations of bribery just days following the campaigns launch. As reported by Pulp at the time, Wang professed his intention to forgo his salary in order to fund Pandas election campaigns. This contradicted the USU Electoral Regulations, which prohibited bribery, defining it as the giving, procuring, promising, offering [of] employment, position or material resources in exchange for preferential treatment or to induce a voter to voteIn addition, Wangs promise that he would attempt to increase the publicity of Panda through the leveraging of USU resources and connections placed significant doubt on his ability to act in an independent manner for the management of USU responsibilities. Ultimately, it was Wangs request for all members of the private group who read the message to keep it secret, to please not leak this outside as this does not comply with the regulations that led to the suspension of his campaign, and his disqualification from the election altogether. This is because not only did the quote imply the nature of the actions being one of wilful misconduct, it also undermined his later claim that he had done everything [to] obey the rule [sic] in a statement to Pulp published on the 13th of May.As a result of these controversies, and other sources of dissatisfaction, including the lack of adequate engagement between the elected representatives and the student body and the low attendance rates of Panda representatives for SRC meetings, the faction gradually lost the favour of its internal members, and also the wider student body.With its reputation tarnished, the original faction has slowly ceased to function. Some members of Panda have exited the stupol scene altogether, whilst other members have decided to rebrand into a new faction named Penta.Now, given the upcoming SRC elections for the 93rd Council, there are significant implications for both domestic and international students. For domestic student factions, this provides an opportunity for them to capitalise on the international student votes with their policies and ideas as there no longer exists a well established faction in representing Chinese international students. For international students, there also exists an ability for rising factions and groups to capitalise on these votes, which is what Phoenix, a faction only established in the past month, has decided to do.However, despite Panda no longer existing as a faction, its influence and legacy continues to be observed, through a need for Chinese international factions to distance themselves from Panda and their malpractices as well as through a desire for factions to prove that they are fundamentally capable of creating change as opposed to simply engaging in the tactics of identity politics. This can be seen in Phoenixs self-proclaimed values of professionalism, expertise, objectivity, and accountability and their promotional material being centred on the past work experiences of their SRC nominees. However, the extent of success of this strategy remains to be observed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The NBA players strikes over the last month have been extraordinary. To halt one of the biggest entertainment enterprises in the world in any context, let alone in the midst of such unprecedented economic and social upheaval is something to be marvelled at. Protest is not by any means new to sport, but what made these strikes different were the sheer scale and ferocity with which they spread.This was the first time the four American major sports leagues had simultaneously staged a co-ordinated strike action, in a time when not even a global pandemic could stop play. All of the players demands were met, including every single NBA arena being turned into a polling station for the upcoming American elections, despite the majority of NBA teams being in Republican states with conservative owners. Within hours, the strike had spread outside of the four major leagues, with Naomi Osaka forfeiting her semifinal at the Cincinnati Masters in solidarity.The Black Lives Matter movement in Australia has experienced marked setbacks and ongoing stagnation in comparison to some of the victories it has accomplished internationally, particularly in the United States. While supposedly progressive state governments in Australia have continued, with a public mandate, to over-police and violently target minority communities of colour, the LAPD has been defunded and the Minneapolis Police Department disbanded.In early June, we watched incredulously as New South Wales Police attempted to shut down the first major BLM rallies in Sydney through the Supreme Court, on the same day that the state Government endorsed crowd exemptions for the NRL, and months onwards as professional sporting codes and their associated crowds have continued to enjoy a seemingly unearned privileged role in the nations ongoing battle with coronavirus.Further to this, the focus in terms of restarting community activities has disproportionately been on grassroots sport. It seems utterly incongruous with the now-sacrosanct notion of social distancing that sweaty, huffing contact sports continue to be played across Sydney while anyone who cant kick a 35 metre checkside punt is told by the Premier to limit their social interaction and movement, wear a mask and stay at home.Herein lies an untapped opportunity for political organising that has otherwise been left completely alone by the left. Sport in this country is so deeply intertwined with our collective understanding of identity that it bridges in several senses the class divide that otherwise presents insurmountable challenges of access to political organisation.The challenges the BLM movement in Australia has faced have been identified as stemming from an inability to broaden the spectrum of people that are engaged by the various campaigns associated with it. Sport brings together such a variety of sectors of society, both at a professional level and at a community level, and simultaneously is largely considered and desired to be insulated from the winds of social change and justice. Sociologists Peter Kaufman and Eli Wolff, for example, argue there are important various parallels between participation in sport and successful progressive activism, namely: social consciousness, meritocracy, responsible citizenship, and interdependency.This is not a novel concept: there is a long history of sport being intertwined with political activism. In European football, for example, club rivalries have long represented class divides and ethnic identity. But this has fallen flat in an Australian context with the developing professionalism of sport in most male sporting codes through the 1990s (and more recently in major womens codes) came a capitalistic desire to sanitise it of its potential to represent mass concerns about social injustice. The rapid growth of most codes into multi-billion dollar businesses that are reliant on fundamentally not upsetting the establishment has led to an extremely limited view of what social change can look like in a sporting context; at best, meaningless PR, and at worst utter tone deafness.Perhaps the most extraordinary example of this was the AFLs bushfire relief charity match at the beginning of this year, for which mining conglomerate Rio Tinto was the primary sponsor. More recently, the Collingwood Football Club have led a consortium of AFL clubs supporting the Free the Flag campaign, whilst simultaneously leaking against ex-player Heritier Lumumba during an ongoing internal investigation into the racist club culture that drove him to retirement.If the NBAs strikes tell us nothing else, it is that activism must come from players and supporters; we cannot expect codes to lead the way. But in Australia, we have a long way to go. Almost every reference to political activism from sportspeople in this country comes post-career, and centres on the flawed arena of nonprofits and corporate luncheons. It cannot remain this way. The shut up and dribble mantra is adopted enthusiastically by the right, but also inadvertently by the left in its refusal to engage with sport as a mechanism for progress. Sport, in a moment of multiplying streaming platforms and fragmented news media, is one of the last forms of entertainment that whole countries watch together. It carries unparalleled potential to reach mass audiences, allowing communities who may never otherwise engage in social justice movements to contextualise them in the familiar sporting arena. If the left is serious about building mass movements, we would do well to use it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Australian police, judiciaries and state governments are working in tandem to present political activity and privacy rights, on the one hand, and public health, on the other, as a zero sum game. Advertisements encouraging us to download the COVIDsafe tracking app and to dob in neighbours breaching coronavirus restrictions bombard our news cycle daily, alongside images of Australian Defence Force personnel in camouflage gear and face masks, signifying the realisation of techno-totalitarian state surveillance. The Morrison government has exploited the pandemic by introducing a bill to beef up ASIOs capabilities, receiving criticism from lawyers and the Australian Humans Right Commission in the process. Expanded compulsory questioning powers, which represent a shift from ASIOs focus on terrorism towards politically-motivated violence, could be used to target Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters.Just this week, Victorian police bashed Aboriginal man Korey Penny who was on his way to work when officers racially profiled and misidentified him. Penny has an exemption for mobility restrictions during Victorias stage four lockdown thanks to his role in Melbournes Metro Tunnel project. You might forgive USyd students, then, for being distrustful and wishing cops off campus.As COVID-19 has set in, police have come down even more heavy-handed than usual on protests, despite significantly more people congregating at professional sports matches 7051 at the recent A League Grand Final, for instance and shopping malls. Invoking the Public Health Order (No. 4) 2020, police have issued move-on orders and fines to disperse crowds before some protests have even begun, often outnumbering the protesters in number and failing to social distance themselves.At a peaceful counter-protest to a far-right Free Raimond Kelly rally in Newtown on 15 July, anti-fascist protesters, cordoned off from the far right activists and numbering no more than twenty, were shocked when police arrested a Sydney branch member of the Australian Communist Party (ACP) for offensive language. When another ACP member tried to intervene, the police charged her with assaulting a police officer. Video obtained by Honi, however, shows no aggression or resistance on her part. The strict bail conditions for the former of these two ACP members includes not attending unlawful gatherings/protests. Similarly, police have sent letters containing official warnings about attending further rallies to certain local activists.Police pressure on leftist organising culminated on 28 August in the most disproportionate police presence witnessed for a protest at USyd in recent memory. As the crowd at the National Day of Action education rally scattered, obeying police orders to disperse, riot police descended, fining attendees indiscriminately. A phalanx of horses left behind a shit-smeared Eastern Avenue. As Honi recently reported, one police officer taunted a student he had apprehended and bruised over a previous sexual assault report she had made to police.By allowing law enforcement to enter university grounds, university management cannot guarantee students emotional and physical safety. When questioned by Honi, the University failed to make any immediate or concrete pledges to prevent police from entering campus grounds or to reduce future police presence. A USyd spokesperson stated: We share concerns about the police response to the small and peaceful protest last Friday. The Vice-Chancellor has written to the NSW Police Regional Superintendent seeking an explanation as to why such an extensive police presence and operation was deemed to be required, and the disturbing allegations about the treatment of one of our students. We have offered to discuss options for different approaches, so we can try to avoid a similar situation occurring at future events We were aware of plans for the protest on Friday but did not try to prevent it from taking place, and did not initiate contact with NSW Police about it.One attendee who requested anonymity expressed shock at the sight of ten to twelve riot trucks and mounted police in a place he normally associated with status and freedom of thought and expression. This was jackbooted thuggery authoritarianism in the most blatant and in your face form.Many believe police arrived at this rally with a predetermined list of targets, speaking to a siege mentality among politically-engaged youth. SRC Education Officer Jack Mansell has penned an opinion piece for Honi, theorising that university management, campus security and police are once again collaborating.In 2013, Honi uncovered emails between university staff and Newtown police, obtained via freedom of information laws. These emails indicated that university management had worked with police to break the picket line during staff strikes. Emails included an offer to Simon Hardman, the Superintendent of Newtown Local Area Command, to go for a milkshake. The relationship between Newtown police station and campus security is so entwined that Hardman was later employed as the Head of Campus Security and Emergency Management (2018-2020). Allegations of homophobia plagued Hardman across both roles.That the university was set to host Coffee with a Cop sessions last year specifically intended for international students a community especially vulnerable to police discrimination speaks volumes.* * *Our neoliberal state has broken up protests and platformed digital technologies including the COVIDSafe app, while leaning on contract tracing, private security firms and defence force personnel ill equipped for a public health crisis. These measures have a dual purpose. In some cases, they may improve public health. But they are also a smokescreen hiding the limitations of privatising hospitals and smaller government.COVID-19 has exposed the idiocy of forever pining after a budget surplus and glorifying austerity measures, privatisation and deregulation. Private security firms and an industry rife with pay disputes and sham contracting are responsible for Victorias hotel quarantine disaster, for instance.Its lazy for state authorities to blame protests as hotbeds for COVID-19. This is a cop-out response. Despite Liberal Party politicians and conservative media outlets promulgating the narrative that active political organisers are reckless and self-indulgent, there is no evidence linking BLM protests in Australia to COVID-19, just as there is little to suggest that BLM rallies in the US have become spawning grounds for the disease. The National Bureau of Economic Research suggests, in a paper published in August this year, that BLM protests have not caused a spike in the number of American cases of COVID-19. Based on extensive research into 315 US cities, the study showed that urban areas with BLM protests concurrently saw a rise in social-distancing and stay-at-home behaviour. While neoliberal states platform individualism and the nuclear family, these facts expose yawning fissures in neoliberal architecture. They indicate that socially-responsible citizens can self-organise and prevent a public health crisis without the express authority of the state or a need for excessive totalitarian measures.Its about time university management stopped pointing fingers at protesters and stood against police brutality. Continuing university support for police the shock troops of neoliberalism perpetuates a model ill-suited to our current crises. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As Australias largest services export industry, the $38 billion overseas education market, greatly adds to the nations economic prosperity. However, amidst the current COVID-19 uncertainty, Australia has failed its international students.University is not simply about the degree conferred to us upon graduation; students are paying large fees for the complete university and campus experience. Last month, The Economist presented the notion of the absent student, which explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. Schooling through video calls at the same skyrocketing price of the regular university experience needs radical rethinking, in particular for international students who pay at least double what locals do, indeed in some cases up to $44,000 a year.There is a widespread misconce that international students evade Australian taxes and that in turn, they compensate for this through higher tuition fees. However, these students pay taxes on all other purchases and their income earned within Australia and this blatant inequality could result in Australias overseas education appeal to drastically diminish.Overall, student visa applications have dropped by 33.5%, and there have been over double the deferments in 2020. As a result of this loss in revenue, Sydney University (USyd), along with other major Australian universities, has pursued austerity measures in the form of course and staff cuts.There is some hope associated with Australias first pilot program that intends to facilitate the return of stranded international students. However, Australian High Commissioner in India, Barry OFarrell specified that this program will not cover South Asia and that there doesnt seem enough certainty for Indian students just yet. It is noteworthy that India is the second-largest source of international students after China.The lobby group Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI) is pushing for changes to make Australia an appealing study destination for Indian international students again in the post-COVID-19 era. AAERIs president, Ravi Lochan, proposed that one of the reasons why Canada and the UK have increased in popularity with students in South Asia is that the return on investment is much higher.AAERIs recommendations include reducing the international student fees by 25% to shorten the fee-gap between international and domestic students. AAERI also noted that the main appeal behind overseas education is skilled migration; the most significant ROI for international students. Since this is the case, by setting aside 25% of the migration quota for graduating students, Australia may be able to position itself better than other overseas education destinations for the post pandemic rebuild.During a virtual-summit with Scott Morrison in June 2020, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi exclaimed, I am especially grateful for the way you have taken care of the Indian community in Australia, and especially the Indian students in these difficult [COVID] times. However, Modis words are highly misleading.An August 2020 study revealed otherwise. International students were surveyed at UTS, USyd and Macquarie University for stats on their living experiences once, pre-, and then again, post-COVID-19. 61% of international students faced job losses without any compensation, a third were going without food to pay for their rent, and 21% feared homelessness. Only 13% of education providers had reduced the fees, and the general feeling toward the government was that support and welfare-relief had not been strong enough.Increased government support and ROI is crucial for vulnerable onshore international students. Many international students are themselves essential frontline workers despite not being entitled to the JobKeeper subsidy. Deakin Universitys Professor Ly Tran stresses on extending Post Study Work for the currently enrolled onshore international students to incentivise international students to choose Australia as a study destination during this time. Further, in response to prioritising domestic jobs and economic support, Tran criticises this approach as xenophobic and states that rather than taking away jobs, international students actually create jobs for locals, supporting around 250,000 Australian full-time jobs.Additionally, NSW is the only Australian state to exclude international students from the concession on public transportation fares. The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations coordinated a campaign in late July 2019 against the concession opal card discrimination towards international students; however, the campaign did not result in any successful outcomes. With international students facing increased economic precarity, extending concession cards to international students is merely one simple way that the government can materially improve students lives.Improving the ROI for international students whilst strengthening the industrys overseas education appeal is going to be essential for Australias post-COVID recovery. Although lobby groups such as AAERI are working towards salvaging the industry from the impacts of COVID-19, only time will show the outcomes of these efforts. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article is an extended version of the one in our week 2 print edition.Since March, in the global tumult induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks in advanced capitalist economies adopted expansionary monetary policies to save private enterprise. The transparency with which these cornucopias of billions and trillions in cheap credit and government bond buybacks were offered to businesses on a platter have not gone unnoticed and have been widely perceived as thinly-veiled corporate bailouts.Many leftists have recognised these bailouts as evidence of the states Janus-faced macroeconomic policy regime, which proselytises sound finance for the lowly proles and easy money for the too-big-to-fail rich. This double standard, along with many others which have been exposed by the coronacrisis, have many activists, academics and politicians on the left calling to abandon the deficit-hawk mentality.Its understandable that there is a popular drive to rejig the conventional wisdom around budgetary spending and high public deficits. The current wave of expansionary monetary policy implicitly presents a silver bullet solution to the problems of poverty, inequality, exploitation and ecological devastation endemic to capitalist growth. Instead of spurting out financial aid to maintain the buoyancy of capital, its increasingly suggested that the purpose of macroeconomic policy can be inverted to save the oppressed and the planet.Enter Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the new shiny thing that the more wonkish types have latched on to. MMT proponents claim that sovereign fiat currency can be printed by the government in any desired quantity until the level of money supply circulating within the economy fosters full employment. Any residual inflationary effects engendered by the excess in aggregate demand caused by an expanded money supply are to be regulated by increasing taxation or contracting public expenditure. MMT is frequently associated with proposals like the Job Guarantee (JG), which aims to realise the goal of full employment. These proposals tend to stipulate that rather than un(der)employed people receiving meagre social assistance payments, they can instead opt to work for the public sector at the minimum wage.MMT has been increasingly incorporated into the eco-socialist utopias envisioned by a coalition of environmental NGOs, social democratic politicians and progressive academics under the umbrella of a Green New Deal (GND). Currently, the GND acts as a flexible matrix of policy proposals that this woke coalition of technocratic strata justify with MMT. That is because there is a folk understanding of MMT as money printer go brrr, and the institutionalised left would need that money printer operating at warp speed to fund a GND. As a Stanford University study released December last year revealed, the estimated upfront cost of a GND for Australia would be US$820bn, or around AU$1.12tn.The study doesnt even factor in the cost of other progressive reforms that leftists at organisations like the Climate Justice Collective (CJC) have included in their GND wishlist, such as free university, the universal availability of free public housing, reparations for the colonial dispossession endured by First Nations peoples, substantial increases to the minimum wage and the right-to-strike.However, the deficit-financing of a more utopian approach to the GND would soon trigger spiralling inflation and the devaluation of the Australian dollar. Its also an approach to the GND which fiercely clashes with MMT itself, since this ensemble of policy reforms would inevitably curb productivity growth in the private sector and stimulate an excessive surge in aggregate demand. If a deficit-financed expansion of money supply causes the level of purchasing power in Australia to skyrocket, there will tend to be a stagflationary response without the restoration of a progressive profit rate. A stagflationary crisis would prompt mass insolvency and liquidation, bringing about nationwide retrenchments and sharply increasing the cost of living.But if deficit spending increases inflation under conditions of low profitability, then why hasnt the current wave of deficit-financed money printing provoked any inflation? This monetary expansion hasnt triggered an inflationary response because the money wasnt injected directly into general commodity circulation as a medium of exchange. And even when it has via JobKeeper and the Coronavirus Supplement, household consumption has slumped as real incomes still drop and stimulus is used to pay down debt. Instead of scaling-up productive investments, capital has hoarded money and absorbed government bonds to shore up strong liquidity positions under frenzied uncertainty. Rather than spurring the inflation of commodity prices in general circulation, the Reserve Banks policies have pumped fictitious money into financial markets and artificially inflated private equity prices to edge near pre-crash levels despite large declines in total hours worked, high rates of labour force underutilisation and business revenues which are either falling or stagnant. This is a bubble, and if the chasm between profit rates and the money supply continues to widen, it will either eventually cause inflationary devaluation or the pile-up of already unsustainable corporate debt levels. Whether now or under a GND, if the printing of money keeps outstripping the pace of (surplus) value creation in commodity production and its realisation through exchange, then a stagflationary crisis looms closer.If many countries seriously initiate a GND-style transition to renewable energy, then it could spawn a mining boom in Australia because of the external demand for minerals needed to manufacture green technologies. Australia hosts bountiful reserves of the minerals necessary for the green energy transition, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare-earth elements alongside the usual suspects like bauxite, copper and iron. This would lead to the vast multiplication of large-scale mineral extraction projects across Australia and would provide an opening for progressive fiscal policies. However, this scenario traps the left in a Catch-22 between i) financing a handful of piecemeal reforms through a prodigious intensification of mining and ii) solidarity with the Aboriginal movement for self-determination over traditional lands and resources.The shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy will inevitably require some form of large-scale mineral extraction. However, under capitalist production this type of extraction is subsumed into the transnational circuits of flowing money and capital, energised by the exigencies that capital imposes on the production of Cheap Nature profitability, productivity, competition, individualised consumer goods. To meet the demands of the capitalist market and the GND, more mines will have to disfigure the face of the Earth at a velocity determined by the pursuit for mushrooming profit rates.The particular areas surrounding such rare-earth mines can be termed sacrifice zones, because the toxic pollutants generated by the operation of these mines have adverse environmental effects on nearby communities, often impoverished and racialised. These sacrifice zones in the hinterlands, like Inner Mongolia in China, are characterised contaminated waterways, degraded soil fertility and rising mortality rates.Given that major renewable energy supply chains go through large swathes of Indigenous lands in Australia, Bolivia, Canada and Chile, how can our notions of Indigenous justice be made coherent with the imposition of thousands of sacrifice zones on these communities? The CJC in Australia have tried to resolve this tension by endorsing the vision of decolonisation as detailed in the Sovereign Unions Manifesto of Demands. The manifesto demands full ownership of all revenues raised from the past, present and future exploitation of the natural resources and that all mining projects require the free, prior and informed consent of each Nation concerned. The CJCs support for these demands in their tentative GND proposal demonstrates their sincere commitment to Aboriginal sovereignty. Nevertheless, it also exhibits a quixotic disposition concerning how they understand the hard limits of capitalism. If politically feasible at all, these demands will occasion both an exorbitant rise in mining overhead costs and the abolition of mining company profits altogether. Yet the critical minerals industry is defined by oversaturated world markets, which necessitates bargain-basement production costs to remain operational. For instance, lithium has been experiencing a global glut, which caused prices in 2019 to tumble by 70% despite supply cuts, and prices are expected to drop lower due to intensifying competition and pricing pressure. Materialising the Sovereign Unions demands under capitalism would lead to a significant overvaluation of Australian minerals on world markets, thus rendering Australias mining operations unviable and eliminating an essential source of tax revenue needed for so-called progressive reforms. It would also deprive Aboriginal communities of those mining profits too. Instead, the renewable energy transition under capitalism will likely encourage further competitive scrambles to set up mines, entailing the cutting of regulatory corners, wanton disregard for Traditional Owners and the unabashed destruction of the local ecosystems.There are also many uncertainties regarding the hopes for a JG in Australia, and how that will tie in with the GNDs implementation. Its proponents argue that the necessity of new green jobs will drastically reduce un(der)employment, addressing i) the prevalence of un(der)employment following the capitalist restructuring of the domestic labour market since the 1970s, and ii) the rise in unemployment following a phase out of carbon-intensive industries, like coal-fired power stations. However, there will be few jobs available during the transition relative to future un(der)employment levels.For starters, the fastest growing sector in Australia during the global renewable energy transition will be mining. However, mining in Australia today is a highly-computerised, capital-intensive industry and the extra jobs created by the energy transition will barely plug the un(der)employment hole. Furthermore, the mining industry in Australia pays higher remuneration to non-managerial workers compared to all other industries, at around an average of $2635 per week. Since a JG can only employ workers at the minimum wage in order to avoid distorting the private sector labour market, those choosing to work under the JG would inevitably be denied work in the mining industry.Well, how about the manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels and lithium-ion batteries? These industries have already been engulfed by blistering competition, overproduction, overaccumulation, perpetual rationalisation and tax incentivisation, leaving no latitude for Australia to seriously enter these markets. Firstly, competition and overcapacity in wind turbine manufacturing has severed turbine prices and operating profits over the past decade, inducing vanguard manufacturers in Europe like Vestas and Siemens Gamesa to rationalise production by retrenching workers last year. Secondly, China has been selling off its domestic oversupply of key solar components by flooding world markets since last year, heaping further competition into the profit-strained solar equipment industry, which already demands constant productivity enhancements. Thirdly, China also dominates the global supply chain of lithium-ion battery production, outcompeting the US and Europes attempts to penetrate the market despite receiving heavy government support.Thats not to suggest a GND wouldnt increase employment. According to a University of Technology Sydney study published last year, the renewable energy transition in Australia would create 20,000 new jobs, with half in temporary construction and installation jobs, while the other half involves technicians and labourers in long-term operation and maintenance positions. Maybe green steel manufacturing drawing on cheap labour in central Queensland and the Hunter Valley, and the marketised expansion of Aboriginal land management through carbon credit trading could also add tens of thousands more jobs to that figure. Other than that, commercially viable job-creation opportunities in the renewables transition are scant.Within much of the GNDs popular appeal lies another failure:it is fundamentally retrograde, waxing nostalgic over the postwar social compromise in advanced capitalist economies whilst ignoring the material constraints of the post-1970s long downturn. The possibility of a return to capitalisms golden age is contingent on historical conditions which are long gone: high labour demand in the manufacturing sector, soaring international demand for consumer durables in standardised product markets, accelerating rates of productivity growth, burgeoning profit rates, the original Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, and high-density, militant unions.A new New Deal is neither possible nor desirable. The only deal that workers will get from the GND is a raw one. To paraphrase Marx, the (renewables) revolution of the 21st century cannot take its poetry from the past but only from the future. It must strip away its superstitions for the past the fantastical longing for a worker-friendly bourgeois state and we must let the dead bury their dead. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence in Australian universities has been a recurrent news item for the past year. Indeed, as a narrative, it is neatly situated beside fears of insidious Chinese technology and mounting concern with Xi Jingpings despotic approach to Chinese domestic policy. The cumulative effect of which is a news cycle that positions China, and by unfortunate extension, Chinese people, as a clear and present danger to Australia. This is a problem.Of course, it would be egregious to suggest that the CCPs efforts to undermine Hong Kongs autonomy or the systemic persecution of Chinas ethnic Uyghur population were the fabrications of a paranoid Australian media. Rather, they represent grave threats to human rights and are wholly deserving of international opprobrium. However, if we are to contribute meaningfully to combat the human rights abuses of the CCP, we must also interrogate our own methods of protest ensuring that they are neither prejudiced nor smokescreens beneath which hate groups validate their anti-Asian agendas.Enter Drew Pavlou erstwhile University of Queensland Senator, Philosophy student, and arguably Australias most notable anti-CCP activist. In July 2019, Mr Pavlou attracted widespread media coverage due to his vociferous attacks on the Chinese Communist Party and their close association to the university through the campus Confucius Institute. Since then, he has been involved in an acrimonious feud with the University of Queensland, one that has culminated in his expulsion, in a move that Pavlou alleges to be politically motivated.Disappointingly, Pavlous particular brand of protest has denied students what could have been a watershed moment for free speech on campus. After all, the university has long been a training ground for the nations nascent intelligentsia to mobilise against the maladies of the time. However, since at least the 1960s the apogee of anti-war demonstrations in Australia expulsion has been a political expedient for tertiary institutions to silence dissenting opinion. And Pavlou, ostensibly the victim of such a draconian practice was provided with the perfect platform to shine a spotlight on this enduring form of institutional suppression. Alas, he squandered his opportunity.Whereas Financial Review correspondent, Aaron Patrick may optimistically declare that Mr Pavlou has, unified the conservative media and human rights establishment, the latters objectionable tactics have alienated him from many potential sources of solidarity. Instead, he has endeared himself to the intolerant right. A testament to which is Pavlous recent appearance alongside former 2GB shock jock and unrepentant racist, Alan Jones. A man whose interest in free speech only extends insofar as his ability to use racial pejoratives at will. Sadly, for Drew Pavlou, his willingness to flirt with racism deprives his expulsion of moral weight. He transformed the bi-partisan issue of human rights and free speech into the deeply partisan matter of anti-political correctness. Now, I fear his passion for the liberation of Hong Kong may be wasted, dog-whistling into the abyss of impotent conservative anger.While organising protests against undue CCP interference and Chinese human rights abuses is both commendable, and indeed essential to a robust campus ecosystem of political engagement and social justice. However, the self-described left-wing Pavlou resorted to weaponising deeply troubling orientalist tropes in his censure of the University of Queenslands relationship with China. When, in March of this year, Mr Pavlou posted a picture to social media of himself inside the Universities Confucius Institute wearing a hazmat suit and warning that the site was a biohazard risk.Here, through the tacit association Pavlou establishes between Asia and disease, he is invoking the colonial legacy of a Yellow Peril the Wests fear of an Asiatic-other. Indeed, in an interview with the Washington Post, medical anthropologist Monica Schoch-Spana notes that fixing blame [for] a contagious disease on outsiders is a recurring motif in the west. One that is demonstrative of a history of racial essentialism and colonialism, wherein the negative attributes of disease, uncleanliness and squalor are conferred to denigrate a non-white Other. Drew Pavlou defended his behaviour, arguing in a line that was parroted by Murdoch rag, The Australian that he was referring to the virus of Chinese influence in Australian universities. However, even this language is leaden with racialist overtones.Unfortunately for Mr Pavlou, his cheap piece of incendiary political theatre is denuded of the nuance necessary to simultaneously critique a government while sparing a people from racial abuse. Instead, it both reflects what is perhaps an unconscious eagerness to racialise our methods of protest and explains Drews popularity in conservative circles.To understand this relationship, it is first imperative to understand its history. In Professor David Walkers seminal 1991 book, Anxious Nation, he argued that Australias relationship with Asia had been typified by immense anxiety due to Australias geographical isolation, comparatively small population and an unstable national identity. In Chapter 9, Walker addresses the invasion narrative, a Victorian-era literary genre wherein untrustworthy and seditious Asian hordes are depicted as posing an existential threat to the racial-integrity of Australia. Importantly, the invasion narratives described by Walker like Mr Pavlous ill-conceived coronavirus stunt do not delineate between Asian people and their respective governments. Rather, they ascribe to a contemptible degree of essentialism to vilify Asian people en masse. A trend which is eerily analogous to the extant media discourse on China, with the ABC reporting that Chinese Australians increasingly feel as though they are being targeted as a consequence of escalating antipathy towards the Chinese Communist Party.More than anything, this reflects growing racial anxiety and a reawakening of an uncomfortable history of anti-Asian discrimination. It is alt-right and conservative groups, and their preoccupation with white replacement and the primacy of western civilisation, where this anxiety is most apparent. Thus, it is hardly surprising that Drew Pavlou, despite his fulminations, would find affirmation in the right-wing political sphere. His firebrand approach to demonstrating and willingness to enact orientalist stereotypes position him as a perfect candidate for co-option by the right. He is an ideal conduit through which these groups can sublimate their more blatantly racist ideologies, while they continue their pernicious machinations beneath Drews anti-CCP banner. Finally, and perhaps most ignominiously for Drew Pavlou, unless he reevaluates his methods of protest, he risks becoming a useful idiot to a movement with little regard for the human rights he so admirably defends.Hopefully, Pavlou will realise that he has been complicit in promoting the same deadly zero-sum thinking that underpins attacks on Asian-Australians due to fear of the Chinese Communist Party, or coronavirus concerns. The same inimical non-logic that has rationalised the most heinous policies throughout history from the White Australia Policy to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two, or the systemic persecution of Muslims engendered by the War on Terror. So, if we are to maintain the high road in our struggle against the CCP a deeply precarious position due to our own history of imperialism and genocide, we cannot afford to ally ourselves, or otherwise endorse the tactics of the basest elements of the ideological sphere. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Northern Territory InterventionIntroduced by: The Coalition and continued by The Australian Labor Party (ALP)Involved Governments: Howard, Rudd, and Gillard.Years: 2007presentOverview: The Northern Territory Intervention constituted a set of discriminatory laws in which the Howard Government banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in Indigenous communities, excluded cultural factors as a relevant consideration in sentencing and bail decisions and compulsorily acquired leases over declared Aboriginal land, Aboriginal community living areas and town camps.The package of measures was justified on the grounds of protecting Aboriginal children from child abuse. They relied on the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, effectively denying Indigenous Australians protections from discrimination afforded to every other Australian citizen.Despite the absence of any data to demonstrate the benefits of these measures and a range of criticisms from various human rights organisations, the ALP chose to continue this host of discriminatory measures in the form of the Stronger Futures in The Northern Territory Act 2012. The policy is emblematic of the bi-partisan support for the destruction of Aboriginal Communities in contemporary Australia. Its psychological and social effects persist to this day.Treaty with First Nations PeoplesALP Stance: In the upcoming elections the ALP has given its support to a treaty.Coalition Stance: The coalition does not support a treaty.Record: No government from either party to date has ever entered into a treaty with First Nations peoples.Overview: A treaty with First Nations Peoples would be significant in terms of recognising the sovereignty of First Nations, providing rights and assurances in terms of self-determination and recognising Australias subjugation of First Nations Peoples.Treaties have been called for since at least the 1970s.In 1988 the ALPs Hawke Government promised to enter into a treaty, but ultimately never delivered on this. Closing the GapIntroduced by : The ALP,and continued by The CoalitionInvolved governments: Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turbull and Morrison. Overview: Closing the gap refers to a series of targets established to reduce inequalities faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in terms of health, life expectancy, mortality, education and employment. It makes no mention of incarceration rates despite Australias Indigenous population being one of the worlds most incarcerated groups. 28 per cent of Australias prison population is Aboriginal, compared to 3 per cent of the population.Beyond its failure to recognise gaps in incarceration rates, many of the targets set out in the report have not been met by ALP and Coalition governments. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disclaimer:Honieditors Pranay Jha, Nell OGrady, and Liam Thorne are not involved in USU Board Election coverage.In the absence of any spectacular drama on the ground in this years USU race, the most interesting thing to emerge from day one of pollingwere the various preference deals brokered by candidates.Despite Caitlin Brown telling Honi that she has no international student related policy platforms, arguing that she finds it hard to empathise with international students when [shes] not in their position, she has entered a preference deal with Yinfeng (Benny) Shen. Shen has instructed his voters to preference Brown second on his how-to-vote cards.According to Honis exit polling, Shen is polling highest on first preferences, with 23.7 per cent of the vote. Browns preference deal with Shen may be the most strategic thing the self-proclaimed Independent has done for her campaign. Brown has accrued only 3.7 per cent of the primary vote, but 15.4 per cent of the secondary vote. If Shen breaks quota which he likely will, if our exit polling numbers are anything to go by Brown will collect a substantial amount of these second preferences.Brown is not the only candidate to have landed herself in a favourable preference deal. Ellie Stephenson is receiving the second preferences of both Nick Forbutt and Ruolin (Irene) Ma, putting her at third place in the secondary vote. Preferences will prove essential to Stephensons election provided her primary vote continues to hover at just below 10 per cent over the next two days.Of note is the lack of a deal between campus Labor factions there is no preferential support between Tom Manousaridis (Unity) and Forbutt (NLS), although both named each other as ideological allies in their Honi interviews.Its clear that the race is tight, and that preference flows will play a complex and decisive role in the eventual election of six candidates. Its worth remembering that no more thantwo non-cis men candidates can be excluded. The fate of one candidate can be speculated upon with greater clarity than others, however. At the end of day one, its hard to see a way forward for Tina Lee. Even with third preferences flowing from Shen, Lee has garnered only 1.2 per cent of the exit poll votes. With only three campaigners on the ground, goodness me: its not looking good for Tina Lee.Follow ourlive blog and exit pollthroughout the week for updates. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My visits to my mothers family home in India delighted me when growing up, which is as gargantuan as youd imagine a house to over twelve people would be. Lovingly named Gharonda, it held my maternal cousins, uncles and aunties, as well as my grandparents; a typical joint family household. My mother weaves me tales of her adolescence sharing everything, including a bed, with her sisters until they each got married.These days, I chastise my mother for being able to spend limitless hours on the phone with her older sister everyday; counselling, gossiping, exchanging recipes and plotting. They are separated by several oceans but my mausi (aunty) can recount each meal our family has eaten, every argument weve had, all the way from India.It isnt hard to understand why my parents cannot merely trade in their collectivist upbringings to the individualistic ones of Western society. Holding onto every tangible aspect of their earlier lives, which were largely embedded in a sense of unity and community, is the foundation upon which they have built our lives in Australia, and the values they refer back to in rearing the household.However, for all the joys that a close-knit family can offer, there is often a large divide between myself and my parents. Ive found this disconnect evident in how brown families treat issues that are still seen as taboo; we fall short in our treatment of sexuality, queerness and sexual assault among other topics. In particular, we fail miserably at discussing mental health.From experience, brown families exhibit a notable lack of nuance in the discourse surrounding mental health. Often present is the deluded belief in a dichotomy for mental health, where one is either normal (or completely mentally stable all the time) or crazy (affected by any sort of mental health issue that isnt easily digestible or explainable). We arent given the right tools to properly and adequately deal with many strains on mental health, and we are taught to idealise and aspire to stoicism. This completely neglects the reality that a large number of people can and will be affected by mental health issues within their lifetimes, whether it be short-term stress or long-term issues like depression or anxiety.As such, a stigma has been built around mental health issues, to the point where those being affected often go undiagnosed. This is for fear that reaching out for help may bring invalidation or ostracisation from their family, not necessarily brought upon by a lack of love or empathy, but by a clear difference in education and perceptions of the issue, owing in large to differing upbringings.I have never seen my father cry. My family has been through extremely trying times, and spent the larger part of almost six years frequenting hospitals, and yet not once did I see my father externally express his disillusionment. This is not to say that Id ever want to see my loved ones upset. However, I know there was significant mental duress that fell onto my parents shoulders, and whilst my mother had outlets for her grief, I saw my father internalize a great deal of his. This is a trend that I have seen mirrored in all the male figures in my family, and, for the most part, our community. Men, in particular, are taught to believe that masculinity lies within their ability to present and act as the strong, stoic head of the household. They are urged to internalise emotions so as to not be seen as feminine or weak, with the synonymy of those qualities speaking lengths about the role of misogyny in how brown families approach mental health issues.In the end, it all comes back to the issue of us prioritising how we are perceived by our community, because our collectivist mindset means everyone must take this into account. When our image becomes the centre of the discussion we have about mental health, our needs can be glossed over and hushed up for fear of them becoming a topic of gossip. When the good intentions of families are superseded by the need to maintain ones image in the community, we lose the opportunity for productive discourse and learning experiences about mental health.In an ideal world, the collectivism of Indian families would provide a network of caring and supportive family members. However, when the norm is for every personal decision you make to be up for debate by your extended family and community back home, it inevitably feeds back into a culture where our lives are something that is up for debate and that everyone is entitled to an opinion on. It is important to consider how this is especially toxic for those already dealing with internal conflict and anguish.It is also critical to understand that critiquing or rejecting certain patrilineal, familialistic notions present in traditional Indian family structures does not make me any less Indian. Meaningfully engaging with my culture should not have to mean blindly internalising values, regardless of how toxic they may be, but should mean that Im able to unlearn and criticize much of what were taught is to be revered about our culture in order to self-determine.It is time we dismantle the long-standing shame and stigma surrounding issues of mental health and other seemingly hard-to-stomach topics in our communities, and pick apart the notion that our worth is based on how well we fit the mould of sanskari brown children. Challenging counterproductive cultural habits that actively harm our own livelihood is nothing to be ashamed of. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Whiteness is so ingrained in our everyday lives that it is seen as normal. Everything around us reflects whiteness, including what we listen to, watch, and read. When I was younger, I wished I was normal (read: white) because I assumed it was the default.Representation can be a relief from everyday whiteness and can provide a critical and necessary voice for people of colour, but it is hardly a revolutionary concept. In fact, it is the bare minimum.It is important to consider that representation is a two-way street. Positive representation certainly exists, but so does negative representation and fictional works can play such a large part in how we conceptualise the world and people around us. In Orientalism, Edward Said talks about the Orient, also known as the Global South, existing in the European cultural imaginary as an uncivilised and inferior Other that exists in contrast to the civilised West.Western representations of people of colour in film, television, theatre, art and literature has historically involved the use of dehumanising and exaggerated caricatures. Take minstrel blackface, for example. It was popular amongst white people in the 1800s and involved white people dressing up as African-Americans and imitating them in a way that depicted them through degrading stereotypes. It was also popular amongst white Australians who dressed up in blackface as a way of mimicking Aboriginal people.Contemporary campaigns surrounding the issue of representation have been focused on positive representation of ethnic minorities on television and in film. However, the definition of what good representation looks like differs from person to person, from community to community.I cant speak for other communities, but representations of my own (Palestinian, Arab, Muslim) communities are rarely done well, if at all. Arabs and Muslims have typically been represented through the white lens as terrorists, backwards, and barbaric. When they are portrayed neutrally or positively, it is often in a tokenizing way that doesnt address their background. They are used as a plot device to advance the white characters main story, or are one-dimensional characters that lack nuance and resort to tropes.The show Community is a good example of when white writers try to write Black and Brown characters. For example, Abed is a twenty-something Palestinian-Polish community college student who is played by Indian-American actor Danny Pudi (because we all know Brown people are interchangeable!). In the show, his heritage is rarely addressed in a meaningful manner and is rarely handled with care. Even in the episode when we meet his family, his dad is played by a Pakistani-American actor and his cousin is portrayed as a woman who wears the niqab even though the majority of Muslim women do not wear it. They pretend to speak Arabic which sounds like gibberish. Although Abeds portrayal itself is not really negative, it is clear that there is still work to be done there.Representation is often done best when we tell and write our own stories. Randa Abdel-Fattahs books are a great example of this. She approaches the Arab-Australian experience through her characters in a nuanced way that leaves room for diverse narratives and fully-fleshed out characters with agency that arent merely reductive stereotypes.Even when we approach representation in real life such as in the news media or in politics, it merely is a tool for navigating whiteness and not the be-all-and-end-all.Waleed Aly is a critical Muslim voice in the media especially surrounding issues of racism, Islam, and Islamophobia. However, one or two or even three Brown, Black, and Indigenous voices do not change the fact that Australian media is overwhelmingly white and impacts the narratives that are filtered through.Essentially, representation works as a platform. Who gets to represent our stories and how they get to tell them also depends on who has access to social and financial capital to be the face of, or even make those stories come to life. Many people of colour write their own stories, but often when our stories are not written by us, we get a one-dimensional view of what our experiences look like. Perhaps, even a person of colour that fits the ideal definition of the model minority.Even on a political stage, we see people of colour entering politics on federal, state, and local levels. On one hand, it is refreshing to see people of colour bringing their experiences and knowledge to an institution that is very white and very male. On the other hand, Australia remains a settler-colonial state that has committed and continues to commit atrocities against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country. Even if, hypothetically speaking, a person of colour rose to the top and became Prime Minister, it does not change the fact that whiteness is deeply woven into the fabric of this country. It will take more than a Brown or a Black face to undo 200+ years of colonisation.While representation can be a force for good, it is hardly revolutionary or liberating. It is the result of people of colour playing catch-up in white-dominated industries and institutions. It is normalising what should already be normal.I really hate the word diversity, it suggests somethingother. As if it is somethingspecial. Or rare. As if there is something unusual about telling stories involving women and people of color and LGBTQ characters on TV. Shonda Rhimes <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We often watch great performers and wonder how it is even possible to be doing so much simultaneously and better yet, under so much pressure. How can a jazz musician, for instance, be adhering to the harmonic structure of a song, all the while improvising their own ideas over the top, as well as listening to the other band members and responding in real time? How does a concert violinist remember an entire thirty-minute concerto? How do they play at a prestissimo speed, yet be watching the conductor and listening to the orchestra at the same time? And how do they even remember where all the notes are? The idea of automated processes is highly important in all fields, whether it is acknowledged or not. Automated information means that an individual can rely on a wealth of knowledge that they have already acquired, and they can instead utilise their cognitive energy for more difficult processes. For example, a brain surgeon in a critical operation would have automated so many medical processes that they would not have to think about basic processes, but rather about decisions that could mean life or death. The performing arts are, of course, totally different to brain surgery or flying a plane, but performing under pressure, in any field, relies on automated knowledge stored within the subconscious. It seems effortless and we admire their apparent ease in the performance, but rarely do we look at the mental processes beneath. In a 1966 documentary, Bill Evans describes his journey in playing music he started as a classically trained pianist who could not play music beyond the score, but he eventually learnt to improvise, becoming one of the greatest pianists in jazz history. Speaking about the tendency of learning musicians to overplay and give off the impression of great expression and expertise rather than studying the material truly, he said the whole process of learning the facility to play jazz is to take these problems from the outer level in, one by one, and to stay with it at a very intense, conscious concentration level until that process has become secondary and subconscious. Improvisation itself is heavily reliant on learned practices. Not having that natural facility in jazz, he said, it took him roughly fifteen years to build his ability to the point of being able to be truly expressive. Acting also demands memory as well as a level of improvisation although adhering to a written character and a script, a part is only convincing if it appears natural and spontaneous. For this, we need look no further than Sir Laurence Olivier, a towering figure of the British stage and screen in the mid-twentieth century. He insisted on total preparation, and yet he was remembered for delivering lines from Shakespeare so naturally that it seemed as if he were but thinking them. Sir Anthony Hopkins, at one time Oliviers understudy and mentee, recalls a story of Olivier dreading going on stage to play King Richard III he suffered from severe stage fright. He played the part but he did not remember much of the performance. Yet it was regarded as one of his best. In the interview, Hopkins relates a similar experience of his own. Olivier was sick and Hopkins, being his understudy, went on for him, I was terrified. It was like I was on automatic pilot. I got through the show. But I wasnt really there. But Olivier would later write in his memoir that Hopkins walked off the stage like a cat with a mouse in its mouth. These may appear to be romantic tales about the mysteries of performance, as well as irrelevant to most areas of study, but they do serve as testament to the value of deep learning processes over quick memorisation tactics. The apparent ease is not divine talent but rather expertise, the result of intensive preparation. This is typically less discussed and acknowledged in the performing arts, instead attributed to talent, either by artists unwilling to confess their efforts or an onlookers expression of admiration. The same could be said of those in the sciences: relentless determination reduced to just being smart. The psychological principles of preparation and automatic consciousness are not exclusive to geniuses of the past. If nothing else, acknowledging and discussing the extensive preparation of great performers ought to affirm our own capacities. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Much has been written on the ideological underpinnings of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and what running such a course at public universities would mean. Central to the critiques levelled is that the Ramsay Centre is a Western supremacist project, courtesy of its content and those like Tony Abbott who have pushed for it.This year, the list of the Ramsay Centres distinguished visiting speakers was revealed. Speakers included Rod Dreher, whose response to the Christchurch massacre was that everything [the shooter] Tarrant identifies as qualities of a disintegrating Western civilisation is true, as well as Rachel Fulton Brown, an academic who in her spare time runs a fan blog dedicated to alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos has solicited the advice of neo-Nazis and endorsed pedophillia.With the Ramsay Centre openly promoting views associated with the alt-right, its pertinent to ask what the local Australian alt-right think about the Ramsay Centres attempts to set up degrees at various public universities?Founded in 2016 by Tim Wilms and Sukith Fernando, The Unshackled produces regular articles, videos and podcasts from an alt-right perspective. The publication is perhaps best known for their interviews with a smorgasbord of the Australian far right. On the Ramsay Centre, Wilms takes the view that Ramsay degrees in Western civilisation would provide balance within left wing universities, which are dominated by Marxist academics and students and the Ramsay Centre is an example of a right wing or positive institute.The Unshackleds political editor, Michael Smyth, concurs with Wilms and pushes the messaging further, outlining the positive benefits teaching teaser courses in Western civilisation would have if done at the primary or secondary school level, saying that it would smash the left.The Dingoes (who popularised amongst the Australian far-right a meme character that Brenton Tarrant used) are a group of young men who go by pseudonyms such as Tory and Digger, with former Sydney University Liberal student, Clifford Jennings who orchestrated the alt-right stack of The Nationals believed to be intimately involved. The group run a regular podcast called The Convict Report in which the Ramsay Centre is a frequent topic of discussion. The podcasters describe the Centre as our great civilisation backers, refer to the National Tertiary Education Union as terrorists and believe that one cannot separate Western civilisation from the people who made it and the people shaped by it. Its clear from their complaints about the soft gloves used in the Australian National Universitys dealings with the Ramsay Centre that the Dingoes would much prefer the Centre push ahead with the kind of secretive dealings it recently engaged in with the University of Wollongong (UoW).Anti-feminist Youtuber, Sydney, who video blogs under Sydney MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) also supports the Ramsay Centre setting up degrees in Western civilisation. In a livestream video after the UoW deal went public, he specifically targets academic Sarah Keenan, a former Visiting Fellow at the University who resigned from her post when news of the Ramsay-UoW deal went public, saying the Ramsay Centre seeks to institutionalise a far-right intellectual agenda into Australian higher education. Sydney argues Keenans resignation is proof of the feminist takeover of universities.The XYZ blog which is dedicated to Western restoration supports the Centres attempts, albeit with a pessimistic outlook on its chances of success. Editor David Hiscox writes option B involves a major coordinated helicopter night assault by patriots against every major institution of so called higher learning in the West. He concludes by advising colleagues on the right that we could do with a little more aggression.Ultimately, the alt-rights support for the Ramsay Centres is not surprising to those with even a cursory knowledge of the alt-right. A false binary of the West and the rest and a supremacist West is best philosophy underpins the alt-right movement, as does the notion that universities are corrupted by left wing thought promulgated by academics and pandering to snowflake students.The Ramsay Centre thus represents a political project which speaks to both of these concerns. With a focus on the unique and superior nature of Western civilisation, combined with running this course through the public university system (as opposed to private institutions, such as Campion College which is noticeably similar) the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation is an alt-right delight.Honi has seen minutes from the University Executives College Consultative Committee from March which indicate that a response remains pending to the Universitys MoU submitted last year. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Cyclists.I know what youre thinking: Those annoying, lycra-clad things that keep dinging their bells at everyone outside Redfern station, and darting through traffic when I drive, or Frankly, they slow me down and I just dont like them.We hear the word cyclist and all sorts of negative connotations jump to mind. But, these so-called benign and mindless thoughts come at a great cost. On the 28th of March this year, a female cyclist was hit by a truck on Parramatta road, as they were turning left from USyds Western Avenue. This person has since passed away from their injuries. It is undeniable how horrific this would be for their family and loved ones. Yet, the comments underneath several news posts of the incident on Facebook tell another story. Almost all blamed the cyclist for the incident, without any indication of the circumstances at the time. There was an overwhelming level of sympathy for the truck driver and rightly so but of 464 comments on the 7news article, only 4 expressed concern for the cyclist and her family. Statements such as Ride on the footpath, which is ironically illegal in NSW, and If the govt banned bloody cyclists this would not happen, were common. And they did not stop there. I swear to god cyclists are such a nuisance, such a waste of space, and inconsiderate bike-riders dominated the feed. And most deplorably, Thats what you get, and natural selection. This begs the question: what has led our society to this level? Firstly, this problem extends outside of Facebook. A joint study by Queensland University of Technologys (QUT) Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety Queensland (CARRS-Q) and the University of Melbourne which surveyed drivers across NSW, Victoria, and Queensland found that close to half of the respondents viewed cyclists as subhuman. Given a picture of the stages of the ape-man progression timeline, 41 per cent attributed cyclists to a creature below that of a homo sapien. And this included those who ride bikes themselves. Such widespread dehumanisation indicates that clearly something needs to be done, but the verdict is still out on exactly what this should be. Some suggest a discursive change could help, such as Professor Narelle Howarth of QUTs Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety-Queensland, who argues that using person who rides a bike, instead of cyclist could help. The Netherlands, one of the most cycling friendly nations in the world, has two different words in their language for cyclists. One, Wielrennen, connotes professional, fast riders: the sort we think of when we hear the words Lycra and bike. The other, Fietsen, is reserved for casual, slow, commuting or leisurely riders. This has helped distinguish between the forms of bike-riding, and prevent over-generalisations.Governments, as well as individuals, reinforce the need for better infrastructure, to separate cars and bikes on our busy arterial road network. But cycling infrastructure is constantly emerging. While the Liberal governments re-election in NSW makes it unlikely that any meaningful active transport will be constructed; local councils, led by the City of Sydney, have transformed streets around the university into bike-friendly havens. The council is even due to start construction on a separated cycleway along Wilson Street, running along the length of our campus. The University is itself starting to invest heavily, with new state of the art bike lockers and end of trip facilities across campus. There is even talk that the SRC, led by President Jacky Hes ambitious and controversial election promise, might be establishing a university-specific bike share program.These projects all make perfect sense, given Main Campus level lanes and avenues are the ideal environment for Cycling. With a limited number of steps, and the sheer distance between classes, jumping on a bike is the logical thing to do. Yet the discourse on our campus is disproportionality negative towards cycling. Likely a reflection of the privilege built into our university, where the bike is the poor-mans option, very few at USyd would think to take it up.But, this is bigger than just Eastern Avenue. As a society, we appear to have created in our collective minds the view that Cyclists are an unusual, strange, other; and it makes us uneasy. It feels inaccessible, and we cannot possibly imagine changing our routines to adopt such a lifestyle.This is the current discourse on cycling. And it is leaving our city in the dust. Our standing as a global city, and the protection of our fragile environment in the wake of climate change, relies in part on our rejection of the motor vehicle towards other forms of transport. Cities around the world have embraced the bike as one of these alternatives, and it is making a difference to both traffic flow and a sense of community.So, the next time you hear the word cyclist or get stuck behind one in traffic stop and reflect on the impact your thoughts and biases are having on the development of our metropolis and the creation of a connected, accessible campus. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A now deleted 2011 tweet from the poet Warsan Shire once read, strange thirst, queer desire. These four words have, since then, become a kind of quiet, steadying pulse I use to ground myself while negotiating the liminal, and often cathartic, experiences of being a queer brown immigrant in a white settler nation.Being a queer person of colour in a white space can manifest as a magnified and punishing version of that feeling when you dont quite know where to put your hands having your picture taken. My heart breaks when friends and lovers tell me they do not feel queer enough amongst white and white-passing people. This has to do with ways we can openly desire and move in space (dancing, for example) as much as the way we might present as queer in our clothes and style. In a general sense, white gays need to do better. In Sydney I have felt completely safe to be my queer brown self only twice last year at an event at Fredas curated by a WoC and this year, with USYDs PoC Revue. In the past year I have come to prioritise queer platonic intimacy with my friends of colour both locally and overseas. This is how I envision my being and future in this world; Im not alone in needing this.We need to know that were not alone. We need to know where the gaps in our conversations, about and for QPoC in our communities, fall. This is why I sought out the voices and visions of other queer people of colour for this edition of ACAR Honi, an edition that is primarily thinking through decolonisation and anti-imperialism. While the four respondents are anonymous, make no mistake: these are our friends and family. They are on campus and in our community. Queer peope of colour have always been here, and we are not going anywhere.How do you foster the most important aspects of your queer platonic friendships?By forming and keeping community, especially with queer friends I might share other identities with.Honesty, respect, sensitivity, support, empathy, transparency and love are all important aspects of any relationship. I try to apply these values in daily actions to maintain healthy friendships. Dialogue must be open, ongoing and accepting. If not, how will we grow?I try and nurture my queer platonic friendships through regular check-ins, which can be via text, call or in person. I try and create spaces where each person can trust and feel comfortable disclosing experiences and feelings related to mental health, homophobic/heteronormative encounters, and the range of fluctuating emotions between loneliness and empowerment.Making time, checking in at hard times, actively creating homely spaces to share with friends outside of queer community events or parties through low key downtime hangs and making food, sharing books, trying to work on being vulnerable with my friends so that they feel safe being vulnerable in return.Finish this sentence. The queer community needs to talk more aboutaccommodating religious queer people who might not find community within their own religious communities.racism and the domination of whiteness within these so called safe spaces for the queer community.trans youth, LGBTQIA+ Bla(c)k people and the need for culturally-specific services, especially for queer POC youth.how intersectionality doesnt mean your queerness saves you from complicity in racism.What do space and mobility, and safety, mean to you in white queer spaces?Safety to be ourselves and speak up on issues that affect us, including white supremacy.My definition of space, mobility and safety shifts massively to alert, caution, unease and extreme mindfulness when in white queer spaces because higher risks of harm based on my race and gender comes into play.White queer spaces do not feel safe to me. I have my guard up, police my body and movement, and expect to deal with microaggressions from white cis able-bodied people who move through queer spaces with a sense of ownership.Having another PoC present, having reflective conversations about why PoC might not show up to queer events, having majority PoC performers on stages of queer venues, not having to hear an acknowledgment of queer elders after Aboriginal elders at the start of an event ever again.Do you find that your practices of decolonisation and dismantling white supremacy inform, or feel inextricably intertwined, in how you navigate queerness in a settler nation? How?In some ways, yes [] many queer spaces are overwhelmingly white [] I seek out queer POC/Indigenous ppl as comrades. Colonisation also plays such a large part in how queerness is perceived in our home countries (and how that transfers to here). Its all about changing those narratives as part of a decolonisation process.Definitely, everything is interconnected! All aspects of life affect the social, cultural, political and economic. Decolonising practices and actions of anti-colonial resistance to dismantle white supremacy, have no off switch. Either you believe all beings deserve rights or you do not. It is also important to respect the land you are on and understand that we are on stolen Indigenous land and sovereignty was never ceded. I think in order to decolonise and begin to dismantle white supremacy on a structural and cultural level, one needs to unpack how heteronormativity and societal ideals (monogamous marriage, having a nuclear family) are inherently capitalist and colonial. This means that queerness and decolonisation are linked by how they actively resist the current status quo which the settler state upholds through power and violence towards the queer + BIPOC communities.For me personally, as a queer Filipinx person I am actively trying to learn about pre-colonial Philippines and my ancestors relationship with queerness. My Tagalog ancestors worshipped Lakapati, the giver of food, who was a transgender goddess of fertility and agriculture. There was no pre-colonial word for queer, gay, same-sex attracted etc, which makes me assume that queerness was not treated as any different.Yes! Theyre inseparable at every level but something Ive been thinking about a lot lately is racialised meanings of home and queer intimacies specifically sexualised queer spaces. Discourses of queer sex positivity in Syd are often really white-centric and dont leave much room for recognising histories of Indigenous and PoC intimate forms that are non-het. Importantly, they never consider how the meanings of home, intimacy, family, child-rearing and monogamy can be closely entwined with survival and safety under white supremacy for PoC. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Soy mujer Ecuatoriana.Desde la capital,nos visita una Serrana.Debajo un sol Guayaquileo,naci una costea.Dentro el Rio Napo,respirar una Warmi.Y en las islas Galpagos,la madre tierra,sonre a los turistas,en admiracin de ella.From Ecuador, I am.I, a woman of the regions.From the capital of Quito,I am Serrana the highlands.Under the sun of Guayaquil,a coastal woman lives.And in the Islands of Galapagos,Mother Nature spies on tourists,who, eager to relish in her beauty,admire her kin.Soy mujer Ecuatoriana.A woman from Ecuador.Tengo identidad.Soy el reflejo de una historiaque aun continua.Y que naci antes de m.Soy indgena.Soy Afroecuatoriana.Me preguntan:negra o mulata?Soy mestiza.Soy blanca.Me preguntan:de dndes eres?de aqu o all?Soy mujer Ecuatoriana.I am Ecuador, woman, I am.A nations history is written on the surface of my skin.A story which continues.Which began before I knew life.I am indigenous.I am Afro-Ecuadorian.They ask:black or mullata?I am mestiza.I am white.They ask me:Where are you from?Here or there? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The turbulent geopolitical conflicts of modern Korea are rooted in the history of colonisation that preceded its partition. This was an era marked by an unprecedented scramble for colonies until the outbreak of WWI, the Western powers carved up parts of Asia and almost all of the African continent. Nevertheless, the colonisers in Korea were Japanese.The colonisation of Korea by the Japanese was a phenomenon inextricable from the colonial ambitions of the Western world. In the 1860s, Japans rulers embarked on a project of industrialisation as part of their efforts to avoid conquest by Western powers who were preparing to divide Asia amongst themselves. Two of these powers, the British and the Americans, decided to back Japans development and establish an imperial junior power a regional watchdog that would assert its own dominance in the region.From the outset, Japanese colonialism mirrored its western counterpart. Following the seizure of Korea by 1910, Japan began to restructure the country into a profit-producing colony. The agricultural lands of southern Korea were to supply Japan with rice. In the northern provinces, factories were built in close proximity to mineral resources which were to be extracted by Japanese companies.Life for Koreans under the colonial regime was harsh and humiliating. Colonial capital exploited workers to exhaustion, schools were required to teach in Japanese and more than 100,000 women were forced into military prostitution. Moreover, social restructuring turned Koreans on each other. Cadres of pro-Japanese Koreans were trained to collaborate with the colonial administration. This included a Korean-staffed police force under Japanese command that would turn on their countrymen when ordered.American corporations shared in the exploitation of Korea. Even before Japanese occupation, US companies had been overseeing major infrastructural development in Seoul, aligning their interests with Japanese imperialist ambitions. In the decades following Japans takeover, American companies used more than 50,000 Korean workers to mine the country bare. However, the American alliance with Japan began to break down when the latter started to assert itself as an independent power in the region.Contrary to the ahistorical and fascistic narratives of Korean contentment under Japanese colonialism, resistance was constant and arose in many forms, including worker and peasant non-cooperation, assassinations and guerilla struggle. Anti-colonial resistance came to a head at during WWII with the establishment of the Korean Liberation Army. The defeat of Japanese colonialism at the end of the war renewed manifestations of independence that have now been written out of Western accounts.The national aspirations of the Korean people culminated in the creation of the Korean Peoples Republic (KPR). It proclaimed a transition to full independence and a program of radical social change, including democratic governance through a network of peoples committees. Its 27-point program contained demands for land to be distributed to farmhands, womens emancipation, an 8-hour work day, an end to child labour and illiteracy, and guarantees for rights and freedoms.However, the KPR was short-lived as its ideas ran contrary to the ambitions of both the Soviet Union and the US. Under the American military occupation in South Korea (1945-1948), Governor General Hodge refused to work with the KPR. Contrary to popular sovereignty, peoples committees were banned a move that was met with numerous uprisings. Unlike Stalinist narratives of a passive Soviet occupation, KPR socialists in the North were purged or re-educated in order to promote Kim Il-sungs cult of personality and remove Marxist theories of working class self-emancipation from the political discourse. The Peoples Committees were integrated into the state infrastructure of the DPRK, consolidating the power of the Workers Party of Korea.Meanwhile, little was done by the US liberation forces to alleviate the hyperinflation, food shortages, high levels of unemployment and poor living conditions plaguing the mostly agrarian South. Instead, former colonial collaborators were given high-ranking positions as advisors and intelligence operatives who would assist the US in witch hunts. Independence activists who led the anti-colonial struggle in decades past, were once again being persecuted. This time for their affiliation with the KPR and the worker and peasant unions.Three years of American occupation set a precedent for US involvement in the political repression instituted by future South Korean dictatorships. After the second dictator of the supposedly democratic South, Park Chung-hee, was betrayed and assassinated for a violent anti-union crackdown, Chun Doo-hwan installed himself as the new President through a coup detat and indefinitely declared martial law.As historical precedent notes such repression is not taken passively by the Korean population.Gwangju workers took up arms and liberated the city in 1980 after student activists were brutalised by government troops. Survivors of the subsequent US-backed massacre describe the first-hand experience of immense ecstasy as people prepared to die in defence of freedom after decades of oppression: I witnessed a rapid proliferation of revolutionary aspirations and actions, of a community of love created in the heat of battle.To this day, the Gwangju Uprising is a historical battleground for social and political forces, bringing with it questions of colonial collaboration, dictatorship, US imperialism, unions and the Left. In retrospect, what is clear about Gwangju is that it was an act of resistance against U.S. imperialism: a radical assertion of the sovereignty of Korea in the face of political, economic and cultural domination.The era of radicalisation during the mid-1980s reintroduced anti-imperialist thought and writing to the workers movement in South Korea, tying their struggles for better wages, freedom of assembly and improved working conditions. As information about Gwangju was leaked, it was revealed that the Pentagon had approved the massacre before it was carried out, affirming a belief in the connection between the labour struggle and anti-imperialism.The experience of the South Korean working class during the 80s and 90s ultimately shattered illusions of peaceful labour-capital coexistence and any faith in the state to consider the interests of workers. A resurgence of radical democratic union activity was triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which saw mass layoffs, casualisation and wage cuts. It instilled an energetic distrust of government, after it had accepted IMF structural adjustment loans as an excuse to roll back the gains achieved during the 1987-1990 strike wave.Contrary to narratives of the passivity and contentment of South Koreans, the spirit of Gwangju has inspired subsequent general strikes and radical action. The legacy of Korean radicalism can be seen in the recent Candlelight Demonstrations against rampant corruption under the now impeached President Park Geun-hye a victory claimed by the millions in the streets. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Correction: The print version of this article was published with the last paragraph removedMiquela Sousa is a model, brand ambassador, influencer, activist and musician. She has amassed over 1.5 million followers on Instagram, is a contributing arts editor for Dazed magazine, and her 2018 single Hate Me has upwards 3.6 million Spotify streams. She is also a Computer Generated Image (CGI) and is the creation of Los Angeles-based start-up Brud. She goes by the nickname Lil Miquela.For a while there was debate is Lil Miquela a human being? People were hesitant to be resolute. In April 2018, Lil Miquela was hacked by Bermuda, another CGI influencer. It has since been alleged this was a publicity stunt by Brud who manages both Bermuda and Miquela. This controversy resulted in Miquela finding out she was a robot (CGI) and she consequently fired Brud as her management. A few months later, they made amends, but this could all be elaborate story telling Brud says they are a transmedia studio that creates digital character-driven story worlds. And giving CGI figures emotional narratives could be their method of forging connections between the digital and physical, so we as an audience can empathise with what are immaterial beings.But are CGI influencers a fad, or do they signal a new phase of social media and cultural advancement? A digitally constructed figure is not held to the same standards as a human being. You can create the Kardashians without any of the inherent issues that come with being human said Cyan Bannister, a venture capitalist at Founders Fund which invested $100 000 in Brud in 2017.Here lies a question that looms in the humming, air-controlled corners of Silicon Valley server farms: Where does the creator end and Lil Miquela begin? Is there a distinction between the two? Is Miquela just a promotional vehicle albeit a lucrative one? And ultimately, are there human beings behind the pixelated veneer, or are CGI influencers autonomous? In January it was found that 54% of Generation Z and Millennials want to know the human behind the CGI influencer.It could be that Brud has just created a new type of influencer; another form of marketable entity that they can control in entirety. One where the producers of these CGI figures have the capacity to remain nameless and absolve themselves of a degree of responsibility for the actions of their autonomous creation. Similar to Microsofts controversial Tay a bot that formed their lexicon by what they were exposed to online. Miquelas posts, however, seem more carefully curated, most likely produced by a social media team at Brud. Then there are CGI influencers created exclusively for brand promotion. Balenciagas Spring 2019 campaign consists of virtual models being contorted into spine-defying positions. Or Balmains virtual army composed entirely of CGI models including Shudu: the self-proclaimed Worlds First Digital Supermodel. Vogues Alice Newbold wrote that these models [represent] the technological advancements that fashion as an industry has to align with for fear of being left behind.The development of these CGI celebrities, however, might not be as revolutionary as they ostensibly seem. Within the realm of accessibility and the tangible nature of connection, Lil Miquela is as close to us as any red-blooded mammal online. She exists behind a screen, a space similarly occupied by the myriad of influencers we will never meet. Her lack of physical presence reduces neither her influence nor her sentience (be this programmed or pre-existing). Saccharine promises tend to radiate from sponsored posts. Influencer culture will remain a fixture as long as social media maintains its cultural hegemony. Creators of CGI celebrities appear to have capitalised on the influencer phenomenon to produce digitally malleable individuals who can be redesigned and moulded to align with brands.Miquela maintains a palpable alacrity about who she is, but there is an underlying reticence. Its dialectical but does that make her more human, or less? There is reluctance to placing faith in a CGI spectral being, particularly when its unclear as to whether they are autonomous or a vehicle for an anonymous voice. While this remains opaque, Miquelas success is catalytic in creating space in the digital landscape for a new type of influencer to emerge. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> What do you mean this product is out of stock?! I wince, anticipating the berating that is about to become. Ask anyone working in retail or hospitality and they probably have a similar story, or worse.Verbal abuse by customers is commonplace in the retail and hospitality industries. A recent survey conducted by the SDA shows that over 85% of respondents have been subjected to verbal abuse from a customer in the last 12 months and 24% of the respondents said that it happens every week. Sales assistant Sophie* tells Honi, I honestly just feel so anxious about having to go to work knowing that I will likely be treated poorly. I worry about the next shift, and I never really want it to arrive.In addition to verbal and sometimes physical abuse at work, retail and hospitality staff live with the harsh reality of ongoing financial insecurity. Retail and hospitality have a very high concentration of casual workers compared to other industries, meaning these casual staff consistently have to manage irregular hours and unpredictable shift times. As a young person, navigating a heavily casualised industry comes with additional concerns. Individuals are frequently managing mistreatment by their employers and with the additional stress of study and the amounting pressures that come with shift work, it is no wonder that accessibility to mental health services is crucial to young peoples wellbeing.Mental health issues surrounding young people has gained traction in the past few years, however significant barriers remain for those employed in service industries, especially those further pressured by a low socio-economic status and financial insecurity. Underfunding certainly puts limits on the quality of care that mental health care providers can offer but Sophie believes that shift workers also require flexibility from their employers. I have no idea whether I am going to be free on a date in two to three months time, and I am not in the position to turn down work, she said. The University of Sydney (USyd) offers free mental health services to students but navigating this service is an incredibly complex and arduous process that is riddled with vague boundaries and limitations. Advertised as a free service for all by the university, many mistake the service as offering unlimited counselling sessions but these services only extent to a maximum of 6 sessions. After the limit is reached, Usyds Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPs) has a policy to refer students to an external therapist as they are unequipped to handle the long-term mental health concerns affecting students. This service limitation has a particular effect on students facing complications that have arisen from extraneous situations caused by shift work. CAPS continues to deny the existence of this session limit. There is no strict limit to the number of sessions a student can access a CAPS spokesperson told Honi. Demand fluctuates throughout the year, being less during semester breaks, meaning more appointments may be available at such times, they said. In periods of high demand and for longer-term support, CAPS may refer students to their GP for a Mental Health Care Plan, enabling access to Medicare-funded sessions.The vague rigidity of such a response on the part of CAPS is particularly unfair to these students. When student services fail to provide crucial mental health support this kind of pressure leave shift workers feeling extremely isolated and dejected. It is expected that we work long hours, perform to the best of our ability, reach target sales, serve customers and satisfy all their needs even difficult and rude customers, be friendly and bubbly for eight hours a day despite whatever we are going through in our personal lives . said Anna, a shift worker and university student.We are then forced to fit in personal or educational commitments around a shitty retail job which are definitely more important than the job itself.International students that take up shift work face additional complications. The limited sessions provided by the University are the only option for international students who cannot afford expensive mental health services. Overseas Student Health Covers do not insure mental health care, and the process of finding appropriate help leaves international students feeling lost. These burdens and inequalities are particularly apparent when considering the fact that internationals pay upwards of 40,000 dollars a year, double the amount of what domestic students pay.A therapist at CAPS told Sara* after her first and sixth session that if she was to return to CAPS after these sessions they would have no other choice but to recommend a long-term therapist. Sara turned to the Redfern Youth centre a free service providing mental health support for young people only to learn that the organisation was overrun with patients and had been booked out for months. Eventually Sara turned to eHeadspace, she was requested to wait for an undisclosed amount of time to be matched with a counsellor over a chat window. After 20 minutes, Sara gave up, The process had made her feel hopeless and even worse than before, with no other option but to suck it up, and push through.The lack of consistent [mental health] help on campus, for me as an international student, meant that I was hesitant to return to CAPs, she said.Especially if they were going to refer me to an expensive therapist whom I could not afford while living on a budget. My insurance does not cover private mental health services.Many young people engaged in shift work have attempted to access free mental health services outside of the university. Whilst underfunding deserves significant consideration when discussing gaps in the mental health support system, until the boundaries that prevent shift workers from accessing mental health care are acknowledged, the problems young shift workers face cannot be duly addressed.When she reached out for help after obtaining a Mental Health Plan, Sophie was informed by telephone that Headspace can only schedule regular appointments at the same time every fortnight. There was no way I could get there at the same time each week as a shift worker, and they unfortunately let me know that they couldnt help me, she said. They recommended looking for private practitioners with a low charge or a bulk billing service, but in reality I couldnt afford to actually take time off work to go to talk to someone let alone pay for private help.With outside mental health support services struggling to meet the demand, it becomes clear how damaging CAPs 6 session limit really is. The consultation limit is not explicitly stated on USyds CAPs website. When outlining policy regarding consultation after the first session, the website simply says their clinical psychologists, will collaborate with you on the best way of moving forward. The site states they may make recommendations or suggest you book further sessions. This vague policy along with the negative feedback that exists online (on Reddit and among peer groups) has deterred many students from even going for an initial visit.I did think about going to CAPS, and the GP recommended that as well, but I know there is only six sessions and Ive been intimidated as all I have really heard has been negative, Sophie said.It seems that the vague nature of USyds services is not a homogenous issue across universities in Sydney. The University of New South Wales (UNSW) emphasizes in a detailed FAQ section on their website that there is no limit to how many times students can access on campus mental health services. In 2015, UNSW had an anonymous phone line run by students known as Here to Hear. The service is now defunct but in its prime, it offered an ear for students needing to discuss mental health concerns especially when university services were booked out or when students felt embarrassed to approach peers or professionals in person.USyd has taken an institutional approach to mental health support, one that differs from the hands-on approach at UNSW. CAPS told Honi, A CANVAS e-learning platform for students has also been developed by CAPS, providing a range of mental health and wellbeing resources, which will be launched shortly.The University of Technology Sydney (UTS), unlike USyd has hired a third party contractor for mental health services. It is clearly outlined on their website that students are only entitled to 4-6 sessions, after which students with a valid Mental Health Treatment Plan can see their counsellors for up to 10 additional sessions per calendar year. Such provisions are not provided at USyd and is a disservice to students especially those who face financial stresses as shift workers.Open dialogue about mental health is important but there needs to be more awareness of the barriers preventing accessibility to care. This is impacting some of the most disadvantaged members of our university community. I just hate it when people say thats just how it is working in the service industry, but its only like that because we let it be, said Sophie.When it comes to change, acknowledging that vulnerable students , like shift workers, are being left behind by mental health care systems is the first step to developing a more considerate and inclusive service for all.*Names have been anonymised. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For most, the University is a degree drive-through, a lonely academic endeavour where students get in, get a degree and get out. The exception to this general rule are the select scholarship recipients of the Elite Athletes Program (EAP).Across the Pacific, the collegiate sporting system administered by the United States National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has seen a growing emphasis on commercialising student-athletes. In the 3 divisions of NCAA competition, over 460,000 student-athletes compete as amateurs for their colleges and for the nominal benefits of branding and education. However, pursuant to NCAA Eligibility Center guidelines in the Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete, US college athletes are barred from receiving compensation for anything related to their sport, and a share of NCAA revenue totalling over $1 billion.High-achieving college stars like Dukes Zion Williamson, the projected first pick of the 2019 NBA draft, ultimately stand to gain little from the program whilst risking injuries that could derail professional careers and future earnings into the hundreds of millions.Although the average EAP student at USyd is no Zion Williamson, a comparison of USyds treatment of its athletes as a whole is considerably more telling.NCAA programs are fundamentally governed by regulations, eligibility criteria and guidelines imposed by the inter-collegiate NCAA. Meanwhile, the EAP is a USyd-specific program and its athletes are overseen by USyd itself. A US college player is unable to play professionally and receive payment pertaining to their sport at the same time because they may only represent their college. Meanwhile, members of Sydney University sporting clubs frequently undertake activities with financial interest, free to receive sponsored benefits without breaching EAP conditions.However, onearea in which the NCAA is more beneficial for students than the EAP is the comparatively improved educational outcomes for participating students. The EAP is fundamentally an alternative entry scheme. Suitable athletic performance standards may allow admission to a course with an ATAR of up to five points below the usual cutoff according to the USyd admissions pathways guide. Whilst this is a substantial allowance, by and large, the EAPs ATAR bonus mostly admits students who would still have attended university in the programs absence.The same is not the case in the NCAA. Whilst the ATAR discrepancy for EAP is 5 percentiles below the regular cut off, for Division 1 in the US the minimum SAT score is 400 and the highest requirement is 1010 (on a sliding scale between the two based on GPA), or scores between the 13th and 55th percentiles.As a result, the opportunity to play collegiate sports in the NCAA allows students who otherwise would not be likely to even attend college to compete and attain a degree. This system has morphed into a form of race-based affirmative action with 51.6% of Division 1 student-athletes across the NCAA coming from African-American descent.The benefit of USyds EAP program surpasses the US system when academic performance is compared. According to the EAP information booklet, expectations of those awarded sporting scholarships are firstly to undertake tertiary-level studies and subsequently to represent Sydney University in their sport. EAP students are provided complimentary access to tutoring for their studies, academic counselling, career-based services, and internship opportunities. Essentially, whilst sport is deemed an important part of their degree, it remains subordinate to academic performance and the actual degree.In the NCAA, where lucrative prize money and national exposure are the most appealing, athletes are encouraged to focus solely on sport. Whilst attendance at class is required, academics take a backseat and in many cases, particularly for one-and-done students, degrees are not completed. Instead, students are forced to undertake sporting relating activities for up to 50 hours per week. Minimum mark requirements are met either barely or with creative solutions, and the potential vast academic benefits are lost.Much has been made of the exploitative elements of the US system, and whilst the USyd alternative isnt perfect, nor of the same prestige or exposure, its autonomy lends itself to be the fairer option for student interests. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Three months have passed since the last update on the University of Sydneys (USyd) negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. The Centre, however, has not been idle. The University of Wollongong (UOW) signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the Ramsay Centre in mid-December 2018. This week, the UOW Academic Senate voted in a 28-16 decision to formally object to the fast tracked approval of the Bachelor of Arts (Western Civilisation). Despite this, UOW senior management simply noted this objection, reaffirming that the degree would start as planned. The University of Queensland (UQ) remains locked in negotiations with the Ramsay Centre. All these discussions follow the Australian National Universitys rejection of a partnership with the Ramsay Centre, citing concerns over academic freedom. The Ramsay Centre must be viewed as part of a broader university funding context where underfunded universities take private money from unscrupulous industries like the fossil fuels and arms manufacturing industries. Our universities are not guided by principles of social justice, but by money and profit.UQ has taken $13.5 million from the current executive chairman of DowDuPont. DowDuPont is a corporation responsible for numerous environmental and humanitarian disasters. Amongst its achievements, it holds the unenviable status being the last company to cease the production of napalm during the Vietnam War. USyd has $13 million invested in fossil fuel corporations such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and AGL.It is little surprise then that these universities would consider teaching the colonial and elitist Ramsay Centre curriculum. An indicative curriculum for the BA (Western Civilisation) provided by the Ramsay Centre sees only three weeks of the entire three-year course dedicated to comparative literature, affirming Board Member Tony Abbotts own words that the Centre remains in favour of Western Civilisation. This governing logic of university management can be used to speculate about the future of USyds negotiations with the Ramsay Centre.The makeup of the Ramsay Centre Board ranges from conservative union officials to corporate elites to former conservative Liberal Prime Ministers. The money to found the Ramsay Centre was left as a bequest by Paul Ramsay, a Liberal Party donor who made his fortune from privatised healthcare. The governing logic of the Ramsay Centre board is money and conservative ideology.The Ramsay deal at UOW which was kept completely secret until the MOU was announced is thus far the first and only signed Ramsay deal. Its announcement also coincides with the beginning of a radio silence over Ramsay from USYD.This raises two key possibilities. The first key possibility is that the Ramsay Board is less concerned with USyd negotiations now that another university in New South Wales has signed on. If this is true, then there are several paths negotiations could follow.The future possibilities of a USyd and Ramsay Centre Partnership: Flowchart by James NewboldIn fact, the Ramsay board may have given up on USyd completely. A Centre Spokeswoman told Honi that negotiations with USyd remain ongoing, although they refused to comment on the specifics of negotiations.USyd NTEU Branch Secretary Kurt Iveson told Honi he had not received any updates about Ramsay so far this year. University Senate Undergraduate Fellow Francis Tamer did not respond to questions from Honi.Activist pressure from USyd students and staff has forced negotiation concessions including watering down the Western Civilisation degree into a Western Tradition major and reducing restrictions on academic freedom. From the Ramsay Boards perspective, the UOW deal is far superior and may make a deal at USyd redundant.Alternatively, USyd negotiations may be on the backburner as the Ramsay board focuses on UQ negotiations and preparation for the commencement of teaching at UOW in Autumn 2020 the Ramsay Centre has already begun hiring staff at UOW.The second, more worrying possibility is that negotiations are continuing in the new context of Ramsay having a signed deal under their belt in New South Wales. When Ramsay had been rejected by the ANU, USyd was in a stronger negotiating position to ask for small concessions under protest from staff and students.But the recent UOW deal for an entire Ramsay degree potentially flips the entire power dynamic, forcing USyd to adopt UOW managements method of secret negotiations. Concessions might now be reversed as USyd desperately attempts to secure the Ramsay boards funding.All these paths lead to the same conclusion for student activists and staff. We need to double down until Ramsays defeat is certain, and we must direct our solidarity to universities like UOW and UQ who are fighting the very real possibilities of Ramsay being taught on campus.A USyd Spokesperson told Honi that they are still waiting for a response to their proposed MOU, and will update our University community once we have further information to report.The Senate, USyds highest governing body, will meet tomorrow in a meeting which may well discuss and possibly advance the future of the Ramsay Centre at USyd. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its been asked before whether the University of Sydney (USyd) is big enough to be its own country. Perhaps however, ahead of the NSW election, the more pertinent question is: what would USyd look like if it were an electorate? With an undergraduate population more than half the size of a typical state district alongside its own postcode, the University shares more than a few characteristics with the neighbouring electorates of Balmain and Newtown. The question then becomes: what would the Seat of USyd look like? What role would it play in an election?This question is all the more relevant when considered in light of this weekends state election an election which seems to have grown in importance the nearer it has drawn. The Coalition government must now reckon for the first time with a class of constituents that has particular cause to smite it. According to Honis polling, two thirds of USyd undergrads have not voted in a state election before. These students represent a small contingent of a new generation of young people who entered adulthood amidst the implementation of lock-out laws and the associated animosity towards live music and festivals a policy direction which spurred nascent political party Keep Sydney Open to run no less than 63 candidates in the upcoming election.The results of Honis polling are in many ways, fairly unsurprising. We polled over 350 students on issues including their first preference vote and policy priorities. Students first preference choices reflect quite closely a typical Inner-West district. Summer Hill, for example, which lies a few kilometres west of USyd, voted in an almost identical way in 2015 to the results of our polling: 43% Labor, 27% Greens, 23% Liberal, compared to USyds 39% Labor, 27% Greens, and 21% Liberal. These numbers remain fairly similar for the Federal electorate of Sydney. Its also worth noting Labors historical pre-eminence within the Universitys own student politics scene, as well as student politics more broadly. Student Labor won the SRC presidency for an historic 13 years between 2000-2013 and is hegemonic in the National Union of Students.What is surprising however is the discrepancy between our results and the current makeup of student-run political institutions within the University. Though students preference for Labor reflects past student politics and local electorates, it is hardly a reflection of the current state of USyds stupol institutions. After long-standing dominance in the USyd political sphere, Labors influence has begun to wane: last year, Labors SRC presidential candidate came second last in a field of four, commanding only 17% of the first preference vote, while only three Labor candidates made it to council.A likely explanation is the involvement of international students in USyd elections Honis polling accounted only for students eligible to vote in the state election. Its also worth noting the likely untapped reserve of potential Labor voters who are not engaged in student elections. Many of the students randomly polled by Honi were unfamiliar with party politics to the extent of not knowing the political party to which the Prime Minister belongs and confessed a lack of political engagement. Currently, SRC elections have a turnout of about 10% of the undergraduate population. If Honis polling is anything to go by, Labors former glory days may well be there for the taking, if the average student can be persuaded to wade into the SRC booth each September.Honis polling asked students to pick the three most important policy areas to them from a list of eleven areas, spanning major policy fixtures as well as issues specifically pertinent to the 2019 election. The most popular were education (despite university funding being a federal policy area), environmental policy, and health. Among the least prioritised were forced adoption laws, First Nations policy, and law enforcement. By cross referencing this data with students preferred party, we can gain greater insight into the policies that, for example, Greens voters prioritise, as opposed to Liberals. In most cases, voters reflect the policy platforms of their preferred party. However, some areas, including live entertainment and venue policy, students did not reflect the common wisdom of most pundits. What follows is an analysis of these policy areas.Public transportWith nearly 15% of respondents indicating interest in the area, public transport was the third most popular policy area of the ones we polled. Its also one of the most prominent policy areas in this state election: both the Coalition and Labor have committed to spending over $40 billion on public transport if elected.Liberal voters were the most likely to express interest in public transport policy. Concern for public transport may easily be talked up to messaging: rather than shy away from the egregiously long time it has taken for the delivery of projects such as Sydneys light rail, the NSW Liberal Party has made finality a central promise of its election campaign, promising to get it done if elected. Liberal voters are no doubt keen for their party to receive credit upon the completion of projects which are at risk of being finalised by a Labor government.Greens voters trail both Liberal and Labor in support for public transport, with only 30% indicating concern. This is perhaps anomalous given the Greens billboard looming over Broadway advertising its public transport policy, but may also be a reflection of the fact that its two Sydney seats are both already within a kilometre of the CBD.Environmental policyHeld barely a week after the School Strike 4 Climate, which saw 30,000 people take to the streets demanding substantive environmental policy, the 2019 election is one in which many voters will have climate-oriented policy on their mind. Environmental policy was quite clearly in the minds of students polled by Honi, almost 17% of whom indicated interest in the policy area.The makeup of voters who vote with the environment in mind is almost conspicuously predictable. A students interest in climate policy is almost perfectly correlated with the policies of their party of choice.Greens voters were, by a considerable margin, far more concerned with environmental policy than either Liberal or Labor voters, with nearly 80% expressing concern over the policy.About half of Labor voters indicated concern for environmental policy. This comes despite the fact that the ALP is yet to oppose the Adani coal mine, and that NSW Labor has committed to only 50% renewable energy by 2030 well short of what research from ANU has indicated is possible.Liberal voters were, predictably, almost entirely disinterested in environmental policy in comparison with Greens and Labor voters. A mere 11% indicated interest in the area. The revelation comes as hardly a surprise after the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the NSW Climate Change council has been largely ignored by the Berejiklian Government since the Liberal leadership change in 2017.Live entertainment & DrugsLive entertainment and drug policy has, since the 2015 election, been tipped as one of the areas most likely to draw the attention of young people. The majority of undergraduates at USyd have graduated high school and entered adulthood only to be met by a historically inactive city nightlife, fierce opposition to any drug reform, and a government averse enough to live music to commit to banning certain festivals.Our polling indicates that these areas matter far less to students than many would have speculated. Live entertainment garnered a measly 5% of voters interest; drug policy 4%. This lack of interest is likely a contributing factor to the low amount of first preferences given to Keep Sydney Open (2.6%).Interestingly, Liberal, Labor, and Greens voters were equally likely to preference entertainment and drug policy. Labor has committed to saving live music in NSW with a $35 million package, whilst the Greens remain committed to funding and facilitating the arts.First Nations PolicyFirst Nations policy, alongside forced adoption laws, were both largely neglected by most voters. Greens voters were by far the most likely to prioritise First Nations policy, though it was still a minority which chose to do so. Students preferences in this area largely reflect the priorities of the parliamentary parties they chose to elect.According to Honis polling, only 5% of students who plan to vote Liberal list First Nations policy as a decisive factor in their choice. The reason for this becomes quite clear when examined in light of the NSW Liberal Partys approach to First Nations people: their online campaign policy platform makes no mention of First Nations Australians whatsoever. Last year, the Berejiklian government passed laws which allow for children in foster care to be adopted without the consent of their birth parents. The policy disproportionately affects First Nations children, which make up almost 40% of those in the out-of-home care system. The Government ignored pleas from activists, who warned that such a policy would risk creating another stolen generation.An equal proportion of Labor-voting students are concerned by First Nations policy at 5%. NSW Labors campaign platform makes some mention of First Nations people, including a commitment to a treaty, as well as flying the First Nations flag over the Harbour Bridge.Greens voters were four times more likely to prioritise First Nations policy, with 20% indicating it was an important factor in deciding their vote. The NSW Greens have by far the most extensive First Nations policy of any major parliamentary party, including the commitment to work towards federal constitutional recognition of First Nations people.It seems likely that whichever party forms government will have to grapple with its own stance on First Nations policy before too long, however. Mark Latham of One Nation is, by many accounts, likely to win a seat as an upper house crossbencher, meaning the incumbent government will need to negotiate with him to pass policy. Latham has expressed a desire to see DNA testing introduced for First Nations people claiming welfare, despite no such test tangibly existing.Thanks to Daany Saeed, Ranuka Tandan, and Ewan Uncles for their assistance with polling. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a familiar field of Senators, House Representatives, Governors and former Cabinet Secretaries, there stands a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential Primary who does not fit the standard mould. Andrew Yang is a young, Asian-American entrepreneur who is seeking to differentiate himself from both the pro-establishment centrists and the divisive personas on the left.His identity is far from the only thing that singles him out from the pack. His message is also unprecedented. For Yang, Trumps 2016 election story is one of pure economics: globalisation and large tech companies have automated and devastated millions of jobs, decimating the inhabitants of small towns and rural areas, leaving them incredibly vulnerable to any deified force that professed to have solutions. Such a hypothesis explains why those in Midwestern swing states such as Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin abandoned the Democratic Party, who they perceived to be no more than enablers for the forces that strengthened global elites and thrusted American communities to the sidelines.Where Trump prescribed the demonisation of immigrants and the reignition of hyper-nationalism as the antidote to the sense of hopelessness across much of the country, Yangs answer is a Universal Basic Income (UBI). $1000 a month provided to every American is, in his eyes, the answer to the inevitable onslaught of job automation in the coming decades.Partially funded by a large scale value-added tax on tech giants like Amazon who stand to benefit from automation, UBI will prevent the catastrophic events that inevitably flow from the destabilising process that Yang anticipates. Where neoliberal economists point to the role of re-training programs sensationally transforming a 60-year-old car manufacturer into a budding software engineer, Yangs reliable, bureaucratically simple safety net is a form of curtailing the devastating effects that long-term unemployment creates. This, according to Yang, is how to rebuild America.In a country that is characterised by its hyper-partisanship, perhaps the most profound quality of Yang is his ability to appeal to both those on the left and the right. He is unashamedly progressive when it comes to social issues and adopts many of the mainstream Democrats economic policy positions such as Medicare for All. Yet, through branding UBI as a Freedom Dividend which places the average American as an owner and shareholder of the richest country in the world, he seeks to capitalise on traditional American patriotism. Its for this reason that Yang was able to leave Fox News anchor and Trump loyalist Tucker Carlson in utter agreement when presenting him with the UBI. He has managed to take a left wing policy, rebrand it to appeal to the everyday American, and convincingly prescribe it to both sides of the political spectrum as an antidote to the economic problems faced in America a policy that is not, in his own words, left or right, but forward.The left-right paradigm isnt the only one Yang seeks to destroy. He believes that the entire socialism-capitalism dichotomy is out of date, greying the hairs of labels like social democrat. Accordingly, the stale ideas of President Sanders or President Warren will fail to address the real problems that will continue to shove the American worker on the losing side of the battle against the widespread automation of working-class jobs.Despite his growing appeal, Yang is undeniably politically inexperienced: he has never held an elected office and is an outsider to the Democratic establishment. He openly admits that hes only running as a Democrat due to the historical failures of third party candidates. It is for these reasons that he has been no more than a blip on the radar of mainstream media. He was dubbed a longer-than-long shot by the New York Times, the same newspaper who vehemently dismissed the possibility of Trump emerging triumphant in the Republican primary three years earlier. This, as well as his background as a well heeled businessman with close ties to Silicon Valley, positions him as, in many ways, both a mirror image of his Republican opponent. Yet equally, Yang is the antithesis of Trump: egoless, authentic, and with a vision of unity rather than division. It is the mixture of these qualities which gives Yang the potential for wide appeal.Championing a distinctive message and demonstrating the capacity for broad electoral support, Andrew Yang may well be the boat that can sail across the violent sea separating the Democratic Party and disillusioned working-class Americans. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dignity, respect and anonymity are accorded the deceased remains of donors during and after anatomical studies. Our anatomy students are fully aware of the special privilege granted to them by the generosity of community-minded citizens. University of Sydney Body Donor Program. Under the sandstone edifices, the long avenues and flourished archways; beneath the libraries, lecture halls and grassy knolls of the University of Sydney (USyd), there lies a mortuary that collects and stores the bodies of countless donors. Morgues themselves are cold and stark, and the air inside these donation rooms are still and peaceful with a mood that is deeply bittersweet. The smell that wafts across the room and into the dissection labs is not of human flesh, but of formaldehyde. These bodies are meant to be there, their previous inhabitants wished it so. As they await their dissection they lie still in boxes like giant filing cabinets. Above them, students and professors go about their day unaware. There is little public knowledge of how the bodies are transported from Mannings funeral home to the USyd location. There is even less known about the location itself. The process is shrouded in mystery. General opinion suggests the corpses are somewhere unknown beneath the Universitys Anderson Stuart Building.University body donor programs function successfully across the country. There is one at almost every public university in the state. Within each program lies a primary understanding of confidentiality and secrecy by students and teachers that privileges and respects the dead.Connor Phillips, a medical science student at the University of Technology Sydney, is unaware of where bodies are kept permanently at his university. When students enter the lab the specimens are already sitting there in giant industrial fridges, ready to be dissected. They never explicitly say that we arent to know where they keep the bodies but they never go out of their way to show us either, he said.I would assume that the reason is to minimise the risk of potential misconduct from students who during a lapse of judgement may decide to do something stupid. Theres some weird people out there he said.The trials of life are much the same as they are in death: a series of tests of eligibility define the kinds and ages of bodies moving through these university systems. Donations for the USyd body donor program are taken from the Sydney Metropolitan area, which not only means that you have to live there but that you have to have died in the area as well. A series of infectious diseases that prevent a person from donating their bodies are boldenly outlined across the programs website. A set of strict criteria also aid the decision for donors and families who are made aware that the body must be distributed to the university within 24 hours of their death. If a funeral is to be held, the body will not be present at the service due to this tight time frame of transferal. If the individual has been dead for more than 48 hours, if a family objects to donation at the time of death, if a post mortem is conducted, or if the program is at capacity at the time of a donors death, the donation can be cancelled.The labs where the classes take place are established and unchanging to implement certain security measures that are known and repeated by students. Theyre all there to minimise risk to students and the bodies. said Connor Phillips, a medical science student at the University of Sydney. A students first lab requires a safety talk and the signing of an agreement regarding the responsibility of students during their use of the donated bodies.Most of the body parts are dissected and prepared by lab technicians due to the limited number of bodies donated to the program. An error by a student in the preparation of a body would remove some of the value of the body as a teaching resource, said Connor.In an absurdist way, this hidden morgue, is much the same as most community locations where dead bodies come to rest. Western society is afraid of them. Theyre abnormal, strange and affluent dead things that are hidden away, burnt in cremation or buried deep beneath in a cascate that conceals remains from surprise findings that could occur even hundreds of years later.But university students that benefit from these donor programs approach these bodies with a kind of humble appreciation. After my first anatomy lab, the biggest consolation or thought that helped me work through my feelings was the absolute privilege we have as medical students, that people have donated their bodies to help us learn and to ultimately help others in the future said Indianna Chant, a medicine student at the University of New South Wales.Whilst theres a first time for everything,but dissecting a donated human body is, for most, unlike anything else.. The process is reminiscent of a Kazuo Ishiguro book a stark experience with bodies detached from individual personality. My first experience with prosected cadavers was more confronting than I was anticipating. I found it difficult to come to terms with how these now chopped up and stripped back body parts were once someones loved one, said Sammy ORourke, a medical science student at USyd. I also felt I wasnt prepared for what I was going to see but the specimens didnt look as human as I thought they would.From what students have described, it seems the process is a redolent reminder that we are just organs, skin and bones. The smell of the preservative agent formaldehyde is incredibly overpowering and leaves people quite light headed, said Connor. That, coupled with the visceral nature of the bodies, was a lot to deal with but it wasnt until after the class that I felt the impact of it.In the class youre very curious and excited as its a rare opportunity to have. But once you leave the room it changes the perspective. Needless to say that I skipped a few meals after the lab that day. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Selective high schools are publicly funded schools run by the Department of Education that select students based on academic merit. As a result, they achieve results superior to well-funded private schools, but do so with the same level of funding that government schools receive. From this perspective, they exist in an educational limbo much more privileged than public schools, but at the same time bound by the same limitations and shortages.They have come under scrutiny, among other things, for supposedly being breeding grounds of depression and anxiety. Unfortunately debates about mental health at selective schools have often been weaponised by people who have little regard for student wellbeing, but seek instead to utilise vague generalisations and assumptions about mental health at selective schools to attack the system and the students behind it as a whole. There needs to be caution against generalising about selective schools: the students, parents and staff who form its communities, and the policies, research and debates that have shaped selective school experiences.But while the public discourse on selective schools in regards to mental health has been buried under sensationalism and misunderstanding, it is equally important to acknowledge that selective schools can and do exacerbate mental health problems, and that they deal with unique psychological pressures that are not as common in other education environments. However, in the same way that the mental health needs of all public schools are not being met, selective schools are not adequately supported to deal with the unique challenges they are faced with.* * *Commentary on selective schools often references and criticises their high concentration of students with Asian heritage: hyper-racialised, ethnic imbalance. It is true that, according to My Schools data, a high proportion of selective school students are from language backgrounds other than English: over 90% of students are from such backgrounds in at least half of the top ten selective schools. This unique cultural makeup is accompanied with a set of cultural values that can negatively impact on mental health.For example, often heard from selective school students are stories of how people tied up their self worth with their results.You know your results reflect on your parents, sometimes you dont even know know what the parents do but you know what their kids are doing at uni, how well they are doing. Stephanie*, a former selective school student, tells Honi.She emphasised that although she received neither punishment nor academic pressure from her parents, there was an awareness that her conduct and achievements reflected on her family. Mental health problems in Asian background students are often tied with familial interactions. Many students reported feeling guilt and shame at their own mental health problems when juxtaposed with the hardships endured by their parents.When I saw my parents working so hard and going through so much daily humiliation just for me, it just felt like I had no right to feel the way I did, says James*, a graduate from a top selective school. Almost as a way to repay the sacrifices his parents had made for him, James recalls that he only felt worthy of his parents if he exerted himself towards his studies the same way his parents exerted themselves at work.We show our gratitude and appreciation towards one another through our hard work, he said, before reflecting But maybe using actual words would be better sometimes.The silent stoicism emphasised in East Asian culture is also reflected in how students respond to emotional difficulties many do not believe they can have meaningful conversations about mental health with their parents, nor do they see any worth in bringing up their personal struggles with their friends. This is compounded with the well documented stigma in Asian societies regarding mental health, which often blames mental health problems on those suffering from it, dismisses them as a passing sadness, or views it as a shameful defect in character. These stigmas still burden second generation Asian immigrants, who can find it extremely difficult to find support due to a feeling of double isolation one from their families, and one from wider society.But as competitive as these schools can be, students are also deeply collaborative and supportive. However there is only so much one student can do for another, with their own personal difficulties, assessments, and commitments to take care of.Emily* talked about how she delayed dealing with her issues with anxiety until after her HSC exams had finished because she feared thinking about them too much before they would negatively impact her marks. However, while this approach worked for her, she now admits that she wishes she was more open with herself about her anxiety.I convinced myself that at the end of the day, my marks were more important than anything else. It really wasnt a sustainable lifestyle and looking back, its a miracle I didnt burn out half way.The negative outcomes that can be brought about by these cultural factors are given an environment to fester within the confines of the selective school. While many selective school students feel a sense of gratitude to the intense competitive nature of their high schools and attribute it to their successes, at the same time, the damaging consequences which can result from this high pressure environment cannot be brushed aside.There exists at selective schools a cult of diligence, where hard work is idolised as necessary self-sacrifice, and the ability to power through personal unhappiness exalted as a virtue. Success is viewed as an inevitable result of hard work, so any absence of success can be attributed to a lack of hard work, and as such, a personal failing. Such an atmosphere can breed extremely warped understandings regarding mental health.Emily* recalls a student in her year 12 maths class who would sleep in class because he would stay up all night studying.At the time, we all looked up to him as an example we should all follow. None of us thought it was messed up that this guy felt like he needed to sleep less than four hours a day to succeed. Instead, we would praise him for his dedication, and say that we wanted to be more like him.As a result of all this, it is not unusual for students to face persistent issues surrounding self-worth and motivation on their own instead of seeking help, only to disclose it to friends in passing, years after high school.While it is easy from the outside to blame these mental health problems solely on factors exclusive to Asian culture and the selective school system, as many in the media often do, this critique ignores the wider systemic problems plaguing public education, which selective schools ultimately are a part of. Like any public school, selective high schools are experiencing a shortage of school counsellors. Top performing schools like Hornsby Girls and North Sydney Boys do not even have one full time counsellor according to their latest annual report, having only 0.6 and 0.8 respectively. Most other selective schools only have one. As a result, many selective schools are unable to provide for the mental health needs of their students on a five day a week basis.Im lucky I had my mental breakdown on a Tuesday. If it had happened a day later there wouldnt have been a school counselor there, and I would have lost the willpower to seek help, James* tells us, referring to a burnout he experienced in year 10 due to the intense academic pressure around him.But even when students manage to see a school counselor, the advice they receive is often not culturally sensitive.The counsellor kept telling me I needed to bring my parents to see him. But I kept telling him that I felt that it was a bad idea. They would see it as a betrayal, James said, adding that It made me so anxious thinking that they might call up my parents without telling me.Some teachers are great, but others are just awful. One teacher would peddle our anxieties by telling us that we couldnt trust anyone at the school, not even our friends, because our tiger parents had apparently told us all to backstab everyone else.Studies show that psychological stress experienced by people from Asian backgrounds is more likely to manifest as somatic problems (such as dizziness, lack of appetite and physical pain) as opposed to more traditional and visible symptoms like panic attacks. It is hypothesised that this is due to the unacceptability of the latter in Asian cultures. A nuanced understanding of how culture intersects with psychology seems to be unfortunately lacking at many selective schools, from both counselors and teachers.It is then disingenuous to attack selective schools for how they perpetuate mental health problems while ignoring that they, like all public schools, have extremely limited resources to deal with them effectively. While the Berejiklian government has $88 million to ensure two mental health workers for every public school, whether this is a genuine commitment or an empty election promise remains to be seen. For some, however, the change has come too late.In year 12, some people just disappeared and we never saw or heard about them ever again. Others would still sometimes rock up to school, but you could tell that they had given up, James* said.While I ultimately enjoyed going to a selective school and feel like Ive benefited a lot from it, I wish everyone could have had that experience.*Names have been anonymised. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> One year ago, new and transferring students at the University of Sydney (USyd) were greeted with a new degree structure that was marketed as a simplification of the previous system, reducing the number of degrees from 122 to 20. Along with this simplification came an emergent push for increased interdisciplinary activity, with many degrees now having a required Interdisciplinary Project unit in their third year. However, probably the most notorious additions to the undergraduate degree structure are the mandatory completion of units from Table O the Open Learning Environment units, known more colloquially as OLEs.While Table O contains several courses that involve face-to-face teaching such as the language exchange programs, overwhelmingly, the table consists of massive open online courses (MOOCs), none of which involve any face-to-face contact hours. In an article published during their introduction, these MOOCs were described as short modular courses that allow students to acquire foundational concepts and methods of other disciplines.USyds approach to MOOCs differs from that of other universities however,a fact which at times leaves their educational purpose ambiguous. A 2014 MIT study found that with access to a MOOC containing the content of the course, students who were the least prepared for a conventional unit of study were able to learn at the same rate as the rest of the cohort. This finding was regarded as exceptional, as unprepared students tend to learn slower than usual. It is this hybridisation of a digital format and a conventional lecture/tutorial format that has led to a more inclusive and engaging learning experience. However, many of USyds OLEs do not have this structure, and are instead standalone or purely digital. Furthermore, OLEs often prohibit students from further face-to-face study in the area for example, the data analysis course OLET1307 prohibits students from taking DATA1002, a face-to-face course that teaches data analysis.In comparison to other universities, USyd implements the Open Learning Environment rather ungracefully. The University of New South Wales (UNSW), for example, requires all undergraduates to complete a structured program in General Education, which consists of larger, substantial, and hybridised courses that are built around the idea of fostering one or two skills that would be of considerable use in solving general problems. For example, the Computing 1A course is described as a course for non-computing majors who want a solid introduction to programming, with the aim of using computers as part of some other discipline. Furthermore, many UNSW units have online courses embedded in them as learning tools, resembling the situation that the MIT study investigated.By contrast, USyds attempt to engage students with interdisciplinary knowledge is considerably less expansive. This is not only because it is new and limited, but also because the structure of the standalone MOOC system is inherently flawed in that completion is mandatory. In reality, leading standalone MOOC providers such as Coursera, edX and Xuetang () are successful precisely because they allow students to drop out. As David Pritchard, one of the researchers on the MIT study, highlights in a 2014 review, many students sign up for a MOOC only to see what a disciplinary field feels like before moving on, not wanting to pay for and sit through a several-week syllabus. By making OLEs mandatory, USyd has encouraged an unnatural learning process that makes students sit through a course outside their discipline in order to satisfy the 12cp threshold.Many students are confused as to why they have to take these flawed courses. In a thread on the /r/usyd subreddit, some students have asserted that OLEs are a clever way to save money and time for the university. While the emphasis on standalone online courses lends weight to this theory, it remains unclear what the University is attempting to do with these courses. In its current state, the implementation of MOOCs has been heavy-handed and in opposition to current online course trends. Presently, it stands to replace the option of exploring other disciplinary fields through traditional elective units, all without the benefits of a hybrid, open environment. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As the Gilets Jaunes movement continues to threaten the neoliberal status quo in France, a political revolution has lived and died in its former colony: Haiti. The spark of this electrifying new political movement has invigorated tensions among both Haitian elites and imperialist actors like the United States. However, unlike other acts of American meddling, the recent Haitian uprising was linked to another illegal assault on a sovereign state: Venezuela. Haiti has both defied and been dominated by the United States. Recently, after the ousting of prominent Haitian national-liberation figures such as Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a comprador bourgeoisie class has risen again. As revealed by the Clinton email leaks, ex-Interim Haiti Recovery Commission Bill Clinton (supported by ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Haitian elite) used the devastation of the January 2010 Haitian earthquake to their advantage. One such intervention in Haitis 2010 democratic elections was the excluding the most popular political party from the ballot, the social-democratic Fanmi Lavalas. As a result, the following election had the lowest voter turnout in decades, with over three-quarters not attending, perhaps out of protest: citizens wouldnt vote without a right to legitimately choose. Thousands protested the sham elections, alongside the poor social conditions exacerbated by the earthquake. Following this, former singer the charismatic Michel Martelly rose to power as a US-backed stooge in a weak attempt to hold popular support.Ever since, social unrest has been commonplace in Haiti, with increased corruption, economic uncertainty and disease, Martellys protg, current President Jovenel Moise later rose to power, bringing with him connections to Haitis elite echelons. Last July saw a disastrous government shut down in the wake of an announced fuel hike. Upheaval by Haitians saw the swift resignation of the prime-minister, yet no justice for an autocratic reign of mismanagement and economic hardship to be found.In the first week of February, two weeks of protests shut the country down. Businesses, schools and workplaces were closed, flights cancelled, and security alerts to tourists and aid workers became constant.Nonetheless, rallying was disorganised, with no particular party or area acting as the locus of anti-government activity. The death toll is still unclear. 78 prisoners have been let free amidst the chaos, with the local media and American media using the chaos and the violence to spin the riot as an outburst of gang violence.Haiti was granted $4.3 billion dollars (in oil and favourable credit terms) by Venezuela to further the development of the Haitian economy. These funds became known as the PetroCaribe fund. This camaraderie makes sense: both social-democrat Hugo Chvez in Venezuela, and Aristide in Haiti were victims of multiple coup attempts. In 2008, the PetroCaribe fund became a key factor in keeping Haiti economically afloat, at a time where oil was selling at $100 dollars a barrel. However, the fundinitially intended for the building of public schools, hospitals and roadswas ultimately misspent by Martelly and Moise. Likewise, chants of Kot kb PetroCaribe a? echoed throughout Port au Prince last monthwhere is the PetroCaribe money?The calls for Moises resignation are rooted in his submission to United States policy demands. 2017 sanctions against the Maduro government made it impossible to pay the PetroCaribe oil bill, costing the Venezuelan government billions in assets, and Haitians a social safety net. In a remarkable and spontaneous uprising that lacked structure, a sense of solidarity against the victims of United States expansionist policy, anger against internal elites working against national interest, and a call for adequate social reform united the working people of two suffering nations.This disarray, however, may have been for the worst whilst a testament to cross-cultural community against the forces of capital and military power, Moise has refused to step down. Police crackdowns have followed the riots in the last week, and the death toll is again unknown. Business has started again in Haiti, but it remains to be seen if it is business as usual. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Michaela Coels authentically crafted I May Destroy You follows a womans journey to uncover what happened on the night she was sexually assaulted, raising the question for survivors of sexual assault: how does one carry such trauma? Receiving glowing recommendations across the world from esteemed writers, its easy to see why from the moment the first episode plays, this story needs to be told.I May Destroy You follows the story of Arabella, a young writer. One morning, she wakes up with a hazy memory of being sexually assaulted. Unable to place where it happened or who the perpetrator was, Arabella sets out to piece together the events leading up to the assault. What makes this story authentic is its nuanced depiction of the experience, thoughts, and emotions of sexual assault survivors. Often, survivors are placed in one of two boxes: the vigilante who seeks justice at whatever cost, or the reserved, hopeless survivor two stigmas rooted in the toxicity of patriarchal perspectives. However, Coel challenges these depictions through the non-linear aspect of Arabellas journey to healing. Arabellas characterisation is complex, unable to be placed neatly into either of those cliches. From Arabellas denial and self-destructive spiral, to her use of the power of writing to speak out against the injustice she faced, Coel demonstrates why we need more stories that draw from reality.I May Destroy You is handled with care and grace. Coel uses her writing to represent sexual assault survivors and raise how forms of bigotry affect the way survivors are seen and heard. The story of the character Kwame reveals how male sexual assault survivors are often silenced by toxic masculinity. Kwame, a gay, black man, is assaulted by another man, but homophobia and toxic masculinity informs how Kwame isnt believed by the police or his friends. Kwame and Arabella have vastly different experiences. Arabella finds comfort in sisterhood, attending support groups and finding solidarity within the arms of her friends. On the other hand, Kwame suffers in silence, being told by the police that his experience is invalid. The audience watches Kwame as he suffers in isolation and recoils into denial, an unfortunate reality of many survivors.As we watch Arabella respond to her friends disclosures of their experiences with assault, we see reactions borne out of internalised misogyny, making her character unlikeable at times. Through flashbacks, we see that Arabella, as a teenager, resorted to schoolyard bullying tactics to victim blame a classmate, after she accused one of Arabellas friends of sexual assault. It is this imperfect aspect of Arabellas character that the true effect of internalised misogyny is revealed. While watching this problematic aspect of Arabellas character is unsettling for viewers, it further reiterates the complexities of internalized misogyny, and the inherent biases that exist within us. This further echoes the raw honesty within Coels writing, that makes I May Destroy You more than just a television series, but a tool of education.Despite this shows groundbreaking artistic representation of toxic masculinity, misogyny, and racism to explore the nuances of sexual assault, I May Destroy You has yet to receive the accolades it deserves. This years Golden Globes was nothing but disappointing for the show, receiving zero nominations for the powerful story telling of Coel, or the stellar acting of the cast. Yet, Emily in Paris, a mediocre series set around a young marketing executive with a predominantly white cast, gained Golden Globe nominations for Best TV Series and Best Actress in a TV series. This reflects the tone-deafness of society that Coel raises through her series, and the need for an intersectional approach to social justice issues, to understand how various systems of oppression interact with one another. Furthermore, it emphasises why we need to engage with writers such as Coel, as a means for understanding the personal biases we inherently hold.I May Destroy You is a necessity to watch in order to understand the weight sexual assault survivors carry, and the need for us all to deconstruct how our internal biases have affected the way we see and believe survivors. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Curled up on the couch with my parents and two dogs after a Sunday roast, we settle in for our weekly viewing of Upper Middle Bogan.As the title track (Comin Home Baby by Mel Torm) accompanies Bess transformation when she visits her newly discovered extended family, I ponder why exactly the drive from one home to another necessitates such a change.My family home, where Ill probably spend a large part of my twenties, clearly delineates between each of its members. My room, distinct from shared areas, is a source of respite when exam season rears its ugly head. There is the lounge room where my mother indulges in her overdramatic medical shows, and tucked away at the back is my fathers gaming room. Not so communal after all.Theres certainly no room for my extended family, who visit for an afternoon but travel back to their homes by nightfall. While Im grateful for the calm that allows me to type an essay at the kitchen table, I recall the gentle rumble of my mothers childhood home, with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles breezing through at any moment. The plates clanging loudly as they pass from one hand to another, spoons rattling in coffee mugs on Saturday afternoons.England, I suppose, is to blame. As always.Colonial roots of our family treeIn pre-industrial England, extended families would toil together on large plots of land, the many children running underfoot while older generations taught the younger how to till the soil and sow seeds. Its no surprise that the Industrial Revolution, alongside all its other disruptions, saw the extended family fragment into much smaller parts.Younger generations no longer worked in their ancestral homes, instead travelling to work in factories. They would marry in their late twenties, raise only as many children as they could afford to feed, and lived in small homes. Their children were raised not to join any community but to continue the cycle of labour, with education given for the sole purpose of a continued return on investment.Thus, the nuclear family was born: a core unit of two parents and their children. This family was young and mobile, trading long-standing local roots for the ability to relocate to wherever their labour was needed most.Homemaking and moneymakingBut theres always a price to pay. Nuclear families are far less resilient against disruptions, on macro and micro levels. If a child gets sick, suddenly someones entire day (usually the mothers) is derailed to take care of them. If a relationship breaks down, extended family members find it hard to fill any cracks.Caring for sick family members is just the beginning of the immense burden this family structure places on women. Created when a womans sole role was reproductive labour, the nuclear family model, and the societies built upon it, has struggled to adapt to a world where both parents work. Women were simply expected to do more to perform their traditional duties at home as well as playing a role (full- or part-time) in the workforce. This model has proven to be unsustainable, as most Western governments struggle to find equitable models for childcare, parental leave and the necessary rigours of childbirth and child rearing show.Throughout history women in extended families tended to take on the bulk of the domestic labour. Perhaps in an age of relaxed gender roles, a less restrictive family structure could lighten the load.What were missingThis all goes without mentioning the classism and colonialism embedded in the nuclear family. Even in the Victorian Era, the bourgeoisie, who reaped the rewards of extended family fragmentation, were shocked by the breakdown of traditional morals. The call to protect hearth and home only grew as the working class fragmented itself to sustain the capitalist system.In Australian history in particular, this originally descriptive term has become prescriptive a way of ensuring immigrants and First Nations people assimilate. In my own family, I mourn the loss of my Greek heritage, which was never taught to me by my grandparents who lived hours away. Within Indigenous communities, children are still stolen from their complex and fulfilling kinship networks, and forced into unfamiliar and unsatisfying nuclear families. Another method of colonial control, the nuclear family looms large and foreboding in our social structure.The working class has had its greatest gains when organising transcends the constructed barriers of the nuclear family. Striking workers support each other in clear rejection of the wests radical individualism, exacerbated by the atomisation of traditional family structures. Its clear that nuclear families serve the bourgeoisie in ensuring a fragmented and disjointed workforce, reducing an individual parents ability to organise and denying individuals the comfort and support of their extended family.There are as many ways to configure a family as there are families. Being raised in a cross-cultural family has exposed me to both nuclear and extended models. Most families have the potential to be a part of a larger group. So why deny ourselves the closeness and support they offer? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With Matt Reeves Batman releasing next year and the Snyder cut of Justice League renewing interest among fans for his version of the DC Cinematic Universe, it seems that Batman fans are spoilt for choice nowadays.This isnt even mentioning other on-screen representations of the superhero, with The Lego Batman Movie, Christopher Nolans Dark Knight trilogy, an Oscar nominated spin-off in Joker, and various animated straight to DVD flicks.However, in almost all of these films, we see a rotation of the same few Batman villains Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, and all the rest. While these characters are fun, inventive, well adapted, and cool in their design, the average comic book fan is reeling at the number of opportunities and story potential that the filmmakers are missing by not plumbing the depths of Batmans pantheon of rogues and ruffians. More than this, regular movie-going audiences are getting tired of seeing the Joker on screen for the four billionth time, and will begin to wonder if this is all that the source material can offer.For those curious, let me introduce you to some of the best unadapted villains that DC Comics has to offer our caped crusader.Calendar Man: A silly name, sure, but what this character lacks in title, he makes up for in gimmick. Committing holiday themed crimes, this villain would be perfect for the worlds greatest detective. Imagine a Zodiac or Memories of Murder inspired thriller, set over the course of several months, or even years, with an aging hero disillusioned at the hope of catching a killer who only rears their ugly head but once a month.Clayface: Unthinkable in the mid-nineties when CGI was in its infancy, nowadays the idea of a giant shape shifting monster doesnt sound so crazy. An identity thriller, perhaps? Murder mystery with a killer constantly changing what they look like, making identifying them impossible. Hollywood, I am awaiting your call.Poison Ivy: While this femme fatale has already made her big screen debut, with international fears of climate change, and distrust in corporations and billionaires, it seems all the more relevant to adapt the character once again. Perhaps a moral battle, as Batman must confront his own influences on the planet as a billionaire tech bro himself. Will our Dark Knight become an eco-fascist or is it too hard to teach an old bat new tricks?Firefly: Fire is cool and epic, and he has a jetpack AND a flamethrower! Those are two instances of fire in just one character, what a steal!These, my friend, are just a small handful of what the comics have to offer. But why, you may be asking, have these characters never been featured in any of the millions of Batman related media properties from recent years? My theory: the grime and realism of superhero movies of the past two decades have meant that these filmmakers and producers do not want to embrace some of the more bombastic, outlandish and zany aspects of comic books, out of fear of alienating audiences. This is especially prescient in the films of DC.However, if these studios want to break from their stagnant pool of edgy Mark Millar stans they need to embrace the comics roots. Audiences have already grown tired of the drab, depressing greyness of superhero flicks, and are starting to embrace the more goofy ideas to come out of comics. Just look at the recent output of Marvel Studios with weird departures from the norm like Guardians of the Galaxy, Wandavision or Shazam!. But if the success of Todd Philips Joker or Zack Snyders Justice League is anything to go by, it seems audiences arent done just yet.All I want is Egghead to be the main villain of a film. Is it too much to ask? It doesnt take a hard boiled detective to crack the case as to why hes the most eggcellent rogue out of dozens of villains. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Since my girlfriend moved to Chatswood in early 2020, Ive spent a lot of time driving on the Pacific Highway. After about a month of visits, I spotted it for the first time, on the service station somewhere between Gore Hill Cemetery and the Mowbray Road intersection. Alongside BPs literally greenwashed liveries, and the somehow perpetually faded Wild Bean Cafe sign, it sits almost innocuously. White text on a black field: DAVID JONES FOOD. Since then, I have not gone more than a day without thinking about it. The serif font shines like a beacon, attempting to eke any modicum of prestige out of an establishment which is anything but.The Pacific Highway is very much in the second-class of Sydneys traffic arteries, too narrow to attract the excellent vibes and iconic bead shops of the big dogs like Parramatta Road. But this break in the monotony of the car dealerships immediately raises its status in my mind. As someone raised on the Lower North Shore, Ive had a first-hand view of the areas pathological desire to make everything as vainly bourgeois as humanly possible, but come on! Its literally a David Jones servo! This absurd extension of every North Shore stereotype is beautiful and hilarious to behold.What this place has on other giants of the North Shore Kitsch genre (personal favourites include a Cremorne dog supplies shop earnestly called Dogue, and the completely inexplicable brokerage storefront in McMahons Point), is that it occupies a liminal space of Sydney. While it is officially called BP Artarmon, its side of the highway is actually in Lane Cove North. Its existence is so reality-breakingly strange that it cannot be contained by the authority of the local government. The servo is essentially on an island, where the Pacific Highway becomes an overpass for a few hundred meters. The only other shop there is a KFC. If it wasnt in the middle of Sydney the location would scream truckstop. Yet even this concrete slab seems to have somehow absorbed the culture, environment, and general aura of the surrounding area. In the same way that Darwins finches changed their beaks to better suit the environment of each Galpagos island, so too did this BP grow a David Jones sign to survive in its environment north of the harbour.In reality, of course, the David Jones servo did not spring from the font of nature only the folly of mankind could have wrought such a sick creation into being. This is why BP Artarmon haunts my every waking moment. Someone, somewhere, thought of this. Presumably, David Jones, or their South African parent company, were concerned that their Food division was performing sub-optimally. To rectify this underperformance, there was a meeting where I can only assume that a cocaine-addled wannabe-Don Draper gave some speech about how modern people are always on the go, and how in the year 2020, the outmoded department store has to come to them. They turned a placard around which just said: David Jones Servo. The boardroom broke into rapturous applause, before calling an executive assistant to bring in a bottle of Mot and leaving for an early lunch because by God was that idea a winner.I cannot speak to whether David Jones Food runs this kind of scheme in-house or through a marketing company. What I do know is the person who gave that speech is probably an executive paid north of $150k per year. This completely sickens me. Why the fuck is no one paying me six-figures to have bullshit ideas like that on a five year contract? I could pull random combinations of brands and services out of my ass all damn day, and if David Jones Servo is the standard for what gets greenlit in corporate Australia, then what the fuck am I doing at uni right now?My girlfriend is moving out of Chatswood next week, so I figured Id finally go inside and see what there is to see. Half the store has the usual road stop fare snacks, soft drinks, and a counter for mediocre sausage rolls and coffee. The other half, however, has pre-packaged meals garnished with quinoa and daikon radish, jars of chilli jam and compotes, and at the counter where youd expect breath mints there are 50-gram packets of dried mango sold for $4 a pop. There is no marked divide in the interior design, as the walls have a minimalist white panelling with a black trim, with little signage. The bread rack serves as a kind of border zone four ersatz-wooden shelves on a metal frame, the top two occupied by Sonoma artisanal fare like rye spelt sourdough, the bottom two by Tip Top white loaves. I buy a carton of chocolate milk (I pick Oak over the premium Coach House Dairy) just to feel like I took some kind of souvenir. As I pull onto the highway, I immediately regret not seeing what the toilets looked like. I suppose I could go back, but Im afraid that will only yield further unanswerable questions. Id like to think that Im ready to move on. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> May 24 heralded the 80th birthday of musician Bob Dylan. His eclectic incorporation of references and the constant stylistic shift of his music since his first self-titled album in 1962, has created an expansive oeuvre; one that leaves his latest album almost unrecognisable from his first. Dylans debut (and critically unrecognised) album featured covers of traditional folk songs, his quivering howls and rich raspy voice pulsated by characteristic thick and heavy strumming, an idiosyncrasy which Dylan himself proclaimed as his primary originality during the early stages of his career. The feature lacking in the album was any evidence of a consistent song-writing talent, with only two of thirteen songs written by Dylan. This was quickly proven and has continued to be so for the indefinitely conclusive 58 years of his career.The Freewheelin Bob Dylan became his first widely critically acclaimed album and marked the transition to complete songwriting. With this and his following album (The Times They Are a-Changin) Dylan earned the title as the voice of a generation, a categorisation vehemently admonished by Dylan. Within the next several years, Dylans success and popularity snowballed. Like all of those achieving excellence beyond the scope of comprehension, any stylistic transition becomes immediately inadmissible to a certain audience, a slanderous act. No longer is this same originality gratified, but rather their degrading experimentation is labelled as arrogantly adulterous. This is especially the case when Dylans shift from acoustic to electric abruptly occurred in 1965 with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.This was a monumental transition not just for Dylan, but also for the music industry. It brought the declination (or rather the resubmerging) of folk music ideals, particularly the method of the communal melody, allowing for a mimicry of tune but subjectively expressive lyrics. There was no need for this method of creation now that melodies were individualistic, and lyrics could be implemented that were just as poetically potent, the poignancy of the words seeming to brighten the harmonious melodies. Lyrics were a focus of interest for audiences, particularly those discontented with their leaders, parents, and the mundanity of war, who heard Dylans lyrics as a brass trumpet cynically critiquing and redefining the world for a truth that seemed obvious, yet undefinable. Yet these lyrics were brutally honest and sought no popular faction with which they could be categorised; they were not lyrics written for popularity but an unbiased reflection on the society he saw. The only justifiable conclusion would be to say he opposed pointless death not exactly a political stance. In the San Francisco Press Conference of 1965, Dylan stated that if drafted to war, he would act with what needed to be done. The ambiguity of this statement certainly does not constitute an entire labelling of his political motivations and obligations. Regardless, these assumptions have nevertheless continued.Dylans career was consistently successful, with further albums that resulted in a menagerie of references absorbed unrestrainedly and without exclusion (which would prove a less-than-helpful attribute in the late 70s and early 80s). This culmination eventually resulted in his latest album Rough and Rowdy Ways, backed by Dylans self-reflections and the pensive melancholic observation which epitomises the tone of these works. It would be impossible to guarantee this album will be liked, the corroded rust of his voice possibly not preferable for a generation deprived of vocal inadequacies. It is not the continued success or acclaims won by Dylan (such as the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016) but rather his ability to constantly perform, tour or even falter so that we may appreciate his talent all the more. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When one traces cinemas history, they can come to understand it as a history made up of repetitions, recurrences and cycles. There are the obvious cycles such as genre cycles, or star cycles the waves of Western films that occurred in the 30s and then were reinvigorated in the 70s, or everyone gushing at the big return of a star after years in obscurity. On another level, there is just the pure repetition of films themselves, with remakes and reboots occurring since the dawn of the medium. Yes, in some ways, the movement of cinema is much like the film reel itself, going round and round and roundIn What is Digital Cinema?, Lev Manovich points out that there are other cycles not as easy to define as those interested in genres or stars, ones in which technology is bound up in the theoretical, and cinema moves backwards and forwards through no conscious decision of its own. Usually, it is brought about by some innovation in the medium of film, and it is through this very innovation, that we find ourselves ironically right back where we started.The most eloquent of these well call looping cinema, where cinemas origins in the zoetrope meant it began as a cyclical form of storytelling. These depicted short little scenes of repeating actions a couple kissing, an athlete walking, a ball bouncing operated by the user, via a crank. Beginning with the small scale zoetrope, Edisons kinetoscope operated in a similar fashion. When technology advanced and greater narrative opportunities were available, film reels eventually had a definitive beginning and end, the film was no longer about the pure attraction of seeing motion, and actually told compelling stories. Through an even greater technological advancement over a century later, the mobile phone and the proliferation of social media facilitated applications like Vine and TikTok. As a result, looping cinema has made a comeback. One might be led to wonder if this series of innovations, which only lead right back to where they started, is an evolution, or devolution.Where my interests lie, however, is not in the zoetrope and its history of cyclical cinema, but in the magic lantern, a device which highlights the cinema as one not based in spectacle, but in privacy. When one thinks of cinema, they often think of it as a communal activity, with a fixed spatial location, such as the cinema, becoming the converging point in which the movie-going public huddles together to watch a film. Filmmakers and media figures were decrying the closure of cinemas in 2020 as a result of COVID, claiming that movies must be viewed on the big screen. On the contrary, cinemas origins are much more humble, interpersonal and isolated.The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name lanterna magica, is a 17th century invention by Christiaan Huygens that uses candlelight to project images painted on glass. These images depicted various scenes, and through the use of handcranks or motors, could be slightly animated looping like those early forms of cinema. Due to the fact that electricity hadnt been invented yet, the projection power of the magic lantern was limited, only able to depict what was on the glass within a small confined space. From this, the audience for these magic lantern shows were too confined, and would often be limited to the members of a household. Here we see cinemas origins as a domestic medium, housebound and limited, or perhaps even savoured, by the people with the most personal connections.As technology improved and inventors were able to harness the power of electricity, the projecting potential of the magic lantern grew exponentially. From this, the spaces where the magic lantern could be used grew as well, and so did the audiences. They began to be used in a variety of ways, from aiding in theatrical shows and phantasmagorias as special effects, to even telling stories on their own, like when Charles Dickens had his works adapted to this burgeoning medium. The magic lantern, and the seeds of cinema, were now being associated with large crowds and big projection spaces.Fast forward to now, where television sets are in almost every household, and streaming services have confined film viewing to the home. Cinemas around the world are closing due to their inability to compete with the mediums return to domesticity. One can see this as a sign of the times, of the failings of film and the monopoly these services have on our entertainment. But it can also be viewed as a natural extension of cinemas constantly cyclical history. Much like how two people might have huddled around the glowing zoetrope centuries ago, or people sitting close to one another in a living room marvelling at the wonders of the magic lantern, so too do my partner and I curl up together on the couch to watch a movie on our laptop. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ponds White beauty pale white or pinkish white, you choose.Those are the closing words of Ponds 2007 advertising campaign for its White Beauty line, featuring household Bollywood names such as Priyanka Chopra, Neha Dhupia, and Saif Ali Khan.The campaign incurred significant backlash on social media, sparked by the death of George Floyd and global protests against racism, and , forcing the conglomerate to rebrand its Fair and Lovely moisturiser to Glow and Lovely. In the same month, Johnson & Johnson similarly released a statement regarding its Neutrogena and Clean & Clear offerings across Asia.[S]ome product names or claims on our Neutrogena and Clean & Clear dark-spot reducer products represent fairness or white as better than your own unique skin tone, Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to BBC News at the time. This was never our intention healthy skin is beautiful skin.Subsequently, Indias Ministry of Health and Family Welfare made amendments to advertising regulations to prohibit promotions of fairness or skin tone alterations in Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Amendment Bill 2020.Such systemic racism, however, is by no means limited to Ponds or Neutrogena but is especially prevalent in the cosmetics industry more broadly. Foundation shades consistently fail to account for darker shades for instance, Diors Forever Skin Glow foundation stops at shade no. 3.5N in Hong Kong, a light medium-tan shade, whereas in Australia, the brand caters up to 9N a beautifully deep mahogany colour.Indeed, in 2018, an informal survey by Glamour Magazine found that 80% of women struggled to find their colour match. Similarly, Nielsens annual reports noted that African-American consumers spent $7.5 billion on beauty products of which 80% were invested in brands that specifically sell products targeting darker women.Thus, the words on Unilevers Fair & Lovely are a tragically modern representation of the pervasiveness of a Eurocentric beauty standard across Asia. The incentives behind such representations are both social and practical. Indeed, a paper titled Beautiful White: an illumination of Asian skin-whitening culture, Elysia Pan writes about the connection between a porcelain complexion and class concerns: The ruling class stayed indoors conducting business and enjoying leisure, and thus was less exposed to the suns darkening rays.This Chinese projection onto the pale-skinned outsiders who came to visit their country is a type of curious Occidentalism where Western bodies were fetishized.Such attitudes, however, were not limited to the 20th century advent of an industrialised beauty industry. In the 15th century, a poem called Khc ht hi sen (Lotus-gathering song) by Ngo Chi Lan, a noted Vietnamese feudal court poet, captured the popular fervour for fairness:Lotus perfume wafts near and far,How bucolic the girl among the abundant flowers,Her hair beautiful in the breeze,Her snowy skin emitting its own alluring fragrance.Evoking serene imagery, Ngo mythologises the white, fair to conjure an ideal Vietnamese female body. Ngos poem encapsulates the elite idealism of countless generations of not only Vietnamese but Asian women. A customary saying in Chinese , which translates to one white can cover up a hundred kinds of ugliness associates fairness with moral rectitude and consolidates the disdain for darker complexions. All of this necessitates a concerted shift away from Eurocentric beauty standards across Asia and globally.But Eurocentrism, in this context, refers equally to mythologisation of both the white as well as the bronze. In 1923, Coco Chanel took ownership of the accidental sunburn. Then, across the West, sunbathing became the norm, commonly associated with wealth. Physical exercise and the outdoors inextricably linked to a lack of financial worries from the 1950s onwards think Cannes or Love Island.Hence, these white and bronze mythologies paradoxically comprise two opposing, yet fundamentally flawed ideals. Both are rooted in a casualised condescension towards working women, both promising an assurance of exclusivity, elitism and superiority above all others.Fairness, however, represents a particularly racist detachment from ones reality because it offers an illusory promise of change to ones complexion. The promises of products such as Ponds Fair & Lovely cream induces a hopeless pursuit of status. At worst, fair mythology has been responsible for lasting damages such as Kanebos use of Rhododenol in 2013 a quasi-drug ingredient in the companys whitening skincare range, causing users to suffer leukoderma. Furthermore, in the context of Asia, fair condescension disproportionately affects those working in rural settings across Southeast Asia, being exposed more routinely to the outdoors than others. This sentiment is perhaps best encapsulated in Madeleine Marshs narration on the history of beauty:If youve got a touch of sunburn or heaven forfend, a freckle you were a member of the working class.Although the past two decades has witnessed the emergence of makeup owned and curated by black women such as Pat McGrath Labs or blackIUp leading a transformation away from the pale facade of beauty, these names are prohibitively expensive. McGraths Skin Fetish foundation alone costing $100 for one bottle. Without systemic pressure against the beauty worlds implicit disdain for working-class women and men, deeper shades will remain subjected to a racialised market that determines the availability of foundation shades according to demographics and an illusory fair mythology. Tan, mahogany, and black skin must be respected for the humanity that these colours embody, rather than taken as to elevate one all others. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Beans? Citrus Peel? Seaweed? In a dessert? Let me introduce you to the mung bean soup. Directly translated from Mandarin or Cantonese, the dish is actually called green bean sand, pronounced l du sh. A sweet soup is called tng shu in Mandarin, and directly translates to mean sugar water. They are of Cantonese speciality/origin, but are now widely enjoyed around all places in Asia. Usually traditional dessert soups will feature ingredients with medicinal properties or principles that are beneficial for health, skin, elements, etc.In Chinese medicine, there is hot and coolness; which are properties that can be attributed to every food and drink. For example, mandarins, mangoes, lychees and fried food are all considered hot, whereas coolness is found in herbal jelly, green leafy vegetables, cucumbers and watermelon. They have an affect the balance of our internal heal and energy (qi). Thus, this principle is often applied to reduce the risk of changing seasons, extreme temperature environments or illnesses. This is a very basic and vague version of a complex principle- all information has been gathered from different family members and some brief readings.Back to the mung bean soup- it is considered to have cooling properties like reducing heat rashes, clearing toxins and reducing other ailments that occur when you body is too hot. This could be a result of extremely hot weather, or just consuming too many foods with hot properties. The soup is usually served cold during the summer, but one should be wary that a body should not be subject to too many cold liquids or foods. Therefore, it is still enjoyed hot. I recommend trying it freshly-made, hot and then decide what youd like to do with the rest.There are so many East-Asian desserts that are based around this magnificent mung bean! This is a really special recipe of a beloved food I have been eating since my childhood. Usually, a big pot would be cooked and stored in the fridge to be reheated throughout the course of one or two days. The basic recipe structure has been verbally passed down from my paternal grandma, but edited, modified and written by me.Recipe makes a large pot, enough to share between 6-8 people.EquipmentA large pot (Minimum 5L capacity. We use a ceramic stockpot)A ceramic spoon (to place in pot while soup is boiling away- said to prevent sticking to bottom/burning as well as preventing the soup to boil over)Knife, ladle, etc.Ingredients200g dried mung beans (these are most commonly found in the dried food section of asian grocery stores)25g dried red beans (not kidney, but adzuki- approximately three handfuls to add hot-ness and balance the cooling properties of the mung bean)50g white or brown rice (approximately three sparse handfuls, for a smoother soup)2L of waterOptional:30- 60g of cane sugar (in block-form, depending on sweetness preference. Can be substituted with ~ cup or 100g of brown/raw sugar.)2 pieces dried tangerine peel (if available)2 sheets of dried kombu, soaked in water, then sliced into thinner stripsA few stalks (with leaves) of common rue, commonly known as herb-of-grace. (If available, it is hard to find but we have them growing in the backyard. It is a medicinal herb which provides a special fragrance to this soup)You can add pandan leaves, coconut milk, or sago if preferred.These ingredients are more popular in South-East Asian areas like Malaysia and Vietnam. However, this recipe has more traditional Guangdong/Canton region flavours.Cooking InstructionsWash beans, rice and seaweed. Set the rice aside.Soak beans and seaweed for 1-2 hours (Optional step! Only do if you have the time).Measure out and put water in the pot. Allow it to come to a boil on high heat.Meanwhile, slice seaweed into 2-5 cm strips.When the water has come to a boil, place the beans, rice, seaweed and dried tangerine peel with the ceramic spoon into the pot.Let it boil on high heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.Turn off and let it rest in the pot, lid closed, for half an hour. (Optional, go straight to Step 9 if in a rush)Bring it to a boil on high-heat again.Then allow the soup to simmer on low-medium heat for half an hour. Stir occasionally. The beans are ready when they have bloomed, or have opened up/broken down. The longer you cook, the thicker of a soup it becomes.Before turning off the heat, place the sugar and common rue. Stir till sugar has dissolved.Leave the lid on and allow the soup to rest for a further half an hour.Please serve and enjoy!If you are in a rush and feeling lazy, just wash the ingredients and throw it all in the pot, and let it cook on low-medium heat for 40 minutes! A must-try dish! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Growing up as a first-generation Chinese-Australian, one of the ways that I connected with my elderly Chinese-speaking grandparents was through stories. My grandfather, who was gruff and said very little, would often sit me on his knee and put Journey to the West on the dusty, old box-TV, which followed the adventures of the mischievous monkey king Sun Wukong and his companions. At bedtime, my grandmother, a warm woman with golden laughter and eyes that crinkled with mirth, would regale me with Chinese childrens stories filled with talking rabbits, monkeys and turtles. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, she would hold me and tell me to look at the moon. Look, she would say. Do you see the rabbit in the moon? It was through these stories, that I began to dream about the world.Like many other Chinese-Australians, I find myself in my adult years to be estranged from my heritage and family history. In an attempt to remedy this, I have recently taken an interest in Chinese mythology. I have always been fascinated by the way that humanity makes sense of a nonsensical world through stories, and these ancient Chinese stories have become an enchanting lens through which I have come to understand queerness as something that has always existed; something that is intrinsic to our world as the air we breathe. Despite centuries of colonialism serving to reinforce an atmosphere of queerphobia; be that through the imposition of gender binaries or attempts to maintain ethical standards of regulating sexual behaviour, queer people persevere, just as we have for millennia.In my late teenage years, I realised that I wasnt straight. From my first growing pains of curiosity and questioning, stories have laid themselves down as stepping stones on my journey towards self-acceptance of my queer identity. I have found refuge in many fictions I empathised with Nico Di Angelos unrequited crush on Percy Jackson, cried with The Perks of Being A Wallflowers Patrick and chose to believe that Liana and Alexa were actually cottagecore lesbians in Barbie and the Diamond Castle. Their love and struggles have whispered to me, telling me that Im not alone. But in a recent rude awakening, Ive realised that many of the stories that Ive loved have been very white; a direct result of European imperialism, in which only whiteness (and that which whiteness desires) is considered valuable. As a queer Chinese woman, I grapple with unique dimensions of patriarchy and queerphobia that are coloured by race.In an attempt to remedy the internalised Western exceptionalism that has saturated every atom of my existence, I have sought out Chinese mythology and old stories; lush, incandescent islands of possibility in a sea of quiet despair.In contemporary China, patriarchy, queerphobia, and Western imperialism etch themselves onto queer lives in new and painful ways. But despite its prevalence, intolerance towards queerness does not have roots in ancient Chinese traditions. Rather, homophobia arrived with the Christian values of colonial missionaries from the West. To paint a brief history: academics such as Bret Hinsch find that homophobia became established in China during the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China as a result of Westernisation efforts, shaping contemporary Chinese attitudes and social values that are intolerant toward queerness. Thus emerged a 20th century in which homophobia was enshrined in law, with homosexuality being banned in China until 1997. Up until 2001, homosexuality was also considered an official mental illness.Though the iron fist of institutional homophobia has been loosened to an extent, the stigmas around queerness remain in contemporary Chinese social values. But much to the horror of conservatives today, male homosexuality was widely practiced by the nobility and normalised in Ancient China; a fact that is well documented in ancient stories, folklore and mythology. Before Timothee Chalamet, there was the Zhou dynasty-era story of the Bitten Peach; a romance between Duke Ling of Wey and a beautiful man named Mizi Xia. In the Chinese pantheon of deities, the rabbit god Tu Er Shen oversaw the romantic and sexual relationships between men, and the celestial Xian were known to choose young men as lovers.But China, from ancient dynasties to today, has always been patriarchal. The consequence of it manifests in a clear absence of sapphic tales and stories of women loving women. This is not to say that there are no recounts of lesbianism and sapphic love in Ancient China and its mythology. One afternoon, I stumbled across a legend that tells of a mystical island known as Womens Kingdom inhabited only by women. This island cannot be reached by ship, but travellers have occasionally found themselves whisked away by whirlwinds and stranded on this island. This wondrous account of a microcosm in which women are free to pursue their sapphic dreams and yearnings, has lingered wistfully in my mind.The stories of sapphic relationships in Ancient China sing to me like swan songs; in The Fragrant Companion, the lovers Cui Jianyun and Cao Yuhua are forced to marry the same man, or else be forced apart. In assurance to her lover, Cui Jianyun utters a despairing wish: Let you and I be husband and wife in the next life. In Chinese folklore, heterosexual polygamy emerges as a common theme; women who are kept apart by patriarchal society have no choice but to marry men. Rarely have sapphic lovers been allowed to exist outside of the shadow of a man. Yet, their romances have often been described as being deeper than the connection between husband and wife. A love that burns so brightly, I wonder how they dont feel that the very air has been sucked out of their lungs.Riven by time and oceans, my experiences as a queer Chinese woman are worlds apart from these women whose yearnings are immortalised in folklore. Unlike Cui Jianyun and her lover, many of the complications I face are the legacy of Western imperialism, especially when it comes to coming out. For my Chinese family, tradition has been a constant in their lives for decades; a precious heirloom that they have guarded fiercely and proudly. Change is not something that they bow easily or comfortably to. Though coming out is often viewed as a singularly important moment of self-liberation, for queer people of colour, coming out to your family isnt always an option.Entering university, away from the prying eyes of old school mates who had known me since I was eleven years old, was my first step towards self-liberation. In my second year, Id decided to take a Gender and Cultural Studies class as an elective. In one lecture, the lecturer talked about queerness in modern Asia, addressing the legal recognition of same-sex relationships in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Of the three, only Taiwan had legalised gay marriage, but the binding act of marriage was not so important as what it represented; a commitment of kinship.The overarching conclusion of that week was that marriage wasnt necessarily the final destination of queer liberation. Weddings, like an act of coming out, are symbolic performances and public rituals for family and friends. The lecturer called this performance, in front of family and friends, coming home as opposed to coming out.When I talk about coming out, a memory of my dad driving me home from a protest for gay marriage always pops into my head. The conversation, like many of our conversations of late, grows tense and frustrating; my Cantonese is limited and queerness is not an easy topic for my conservative Dad to talk about.Women should marry men, and men should marry women. But I dont care about what all those people do, as long as its not my children.In the heat of the moment, I almost come out to him. I almost blurt out: But I like women. So how far are you willing to stand by your words?I didnt say it though. Because if I did, Dads threat would no longer live in the realm of the hypothetical. And despite everything, I want to cling to this limbo just a little longer.That memory lingers years later, when I am openly queer to my friends and to most people that know me. On sleepless nights, I sometimes lament what my life might have been if homophobia had never arrived on Chinese shores, if my family didnt clutch their homophobia so tightly. Dad is so proud of the millennia-long history of the Middle Kingdom I think it would shock him to learn just how queer that history is.On those nights, my thoughts often drift to Cui Jianyuns desperate wish: Let you and I be husband and wife in the next life. But I dont want to wait until my next life to be able to love. I want to be able to love in this one. In many ways, I am estranged from my family, as both a queer person and someone who grew up with little interest in my Chinese heritage. But rediscovering mythologies and stories from Ancient China has been a step towards making peace with myself in my entirety, and rediscovering something that I hadnt even realised had been stolen from me. And while Im not out to my family yet, I hope that one day I will be. I hope that one day, Ill be able to come home.A version of this article was originally published in 1978 The Sydney Arts Student Society Diverse Sex and Genders Journal (2020). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Praise flooded the internet as Brooke Blurton was announced as Australias next Bachelorette. She will be debuting later this year as the first Indigenous and openly bisexual Bachelorette, which means that, for the first time in any global Bachelor or Bachelorette franchise, it wont just be the opposite sex competing for her love.The Bachelor has long faced criticism for its misogynist portrayal of women competing for the attention of a man (this is, of course, with the marvellous exception of Megan Marx and Tiffany Scanlon ditching Richie to be with each other in 2016). The shows producers are notorious for undermining female friendship by plying women with alcohol and encouraging them to engage in petty fights. Group dates fuel competitiveness and unnecessary nastiness between female contestants, but are considered a winner for the ratings.Unsurprising reports suggest that producers purposefully endorse the jealousy-induced rants and trash talking of whomever wins the bachelors favour.The Bachelor franchise has failed time and time again when it comes to representing the LGBTQI+ community. In 2018, when Blurton debuted on Nick Cummins season of the show, her sexuality was exploited mercilessly for ratings. Trailers teased a big secret, and urgent revelation, only for the contestant to reveal her previous relationships with women. Blurton has since criticised how the producers edited this conversation, minimising her discussion on sexuality. Discourse around Blurtons sexuality wasnt that different between the women in the house. On an episode of Bachelor alumnus Abbie Chatfields podcast Its A Lot, Blurton stated that fellow contestants had coerced her into telling The Bachelor that she had dated women in the past. The season of Bachelor in Paradise that same year saw the show criticised for queer-baiting.As a Noongar Yamatji woman, Blurton will be the first Indigenous Bachelorette. Globally, The Bachelor series has lacked representation of people of colour. Across 41 seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in the US, only three seasons have featured POC stars. You may remember the 2018 meme of the American cast, in which every contestant featured the same blonde, ombre hair style. The show has faced its fair share of criticism for its lack of diversity amongst contestants. When people of colour are cast, theyre largely given little screen-time. 2020 Bachelor in Paradise star Niranga Amarasinghe was given comparatively little attention and spoke out about the racism he faced on set. In both of Blurtons previous appearances, she was the only Indigenous representation, and the show faced criticism for tokenism.Nevertheless, Blurtons casting is an important shift in the right direction for reality TV. The audience can only hope that the producers will represent Brooke without the homophobia and racism that have infiltrated previous seasons.In a statement to the press, Blurton said: If it makes people feel uncomfortable in any way, I really challenge them to think about why it does. Authentic representation of the LGBTIQ+ community is often lacking. Whilst entirely queer shows are critical, the reach of a primetime mainstream show like The Bachelor dramatically increases visibility.By removing the script, reality TV in particular has the potential to normalise non-heterosexual expressions of love. While it is often highly edited, and at times scripted, audiences still find themselves rooting for the authentic experiences that leak through the cracks. If were going to have to endure reality TV, then it should at least represent our lived experiences.It might seem a bit extreme to hail the upcoming Bachelorette season as a cultural breakthrough in queer inclusivity, but Blurtons debut is an indisputable win for LGBTQI+ representation in Australian mainstream media. With their questionable track record, only time will tell if the producers will positively represent queer experiences, or fall into their old habits. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are many things that provoke outrage about our current situation. The stripping of our civil liberties, the folly of the ruling classes, the indignity of having to suffer through socialising via Zoom. However, there is nothing that has disturbed me, that has provoked such thorough distaste and unease, that has well and truly fucked me off, as much as the USUs grocery box initiative.Its absurd! I am not entirely convinced that its not an elaborate joke. A Pulp foray into satire, perhaps. Sadly, its real. Much like the USUs cereal bar, which is also ridiculous, the grocery boxes are a product of an organisation run by a board of bourgeois idiots.Each box is a considerably more expensive exercise than buying its contents from the supermarket. The fruit in the Fruit Box, which the USU is selling for $50, can be purchased for $35 from Coles. The Butcher Box? $52.50 from Coles, compared to $65 from the USU. The products within the Pantry Pack and Veggie Pack can both be bought from Woolworths for half the price the USU is selling them. The Breakfast Box and USU X STAR Team Pasta Box are frivolities that most students cant afford to entertain.These are not even particularly upmarket items. The idea of paying $50 for a small assortment of stone fruits and a pineapple is outrageous. The Snack Pack hardly has the common decency to contain any good snacks. Who the fuck is paying $45 for Nutella and rice cakes?Certainly not students, most of whom have lost their jobs in the wake of the pandemic. Besides, there are much better grocery boxes available. Students well financed enough to afford such a grocery box would be better off buying from the multitude of local restaurants and cafes offering nicer, more reasonably priced options.Its insulting that the USU would expect their student members to spend what little finances they have on a lacklustre grocery box. The USUs energy would be much better spent in assisting the SRCs mutual aid project, for which they have provided no support, despite SRC requests for collaboration. This is the tacky behaviour of a Useless Scab Union, and they should be embarrassed. I am embarrassed for them.That these boxes are being promoted as a means of saving the union by an organisation that has stood down or fired most of its staff really takes the cake. What union is there to save? The USU has long favoured corporate pursuits over meaningful representation of student interests.And what do our glorious, democratically elected Board Directors have to say about this?Nothing. Most of them seem too embarrassed to publicly promote the boxes. If only they had enough shame to spare us the extreme cringe of their USU Instagram story takeovers. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I was sitting in on a youth group leaders Zoom meeting when a participant flourished a list of members to chase up on attendance. Now that theyre home all evening, she reasoned, and have no other commitments, theres no excuse for them not to show up.Sound reasoning. We can unpack the techniques that Christian groups use to enforce attendance another time, but I suppose shes right. If you have nowhere else to be you might as well attend youth group. Butwould our absent members agree? More than that, is it reasonable to expect that people should always be contactable, always available to turn up to social events, just because were in lockdown?Over the past two months, Ive taken a crash course on the nuances of non-physical socialisation. For us introverts, lockdown should have been our time to shine. Weve been trained to deal with limited social interaction over the course of our lives. Quarantine would give us the opportunity to selectively engage in meaningful interactions, skipping over the draining small talk that litters everyday life.Its been disappointing to discover that this isnt the case. Like many, I find it draining to interact with those who arent my closest mates. I find it difficult to reply to online communication from people whom I dont know well, preferring to save messages up for when I am in the right headspace. I generally curate these interactions by being selective about which events I attend. It helps that my phone plan is cheap and crappy, since I can put my late replies down to being outside and not having data.There was a conceit in me coming into social distancing thinking that wow, I was going to miss hanging out so yes, Id be down for any manner of Zoom calls. Fast-forward two months later: Im settling down in my sweet little iso life, eking out a humble routine of bed to desk to dinner table to desk to bed, and the natural tendencies of introversion are creeping back. Online socialisation, once so welcome amid the loneliness, is revealing itself to be as draining as its physical counterpart. Theres another problem: online interaction is more deliberate, sapping more energy. On some level, physical interaction makes socialisation more natural and without it, the online space becomes a barrier we must cross to engage with other people. The resounding silences in my Zoom tutorials suggest that Im not alone in feeling this.With the exhausting rigmarole of classes (and for some, work) moving online, introverts dont always have energy left over for social events. Instead, a solo recharge is preferable. Just because we are home all day doesnt mean that we stop being introverted.So it seems introverts cant win. Lockdown is posing its own challenges, highlighting the effect of our work cultures and social spheres that expect constant availability and quick replies.. But to any despairing fellow introverts I have this to say: just because were at home all day it doesnt mean that we cant still curate our social interactions. Dont feel pressured to show up just because youre free. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The idea that the humanities suffer from a crisis mentality is not new. Indeed, the phrase crisis in the humanities was coined in 1964 by J.H.Plumb, a British historian. Whether the humanities in Australia falls into this description is a contentious topic as its healthy appetite amongst Australian undergraduates and precarious workforce collides in reality.Figures from the most recent Australian Academy of Social Sciences report, compiled in 2014 and publicly released in 2017, suggests that Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) departments remain central to the higher education sector, commanding a clear majority (65%) of all students enrolled in Australian universities. A similar proportion applies for university graduates aged between 20 and 69. It is heartening to see that humanities continue to enjoy healthy demand from prospective students. Some of the best performing disciplines include philosophy and modern languages.But the report is also frank about risks underlying the sectors higher student-to-staff ratio, ageing teaching demographics, and a workforce highly dependent on casual staff: comprising 27% of all academics as of 2012, yet delivering up to 60% of the undergraduate teaching load. The report also notes that regional HASS departments are particularly vulnerable, especially in fields such as languages or Indigenous culture. Australian Research Council (ARC) grants are skewed towards metropolitan universities: as of 2015, only 4% of HASS research grants were awarded to regional universities. As such, these structural issues should leave all universities but especially regional ones vulnerable in the post-COVID-19 recovery period.Federal and state initiatives in the past five years suggest an increasing disregard from politicians on the economic and political value of the humanities. One area where this rhetoric is borne out lies in research funding. Despite the large teaching and research load that HASS takes on, research income has fallen from 16% in 2014 to 13% by 2018. A University of Sydney spokesperson confirmed to Honi that: Our [HASS] disciplines have experienced a significant decline in funding over the past five years. This is in part due to an emerging division between STEM and HASS within both the ARC and federal research agenda. New government research funding is focussed on STEM areas for example through the Medical Research Future Fund and Defence Innovation Fund.This is in part due to ideological opposition to HASS grants. In 2018, former Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham introduced a national interest test to measure ARC projects in proportion to their value to the public interest. He invoked this test to veto 11 ARC grants all within humanities disciplines. Responding to queries from his Labor counterpart over the controversial move, Birmingham defended his decision on Twitter by deriding one of the vetoed projects, titled Double Crossings: Post-Orientalist Arts at the Straits of Gibraltar, as essentially of no interest to the Australian public.The veto drew swift condemnation not only from USyds Roger Benjamin (the leading investigator of the derided project), but from across the tertiary sector. Critics argued that the Ministers move impeded on academic autonomy enjoyed by the ARC, politicising a decision that should have been made on merit. Although Birminghams move was partially reversed in the re-approval of four of these projects by successor Dan Tehan, Birminghams vetoes are indicative of the lower regard that some politicians hold of the humanities. In this instance, projects delving into topics ranging from mens dress, legal secularism and riots were perceived to be frivolous and of little or no benefit to the public.Thus, there should be no room for complacency. As COVID-19 progresses, market forces will impact heavily on the research and teaching capacities of Australian universities, within both STEM and the humanities. Already, the precarious casual workforce underpinning over half of our universities teaching capacity are facing immense job pressure. Only several days ago, universities, including USyd, were forced to alert staff at short notice of their eligibility to apply for JobKeeper subsidies. If left unnoticed, it is likely that the brunt of impending cuts and falling international student enrolments will be shouldered disproportionately by humanities departments.That is not to deny that the sciences will avoid the same fate. However, regional universities, without urban universities significant endowment nor comparable economy of scale, will likely implement contentious decisions in the months to come in order to sustain their finances. The University of Tasmania has already reduced their degree offerings from 514 to 120 citing COVID-19. Whether Australian humanities faculties can remain resilient will depend on whether university boards and the Federal Governments commitment to the humanities survive difficult underlying arithmetics and resistance to attempts to divide the houses of STEM and the humanities. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Game shows are the awkward, middle child of television. They are wedged precariously between the older, more sophisticated sibling, the news, and the younger, wildly popular sibling, reality TV. As well as being berated by that footy-obsessed Uncle, sports, and overlooked by the theatrical, trendy cousin, TV drama.Its not surprising that game shows are overlooked by a generation that is overwhelmed with options. Additionally, television viewing among younger generations is no longer scheduled on a TV set. Its on-demand, and right now in demand; with Covid-19 boosting Netflixs shares by 14% and YouTubes viewership by 15%.But there is something that makes game shows stand out from the rest. They have to work for your attentiveness and once theyve got it, its hard to look away. This is where the beauty of the game show lies. You cannot just simply watch a game show, you must participate.Even though we are consuming more, how much do we actually take away from what we watch? We exist in an economy of attention. Bedevilled by distraction; we struggle to stream Love is Blind without scrolling through Instagram, cant watch Bon Appetite without Snapchatting our friends at the same time. Deloittes Australian consumer survey found that in 2019 91% of respondents multi-tasked while watching TV.Game shows offer a well-needed respite from the persistency of our phones. You really cant watch Mastermind, a high-intensity, quiz programme where contestants demonstrate how well they know their specialised subjects from Aztec Mythology to honey bees life cycles without devoting to it your utmost attention.This brings me to the second benefit of game shows you learn without even realising. How else but watching Hard Quiz would you acquire the important fact that male Siamese Fighting Fish are raised by their fathers? Quiz shows are the tricksters of television they teach you an array of skills under the guise of entertainment.Game shows like Hard Quiz and The Chase Australia may continue to trail behind in the 16-39-year-old market to competitors such as Home & Away and The Project. Yet, the composition of a game show represents something so quintessentially Australian, even more Aussie than Home and Away (which has shockingly been running for 31 years) that of diversity.They bring together a cross-section of society, a smorgasbord of different interests, knowledge and backgrounds. In one episode of Hard Quiz alone, contestants topics included Lady Gaga, Yeats, Xanadu and typewriters.Even more importantly, they connect you with other viewers through the thrill of competition, all at the leisure of your own couch. Some of my fondest memories with my Grandmother include watching Deal or No Deal in her lounge room. From that young age, I became seduced by the flashing lights and admittedly cheesy music of game shows I also became a lifetime fan of Andrew OKeefe.From there I began to expand my viewing repertoire with Spicks and Specks. I didnt really recognise any of the musicians they mentioned in 2007 we were yet to know for a little while more who Gotye really was -but by god, you can be sure that I loved guessing whether a rough-looking rockabilly was a serial killer or a musician.This familiarity and nostalgia that game shows offer is something a lot of us are searching for right now. We may not be able to hang out with our friends in person, nevertheless, I can guarantee that the comforting Chase Australia family, from the Supernerd to the Shark, are there for you, every weekday at 5.30pm.So, all I can say is consider switching off the costly Netflix and trade it for Letters and Numbers on the costless SBS On Demand. It might just be the answer youve been searching for. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When the neknominate trend reared its boozy head in early 2014, guys who thought themselves too cool to buy into the life-threatening planking fad found their path to internet superstardom. It began with Ross Samson, an Irish rugby player (shock) who said on Christmas Day in 2013, I nominate all of you whose birthday its not. Merry Christmas. With great speed, videos from all over the world flooded the internet ranging from cat-like lapping of beer out of toilet bowls, hot sauce and absinthe cocktails drunk by guys who look like incels, big boys with big muscles and sick snapbacks downing 1L bottles of spirits in succession to just your generic, pretty nice guy who doesnt mind some peer pressure and brief social capital skolling a VB, winking at the camera and neknominating one of his other harmless, nice mates. There was a quaint novelty about these videos, and the absurd creativity was at times, endearing and other times, evoked the same sadistic satisfaction one might feel watching insipid contestants on the plethora of derivative dating shows like Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle.A few deaths later, the internet subsumed these cyber curios of creativity and buried them alongside other early-death trends like the Kylie Jenner lip challenge, Harlem Shake and coneing, never (so we thought) to be seen again. Thinking back on said trends and others, can be quite heart-warming. In the moment, you either hate or love them and the extremity of the emotion is strange but uncontrollable. From an objective lens, years later, the actual totality of the trend adopts a hazy constitution, and they possess the same kitsch identity as balloon animals and origami fortune tellers. Very rarely however, do these sorts of trends re-emerge because these are, by their nature, transient and achieve their success because of how very insignificant, farcical and non-transcendent they are. When they do re-emerge however, they are like ghoulish before and after photos of child-celebrities-cum-rehab-heroes, they are scary and saddening to confront.Amidst the array of bland, COVID-19 induced social media trends like Gal Gadots Imagine video, banana-bread and sourdough bread connoisseurs, and dumb influencers trying to stay relevant with pointless Earth Day content, AB workouts and really shit line drawings they call art, one of the worst is the rise of a neo-neknominate trend that ranges from photos of people (mostly men) playing footy (in its various manifestations), and drinking beer. I will caveat this first by saying that the few posts augmented with donations to mental health organisations like Beyond Blue and other charities can be exempted though these are few and far between.I mainly speak here about the weeks of posts that emerged before these philanthropic-associated ones, though I wager that the underlying self-interest is intrinsic to all of them. In 2014, I was 17 and herd mentality at such an age was not something that was necessarily surprising; I would go further and say that it was the norm. Six years later though, I really struggle to understand what value-add photos of the distorted faces of guys playing sport or drinking beer possess. For one, can these posts be anything other than to fan the egos of said footy kings who must really be struggling because they cant post Instagram stories of their saucer-eyed mates at clubs or uninspired photos of sunset rays kissing the glass of their half-full beers bottles with the hashtag #living? Is their hunger for social capital so insatiate that their only resort is to do this?I know its a bit of fun and relatively harmless and writing an article about it is equally as stupid and might render me more unhinged and attention-seeking than the people I write about. Regardless, the pandemic has brought out the worst in a lot of people and social media trends like these instantiate the desperate and attention-seeking nature of our society. At a time when our ability to engage meaningfully with others is severely hampered, is this really the best way to do so? Its fine and understandable to miss things that formed major parts of our lives, but are posting photos of scrawny biceps and beer that everyone drinks really helping anyone? No-one really cares whether you play beer-pong via Zoom, play a below-average grade of rugby or AFL, and if you travelled last year to some generic country that is probably loving not having people like you staining its streets.Most of us lock away positive memories and return to them when times are tough. On occasion, we discuss them with other people when a certain experience spurs our nostalgia. Forcing them down our throats because youre isolated and bored isnt such an experience. Rather, I think it would be best to keep these photos on your Close Friends story, in your group chats, on your Zoom meetings and in your own minds, because no one wants to be reminded of forgotten trends, especially those that were forgotten because they were vapid and stupid in the first place. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My place is on a corner, which means the side wall of my bedroom and my side fence back up to a couple of parking spots on the adjacent street. I got used to the noise, but the thing that really grinds my gears is when someone pulls up in a parking spot and idles their engine. There is something about that low vibratory rumble that you feel viscerally in your stomach, that wakes you up at 7am and pisses you off at 4 in the afternoon. The other day, I popped my head up over the fence line to see the car that pulled up. It happened to be a Porsche 911, convertible, racing yellow. The sight of it jerked me back to an urge that I have long held, long suppressed.The urge to key the fuck out of a luxury car.Few people have ever understood this urge when I expressed it to them. Its not a logical thing as far as I am concerned. Sure, I am against the propagation of the type of capitalist inequality that means some people can spend millions on status symbols whilst millions literally starve. However, I think trying to intellectualise this inhibition gives it too much credit. In reality, the political message would be unclear. Would the owner return to their Mercedes thinking hmm, yes, a valid criticism of the hoarding of wealth? Unlikely. It would probably be just a minor inconvenience, an annoyance in the life of the cars owner. Perhaps that is why the concept is so enticing, if nothing else, the large depiction of a phallus that I might scratch into that fire-truck red Ferrari says a simple, fuck you. They might never fully grasp my nuanced critique, but perhaps that simple message is enough.There are many exceptions of course. There are few cars that really instil this urge in me. It has to be a really upmarket vehicle, something for the 1% of the 1%. Glisteningly new, immaculately polished. It has to loudly proclaim its exorbitance to the entire street; a bright colour helps. I wouldnt scratch a vintage sports car, maybe it is a status symbol too, but it hints at an appreciation of an objects history that I would prefer didnt exist in my victims tastes. Even the shiniest Tesla Roadster wouldnt suffice, too much of a social conscience. Not clean enough, new enough; they really have to be riding the crest of the metaphorical wave of capitalist exploitation.In the end though, I never do it. Im too chicken-shit. What if they catch me? Someone with that much money could surely ruin my life if they see fit. Ive never even pulled my keys out of my pocket, holding them in a closed fist, the point subtly sticking out between my knuckles. Its too risky. But Ive always had the fantasy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Antidepressants have always attracted controversy. The classification was first mentioned in the 1950s, during the clinical trials of drugs intended to treat tuberculosis. Prescription rates skyrocketed in the 1990s after the introduction of Prozac, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Their effects and efficacy have been the subject of debate ever since.In the midst of these debates, one trend has continued to lurk on the sidelines: antidepressants are increasingly being prescribed for off-label use.Apart from depression, SSRIs are used in the treatment of an array of mental and even physical illnesses. Sertraline, for example, has been found to be more effective in treating anxiety in the short term compared to depression.For patients taking them for off-label reasons, the label antidepressant can in itself be problematic. A qualitative study on this subject found that some patients attempt to decouple the medication from its association with depression, such as by describing it as a low dose. This introduces the risk that a person who might benefit from taking antidepressants will refuse to do so in order to avoid the perception that they are depressed.Given the uncertainty surrounding the effects of antidepressants, renaming this poorly understood category of drugs should be considered. Doing so would not only provide a more accurate reflection of how they are prescribed, but it could also go some way towards removing the stigma associated with psychotropic drugs.But what would we call them if not antidepressants? In 2014, the neuroscience-based nomenclature system was proposed. Rather than categorising psychotropic drugs based upon their effect on specific disorders, such as antipsychotics, the system instead labels them based upon the neurotransmitter/s that the drug targets and the mode of action through which this is achieved. The label antidepressant is erased in favour of more specific names, such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Some existing classes, like tricyclic antidepressants, are divided into different categories such as dopamine receptor antagonists.These subcategories are far more descriptive than the overarching term antidepressant. This could assist practitioners in tailoring prescriptions to a patients symptoms. More importantly, it could also reduce the association between these drugs and specific disorders, which will ultimately prevent confusion and improve compliance with prescription regimens.This system is by no means perfect and caution must be directed towards the major conflicts of interest among its proponents. Nonetheless, it represents a step in a more accurate direction.It could be argued that erasing antidepressants as a category of drugs further entrenches the stigma it seeks to resolve, suggesting that the word depression is irrevocably tainted. Indeed, reclassification does not resolve the underlying problem at hand. Even though the ways in which mental health is publicly discussed has been improving, stigma can continue to manifest itself on an arguably more sinister and unmoderated level within the confines of private relationships. It is not difficult to find people who minimise mental illnesses by declaring that they are overdiagnosed, or who proclaim that jogging is the panacea to any psychological discomfort.While reclassifying antidepressants will not end the stigmatisation of mental illness, it presents an opportunity to reduce the negative perceptions patients often encounter, both internally and externally, when opting to take psychotropic medication.If you are not convinced about the potential for reclassification to reduce social stigma, the glaring discrepancy between the term antidepressant and the reality of the drugs broadening application still remains. It might be tough to rectify a misnomer which has endured since the 50s, but custom is no excuse for inaction. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The rise of the all-encompassing COVID-19 pandemic has handed us the opportunity to collectively examine and understand ecofascist rhetoric. Suggestions that humans are the virus and the earth is fighting back feed into myths about overpopulation, rather than placing the onus of responsibility on the unsustainable structures and systems we rely on under late-stage capitalism.To summarise, ecofascism centres Malthusian theoretical ideals, which contend that exponential population growth is unsustainable and will eventually outstrip Earths resources if left unchecked. At its core, this notion of overpopulation suggests that population control measures need to be implemented in order to conserve the environment. The overpopulation myth often posits that countries in the Global South with high birth rates are to blame for unsustainable population growth, failing to recognise that carbon emissions from the Global South are a mere fraction of those produced by the Global North. The idea that humans are collectively bringing about our planets demise also ignores the complex and sustainable land management systems developed by Indigenous people around the world. In reality, the wealthiest 10% of the global population are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions, while the poorest 50% are responsible for 10% of emissions. This cements for us that the overpopulation rhetoric is predicated on racism, colonialism and classism.Population growth is not unsustainable: the Wests way of life is unsustainable. Unless we realise this, its easy to conflate sustainability with the choice not to have children in aim of reducing overpopulation. Here is where the burden falls disproportionately on people with a uterus: we each have to individually consider whether bringing children into the world is the right thing to do amidst the existential threat that is global warming. Ecofascist, anti-natalist rhetoric weaves its way into our consciousness here, causing people to decide that choosing not to have children is the best thing they can do to help fight climate change.Internalising ecofascist narratives about reproduction is particularly insidious because it speaks to people on the left in a way that other ecofascist arguments fail to. The left is historically the most concerned with mitigating anthropogenic climate change. Thus, choosing not to bear children might help people with uteruses feel like they are doing their bit, as if they were choosing to lower their meat consumption or take public transport. It is so easy to sell the idea of a childless future to ourselves under the guise of progressiveness without realising that in doing so we are reinforcing sexist norms which regulate bodies that can become pregnant.Reproductive justice champions the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy: to have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. When people feel as if the best thing they can do for the planets wellbeing is abstain from having children, it exhibits yet another mechanism through which peoples choice on how, when and if they choose to reproduce is limited by the patriarchal structures they reside under.In the instance that we were to decide that population control measures were necessary, the solution to this would still not lie with antinatalism. The key to lowering birth rates is in the education and empowerment of women on a global scale. When women are given the resources and autonomy to control their own reproductive choices, not only do birth rates lower, but death rates lower too. Access to contraception, sexual health education and safe and legal abortions are necessary steps not only in achieving sustainable population growth, but in providing women, non-binary people and trans men with equal rights, opportunities and independence.To individually perform population control on our own wombs is to invite ecofascism into our lives. We must remain wary of how perpetuating overpopulation myths by limiting our own reproductive choices might exert normative pressure on others to do the same, and consider how a society that has internalised antinatalist ideals might strip resources for parents and families from its public health policies and campaigns. Thus, our continued pro-choice fight for reproductive justice must also strive for a world in which the choice and ability to have children is not constrained by ecofascist rhetoric. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CW: MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, INDIGENOUS DEATHS IN CUSTODY, DEATH IN OFFSHORE DETENTIONIt seems to be every other day that we log onto social media and find ourselves drowning in despair. April 7, 2020 proved to be a devastating day for survivors. Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Catholic official in Australia, walked free after the High Court of Australia (HCA) ruled that the evidence did not establish Pells guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The prisons that released the cardinal are the same ones from which we see high numbers of Indigenous deaths in custody. On April 10, refugees in detention across Australia protested their indefinite detentions, a cruel and inhumane policy. Though it is a known fact that COVID-19 spreads like wildfire within tightly packed groups, no concessions have been made for refugees or the incarcerated. The justice system with its courts, law enforcement and prisons is cruelest to those that need it most, and it is time that we start questioning the justice that it doles out.Cardinal George Pells appeal has prompted significant scrutiny and public outrage. This historic case invites us to scrutinise the criminal justice systems handling of sexual assault cases, and whether it can be considered a legitimate form of justice for survivors.In 2015, allegations that accused Cardinal George Pell of the sexual abuse of two choirboys surfaced. Years after the alleged abuse, one of the choirboys died of an overdose that has been linked to depression and trauma. The survivor who launched the case has said: I am a man who came forward for my friend, who, sadly is no longer with us. From 2015 until now, Pells case has moved through the County Court of Victoria, the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria, before finally reaching the High Court of Australia. The five-year-long legal saga has culminated in his acquittal, meaning that Pell will not have a criminal record, nor be registered as a sex offender. Pells defence counsel made an appeal to the High Court on the grounds that the Director of Public Prosecutions left witness testimony unchallenged. It is prudent that we acknowledge that in sexual assault cases, witness testimony is often affected by trauma which can warp memory, leaving sexual assault survivors with fragmented recollections of traumatic events. This prompts the question: how can we reasonably expect survivors to provide unblemished accounts of some of the darkest moments of their lives, in the name of justice?Pells acquittal also calls for consideration of innocent people languishing in our prison systems. Unfortunately, unlike Pell, these are people who do not have the full power and wealth of the Vatican behind them. Pells defence counsel fought against his convictions at every level, eventually reaching the highest court in Australia. Realistically, few people have this ability. While the right of appeal is a procedural right, it is not one which is accessible to many, due to the sky-high cost of legal representation and the exhausting process of the legal system.When discussing classism in the justice system, we must acknowledge that classism and racism are not separate forms of oppression, but ones that sustain each other under the settler-colonial regime that flourishes in quiet violence. This fact is glaringly obvious when we situate our system of law and order within Australias colonial history; prisons built on stolen land, laws that continue to sanction Stolen Generations even years after Kevin Rudds sorry. It would be a mistake to believe that the racist zeitgeist that declared terra nullius and founded this great nation does not persist to this day.If the justice system served as it has promised us, we would not see the racial profiling of black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC), nor police brutality and intimidation, nor the senseless cycle of Indigenous deaths in custody. Tanya Day was a proud Aboriginal woman who was sleeping on a train when she was shaken awake by police after being assumed to be a drunken, unruly passenger. She died in custody 17 days later, the result of a brain hemorrhage that went unchecked, suffering that was dismissed. Eric Whittaker, who was a proud Gamilaroi man, suffered similarly; after suffering a brain hemorrhage, his repeated calls for help were dismissed by correctional officers. He died shackled to a bed in Westmead Hospital. When such horrific stories exist, we must question our belief in the justice system and see it for what it really is: an instrument of the ongoing ravages of colonial injustice.It is no coincidence that Indigenous people experience higher rates of poverty and are also disproportionately incarcerated for minor offences. There is also a stark under-representation of BIPOC in law-making bodies. Historically, the justice system was not built to protect BIPOC, but rather to excuse and justify violence and the building of oppressive white-supremacist structures. Such colonial white-supremacist structures exist today, extending beyond the justice system and into all forms of government policy. The tale of Rakib Khan, a 24-year-old refugee who died in offshore detention, is a particularly harrowing one. In May 2016, Khan, a gay man fleeing homophobic persecution in Bangladesh, died on Nauru, two days after he went to the islands hospital complaining about chest pain. The circumstances around his death are mysterious; the government has blocked access to internal reports that hold information about his death. Information from a whistleblower in the hospital claims that Khans condition was not taken seriously, and he was turned away without examination and told to take painkillers. Khans mother mourns his death four years later, with unanswered questions about the loss of her youngest son. Increasingly, we are forced to the realisation: this is not justice.It is hard to hear these stories and not feel despair. The despair can be useful; it means that we find this violence unacceptable. How do we move forward?The first step is to acknowledge that the justice system is broken, by which we mean it is working exactly as was intended: to bring everyone but the rich and powerful down. Survivors in sexual assault cases are frequently and thoroughly relegated to collateral damage by the callous processes of the courts. Only one in ten sexual assault cases ever result in a conviction. In questioning our justice system, we must believe survivors.We must acknowledge that the justice system, and the entire system of law and order, is a part of the overarching colonial project which began with invasion and continues today. Indigenous deaths in custody are a crisis, but it is one that is oft overlooked because it does not directly affect us all. The illegal occupation of this land hypocritically asserts itself in its government-sanctioned abuse of refugees.Now, the idea of prison abolition now becomes increasingly pertinent, when the system of law and order is, quite frankly, fucked. Thousands of potentially innocent people, many of them BIPOC, languish in prisons with no hope for appeal against a racist and classist justice system. Right now, in the midst of COVID-19, prisons and camps become grounds for the coronavirus to spread like wildfire, with prisoners and refugees as kindling.Interestingly, feminist prison abolitionists are often met with the question: What about the rapists? The answer is simple: they already walk amongst us. Rapists not only live freely amongst us, but often occupy high perches of power, puppeteering justice while everyone else suffers. The justice system only presents the facade of protection, all the while hiding the quiet violence that rages beneath the surface. Peter OBrien, a criminal lawyer who represented survivors in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, wrote for The Guardian: As a society, we have to ask whether there are other alternatives or a better use of our resources than the present criminal court process. Resources aimed at prevention, assistance in coming forward and healing of victims is a must. This is exactly the argument made by prison abolitionists. Prisons and justice systems are another form of state-sanctioned violence and thus it is crucial that we, as a society, shift our priorities to assist the healing of survivors first and foremost.Ultimately, we are a world divided if we do not acknowledge the intersectionality of lived experiences. Being an intersectional feminist means that you are necessarily anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and feminist. Justice cannot be found in courts or prisons. We must look for justice elsewhere, through community care and collective action.If you become distressed upon reading this article, please dont suffer in silence. Lifeline is a 24 hour hotline for crisis support and suicide prevention and can be reached at 13 11 14. NSW Rape Crisis is a 24/7 hotline and online crisis counselling service for anyone in NSW, available at 1800 424 017. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> COVID-19 has visited many terrible things upon the world: death and despair; poverty and prejudice; this and countless other half-baked thought pieces. Zoom, however, is not among the endless list of COVID-conjured ills. Instead, it is a flawed messiah for our times sent forth mysteriously from the godless and impenetrable depths of Silicon Valley. It has revealed to us the nature of our past sins and provided (tech) support in a time of need. Zoom despite being a poor imitation of the real thing has maintained our privileged connection to education and exposed the folly of our prior voluntary social distancing from university. For this, we should be grateful.From the prevailing pre-COVID attitude of students that attendance at university was little more than a necessary inconvenience, it would be reasonable to assume that a waiver of attendance requirements and a move online would be happily welcomed. While student activities such as theatresports withered and Manning closed, we stayed home and listened to lectures as it suited our own very important schedules. Zoom permits the extension of this ideal to previously impossible decadence: dissections at the dinner table, psychology in the bedroom. And yet, there remains something essential missing. University, it has been revealed, is not merely a utilitarian locus for the transmission of information from one brain to another. It is also, importantly, a place dependent on social interaction. Students and tutors can bristle, tensions can rise in debate. Alliances are forged and friendships formed. Eyes can be rolled and snide comments made. By contrast, the Zoom tutorial is a ghoulish place. With its peep show aesthetic and disembodied voices, the tutor teaches out into an ether populated only by golems and mature age students who havent figured out how to disable their cameras. Before COVID, this and other universities were keen to trumpet technologys education revolution, with OLEs as the vanguard of a seemingly inevitable digital creep. However, Zooms failings have shown that technology, as it stands, is no replacement for face-to-face education and its inimitable abstractions. For all its dreadful broader consequences, the disruption wrought by COVID may have revealed to students and university administration the folly of a resilement from face-to-face education, in terms of social value, educational purpose and academic outcomes.While its faults are many, it is nonetheless worth considering where we would be without Zoom. That we can have a discussion as to the worthiness of virtual tutorials is in itself remarkable. While it may be a poor simulation of the real thing, to be able to have virtual tutorials and lectures in which questions can be asked and discussions had in real time is, in a time of strict isolation, critical to the uninterrupted continuation of studies. Campus is effectively closed and we are confined to our homes, and yet classes can continue on something approaching a normal schedule, transcending closed borders and lockdown orders. Whatever the mysterious technological wizardry is that has allowed the maintenance of our privileged connection to education, it is worthy of appreciation. Default criticism of Zoom as abhorrent and pretty shit is misplaced. In a global pandemic which defies all adjectives, criticising a tool which permits education to continue relatively uninterrupted is like criticising the pastry selection at the free hotel breakfast: rather missing the point. Likewise, allegations that Zoom could serve as a Trojan Horse for the University to splurge on consultants, administrative buildings and their own salaries seem unreasonable. In trying to maintain teaching and examination with academic integrity, the University is stuck between a pandemic and a hard place. While Zoom, like most things in a global pandemic, is undesirable, any technology which can allow for education to continue should be used to its full extent, just as Sydney University has done. In a time of need, Zoom has, despite its many and well-publicised faults, enabled education to continue largely unabated despite a nationwide lockdown, and for this we should be thankful.Zoom has many faults which are worthy of critique privacy issues, lag times and security flaws. But it is these same flaws which have allowed students and, hopefully, universities, to see that an internet connection does not an education make. Nonetheless, in the time of COVID, Zoom is worthy of appreciation for enabling the essential business of education to continue in spite of mandatory social distancing in an unprecedented global pandemic. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My fellow contributors to the Embers publication have rightfully articulated the inadequacies of post-Cold-War capitalism in the fight to mitigate climate change. I understand the fear of moving away from what has largely been a stable economic ideology, however, we are now confronted by a terror that is so completely outside of the collective knowledge. Without quantitative change to the four major contributing factors of; population growth, consumption of resources, carbon emissions and the mass extinction of species, we will reach the point of the end times. And as Holmes Rolston aptly points out to us: a general pattern of behaviour among threatened human societies is, to become more blinkered rather than more focused on the crisis, and fail. We are bombarded with information about this looming and irreversible catastrophe and yet we do nothing the time to act is quickly running out.Capitalism is still moving in completely the wrong direction, as big businesses seize on new opportunities for economic growth, not seeming to comprehend that a world post climate change will not exist. This includes things such as using the opportunity of the melting ice caps in the Arctic to reduce fuel consumption, creating a new northern route. This is capitalism at its core, using every change in the world to create economic growth without a care for the consequences. This inequality is no more evident than in Adani hiding the oil spill of 2017, amassing 4.7 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, which not only broke Queensland government pollution laws but also devastated the world heritage site of the Great Barrier Reef. Adani shows the true nature of capitalism: it seizes on opportunities, not only contributing to climate change but planning to profit from it. Naomi Klein explains in The Shock Doctrine that these forthcoming ecological crises, far from undermine capitalism, but further its cause.Profit is being weighed against human life, and human life is coming out the loser. The end times are finally here. Climate change isnt like anything we have seen before, it is a disaster that is born from the unintended consequences of human action. This threat encompasses all of humanity; it is against our very existence and yet most of us are still more interested in the latest graphic tee from General Pants. The most significant issue in my eyes is the shrug of normalisation, like in 2008 when a CNN reporter explained the new economic opportunity brought about by the greening of Greenland, what an absurd reaction to a very serious ecological disaster. To pretend that this minor benefit of a major catastrophe is somehow a win for humanity because we can plant more vegetables is ridiculous but plainly shows the problem of normalisation. We are constantly surrounded by the effects of global warming and the fact that we look for opportunity in calamity, isnt indicative of human resourcefulness, but rather, the power of ideology.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A recent report by Deloitte estimated that inaction on climate change could cost the Australian economy $3.4 trillion, and nearly a million jobs, in the lead up to 2070. By 2050, inaction on climate change could cause Australia to experience economic losses equivalent to those suffered because of Covid-19 every single year. By contrast, action on climate change could result in the addition of $700 billion to our economy, and the creation of 250,000 jobs.Its increasingly clear that refusing to act on climate change is economically illogical. Yet climate denial remains an accepted political position and one which studies show is overwhelmingly held by white politically conservative males. Why? At a basic level, white privilege can manifest itself in a general ease with high levels of risk, breeding apathy towards environmental issues. But more than that, the fossil fuel industry has deep cultural resonance for some men.Over the course of the 20th century, fossil fuels adopted cultural meaning, signifying imperialism, development and Western growth. At the same time, masculine ideals entrenched notions of consumption, aggression and expansion in Western politics. Traditionally, this has manifested through waged economic labour, where men occupy roles in industries that are often propped up by fossil fuels, requiring strong associations with public life and high levels of travel. Meanwhile, traditionally feminised industries such as teaching, caring and secretarial roles are often devalued or unpaid, and are usually stationary with many women relegated to the home.In this way, the consumption of fossil fuels has become critical to maintaining the existing social hierarchy. Challenges to the fossil fuel system as a result of climate change are seen as threats to white patriarchal rule, and increasingly fragile notions of Western-hypermasculinity. In her seminal study, American academic Cara Daggett coined this phenomenon petro-masculinity.Daggett describes how, from the privileged standpoint of a petro-masculine identity, the suggestion of climate change and subsequent calls to reduce fuel consumption, are essentially akin to the supposed threat to masculinity posed by feminists attempting to dismantle hetero-normative assumptions of the traditional state and family.Not only does adopting a position of climate denial help to preserve the status of the white conservative male in the overall hierarchy and economic system, from which he continues to benefit, but it is also consistent with the masculine ideal of being invincible and able to overcome any challenge. This was epitomised by Trumps calls to Make America Great Again which was essentially a form of petro-nostalgia, calling for a reinstatement of the cheap energy which typified the American Dream.If youre ever interested in laughing and crying at the same time, google Rolling Coal. What youll find is a collection of photos and videos of white, politically conservative men who have altered their truck and car engines in order to consume more fuel, so that they can intimidate pedestrians and other drivers by loudly producing black smoke. Some have labelled this performative consumption of fossil fuels as pollution porn. It is difficult to see it as anything else. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians. Nelson MandelaThe Palestinian people have been subjected to the Nakba for the past 73 years. Nakba is an Arabic term meaning the catastrophe and marks 15 May, 1948 as the beginning of Palestinian oppression via ethnic cleansing, dispossession of land and living in constant fear for the lives of their families at the hands of the Israeli government. It also marks the beginning of the worlds passive response to the violation of Palestinian human rights.This passive response to the Palestinian crisis is evident in the careful rhetoric utilised to describe the events that are occurring. One of the most insidious examples of subconscious priming used by governments and media outlets is the language of killed vs murdered. A linguist neednt tell you how the words evoke two different sets of emotive responses. Palestinians are killed, while Hamas/Palestine murders Israeli citizens. Palestinian fatalities are followed by vague descriptors and justifications; Israeli deaths are followed by particulars of gender, age, and perhaps even a name and occuptation. The dichotomy leads to a subtle, yet very clear, distinction between the bad guys and the good guys.One side is dehumanised and converted into statistics; the other is conceptualised as individuals with identities. With the use of the word killed, the media and politicians implore us to be objective in receiving this information. Killed does not imply malicious intent it simply conveys a controlled performative action that is unfortunate, yet justified. This strips away the ongoing violence and human right violations that contextualise the death of Palestinian victims at the hands of the Israeli government. On the other hand, using the word murdered to describe the fate of Israeli citizens asserts the existence of inexcusable, malicious Palestinian intent. Murder is not objective it alludes to the necessity of premeditation prior to committing the act. It is a word that conjures imagery of senseless acts of violence.Furthermore, the rhetoric used by politicians and media plays into the narrative that the Palestinian humanitarian crisis is a religious conflict. Palestinians are not a homogenous religious group of people. Contrary to media reports and images, not all Palestinians are Muslims. By constructing the Palestinian crisis as a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews, the identities and struggles of Palestinian Christians and Jews are ignored. The heterogenity of Palestinians disproves the assertion that there is something inherently religious about the Palestinian resistance. Palestinians are fighting for basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to democratically elect their own government (and have it recognised and respected), the freedom to physically move within the land of Palestine and the freedom to trade with other nations. The universal human need for dignity and respect, which is denied to Palestinians, is the driving force behind their resistance, not some terrorist Islam.Moreover, the use of the word conflict implies that both groups of people involved are on an even playing field. There is no equal power between Palestine and Israel Israel has an army, nuclear weapons and billions of American dollars in funding that go toward expanding Israeli defense infrastructure. Palestinians have no army, no navy and no nuclear weapons they resist Israeli occupation of their land by firing rockets at a nuclear superpower. To place equal blame on both parties is absurd when the nation of Palestine is being oppressed and subject to apartheid laws which Israel enforces to favour its own citizens.Such criticism is often construed as being anti-semitic and encouraging bigotry. Yet the critiquing of Israels zionist movement and its policies, which actively restrict the movement and freedoms of Palestinian people, is not anti-semitic. I do not associate Israels war crimes with the entire Jewish community because I recognise that the beliefs, practices and experiences of the Jewish community are being grossly misconstrued to justify the continued perpetration of human right violations in Palestine. Living in a secular society, I had hoped that by now, people would be able to separate politics and religion the politics of a government is not a reflection of any religion with which it may choose to affiliate itself. By extension, criticism of a governments policies and actions is not an attack on the religion with which it claims to be affiliated.I implore you to support and fight for the basic human dignity and respect to which the Palestinian people have a right. A free Palestine must be the end goal. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Clashes, tensions, Israel-Hamas conflict. These are just some of the key words currently permeating media headlines worldwide.Palestinians and their allies have criticised mainstream establishment media outlets the world over for employing passive and neutral language to describe recent events in Palestine. When Palestine is covered in the media, it is usually done so using neutral language that absolves Israel of any responsibility or portrays it as two equal sides fighting. Palestinians die but Israelis are killed. If Palestinian death tolls are mentioned, they are reduced to a footnote or are skimmed over a few paragraphs down.The New York Times was recently criticised on social media for its headline, lede, and skewing of events to frame the story in a euphemistic angle. The Times framed the story through its title as a new wave of violence following rockets from Gaza and protests by Palestinians in Jerusalem, thus obscuring the everyday violence Palestinians face. This framing also infers that the protests and the rockets were two separate events rather than connected events.In Australia, our own media has either been silent or equally complicit in peddling the Israeli narrative of victimhood. The ABC especially has been challenged on its silence, publishing and broadcasting very few news pieces since Palestinian protests against home evictions in Sheikh Jarrah began a few weeks ago. The lack of news stories was especially noticeable after Israel began its most recent assault on Gaza, despite the buildup of events over weeks that led to it.In particular, Schwartz Media, which owns outlets such as The Saturday Paper, 7am Podcast, Black Inc. Publishing, has been widely called out for its silence on Palestine. While its flagship publication, The Saturday Paper, is known for publishing pieces on a range of progressive and social justice issues from Indigenous rights to climate action, many journalists and writers have noted its lack of pieces on Palestine, with calls for writers and journalists to withdraw pieces and cancel their subscriptions to the paper.Media silence and lack of coverage often obscures the whole story, removing the victims from the narrative, and providing tacit support for Israels actions against Palestinians while deeming it as not newsworthy.The media often portrays these events as a two-sided conflict, this could not be further from the truth. While Palestinians in Gaza search for those who died under the rubble, Israelis go to the beach and enjoy brunch. As Palestinians commemorated the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba on May 15, it remains a stark reminder that the Nakba was not a one-time event, but is an ongoing occurrence.Since early May, Palestinians in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem have been protesting the planned forced evictions from their homes. The state-sanctioned evictions are part of a large plan to Judaise Jerusalem, expelling its Palestinian inhabitants to make room for an increase in Jewish settlers. This is not the first time residents of Sheikh Jarrah have faced eviction or had their homes stolen by settlers; in 2002 and 2009 the Israeli Supreme Court evicted Palestinian families after ruling that the property was owned by Jewish settlers according to Israeli law.A few days after the protests in Sheikh Jarrah began, Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, attacking Palestinian Muslim worshippers with stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. As a response to events on the ground in Jerusalem, militant group Hamas vowed to launch rockets if Israel did not stop its violent attacks on Palestinians and Muslims in Jerusalem. Since then, Israel has rained down airstrikes on Gaza which have killed over two hundred civilians.If there are any doubts that Israel maintains an apartheid regime, one should only look to the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip has been under siege for the past 14 years, enduring Israeli military assaults in 2008, 2012, and 2014. Unfortunately, many Palestinians in Gaza cannot leave without exit permits as both border crossings are controlled by Egypt and Israel. Half of Gazas population live in abject poverty as Israels occupation and siege has destroyed the local economy, leaving many Palestinians unemployed. Due to Israels constant assaults, many Palestinians in Gaza also face homelessness as they struggle to rebuild. As a result of the recent bombardment, almost 40, 000 have been internally displaced.Since Israel escalated its attacks on Gaza two weeks ago, 232 Palestinians have been killed, including 65 children, at the time of writing. Israel has additionally killed 29 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem protesting against Israels attacks on Gaza.In its recent round of strikes, Israel has destroyed residential buildings, a clinic housing Gazas only coronavirus testing lab, also hitting the Health Ministry and offices of the Red Crescent. Reports also mention that roads leading to Al Shifa hospital have been destroyed, further restricting Palestinian access to basic health services. Additionally, on Saturday May 15, Israel leveled a building hosting the offices of many international media outlets, including Al Jazeera, and the Associated Press. This is not the first time Israel has attacked media offices in Gaza, raising significant concerns regarding press freedom.A ceasefire was recently called between Hamas and Israel which came into effect yesterday. As Palestinians in Gaza get a brief moment to breathe, Gaza remains under siege and occupation, and Palestinians continue to face the brunt of Israeli brutality in all its forms.Hundreds of Australian journalists, writers, media workers, and commentators, including Honi Soit, have signed an open letter demanding an improvement in coverage on Palestine. These demands call for fair coverage on Palestine that doesnt resort to both-sides and makes space for Palestinian perspectives without repercussions for journalists that express solidarity with Palestine.Palestinians have long been silenced by the media and powerful institutions. Although the narrative is slowly shifting as more Palestinian perspectives are showcased in mainstream publications and on mainstream television channels, it is clear that the media must do better. Expressing solidarity with Palestine and reporting truthfully is a moral imperative that is not up for debate. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With only a month left until I finish my undergraduate degree, the Studies in Religion department which made my experience at the University of Sydney what it was is at risk of closure, and its worrying and anger-inducing.The idea that every department in the University needs to be constantly turning over a profit to be worth keeping is utterly ridiculous. It is the small departments dealing with niche subjects, particularly in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, that make the University what it is. Arts is the draw-card to USyd and there isnt another university in New South Wales that offers such a comprehensive academic and historic look at religion. Theological departments have never been at risk of disbandment, because theyve always been profitable, but if we continue along this trajectory and end up at a place where the only kind of study of religion available at universities is theology, well be forced to deal with social problems that cant be easily addressed or reversed. If the academic literature we produce loses the benefit of the secular, outsider perspective, our ability to fight against misinformation and misinformed beliefs is made more difficult, and the class of religious people in power grows stronger.The weaponisation of religion by our federal leaders sets a dangerous precedent and the way it informs our parliamentary decisions is worrying. A video of Scott Morrison telling the Australian Christian Churches conference that he believes he was chosen to do Gods work, and the potential for Mark Lathams Parental Rights Education Bill to be ratified, are just a couple of recent examples that show religions paramount role in our supposedly secular society. There is such a dissonance between the people who can decide what is worth learning at school and university, and those who teach and study it.After first year, my Studies in Religion courses never had more than 15 people in them, and this is part of what made them so valuable. Intensely interactive lectures and tutorials happened in the same classroom, one after the other. When I studied witchcraft and paganism, my classmates brought in their crystal balls, tarot cards and Ouija boards. In my subject this semester on the birth of Christianity, we have debates about whether Manichaeism was the first world religion. My classmates on Zoom actually have their cameras on every week, and contribute to discussion, because its one of the most interesting and worthwhile majors that the University offers, and we have so much to learn from each other. In the last four years Ive learned about the importance of Australian secular and civil religion like ANZAC Day, about postcolonial critiques of Western Esotericism; I was taught about how Harry Potter was demonised by conservative American Christians long before everyone realised J. K. Rowling was a transphobe and how the Bhagavad Gita problematises Upanishadic thought.Agnostics and atheists do these courses to attempt to understand the ways religion operates around the world, to learn how it has grown to occupy and influence every aspect of our legal system and our lives. Religious people do these courses to learn more about their own religions, to challenge themselves in their faith, and to come out stronger on the other side.When I went on exchange to London, I was taught by some of the best historical Jesus and historical Paul scholars in the world. My lecturer told us that this course had made people lose their faith, and warned against doing it if you werent ready to be challenged. I remember bristling with excitement at this; as an annoyingly atheist second year student, I wanted to learn what didnt add up so I could win the arguments against my religious friends. But that isnt what happened, and my understanding of religion became so much more holistic. Youre forced to think about why religion impacts society in such a broad way, what historical events have entwined to give us the religious landscape we have, how it changes lives, how it gives people hope. I entered my Studies in Religion major with an awfully patronising view of religious people, thinking that I would be validated in that, and I came out with a far more nuanced perspective.With the budget this week came the announcement that university funding will decrease by 9.3% over the next four years, a move which was as horrifying as it was unsurprising. Its just another chink in the armour of a university system that doesnt value any form of education that challenges capitalist structures, and it aligns with the hostility that university management has shown towards its staff and students throughout the pandemic. It shows how far Australian universities have strayed from the idea of learning for learnings sake, where the pursuit and sharing of knowledge was worthwhile, and where academics and students could together conceive and work towards a better educated, more open society. Studies in Religion is one of the most unique and interesting departments at the University of Sydney, and it is imperative that it is not shut down. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I remember my heart sinking when I read that on the degree handbook. I was prepared for a unit of boring tasks and mind-draining lectures. I imagined sitting through classes which, on paper, seemed useful, but in reality, were tedious and ultimately worthless.But instead, I found myself pleasantly invited into a world of the critical: critical thinking, critical reading, critical feeling. A world in which everything was up for questioning, examining, overturning. So to future first-year Arts students, heres a reassuring outline of what to actually expect from this single compulsory unit across all FASS degrees.The unit began by reflecting on why the Arts and Social Sciences matter. Other than allowing for perfect comebacks at students and unforgiving parents who smirk at your useless degree choice, and justifying your massive student debt (made larger by fee increases this year), understanding how the Arts and Social Science disciplines are interdisciplinary is remarkably comforting. In the first podcast of the unit (yes, this unit has podcasts) Sarah Barnett, a graduate of USYD, explained how she worked in the health industry with a communications degree, demonstrating how arts and social sciences can take a person into any field they want to delve into. There is no matter that the Arts and Social Sciences cant be used for and I will bet on that.The unit then critically examined critical thinking. Can one think through their emotions? What does it mean to read critically? Can creativity be critical?We then used these critical skills to deeply explore issues that are plaguing our world right now. What should be done with historical statues that perpetuate colonial narratives? Is cancel culture helpful or hurtful? Should Universal Basic Income become universal?Its not often we get to step back and consider how we think. Especially in what has been dubbed an unprecedented era, with the emergence of a post-truth world, knowing how to think critically, and applying that to the world, is an invaluable skill.The unit coordinators, Alix Thoeming and Bruce Isaacs, said that FASS started this year as the result of a long-term discussion. They wanted to provide a supportive unit for new students in the arts and social sciences disciplines, helping them navigate university life and discover how their discipline can be applied in the wider contemporary world.Of course, there are some downsides with FASS1000; it is a new, untested unit after all. Although fascinating, sometimes the nicheness of the topics chosen prompted students to ask how theyre ever going to use this specific knowledge in the future. In a way, its refreshing that course content is for once not about a career, and one could argue that the most directly useful aspect of the course is the skills gained along the way, rather than the content itself. Nonetheless, according to the unit coordinators, the student response to the unit thus far has been positive, and they have promised to consider any critiques that are identified from Semester 1. Ive thoroughly enjoyed FASS1000, and its nice to see a core unit feel like something more than a compulsory barrier to what students want to study. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the last ten days weve seen a chilling escalation of the murderous apartheid violence Israel inflicts on Palestinians. In the West Bank, Palestinians already live under Israels illegal military occupation. Those in Gaza are subject to a vicious blockade. Now, Zionist settlers, with the backing of the Israeli state, have been home-invading Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem in order to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the city. In Israel, extremist mobs are lynching Palestinians and firebombing their property. Palestinians have been attacked and tear-gassed while praying at Jerusalems Al Aqsa mosque. Israeli bombs are flattening Gaza into rubble, forcing 10000 people out of their homes. Amidst this horror, people of good conscience in universities, whether students or staff, are likely to be wondering if theres anything effective they can do.An answer isnt hard to find. In 2005, 173 organisations from the breadth of Palestinian society appealed to the world to support BDS the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign and boycott the forces that continue to rob Palestinians of their land and freedom. There are many ways to implement the boycott. For consumers, boycotting Israel means refusing to buy goods from Israeli and other companies, like HP and Puma, that support Israeli crimes. For students, it means not participating in university exchange programs with Israel, like the ones Sydney University has with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For academics, boycotting means rejecting collaboration with the official activities of Israeli academia.Israeli universities deserve to be boycotted because they play a central role in the maintenance, planning and justification of Israels permanent anti-Palestinianism. Israeli academia is joined at the hip to the countrys military which, on Saturday, had already killed more than 130 Gazans and maimed and wounded almost 1000 others. Through their collaboration with the Israeli Defence Force and weapons manufacturers, and their political support for Zionism, Israeli universities are responsible for the destruction of Palestinian lives. They should be made accountable, yet most Israeli academics are silent. This silence is especially serious given that Israel is crippling Palestinian universities in Gaza and the West Bank. Yet, a few years ago, the Israeli academic Chen Misgav wrote that it seems oppression and the egregious violation of the freedom of Palestinian academics produce mainly yawns from his colleagues.When Palestinians ask academics and students to boycott Israel, theyre not asking us to do anything unusual. Political boycotts are a regular feature of university life, like the popular boycott of panels and conferences which underrepresent women. There are many other examples. Following Trumps election in 2016, thousands of academics called for a boycott of international conferences held in the US. In 2018, UCLA declared a travel boycott for its employees on the state of Oklahoma after it passed anti-LGBTQ adoption laws. In 2021, the World Health Organisation refused to fund research at the University of Melbourne in other words, boycotted UoM because of Melbournes collaboration with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. If these are reasons to boycott, then Israeli universities should be boycotted too.Palestinian society is among the most strangulated and oppressed on the planet. When an oppressed political community asks for solidarity and tells its supporters what it wants them to do, theres every reason to do exactly as it asks. Thats especially true if, as is the case with the boycott, theres no alternative strategy remotely on the horizon thats as effective. Boycotting is strategically effective because it pressures Israel and Zionists, and directly undermines institutions Israeli universities which facilitate crimes against Palestinians. The fact Israel spends millions of dollars annually countering boycott efforts is an indication of the power BDS has. People who reject it are turning their backs on the unison request of Palestinian civil society.At the University of Sydney, more than seventy staff members have signed a pledge to uphold the academic boycott until justice for Palestinians is restored. Many more need to join us.Nick Riemer is a senior lecturer in the English and Linguistics Departments at the University of Sydney. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Most weeks, as barely more than a dozen scrawny students gather outside Fisher Library to hear speeches against the latest malady to hit higher education, down the extreme opposite end of Eastern Avenue, the F23 Administration Building goes into lockdown, completely halting access to that foreboding monument to management.The Universitys reflex to lock itself away in its Camperdown keep at the slightest sign of student dissent is concerning in itself, casting aggrieved students as security threats rather than equally invested members of the USyd community. But such an attitude is also evident in other aspects of the University, and the broader trend of staff separation from students warrants examination.In the very first scene of the 1997 documentary Uni, Charles Firth strides into a building in hope of obtaining a very questionable extension. Finding his lecturer out of office, he casually consults another staff member before finding assistance at a well-staffed administration desk. Such a scene of interaction with living, breathing staff members outside of class is one foreign to many undergraduate students today. After faculty administration desks were closed in a 2016 cost-cutting measure, all administrative inquiries have been centralised and channeled through the black hole of the 1800 SYD UNI phone line, where an inevitable months-long chain of email referrals awaits.While admin staff are sacked and centralised, academics have become segregated from students in the name of security. The New Law Building, completed in 2009, was Camperdowns first secure building, with staff separated from students by not merely doors and floors, but also an impenetrable swipe-access barrier. The concept has since proliferated throughout the campus, with academics in the new FASS building, for example, sequestered from students by a glass barricade. When not locked down for fear of being overrun by students, F23 staff are guarded by a campus security detail and an array of electronic locking mechanisms. This cloistering of staff is not a belated return to the monastic academic tradition, but rather signifies the sacrifice of an essential aspect of the university community for a corporate aesthetic.University has its origins in the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium (roughly, a community of masters and scholars), implying, according to William Schonfeld, a company of persons, a community, a bodyorganised for the sake of its protection from hostile outsiders. While this detachment from society is clearly unsustainable in the modern age, there is a necessary insularity in the scholarly business of the university concerned with knowledge production rather than economic production which should separate it from other organisations. The co-location of masters and scholars of old and young in the campus is a necessary aspect of the university, encouraging learning and debate in both casual and formal settings, and allowing the knowledge transfer which sustains academia. By sequestering academic staff behind locked doors, something of this shared community is lost, and masters and scholars come to exist as two distinctly separate communities which rarely interact with each other outside of formal settings. Simply having the opportunity to drop by and speak to academics or faculty in person encourages a sense of belonging and investment in the university. By contrast, the present system of call centres, online forms and email-only communication merely furthers the atomisation felt by the contemporary student. How can one feel attached to an institution that treats its students in the same way a corporation treats its customers in the cheapest and most efficient way possible?.By the same token, the anonymity and media-managed pronouncements of University management contribute to this ever-widening distinction between masters and scholars. While universities will always need management to make difficult and unpopular decisions, the distinction between principles of corporate management and university governance are that decision-makers, at USyd at least, are generally high-achieving academics who have forged careers through frank and open discussion, clear communication, and consideration of, and engagement with, pertinent debates.Against this background, the existence of a PR-driven University spokesperson seemsanomalous. Among the core principles of PR are obfuscation, damage minimisation and image protection. These are principles which should be anathema to an academic institution which ostensibly prioritises academic freedom and honest debate. Delegating communication with student media to a reputation-focused anonymous spokesperson evinces a willingness to avoid honest engagement with the university community, especially students. The empty corporate prose of Pip Pattisons Honi op-ed shows that, even when given the opportunity to justify their actions and engage with debate, management are unwilling to do so. The appointment of Mark Scott as Vice-Chancellor a non-academic corporate operator is evidence of a further acceleration away from academic community and towards corporate goals.Certainly, the University deserves some modicum of sympathy in dealing with a hostile government and strained financial circumstances. However, such problems should not be dealt with by abandoning the honest engagement in debate which is inherent in academia for a corporate communications strategy which prioritises image over honesty, and anonymity over responsibility, treating students with an attitude bordering on disdain.A university does not have shareholders or customers to whom it must sell itself. Its whole being is centred on academic production opinions on the purposes of which may differ and such production rests on interaction between masters and scholars. Reducing interaction between these groups, and segregating students, staff and management through architectural and communications choices, does a disservice to the university, atomising the sense of community upon which it relies. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Politics has been, and always will be, a struggle composed of a diverse ideological marketplace of ideas. It is such struggle wherein we popularise ideas, seize genuine political power and then exercise that power for the advancement of a better world. It is fundamentally illegitimate to abstain from the work of politics on the grounds that the world is presently imperfect or challenging. This claim is merely a hopeless response in the face of powerlessness. Honi Soit recently published an op-ed arguing that left-wing people ought to abstain on principle from the USU election. We are three left wing students who oppose this perspective on the strongest possible grounds.The primary claim made is that the left stands to gain nothing from participating in the USU election, as the USU is a corporation. This argument conflates form with function, arguing that simply because the USU often operates against the interests of students, it must be a corporation. However the USU, like the SRC, is an unincorporated association, and definitionally cannot be a corporation. Presumably then organisational critiques made of the USU must apply, at least in principle, equally to the SRC. While the USU and SRC are obviously dissimilar in the sense that the latter invests more in activist priorities, the assertion that the USU could never function in a more activist or student-oriented manner has no material basis. In the counterfactual scenario where the SRC was persistently controlled by the right-wing and its activist priorities were eroded, would the abstentionists argue that running in SRC elections constituted corporate participation?Suggesting that abstention is harmless is prima facie untrue. If the left ceased contesting the USU election, the board would be filled entirely with cynical right-wing careerists who have no qualms with its present organisational culture. In this world, cutting staff wages would be done with impunity and without any left-wing opposition. In the best case, the left could win and sustain a board majority, transforming its institutional culture and employing its $5 million budget for key amenities aligned with student interest. But even in the worst case, the participation of left-wing people frustrates, in some way, the agenda of these people. Insofar as the left has a moral duty to protect staff and students, we ought carry out this duty and prevent significant harms from being inflicted on those we claim to support. This is not left wing cover, it is simply left wing power.The final, and perhaps strongest argument, is a strategic appeal to the opportunity cost of contesting the USU election compared to organising directly for left wing causes. Firstly, the claim that participation in the USU elections detracts resources from activist campaigns is empirically untrue. As recently as this week, whilst two of us were managing multiple USU campaigns, we played significant parts in defeating the move to 12 week semesters and restoring medical science students to their building and their honours projects. But even if there was some implicit opportunity cost, the USU election is far from an apolitical act. Students, who otherwise would not be, are exposed to left-wing rhetoric, and activist causes are trumpeted in interviews and campaign materials. To the extent that those invested in USU elections are a distinct set from those invested in SRC elections, we ought to bring these messages to that distinct group. Given that the lefts primary justification for electoral ventures is access to resources, surely the prospect of controlling the USU is an important consideration. The USU is endowed with a much larger budget than the SRC, meaning that important projects such as Radical Sex and Consent Week could receive adequate funding. The USU could support the SRC in numerous concrete ways: advocating concurrently against harmful proposals, continuing to support initiatives such as the FoodHub and striking in solidarity with staff.The world we wish to see may not manifest in a year, a generation or even our lifetime. To suggest that these political projects and participation are intractable is to reject every left-wing thinker who, like us, believed that in the struggle for justice, the last page is never written. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Twice every year Eastern Avenue is littered with A-frames and people leafleting in coloured t-shirts. Its for two different elections one for people to be elected to the Students Representative Council and one for the University Sydney Union (USU).Some people on the left will say that we should run in both. Those people would be wrong. Fundamentally, the USU is a corporation and the best thing left-wing people can do is boycott it.To justify participating in the USU elections, left-wing tickets have to argue that 1) the USU is a union and 2) by being elected to its board they can push it to do left-wing things.So to address these arguments:Firstly, the USU is not a union.Unions are designed to protect workers interests and fight against the bosses. Or, in the case of student unions like the SRC, they are designed to help students out, getting funding to organise on campus and fight for students rights.Does the USU do this?Absolutely not. The USU receives millions of our SSAF money (over $5.1m to be precise), which is vastly more than the $1.9m the SRC receives. Not to mention the revenue they get from ACCESS sign ups, charging the SRC and clubs for venue bookings and the profits of their many food outlets. They are a multi-million dollar institution and they make business decisions.Last year, in the face of COVID and classes moving online, they closed down their outlets and forced through a pay cut of 40% for workers, despite being eligible for JobKeeper. Much like the University at large, recently it was announced that they have an operating surplus of $55,000, proving their cuts to be completely unnecessary.This is the behaviour of a for-profit corporation and not a union.Some left-wing people respond to this by saying of course it is a corporation but surely by getting elected we will have the power to at least make some left-wing impact?This is also untrue.The elections to the USU are for its board, but the main decision-making body is corporate management. As a single board member you do not have power. The most you can do is vote against anti-worker motions and disclose classified information. For the left-wing candidates who have been elected in recent history making this bold move is deemed too risky. And with good reason Tom Raue, the last Grassroots member who attempted to disclose classified information, was taken to court by the USU and slapped with $50,000 of legal fees.By being elected to this board all you are doing is providing the USU with left-wing cover. They need credibility so that when they do something egregious they are not in the firing line and are instead protected by the people who should be the ones protesting against them.The only principled thing to do is to boycott USU elections and turn our energies to real unions and activism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> IKafkas Odradek is a strange creature. He looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread and yet is not, for despite the fact that there are old, broken-off pieces of thread wound on it, a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, which, due to another rod joined to the crossbar at a right angle, allows him to stand upright as if on two legs. Despite his awkward appearance Odradek is nimble and apparently sentient. When asked where he resides, he simply says no fixed abode. He laughs without lungs, a sound like the rustling of falling leaves. Even his name is ambiguous, whether it comes from the German or the Slavonic is unclear. Kafkas narrator thinks that it is unlikely that Odradek can die, as everything that dies has a purpose, which Odradek lacks. The thought that Odradek will outlive him is almost a painful one.Little seems more useless, confusing, or even painful at first glance than reading a text in a language one barely understands. The task is alien to the purpose of reading as it is commonly conceived. Isnt the point of reading a text to understand it?I would say no. In fact, I would argue that reading a text in a language of which one has only a rudimentary grasp is an invaluable process. The lack of comprehension itself allows us to appreciate the musicality of the language and escape the arrogance of thinking that every text, or even any text, can be adequately understood. This restores a beautiful strangeness to the written word. Like Odradek, that which we do not understand will outlive us, but this shouldnt be a painful thought.IIEzra Pound provides the following advice to any aspiring poet: You cannot learn to write by reading English. This is because the meaning of the words diverts attention from the movement of the language itself. Reading a poem where the meaning is not immediately evident allows you to focus on its rhythmic and musical qualities, the phrase as a constructed sequence of syllables and sounds.The English speaker can gain a lot, in this sense, from the following stanza from Lorca, even before seeking out the translation.La luna vino a la Fraguacon su polisn de nardos.El nio la mira, mira.El nio la est mirandoIt is both instructive and enjoyable to simply read the lines aloud without understanding exactly what they mean, to listen to the way that Lorca plays with rhyme and rhythm and appreciate the words as sound divorced from content.This instructive capacity is not limited to aspiring poets. Admiring the architecture of a phrase without being distracted by its meaning can also improve ones writing in prose, as the way that a sentence moves, both internally and within a paragraph, is itself a form of poetry. Taking a step back from the meaning of the words allows their form to come into focus. Further, to borrow from Henry James, it is the form that takes and holds and preserves substance, saves it from the welter of helpless verbiage that we swim in as in a sea of tasteless tepid pudding.The experience of reading something that you only partially understand is, beyond the initial frustration that it causes, also a very enjoyable one. Once you stop looking for the translation of every individual word or phrase and simply allow the sounds to wash over you, it opens up a wholly different enjoyment. The text becomes music. This experience of language, not squashed into meaning but playing out freely in sound, is a beautiful one.IIIBeyond instruction and enjoyment, being confronted with a half-understood text also allows us to escape the tendency to interpret. This is a valuable thing because, as Susan Sontag has argued, there is a modern tendency to consistently reduce works of art to their content, in order to then offer interpretations of that content. In this, we lose the essence of the artwork itself.Interpretation is, as Sontag notes, a form of translation A becomes B, B becomes C the text is brought into our world, into our language by becoming something other than itself. The act of interpretation transforms the text. This process is often a reductive one as the wholeness and at times unsettling strangeness of the work of art is reduced to its content, something more manageable. To know what a text means is to bring it into your understanding as something greatly diminished.Odradek, for example, Kafkas confusing, meaningless spool of sentient thread, has been interpreted as reflecting Kafkas personal anxieties, a critique of capitalism, the Jewish tradition, an uncountable array of other things that take one away from the text itself. While these interpretations can be valuable and interesting, the story cannot help but lose something of its fullness in the process. As the priest says to K in The Trial, You must not pay too much attention to opinions. The written word is unalterable, and opinions are often only an expression of despair.I will be the first to admit that the way that I tend to read is by reducing the text to its content. I skim through the pages, identify the central ideas, write some quick notes and then congratulate myself on having understood whatever it is that I have read. This cannot happen when reading in a half-understood language.In setting aside an attempt to know what a text means, even briefly, and allowing it instead to wash over us, we can get away from this dominant approach to reading. This liberates the text from our understanding and interpretations and restores to it an almost mystical quality. It allows us to glimpse what Sontag insists the earliest experience of art must have been that it was incantatory, magical an instrument of ritual. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My biggest indulgence as a reader, is reading about books. I cant resist the temptation of a title containing the words booklover, library, ex libris. So, given an opportunity to write about the books I loved growing up feels like a pure, confectionary, indulgence.When I think of my own childhood, the remembering always hones in on the books I read at the time. I think its easiest to picture it in the form of a neatly segmented orange. Each vesicle, as Anne Fadiman puts to us, works as a chapter, made up of all the books we accumulate over the years. Soon, without knowing it, the story of who we are becomes a collection of all the stories weve loved over the years.Readers and bibliophiles arent just born; theyre made. Theyre made in each visit to the library, taking out as many books as they can at one time, or, in sneaking in a few more chapters after lights out. It starts with one quick story before bed and then, before anyone can curb the addiction, youre out of shelf-space to store all 60 of the Rainbow Fairies series. And for my parents at least, it was an addiction they were happy to feed.But, these stories do more than just keep us entertained and quiet. The value in childrens literature is in its ability to spark an imaginative streak and provide a wide-eyed kid with their first experience of things outside of their own realities and knowledge. This was my own experience, and I can track the development of my love of art and history to books I read as a child, like Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet. A stolen painting, with two outcast kid protagonists, and riddles to solve along the way? Sign. Me. Up. Incidentally exposing kids to the value of museums, a love of learning and art history along the way? A luxury of kids fiction: lessons are neatly wrapped in the narrative arc of a protagonist that we imagine as ourselves.The joy of reading when you are young is that so much of it is uncritical. You, as a child, are unanalytical of the world around you, and unaware of the lenses through which to deconstruct text and their meaning. Its this simplicity that brings pure joy to the experience of reading. Everything is new, each thought you have feels like your own. This feeling, the wild vulnerability felt when being recognised for something you thought particular to you, is why, for so many young readers, there is an element of comfort in books.This was absolutely the case for me when I recovered from my precocious 5-year-old, fairy-loving self and became a cripplingly shy 7-12-year-old. Too nervous to talk to strangers or answer the home phone, I was the kid in the corner tucked up with a book full of adventurous protagonists. I took a book with me almost everywhere I went the dinner table, family friends houses, school a habit that I am yet to shake.These were the years of Enid Blyton, pure escapism in pretending it wasnt so much the Famous Five, but instead, the Super Six. I spent years of my life solving riddles with Trenton Lee Stewarts Mysterious Benedict Society and climbing through cupboards with Lucy, dreaming of something so tempting as the White Witchs Turkish delight. The books came in phases; historical fiction, like every Royal Diary in the series, or Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein was followed quickly by high fantasy. If I wasnt part of the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica by James A. Owen, then I was surely at Hogwarts, or along for the ride with Pseudonymous Boschs Secret Series.It was these characters, Darrell from Malory Towers (another Blyton special), Louise Fitzhughes Harriet, from Harriet the Spy, Gregor, from Suzanne Collinss criminally underrated first series, Gregor the Overlander, who became my friends in childhood. The best sort of friends, that gently guide you towards forming a sense of self. By defeating the evils in their own stories, the trope of having the good guys win provides in its own way, a version of morality that shapes a young persons own moral code. Who knows what sort of ankle-tattoo having, arsonist, orphan-stealer I would have been without the warning contained in Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events.Kazuo Ishiguro, at this years Sydney Writers Festival, made a point about the best books being the ones that stay with us afterwards. In my own life, this is felt in how often when sick or miserable, I turn to rereading old favourites. In particular, Rebecca Steads When You Reach Me never fails to bring me a cathartic cry at the end of the book. Her book, a homage to Madeleine LEngels A Wrinkle in Time is the perfect example of the role that formative books play in our lives. Had Stead never read the infamous, it was a dark and stormy night, she might never have written a novel. And had she never explained why do we yawn? I might never have loved reading as much as I do now. It is this cyclical relationship that I think provides the most comforting form of familiarity in rereading, the ability to recognise in familiar pages our younger selves, like old acquaintances, and the inner kid who is amazed by discoveries that we take as given facts now.I am who I am, in part, because of what I read when I was too young to worry about much else except when I was going to have an opportunity to go back to the bookstore. When people say that we are made up of the friends we keep and the family we have, they neglect to mention that we are also made up of every book we have read and loved.I started this love letter to kids books with a clumsy metaphor about an orange. It is only fitting then, to return to this with Wendy Copes poem, The Orange, which ends with some of the most tender words I could use to sign off in this ode to all the books weve loved before.I love you, Im glad I exist (to be able to read you). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The joy of reading fiction comes from the glimpse you catch into another persons experiences. The promise of learning something new about how someone passes through the world that you share is one of the most exciting things as a reader. Yet recently, I have noticed that I was getting insights into the same persons experiences and ideas white straight men.This realisation was sparked by Elena Ferrantes My Brilliant Friend, which made me realise that something was missing from the books I had been reading, mainly modern classics written by white straight men. From there on, the books from my usual repertoire didnt make me feel the same as it did before there was always something missing.I started noticing that all the characters were white. I noticed the holistic depictions of masculine identity and experiences, glaringly contrasted against the role of women merely as one-dimensional supporting characters a mother, a wife, a sexual object. This became hard to ignore and prompted the unshakable feeling that, as a woman of colour, the author was writing for an audience that excluded people like me. I was not what the author had in mind.Its not to say that the perspective gained by reading fiction by straight white men is inherently boring or valueless its just Ive absorbed it already. Its no longer exciting. As Ferrate has pointed out, there has been a male colonisation of the female imagination women have no problem imagining things from the male perspective. Yet it is clear from recent events, seen in the responses to the sexual harassment scandals that have pervaded Australian media in the past months, that this is not reflected in the reverse. Although there are really great works of fiction by white straight men, there are also books that are just as remarkable and skilfully written, created by women and people of colour, that challenge me and include me, both within the book and as its audience. I dont need more insight into the world as experienced by white straight men, which already permeates almost every aspect of my life outside fiction.Thus, at least for now, in a time where women and people of colour are being published at growing (albeit slowly), fiction written by white straight men sit at the bottom of my to-read list. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As anyone who has spent a few minutes with children over the past few years will tell you, the absolute ubiquity of TikTok for todays children cannot be denied. With TikTok surpassing 2 billion downloads in Q1 of 2020, the most downloads for any app in any quarter in history, the cultural capital of its flagship creators is unparalleled and continues to grow. While the centrality of these new child stars Charli, Addison, Loren, et cetera to the cultural zeitgeist is indisputable, the implications of the platforming of these children, both for our digital discourses and for these child-stars themselves, are rarely discussed.The industry that has emerged around the new kidfluencer class is far from the double-denimed Disney Channel red carpets of our childhood, but is likely just as insidious. The dark shadow of the entertainment industry that has traumatised child stars for decades is well publicised and widely criticised. TikTok stardom differs in striking ways, but the spectre of harm still looms just as great. The problem begins with the almost total absence of regulation. No one could have predicted how rapidly these child stars would reach their position of primacy in online culture. In some areas, the global community has tried to respond proportionately; the French parliament passed landmark protections for child influencers, related to their ownership over their assets and their right to be forgotten, meaning the immediate erasure of their content from every platform upon their direct request. However, the United States remains more or less silent on the working hours and activities of the creators in this immensely profitable industry. Moreover, while public engagement with child celebrities has always been intrusive, separation between the private and professional lives of social media stars is totally absent. The publics access to their lives is relentless and, more so than any other form of celebrity, unmediated. For these young social media stars, accessing their millions of followers on an account that still uses their Club Penguin password, their autonomy is noticeably greater, but in embracing their platforms they have abrogated their right to silence.The first problem emerging from this culture of consistent visibility is a societal one: the online political discourse. As our political conversations have infiltrated the digital domain, the participation of influencers is increasingly deep-rooted, validated by blue verification marks that seem to act as some universal qualification. Teenage influencers have been the most visible participants in many crucial political conversations over the past year; conflicting opinions around compliance with social distancing were fought out around the Hype House and Bryce Halls 100-person 21st. Online engagement with the Black Lives Matter protests in June last year was in some part preoccupied with which teen stars changed their profile pictures or posted for #BlackoutTuesday. In a society used to emulating its celebrities, it is unavoidable that our support for stars is related to our agreement with their political opinions. But handing the airwaves to child stars, who experience a professional invincibility due to their cult following, an economic reward for scandal, and a validation for their wildest opinions validated by their follower account, has degraded our online political conversations to shallow contributions and underinformed infographics. While this phenomenon is not wholly harmful, it is certainly positive to have messages of tolerance and equality preached to young, and perhaps unengaged, audiences by people whose opinions they respect. However, expecting teenagers to understand and not butcher their words around complex global issues is obviously problematic and actively redirects leadership away from experts.While its easy to blame influencers for the sideshow that has emerged in digital spaces, it is equally important to recognise the effects that being platformed has on these young people in real time. It is too soon to say if the toddler-to-trainwreck pipeline has reached a new incarnation. However, the detriments of online fame are becoming increasingly manifest. The essence of TikTok fame is offering instant gratification to the audience. Your quirks, sense of humour, dress sense and interests are only valid to the extent that they grow your following. While Ive acknowledged that, to an extent, a cult following will be quick to absolve macro-influencers of their crimes, a large peanut gallery of digital citizens is prepared to ridicule and condemn the most benign of activities, from vaping to swearing. Charli DAmelio, the largest creator on the platform, lost 1,000,000 followers in the span of a few hours for acting bratty to a home chef in a video. Treating their platforms as a diary, and their followers as friends, obviously has psychological implications for these child stars. While their audiences may have a fleeting attention span, the internet has a long memory and the real cost for these influencers living out their worse impulses in the public domain is yet to be seen.We should exercise restraint in a digital era that ages up young people and forces them to participate in conversations they have no qualification, beyond their follower count, to enter. In defence of a well-functioning digital community, and of children who stumbled into a digital following they were unprepared to control, we should be apprehensive about our engagement with influencers. More than anything else, I petition that we should show these children the same, perhaps weary, kindness that we wish that someone would show our 15-year-old selves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the USSR, having a city meant having a theme park no exceptions. Opened in 1928, Moscows Gorky Park amazed spectators with rides that showcased the epitome of Marxist-Leninist mechanical ingenuity whilst familiarising the masses with proletarian recreation.Prior to the ascendancy of the Bolsheviks, parks were meeting places for undesirables, but the regeneration of public space was so lauded within the Communist Party that similar projects began appearing everywhere from Estonia to Tajikistan.The revolutionary zeal, however, didnt necessarily translate into good theme parks in their backwater republics. The rides at these glorified community fairs were mass-produced out of scrap metal and often shaped like rocket ships to applaud the achievements of the Soviet space program. Their jagged angles and harsh lines evoke some kernel of their constructivist roots, but it doesnt make them particularly comfortable to sit in, as I soon discovered during my journey to Central Asia. The whole endeavour appeared to be imagined by elderly hardliners in the nomenklatura who could only interpret fun through the praxis of Marxist ideology.One benefit of the great merrymaking plan is that the rides are insanely cheap. A cable car ride in Almaty still only costs two dollars, allowing the working class to unite with their gondola comrades through leisure. Theres also a sort of self-congratulatory spirit imbued into the parks. As with the space-themed rides, most larger parks house a tiny building that offers 5D, 6D, and even 10D movies. I couldnt figure out what exactly these multi-D cinemas entailed but was assured they were far superior to the 3D or God forbid 2D cinemas of the decadent West. And an entertainment centre on the outskirts of Ashgabat hosts the largest (enclosed) Ferris wheel in the world.Even the less ostentatious rides have propagandistic potential by eliciting emotions antithetical to the new way of life (fear, nausea, etc.) within the confines of state property, which can subsequently be purged (sometimes quite literally), opening you up to the possibility of more communism. But the fear is justified. Public safety was never high on the politburos list of concerns (see: Chernobyl) and amusement parks were no exception. Just a month after I left, a flying saucer ride in Jizzakh snapped in half mid-ride, killing one person. I should be thankful that the rollercoaster operators in Turkmenistan were kind enough to test the machine to make sure it works before letting me jump on.Lurking amongst the brakeless dodgem cars and tetanus-infested umbrella rides, theres nearly always one or two nightmarish creature statues from local folklore, made from leftover concrete and given a cheap paint job; a sort of lip service to the purported, yet never properly realised, autonomy of the individual Soviet republics. To emphasise this point, many parks hosted socialist realist monuments of fallen socialist heroes that overshadowed their mythical counterparts. Most of these Bolsheviks were toppled in the years following the dissolution of the USSR, but some states still enraptured in communist nostalgia havent felt the same burning need. In Kyrgyzstans Panfilov Park, you can still see a 10-metre bronze effigy of Vladimir Lenin keeping watch over the rides with his heavy, judgemental eyes, prompting you to stop playing and get back to work for the good of your country.In other Central Asian states, the role of the theme park has since been appropriated to suit a more pressing concern for national identity out of the crimson rubble of the Soviet Union. An amusement park I visited in Nukus was renamed after Amir Timur Uzbekistans newly instated national hero, and the guy responsible for killing 5% of the worlds population in his lifetime who is synonymous with fun and good times.In the more eccentric republic of Turkmenistan, the World of Turkmenbashi Tales (colloquially, Turkmen Disneyland) is supposedly based on local mythology as espoused from the mouth of the late-President for Life Saparmurat Turkmenbashi Niyazov. A more accurate description, however, would be Disneyland as imagined by someone who has never seen a Disney film and had the concept of fun lectured to them in a re-education camp. Despite it being 1 p.m. on a Saturday, it was completely empty when I arrived. I followed off-brand 8-bit music, past waterless water rides and animatronic penguins in top hats, until I found a bored woman behind a ticket booth who was genuinely surprised that the park had any visitors.Predictably, international theme park aficionados arent huge fans of the offerings available in the Stans, often describing them on TripAdvisor as awful, the worst, or total disgrace[s]. But theres something strangely beautiful about Soviet and post-Soviet demonstrations of public entertainment. The awkward attempts at recreating recreation all lay in varying states of disrepair as if they were relics of dreams that could never properly materialise. In any case, theyre something to do in a region notorious for poor internet speeds. As one local guide said of Dustlik Park Razvlecheniy in Tashkent: Better a poor horse than no horse at all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is a little square widget on my phone that reads Week 19. Its intended purpose was to reduce the amount of times that I went onto Google and typed in the phrase what week of the year is it. What was supposed to be my way of tracking a goal, is now a reminder of a benchmark that Im not so sure I want to meet.Id added the square in question because Ive spent the last few years trying to read fifty-two books a year. Like many, the workload at the end of high school had left me a little free time and I was now desperate to read more. The first year I tried this challenge, albeit somewhat limited in its potential for success given it was my first year at university, I only made it to halfway through. It was a year of trying to read on buses, between classes, and before bed. Some of these worked better than others. While I cant fall asleep in a moving vehicle, I can read for hours and hours in one without feeling ill. Even then, many of the books Id counted seemed like incidental reads rather than intentional choices to fulfil the challenge.The appeal of reading challenges makes sense to me. Ive always loved books and I get competitive a little too easily. In primary school, I thrived on classroom reading trackers and competitions like the Premiers Reading Challenge. I was endlessly appreciative of librarians who would let me borrow more than I was supposed to: he recommended two fiction and two non-fiction wouldnt even last me the time between lessons. In high school, I once used an online speed reading program to read a four hundred page book in two hours because I had forgotten to read it the night before. Its these kinds of reading practices that drew me, and to a certain extent continue to draw me, to reading challenges.2020 was my take two. I ended up reading 52 books, yet I didnt read the last third until December. Ive never been able to read before bed, once Ive started a book I cant stop reading. This became less of a problemwhen I didnt have to be anywhere the next day. But even overcoming this self-imposed challenge saw me frantically trying to finish a reread of Tina Feys Bossypants on December 31. At that point, I didnt care if a reread would be cheating, I just needed a shorter read that would let me reach my goal.This year, I tried to pick a new number that would strike the right balance between doable and challenging. I briefly threw around the idea of reading 65 books after realising that 100 as too big of a load to add to the increasing stack of weekly readings I would have to do. I could never decide on a higher number. I think this is the problem with reading challenges. There are always more books to be read, more genres to try, more authors to experience. And so, the finish line keeps moving, turning an enjoyable activity into another task to fit in our already busy weeks.This year Ive read four books. Im not sure how many I will read by the end of the year. Right now, it doesnt really matter, Ill keep reading. Or at least, adding books to my shelves and the endless to be read list in my mind that I dont dare to try to write down. Im not quite sure that Im ready to delete the widget just yet. But, maybe next year? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Podcasts are everywhere. Emerging out of obscurity only a decade ago, theyve become one of the primary forms of audio entertainment, making us laugh, educating us, providing distraction or motivation. They have become an indispensable slice of my time. I went from exploring content related to any and all of my interests to finding joy coming to know the hosts of my favourite shows to relying on them to keep up to date with the news. But recently while walking down the street, I found myself selecting a show I was only vaguely interested in, and realised my music playlists had become tired, and even boring. Listening to podcasts has become a habit, rather than a pleasure, and the love Id developed for finding new music had wavered, in favour of lazy selections of the shows that provide me comfort, but engender little enthusiasm.By no means is it my intention to rag on podcasts, a medium that has grown immensely since its inception, becoming more stylised, focused, addictive, and available, to name only a few of the forms numerous qualities. The vast array of subjects and approaches now at our selection can hook anyone looking for entertainment that engages the mind in a unique way, serving their listeners in every way from impersonal storytellers to confidants that instil a sense of companionship in their audience.But the thought of all those unheard songs and unknown artists waiting patiently to reveal themselves to me begs the question: am I missing out?To think of all the classics I havent given the time to, those albums serenaded in blogs and news articles as life changing, or that forever changed music history. Yes, Pet Sounds will still be there in fifty years, but why not listen to it now? Instead I find myself half listening to an assessment of Bidens latest policy struggle, a conversation worth hearing, but one thats quickly forgotten amidst the chaos of constant news and daily life. Of course it shouldnt matter what random publications deem essential listening, just whether youre entertained and enjoying the content you select. However, theres something to be said for the emotional power music possesses that no podcast can match. Weve all found those songs that make you walk a little faster, with more purpose and a new perspective, or those that peer inside your head, knock you down, then tell you something about yourself or the world youre glad to know, if only fleetingly.So Im advocating for a balance between these two mediums, one that I am sure millions of people have already formulated, but that has recently escaped my grasp. I have no desire to become numb to the pleasure of a great podcast. In fact, of the thousands downloaded every day, Im sure I will come across many that return my enthusiasm, maybe by offering hilarious banter between two comedians and lifelong friends, or presenting a disturbing portrait of an unhinged serial killer, as seems to be the preference of so many. We absolutely should keep supporting podcasting, a young mode of expression that promises to only improve as the more technologically savvy generations coming through take hold of it, but dont let musics appeal suffer in the process, or become any less involved in shaping our view of the world and global pop culture. My idea of a healthy relationship between the two doesnt involve a designated time split or set number of hours, rather a personal feeling that Im appreciating the creativity and artistry exuded from both. Music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have made it easier to discover under-promoted new bands, as well as lesser-celebrated older ones easier than it has been at any time in history. This privilege makes exploring hundreds of years of musical accomplishment all the more rewarding.So next time you plug your earphones in, and find that your playlists feel stale, or that your podcast slate is too narrow, listen to something new. Hell, not listening to anything is a pretty valid alternative itself, probably even healthier. For now, Im just in need of the next song that throws me down the rabbit hole of an artists discography and the accompanying online forums debating their musical merit. Join me! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Given the last year has been one of isolation, board games are more essential than ever before. They allow you to have fun, test your skills, compete, and spend a few hours rolling dice and moving meeples. The ability to socialise and connect in a relaxed setting is often overlooked, and board games can provide the perfect opportunity to do just that.While many people consider board games to be too nerdy or too boring, this is a massive generalisation that fails to consider the variety of games that exist. Yes you have your classics, like Monopoly, Life or Trouble, but there are so many more! Escape rooms, construction, storytelling, and war games.The list never ends. Recent years have seen an explosion in the development and sales of different types of games, particularly with lockdowns resulting in increased sales. The global board game industry is worth approximately $14 billion, and is expected to grow in the future.In recent years, video games have also been on the rise. With the growth of multi-player games, competitions and streaming, the industry is worth $175billion. Though they can provide a more immersive and realistic experience, they simply cannot erase the joy of playing someone in person. The increased immersion of technology in our everyday life has its benefits, however it is also essential to enjoy time away from our screens. Board games provide an opportunity to exercise your brain, away from the computer.Many games have the added benefit of challenging individuals mentally to think outside the box, recognise patterns, or simply out-manoeuvre your opponent. The opportunity to practice critical thinking skills in an informal environment allows individuals to develop these abilities in a way that cant be taught (though most of us wont need to plan global domination outside of Risk). Not only do you practice your strategy and addition skills, but you also pick up on subtle social cues in ways you might not have otherwise. Recognising your friends smirk when they have a good hand and knowing when a laugh is fake, are all things that can help you throughout life.The educational benefits of board games are also important particularly for children. I dont know about you, but I learnt the basics of budgeting while decimating my brother in Monopoly. Games teach essential skills, despite not outwardly advertising that intent. Scrabble expands your vocabulary (particularly if youre interested in words you may never use again), Cluedo tests your ability to judge a social setting and your ability to lie, Betrayal at the House on the Hill gets you to think ahead and take calculated risks.For those of you who still arent convinced, you simply havent played a good game in a while. Classic board and games like Chess and Monopoly cant be missed, but there are so many more out there. Most games can be separated into teamwork or competition. Are you trying to stop a worldwide plague in Pandemic, or figuring out secrets in Codenames? Beyond the childhood classics, many people dont realise the diversity thats available.Strategy games, such as the classic Ticket to Ride, are prominent in the industry. Whether working competitively or together, many games are based on the premise of limited resources or times, and the players ability to use these to maximise their points or reach an end goal. Planning ahead and thwarting your opponents can lead to some very heated arguments and some very entertaining victories (or losses). Fantasy based games, such as Gloomhaven or Catan, have the added benefit of extending your imagination beyond the confines of the real world. Why be on Instagram when you could be a Mindthief?The joy of opening a box and spending a few hours with friends or family cannot be understated. Board games are the perfect way of spending a few hours doing something fun, bonus points if youre procrastinating uni assessments. So next time you want to needlessly scroll on your phone, remember the pure joy of winning at Monopoly, and play a board game instead. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With entries recently closing for this years Archibald Prize, artists both young and old, emerging and established, have all rushed to get their portraits in from around the nation. While the exhibition regularly draws big numbers and significant media attention, youd be hard pressed to find people who often agree with the judges picks for the winner.So whats the problem? One could argue the prevailing issue is anti-intellectualism, as a majority of works fail to capture the essence of the subject, but rather a photo-realistic representation. The images become more a show of skill in making the portrait seem photographic, rather than using the medium of painting to its full advantage: a medium wherein reflecting objective reality is not the primary aim. However, this cannot be said of all the winners, and this is usually a problem with the Peoples Choice Prize rather than the actual judges themselves.Where the real issues lie, I would argue, is a self-fulfilling cycle of elitism, which rewards the wealthy and the well-known, and disadvantages those without an elaborate web of connections or the financial backing to make up for it. We regularly see the same recurring celebrity artists featured as finalists in the prize figures such as Anh Do, Vincent Fantauzzo, Tim Storrier and Shaun Gladwell. One need only scroll down the Wikipedia page of previous years Archibald Prize winners to be confronted by a wall of names in blue, linking you to massive, career spanning blocks of articles stressing their notoriety. These artists are well established figures, and while they may produce good work, their more mediocre entries may potentially take the space of someone less prominent.At the same time, the rules are designed to aid this elitism, and when convenient, are often thrown out altogether in order to accommodate this perpetuating cycle. Under the guidelines, it asks for the portraits to be of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Sciences or Politics. How is an up-and-comer able to rub shoulders with such distinguished figures if they are not already a celebrity themselves?Another rule requires that it must be a portrait painted from life; a rule which is regularly broken by the artists, and virulently ignored by those judging. While most portraits present their figures in vacant voids to create the illusion of some sort of studio sit-in with their subject, some painters dont even try to hide the fact that their works were aided by the use of photography. Tessa MacKays 2019 work Through the Looking Glass features famous actor David Wenham posed uncomfortably in an outdoor location. Taking into consideration lighting, the movement of reflections, and Wenhams pensive gesture, attempting to paint this piece live sounds like a nightmare. While I might concede that a follow up rule asserts artists may only have one live sitting with the artist, that doesnt prevent someone from having a quick meeting with the subject, taking a couple photos and then going their separate ways. Considering the celebrity status of Wenham, its no surprise why the judges chose to ignore these rules.Aside from this, most artists outside of New South Wales have great difficulty getting their entries in. Speaking with artists who have previously submitted works to the Archibald Prize, they expressed their annoyance at having to pay large sums of money to transport their portrait to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. As an aspiring artist, its difficult to choose between paying the bills or fulfilling your dream.Finally, the consensus among audiences is usually that the judges pick the weakest link out of the finalists for the top prize. While I often dont mind the artworks they award, one must wonder why they themselves are not artists. Trustees of the gallery, the investors, moneymakers, and owners. These people have a vested interest in drawing in crowds and bumping up ticket sales. While the rules stipulate that two of the eleven judges must be artists, that is still an overwhelming majority of people judging an art prize who are not artists.As an emerging artist, especially one potentially graduating from SCA or just starting USyd, this all may sound confronting and hopeless. But there are alternatives to the Archibald machine! Whenever the Archibald Prize exhibits, over on Observatory Hill in the CBD, the S.H. Ervin Gallery showcases a competing program Salon des Refuss which features many of the Archibald rejects. Oftentimes, this exhibit features works far more intellectually engaging and skillful than the finalists of Australias so-called top prize.On the other hand, if that is still too mainstream for you, there are a plethora of smaller galleries around Sydney that are always looking for emerging artists and doing callouts for new talent. Youve just gotta keep your eyes peeled. One lot of galleries I enjoy going to is along Hampden Street in Paddington, with the latest and greatest new, exciting, up-and-coming artists. And with the trees extending themselves over the street, and the leaves gently falling down, it fills you with a romantic reverie that the imposing, monolithic AGNSW never can.Editors note: this article was edited to reflect the composition of the gallery trustees. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> So, Im an uncle now. Thats fun. Aside from the sudden whooping cough injections I needed to take, nothing has surprised me thus far. The crying, the pooping these were all to be expected. What I hadnt counted on, however, was the influx of photographs on my timeline. From TikTok videos, Instagram stories and Facebook posts, to snapchat replies, video calls and group chat images, it seems there is no escaping this child. I am confronted by their visage every waking moment.The proliferation of these images bring up a number of concerns. For one, the eerie nature in which this child, who, from the moment of birth, has now been logged into a global system of data and code. Who knows whos watching from afar and has access to my sisters child? From the very beginning of life, it is as though they are already being tracked in an international panopticon of surveillance technology.Aside from that, the way in which this newborn is being confronted by the steely gaze of a camera lens is unsettling to say the least. I wonder what this would do to a developing mind, to imagine your parent as the barrel of a camera rather than a human being: an artificial oculus, instead of a natural one. And to the photographer, the distancing effect this creates.Krzysztof Kielowski taps into similar concerns in his film Camera Buff, which follows the impulsive purchase of a film camera by a father to capture the early moments of his childs life. As he begins to film everything he sees, an emotional barrier between him and his family starts to emerge. One scene sees him document his child sitting down but falling over, to which he continues to record without going over to help. His wife derides him through her rhetorical questioning: If she fell off the balcony, would you film that too? In an interview for the Criterion Channel, directors Josh and Benny Safdie suggest it acts as a warning to all filmmakers, asserting that film is innately perverse and godplaying. The horror of all this is captured in the Polish poster for the film, with the face of the protagonist morphing into that of a camera lens, an ersatz eye replacing an organic one.This begs the question, why record these moments at all? What compels my sister to take photos of her newborn child? I sat down with her and my brother-in-law to gather deeper insight into their thoughts. For my sister, Hannah, she infers that taking photos is a means through which to make physical my love for him and the affection I have for him through my own eyes, to then pass onto others. For her husband, Joe, he spoke of how his desire to take photos of people he loves, such as his child, is driven by a need to capture that moment in time, particularly because time is so fleeting it allows you to look back on a moment and remember it for what it was.These responses point toward a larger notion that extends to all of us: the inherent reason we take photos of things and people we love. Since photographys inception, people have carried photographs with them, whether it be in their lockets, wallets, or pocket watches, taking them wherever they go and refusing to part with them. A certain religiosity is given to photos, especially photo albums, which, when interviewing people who have just escaped their burning homes, often say its one of the first things they grab. Despite the prevalence of mobile phones, this still holds true, as the wallpaper of someone we love accompanied by a digital clock acts as a modern day pocket watch, and the camera rolls as a contemporary photo album.It is the ephemerality of the image, something about it that we feel compelled to seize, capture and hold on to forever. In The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton discusses how when encountering the natural wonders of the world, we feel an urge to take hold of this moment and freeze its temporality through the process of photography.For me, I take photos of my girlfriend, of the sunset, of friends and family in my life because I dont want to lose them. I want to hold on to these people and things for as long as I can, because they may not be around forever. I am reminded of a scene in Kielowskis Camera Buff, a beautiful moment in which a mans mother dies, and he replays the only footage of her ever captured on film. With tears in his eyes and in a darkened room, the two second silent footage plays before spooling out of its reel, and he says quietly, shes there forever now. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Antiques Roadshow is an unassuming little show. Many pass it off as the obsession of a small few, who spend their days rifling through deceased estates and boxes in the attic. But it is so much more than that.For the uninitiated, let me set the scene. Antiques Roadshow is usually set in a grassy field; that grassy field is typically adjacent to a building or structure of historical significance like a centuries old church or a town hall and all of this is smack bang in the middle of the lovely English countryside. Throughout the day, people come to have their trinkets and trifles assessed by a panel of experts, who will determine an artefacts worth, origin, and legitimacy. This assessment stage forms the bulk of the program, as the experts can go on at length about how this particular jewellery box is in fact not a jewellery box but rather a seed planting device used by Viking raiders and left behind during occupation, for example. Its all very fascinating. But that is merely what Antiques Roadshow is at first glance, and this article seeks to go beyond the surface and feast upon its fleshy interior.Antiques Roadshow, in an abstract sense, is a modern fantasy. Every culture has a mechanism of miraculous wealth, a means by which someone can gain a vast amount of money purely through luck (or some other unearned attribute, like a very wealthy aunt). For many countries, that mechanism is the lottery. The great presumed equaliser. Anyone, rich or poor, can have a chance at being catapulted into the upper echelon of income. But no one wants their wealths origin to be rooted in luck or lottery. Its quite an unsophisticated way of joining the 1%. It reflects no positive qualities about the person in question and paints them in quite an unworthy light.Antiques Roadshow offers an alternative. The best part of any given episode is when one of the expert panel finishes their assessment with a deeply generous valuation of what is objectively quite an unremarkable object. The huddled crowd all gasp and the owners of said object might utter a quiet oh my. It is this moment that makes Antiques Roadshow the perfect alternative to the lottery. Similar to the lottery, it doesnt require any skill or knowledge, but unlike the lottery it feels significantly more earned. As the artefact in question is typically a family heirloom, the audience recognises that this person deserves its newly discovered value. While not so much earned, it feels justified.Aesthetics also play a critical role. The aesthetics of the lottery can be best described as dingy, flashy, and nigh on sticky. These are not pleasant aesthetics to be associated with. Wealth achieved through the Antiques Roadshow method on the other hand, is noble, sophisticated, and ceremonial. The sort of aesthetics wed all like to eat for breakfast and politely ask for second helpings of. Deservedness and aesthetics are the two qualities that make wealth achieved through the Antiques Roadshow method infinitely more worthwhile than any measly lottery dollars. Anyone would be delighted to be remembered as the person who pawned off a part of their ancestral history for a cool 50,000, but not a soul wants to be remembered as the person who came into money on the basis of luck alone.In a world where everyone wants to be rich, but dont really want to take the time to get there, Antiques Roadshow is the perfect escapist fantasy. Instead of faffing about in the stock market or tinkering in the lab, why not have a poke around the attic. You might just find something. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When faced with trying to fill the extra time in our schedules, people around the world have turned to the arts. Many are left trying to watch enough television shows or movies to get through the day, let alone the week. At the same time many productions have been cancelled or postponed and workers have lost their jobs. There is a strange and sad kind of irony in this.Whilst television and film have long embraced the benefits of digital technologies such as streaming platforms to share their work, theatre has never been able to achieve this kind of ubiquitous access. This is somewhat necessitated by the live nature of theatre, but also by the reliance on a need for a shared location and expensive ticket prices.The action of recording live theatre has always been somewhat problematised. Theatre is inherently live, a lived experience that an audience undergoes alongside the performers onstage. Part of the magic is in the collective, in being in the room where it is happening amongst others together. Creators and producers often cite how recordings remove this aspect and cheapen the experience of the production, and that if audiences could access recordings they wouldnt want to experience the real thing. As a result, professional recordings occur rarely and are publicly released in even rarer circumstances, with many ending up in archival storage. Amateur recordings of productions, also known as bootlegs, are generally illegal but have been a constant presence in theatre circles since before the advent of smartphones.So, what happens when theatres cant keep operating as normal?All of the world becomes a stage.Theatres around the world have begun to explore the technological distribution of their work, predominantly through sharing professional recordings, archival footage and live-streamed virtual productions. Professional recordings like those of large Broadway and West End productions have been increasingly made available recently. These include productions shared from the National Theatre in London, the YouTube channel The Show Must Go On and streaming service BroadwayHD among many others. Those that remain hesitant about digital sharing and virtual productions have been sharing content from past performances or photographs of old productions.The rise of live-streamed and virtual productions has offered a way to unite creators and audiences whilst maintaining an interest in theatre. Everything from a one-man performance of a fictional play about someone working in Barbra Streisands basement (Buyer and Cellar) to virtual readings of plays, to a live-streamed birthday concert for Stephen Sondheim, to a twice daily live-streamed talk show with performances from theatre performers and casts of television performers (Stars in the House) is being created and shared on the internet.Whilst some are restricted behind a paywall, many of these productions have been released free and included option fundraising to support theatres and non-profits that aid their workers, on and off stage. This allows audiences to continue to support the casts and crew who produce these amazing productions through witnessing and sharing their productions.The transition to digital hasnt been flawless, and I dont think that should be the expectation. Its often in these unintentional moments that it remains honest to its original form. There is almost a joy in witnessing the moments where things go wrong. Entire productions have been dedicated to this idea. Witnessing the earnest endeavours on and offscreen at times make these productions reminiscent of our own video calls where accidental muting or sorry, can you me? are all too frequent. They enhance that feeling of a unique and ephemeral experience that exists within theatrical productions.Its not the same. Theres no hush of the audience as the overture begins to ring through the room. Theres no ability to witness the talent of the orchestra as they begin playing.Theres no collective laughter, crying or raucous applause. But its not trying to be the same. In living rooms, comment sections and all across the internet, people are coming together to create and witness art with a level of accessibility that couldnt have been previously imagined. Productions can feature performers from around the world and their audiences become increasingly diverse. For example, to ever contemplate watching a performance at the venue 54 Below, it would take a plane ticket, accomodation and everything else that a trip to New York entails. Now, it just requires me to wake up at 8.30am on a Saturday. Whilst Ill be all too happy to buy a ticket to see a musical or a play when we can again, hopefully digital and virtual theatre, or even the accessibility that it has inspired, will find a way to continue. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For forty-seven months out of every forty-eight, womens artistic gymnastics (WAG) is among the least followed of all sports, save for the small but passionate Gymternet. For one month every four years though, when the Olympic Games come along, its popularity fleetingly surges. The Gymternet has a pejorative epithet for this surge four year fans. Ill confess that, in 2016, I was a four year fan who didnt know a Shaposhnikova transition from an Amanar vault. This year Id hoped to shed my four year fan status, proudly demystifying the intricacies of pirouette angles and toe point for my less initiated friends.Womens gymnastics is a sport full of ironies and incongruences. Historically, its breakout stars have been short teenage girls in sparkly leotards and scrunchies made to perform gruelling feats of athleticism to upbeat instrumental music. While their male counterparts can compete in silence and are permitted to show the full effort of their athletic feats in their faces, female gymnasts must not only stick the landing, but smile as they do so.The most famous athlete in WAG history is undoubtedly Romanias Nadia Comneci who, at 14, floated effortlessly between the uneven parallel bars and earned the sports first perfect 10 at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The famous photo of teenage Comneci, 411, standing next to a scoreboard reading 1.00 (the scoreboards were not appropriately programmed to show 10) is still one of the most iconic and well remembered moments in Olympic history.Romanian gymnast Nadia Comneci at the 1976 Olympics. Photo: Olympics.org.Since the late 1970s, however, the sport has transformed irrevocably. The perfect 10 is no more. Since 2006, gymnasts have received an open-ended difficulty or D score and a 10 point execution or E score. A controversial system with both supporters and detractors, the open-ended code was introduced to promote skill innovation and originality of routine composition. While some feared that gymnasts would win by compromising execution for acrobatic difficulty, the first Olympic all-around champion in the open era (at the 2008 Beijing Olympics) was Nastia Liukin, a Russian-American born to Soviet gymnastics royalty. Liukin, a gymnast excelling in execution on the balance beam and uneven bars, edged out her more acrobatically powerful fellow American Shawn Johnson. During her career and especially after her all-around victory, she was praised for her elegance, lines and international look more often than not coded language intended to insidiously describe that she was leaner, taller and more Eastern European than Johnson.None of this is to say that Liukins victory was not well deserved. But in time, the arc of gymnastics has bent further towards powerful acrobatic gymnasts like Johnson. Eastern Europes once famed WAG programs have fallen away. Romania, once a formidable power, failed to even qualify a team to the last Olympic Games. While Russia remains a medal threat, the US have won team gold by unprecedented margins at every major international meet since 2011, and remain the prohibitive favourites whenever the next Olympics occur. While a vocal minority of the Gymternet lament the bygone era of balletic gymnastics, many celebrate the new eras emphasis on sustainable training (including conditioning) and healthier athletes capable of the intense acrobatic demands of the sport.Despite the wholesale athletic transformation of WAG, the gendered expectations of performance and presentation remain. Age too is an apparently granite barrier. Although event specialist gymnasts have begun to regularly compete into their late twenties, there have been fewer meaningful shifts in the all-around (AA) event, which combines scores from all four apparatuses (the floor exercise, vault, balance beam and uneven parallel bars). Only one winner of the Olympic AA event has been out of her teenage years in almost half a century. No woman has repeated an Olympic AA gold since the 1960s, in the now unrecognisable classical era of WAG, and the feat had been thought functionally impossible.Until Simone Biles.Biles is the reigning 2016 Olympic champion in the AA and on the floor exercise and vault. If the open-ended era of gymnastics were to have a true protagonist, she is undoubtedly it. Despite performing the most difficult routines in history, her execution scores have been superior to gymnasts with far easier routines. Biles, a short and muscular African-American woman, is usually described as powerful rather than elegant, even as she perfectly executes complex flexibility skills.In 2013 after Biles first world AA victory, an Italian gymnast claimed that [Italians] should also paint our skin black, so then we could win too: a plainly racist comment disguised as commentary on the athletics trend in gymnastics. The year before, Gabrielle Douglas, another African-American woman, had narrowly edged out a popular Russian gymnast to win the Olympic AA title. Racists feared Biles 2013 victory was a confirmation that elegant white Eastern European gymnasts could never win again. In the next three years, Biles became unstoppable. After winning the Olympic AA at 19, she could very well have ended her career and taken a place next to all-time greats like Comneci. For a while, she seemed to be doing just that, not competing or training at all in 2017 and appearing on Dancing with the Stars.Then, at the very end of 2017, she began a comeback, expecting to return to international competition in 2019. Returning to elite gymnastics after a lengthy hiatus is historically complicated. When Liukin attempted to return in 2012, she failed to make the Olympic team and ended her career, quite literally, on her face. For Biles, returning to gymnastics was particularly complicated by the new revelation that she had survived sexual abuse enabled by the sports national governing body, USA Gymnastics. And yet, Biles returned to elite competition earlier than anticipated, performing harder skills than the unprecedented ones shed performed in 2016. With a kidney stone, a broken toe and two falls at the 2018 world championships, Biles still won.While in her early career she had manifested the kind of punitive humility expected of elite female athletes, her comeback showed obvious signs of change. A woman in her twenties, she had become something of an elder stateswoman in a national team still filled with teenage girls, a fierce advocate for sexual abuse victims and the harshest critic of the unyielding toxic culture in the US gymnastics federation. In 2019, when she arrived at US national championships with a bedazzled goat on the back of her leotard a reference to her undisputed status as the greatest of all time (GOAT) she expressed a confidence seldom seen from archetypal teenage gymnasts. At the same competition, Biles unveiled the two hardest skills in womens gymnastics history. Even the sexist gymnastics commentariat found it improper to label her arrogant. A year from her second Olympics, she seemed to be on the precipice of breaking generations-old glass ceilings.Even before the Olympic Games were postponed, Biles was making no secret of her (and her bodies) desire to retire immediately after her final floor routine in Tokyo. Throughout her comeback, she has lamented performing for a gymnastics federation that enabled her abusers. Although Biles, now 23, is nominally all in for next years Olympics, her retirement before 2021 seemed entirely possible. If (to the Gymternet, more like when) Biles repeats as the AA champion next year, shell be the oldest woman to win that title in over half a century.It may be decades before we see another athlete, let alone gymnast, quite as dominant as Simone Biles. But perhaps what is most remarkable about Biles storied career is not her thirty world or Olympic medals, four eponymous skills or the countless records she has left in her wake, but the extent to which she has singlehandedly remodelled her sports sexist and racist norms.It is for that reason that we, four year fans and Gymternet faithfuls alike, should culturally archive the gymnastics of Nadia Comneci. While Comneci will forever remain a legendary and beloved Olympic athlete, next year, four year fans will be captivated by an entirely different sport. They will watch a sport of powerful, diverse adult women that push the limits of athletic possibility. They will watch Simone Biles sport. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> COVID-19 has wrought unprecedented harm on millennials love lives, with quarantine complicating the use of many dating apps. Its not clear how to use an app designed for short-term hook-ups when you cant see the person youve matched with for the next few months. Since the pandemic began, new quarantine-inspired dating sites such as OkZoomer and Quarantine Together have been launched, seeking to provide alternatives to mainstream apps like Tinder. Emblematic of the times, they focus instead on match-making rather than short term flings a mode of online dating which, until now, has largely been Boomers realm.Unlike mainstream dating apps, OkZoomer does not include pictures or physical descriptions. Instead, users answer questions about their style, favourite quarantine activity, and themselves. They also disclose what university they attend and have the option to only match with people from their uni. Then, every weekend, OkZoomer sends a match, rather quaintly, via email.That first email to the weeks match can be daunting for some. For me, the epistolary exchange feels a lot more formal than the casual message. But perhaps thats the point: the search for connection is a serious affair. Also, the only information users get about their matches is their email and name without a self-description or hobbies or any other details. Thus, the mystery might make starting a conversation more difficult.I spoke with OkZoomer co-founder, Yale undergraduate, Ileana Valdez, about the dating platform. It started off as a meme meant to cheer our friends up but has since then expanded to a growing platform, Valdez says. We were inspired by our own sadness about lost dating prospects when school shut down.There are a lot of dating apps like Tinder and Bumble that work on college campuses but dont fulfill the need for meaningful connection. These apps allow people to swipe based off of extremely superficial biases such as height, Valdez explains. The goal is to help college students break out of the echo chambers they isolate into on college campuses.Due to OkZoomers origin as a meme, the initial algorithm was a bit random, but with the implementation of more open-ended questions and user feedback, it is increasingly better at matching users. For Australian users finding love on the same continent might prove difficult: during the last three weeks, I have matched with two Americans and one Australian. The platform was initially American-based, though its users are becoming more geographically-diverse. We have expanded internationally and now have a fair number of international students, Valdez says.OkZoomers pared-back design is more humane than most commercial apps. Tinder, by comparison, gives you the feeling of flicking through an online store. On mainstream dating platforms, users swipe people away and accept others into their lives based on some pictures and a caption. OkZoomer, by providing very little information about your match and the lack of swiping functions, may sometimes prompt people to connect with others personalities, other than with their appearances.Digital communication has changed rapidly since the pandemic. Since we must rely on social media for most interpersonal interactions due to physical distancing, more humane dating apps need to emerge as well: technology must meet the times demands. So, with people becoming more alone, when society communicates primarily through the internet we long to build meaningful human connections more desperately than ever before. The rise of new quarantine platforms such as OkZoomer, then, is a step towards a more genuine way to connect with others online.During these isolated times when metres separate bodies, screens confine beloved faces and human touch seems like an ancient ritual we might wonder if our yearnings would ever be numbed by times passing, if our loneliness would one day disappear. But dont these times also provide us with an opportunity to really get to know someone, if only through a voice from a speaker or a smile from a screen? We might not be able to walk through flickering neon streets or talk over the buzzing restaurant chatters but our heartbeats will rush on still the same. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Punk has been undergoing commodification for decades now as early as 1978, UK band Crass were declaring that Punk is Dead with lyrics such as CBS promote the Clash, / But it aint for revolution, its just for cash. Revolution, rebellion at this point they start to feel like buzzwords; ideas that have been diluted into products to be sold and resold again and again. And no popular artist at the moment is as representative of this as 22-year-old Dominic Harrison, aka YUNGBLUD.For around two years now, an image of this English musician has been constructed by his fans, publications like Rolling Stone, and himself: the loud-mouthed fiend that speaks for a misunderstood youth through fiery, punk-inspired tunes. With songs like Machine Gun (Fuck the NRA) and I Love You Will You Marry Me, which takes aim at the corporate exploitation of romantic gestures, hes made strides to address issues that he and many other young people feel passionate about.Ideas of defiance and rebellion are tossed around a lot in interviews with, and articles about, YUNGBLUD. He talks about challenging the outdated values and condescension of older generations, and fighting against figures of power who seek to contain and control the youth of today. The trouble lies in the fact that the vague descriptions Ive just given are hardly generalisations of the type of rhetoric hes known for. Instead, they might as well be quotes from one of his interviews.For as well-intentioned as the majority of Harrisons music is, his lyrics are void of real meaning, to the point where his songs feel like a series of platitudes sung or screamed as obnoxiously as humanly possible. Guns are bad. The government is bad. Old people are bad. Lyrics like parents aint always right feel like theyve been ripped straight from a black and white Tumblr blog.Hell taunt both politicians and older generations by saying in an interview were old enough to vote now an odd sentiment for someone claiming to be operating within a genre heavily tied to anarchism.Given the aforementioned message of I Love You Will You Marry Me, for example, its both hilarious and frustrating that his core message was corporatised from the start: a shiny version of rebellion thats been over-simplified and commodified for decades. But as someone who cites The Clash and Eminem as key influences, its hard to blame him for this. Hes just repackaging and reselling the same product that was sold to him.YUNGBLUDs musical identity, or lack thereof, is also reflective of this. The singer is similar to acts like Twenty One Pilots, Halsey and The Chainsmokers with his genre-bending take on pop music, which usually boils down to a hodgepodge of musical ideas that have been blended together to create a soulless, over-produced instrumental to be yelled over. The elements of punk rock that supposedly run throughout his music usually boil down to loudness and the odd distorted power chord played on a guitar.To be clear, an artists music can have punk sensibilities while not fitting within the punk genre. DIY methods of making music exist span genres, as do rejections of traditional or previously-held musical principles and rough, unrefined aesthetics. But none of these elements show up in YUNGBLUDs music, which sounds as clean, calculated and radio-ready as the type of popular music that he slags off.And yet, Harrison still seems desperate to connect himself to this scene and ones adjacent to it, often doing so through superficial means. A scroll through his Instagram will yield photo upon photo of him wearing shirts of bands like The Exploited, Dead Kennedys and The Cramps, while also sporting high-end brands such as Burberry (who themselves have a history of exploiting elements of working class culture). Posturing or not, these outfits feel like attempts to recreate the styles of working class people from decades gone by by spending as much money as possible.In an interview with Pilerats, YUNGBLUD claimed that his version of punk isnt to divide, its to unite for one greater cause. This is a noble idea. Modern bands like IDLES and Algiers have succeeded in enacting similar mission statements through lyrics that address activism and socio-political issues in more specific and blunt detail. But, outside of the emphasis on safety at his gigs, this hardly feels like the case for Harrison, with song after song feeling more like outbursts of pent up angst than calls for collective action.There are definitely aspects of his music and image deserving of praise, and theres something admirable about the success hes had in tapping into the angst of his tween audience. But YUNGBLUD doesnt represent anything close to a revolution, not even rebellion. Dominic Harrison is nothing more than a cog in a machine churning out the same overblown music with a message songs over and over.The guy did a song with the Imagine Dragons frontman, for fucks sake. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its hard to deny that our social presence online has becomeincreasingly intermingled with our offline selves. But in a period where we arestuck indoors and physically isolated from others, the online has become morethan just an extension of the self; it has become our everything. Furtherstill, with more people looking to waste time than usual, there is no bettersubstitute than social media: the mostly free and easily accessible platformsthat brought time-wasting into vogue long before Corona decided to exacerbate thetrend. But towering above the general noise of Instagram throwback shots, Twitticismsabout freedom and Facebooks inspirational sermons about how we will getthrough this if we start our days with yoga and end with home-made sourdough, isthe apparent oligarch of the kingdom of isolation: TikTok.The brainchild of Chinese artificial intelligence companyByteDance, TikTok is an Instagram challenge on steroids, where good content isthat which can be shared, replicated and built upon by anyone and their dog(literally). Having been downloaded over 1.5 billion times, with over 800million active users worldwide, its three-and-a-half-year existence has seenthe platform grow at an unprecedented rate, bringing with it an obscene levelof publicity. Although the majority of users hail from Generation Z, people ofall ages, from newborn to nonagenarians, have embraced the app in the lonelyhour of social distancing. But what is it about this short-form video platformthat has us all hitting the woah in isolation?If YouTube is a main meal, then TikTok is a canape;masterfully crafted to just catch your attention, and make you hover behind thewaiter of the rest of the event in search of more. A direct response to thedwindling human attention span, the one-minute limit and fifteen second averagelength of the videos on the platform has become one of its primary appeals, makingit easier for the audience to consume large amounts of radically varied contentin a short space of time. For instance, from a one minute scroll throughTikToks discovery page, I came across a man in an animal print shirt claimingthat Carol Baskin killed her husband, a girl doing the Savage dance to MariahCareys Obsessed, a man painting a gap between his teeth with eyeliner togive himself the London look, and a woman pretending to be various shopassistants in popular Australian retail stores.As a platform that is largely centred around music, danceand other forms of non-linguistic expression, TikTok is one of the only trulyuniversal social media platforms, as it doesnt require proficiency in anysingle language to engage with much of the content. Furthermore, with littlefocus on the news, much of what is popular on the platform evades becomingdated, and trends continue for months at a time; with some even beingregentrified and added to as they start to tire. Even the few that are relatedto the news have managed to take on a sort of timeless zing; with excerpts fromJulia Gillards 2012 misogyny speech being superimposed over house music tobecome a new feminist banger for the isolation age. And our Prime Ministersfriendly reminder that Andrew Probyn in fact, does not run the pressconference, sure to become a staple in the Australian clubs following thecrisis.But good content is only the duck above the water, asbeneath the surface lives one of the most powerful algorithms in the world, manicallypaddling away as it serves you your favourite food from simply watching youread the menu. This unparalleled software, in partnership with hundreds ofmillions of willing volunteers providing their faces and patterns of intereststo ByteDance for an average of 58 minutes a day, has led to significantquestions concerning data security. American soldiers have even been bannedfrom using the platform by the US Government out of fear of acounter-intelligence threat. But with the platforms popularity so heavilyengrained in the otherworldly receptivity of its artificial intelligence to thespecific wants of the viewer, has entertainment and temporary satisfactionbecome more valuable to us than privacy? Or will we wake up from this period ofisolation with the stark realisation that TikTok has come to know us betterthan we know ourselves?I do not, and probably never will understand why the world is obsessed with what is essentially the estranged, younger cousin of Vine. Yet despite a TikTok scroll possessing the legibility and atmosphere of a chaotic fever dream, I too have found myself in the trance of scrolling. Overcome by the paradoxically freeing and disturbing feeling of being on the internet for absolutely no reason, I welcome the distraction from the unsettling present and rest well with the knowledge that Katherine finally got to ask her question. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The ubiquity of the online live streamed party would have seemed comical only months ago, but if a fix of live music is what youre after, you really have no other choice but to turn to Instagram, Facebook and Twitch. Yet, despite music performance being pushed into an avenue of delivery it so inherently resists, the innovation in response to a lack of physicality and presence has been slow at best. Even the biggest and most resourceful of organisations have put on some truly tear-jerking yawn fests: look no further than the all-reaching Boiler Room, who have been flooding feeds with phone-streamed sets where the DJ has their back turned to the camera.Even with the most pristine sound quality and razor-sharp images, theres no denying your regular cloud rave feels like watching a lifeless fever dream. The music is there for you to dance to and you certainly could drink, but the prospect of doing either of those things requires a suspension of disbelief that takes more than a little practice to keep up enthusiastically. And with big media conglomerates very much on-board the cloud train, its difficult to find any streams that arent bombarded with visual or audio advertising at every turn. When a live event, which carries its own annoyances of buffering, dropouts and quality degradation, also contains more unskippable marketing than your regular Soundcloud playlist, its difficult to imagine that we wont totally burn out on the idea of live streaming altogether in another few weeks.Perhaps the argument could be made here that the online experience could never replicate the viscerality of the club, and that my frustrations are therefore invalid. And to some extent, I would agree. However, shouldnt a medium that undergoes such a fundamental transformation of environment try to account for the new conditions of its evolution? Can we not do better than a propped up camera and a few smoke machines? Ironically, the people who get up in arms about bad press for their COVID raves are the very same people that will liberally shit-talk the major clubs in favour of their quickly homogenising warehouse parties.With thousands of underwhelming Saturday sets, there are, however, are a couple of hidden gems buried in the knobs and faders. 100% Electronica, a now-legendary vaporwave label founded by George Clanton (fka Esprit), held perhaps the worlds first interactive VR cloud rave two weeks ago. Under the banner Beyond the Virtual Utopia, Clanton and his crew of vapor-adjacent producers including FM Skyline, Negative Gemini and Satin Sheets put on two hours of the most acid-trippy audiovisual nonsense one could ever hope for. Placing the audience sometimes in surrealistic video game environments, other times in the very laps of the DJs themselves, the event transported its attendees beyond the living room and into something entirely unfamiliar. Listeners were even treated to an afterparty hosted by Deaths Dynamic Shroud, whilst being able to snuggle up in their VR beds and pet their VR cat. 100% Electronica wasnt trying to half-assedly emulate a physical party they were taking advantage of the virtual cards that they had been dealt.A moment from EQUIPs set on Beyond the Virtual Utopia.Similarly, last weekend also saw the nascent world of video game music festivals reach their full potential. Hosted by the memetastic 100 gecs, whose debut LP last year sent shockwaves through both the mainstream and underground, Square Garden was a multi-act concert series streamed entirely through a Minecraft server. Users were able to join, customise their Minecraft avatars appearances and outfits, and dance literally dance using their mouse and keyboard to blistering sets by some of the most talented producers working today. Not only were you able to listen to blocky AG Cook pump out some bubblegum bangers, but you were also able to explore the bizarre and wonderful Minecraft world that gecs had set up as the backdrop full of easter eggs to discover and places to socialise with other pixelated concert-goers. Instead of being one name in a thousand scrolling Twitch messages, attendees were able to visualise and interact with each other at a deeper level than an off-colour alcoholism joke that gets buried by a chatroom within seconds. Indeed, with new Fortnite and Minecraft concerts on the horizon, including the Massive Attack-attended Block by Block West this Saturday, it seems that formal creativity might finally return to live music performance.Though the COVID crisis looms over artists like the grim reaper itself, it presents its unique opportunities to innovate in ways that would have previously been seen as mere gimmicks. With more and more people paying for and demonstrating a willingness to pay for digital streaming content and stream subscriptions, a well-produced, fun and interactive cloud rave may just be the next viral success to help creatives get through this difficult time. Watching someone rub a couple of CDJs alone in their basement is just not going to cut it for that much longer. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Maybe its the social isolation, or that I work in a piano shop, but Ive been thinking about just how much my life revolves around the piano. My time at home is organised around practiceIm in my final year of the performance degree at the Conservatorium, so this is somewhat expected. It consumes my waking hours. But even when I am away from it, the piano stands in the corner of the living room, a large brown figure on three legs, dominating the space.In a domestic setting, the presence of the piano brings to mind the heroines of Jane Austen novels, practising scales or entertaining guests, or the female subjects of Renoirs paintings receiving lessons. Playing the piano was considered a necessary part of a young ladys education (Austens heroines play the piano far more than any other instrument). This scene from Pride and Prejudice (1813) summarises the traits of an accomplished lady:Oh! certainly, cried [Bingleys] faithful assistant, no one can really be esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.All this she must possess, added Darcy, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.The rise of the middle class meant that more people had access to music, and having a piano in the home was a sign of economic status. There was also more demand for printed music suitable for amateur musiciansmusic was no longer exclusive to the aristocracy and emperors courts.The piano was invented just over three hundred years ago by Bartolomeo Cristofori, a famed instrument maker who moved from Padua to Florence in 1690 to work for the Medici family. It was in Florence in 1700 that he invented the piano, although it took another seventeen years before the design had all the components of the modern piano. European musical life was already familiar with stringed keyboard instrumentsclavichords and harpsichords, for instance, were played in private chamber settings for enjoyment and, at other times, used in court orchestras, choirs and opera pits. But by 1700, Cristofori had presented the new piano, or Archicembalo di nuova inventione, che fa il piano, e il forte (a harpsichord, of new invention, that plays soft and loud.) Its defining feature? The hammer action.In the new design, the hammers struck the strings within the pianos body, allowing the player to control the volume via the force of their playing. This allowed for more expression in the control of the dynamics. Over time, the range of the piano also expanded, from Cristoforis four octaves to the seven octaves we have today. The development of a steel frame also gave the piano more power, which allowed for greater physical force when playing but also for more complex, emotionally forceful compositions.Vladimir Horowitz, considered to be one of the greatest pianists of all time, believed that the strength of the piano lied in its adaptability. He said, For me, the piano is the orchestra. I dont like the sound of a piano as a piano. I like to imitate the orchestra the oboe, the clarinet, the violin and, of course, the singing voice.Alfred Brendel, also a highly renowned pianist, echoed this sentiment in his 2013 book A Pianists A-Z: The piano serves a purpose, he wrote; its an instrument of transformation.The piano can be a solo instrument, an entire orchestra, or the accompanying background, all within one instrument. In Anna Goldsworthys book Piano Lessons, based on her own experiences as a developing young pianist, the teacher says in broken English, Piano absolutely instrument of imagination, and we can create anything on it.For many composers, the piano was absolutely central to their imagination and ability to conceive large ideas. For instance, Stravinsky famously insisted on composing at the piano, and Beethovens virtuoso technique and improvisation skills at the piano were indispensable to his composition process. Furthermore, Beethoven was not interested in writing music merely suitable for the piano. Rather, he was moved to write pieces that pushed the boundaries of musical forms and challenged his listeners, and often his works were deemed unplayable (though he would respond by declaring that the performers technique was inadequate, rather than compromise his ideas). In his piano works from roughly 1800 onward, there is a sense of expansion and innovation in both form and content. At the same time, there were rapid developments being made in the piano, and this is reflected in his compositional output. In his piano sonatas, there is a sense that they were conceived for a much grander orchestration, both in artistic scope and density of ideas. Key examples are his Waldstein sonata (1804) and Hammerklavier (1818), which in German literally means hammer-piano. Although Beethovens inner ear allowed him to hear past technological advancements and musical trends, the features of the modern pianoextra notes, new sustain pedal, heavier action and wider dynamic rangecertainly triggered his imagination in all parts of his oeuvre.In later years, when his deafness began to impair his compositional process, Beethoven sawed off the legs of his piano so that he could feel the vibrations of his compositions, orchestral in scope. Apparently, he would sometimes clench a stick in his teeth and hold it to the keyboard so that he could discern faint sounds through the vibrations of the piano, enabling him to continue composing, particularly in other genres of instrumental music. Helen Keller (1880-1968), American author, lecturer and activist, was born deaf and blind. In 1924, she heard a live recording of Beethovens Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall by pressing her hands against the radio receiver. The next day, she wrote a letter of gratitude to the New York Symphony Orchestra:What was my amazement to discover that I could feel, not only the vibrations, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! The intertwined and intermingling vibrations from different instruments enchanted me. I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. I felt the chorus grow more exultant, more ecstatic, upcurving swift and flame-like, until my heart almost stood still. Of course, this was not hearing but I do know that the tones and harmonies conveyed to me moods of great beauty and majesty. I have never been so enraptured before by a multitude of tone-vibrations.In general, Liszts compositions for piano exploit the instruments capabilities, and the extremes of piano technique. But he also arranged orchestral compositions for the piano, called his transcriptions, among them the Beethoven symphonies, as well as his versions of other symphonies, opera excerpts, and songs. There has been a resurgence of interest in Liszts transcriptions, sometimes thought to be gimmicky displays of virtuosity. However, pianists of the younger generation are including his transcriptions in their recitalslast year in his New York recital, Behzod Abduraimov opened with Liszts transcription of Wagners Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and ended with Prokofievs transcriptions of 10 pieces from his own Romeo and Juliet ballet score. The dazzling transcriptions of Stravinskys Firebird are among pianists favourites, too. In performing these pieces, the pianist is not just the conductor but the entire orchestra. The pianist alone is responsible for evoking the woodwind lines, the warm brass sounds, while maintaining the bowed cellos. The textures, inner voices, and overall structure of the piece emerge from just two hands. As a result, the performance is at once both an act of sheer piano virtuosity and a declaration of the pianos capacity to be one and every instrument. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Writers and artists have always believed that nature offers meaningful insight into the human condition. From Hesiods didactic poetry to John Keats odes and Thomas Coles The Course of Empire; nature has been described over and over again, given form in the rising sun, the moving cloud, the rogue wildflower. Percy Bysshe Shelley appealed to the fields, the mountains, the waters to heal his soul in Ode to the West Wind. All of them believed that somewhere, be it overlooking a valley or in the middle of a forest, there was a world that made them happy, that satisfied their wants.A cultural manifestation of a pastoral, cottagecore is becoming an increasingly common preoccupation in the modern world. This budding aesthetic movement paints the picture of an idyllic landscape and prioritises the simple pleasures in ones life. Cottagecore turns its nose up at sixteen-hour workdays, at the fast-paced anxieties of late-stage capitalism, at toxic masculinity. It rejects the connections we make under these systems, labelling them inauthentic facsimiles of genuine relationships. The aim is not to be disconnected, or isolated, but to find new forms of authentic connections that arise from shifted priorities. The cottage in the woods is not alone, but part of a healthy community built on a system that prioritises things other than the demands of the market.Cottagecore came to me at a time where I found myself thinking that things had gotten as bad as they could; after which, of course, they only got worse. I was sitting on my floor, my thumb twitching to refresh an Instagram feed that had barely finished loading in the first place. It was then that I saw a little house thatched with wisteria, old books with brown pages peeking out from the windowsill. I began to imagine my life through the prism of that image; a life that wasnt spent worrying about political problems I had no hope of solving, a life that wasnt spent in extensive periods of self-delusion because it was better than the alternative. That little picture with lilac flowers had so much power over me in that moment.But yet, I was restricted. I could not afford to uproot my life and live it another way. The movement is escapist, but not in the fantastical way faeriecore is. Modern escapist fantasies take the form of voluntary simplicity; they manifest in tiny homes, tripartite glass windows that let daylight in, screen-free lives where constant stress isnt the default state. This is a time of perpetually escalating conflict, of an increase in domestic and sexual violence. The need for this escapism in the present political climate of the world has struck a match on womens repressed rage. Cottagecore is a fantasy that largely excludes men from its aesthetics, their existence an afterthought in the face of its reclaimed domesticity. I have seen people compare cottagecore to The Virgin Suicides (1999), to the regency era, to the 1950s; but the movement has never been about going back to a time where women were arguably more oppressed just for the aesthetic and lack of technology. The rise of the tradwife trendthe traditional wife who prefers to adopt a submissive role in the marriage and advocates for a return to regressive gender roles, called the virulent strain of white nationalism by New York Times journalist Annie Kellycould be tied to cottagecore. However, cottagecore offers domestic bliss without the strict gender roles and patriarchal oppression inherent in it. The intrinsic anti-capitalist sentiments of the movement are a necessary alternative to a quasi-fascist return to traditional hierarchies and an unsustainable neoliberalist way of life.It is about bringing that ethereal sense of serenity to the present moment, about our innate desire for a system other than capitalism, about achieving a sense of fulfilment outside of responding to work emails and about a life that does not result in an ouroboros of burnout and no land to cultivate but the self.But maybe ones longing for less can be connected to their need to be closer to nature. I have seen a prevailing interior design trend of bringing the outdoors indoors to create an illusion of more space. Traditional Indian and Spanish architecture calls for houses to have open spacesaangan and patios interiorin the middle of them. There exists houses with trees and gardens and marble water fountains in the middle of them, houses rendered to depict the natural world. This disenchantment with modernity can be linked to the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United Kingdom, which arose in a critique of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century and called for economic and social reform. It was further associated with arguably trivial crusades like dress reform, ruralism, the garden city movement, and folk-song revival. British artist and socialist William Morris, a founder of the aesthetic movement, advocated for a return to artistic labour and connection with the natural world.But can such a hypocritical pursuit ever be inclusionary? The people who can afford to bring nature into their homes, who pursue pastoralism through an escape into the countryside, are significantly wealthy and therefore privileged. The change is merely aesthetic; there is no alteration to their ways of living or to the nature of capitalism. It will always be unsatisfactory because true cottagecore requires radically restructuring society to form an inherently classless community.Cottagecore leaves a lot of room for magic, for the otherworldly, for fae folk with pointed ears and golden skin. But within that yearning for more exist very real opportunities to embrace the movement: you can wear cotton dresses with puffy sleeves to Broadway, you can bake in your tiny city apartment, you can nurture indoor plants, you can AusPost your friends letters with flowers grown on your windowsill. You can aesthetically participate in cottagecore, but more importantly, you can also incorporate its sentiment into your praxis by engaging in mutual aid, in environmental politics, in feminist activism. It is pointless to dream about wildflowers and serenity when you are doing nothing to bring that world closer. It is hard to picture a better world with smoke from the bushfires still coating our lungs, with the weight of the pandemic on our shoulders, with climate grief casting long shadows in front of us. And though all of that gave birth to the movement, at heart it isnt about running away and hiding; it is about coming together and imagining what the future can be. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In death we belong to everyonewho can pass our names through their warm mouths,who can smell the rotten air without flinching,who can tilt their noses up into the sky and think family. from Reunion by Hieu Minh NguyenThe Balinese cremation ceremony is called ngaben. The whole event is days long, preparation and prayer continuous. Theres a revolving door of kin and the kin-of-kin; mostly a blur of kind faces for someone like me who is not from the village.The last ngaben I attended, my grandmothers, was almost five years ago. Her body was encased in a sarcophagus shaped like a fish, itself bound in a luminous ceremonial tower. The whole construction was set ablaze along with offerings of flowers, meat and fruit.It is hard to look away from fire how it licks at everything like a dog trying to tend to the wounds of loved ones. The human body is a vessel of water, earth, air and memory until it is no longer. Hieu Minh Nguyen writes, You cant uncremate your grandmother, like I cant excavate mine with those other bodies that are not like hers or mine, or yours, maybe. She burnt through like tropical fever.We waited for dust. We sat next to the clearing of the temple, watching the embers and ash rise and fall spinning bright, black and white around us like a new measure of time. Afterwards, we picked through the ashes for the remaining pieces of bone that lay like bleached driftwood in the smoke and decay. Niangs titanium hip joint, completely intact, was passed around.****Over the past months, Ive felt a kind of haunting. During the worst of the bushfire season, when the smoke devoured the city too, I retreated inside with loved ones to save our breath. In front of doorways and car windows, I squinted at the off-coloured sun. A devils nipple, I called it in an Instagram post. And it felt wrong to look at the sun but it could have felt revelatory too. In its Ancient Greek origins, the word apocalypse means not the end of the world but a discovery, a revelation. Suddenly, we were all looking at something the naked human eye should usually not risk looking at, that which civilisations once assigned to gods and goddesses. It was settler colonisation, greed and environmental mismanagement, not Prometheus, that brought the bushfires.And it all reminded me of ngaben. It wasnt just the atmosphere of smoke but it was the thick summer heat too. The kind that cuffs the back of your neck and the back of your arms; stretches across your collarbones, makes breathing hard. It smelt like Bali. Like humidity and the street-side satays cooking out in the open that we pass on the first drive back to the village. Trash heaps on fire. Incense sticks. Cremation.Ash was falling around me again. Bits of burnt leaf, sometimes. Civilisations of old believed in cyclical time, that regrowth, decay and compost is as inevitable as the return of something you thought you had forgotten a smell, for example. Some still believe in reincarnation. (Between you and me, I agree that time goes in circles and Im quite sure it fashions other fabulous shapes as well.)I dont know how long it will take for the forests to regrow, for families to recover, after Black Summer swept through and took almost everything. I dont know how long until the eucalypts can stretch their limbs to each other again and carry life like they once did. And we cant say when politicians, governing this deluded settler-colonial project, will ever commit to environmental and climate justice. However, the seeds have been planted. Call that reincarnation, call that regeneration, call that revolution.In her autobiography Speaking in Tongues, Fetwa Malti-Douglas explains a childhood captivated, in part, by the question of death. At her all-girls boarding school, another student taught her a technique that would generate the smell of death, a clandestine experiment of sorts. It involved a student curling her right hand into a fist for five minutes, sometimes ten (for better results, apparently). She does not explain what happens next but I suppose the blood rushes to the head. [W]e young girls were so enamoured by the smell of death when we should have been searching for the smell of life, writes Malti-Douglas.But what if the smell of death and the smell of life are the same thing?****I have my grandmothers hands. And maybe her cheekbones too. So, at her cremation ceremony, witness to her naked body washed clean by members of our family and village, rigor mortis rinsed, I thought I was seeing the future. I am holding out hope that by the time my body rests in my own sarcophagus, preventable bushfire seasons are no more. I want this for our future. I want to swim in the ashes of a violent colonial legacy and come back as a flower. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Art by Isla MowbrayWhen lockdown was first announced, I thought it would be the perfect time to work on forgotten projects, develop a new hobby, or attempt some overall self-improvement. For the first few weeks it actually happened, I was cooking more, learning the ukulele, and had even bought some flashy roller skates. Eventually, my extraordinary laziness took over and soon enough all my time was spent online or sleeping. With so much free time and no idea what to do with it, I found myself revisiting things that Id loved to watch or read when I was younger.Now, Ill be the first to admit that I was kind of a weird kid. I had some rather interesting and intense hobbies (read: obsessions) that I was extremely open and obnoxious about. Basically, as is common for many Asian teenagers, starting from the ripe old age of 12 I went through an intense weeaboo phase. Weeaboo is a word used to label people who have a special interest in Japanese culture and media such as animation and graphic novels.To put it simply, I was really into anime.I binge-watched hundreds of episodes, spent too much money on merch, attempted to learn Japanese, and even cut my hair to match my favourite characters. I was unashamed, unabashed, and unafraid to show off to anybody who would listen. Childhood ignorance truly was bliss because looking back now, I probably weirded out plenty of people.But God was it fun.I genuinely fear that nothing else in my life will be able to match the pure passion and energy that I had as a young weeaboo. It was such a huge, integral part of my life that there was no way I could leave it behind so easily. In a time where I was so unsure about what the future held, it just made sense to go back and relive the days when I didnt care about all that stuff. Anime became a coping mechanism of sorts, a form of escapism. It became an anchor to keep me from floating away in a sea of stress and anxiety. I didnt have to worry about global pandemics or university marks when I was huddled up under blankets and pillows watching Bleach or Haikyuu!!. There was a huge comfort in watching something Id already seen and knew the ending to. I even found myself hesitant to start watching new shows. I didnt want any more surprises or plot-twists; 2020 had given me more than enough of those already.Growing up also meant that I had long gotten over the fear of being bullied or made fun of that had partially led me to abandoning my weeaboo life in the first place. Internet cringe culture had created the stereotype of anime watchers as pathetic, nerdy, male virgins who never left their rooms and had naught but body pillows of their anime waifus to keep them company. I didnt fit that image myself, and I didnt know anybody who did either, so why should I let myself be affected by the extremely wrong assumptions of random internet trolls? Without sounding too pretentious, Im of the opinion that its about time that people recognise anime and manga as valid forms of art, with a diverse range of stories, characters, and art styles youd be hard-pressed to find in Western media. Theres something in there for everyone, from fantasy epics, absurd comedies, and sweet romances. No matter what your taste or preference, youll probably find something catering to them exactly. Its part of what makes anime such an effective form of escapism.In times like these, everyone is looking for something to use as a distraction, to allow them to escape from the current bleak reality. For me, its anime and the childhood nostalgia that comes with it, for others it might be learning a new hobby or general self-improvement. Its important to understand that there are different strokes for different folk; everybody copes with a massive global crisis in their own way and theres no one method thats right or wrong. If it works for me, it works for me and there is no shame in that. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Congratulations to our shortlisted entrants and thank you all for submitting!FictionWinter, Amy Wang. (WINNER)Voices from the Underground, Edie Griffin (2nd Place)Tomorrows, Alvin Chung. (3rd Place)Coldwar, Blake Lovely.Billie (circa 2010-2020), Libby Newton.[Nice Sunset isnt it?] OR: I FUCKING HATE GROUNDHOG DAY, Jacob Parker.every second weekend at dads, Blake FalcongreenNon-fictionMeaning-making in the age of collapse, Eliza Victoria (WINNER)Am I an aristocrat?, Oscar Eggleton (2nd Place)[for those who have been displaced] , Emilie Heath (3rd Place)Not blood, red, Maxim ShanahanAgainst authenticity: the novel as a reflection of consciousness, Francesca RentschCreativity in solitary hours, Alvin ChungMusic to riot with: an exploration of Detroit techno, afrofuturism and anti-colonialism, Seamas Pragnell <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Covid isolation has not been a disruptive force. Instead, it has merely accelerated a pre-existing trend towards social isolation. Pre-existing economic circumstances have engendered a withdrawal into individualism and away from community-based socialisation. Meanwhile, the culture industry has adapted itself to aid us in avoiding the discomfiting truth of our true isolation. Covid isolation provided an opportunity to confront this atomisation, but with worsened economic circumstances, and with comfort available in the cultural sphere, we can expect our personal isolation to continue. Bertrand Russell argued that modern (technology) has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. In the last two decades, almost every aspect of life has become remarkably more efficient. Groceries, taxes and almost every exigency of daily life can be dealt with over the internet. Restricting ourselves to the students perspective, online databases, the wildly underrated command-F function, Computer Aided Design software and online lectures have, among countless other tools, combined to trim hours off the learning process. It should follow, then, that this efficiency dividend has furnished us with unprecedented amounts of leisure time. Under Russells theory, the modern student should be living a life of epicurean delight. It is clear, however, that this dividend is not being spent socialising. Young people are having less sex than any generation since the sexual revolution and dealing less in drugs and alcohol. When Sydney University, with 55,000 students, cannot sustain Manning Bar, it is clear that something has gone seriously awry. In the entry into the student lexicon of the terms grind and hustle, we see a student body without confidence in their ability to waste time away from work and study. With student debt, impossibility high rents, stagnant wages, poorer job prospects and until Covid, little government support, this is an entirely reasonable outlook. In the New York Times, Erin Griffiths writes of hustle culture as obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humourSpending time on anything thats non-work relate becomes reason to feel guilty. This attitude is reflected in the reduction of university education to a utilitarian and transactional experience I turn up, you give me a degree with corporatised self-improvement prioritised over intellectual and social growth. Proposed government reforms will only contribute to the abandonment of enjoyment as justification for education. This utilitarian attitude, to education as well as life, has manifested in youth what are usually indicators of a mid-life crisis: solitary fitness fanaticism, religious devotion to podcasts, and stoic philosophy. Even social outings, when they do occur, are couched as opportunities for personal improvement, to refine the product which you are selling to employers. The grim economic outlook faced by our young generation demands that we reduce ourselves to a product for sale to employers, rather than socialising with communitarian spirit. After all, in the meritocratic marketplace of human labour, the best marketed product wins. Enforced isolation allowed for a re-evaluation of this pessimistic individualism. The adderalinfused stage-scene of self-improvement and ambition fell away, revealing, to many, a bleak and atomised existence without meaningful connection to community. This revelation is deeply disturbing and makes one vulnerable to bouts of depression and anxiety. Therefore, it is best buried deep and ignored. And this was the protective strategy adopted in the long, lonely days of mandatory isolation. Consequently, we found comfort in a culture industry which is perfectly adapted to avoiding confrontation with our self-inflicted isolation. When an interviewer asked Jean-Luc Godard why there was so much blood in his film Pierrot le Fou, Godard replied: not blood, red. As Godard did to blood, social media has done to life, reducing its primitive hostility to a safe and consumable imitation of the real thing. For our purposes, daily vloggers provide a relevant demonstration of this point. Oscar Wilde wrote that the only [youtubers] I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad [youtubers]A really great [youtuber] is the most unpoetical of all creatures, perfectly uninteresting. Tediousness is thus the principal tenet of the vlogging form. Vloggers depict themselves brushing their teeth, eating breakfast, microwaving leftovers. The inanity goes on interminably, and they make no stylistic choices in their perfectly sanitised depictions of their perfectly boring lives. No conflict intrudes into the vlogs, and intrusive thoughts dont present themselves when watching classics of the genre such as Real Time Study with Me for Eight Hours. In this sense, daily vloggers operate on the same principles as Twitters infinite scroll and Netflixs binge business model: they are essentially numbing, providing a means to pass the time free from the unpleasant intrusion of thought and emotion. Ross Douthat identifies polemic and pornography as genres which dominate onlinebecause both are ideally suited for a clickhere-then-there medium, in which the important thing is to be titillated, stimulation, get your spasm of pleasure, and move on. However, in gravitating towards polemic and pornography, it is not titillation and pleasure which is sought, but rather safety. Pornography never dished up heartbreak or humiliation. Online polemic is a safe version of actual debate the satisfaction of winning over a physical audience can be replaced with push notifications, and one is insulated from humiliation by a phalanx of like-minded followers. Even before Covid necessitated compulsory isolation, faced with loneliness and a realisation of ones true isolation, we turned away from confrontation with those issues, instead seeking comfort, if not solace, in the numbing cultural forms which have sprung up to attend to our desperate need for insulation from atomisation of our condition. During mandatory isolation, we relied on these forms even more to distract us from the depression which nibbles away at ones mind when it is not distracted. Albert Camus wrote that during every day of life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. This moment arrived, without our asking, courtesy of Covids intervention. Time is an unpleasant burden to bear, and it delivers some uncomfortable revelations. Thought is given time to intrude, and we can no longer mask it with the habits of hustling, hard work and ambition. However, the realisations that Covid brought to us were not necessarily new and shocking. Indeed, they merely confirmed what we previously suspected but had successfully avoided contemplating that we have become socially disconnected and atomised within society. It is for these reasons that, when we are realised from mandatory isolation, a sudden flowering of communitarian spirit should not be expect. Instead, we will embrace the distraction of habit with vigour. We will return to hustling and spurn socialisation and community. The economy will demand it, and our minds will accept it approvingly, freed from times heavy burden. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Place yourself in a room of younguniversity students who have spent the semester confidently criticising thegreat books they are studying, until they read David Foster Wallaces GoodOld Neon. A shift in atmosphere is palpable. Students speak as they mightfeel about for an object they cannot see; with a blind hesitance, ready tosnatch back tentative comments if they touch on something offensive. They areappropriately sensitive to their classmates; the protagonist of the story, Neal,commits suicide, and a trigger warning mentality heightens awareness ofpotentially exposed nerves.[1]Extraordinarily, however, they are also sensitive to Good Old Neon itself.Wallaces chosen subject matter seemed to lift his story beyond criticism; itwas as though no one wished to deny Neals experience by engaging with thestory as a work of literature.[2]A connection between Neal and Wallace was made almost immediately; critiquingWallaces writing was critiquing the feelings which led him to suicide. Wehave to read this as Wallaces cry for help, one student claimed. He waswriting this and feeling the same way.I posit that Neal provoked thisresponse while the other characters the students had studied did not, becauseNeal is read as being authentic. Here, I am referring to the mode of thoughtwhich claims erroneously, in my opinion that there is one version ofyourself which is more authentic than other ways of being. This way of thinkingis hugely popular; we need only step into our local bookstore and browse theextensive self-help section to see this. One of Dymocks most popular self-helpbooks, Gloria Steinems The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will PissYou Off!, declares that, many are looking for the right person. Too feware looking to be the right person.[3]If one can be the right (read: authentic) person, it follows one can also bethe wrong (read: inauthentic) person.This example suggests that apersons most authentic version of themselves is their best version.[4]I would argue that the opposite is also true; that inner turmoil andunhappiness are also read as authentic, particularly in characters. ToniMorrison said that evil has a blockbuster audience [and] grief, melancholy,missed chances for personal happiness, often seem to be contemporaryliteratures concept of evil.[5]If we read Neals tumultuous inner life as being Morrisons evil, then Iargue it has its blockbuster audience because we read grief, melancholy,missed chances for personal happiness as being as authentic as the best selftouted by self-help books.We can demonstrate this byturning our attention from literature to visual art. The AbstractExpressionists painted the sublime; but rather than the landscapes of thenineteenth century Romantics or the theophany of the High Renaissance, here thesublime was the self, specifically, the inner turmoil of the (almost alwaysmale) Artist with a capital A. In his essay, The Sublime is Now, Barnett Newmanclaimed that artists were creating cathedrals from their emotions.[6]Jackson Pollocks The Guardians of the Secret (1943) crams dabs,squiggles and skeins of paint together with much indecision and hesitation,giving the viewer a sense of Pollocks being tongue-tied in the face of hisextreme emotions, as if before the towering might of Yosemite. The works ofPollock, Newman and the other Abstract Expressionists were heralded by some ofthe most absurdly bombastic effusions in the history of American art; thetormented mind was not only authentic, it was heroic to the point of becomingtranscendent.[7]Just as Pollock rummages for someauthentic sense of self, so too does Neal.[8]I suggest that this parallel can tell us why those students were so eager totreat Neal with a sensitivity usually reserved for living people. The authenticself touted by self-help books sets us up to feel inauthentic, and this promptsus to attempt to relate to characters like Neal, whose tumultuous struggle withself-identity validates our own. By our desire to relate to Neal I do notmean our desire to have empathy for him. Empathy places the emphasis on theother; it is the ability to imagine what it might be like to experience the worldfrom their perspective. I argue that relatability places the emphasis onthe self; we form a connection with the other so as to understand and validateour own experiences, holding them up as a mirror in order to see, inthem, a reflection of a part of ourselves. If we imagine Neal as areflection, we might describe ourselves leaning over Good Old Neon asbeing like Narcissus leaning over a pond, so enamoured by the reflection thathe will languish and die. Importantly, Narcissus does not realise that he is inlove with his own reflection; in this way, the self becomes the other. LikeNarcissus, we believe that the beautiful youth we can see in the pool of words in our case, a tormented mind grappling with a beleaguered sense of self isnot our reflection. Instead, we treat Neal as a reflection of Wallace, circumventingthe complication of Neals factiousness. By relating to Neals inner turmoil,we can authenticate our own.However, it is possible to read GoodOld Neon as a reflection of Wallaces inner turmoil, as though it were aPollock all-over painting, only if one does not pay attention to the story.Neals first words to us are, My whole life Ive been a fraud. Im notexaggerating. Pretty much all Ive ever done all the time is to try to create acertain impression of me in other people.[9]It is tempting to read Neals honesty about his dishonesty as being proof ofhis authenticity, for it validates our own feelings of fraudulence. However,Neal is leading us around by the nose by acting all open and candid, justas he does with Dr Gustafson, his psychoanalyst.[10]Neal admits his supposed honesty is designed to manipulate; we are fools if webelieve that his supposed honesty with us has a different intended effect. While the students reveal howdesirable it is to see in Neal a reflection of ourselves, I argue that it is inDr Gustafson that Wallace reflects the reader. Dr Gustafson has almost nothingto do with the big doughy repressed guy sitting back against his chairs beadsbecause he has more to do with the reader.[11]But we can reject this reflection. If we accept that a sense of inauthenticityarises from the concept of there being one authentic self, whether it is thebest self or the troubled self, we can choose to abandon that idea in favour ofthe idea of self as multi-faceted, constantly evolving, and never eitherauthentic or inauthentic. If we can be conscious of this Narcissian tendency tosearch for a sense of self in characters, we can use it as a way to explorethis multi-faceted self by using characters as mirrors not to validate, but tounderstand. This seems to me to come far closer to being able to express thevastness that is our consciousness.[1] I do not suggest that thisattitude is inherently negative. A student who is heedless to the damage theirremarks might inflict is as unconducive to rigorous debate as a student whoerrs too far on the side of caution. However, it is worthwhile to point outthat the increasing prevalence of safe spaces and trigger warnings,especially at universities, may have the opposite of their intended effect. SeeJonathon Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling ofthe American Mind, The Atlantic, 2015. for a detailed analysis of how avoidingtriggering situations makes people more, not less, sensitive.[2] The expression to denysomeones experience has recently been upgraded to deny someones existence.This expression is symptomatic of a form of emotional reasoning wherein if Ifeel it, it is true. This reasoning requires that if I say that I feel offended,I am not merely expressing my own subjective feeling of being offended. Rather,I am publicly charging the person who has offended me with an objective wrong;my feeling is the evidence of that charge. Haidtand Lukianoff.[3] GloriaSteinem, The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!(Sydney: Murdoch Books, 2019).[4] Once you reach this impossiblyhigh standard, you will be so happy and fulfilled your relationship withyourself can even take the place of meaningful relationships with others;listen to Lizzos Soulmate.[5] Morrison in a talk at HarvardDivinity School in 2012, first published in: ToniMorrison, Goodness: Altruism and the Literary Imagination, The New YorkTimes, 2019.[6] BarnettNewman, The Sublime Is Now, in The Ides of Art: Six Opinions on What IsSublime in Art? (New York: Tigers Eye, 1948). 53.[7] It should be noted that Pollockmade no metaphysical claims about his own artwork, but other artists were notso restrained. Clyfford Still, who possessed neither Pollocks ability to marryscrupulous scrutiny with the grandeur of the total effect, nor Mark Rothkosstrong sense of subtle colour relationships, claimed that with a single strokeof paint, he cold restore to man the freedom lost in twenty centuries of apologyand devices for subjugation. John P. ONeill, Clyfford Still (New York:Harry N. Abrams Inc, 1979).47.RobertRosenburg, when praising Newmans zip motif (a vertical band of paintsplitting a field of colour asunder) wrote that the zip was recognised byNewman as his Sign; it stood for him as his transcendental self the dividedrectangle took on the multiplicity of an actual existence and a heroic one. RobertRosenburg, The Abstract Sublime, ARTnews, 1961. 3.[8] After Pollocks death, his wife,Lee Krasner, herself an artist, revealed that the process of creating Pollocksfamed all-over paintings was heavily controlled, and that Pollock oftenlaboured on one painting for months.[9] DavidFoster Wallace, Good Old Neon, in Oblivion Stories (London: Abacus,2004). 141.[10] FosterWallace. 143.[11] FosterWallace. 152. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> During the last few months,shopping mall floors shined like distant lighthouses, craving footsteps likehow we missed each other. Negative space filled the streets like in an EdwardHooper painting. We began to learn our homes walls like how we used to studyour loved ones faces. Then,we might have picked up a pen or a musical instrument or just kept on beingbusy working as usual.Solitude has altered how weapproach creativity. Although we may never understand the complex relationshipbetween creativity and solitude, many have found solace in creative activities.Because the definition of creativity varies from person to person a creativeact can range from playing music to finding love. In a pandemic though, emphasisingthe importance ofcreative pursuits seems privileged and removed from the large scale of humansuffering. While it is true only the more fortunate among us have free time forhobbies we need to realise that for many, creativity is a way to survivethrough this unsettling era. As we find ourselves alone at home, some of usrediscover the crucial need to express. Creativity is important because itcan help us to maintain our mental wellbeing. Arthur Cropley, Professor ofEducational Psychology at University of Hamburg, suggests theplayfulness, flexibility and small risking-taking in daily creative processescan improve mental health. For Corpley, a creative act can be as simple asdealing with everyday decisions in convergentways. So, although creativity does not guarantee mentalwellbeing, it can be a method to negotiate through an increasingly stressfullife full of uncertainties.Some dismisscreativitys importancebecause they define it narrowly but creativity is different for every person.Sure, for some, it could be composing or painting or writing. For others, itcould mean exercising the body or imagination or the intellect. As the philosopherBerys Gaut qualify, creative expressions include science, business andeveryday activities. Hence, creativity does not always involve the creation ofa work or being artistic its definition can be as wide-ranging as thediversity of peoples livedexperiences. Since thelockdown, many of us find ourselves in a solitary place. More than just thestate of being alone, solitude is a complex condition we might never fullyunderstand. The psychologist Danielle Knafo, when discussing solitude and creativity from a psychoanalyticviewpoint, notes when we arealone, we are still with others; and when with others, we are still alone.The Danishwriter, Dorthe Nors, believes solitude heightensartistic receptivity in a way that can be challenging and painful. She citesthe example of the filmmaker Ingmar Bergmans work ethicto show how discipline and solitude can influence ones creativeoutput. Still, it is also safe to assume that what applies to one individualmay not be suitable for another. Our understandings of the creative process andsolitude, then, is highly elusive.As asongwriter, I live the uncertainty of creativity. Sometimes, ideas would ticklemy chest, then words and rhythm would fall out like tea from a cup too full.For me, the better works come when the rational brain shuts down and deeperforces some call it the subconscious begin to finish the work. For some,solitude makes these moments more frequent; for others, it doesnt. Assinger-songwriter Leonard Cohen said, If I knewwhere the good songs came from, Id go theremore often youre married toa mystery.Every time asong comes to me, words wound run out like a scale descending from silence theworld would dangle in golden hues. In solitude, my memories would evoke a forgottenfriend, a dissolving touch, a faded desire. Alone, I would swim through thisworlds watercolours and I would drown in its multitude thesalty earth odour, the fireplacewarmth of an old wood cabin, the snow on a foreign street from my travellingdays melodies would surface through the textures of my mind.In a recent study, EstelleMichinov and Nicolas Michinov investigate psychological adjustment andcreativity during the coronavirus lockdown. Their data suggest that individualpersonalities affect how people deal with loneliness during quarantine. Forthose adjusted well to solitude, social isolation can prompt personal growthand creativity. While for emotionallyunstable lonely individuals,creativity has been less fruitful. So, we cant formulate auniversal theory of creativity and solitude because every person has a uniquerelationship to the world.Despite thepsychological complexity of creativity in solitude, the urge to create can bethe strongest when spare time meets social distancing. In a conversation Ioverheard at a music instrument store, a staff said they have been sellingabout 150 guitars every week since the pandemic began a huge increase insales from before COVID-19 lockdown. While professional musicians suffer fromthe cancellation of gigs, many hobbyists finally found the time to learn aninstrument. Talking ofguitars for musicians, isolation can change the process and the content ofcreative works. In a YouTubevideo interview with AndyCohen, celebrity guitarist John Mayer says that he couldnt play musicmuch because theres no joy. This showsprofessionals in the creative industry can be affected by solitude. Mayer andLeon Bridges song Inside Friend is about thequarantine social experience. So, we can see that the pandemic environment hasaltered the way creative contents are created and what they are about.Outside ofmusic, solitude has launched new quarantine dating sites such as OkZoomer andQuarantine Together. OkZoomer, for example, is a not-for-profit dating websitebased on exchanging emails with matched strangers, built by Yaleundergraduates. We wereinspired by our own sadness about lost dating prospects when school shut down, OkZoomerco-founder Ileana Valdez admits. Solitude,aside from motivating web engineers and singer-songwriters, also stimulate someto search for love a poignant example of everyday creativity. Every night, Istroll through the USyd Love Letters Facebook page to feel less alone I liketo imagine how anonymous posters type on devices, exposing their hearts naked veinswith spontaneous prose. Are they still waiting for the call? Is tonight as coldas usual? As the definition of creativity is fluid, anything that involve convergentthinking is creative, even love letters.So in oursolitude, we sometimes are our best companions. Through creativity, we becamebetter acquainted with our thoughts and potentials. As the lockdown policiesbegin to relax, we may soon return to the world from solitude. And for some ofus, we might have learned to appreciate the time we have had to catch up withourselves.When we arealone in the wee small hours, legato of thoughts would jumble on pavementshadows through the moonlight curling up like tin foil tearing away. Ourthoughts would tangle like soft jungle leaves, emitting sounds of jazzy drumfills. We swing our arms inside our skulls as if searching for a window in the dark, free likea lucid dreamer discovering the world within. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> No; probablynot. But as the late summer, then Autumn, and then a mild, sunny, Winter passesby in lockdown, I find myself drawn to the history books and old-timey tales ofmy high school years. I read of Napoleon, Tocqueville, Hume and Voltaire. Ipicture stern, fusty men in powdered wigs and coats that drip with starch. As Isit, a child of privilege in my inner-city home, I wonder if I am like them.The cases rise. Anotherday passes by. I paint a toy soldier quite an achievement. I wander theidleness of my mind, not a care in the world other than what to have for lunch.The next day I sit on the porch and read Smith. Or, at least, I have the bookopen in front of me while I scroll Reddit. The maple leaf tree paints picturesof the sunlight. Am I an Aristocrat, enjoying a lazy breeze passing through thisred-bricked chateau?No. The thing withan artificially inflated self-image is that its liable to fall apart prettyquickly. As the rejections on job applications mount, the world surges in revolution.Ennui is replaced by anxiety. I take moreshifts at the shop despite the health risk I need the money. I rewrite my CVsix more times its leaking contrived corporate jargon all over the rest ofmy work now. I volunteer for mutual aid and University initiatives. I go to protests;I write frustrated essays. My anger at such an unjust society is matched onlyby my burning desire to find my place in it.To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product ofcivilisation.This experienceof government sponsored idleness mirrors another great period of social change.In the wake of the French Revolution, with the Napoleonic Wars ramping-up, Britisharistocrats feared that poverty in rural England would fuel a nastyFrench-style revolution at home. The Westminster dandies descended onSpeenhamland, Berkshire with a brilliant idea to test out: universal income. Ifthe costs of daily living were subsidised by the government via the employers then the good plebs could furnish themselves with all they needed to be comfortableand feel no need to follow in the footsteps of the troublesome French.At some point,however, those same dandies decided the whole project was a failure. Theyproclaimed that the idle poor of Speenhamland had merely filled their extra timewith drinking and vice: that the proper place for the ignorant masses was toperform good works in the factory or the field. The idea became entrenched inthe capitalist ethos, and Speenhamland appeared as a cautionary tale on theperils of the welfare state. It was cited by Ricardo one of the fathers ofmodern economics who argued that the only true remedy to poverty was the freemarket. Over a century later, Speenhamland was levied by policy advisors in theNixon administration to shoot down a proposed universal income bill. Today,notions of the lazy poor and dole bludgers are common parlance, and politiciansare obsessed with jobs and growth as if thats the solution to everything. Indeed,it was these same sentiments that inspired Diefenbach to title his popularnineteenth century novel: Arbeit macht frei.Yet Speenhamland was a lie. As Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists,points out: no-one had actually bothered to collect any data. Vast reportson Speenhamland were commissioned by the Government, and they were filled withlavish detail on the depravity, sloth, and vice into which the residents ofSpeenhamland had supposedly fallen. Yet almost no actual interviews ofresidents were conducted, no hard data was assessed, and the bulk of the claimsin the reports was simple hearsay spouted by local aristocrats and associatedland-owning fops. In life what one aims for isennuiSo says the grotesquelypatrician, paedophile father of Patrick Melrose in the miniseries of the samename. This is the mindset of the aristocrat: to idle ones life away sustainedby the fruits of another persons labour. And herein lies the error of the dandiesof Speenhamland and, indeed, the great multitude of welfare critics who havecome since. These pampered men lazy, dismissive and bloated assumed that wewere all aristocrats in-waiting. They projected their own spoilt worldview ontothe rest of us.Yet they hadnever felt the sting of multiple job rejections, or the dread of seeing theirbank account relentlessly tick downwards week by week. They failed toacknowledge that psychologists tell us there is almost no condition moredebilitating to an individuals mental health than unemployment and feelings ofuselessness. They choose to ignore the mounds of data that show that whenindividuals are given opportunities for self-betterment, they take advantage ofthem. I am not anaristocrat. Im not like them. I dont want to idle my life away sitting on theporch scrolling Reddit or watching Netflix. The lockdown and ensuing governmentpayments gave many of us the opportunity ever so briefly to waste away,free of material concern. Yet while the aristocrats may have expected sloth, instead,we see restlessness. We see vast mutual aid networks spring up and numerousvolunteer initiatives swell in numbers. We see students banding together to runonline social events and collaborative projects. We see protests sweep theworld with more vigour than has been seen in a generation. We see great worksof art, directors putting together stop-motion films in their homes, and peopletaking up new hobbies and finding sources of creative fulfillment.We are notaristocrats as they seem to think we are. We are social, inspired beings. Wewant to make a difference: to make a mark and to feel useful. The false logicof Speenhamland has created a society that worships work for the sake of work. Weare told that if the masses are not kept in jobs, or if they are givenfinancial assistance, they will become depraved and useless gorging on drugsand cheap media. The pandemic has proven precisely the opposite.Let us finally give rest to themyth of Speenhamland. We are not aristocrats. Now Im off to sip a brandy by thefire. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Thepower of music and art to disrupt, critique and explore societal structures iswell-known, with the best of it imaging how we can effect societal change. Thishas never been more important than now. Itsin this maelstrom that Detroit Techno (DT) and its utilisation of Afrofuturistimagery and themes is profoundly relevant by providing us with a radical andtimely exploration of racial oppression, colonialism and imagined futures. DTis the genesis of all other forms of Techno, with its origins beginning in the mid-1980sunderground electronic dance music scene of Detroit, Michigan a city with a vibrantculture and long history of Black resistance. The genres emergence isgenerally understood as beginning with Juan Atkins releases under the Model500 name. Atkins early DT work was primarily influenced by the electronicinstrumentation used by German Avant-Garde group Kraftwerk, the funk rhythms ofGeorge Clintons Parliament-Funkadelic and the futurist concepts of writerAlvin Toffler. These influences of Atkins led to DT being founded by the use ofethereal synthesisers, steadily pushed forward by the rhythms of drum machines,notably the Roland 808. The establishment of a prominent Techno scene inDetroit began with Atkins collaborations with fellow young Detroit producersDerrick May and Kevin Saunderson. Critical to the emergence of DT was thecontext of a post-industrial Detroit, where the prominent automobile industry hadbeen gutted and Motown Records had left for Los Angeles. Writer Cristoph Schaubargued that the move of Motown Records symbolically confirmed the cityscultural decline, providing a context in which the originators of DT werecompelled to disrupt and explore new sonic avenues. Foundational to DTs origins is Afrofuturism,a broad cultural and philosophical movement that explores distant futures,alternate realities and technological development founded in the images andphilosophies of African National and diasporic tradition. The struggles of Africandiaspora, with its horrifying history of slavery and oppression, is critical tothe formation of Afrofuturism, as Afrofuturist artists, writers, and theorists oftenseek to reclaim the past and find optimism for the future. Afrofuturism usesscience-fictional depictions of technologically advanced African diasporas tocritique the White cultural depiction of primitive Black peoples, and insteadimagines a future that is founded in cosmic liberation: a reality where technologicalpossibilities have enabled Black empowerment and the destruction of race-basedcolonial structures. In this imagining of the future, Afrofuturism is notmerely a triangulation of Black culture with science fiction, but a creativeexploration of the possible futures that challenge the oppression faced byBlack people, including the systematic exploitation and injustice perpetratedby the police and prison systems. Thelinks between Afrofuturism and DT is important for understanding the abilityfor music to be a tool for liberation. The futuristic imagery, ethos and albumthemes of many early DT artists invoke Afrofuturist themes. There is a constantmotif of futuristic artist names and album titles in the DT scene, like theartists Model 500 and Drexciya, as well as the album InterstellarFugitives by Underground Resistance. These artists all used explicitly sciencefiction and futurist inspired names alongside representation of robots, aliens andinterstellar civilisations, as an attempt to occupy and reclaim the future for theAfrican diaspora. Emblematicof the prevalence of Afrofuturism in DT is the mythos of DT group Drexciya,with their formation of the race of Drexciyans, as developed in the sleevenotes to their 1997 album The Quest, an underwater civilisation of an aquatichuman species who descended from pregnant America-bound African slavesthrown overboard by the thousands during labour for being sick and disruptivecargo. Drexciyas depiction of America-bound African slaves rising up andthriving from the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade explicitly attackscolonial structures. The new race of Drexciyans disrupt the functions of colonialismand slavery by adapting and overcoming the immense hardship faced, establishingtheir own society, which is not only technologically sophisticated, but is outsideof the colonial gaze, a society which is unknown and therefore unable to becolonised. Theanti-colonial thematic concerns are also prevalent within UndergroundResistances (UR) 1998 release Interstellar Fugitives, where in its sleevenotes they conceptualise a future in which colonialism is recasts in cosmicproportions. It is in this mythos where UR use a fictional report by theIntergalactic Bureau of Investigation to conceptualise DT as a mutant genecalled R1, which has been spread through sonic parasites, by therhythm-machine of Detroit. UR develop this concept further by acknowledgingthat this R1 gene has mutated from its cousin gene, rhythm, which was createdduring a period of time ranging from the 1400s to the late 1800s in colonizedareas throughout the world and especially in the new world of the Americas. Theframing of R1 as a parasite as written by the Intergalactic Bureau ofInvestigation, seeks to directly critique modern colonial structures such asthe police, with R1 being viewed as disruptive to colonial powers due to itsability to invoke liberation from and revolt against the Intergalacticcolonialism prevalent within this future. It is here where UR directly explorethematic and conceptual possibility for music to be a means of liberation, aswell as how the police act on the basis of maintaining colonial structures anddirectly attacking Black individuals and their culture, through surveillance,threats and violence. UR explore the thread from African rhythms to DT with thetrans-Atlantic slave trade and the institutions of slavery once again being groundzero on which both DT and anti-colonial struggle have been built. URs use ofAfrofuturist themes further develops how sound and culture can be utilised as ameans to directly fight against and attack colonial structures, asmetaphorically explored by the R1 gene. Byexploring the mythos surrounding the work of both Drexciya and UR, through theuse of Afrofuturist imagery and fictions, I have aimed to explore how we canunderstand and view DT as directly attacking colonial history and its ownmutation into the modern world as systemic and institutionalised racism. Thereare significant links between the anti-colonial and Afrofuturist sentimentsheld in DT and the various Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements occurring acrossthe world. Critical to the BLM movement is a critique of the police and theirrole in maintaining colonial structures that directly exploit and attack Black individualsand communities, as well as the recognition of the ways that systemic racism isencoded not only in both American, Australian and colonial culture but in oureconomy, our institutions and in every-day life. It is in this context where DTbecomes important and profoundly relevant, as it imagines alternative futures thatexist away from the continuing colonial gaze and exploitative structures suchas the police. Just as the BLM movement articulates an agenda of change bydefunding police and redirecting resources towards more constructive policiesand programs, DT music and culture creates its own reimagining of the futurewhere colonial structures are dismantled and Black empowerment is promoted. DThas even been played at BLM protests in Detroit as rhythmic fuel againstcolonial oppression. DT is not merely dance music, but, as the theorist KodwoEshun put it, Techno becomes an immersion ininsurrection, music to riot with. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disruption, rejoice. Disruption, celebrate. Disruption, euphoria. If the metaphysical collided with the physical in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius proportions in my life, disruption would be a bathtub filled with marshmallows, and I would be found in the middle, bathing, melting, and draping myself in it. Comfort in the chaos I chant, sinking further into the calming rhythm of being enveloped by something I know so well, something I now embrace, something I know connects me to my world around me. My mind wanders to my heartbeat, the ultimate human display of the beauty of disruption. The cardiac symphony, a still pause, a moment of reflection and rejuvenation, then the conductor disrupts the silence, nerves and muscles fire in symphonic disruption then in a split second, the isovolumic contraction disrupts the body like the clash of symbols announcing the beginning of a symphony. May this story be a challenge to those who abhor distribution, to those who push it away, this article is a call to embrace the loss, embrace the disruption; as it is essential that we wield our disruption and use it as motivation to leave the world a more just and compassionate place. The first disruption in my life came in the form of a bombing. It was 2006, I was 12 years old and had fled to the mountains of Lebanon, to the Notre Dame du Mont nunnery. The nuns were accepting those displaced from their homes, including myself and my family, who were fleeing from the Hezbollah stronghold of Tyre; a city where I had spent the 10 years of my life. We arrived and were embraced with open arms. My child-like mind realized the bombings were quieter in the mountains. The earth shaking airstrikes, the rhythm of the buildings swaying, all of the formative experiences from the south, had transformed into the faint sounds of birds in the trees and the church bells ringing. There was quiet, there was calm, in those glorious, safe, mountains. Ill never forget the week of blissful solace, where my 12 year old self was free of the burden of the thought of war. However, there are no happy endings in wars. And like every heartbeat, like every disruption, that week of laughter and safety was the quiet before the eruption. I scuttled up the ancient monastery stairs, them, groaning under the weight of my bouncy youthfulness. Up I went to my room to retrieve my sunglasses from the blaring solar flares of the June sun streaming through the atmosphere. Then silence, followed by an immediate pressure change, as though I had stood up too quickly and vertigo snatched me from my immediate realm. It was a flickering feeling like you had been ripped in a thousand pieces, suspended in a gravity-less world. Then the auditory compression of the explosion brought those thousand splintered pieces of myself back together and I let out a deafening scream of a child who knew fear, who knew life was ending, who knew she would be a casualty statistic, flashed across the screen of a CNN news report. The ceiling collapsed on my body. Tinnitus and vertigo disrupting my inner ear at every attempt to escape. I tried to run, dusty, frightened, and crying. A day later my family and I evacuated on a US military war cruiser which set sail for Turkey. A childs mind is a wondrous thing as I lived out my childhood dreams of eating military supplied pop-tarts and ready-to-eat meals, reveling in a world of sugar and not having to do the dishes. During the voyage, I slept on a cot, on the exposed bow of the cruiser, as there were no more beds available. The majority of the two day sailing I spent my time hiding under a lifeboat during the day to keep the harsh glare of the Mediterranean sun off of my skin and trying to understand the events of the past weeks. It has been 14 years, 1 month, and 5 days since that moment. For many of those years I chose to ignore that disruption. I chose to ignore the vast trauma of my childhood. I buried it. However, trauma is a ballast that no matter how many times you throw overboard hoping it will sink to the depths of the ocean, it always remains visible in the distance. Trauma is a crippling, choking, weed that grows, and regrows, with roots that grow in an infinity eight-shape in your mind. I chose to fight it for many of those years, disassociating from the pain. However, my story begins when I decided to embrace the pain, embrace the trauma, and embrace chaos and disruption. In doing so, it has allowed me to embrace compassion, embrace justice, and wield the most horrifying of circumstances to connect myself to my community and uplift the most vulnerable within it. It is a united, common story that I share with the millions of displaced men, women, and children of Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine and the further 80 million displaced refugees of the world. Therefore, I have chosen to rise and recognize my fellow men, women, and children who have walked beside me, displaced. We all have stories of displacement, however this paper is a challenge, to not hide our trauma, but to use it, to ask ourselves the questions: how can our stories of displacement encourage you to uplift your community? And even when the pain of loss and displacement feels unbearable, how can we continue to ask ourselves what we are willing to give up in to exist and live in a more compassionate world? There are many individual answers but there will be no justice, peace, and care for the most vulnerable in this world until we recognize our own displacement stories in theirs. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Beforethe pandemic hit, I researched and wrote about historical events in my casualwork. I understand that the privilege of distance makes certain thingsinevitable and obvious. I trace the histories of political and artisticmovements from hundreds of years away. I stand outside the maze, looking downfrom above, watching revolutionaries and nobles scurry about, my perspectiveallowing me to see the exit from catastrophe, clear as day. I can tut-tut atthese historical idiots, chastising people who are long dead: What the hellare you doing? Cant you see youre just making things worse for everybody?Right now I am the one trapped in a maze, unable to see the way out of seemingly inevitable collapse. I have begun reading 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline, which discusses the violent fall of advanced civilizations in the Late Bronze Agethe kingdoms of Mycenaean Greece and Egypt, among others, transforming into scattered and isolated villages in the first Dark Ages. Clines thesis was that there must have been a perfect storm of events that caused this collapse: climate change; drought and famine; earthquakes; invaders; and internal rebellions. Thats the Late Bronze Age, but it also sounds ominously like the present day.Anne Helen Petersen wrote about errand paralysis and burnout back in 2019, or a thousand years ago in pandemic time. For me (and Petersen touches upon this in her essay), the root of this paralysisis existential. It is the loss of meaning. It is being faced with a world that no longer made sense, betrayed by the definitions that have guided me all my life. Just when I am about to find that definition, touch the edge of that word that will open up the world to me, the pandemic hits, my meaning-making disrupted. Many times I would find myselfpausing in the middle of (happily) proofreading an essay or poring over asentence in a short story and think: Whatsthe point? Whats the point of caring about language when a politicalleader can say whatever he wantsand it is almost always a heand bere-interpreted and defended by his supporters to the death? Whats the point ofcaring about facts and the effects of my words when political spokespersons canreply with toxic screeds filled with lies and be believed and applauded for it?Whats the point of doing anything right, if were all heading towards collapseanyway? I once received a request for an email interview, and the first question was Could you share with us the exact moment (or moments) wherein you realised that you wanted to become a storyteller? Writing used to bring me joy but now it also feels like a chore, a small act that create[s] order, temporarily, but seemingly amount[s] to nothing, to quote writer Rachel Khong. There was a time when writing stories was fun, but I seem to no longer be able to access this happiness. After weeks of trying, I wrote back to the interviewer with an apology: Ive tried answering the interview but Imhaving a difficult time, to be honest. I think I just feel uninspired, and Iwould love to answer the questions when Im feeling motivated about my writing.They wrote back to kindly say they understand, and can they get in touch withme again? That email remains unanswered in my Inbox.I could not even think long-term; Icould only take this one day at a time. Revelin the little happinesses you find. I actually said that once, to a friend.In a Facebook chat. But I guess if you feel that the worlds falling down aroundyour ears, you are allowed to be dramatic. Many begged for the help of the gods, but even more imagined that there were no gods left and that the last eternal night had fallen on the world. This was Pliny the Younger writing to Roman historian Tacitus in his second letter about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which spewed out molten rock and buried Pompeii and its inhabitants in 79 CE. But before that, in his first letter, Pliny the Younger wrote: My uncle soothed the fears of his companions by saying that they were nothing more than fires left by the terrified peasants, or empty abandoned houses that were blazing. He went to bed and apparently fell asleep, for his loud, heavy breathing was heard by those passing his door.Of course, it was not the worldslast eternal night. Pliny the Youngers uncle managed to sleep because he wasunaware that he was moments away from one of the most cataclysmic volcaniceruptions in history, unaware that he was in fact in the midst of history, aswe all are. Pompeii was destroyed and frozen intime under layers of ash, but the world marched onand perhaps will keepmarching on, even if most days I feel it will not, or should not, or will, but notfor much longer. Collapse also means to give way. Give way to what, I have no idea. I want to return, not to the blissfulignorance of childhood, but to that feeling of gratitude and excitement I hadwhen I was young, that moment when I can look up from my desk, see the leather-boundvolumes of encyclopaedia and classic novels that my parents saved up and paidfor, and think of all the empty notebooks I can fill with poems and stories,think that everything is new, that nothing is over, that everything is justbeginning.I am trying not to wave a white flag in the face of Disruption. I want to believe that this is just a pause, the way youd stop to take a deep breath after an uphill climb. Im tired, and I need to rest, but Im still here. Just pausing in order to find the courage to continue, to write more stories, to listen and contribute to the conversation (no matter how painful) about identity and politics and finding meaning in the here and now. Just pausing to be ready for what happens next. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On Friday 1 August, at a socially-distanced protest organised by the University of Sydney Education Action Group, two activists were arrested and fined $1,100.What is more concerning than this blatantly cynical attack, under the guise of public health, on the right to protest? Probable collaboration between University of Sydney security and the NSW Police.There is ample evidence to support this collusion. Firstly, the late arrival of the riot police implies that they were tipped off or came at the request of someone, the likely culprit being university security.Secondly, security under Vice-Chancellor Dr. Michael Spences management have a sordid history of working with the police. In 2013, when the university was shut down by a strike of university staff, security and police were shown to be working in tandem to smash the picket line and break the strike.Lastly, Spence has reasons to wish last Fridays protest to be swept under the rug; it specifically targeted his decision to push through voluntary redundancies, which amount to the cutting of permanent positions.This is a blatant and outrageous attack on the free speech of students and staff. The university is meant to be a place where students can discuss and debate ideas, not just in an academic sense, but also relating to the real world. Collaboration between university management, security and the police endangers students and creates an atmosphere of censorship and the crushing of dissent. How can students pursue an interest in social justice or political issues if at any time, armed riot police may be called on them at the request of security?Just like with multiple Black Lives Matter rallies held in Sydney, the riot police repressed them by invoking the public health restrictions to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet shutting down protests clearly has nothing to do with a concern for the publics health. The main sites of confirmed cases in NSW remain cafes, restaurants and pubs. Go to a pub, sure. Go to the footy with thousands of others, sure. But demand an end to systematic racism, or oppose drastic fee hikes, and now youre a threat to public wellbeing even when social distancing by the standards of current health advice.The EAG plans to have another rally at USyd on 28 August, as part of a National Day of Action called by the National Union of Students. While it is safe to do so, it is imperative that students mobilise to oppose the fee hikes, cuts to jobs and courses and state repression of protests. Although I wonder whether every protest and political event from here on will be squashed by university security and the police working in tandem.Spence must release evidence as to whether his security team did or did not collaborate with NSW police. If it is proven true, he should publicly apologise, fire those management members responsible, and pay the fines of the two students detained. Nothing less than the staff and students freedom of speech and right to protest is at stake. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1997, Virginian black metal act Grand Belials Key released their debut LP Mocking the Philanthropist. It was met with widespread controversy and boycotts; Rough Trade Records Germany refused all distribution of the album, the band played only nine gigs in its first nine years and their label, Wood-Nymph, collapsed after poor record sales. Irrespective of the reactionary content of the album itself, controversy stemmed predominantly from the CD booklet which featured band members wearing the merch of prominent National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) acts. One of these acts was Spear of Longinus, who formed in 1992 in Brisbane, Queensland.Fascism, in a legislative sense, never did take root in Australia its self-contradictory nature and endlessly vacillating convictions struggle to appeal to populations without a more conventional ancestral-national chauvinism and predisposition to outward displays of military might. But fascism was always, above all else, a political aesthetic; subscription to the ideology itself or relevance in Parliament is not necessarily reflective of sympathy towards its particular end goals. Australia has long embraced a watered down fascist imagery of soft white nationalism, subtly scapegoating minority populations and celebrating jingoistic approaches to foreign countries such as China. This is all to say, the way people talk about fascism within music is wrong (at least in Australia). People tend to imagine scenes straight out of Green Room in which nazis come together in dirty, recondite locations and perform their music for each other in very insular, gatekeeping scenes; sort of a burgeoning underground Fourth Reich. This is not the case in Australia and only ever tends to manifest in countries where fascism is prevalent and not ostensibly untenable, such as with early 2000s Ukranian Black Metal or Polish Black Metal over the last decade. In these cases, political facism isnt underground, and nor are its musical manifestations.Most likely the first Australian white supremacist band was Quick & The Dead, who formed in Perth in 1978. They were tied to the Rock Against Communism (RAC) scene abroad. Other acts such as White Lightning, White Noise and Fortress followed suit. They played hard rock and Oi! and were all essentially defunct by 2000, alongside RAC at large. Searching for bands with explicit ties to white supremacist organisations or ideologies wields very few results. In terms of artists that have been operating this century, the most notorious are Destryer 666 and Spear of Longinus, but there are smaller acts such as Denouncement Pyre, Vomitor, Lustration and Abyssic Hate. These acts largely play black and thrash metal and have members that have expressed fascist sentiments in the past. For example, Abyssic Hates first demo is titled Cleansing of an Ancient Race and features a Reichsadler on its cover. K K Warslut, lead singer of Destryer 666, once screamed to a crowd [t]his ones for all the Muslim immigrants that are invading [] everyones busy being anti-Christian fuck being anti-Christian, lets be fucking anti-Muslim for once! whilst performing a seig heil. This display, at DeathKult Open Air Festival in 2012, was met with thunderous applause. Destryer 666 continues to perform today. All aforementioned bands have performed at festivals and released on record labels that neither cater to nor exclusively host neo-nazi work they are by no means marginalised. They exist side by side with apolitical metal outfits across Australia.This is where fascist aesthetics permeate Australian music. Spear of Longinus is professedly NSBM but its lyrical content is largely that of the superiority of pre-Christian Indo-European philosophies and traditions. Its members have disagreements over the meaning of their name; some believe it to refer to the spear that pierced Jesus side on the cross while vocalist Camazotz claims that its merely a vehicle for other ideas such as Odins Spear of Magik, liberation of the human soul from restrictive morality, and ancient Roman justice. Music can not communicate manifestos and, therefore, fascism in metal has generally manifested itself as an exploration of the occult rather than of specific fascist ideological points. A number of neo-Nazi music festivals have been organised in recent years by skinhead organisations Blood & Honour Australia and Southern Cross Hammerskins, but it is rare to find actually recognisable bands among their line-ups. Take, instead, Kommodus one of the best new black metal acts in Australia, whose leading man Lepidus Plague has enjoyed increasing popularity since the release of his debut self-titled album last year. That debut album features artwork from notorious domestic abuser and accused sex offender Jef Whitehead (of Leviathan fame) and one of its key themes is worship of the Roman Empire and its aesthetics. Kommodus label GoatowaRex holds no claimed political allegiance and features artists that range from Zss, who feature burning crosses on their artwork, to Kkailimoku, an indigenous Hawaiian anti-imperialist. A peek at Plagues instagram reveals a chaotic smorgasbord of Roman imagery, pictures of himself in corpse paint, and Australian WWII-era nationalism. I have very rarely seen Kommodus considered a fascist band; in fact, Ive much more seen it celebrated in anti-fascist communities.Its not uncommon for bands in Australia to invoke Roman imagery, such as Rote Mare or Dawn of Azazel, as they cant claim the same ancestral connection to paganism as Eastern Europeans can. In fact, Australian bands can rarely claim ancestral connection to much of anything. This makes worship of pure ancestry, a common fascist dog whistle, difficult to pull off. On account of this, the aesthetic dog whistles within Australian music are more scattered, much like the aesthetics of Australian fascism. This makes it difficult to easily identify which bands may be potentially problematic in a way that it isnt with Eastern European music. This, coupled with the relative lack of a true anti-fascist presence in the Australian metal underground and an absence of Nazi hunters such as slackbastard leaves the proliferation of quasi-fascist dogwhistles and imagery in sections of the Australian underground essentially unchallenged.Certainly, Australia is not on the verge of coup staged by bullet-belt toting fucking nerds with skintight leather pants hiked up their arses, but it cant be said that Australia is hostile to such expressions. Fascisms favourite ecosystem is one in which it is taken as a joke and left unaddressed, and the Australian underground black metal scene continues to tolerate dalliances with fascist aesthetics Sympathy for fascism, particularly eco-fascism, grows across the world and those in high places seem only too willing to pander to it; anti-fascism now is more important than ever than ever. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> WandaVision is an absolute hoot. But while its a hoot, it also symbolises a shift in Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) programming; away from the traditional feature film format, but pre-eminently away from the safety of the MCU formula. While most Marvel movies (and most big-budget blockbusters in general) sell themselves on grand actionset pieces and fast pace, moment to moment combat, WandaVision doesnt. In a departure from the MCU of winters past, WandaVision presents itself as a psychological thriller exploring character and aesthetic more than anything else. In the heaving behemoth that is the Marvel machine, this is innovation.This innovation isnt just a creative decision made in isolation, though. Marvel, as a studio, and the creative risk its willing to bear, has always been directly linked to its stages of development. Phase 2, a period of consolidation for Marvel, has many of the most formulaic films of the MCU namely Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Age of Ultron (2015) being the top offenders. Phase 3, on the other hand, has some of its most vibrant entries. According to traditional economic and cultural theory, monopoly and market homogeneity breed stagnation. Yet the more Marvel consolidates its dominance over mainstream entertainment, the more risks its willing to take. WandaVision is a product of this.Starring two less than central characters, streaming on Disney+, and with a main hook thats less appealing to a casual audience, WandaVision could only have happened in Marvels present stage. I like to call it their post-consolidation secure growth stage. Right now, Marvel Studios is too big to fail. Literally. I cannot envisage Marvel content being anything less than significant. That might seem naive of me, but I think theyve proven themselves. If Age of Ultron (2015) and Thor: The Dark World (2013) didnt kill the franchise, nothing will. Monopoly has always been an incentive for innovation in a market economy and that same rule applies to the MCU. Intellectual property laws, a form of legal monopoly, have long been considered necessary for private corporations to invest in research and development. Conventional wisdom is that innovation isnt a financially sound decision without the legal assurance of exclusive profit. Without innovation several life saving, world changing, and genre defining products and services might never exist. Sounds pretty good, right? Now, the development of a new vaccine or the aeroplanes invention arent exactly on par with a Disney+ content drop. But the primary principle remains the same: risk is encouraged when security is assured. Just as intellectual property laws protect the products of research and development (and the Disney corporation, for that matter), so does the market dominance of the MCU defend it from the consequences of a programming risk.WandaVision follows Endgames record-breaking box office earnings and Disneys acquisition of Fox. Both signifiers of the corporations absolute market domination. And that dominance Is manifesting itself in other media as well. Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and the Eternals all represent firsts for representation in the MCU. They also all appear in later phases of the franchise or, in the case of the Eternals, have yet to be released. All of this is innovation in the shallowest terms, but for a franchise that has often been criticised for stagnation, things are changing for the better.As much as Id love to finish off by saying that media diversity is a small price to pay for the absolute romp that is WandaVision, I cant. As much as a monopoly has giveth, it has taketh some too. Almost 40% of the US box office figures went to Disney productions in 2019. On principle alone thats something that isnt exactly tolerable. As a member of any fandom, its important to remember that the characters we watch and the shows we consume arent just art in isolation. Disneys acquisition of Fox was adored by the Marvel masses (myself included). The opportunity for the Fantastic Four and X-Men to enter the MCU was simply too tantalising a prospect to ignore. But these arent just characters theyre representative of an ever narrowing media ecosystem. So while its fun to contemplate whether monopoly might actually encourage innovation, just remember that Quicksilver isnt the only thing the Disney corporation owns now. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When James Camerons Avatar hit cinemas in December 2009, it wowed audiences with beautifully rendered 3D visuals and alien landscapes. Despite a vacuous plot, Avatar holds a special place in popular culture for its immersive set design centred on stereoscopic 3D technology. Avatar wasnt the first nor the last 3D film studios have been captivated by the possibilities since the 50s. Yet, the dominance of childrens films in the 3D space speaks to the commercial motivations behind 3D production. My grandparents paid handsomely to take me to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D but like most offerings, it failed to meaningfully deploy the technology beyond gimmicky visual flair.Hoping to further wow (and/or extort) consumers, the video game industry piled on with its own offerings. For the same reasons that Avatar worked in 3D, so too did video games. But poor implementation, expensive hardware, and rapidly dwindling support killed the niche before it found its footing. In 2021, the grip of 3D media on both the popular conscience (and our wallets) has loosened into a gentle hand hold. Yet a small community of so-called Shaderhackers exclaim proudly that playing games in 3D is to experience them the way they were meant to be seen. Grassroots and commercially unshackled, they keep the stereoscopic 3D dream alive.During a mid-lockdown stupor, I rediscovered a Linus Tech Tips video on his 3D gaming rig from 2010 but can it play Crysis? the description read. That night I saw sunrise as I deep dived into the world of the Shaderhacker. While official support for Nvidia 3D Vision technology ended in April 2020, the last game to get the 3D Vision Ready tick of approval was released in 2013. Less than 40 games made the coveted list. At the time of writing there are over 1200 games playable with Nvidia 3D Vision available on the Shaderhacker blog Helixmod. Even games with official support have been improved by the community. Helixmod-giant Pauldulser developed the 3D Fix Manager to help automate the process of installing 3D mods (shader hacks) for games. Despite abandonment by Nvidia, 3D gaming is the best it has ever been.Stuck at home and no longer having to pay rent, I invested in the equipment required to play games the way they were meant to be seen. I started with a few big-name titles Metro 2033, Half-Life (well, Black Mesa), and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order before really hitting a stride with Alien: Isolation. Hiding in a changeroom locker, leaning back, intermittently checking my radar as I watched the xenomorph crawl past was brutal as was the scream that broke loose when it tore the door open. Playing Star Wars in 3D was cool, but playing Alien was transcendental. I held my breath whenever the xenomorph was nearby, my heart pounded whenever Ripley rather, I had to sprint. The shader hacks for Alien were unofficial yet Id argue its how the game should be experienced.The tools built by the Shaderhackers have allowed gamers to re-envision the ways they experience their favourite games. There is a community wishlist published on Helixmod but anyone may hack as they please leaving us with 3D-modded gems like AER Memories of Old and ABZU. For the now-defunct studio Forgotten Key, developing AER in 3D would have been an expensive (and nonsensical) commercial decision. Likewise, Alien wasnt going to sell more copies were it to have shipped 3D Vision Ready. DHR, the Shaderhacker and AERs modder, didnt need to make a business case. Without big-name publishers breathing down their necks, or the economic pressures of running a small studio, the Shaderhackers are free to ask if a game could be improved by an extra dimension.Games that find their way onto Helixmods 3D list are there because someone truly wanted them to be. No Shaderhacker is yet to extort my grandma either so thats a plus. The video game medium is neatly suited to stereoscopic 3D and the Shaderhackers recognised this potential when the industry deemed it unprofitable. Im able to immerse myself amongst playful sharks, run from deadly aliens and soar between floating islands thanks to this visionary community. They recognise that the medium is held back by the suffocating demands of the industry and dedicate themselves to personalising their experiences. They correct the shortcomings of the AAA-title and elevate the humble indie game. I share this admiration for modders of all stripes, but for the Shaderhackers especially. Thanks to them I can play games and appreciate their visuals with as much depth as I choose. And yes Linus, that includes Crysis too. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Indie pop trio Shark Bay Dazy are making waves in Sydneys music scene, with sold out gigs at Inner West hotspots like Lazybones, the Factory Theatre and the Bank Hotel. Since their debut single in 2019 Wait for You, Shark Bay Dazy have put out bop after bop, showing no signs of slowing down.The band, consisting of singer-songwriter Alaska Defraine on the vocals, Maddy Briggs on keyboard and Ben Lopes on guitar, draw audiences in with fun, dreamy pop. Their energy is electric; youre left hanging onto every lyric as the dreamy, intimate melodies swirl around you, transporting listeners onto a hazy dance floor filled with doped-up twenty-somethings all searching for an escape.Their new single Quarter Life Crisis is an ode to adolescent angst, resonating with a feeling of being lost and wanting to be found; it soothes the aches of the twenty-something generation, all of us struggling with relationships, financial stability and uncertainty in the COVID-19 crisis.I sat down to chat with the band about their entrance into Sydneys music scene, creative process and aspirations for the future.***Tell me a bit about the origin story of Shark Bay Dazy. How did you decide to come together?ALASKA: I met Ben at Sydney University in first year in Contemporary Music. He needed a support act for his band SUPAHONEY, so we started rehearsing and writing together. It happened organically from there. And then we needed a keyboard player so we found Maddy.MADDY: I saw an ad on Facebook! (laughs)You guys are all USyd students yourselves. How do you study and also find time for your music?BEN: Well, were all at the Con so the rooms and resources are all there for you already. Its not that hard to just go from one class to rehearsal. Or even skip classes to go to recording sessions and stuff (laughs).Whats your creative process like? Talk us through stuff like lyric-writing, song concepts, and writing instrumentals.ALASKA: Well, the melody usually comes first. Thats something that happens pretty randomly. Ill be doing a kind of monotonous task and Ill just think of one. Then the lyrics just fit into that melody. A lot of the time, the lyrics dont always have to have a resonance with anything; they can be different words that feel important to me, flow together and just tell a story. I think its more of a raw, organic process instead of a step-by-step procedure. Bens process is a lot more structured in terms of theory.How much inspiration do you think you draw from personal experiences or your hometown?ALASKA: I would say my past relationships with people and my family inspire a lot of the process. Growing up in the Blue Mountains has been quite influential to my writing because a lot of crazy things happened growing up.MADDY: We have an upcoming song called Slide Song and its a really sentimental one because Alaskas written these stunning lyrics about living in and missing the Blue Mountains.Thats so exciting! As we know, live music has sadly taken a major hit during the pandemic and were only now being allowed to get back to in-person gigs. How do you feel about finally being able to be on stage again performing for people?BEN: Weve been pretty lucky with the gigs. We play at Lazybones a lot, and last week we played at The Bank Hotel. They usually sell out because the crowd capacity is reduced and everyone wants to go out. Our music suits sitting down audiences because its quite laid back.MADDY: There was a period there for about six months where we just had to hunker down to write and record.ALASKA: As a grassroots band though, were quite lucky. Its quite freeing to be back on stage again.What can we anticipate from Shark Bay Dazy for 2021 & beyond? Whats next?MADDY: Right now were recording an EP which has about six tracks, two of them are already out, and itll be coming out mid-year.BEN: More gigs, maybe go on a tour, then onto the next project. We dont really know what that is yet but that makes it exciting. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 2020, the performing arts were among the first of many sectors to be decimated by COVID-19. But many university students are yearning to throw themselves back into the live music scene according to the 2016 Australian Music Consumer Report, 46% of males aged 16-24 attended a live music concert at least once a month. Maybe the solution is under their noses. USyds 14 music societies are welcoming new creatives this year whether you want to relive your band kid days, live your classical fantasy, become a triple threat in a musical or just jam with your mates, theres something for everyone. Heres a list of all the musical societies on campus, with interviews from their spokespeople.BarberSocPopular with band kids and Conservatorium students, BarberSoc is an a cappella society that has a passion for barber shop quartet music. They welcome people who love to sing, experiment, and arrange, in a safe and warm community where learning is a priority, and encourage people of all musical levels to learn, collaborate and perform in different ensembles.Chinese Dance and Musical Instrument SocietyThis society explores a rich array of styles, varying from Chinese classical and folk styles, contemporary, jazz, and K-pop. Whether you want to learn some fresh, original choreography for your favourite K-pop songs, or learn a new Chinese traditional instrument, this WeChat-based community has you covered.Conservatorium Students Association (CSA)For those interested in providing support and events for Conservatorium students, the official faculty society for USyd music students truly is the one stop shop for support on campus and drinks off campus. The CSA is for you if youre looking to foster your leadership as a musician.Hip Hop Appreciation Society (SUHHAS)SUHHAS attracts rappers, producers and students who are looking for a fun, relaxed environment full of passionate people, and features styles ranging from Soundcloud to Oldhead. SUHHAS is a very young society with a small, friendly and involved exec team, with students of all musical backgrounds welcome.Jamming Society (UniJam)With no required admission fee and musicians ranging from complete beginners with a love for music to experienced players, UniJam is a great place to showcase your talents and help you develop your own musical career, while also meeting new friends along the way.Jazz Society (JazzSoc)JazzSoc comprises both jazz performers and listeners who have regular meet-ups at jazz clubs close to campus. JazzSoc promises a fun chance to get back into live music after lockdown hold[ing] gigs for all [their] bands throughout the year for both society members and the public to enjoy.Madrigal Society (MADS)Composed of 15-25 members, this friendly Renaissance choir loves to sing historical music for fun in small, casual rehearsals. MADS representatives are looking forward to picnics, pub hangouts, and casual outdoor sings now that the quarantine restrictions have been lifted.Musical Society (SUMS)At 142 years of age, SUMS is a non-audition choir for everyone regardless of musical ability. Similar to MADS, SUMS has a great social atmosphere packed with pub visits, camps and more.Musical Theatre Ensemble (MUSE)For musical enthusiasts, MUSE is for you! MUSE is a great opportunity to play along to your favourite musicals while being involved in an orchestral setting. The society also runs showcases, open mics, masterclasses, panel discussions, viewing parties, meetings and workshops.Marching Band Association (SUMBA)SUMBA has a focus on inclusive, fun and social music-making. Leaving out an audition process for accessibility, SUMBAs rehearsals often feature free pizza and lots of opportunities to socialise, providing a fun, relaxed atmosphere to get to know other members.Piano Society (PianoSoc)PianoSoc celebrates a passion for piano music, from classical and jazz to pop and contemporary. Piano jams are encouraged, while meetups have free pizza and drinks. PianoSoc representatives have emphasised that they try to be a place where music students, amateurs, and people whove never played an instrument before can meet and enjoy music, with the icing on the cake of free membership.Wind Orchestra (SUWO)SUWO is the band kids dream of an enthusiastic and welcoming bunch playing traditional, and not so traditional, wind band repertoire hoping to begin rehearsals soon if COVID-19 permits.Youth Music MissionYouth Music Mission is a go-to for students looking for a Christian community to jam with. They also organise various outdoor activities like coastal walks, performances and volunteering with the community.Sydney University Symphony Orchestra (SUSO)SUSO is another large society for students interested in classical music uniting to enjoy each others company at our social events (including an annual camp), however due to COVID-19 and subsequent funding cuts, the society has delayed further auditions to the end of semester one. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Asian representation in Hollywood has long been limited to a repertoire of offensive stereotypes understood through the Western gaze. Take Mickey Rooneys Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffanys (1961). Unabashedly in yellowface, with exaggerated mannerisms, arched eyebrows and a comically thick accent, Rooneys portrayal desexualises and alienates Asians. Or, perhaps, Nelly Yuki in Gossip Girl (2007-2012), a studious New York Upper-East Sider whose only aspiration is to go to Yale, or Lucy Lius O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill (2003), which plays into the dragon-lady trope, an orientalised and fetishised femme fatale.In 2018, a new trope revealed itself in Hollywood the crazy rich Asian, after the immense box office success of Crazy Rich Asians. It signified that contemporary stories led by people of colour can prove commercially successful; Western audiences have latched onto it as a poster child for Asias economic boom. Since its release, the film has inspired a string of new roles, from Mindy Chen in 2020s Emily In Paris, a zipper-heiress turned runaway nanny and her champagne-popping posse of Shanghainese socialites, to Netflixs 2021 reality series Bling Empire, which follows the wild, ostentatious and botox-happy lives of Los Angeles wealthy Asian-American set. Its referenced by cast member Kevin Kreider from the get-go as the real deal, leaving Crazy Rich Asians to pale in comparison as a nice fantasy.But as the box-office success of Crazy Rich Asians continues to inspire a trend of supposedly representative media, one cannot help but wonder whether the crazy rich Asian poses a harmful and just as limiting stereotype as the Asian nerd or dragon-lady tropes that have reverberated throughout popular culture. Its not hard to imagine how this image of jet-setting glamour, sumptuous shopping sprees and lavish parties could stoke peoples pre-existing fears. For example, through race-baiting media of Asians snapping up the property market in Australia and dangling the idea of what foreign otherness there is to come.The crazy rich Asian perpetuates the successful model minority myth that places Asians on the pedestal as a shining example of how POC can make it if they try hard enough. This positions Asians as close to whiteness and pits Asians and other POC against one another, wrongfully denigrating the latter as complacent and lazy. Moreover, it positions Asians as an enemy to the white working-class, rather than critically analysing capitalism or social institutions, and in many ways does not meaningfully represent how most Asian people live their lives.The word Asian still conjures up an outdated image in popular culture one which is still predominantly East Asian, one of lustrous fair complexion and rod-straight raven hair. This pernicious Western imagination of what Asian looks like can be traced back to the illegal incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans after WWII along the west coast of the US, purely for their suspected appearance. Propaganda portraying them as cunningly successful fed on Americans paranoia about espionage. Following this history, the crazy rich Asian stereotype divides both those of East Asian appearance and those who are not based on whether they come across as Asian enough.Noticeably, the main cast of Bling Empire perfectly fits the bill of the Western image of Asian,. But it begs the question: where are all the brown people? Take a closer look; those of Asian descent but dont tick the boxes of the Western gazes Asian have been reduced to roles of servitude or simply not shown at all. This speaks volumes to the history of colourism in Asian countries and the Asian diaspora, and reinforces the Wests image of the model minority as being East Asian, further creating hierarchies within minority communities and leaving South, South East and Central Asians deprived of any representation in media, good or bad.Given Hollywoods problematic past with racist portrayals, it should tread carefully on what it deems a success for POC. It needs to do away with the model minority myth, which has deleterious effects for all racialized groups, as well as generalising varied Asian cultures into one monolith culture without enthusiastically exploring all the multi-faceted Asian stories out there. It appears that this trend may have just cemented the trajectory of Asian representation for years to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sometimes, the only way to repair the machine is to break it. The Art Gallery of NSW is screening two incendiary masterworks of radical cinema as part of the Japan Film Festival: Matsumoto Toshios feverish exploration into the LGBT underground of 1960s Tokyo, Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) and Tsukamoto Shinyas break-neck industrial fable of flesh being fused with metal, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).The animosity towards respectable style shared by these two films is well-founded. Unfortunately, the vast majority of commercial cinema is born from capitalist mega-conglomerates, creating an endless stream of disposable media. Popular films use a grammar that reduces signifiers of reality to a strict patriarchal and heterosexist hierarchy of images that saturate the visual domain, devaluing transgressive art forms that do not sustain the dominant order.For filmmakers who seek to find new modes of expression, this system is a tumor on the medium. How can you create new art when the language you use is so deeply commodified? In his book Tokyo Cyberpunk: Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture, Steven T. Brown wrote: This new path, in its combination of incongruous categories, may come across as perversely monstrous, but such monstrosity also holds the promise of transformed identity and new modes and possibilities of experience. When you break the traditional language of cinema, the cemented hierarchy of images goes with it.Funeral Parade of Roses follows Eddie, a young trans woman, through a world of bedrooms, street protests and various gay boy clubs (a blanket term used in Japan that refers to anyone in the LGBT community). Sampling freely from all corners of commercial cinema, Matsumotos debut feature gleefully creates a Molotov cocktail of clashing styles. On a scene by scene basis, the film shifts from documentary, melodrama, comedy and loose retelling of the Greek Tragedy Oedipus Rex. Matsumoto effectively creates an onscreen world that is always shifting, constantly breaking down and re-forming itself. Any points of reference that an audience could hold onto, when they do appear, come malformed and unfamiliar. The result is that youre never fully allowed to lose yourself in the world, constantly reminded of the malleability and constructedness of the form that youre watching.Taking a decisively more violent approach, Tetsuo follows a Salaryman who begins to experience industrial mutations to his body after accidentally hitting a screaming, bloodied man (calledMetal Fetishist and played by the director) with his car. Tsukamoto uses a feverish blend of high contrast 16mm photography, nonstop montage editing and a teeth-grinding electronic score to break down the barrier between subject and spectator.Art by Chloe CallowThe world of both films seems to be on a precipice, ready to collapse at any given moment. Released in 1989, shortly after years of economic inflation caused the price asset bubble over Japan to burst, sending the country into a recession, Tetsuo quickly grounds itself in the wasteland of a failed system. Through a haze of subway tunnels and dilapidated apartment blocks, we watch as gears meld into the Salarymans face, wires overtake his veins, and his feet transform him into rocket blasters propelling him around the city.Opening with an image of the Metal Fetishist slicing open his leg and forcing a large metal rod into the wound, it becomes quickly apparent that Tetsuo makes audiences physically aware of themselves. All aspects of the film work in confluence to create a style so direct and affecting that, as Tom Mes put it in his biography of Tsukamoto, it [gains] a narrative function. Tetsuo shatters your preconceptions of cinema by turning pain into pleasure, flesh into metal and form into content.One particular scene in Tetsuo that stands paramount is the scene where, triggered by lust in the heat of his transformation, a power drill replaces the Salarymans penis. In transforming the phallus into such a blatantly destructive force, Tsukamoto essentially takes a cornerstone of film language and reframes it as something potentially deadly. Due to the directness of the films approach, the emasculation of the Salaryman simultaneously takes away the power from the male gaze that permeates the overwhelming majority of cinema.One of the most daring experimentations of Roses comes from its blurring of the line between lived experience and fiction. Many of the most dramatic scenes throughout the film are immediately juxtaposed by verit-style interviews with the actors reflecting on the scene. This choice is especially significant given the presence of the cast in the gay boy subculture; these are people that have been erased from much of the history of cinema, and yet here they are, speaking directly to the camera about their experiences. The casts marginalised voices become as central to the voice of the text as Matsumotos.Both films walk in opposite directions on the same tightrope between transcendence and self-destruction. Roses, opening in an all-white room as Eddie passionately makes love to an older man, begins as a pure statement of ecstasy, while the Metal Fetishists self-mutilation at the start of Tetsuo functions as a pandoras box through which the chaos of the remaining film unfurls. Both characters are living out their fantasies, lost in their own interior worlds of boundless possibility, no longer constrained by the systemic forces at work.Though made thirty years apart, both Roses and Tetsuo show what is possible when you push a medium to its limits. It had to have helped that this was both Directors debut feature, the product of two angry youths dissatisfied with what they saw. The genius of these two films is in how they not only build a new language of cinema, but do so out of the ashes of the previous one; Taking the towering force of capitalism and manufacturing something transformative and personal. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My preschool years were spent in California, living atop a mountain covered by lush greenery and speckled with wild deer. The Terminator was Governor, Netflix was a small business that delivered DVDs, and strikingly unaware of the woes of the world, my greatest anxiety was of being eaten alive by the mountain lions that supposedly emerged in the dark of night. A ghostly version of California still reverberates through my bones, wraps my memories in a rose-tinted euphoria, and disguises itself as a lingering lilt masked by my now noticeably Australian accent. A place, seen through the eyes of a child, only half remembered. Everything was beautiful, golden and shimmering.California was, and continues to be, a land wrapped in the mystique of myth, masked by a faade of stasis that gives the illusion of an eternally glamourous home of plenty. The American Dream echoes through gaps in white picket fences, and muddles itself in the Green Card lottery. A slowly dissipating mirage that we hopelessly cling to, where stories have more currency than truth California belongs to storytellers.In the library of books that has grown with me since I left California sixteen years ago, countless volumes have attempted to crumble the glimmering American Dream that my childhood memory refused to let go of. From the psychological unravelling of Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar, to the persistent pessimism of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, the America that I loved was being ripped apart, but at a sufficient distance so as to preserve my own childhood affections. They could destroy New York, they could decimate Illinois, but they couldnt break California.It wasnt until I was eighteen and just out of high school that I was first introduced to the works of Joan Didion. I opened a copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a choice driven not by any knowledge of its author, but rather by the titles reference to the poetry of William Butler Yeats a welcome comfort to the daughter of an English major from Ireland. The opening essay, Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream, whilst on first glance an opine on the murder of a husband by his wife, on closer inspection, bled a revelation of the toxicity of the American dream and the perverting power of place. The bare prose used to describe Lucille Miller, the accused, was effortlessly juxtaposed against the dreamlike splendour of California, gradually disintegrating into the hellish landscape of the San Bernardino Valley. The importance of reputation and history reified through the manner by which the wickedness of the murder and adultery at the core of the essay was expressed not by the people, but the landscape. In Didions own words, This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country.In 1979, critic Michiko Kakutani declared that California belongs to Joan Didion. Upon reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and later, her extended catalogue, I came to believe that Joan Didion didnt just own California, she invented the Californian Dream. Only Didion could distil the romance of a state built on the back of contradictions; balancing an atmosphere of Chekhovian loss with a permanent lust for a place that was home. Her intention was never to disintegrate the dreamy faade, but instead, to peel back the film so that people could see what lay underneath, to show how knowledge changes our disposition.Didions non-fiction collections appear tapestry-like, with disparate ideas and experiences bound in a single volume. Her first collection, 1968s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, considers subjects as diverse as the 1960s hippy and drug culture, and the absurdity of the Las Vegas wedding industry. Her second collection, 1979s The White Album, combines meditations on Doris Lessing with reflections on the Manson Family murders. But alongside Didions attentiveness to the intricacies of Americana, sits a detailed and complex understanding of the craft of writing itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in her most recent collection, 2021s Let Me Tell You What I Mean.Like Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album before it, Let Me Tell You What I Mean is a collection composed of non-fiction pieces, that between 1968 and 2000, were published in various newspapers and magazines. Each essay is astonishingly short, with the foreword, written by Hilton Als of The New Yorker, over ten pages longer than Didions most substantial entry. Nonetheless, each essay is packed with examples of Didions knife-sharp wit, no-nonsense observations, and opinions that appear ageless despite being composed nearly half a century ago.I am not alone in my glorification of Didion. She is one of the most successful and acclaimed writers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, her success so grand that no greater compliment could be bestowed upon a female writer than she is the Didion of her time. But in the essay On Being Unchosen by the College of Ones Choice, included in the 2021 collection, Didion takes herself off the pedestal and reminds her readers of the imperfections and anxieties that haunted the now much acclaimed writer when she was only 17 years old. Didion employs humour to detail the heart wrenching moment that she received her rejection letter from Stanford University, quoting the letter, amused by the Dear Joan at the top that made it feel more personal than it was. She teasingly laments writing an essay for a friend at Stanford when she was at the University of California, Berkley, an essay for which he received an A and she received a B. An English academic told me of his experience in the Didion archives at Berkley, when trawling through pages of heavily edited prose, he realised that Didion had faults just like any other writer. That what he was reading was not her first or second draft, but a piece that had been ripped to shreds by countless eyes and penned countless times. In this essay, Didion remains firmly in touch with the dreams of the high school graduate and the hollow, teary feeling that follows rejection. But at the close of her essay, what resonates is the honesty of a writer that I and so many others viewed as perfect, unavoidably flawed and human.But Let Me Tell You What I Mean is not merely an endeavour in introspection. In Pretty Nancy, she unpicks the farce of the American dream by following a highly tempered television shoot of Nancy Reagan, watching on as Nancy picks flowers and superficially talks about her children. In Getting Serenity, Didion exposes her distaste for the language of self-help, whilst observing and listening to the stories of a support group tackling gambling addictions. In Some Women she discusses her experience writing captions for Vogue, watching photoshoots of famous women that were portrayed as natural, but were in reality consciously constructed. These pieces are all bound by Didions masterful use of silence, probing the reader to reach conclusions and read between the lines.But as I write this article for the only remaining weekly student newspaper in the nation, mere days after Facebook removed all news pages from the platform in Australia, there is one essay that has become particularly resonant; the opening essay of the collection, Alicia and the Underground Press. Hinged on Didions support for the authenticity of the underground press and smaller news publications, the essay serves as a critique of the omnipotence of mainstream media, and the insanity of the conviction that these media sources are somehow objective. I write this fully aware of the irony that the essay in question was initially published in The Saturday Evening Post, and that Didion made her name and fortune in the pages of Vogue, The New York Times and The New Yorker, none of which can be considered even remotely underground. I am similarly conscious of Didions tendency towards modesty-topos in the work, as a sort of protective shield against potential criticisms of snobbery or worse, insincerity. Nonetheless, what lies at the heart of the piece is an attachment to papers that have the faults of a friend, and writers who, unbound by the stringencies of conventional newspaper code, publish what makes others quake. Didion poses that the problem is not whether one trusts the news, but whether one finds it. Writing 53 years later, in an age when news, and journalism moreover, is under threat, I hold onto hope that the small fish in the big media pond have their voices heard, and that people find and hold onto the voices of youth, like I found and continue to hold onto Didion.There is a copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem sitting beside me on my desk, the cover emblazoned with a photograph of Didion; the image of literary cool and elegance. Sitting in an arm chair, her face is contemplative but uneasy. Her arm resting on the top of the chair, but not relaxed. A woman listening, watching and dreaming all at once.We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The famous opening line of The White Album echoes through me. I remember the house on the mountain in California, and the one just down the road, that fell off the edge during an earthquake. I think of the lush greenery and the wild deer, charred by roaring fires that left the state encased in smoke. I think of California, and the ghostly myth half remembered by a child. I think of Didion. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last year, I lived vicariously. When nothing could offer me the comfort and excitement that I sought, locked down in my bedroom, I turned to a tried and tested ally Gilmore Girls.The show is a time machine. Its bottled nostalgia. Its the pre-pandemic, pre-GFC, pre-low-rise-jeans-are-wrong era. Its a lifestyle. Its a religion.For those who havent been indoctrinated into the world of the Gilmore Girls, here is a summary: Lorelai Gilmore is not like a regular mum shes a cool mum. Her daughter, Rory, is her best friend; they drink a lot of coffee, and they talk very fast. Its the early 2000s, and they live in a storybook town called Stars Hollow.The cultural significance of the show cannot be understated. It introduced us to Melissa McCarthy, long before Bridesmaids came out. Harry Styles wore an ode to Lorelais outfit on Rorys first day of Chilton in a recent short film for Gucci. Her impact! It occurred to me that amongst its fashion influence, its idealism, its early actualisation of the cottagecore fantasy, Gilmore Girls is also an excellent guide for those who are beginning their foray into university life.Rory begins her journey at Yale at the start of season four. Its 2003. She packs, lovingly says goodbye to Stars Hollow, moves into her dorm, and starts university life. There are campus tours, mild existentialism, friendships (old and new), identity crises, classes, parties. Theres a lot that we can learn from Rorys early days at Yale.Live in the moment. When Lorelai and Rory walk into her dorm for the first time, Rorys head is filled with finding emergency exits, her torn map, and where she can find a phone charger. Lorelai, in her infinite wisdom, walks her back out, and tells her she needs a do-over. Youre gonna be in the moment! She proclaims. Youre gonna be in the moment. While you may not be walking into any dorms, you will be experiencing many firsts as you start uni. You will enjoy your first lunch on the lawn in front of the quad, your first class where you fall in love with the subject, your first time being heckled by campaigners during election week. Rather than letting your head fill with the anxieties of change and new beginnings, take time to appreciate the excitement of whats in store for you. And, if you need to walk out and try it again, thats always an option.Food brings us together. Rory and Lorelai order food from every nearby takeaway place so they can rank them and decide what their favourites are. They order too much, so they invite everyone around them to share the feast, and it becomes a great bonding exercise. This may not be realistic on the same scale, especially in the Covid world, but the sentiment remains. Getting food with people at uni can turn classmates into friends. I made lifelong friendships with the people I went for coffees with in the first weeks of my first year.Try Everything. Or, try as much as you want to. Rory signed up for over 50 classes in Yales shopping week. This might be overkill, but its a great idea to try out as many experiences as you can at the beginning of this semester. This can be clubs, classes, events there are so many opportunities for you to immerse yourself in university life.Ultimately, your uni life is what you make it. Any imitation of the Gilmore Girls is a welcome experiment, and if nothing else, perhaps this is your excuse to dive back into the nostalgia of watching the iconic show for the third time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Fixed Foot Productions take on John Donellys critically acclaimed 2014 play The Pass takes you immediately into the often toxic world of sports, masculinity, and queerness. From the get-go, this production, spanning over twelve years and three different hotel rooms, deftly navigates the rise of a celebrity footballer and asks us, what do you lose when youre so determined to win?When first put on in 2014, The Pass offered a seemingly sympathetic look at Jason, portrayed with a charismatic charm by Ben Chapple, and the pressures faced within both sporting and celebrity culture by closeted men. Over six years later, director Ed Wightman offers us a more nuanced understanding, shying away from encouraging his audience to sympathise with Jason and instead questioning the excuses we consistently make for white gay men. Chapples charm in the role is infectious. That, accompanied by his self-hatred, could so easily be used to excuse him from the blatant racism, homophobia and sexism he engages in. It could paint him as the sympathetic tortured soul we have so often seen represented on stage, but it doesnt. This productions appeal is that it doesnt use queerness as an excuse, for what is merely an explanation.The production has its highs and lows, with Cassie Howarths portrayal of Lyndsey, and Tom Rodgers Harry, welcome guests into the hotel room. They bring not only comedy, but in their humanity, a delightful sense of the personal to a show which revolves largely around the professional. Through them we see the world beyond. They both perform the roles exquisitely with believable life behind their characters. Hamish Elliots design is impressive, the creation of three hotel rooms in the space done seamlessly and with an expert touch. Its telling how the rooms become barer the further down the rabbit hole of stardom and self-indulgence Jason goes. On top of that, Daryl Wallis sound design is nostalgic and entertaining, offering welcome brevity (Ricky Martins She Bangs is a consistent bop throughout) and Matt Coxs lighting gives us much needed moments of camp ambition in a play which otherwise would risk being bogged down by insularity and self-seriousness.Deng Deng brings a vulnerability to Ade which, while sometimes faltering, couples well with Chapples steadfast for the lads attitude, and teases out some of the plays most beautiful moments.Wightmans direction is strongest in its moments of movement and touch. For a play centred around the intersection of sport and queerness, its unsurprising that these moments of lingering hands (boyish wrestling, a hug which stays for a few moments too long) stand out. A longstanding appreciation of the inherent homoeroticism of sports is employed well, as characters and audience alike question whats just having you on and whats real.The production falters in the moments where it refuses to let its characters (and audience) breathe. Temptations of queerness live in the breath, in the moments where nothing is said. Often we skip over these moments where desire becomes thought, and thought becomes action. Its these moments wherein we see Ade and Jason on stage together, existing without being undercut by a need to rapidly progress forward, that the tension is palpable and both the play and its actors shine.Wightman and the entire team should be commended for graphicly portraying the fallout of internalised homophobia and their crafting of an adroit character study. While far from perfect, Donellys script gives enough to play with; Wightmans take, while inherently trapped in the 2000s setting, still manages to feel fresh and relevant. As part of the 2021 Mardi Gras season, it makes a fine addition. Though, it consistently feels like the script could be, and should be, saying more about the queerness which pervades the production to its very core. I suppose some may say thats the point, how little queerness can be discussed in this context, but as a play the lack of intricacy comes across more one-note than clever. The play lacks an authenticity of the complexity should be inherent to this story. While it manages to go beyond just being an atypical tragic gay storyline the ball remains firmly in that zone.The script feels less like a queer play that interrogates the struggles of its main characters sexuality, and instead a character study where our main character is implied to be gay. In saying that, thankfully, Wightman doesnt attempt to contradict this lack of presence either and force hyper gayness where it doesnt exist. Instead, he leans into this world where queerness only exists on the sidelines, offering us the barest intimate moments of touch and lingering looks.The Pass is a well-thought out glance into the complex world of queer masculinity and celebrity sporting culture and well worth taking a pass at (get it). As we leave the theatre were left asking not so much, how much are you prepared to lose in order to win? as the shows tagline suggests, but rather what excuses are we prepared to make for winners. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Are you sure you want to permanently erase the items in the Bin?You cant undo this action.This is the kind of pop up warning that appears if you try to empty many types of digital bins. It is often accompanied by a danger icon, featuring an exclamation mark to remind users that once they confirm the deletion, the files once stored within the bin are now really gone.To a certain extent, this makes sense. If you accidentally delete a file, you can firstly try to catch it in the bin, and restore it back to your documents, and then, secondly, you can check if its in the bin before permanently deleting its contents. These steps can be particularly helpful if the document that you moved turned out to be the crucial piece of information you needed to get something done. Although, if you were to throw out a handwritten piece of work in real life, intentionally or unintentionally, there wont be any pop ups to remind you that you cant get it back.In the article Computer Files are Going Extinct, media technology writer Simon Pitt describes how the files on our devices are often digital replications of physical and analogue parts of our lives. An icon for a page can refer to a document in a word processor, a notepad icon represents an app made to be your digital notepad, complete with its own digitally reproduced notepaper textured backgrounds, and so on.As these technologies encouraged users to create more content in a variety of forms, the initially limited storage of devices would quickly fill. After all, if a shelf can be filled with folders, so too could our devices. Digital bins, or recycling bins or trash folders or archives and many other similarly functioning folders provide users an easy way to maintain free storage on their devices and remove files, programs and virtual clutter that they no longer use.In a graphical user interface, this often came to be represented by an icon of an actual bin, with changing graphics to signify that it was full or empty. The supposedly simple feature of modern computing has been the subject of many more changes and arguments, including 1988 legal action between Apple and Microsoft, which prompted consideration about how much of the function, structure and design of computer systems could be unique.But in a time where we dont rely on floppy disks, or even CDs or USBs, do we worry about taking out our digital trash anymore?As technological development took storage solutions from expensive and small capacity to affordable and large volume, there is now the ability to create, and keep, even more without having to consider deleting any of our files or programs. Even when the devices physical storage isnt enough, cloud storage solutions continue to become increasingly popular with many offering decent amounts of storage for free before needing to join a paid storage plan. These paid storage plans often include options for a terabyte of personal, or shared, storage. For reference, a single terabyte could hold five hundred hours of video or, as Dropbox describes it, six and half million pages of documents which, if printed out, would fill one thousand and three hundred filing cabinets.Although the long term feasibility of these kinds of free solutions is less clear given the many global impacts of the services and ongoing changes on many of the systems, like Googles recent changes to what counts as storage on Google Drive, and what happens when the free limit is exceeded or the account is inactive for a longer period of time. Nevertheless, multiple terabyte hard drives and solid state drives are regularly sold for as little as less than one hundred dollars, to a few hundred dollars.A quick Google search for deleting files or freeing up space on a variety of devices spawns pages of how-to guides offering manual and automatic ways to clear space on devices and why just emptying the bin might not have given you back the space needed, or solutions for the storage mystery known as system files. One such automatic solution offered is to set up automatic emptying of the trash bin, but if files dont end up sent in the bin initially, the success of this is somewhat limited. Many of these articles suggest a recurring need to delete files, yet focus on avoiding annoying pop ups that warn users of running out of space by ostensibly deep cleaning your device to find the files that you cant see or easily locate.If we can buy more, or get it for free, do we ever really run out of space? More and more, it seems a lot less like making decisions about what we create or keep on our computers, and more about what is, ostensibly, the most space saving solution.At the end of the day, what are we really saving it for? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If you were a student at the University of Sydney in the 1980s, you wouldnt have been able to find any academic support outside of your coursework, besides English classes for non-native speakers. Many students native and non-native speakers alike found it difficult to grasp the conventions of academic writing and learning.So in 1991, after an internal University review, a small team of linguists and educators, including Carolyn Webb, Suzanne Eggins, Janet Jones, Karen Scouller, Peter OCarroll and Helen Drury, set out to change this, establishing the University of Sydney Learning Centre in the Old Geology Building.It was visionary at the time [we recognised] that all students needed support as they moved from high school into university, says Drury. For decades, the Centre provided crucial academic support to the University community and contributed invaluable research into academic writing.But in its 30th year, the Learning Centre has officially shut its doors. University budget cuts brought it to a subdued end, despite over 900 people petitioning against its closure late last year, and 85.8% of respondents in USyds 2020 Student Life Survey agreeing that the Learning Centre was an important service for the student community. Its difficult not to feel the void left by its loss decades of work completely dedicated to students.The Centre was renowned for its expansive collection of learning resources. Webbs Writing an Essay in the Humanities and Social Sciences, for example, illustrated the differences between descriptive, analytical and persuasive writing, while the onion model pushed students to add layers to their arguments until they reached critical positions. They catered to students from a wide range of faculties for science and engineering students, the Centre offered step-by-step guidance in writing research papers and lab reports. All these resources were grounded in linguistic theory, particularly Michael Hallidays work on functional grammar, and were borne out of extensive research.We had a huge range of workshops, around 80 or 90, says Dorothy Economou, who worked at the centre for almost 10 years. What we did was very special. Students would accumulate knowledge about how language works in a way that doesnt happen in a lot of places.When Economou did research for an architectural writing workshop, she found that assignment questions and instructions were often incomprehensible for first year students. Even in lectures, they just saw pictures of buildings, she says. So she set out to find ways to develop communication skills within the curriculum a project she never got to finish before being made redundant.Thousands of students benefited from one-on-one guidance from staff who were always willing to lend a hand, whether on sentence structure, essay writing, literature reviews or reading strategies. At times, students trusted the Centres empathetic staff with more personal matters. Just having that one-on-one relationship with those students, in this very huge and impersonal university, can be very life-changing, Drury says.Many postgraduate and research students sought the Centres help too, as they had never been taught academic writing. Helen Georgiou, who completed a PhD in Physics back in 2014, remembers being stumped with writing an abstract for one of her assessments. Youre thrown into this completely new environment where theres a completely different form of literacy, she said. But my experience at the Learning Centre completely changed the way that I thought about language. I drew from it not only during my PhD, but in my current educational research and teaching.Behind the scenes, the Learning Centre did critical work with faculties and schools to improve teaching practices. If several students struggled with an assessment, they would take this to unit coordinators and would together brainstorm ways to make assessment requirements more accessible. They developed methods for staff to measure students literacy levels, for example, through non-assessable writing tasks in Week 1, so appropriate and targeted support could be provided. We were always aware that it was important to collaborate with faculty staff, and to try to embed into the faculty curriculum the support resources that students need, Drury said.Much of this work and expertise will cease with the closure of the Learning Centre. While the University has set up a Learning Hub in its place, they have halved the number of staff. The new Hub will rely more on peer-to-peer programs and online resources, but Drury is sceptical, considering the University has only placed one academic staff on the team. It seems to be a cheaper way of providing some of the support that units like ours provided.Theres a belief that students who are struggling to write properly will eventually learn by osmosis or trial and error; or that the most important thing is the content, Drury says. But I think that the expertise of someone with a linguistics background, and insight into how language actually works, cant be replaced.While the Learning Centre has left an important legacy that will live on in our essays, research reports and dissertations, the loss of its dedicated and passionate staff will certainly be felt across generations of students. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, at the expense of countless innocent lives, has ruthlessly exposed that Indias healthcare system is in shambles. Doctors, along with the medical staff, are exhausted. Consequently, there are hardly any provisions for on-sight or tele- consultations. Getting tested is extremely difficult; testing centres all over the country have either halted collecting samples or are taking more than 4-5 days to process the results. Moreover, Indias latest, ghoulish unit of currency is oxygen. The countrys entire population is at the mercy of Indias established lawyers, progressive journalists, and students, amplifying calls for both oxygen and hospital beds on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. Medicines as standard as paracetamol, are as challenging as finding a needle in a haystack. The people who can get an ordinary bed in the hospital are deemed lucky and luckier if they can secure an ICU/Ventilator bed with an uninterrupted supply of oxygen.Death is omnipresent people are dying on the roads, in the passages of the hospitals and in their own abodes. It has become an unfortunate normalcy. Without a Covid-Positive report and a doctors prescription, hospitals are not admitting people, and pharmacies are not providing medicines. As of May 22, the official death toll of the country is 295,047. However, the number of funerals carried out according to the Covid-protocol at crematoriums and burial grounds indicate a death toll at least 10-20 times higher than what the government has officially announced. As a result, crematoriums are running out of space for the deceased; parks and parking lots have been turned into make-shift crematoriums.Clearly, India is in a dire situation at the moment. The Indian cohort of international students, both onshore and offshore, needs the support of the University now more than ever. But is the University doing much, if anything at all, for these students?On the one hand, offshore Indian students, stranded and abandoned since 2020, are engaged in a constant battle, they are consistently fighting for their lives, hoping that they and their families make it out alive. However, battles are inherently and unfortunately synonymous with loss many students have lost their loved ones to COVID-19. And yet, many are still paying an extremely high amount of fee to study online which indeed does not come without its own challenges with the dreams of a brighter future ahead. Conversely, many are dropping out or deferring their degrees owing to lack of funds.On the other hand, onshore Indian students are worried sick for the wellbeing of their families in India, are left feeling completely helpless and unfortunately fatalistic. Adding on to the emotional stress and trauma is the financial pressure to sustain themselves in Sydney- a substantial amount of onshore Indian students are struggling to make their ends meet, especially if they rely upon financial support from their families in India. After all, not all Indian families can maintain a regular outflow of money when the breadwinners are being forced to sit at home to keep themselves from dying.Can a mere peer-support program really alleviate the suffering of these students?Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the reality, along with the priorities of our neoliberal university profit trumps everything, even suffering and worse, death. Even amidst the wrath of the pandemic, Indian students are being treated as cash cows they have been given absolutely no financial support in the form of fee discounts or fee rebates; not even an extension in case they are unable to pay their fee on time.Further to this, owing to the unequal support extended by the university, this cash cow treatment is further intensified for the Indian students while Indian students received a standardised email acknowledging their plight, Chinese students, back in 2020, received fee discounts. Additionally, the university also made a separate helpline for Chinese students stuck offshore, while in the case of Indian students, it simply compiled the list of pre-existing helpline numbers accessible to every student. Indeed, the universitys response to the suffering of Indian students is shocking Chinese students do constitute the largest chunk of international students, but Indian students too make up the second largest cohort of international students. Then why is it that one international student community was actively enabled in the face of adversity, while the other is being forced to deal with rather harrowing circumstances without any real moral or financial support?It must be noted that my argument here is not one that aims to criticise the university for extending essential support to Chinese students when they needed it, instead it is one that aims to foster inclusion and equality the university must treat its Indian students, the way it treats its Chinese students.Suffering is indiscriminate, the university ought to be too. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian universities have constantly wrestled between the need to offer interactive learning experiences whilst mitigating the educational barriers posed by offshore learning. Indeed, it was recently found that new international student enrolments in Australian institutions have halved, owing to the countrys stringent border restrictions amid ongoing negotiations on quarantine quotas and arrangements.In response to these challenges, The University of Sydney has been expanding operations in its overseas Centre in Suzhou, China, to cater to its offshore Chinese international students.Opened in 2016, the University states that the Centre in China was founded to foster research and industry collaboration, as well as facilitate work placements, internships and other learning experiences for Australian students in China. To this end, it has signed four Memoranda of Understanding to strengthen USyds research partnership with three Chinese/Hong Kong universities Fudan, Tsinghua University Graduate School (Shenzhen), and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Since last year, the Centre has expanded its offerings to allow interested offshore students in China to participate in online classes together in an in-person setting.The USYD Study Centre was officially launched on 21st March 2021 in Suzhou by Michael Milne, Executive Director of the Centre in China, Dan Li, Business Bonsul of the Australian Consulate-General in Shanghai, and Juan Sun, Vice-President of the Suzhou Dushu Lake Entrepreneurship University.According to a University spokesperson, the Study Centre offers a 10-week academic Peer Studying Program (PSP) that provide[s] some of the Universitys Chinese international students who are studying remotely from China with an opportunity to meet their peers and access additional support programs. The focus of the PSP is to bring together those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to rooms available for remote classes, the Centre organises study skills sessions, workshops, cultural activities, corporate visits and other social opportunities. As of 2021, approximately 350 students are regularly using these services.Although the Centre provides classroom spaces, it performs no formal teaching roles. There are no accommodation arrangements at the Centre, however the University has advised that students can access apartments and rooms provided by Dushu Districts local government, which has rental options similar to Sydney [University] Village.When asked about the USyd Study Centres engagement with student organisations such as the University of Sydney Union (USU) or the Student Representative Council (SRC), the Centres representative noted that it has reached out to the USU Debating Society and Chinese Debating Society to run workshops catered to students in Suzhou, and has also provided information about SRC services via its Student Life WeChat account. Furthermore, the Centre in China indicated that it is open to being approached by interested USU clubs and societies.The precinct that USyds Centre in China is located in is Dushu Lake Science and Technology precinct a designated zone facilitating research collaboration primarily between the National University of Singapore (NUS), the Singapore Government, and Suzhous local government. USyd is not the only institution to occupy Dushu, with Oxfords OSCAR (Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research) institute, UCLAs Institute for Technology Advancement amongst some other 30 institutions also based in Dushu.USyds arrangement aligns the university with other GO8 institutions such as Monash, UNSW, and UTS, where comparable overseas study centres were also established in China. Within the wider context, USyds move reflects calls from the Federal Government for universities to adopt permanent blended learning options. For instance, in April 2021, the Federal Government laid out a consultation paper for international higher education where it advocated for a conscious move towards offshore/blended delivery over the next decade: We have learned that Australian education, research and training are not dependent on students or research partners being in Australia.USyd also has an arrangement with Taylors College Sydney, a private education provider operated by Study Group Australia, with their overseas studies centre in Shanghai running the Universitys Foundation Program an alternative pathway for international students. USyd clarified that the two institutions are entirely separate; however, it is aware of Taylors arrangements due to their collaboration. Taylors Shanghai Centre embraces a fully hybrid online learning environment. For instance, at Taylors Remote Learning Centre, according to Study Group Australias CEO Alex Chevrolle, accommodation is provided through a contract with Airbnb. Meanwhile some of its premises are rented from the Shanghai Institute of Technology and WeWork a co-working space whose founder famously exited the company following steadily declining profits.Other than USyd, grassroots initiatives have burgeoned in response to travel restrictions imposed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic with groups such as UAVS-NSW (United Associations of Vietnamese Students NSW) organising scheduled study group sessions using commercial office spaces to connect offshore Vietnamese students with one another. According to Nhi Bui, Vice President of VISUS (Vietnamese International Students at the University of Sydney), these facilities provide canteens [and] projectors in addition to academic support.It is expected that the USyd Study Centre will operate for the foreseeable future given recent announcements from Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during Budget 2021 that Australias current border restrictions will be maintained until at least mid-2022. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> USyd students are very good at pretending to be lawyers. In April, Robert Clarke, Shruti Janakiraman, Jake Jerogin, Hae Soo Park and Sarah Purvis were crowned world champions of the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, beating out over 500 teams. (Jessup bills itself as the worlds largest and oldest international moot; think of it as like the Olympics for law students.)But it didnt come easily. The Jessup team spent six days a week for six months, researching niche areas of international law, writing submissions and preparing oral arguments. It was brutal, says Clarke. I knew, intellectually, what [the commitment] was going to be but I didnt expect to feel so drained. For Park, who did a clerkship while doing Jessup, I was working 10-day weeks I had to manage my time efficiently.The world of competitive mooting where students argue cases in a simulated courtroom has a reputation for being formal and ostentatious, made for students who enjoy dressing up in suits and talking in legal jargon. In a sense, learning how to moot is not just about making watertight arguments, but also about playing the role of barrister.At USyd, its a rite of passage for every first-year law student to try a moot and be promptly eviscerated by a judge. Facing a scary bench for the first time is terrifying, laughs Janakiraman. Judges will try to throw you off course.Given this likelihood of humiliation, and the preparation that goes into high-level moots, why do students dedicate their time to this singular pursuit?Purvis says that as far as a practical learning experience goes, this is as good as it gets. In a law school infamous for its harsh marking and its penchant for old-school, 100% closed-book exams, mooting challenges students to apply their knowledge in a near-real-world scenario.It also dispels assumptions about the profession. For example, winning a case, while it involves rational argument, also rests on making a personal connection with the judge and understanding how to persuade them. The stereotype of a mooter is assertive, coldly rational, able to remove themselves from a situation, explains Jerogin. But its really an EQ thing [to] maintain control against a judge and know what they want to hear.The team recalled a low point when they placed in the bottom half of teams at the national finals, unexpected for USyd. It really was a wake-up call, to build the resilience to come back stronger, says Clarke. He says mooting requires you to question your own assumptions and think quickly and logically. When a judge hammers you with questions and youre contorted you have to work it out as its happening.Art by Deaundre Espejo.Part of mootings popularity is because USyd is a renowned training ground for aspiring mooters. It holds the record for the most Jessup titles (six), and the Sydney University Law Societys (SULS) student-run mooting program is by far its most well-resourced and highly-attended portfolio. For Purvis, who was SULS Competitions Director in 2020, watching a USyd moot in Year 12 was why she wanted to study at USyd.Since SULS revamped its mooting program a decade ago, a supportive community has formed to mentor younger students. Purvis points to Alyssa Glass, best oralist in 2017s winning Jessup team and a legend in USyd law circles, who established the Womens Mooting Program, which has led to more women participating in and winning moots. (Glass was often the first, after their coach John-Patrick Asimakis, to call the 2021 team after moots, offering encouragement and advice.)There are valid criticisms of mooting, however. As it tries to replicate conditions at the Bar, where barristers are predominantly old, white and male, some argue that assimilating into those conventions may not help students critically reflect on their role in the profession, or advance justice for minority groups historically dismissed by the legal system. Theres a certain way of conveying that youre knowledgeable and authoritative in a moot, says Janakiraman.While the majority of this years Jessup team are women of colour, which is no mean feat, the team agrees that privilege in mooting can operate through structural barriers in a self-exclusionary way. USyds success also comes from its institutional backing; not many other universities can say they recruited 30 volunteer judges, academics and barristers to judge Jessup practice moots.Its also no secret that performing well in a moot looks good on a resume. Experiencing the prestige that comes with being a seasoned mooter, however, requires an immense time commitment. For students who work long hours or who live far from university, its just not a viable option, which further reinforces structural barriers.SULS has introduced mooting programs for women, queer students and international students, who remain severely underrepresented in the law. And for those who delve into this rarefied world, they seem to come out of it more confident. Its easily the biggest thing Ive done at uni, says Janakiraman, who has already signed up to another moot with her Jessup teammates. I still find it really enjoyable. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> USU Board elections are a lot like Christmas: they happen but once a year and a lot of promises are made. But instead of promising the student body a new bike and a rabbit named Flopsy, candidates promise the absolute world. Every year its the same refrain:Im gonna fix revues, Im gonna fix clubs, therell be Coke in the bubblers and Wentworth WILL be renovated!But these, like most electoral promises, dont always come true. Me and my crack team have combed through all 199 USU election promises from the 2019 and 2020 board campaigns, and the findings will shock you!After consulting with a number of board directors, verifying fulfillment with an independent group, and using our own institutional knowledge, the results are in. Of the 199 promises made between 2019 and 2020 32% were fulfilled and 68% were not.As figures go, theyre not the best, but they include both ongoing and outgoing board directors. Considering only outgoing directors (who, theoretically, have had the most time to fulfil their campaign promises), the rate of fulfilment jumps up notably to 38%. Isolate the data to ongoing directors, and, understandably, the rate of fulfilment dips to 30%. This makes perfect sense! And proves that I crunched the numbers correctly (yay me!). What this adds up to is an average fulfilment rate of approximately 34% between ongoing and outgoing board directors. While a poor rate of return, its important to place these figures within the context of the past two years. Both ongoing and outgoing directors had half their two-year terms mired by COVID-19. With campus shutdown, plummeting revenues and the mental health of individual board directors presumably suffering as much as any other student (if not more), its understandable that the Board hasnt been quite as productive as it might have been at a different time. Nevertheless, the student body can, and must, expect better from our USU Board. Receiving more than double the SSAF contributions than the SRC, the USU is the best funded student-run organisation on campus. Whats more, its important that the value of an electoral promise is not forgotten. If only 32% of all the promises made between 2019 and now have been fulfilled, then what is the value of a promise? Not a whole lot. But the diagnosis for this problem cant be boiled down to lazy, spiteful, or malicious board directors. Theres a whole range of issues that inform this electoral malaise, and thats what Im here to find out!What are they promising?Using the magic of pie charts, Ive outlined the major categories of promises. Sitting at the top, naturally, is Clubs & Societies. Following them are the environment, food, culture, international students, revues, and a whole raft of other policy areas. But not all promises are made equally. Throughout my analysis, I noted that the specific language of a promise was just as important as the promise itself. A common pledge between candidates was to revise club funding. This was a promise that all of them managed to fulfil, because while many would say that funding was revised for the worse, it was certainly revised. A similar situation existed with transparency, while many candidates promised to conduct a transparency review, many didnt promise to actually implement the findings of that review. Then there are some perennially impossible promises that are trotted out every year. Without fail, the idea of a campus shuttle bus makes an appearance in many of the candidates policy rosters, as it has done for many years. Be that from one end of the campus to the other, or from campus to campus, you best believe that a shuttle bus has played a starring role in the past decade of USU electoral politics. But thats an example of something both specific AND genuinely never happening. Candidates go broad AND impossible as well. Whether it be fixing revues or fixing clubs or fixing the environment. Either way, candidates promise the moon and delivernot quite the stars, but maybe the clouds?USU Campaign promises by category (2019-2020)VagariesA common theme throughout this analysis was the use of passive language to communicate policy promises. If a candidate says they will advocate, campaign, promote, or support a certain policy goal rather than using active verbs, candidates can hedge their bets. Instead of saying that theyll Reduce the cost of food on campus, candidates can say that theyll Push for the USU to investigate reducing the cost of food on campus.In many ways, these linguistic gymnastics are understandable. Especially for ambitious or progressive policy platforms, that might be all a candidate could possibly ever do. Whats more, the policy itself might not even be within the purview of the USU.The purview of the USUMany promises made, and broken by, candidates werent even possible to begin with. Throughout my discussions with board directors, theres been a consistent theme: many of the pledges arent even within the domain of the USU. PNR doesnt really have anything to do with the USU, yet everyone loves to promise to do something about it.Whats next?The upcoming election is unique. With such a small pool of factional left candidates, the board could look very different in Semester 2. With that in mind, there are a number of policy promises outstanding that would do a lot to improve the USU.1. Transparency: Transparency is one of the USUs greatest flaws, with perceptions of the student union as being mired by opacity and corporate quibbling. A transparency review was commissioned in August last year, the results of which have yet to be fully approved. Candidates should make actionable promises regarding the transparency of the USU and follow them through. Some simple things that would make the USU more transparent are the regular uploading of board meeting minutes (were still on December right now), the uploading of executive reports and motions to the website, the scheduling of a second round of questions before the board moves in camera, and a committed reduction to in-camera time.2. Material and actionable promises: One of Honis favourite promises was Ruby Lotzs infamous $6 garlic and cheese pizza. Not because we especially love garlic and cheese pizza, but because its highly achievable, actionable from the perspective of a board director, and something people will notice. Thats not to say board candidates with big picture promises shouldnt be applauded, but its important to promise something that you know can happen for sure.3. Language: If youre gonna promise something, promise it using active language! If you cant do that, then its probably not in the purview of the board or a board director. So ditch the waffle and promise something which you can do, make, or increase.And finally, can someone please get us a shuttle bus!Disclaimer: the author of this article knows absolutely nothing about being a candidate.Editors note: this article originally stated that Wentworth Building was not a USU property. The author of this article would like to apologise to Wentworth and assure it that he had meant to take it out earlier. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There have been several small victories in the fight for free and accessible period products. Recently, Victoria installed period product dispensing machines in every government school. South Australia has announced that it will provide free sanitary products to all students in Year 5 and above. Additionally, the New South Wales Education Department said they were developing work on a pilot program that would trial handing out free pads and tampons at schools.However, these initiatives have not translated to tertiary institutions currently, no Australian university provides free, accessible sanitary products to their students. And as previously investigated by Honi, the presence and accessibility of period products in or around the University of Sydney is lacklustre.As a result, students have taken it upon themselves to get free period products onto campus. The SRC, for example, maintains that period products are always available at the SRC and in the Womens spaces. This week, the Sydney University Engineering Undergraduate Association (SUEUA), Sydney University Women in Engineering (SUWIE) and Sydney University Queer Stem Society (QUEST) held a fundraiser to have period products ready and available to all students by Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28.But why should the responsibility fall onto volunteer-based student organisations to provide necessary health products to people who menstruate?We shouldnt have to run events like this, SUWIE Vice-President Bella Anderssen says. We have had to go out of our way to provide period products that are necessary and should really be part of the staples of what the university provides.Failure to provide or limited access to menstrual products and poor sanitation infrastructure undermines the education opportunities, health, and overall social status of people who menstruate. The Journal of Womens Health reported that over one-third of menstruators miss at least one class every three months due to menstrual symptoms, pain and fatigue.In an article for the University, USyd PhD candidate Alana Munro said that the current stigma surrounding periods leaves people disempowered and ashamed of menstruation.[The lack of knowledge on menstruation, coupled with shame and poor pragmatic guidance and support for girls to manage their periods, is linked to increased school absenteeism, poor academic performance, lower school completion rates, and increased rates of reproductive tract infections which can keep them away from school.The larger issue at hand is that of period poverty the lack of access to period products, menstrual hygiene education, toilets, hand-washing facilities and waste management due to financial constraints. This has a greater impact on demographics that are already marginalised, especially Indigenous people, with reports of them not attending school for days each month due to menstruation.In a world where period poverty and stigma runs rampant, it was nice to sit at the fundraiser outside PNR with a sausage and beer, listening to people from all walks of life, menstruators or not, talk freely and openly about periods, period products and reproductive health in an environment that was ready, willing and able to support people who menstruate.And as the University is expected to be in a $220 million surplus this year, the goal of having free and accessible period products across all campus bathrooms does not seem out of reach. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The creation of national parks has often been described as the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation in Australia. Today, the National Parks and Wildlife Service manages 870 national parks in NSW alone, covering over 7 million hectares of protected land.Yet, our ecosystems are hanging by a thread. Despite being home to one of the most diverse range of plants and animals in the world, Australia has one of the highest rates of species loss, with over a thousand on the verge of extinction.While urbanisation, the climate crisis and expansion of industry are amongst the biggest culprits, failures in the way national parks are currently being managed play a large role in environmental degradation. The work of managing the landscape is enormous in scale, Paddy OLeary, Executive Director of Country Needs People, an organisation which supports Indigenous rangers, tells me. Much more work is needed if we want to maintain biodiversity and cultural heritage.Australias early national parks, established in the late 19th and 20th centuries, were influenced by the US Yellowstone model. Central to this model was a colonial concept of wilderness, which had a focus on preserving the natural landscape and minimising human interference.Accordingly, land management throughout the past century has been sparse, predominantly focused on activities such as eradicating invasive weeds and pests, as well as restoring threatened species.However, Paddy says that approaches to management must go beyond aiming to preserve the land, and instead return to what First Nations people had been doing for tens of thousands of years prior: The Australian landscape needs active management, day in day out, year round. Indigenous knowledge says that just like growing crops, land must not only be restored or protected from threats, but actively looked after so it can grow and flourish. This is what Andy White of the Batemans Bay Aboriginal Land Council has been doing for over fifteen years, through cultural burning on Walbunja Country. In drier seasons, his team ignites cool fires in small, targeted areas, which are much less intense than large-scale back burning done by fire services. This minimises the risk of large wildfires, allowing local plants and animals to regenerate and resulting in a healthier and more productive landscape.Theres a lot that goes into it, he laughs. Andy also uses traditional tracking skills to conduct biodiversity surveys and studies, which provides much more accurate information about ecosystems compared to other methods.He tells me hed like to see much more cultural practices used across the country. Were using knowledge thats been learned from Elders and passed down through thousands of years of stories. Im still learning myself, and Im 43 years old.In order to adopt a more active approach to land management, two things must happen. Firstly, there would need to be a drastic boost in funding and resources. In NSW, only $1.1 billion is currently allocated annually to national parks, which is less than a quarter of the NSW police budget. Even less funding goes to Indigenous ranger and land management programs. We might get dribs and drabs of small grants and funding opportunities, Andy tells me. But nothing more than $30,000, and that doesnt take us far.Paddy believes that we need to start thinking of land management as an essential service, much like health or education, and fund it accordingly.Active land management benefits the entire public, and helps protect and enhance the values that we all treasure, he says. The demand for it never really goes away.Secondly, the current national parks model should be replaced in favour of community-based models. Given the pervasiveness of state-owned parks today, many often forget these so-called protected areas are sites of genocide and dispossession. The Blue Mountains region, for example, was home to Dharug, Gundungurra, Wanaruah, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal Nations. But populations declined rapidly with colonisation, as most were either killed in frontier massacres or forced into reserves. Returning ownership to Traditional Owners would be a small reparation for centuries of dispossession. It would be unwise to rock up in some place assuming you know what works, without significant dialogue with local Traditional Owners, says Paddy, recognising that local communities are best equipped to make management decisions about their land. He notes that some communities may be able to manage their land autonomously, while in other communities where there is a severe shortage of infrastructure, it might be more viable for them to co-manage the land with a local parks agency. Regardless of what pathway is taken, the goal would be to provide Indigenous communities with self-determination over the land they have long cared for.There are many challenges in the path towards community-based land management. One of these is that decision-makers often seek Western scientific evidence when considering land management practices.Andy says that this is something many communities just cant provide going to university to conduct research is expensive, and much knowledge is passed down from Elders and must go through proper cultural protocols.Everyones sceptical about whether cultural burning is useful. Theres no certificate that can show that we can lead this country to a better position. Instead, he tells us to look at First Nations peoples proven ability to manage the land. A lot of our knowledge is gained from looking at Country and learning. And these practices have worked for over 70,000 years.Additionally, the value of the land and nature is often understated. Since their inception, national parks have been recognised primarily as spaces of public enjoyment.The Royal National Park the first in Australia was established in 1879 as a tourist spot, a national domain for rest and recreation. Today, visitor spending at national parks injects around $40 billion into the economy per year.But Andy tells me that these protected areas provide more than just social or economic benefits, as the health of the land is deeply connected to the overall strength of communities. A lot of Indigenous people are getting out of school feeling lost, including myself at one point, he says. But for him and many others, being able to manage their land provides a chance to get back on Country and utilise their unique skills. Working on Country really does give us a feeling that were a part of something; that were using our knowledge to do something good for our Country and for our ancestors.These positive impacts are having a ripple effect Indigenous ranger programs have often resulted in safer communities, improved health outcomes and strengthened language in the local area. As Andy puts it, land management is about healing Country, healing the community, and healing peoples souls.Therefore we must abandon colonial ideas of the national park as untouchable stretches of wilderness belonging to the state. These landscapes have long been owned and cared for by First Nations people; they must be actively managed, and they are the lifeblood of local communities. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Strolling down Eastern Avenue, the University is abuzz with life. Seagulls assail students for chips and baguettes, while ibises pilfer the scraps. These are familiar friends, and we welcome them. Yet, if you look closer, there is so much more to be found among the cloisters and courtyards. Over one day, a keen urban biologist could fill a whole notebook with observations. Here are my highlights.9 am: waterfowl, eels and turtlesWe start in Victoria Park. The mighty Lake Northam, Camperdowns drain, supports a delicate ecosystem among its discarded trolleys and beer cans. I walk straight past the ducks and swamphens, directly to the eels. As a kid, there was nothing better than hand-feeding them with strips of bread, making them lunge for their meal, mouths agape. Sometimes theyd miss. The inside of an eels mouth is lined with tiny, needle-like teeth, and they make light work of a 5-year-olds fingers.If Im lucky, Ill also glimpse a turtle. In this fetid urban swamp, there are not only native snake-necked turtles, but also a highly invasive Mexican red-eared slider. Morning is the best time to see them, when they come out of the water to sun-bathe and energise for the day. I sip my iced coffee and do the same.Midday: black cockatoos, brush turkeys and bugsIn the full sun, out come the birds. One of my favourite things about Sydney is its parrots. Rainbow lorikeets and galahs are classics, but my heart belongs to the black cockatoo. These problem-solving birds are masters of cracking seed pods, and from their perch over Parramatta Road, they drop the husks onto unsuspecting pedestrians.What I find most remarkable about parrots is their close pair bonds, each couple with a unique and complex love language. Lorikeets, Ive discovered, have specific calls for hello there, come here, and go away! I even managed to record and play these from my phone, summoning the most confused bird of all time. Id love to do the same for the black cockatoos, but they flee before I get the chance.However, in the Sydney birdwatching scene, the watercooler topic is the southward spread of brush turkeys. A wily enemy, they are advancing on fronts from Strathfield to Bondi, and our scouts have spotted a beachhead right on campus. Opinions are certainly mixed on this mighty beast something about the wrinkled head and dangling throat sack brings out strong feelings. Personally, I find them delightful. Their mounds, splayed across many a walking track, are pillars of defiance against humankind, symbols of the supremacy of nature. As the leaves decompose, the male turkey uses his beak as a thermometer, and keeps the nest at a toasty 33-35 C. Entirely unrelatedly, the ideal temperature for a sensory deprivation tank is apparently 34 C. Ill leave those dots unconnected.No field guide would be complete without mentioning our glorious insects. Camperdown is home to many species of bee: blue-banded, masked and European honey, to name a few. The cricket oval is actually a well-documented honey bee mating site. Every spring, without fail, males gather here to mate with young queens, everting their penis and killing themselves in a final, ecstatic burst. Everyone knows that, so lets instead talk about harlequin bugs! About the size of a ten-cent coin, the males are a metallic blue, while females range from pure yellow to brilliant orange. Right now, its their breeding season, and if you check the branches of the Illawarra flame trees on Eastern Avenue, youre sure to find a cluster, shining like expensive jewels.Dusk: microbatsAh, sunset, the most romantic time of day. Couples come to the Quad laws to watch the sky turn purple, or to snuggle by the fairy lights in Botany Garden. I often stand there, alone, to watch the microbats come out. These guys have earned their name: they would fit comfortably in the palm of your hand! On a good day, the sky around the Great Hall throngs with bats, each a zig-zagging black speck. With thrilling accuracy, they pluck insects out of mid-air and chase each other in tight spirals.Night-time: frogs and frogmouthsBack in Victoria Park, the pond is now still. The ducks have nestled among the lilies to sleep, and the water is oily and black. Periodically, a microbat strikes the surface, managing a quick gulp before spiralling away. The pond is still, but its not silent. Throughout the warmer months, there is an omnipresent chorus of Perons tree frogs. From the bridge, with bullrush on both sides, their song is surround-sound, and you can usually find a soloist sitting on the handrails. For me, their cackle-like call is the true start of Summer, wherever it may land.We finish with a favourite, the tawny frogmouth. A pedant will tell you that theyre not actually owls, but rather come from a related sub-family called nightjars. That pedant is me: theyre not actually owls, but rather come from a related sub-family called nightjars. If you ever see one take flight, youll be struck by the silence of its wings cutting through the air without the slightest rustle. On campus, you can spot them sitting in the crooks of gum trees as they wait for hapless frogs and rats to cross their path. Even if you havent seen one, you may well have heard it! Their call is a very rhythmic woop woop woop woop, a bass forever waiting to drop.Inner Sydney is far from wild. And yet, all these creatures have managed to find a niche in the urban jungle. We owe them a great deal, because in doing so, they have transformed mere brick and concrete into something dynamic and alive. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The wind is well and truly back in the sails of the student climate movement. On 28 April, at 4pm, USyd Enviro Collective members and President Swapnik Sanagavarapu will convene the third Student General Meeting in USyds history and the first, as Honi reported, to focus on environmental demands.The notion of a Student General Meeting (SGM) goes to the core of student democracy and unionism, and this year it presents a powerful opportunity to fight back against the Universitys complacency in climate destruction. It marries the sometimes staid bureaucracy of student unions with the very pressing climate catastrophe. A formal motion passed at this meeting has the potential to achieve the Universitys support for an unconditional student and staff strike on 21 May, for Strike 4 Climates Global Climate Strike. With students mobilised by the announcement of the upcoming global action, USyds SGM petition from the Enviro Collective has already amassed more than 1000 signatures supporting a campus-wide walk-off from classes and a staff strike. Only a few weeks ago, this triggered an SRC constitutional provision mandating the meeting of the student body to discuss the climate crisis.To grasp the value of this SGM, we must understand from where contemporary student unionism and activism emerged in Australia.The anti-Vietnam War student protests and the Freedom Rides for Indigenous rights of the late 1960s spearheaded the left radicalisation of university campuses across the country, and proved the potential for students to lead significant political campaigns against the government and in support of radical socio-political causes.The first SGM at USyd was called in 1971 in response to the Australian tour by the national rugby team of then-apartheid South Africa, the Springboks (from which Black South African players were explicitly excluded). The tour was heavily protested across Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne led largely by university activists. Ahead of the Queensland leg of the Springboks tour, conservative Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen announced a month-long state of emergency in response to the fervour of anti-apartheid student organising. A 3000-strong SGM at the University of Queensland (UQ) voted to strike for the duration of the Queensland tour and UQ activists staged a 4500-strong sit-in in their Union building. In Victoria, 5000 protestors, many students among them, gathered on the streets of Melbourne to march on the games venue at Olympic Park. Then-USyd SRC Vice-President Bernard Coles wrote in Honi in 1971 that we should show our strongest political opposition to countries whose corrupt political system injects a perverted and blatant form of racism even into their sporting activities. The SGM condemned the Springboks and advocated for a student strike and ongoing protests at USyd in opposition to the racist regime they represented. It was a great success, with the Springboks chased out of Australia by student activists, not to return until after the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.Student unions on the campus level (like the SRC) played a crucial role in cohering and supporting these political campaigns, and many others, throughout the latter half of the 20th century to now. This meant, of course, that they drew the ire of the governments they criticised and held to account, triggering an ongoing legislative campaign of austerity to repress student activism on Australian campuses.Student unions have been the target of both state and federal laws aiming to restrict their political functions, usually by choking them of funding (collected from students through mechanisms like SSAF). Prior to 2005, students were made compulsory members of their university union upon enrolment and paid small annual fees directly to the union, allowing them to flourish and bolster student life through well-funded activist collectives, leadership opportunities and publications like Honi Soit. However, the compulsory contributions lifeline was cut during the Howard Governments war against unions with the passage of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005, which banned university unions from compelling students to pay.This triggered the next SGM at USyd in 2006. Now-UTS academic Paddy Gibson, known for his roles as an organiser of the Stop Indigenous Deaths in Custody and Workers for Climate Action campaigns, was involved in the USyd Education Action Groups grassroots campaigning against voluntary student unionism (VSU) from 2003-2007 as an undergraduate arts student. Gibson and the EAG organised a public SGM that was held to pass changes to the SRCs constitution in response to the austerity imposed by the Howard government.In the wake of the lost fight against the passage of the VSU bill, Gibson said that the SGM was the moment in which activists turned to focus on how [VSU] was going to roll out on our campus. It represented a commitment to mobilising large numbers of students, encouraging discussion about the huge attack on student organising that had come from the Howard government and encouraged a sharpened focus on our own administration [to further cohere] the movement at the University. Gibson emphasised the principled power of the SGM across the years as the highest decision making mechanism available to students, showing real collective power and having the practical benefit of binding the SRC.The parallels with our upcoming climate strike SGM are clear; both are a fightback against political leaders pursuing specific agendas that would have extreme material effects on the lives of students into the future, and a university latent and uninterested in supporting radical protest action.The Coalition continues to push their gas-led recovery, a collection of commercially unviable projects to expand gas exploration in the Hunter, North-West NSW and Queensland. These projects will desecrate the unceded lands of First Nations peoples, including that of the Gamilaraay Next Generation activists in the Pilliga, and, if allowed to continue, will emit greenhouse gases equivalent to 30 new coal-fired power stations. The University of Sydney remains complicit in environmental degradation, with continuing capital investments in coal and gas-fired power, and an unambitious Sustainability Strategy failing to prioritise a just and immediate transition to public renewable power on and off campus.Gibson believes the upcoming Enviro SGM is a singular opportunity to organise large-scale walkouts from class [on 21 May] pointing us in the right direction of mass disruptive collective action that must be taken to force our leaders to listen. Student activism shouldnt be a spectator sport, he reflected, if we are going to win we need everyones brain turned on, everyone thinking about the best strategy going forward and taking responsibility for our future.We should see the SGM as symbolic of the zeitgeist of student climate activism. It is an opportunity for us to come together and acknowledge that we are fast running out of time to make a tangible difference for our future. To sit and let it slide by would be not just disappointing, but irresponsible. And with that in mind, Ill see you on Wednesday, 28 April. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a shocking announcement, undergraduate student Jenina Pastizi announced that she had not done a single thing of worth during her midsemester break. Despite a pre-break promise to both her friends and tutor, Ms. Pastizi could not bring herself to complete a single assignment or even a quiz.I thought about it a couple of times, but then I stopped thinking about it and started thinking about other things. Ya know?Sources close to Ms. Pastizi claim that she never had any intention to work during her midsemester break. A claim that she denies vehmently.SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu condemned the lack of transparency surrounding Ms.Pastizis academic affairs.If a student makes a promise like that, I think its in the public interest that we know why she couldnt follow through.Ms.Pastizi responded to these criticisms by saying she is literally just vibing here bestie vibes only pls Swap.Vibing or not, Jenina has lost all credibility with the student community. Will any of her promises be believed again? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Leaked images have revealed plans by weapons company Thales Australia to target multiple campus locations in a coordinated aerial bombardment campaign.Chair of Thales Australia Belinda Hutchinson, who also holds a part-time position as Chancellor of the University of Sydney, denied the documents, shown above, were genuine. What would be the point if we werent also taking out those pesky NTEU offices? she said.When pressed on the apparent plans for a false flag attack on the F23 Administration Building, Hutchinson drew an F90 assault rifle from beneath her desk, saying: Im sorry sir, its time for you to leave.Thales spokesman Magnifique LaGuerre did not respond to panicked requests from Honi editors requesting immediate extraction from the strike zone, saying only that he loved the smell of napalm in the morning. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Embezzlement is a healthy and natural part of campus life. Wed prefer it if club and society executives did it responsibly and where we can see them.This was part of a statement made by USU President Irene Ma as she announced a raft of new mesasures to ensure C&S embezzlement is carried out with the welfare of perpetrators in front of mind.Disgraced former USU board candidate Tina Lee expressed concern that not enough was being done for executive who had embezzled before the new regulations were introduced.Too little, too late. Just because I was at the cutting edge of campus financial crime, doesnt mean I shouldnt benefit from future developments in the regualtory framework.Along with a simple step-by-step guide to basic C&S embezzlement, the USU also plans to offer banking services for any embezzled funds.The corporate world has applauded the USU for their enlightened decision, congratulating the student union for bringing the uni in line with the private sector. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We know several things that newlyappointed USYD Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott doesnt do: he doesnt have a background in academia, he doesnt want to stop the corporatisation of the Uni, and he doesnt have any way to stop his receding hairline. But there is one question on the minds of all Sydney students that has yet to be answered: Does Mark Scott Fuck?Its highly unlikely, researchers at Sydney Uni biolabs told this eager reporter. His spine is probably too shrivelled up following his stint as ABC Managing Director. He would have little to no confidence in the bedroom.In an interview, Mr Scotts ex-partner, Regina Townsend, confirmed these claims.He barely looked at me. Regina recalled, reminiscing on her 70s summer romance with him.Despite these testimonials, Honi Soit was determined to find the truth, and after intense sessions of sifting through garbage and attempting to get a one on one interview with the VC, this reporter finally got a chance to spend a night alone with Mr Scott.To resolve any lingering questions: Mark Scott does, indeed, fuck. And he fucks hard.We shall spare readers the details, but we can reveal that he was both a lover and a fighter, sensual but rough when needed to be, which will hopefully reflect his decision making as the new VC. I must say I am dangling in suspense over what he has for USYD, just as I was dangling from his ceiling in his leather sex swing harness. All the best to our new sex God! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Fisher library will arm its employees with military-grade weapons to enforce their ongoing fight against unauthorised access.I take my job very seriously, Jenina Pastizzi told Honi as she loaded her M202A1 FLASH rocket launcher.And that means Ive gotta have serious equipment.Fisher Librarys staff have been given kill-on-sight orders for any student they find without a student card on the premises.Honis interview was sadly cut short as our military correspondents had left their student cards at home.In the same week, the University revealed that the F23 Building famously named after the NORTHOP YF23 fighter jet will have rail guns installed to shoot down all militant students occupying the premises. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Minister for Education Dan Tehan, along with his Liberal colleagues, strongly objected to USyds premier thoroughfare being named after such an unpatriotic compass direction.I think its absolutely disgusting that one of Australias most prestigious universities has ANYTHING named after our regional rivals.Citing national security concerns, Minister Tehan suggested this could be exploited by China in future negotiations.We might as well call it Maos Boulevard at this point for ScoMos sake!The Minister was contacted for further information but was sadly attending the annual East Asia Summit and was not available for comment. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For: Cockswayne HargraveI love amyl. Poppers. Jungle juice. If you think amyl simply expands your butthole you are queerphobic. It does so much more than that. It expands my heart. It reminds me of when I sniffed my mothers Sharpies as a child, back when I used to suck at her teat. AAAHHH, AMYL!!!! Those twenty sweet seconds before penetration literally transport me to another dimension. One where I am an oinky oinky pig getting sent to the muddy slaughterhouse. And if you want to be a bit more fashionable when sniffing these bad boys, you can pour some on a cotton ball and put it in a sippy cup. A sock! A ziplock bag! Just like my mum used to make my sandwiches.Against: Emyly DarlinghurstFUCK amyl. Once I did amyl and it gave me a headache. Also an anxiety attack. I thought I was going to go blind for like twenty seconds. Im sticking to the nang suppositories next time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney Union (USU) brought joy and not a smidge of discomfort to many first years last week with their inclusion of a wax Taylor Swift figure at their Welcome Week stall.But for ex-USU worker Grhant OPhucklan, the figure was much more than an uncanny recreation of a pop star it was a harbinger of peace.Losing my job last year was devastating, Grhant told Honi. I didnt think there would be any way I could support my 3 children: Taylor, Swift, and 2014 Radio Disney Music Award for Fiercest Fans.Grhant was one of the many staff members stood down by the USU in 2020 due to COVID-related closures and cuts. It was witnessing the sheer majesty of Fake-lor Swift that gave him the sense of clarity he had desperately sought since the termination of his employment.All this time I had been asking myself, Why cant they afford to keep me? Why did they never give me my JobKeeper Subsidy? Wheres all that money going? But knowing that the USU had a bit of extra dosh up their sleeve to spend on hiring an inexplicably imperishable wax statue that people could take photos with and then never think about again that was the most comfort Ive felt in a year.When asked why his voice had been so muffled for the entire conversation, Grhant revealed that he and his 3 children had been living in the suitcases hanging from the Manning Bar ceiling since their house was sold last year. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Vice-Chancellor Stephen Garton has announced that Fisher Library will be leased to Crown Resorts for an undisclosed sum over a 99 year period.Garton said the partnership represents the perfect marriage of two profit-hungry organisations who have long since lost their moral compass, adding that we have a long history of accepting rapacious and unconscionable donors. Crown fittingly continues the tradition of Wentworth and Raytheon.From March 1, all desktop computers in Fisher Library will be converted to brickies laptops.Questioned on the decisions impact on students, Garton revealed further changes: all re-enrolling students will have $20 complimentary gambling credit loaded onto their students cards..MMMMOORRRRE CHILLIIIII [laughs] [finger guns].Crown has also acquired former Vice-Chancellor Michael Spences sex dungeon/torture chamber as part of the deal.The librarys collections will be transported to Crown Resorts industrial scale document shredder.All library staff will be sacked, and invited to reapply for their positions at the Roulette table. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney is proud to be sharing a float with NSW police at the 2021 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade.In a press release this morning, Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Garton said: Due to our current financial situation, the University is unable to have its own float this year. Thankfully, our friends at NSW Police have welcomed us to share in whats looking to be another exciting collaboration!Our theme this year is Knowledge = Growth. Dont ask me what that means! Garton continued. If youre a true ally, like me, you would know he chuckled, proceeding to open his blazer to reveal a rainbow University lanyard.And by the way my pronouns are he/him. Boots the house down mama!In the same week, the University also announced its new strategy to stop homophobia on campus, unveiling a new rainbow profile picture and a range of LGBT-friendly Zoom backgrounds.One of the aforementioned Zoom backgrounds.It will also be renaming the Wentworth Building to the Ellen DeGeneres Building after years of community support for changing the name.But its not just students were looking out for. We are committed to providing equal opportunities for our LGBT staff, Garton added.Thats why were implementing quotas for LGBT-identifying staff to participate in our revitalised voluntary redundancy program, especially our LGBT-identifying staff of colour. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Vra Chytilovs 1966 film Daisies has stuck with me since I saw it at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2019. During the screening, a man in the theatre burped loudly and I was struck by the thought that perhaps he was a performance artist hired to comment on the films wonderfully grotesque dining scenes. If burping in a cinema was ever appropriate, it would be during Daisies.When I think of this film I think of excess. Orgasmic and explosive collages of flowers, metal, pinned butterflies, newspaper cuttings, and an overwhelming feeling of mischief. A film which celebrates gleeful social impropriety, feasting and making an awful mess; Daisies is one of the most expressive and assertive films I have ever seen. Yet there are quiet subtleties in Daisies that are characteristic of Czechoslovakian cinema during the 1960s. The two main characters ecstatic rampage is not just pure hedonism; it serves as a diversion from the subversive social messaging of the film.In the 1960s, there was a rebirth in Czechoslovakian cinema, termed the Czech New Wave or the Czech Film Miracle. Following amendments to censorship regulations from 1962, filmmakers had greater freedom to experiment with the content and style of their work, and they became the beneficiaries of increased funding. The nationalised film industry began to recognise the publics growing distaste for formulaic social realist cinema. Alongside the governments attempts to implement de-Stalinization policies, this contributed to the loosening restrictions. However, there were still strict censorship bodies in place to prevent anything too politically or socially abrasive. Film productions were monitored and required approval before release and distribution. Many productions were abandoned, and many films banned.The idea of relaxed regulations invited material that challenged conservatism, yet this kind of content was rarely permissible and as a result, filmmakers began to include it in their films inconspicuously. This usually involved political allegories removed from a clear representational link to reality, or in many cases transgressions from the social order conveyed in small gestures and breakages, or abstract and obfuscated qualities.Chytilov, along with filmmakers like Jaromil Jire, Juraj Herz and Pavel Jurek, embraced surrealism as an ambiguous form inspired by Czechoslovakian folk art. The wider Prague Groups approach to surrealism was based on imaginative realism rather than the departure from reality common to French notions of the movement. This required the formal qualities of realism to be present but altered to evoke a feeling of heightened engagement with materiality. As filmmakers were interested in leaving behind social realist cinema, the move to this form of surrealism was a departure but not one utterly disconnected from the films of the decade preceding. The Czech New Wave saw a distinct emphasis on the displacement and breaking of objects as a gesture to more significant social or political ruptures.Restricted by the censorship bodies of the day, filmmakers tended to represent queerness through quiet destabilisations of heteronormative spaces, materials and objects. While some representations passed under the radar of censorship, others were removed entirely, leaving a noticeable, unfilled space in the body of the film. Responding to films with uncertain meanings, the Ideology Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia stated in 1967: A work of art must speak for itself. If explanatory notes of an authors intentions are needed, or instructions to understand them involve long discussions, there is probably something missing. While watching Daisies, it does feel that something is missing, but this is not a flaw in the filmmaking it is a sign of the restrictions placed upon it. Censorship may be read on queer terms, as it pushes representation into subtext and negative space. Eve Sedgwicks notion of smuggling queerness into literature acknowledges an often-unfilled space inviting discussion and analysis. In this context, queerness may be found in the fissure of something removed, of smothered words, missing pieces and hidden identities.Chytilovs film is located at a historical point of formal abstraction and material displacement, and in the struggle between free expression and strict censorship. The two main characters of Daisies both named Marie have an ambiguous relationship. They describe themselves at one point as sisters but this is complicated by their endless lying about the nature of their relationships with others, always fumbling between uninterested acquaintance, familial and romantic ties.Luk Skupas 2018 article Perfectly unpredictable: early work of Vra Chytilov in the light of censorship and production reports provides an insight into the directors relationship with censorship boards at the time. He writes that Chytilovs filmmaking process typically involved significant changes to scripts and proposed content throughout the course of production, and therefore the end result undermined official systems of approval. This was true for Daisies, as Chytilov cut sections of her work on the recommendation of censorship reports, yet there was a delay in the release of the film as elongated periods of discussion on banning distribution halted its screening until 1967 when it was granted limited distribution.One of the requests from the censorship bodies during the early stages of production was that the director remove scenes which suggested a lesbian subtext; it seems some of the more obvious scenes were then omitted. This included a scene in which the two Maries caress each other which slowly turns to a playful fight a section which disappeared in the shooting script. The material was a point of conflict between Chytilov and the censorship bodies, with the looming threat of an abandoned production if she did not revise the script.In the final product, their relationship is transposed instead into food strewn on the bed, stolen glances at womens reflections in mirrors, shared baths, and ignored male lovers. Chytilov takes a subtle approach, seemingly at odds with the bold expressiveness of her filmmaking style. The two Maries undefined relationship crosses unmistakably into something more intimate through their engagement with food as a tangible and bodily material. A clear representation of sexuality is refocused into destabilisations of heteronormative objects and spaces.The women pose a distinct threat to upper class social space, particularly within the extravagant realms of leisurely dining where they are a source of commotion and disruption. The Maries unsettle heteronormative groupings wherever they go and blur the boundaries between the dining room and the bedroom, transposing the sensorial and erotic with a different kind of bodily encounter that of consumption and feasting. In the final banquet scene, food is crushed in fists, chickens are torn apart with greasy hands, eggs are kneaded and squashed, and the Maries walk on the table, their heels crushing platters of food. There is an exhilarating release of repressed desire for material touch and for the childhood longing to play with ones food. This is both an uncomfortable scene to watch, and a delightful enactment of social transgression.Although Chytilovs redirection of the films portrayal of sexuality was forced by the censorship bodies, it draws attention to the often-codified nature of queer existence in film. It begs us to think of regulated and restricted representations which are reflective of a wider treatment of non-normative sexualities and identities; the censored form hiding a struggle for visibility. Daisies engages a uniquely abstract articulation of sexuality. One Marie muses to the other, Why does one say I love you? Do you understand? Why cant one say, for example, Egg. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As one of the earliest and most celebrated works of the era, Impression, Sunrise (1867) by Claude Monet is an undeniably seminal work of the Impressionist movement, lending its name and legacy. The rise of Impressionism in Paris stemmed from the dissatisfaction felt by a new generation of radical artists with classical traditions of art and the institutions which upheld them. In particular, the Paris Salon, which, as the official exhibition of the Acadmie des Beaux-Arts, was the academic authority on art and rejected any works deemed poor due to their transgression of traditional art imagery. This drove the development of the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. Displaying 165 works by 30 artists, the exhibition was organised by names that remain seared into the popular consciousness even today: Monet, Pissarro, Morisot, Degas and Renoir. With the intent to democratise the display of art and bring Impressionism to the fore, the exhibition had not yet won over critics, nor the public. In the face of this, Impressionists kept exhibiting over the coming years and soon the tides of popularity began to change. Beyond the desire to break the status quo of the Paris Salon, Impressionists strived to capture modernity in its essence; coalescing politics, nature and urbanisation. The advent of photography, and its popularisation across the 19th century, fundamentally changed the ways in which the world was documented and observed. If a photograph can be taken to capture reality better than any realist painter or portraitist could, what then is the purpose of painting? As the Impressionists saw it: to capture the dimensionality of a single moment in fast-paced contemporary life, through the framework of light. The technique of painting en plein air, or outdoors, in conjunction with the invention of pre-mixed paint in a tube, allowed artists to easily travel and fleetingly capture an impressionistic moment of light and colour, often at dusk or dawn. No longer was painting about perfect pictorial accuracy, but rather it became about evoking the essence and feeling of the scene painted. However, Impressionism was not exclusively Parisian. The very same impetus of cosmopolitan modern life and frustration with classical subject matter was present across the world, including in Australia. Though the 1880s saw the decline of Impressionism in Paris, they marked the movements beginning in Melbourne and Sydney, where it took on its own life and aestheticism. Depicting both sun-soaked cities and earthy bush-lands, Australian Impressionism (dubbed the Heidelberg School), used similar, though less erratic, brush strokes and techniques as the French to create works that reflected their modernity. In their strokes, you could see a new age emerging, eager to explore new ways of seeing and responding to the world through impressionistic transgressive art.Despite their beauty, the aesthetics of Australian Impressionism champion the imagery of colonial settlement. Only 100 years since the countrys colonisation, the romanticisation of the Australian bushland was a central part of the national identity and landscape painting became central to Australian Impressionists. Settlers camp (1888) by Tom Roberts was described as a poetical interpretation of a prosaic passage in the daily life of one of the pioneers of agricultural settlement by James Smith, critic for the former newspaper The Argus. These pioneering attitudes toward the subject matter of the bush prevailed in public and with critics, though many of the artists themselves focused on capturing the unique Australian golden light as opposed to deliberately championing colonialism yet, colonial undertones were unavoidable.Western art culture in Australia was somewhat less experimental than what Europe had cultivated by this time, but in 1889 the Heidelberg School held The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition to provide an ocular demonstration of Impressionisms meaning to the Victorian public. Organisers and contributing artists included Arthur Streeton, Jane Sutherland, Tom Roberts and Charles Conder, who together, along with several other artists, exhibited the most controversial and now famous exhibition in Australian art history. At the time critics described the brushwork as slap-dash and artworks as formless and orderless; in spite of this, the ever controversial visual language of Impressionism was not lost on all, described by others as possessing a poetic clever vagueness. A pivotal landmark for Australian landscape painting and Impressionism, the 9 to 5 Impression Exhibition collated the pictorial techniques of Australian artists as they captured the unique atmosphere of our dry, sun-filled country. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article is part of Honis coverageof the Sydney Writers Festival.Alicia Jasinska is a fantasy writer from Sydney. Her debut novel, The Dark Tide, was released in 2020 and follows Lina Kirk and Queen Eva as they grapple with ancient magic threatening to disrupt their city and their growing feelings for each other. I spoke with Alicia ahead of her appearance on the panel Better Living Through Fantasy at the Sydney Writers Festival on 1 May.SO: In regards to your debut novel, The Dark Tide, how was your experience writing it and finding a publisher? Were there any roadblocks?AJ: It was a long journey. I started writing it a few years ago, and it went through so many different drafts, rewrites, and changes. It wasnt the first book Ive ever written but I did try to get an agent and get published before then. It took me a while at least a year, and then we reworked the book together to make it better. After that, when it went through to the editors it took months. I remember lots of worrying and crossing fingers. But then we found an editor in the United States, and one in Australia, as well. It was a dream come true.SO: You spoke briefly about the changes the book went through. Can you tell me more about them and what inspired the new ideas?AJ: I got the first idea for the book when I was watching Wicked the musical. It is one of my favourite musicals, and I always really liked the two main girls and I wanted them to end up together at the end of the story which, of course, never happened. And sitting in the audience and watching that story play out several times made me realise that growing up, I never saw a lot of fantasy stories about bisexual women; about girls falling in love with girls. I knew if I wanted to see that story, I would have to write it myself.SO: Was worldbuilding difficult for you? Did growing up in Sydney inform your sense of place in any way?AJ: Definitely. In The Dark Tide, when I was thinking of building this island and how all these different people came to live there, I ended up drawing on experiences of my own family and how we came to live in Australia. Linas family represents my mums, and Evas my dads who came here as refugees. Everyone has different stories about how they ended up in Australia, and I used that to inspire my worldbuilding.SO: What do you like the most about your characters?AJ: Ah, I dont know. Theyre both very interesting characters. I have given them parts of myself so that I can relate to them and get into their heads. I like Evas antisocial personality and her goth clothing. And Lina is a bit of a romantic, and sometimes that annoys me, but I also think its really endearing. I love them both, theyve been with me for a very long time.SO: The book is an enemies-to-lovers slow-burn plot. I have often found it is difficult to write real enemies without the characters doing unforgivable things. How did you balance your storyline? Were there any other tropes you enjoyed using?AJ: You definitely need the buildup and the tension. With enemies-to-lovers, you need to get the balance right. It cant be too slow because then readers get bored; but if it happens too fast, it doesnt have that payoff. You have to make it so that the bad character doesnt do anything too unforgivable; but even if they do, the reader needs to understand why they acted in that way so that they can, at the very least, empathise with them. As for using other tropes, I really loved having the sunshine character with the grumpy character. I love fairytale tropes, with repetition and dark magic.SO: A lot of your writing seems to be inspired by folklore.AJ: Yes! The Dark Tide is a very, very loose retelling of The Ballad of Tam Lin, which is an old Scottish folktale about a girl who goes to rescue the boy she loves from a wicked fairy queen. I took that as a base, and capture that fairytale fantasy feeling with a queer twist.SO: Are you excited for your panel at the Sydney Writers Festival?AJ: Yes! Im super excited. And super, super nervous. Im not a great public speaker. I was approached by the head of the YA program and asked me to be involved because she read The Dark Tide and really enjoyed it. I was super surprised, but extremely flattered to be invited. Being on a panel with Garth Nix is amazing I read his books growing up as a teenager, and now I feel like I have to pinch myself. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Over the past few years, consumers have rapidly become inundated with media across a growing list of digital streaming platforms. Two decades ago, however, most young millennials and Gen Z wouldve been wading through DVD cases for the latest Toy Story or catching reruns of The Wiggles on ABC 2. Much has changed since then, but perhaps the element that has best persisted is childrens media itself.With the abundance of digital media now readily disposable at our fingertips, childrens media has been a source of entertainment across many demographics. Shows such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, SpongeBob and Gravity Falls have received a cult following over the years. Moreover, two of the three aforementioned shows have and will continue to receive follow-up content.So, is the key ingredient nostalgia?Nostalgia is certainly powerful, and media monopolies have been banking on it in recent years with the intent of rehashing and reviving old stories. Audiences have not only been hit with reboots of old favourites, but also sequels, prequels and glorified CGI-heavy live-action remakes (looking at you, Disney). I would however argue that it is not nostalgia that necessitates success, but simply, good storytelling that facilitates an escape, while grounding itself in human experience.The very childrens films and tv shows these corporations seek to revive did not rely upon nostalgia for their initial success. There were no predecessors to the original Powerpuff Girls or Scooby-Doo setting out recyclable characters and plotlines. Nostalgia likely influenced producers to reboot these shows, but it didnt grant them their original success. Their original success stemmed from creating wacky stories with heart, humour and an authentic account to convey.To put my musings to the test, I decided to survey some participants on 1) what their favourite childrens media is and 2) specifically what they enjoyed about it. The answers I received were both diverse and fascinating.Among the replies, notable crowd favourites were Gravity Falls (accounting for a third of answers), The Simpsons (accounting for a quarter), Tom & Jerry, Avatar and Disney shows such as Phineas and Ferb.One of the more profound themes that emerged from my discussions was the notion of escapism. As one participant put it, childrens media tends to give you drama but without dark themes or death. Perhaps what attracts adolescents and adults to childrens media is the light-heartedness of it all. Shows ranging from Gravity Falls to Pokmon situate themselves within fantastical realities far removed from our own.Dont get me wrong, these shows have every propensity to explore complex themes and serious challenges. But when they do, its often gentler and comfortingly predictable. Audiences are able to experience a sense of catharsis, seeing difficult themes being handled with positivity and the notion of good triumphing over evil. Yes, childrens media can soften the blow of otherwise heavy themes. But that doesnt lessen its storytelling potential. If anything, exploring challenges not exclusive to children has allowed childrens media to have mass appeal and universality. Moreover, this has facilitated more diverse storytelling over timenotable examples being Studio Ghibli, or recent Pixar movies such as Soul and Bao.The boundless format of childrens media was recognised as another key factor among participants. Through their creative world-crafting, childrens media tends to explore numerous storylines and challenges within a reproducible format. Its a simple recipe for longevity; and perhaps this lends it effectiveness over adult media, with shows such as The Simpsons similarly utilising animation and a similar format. Phineas and Ferb aptly demonstrated this by producing endless narratives centred upon one endless summer and two very bored brothers.All in all, nostalgia is merely one element in what makes childrens media work. Evidently, its focus on authentic and entertaining storytelling has proved a much more effective formula.Editors note: This story was updated on 15/4/2021, as a previous draft was uploaded.Editors note: This story was updated on 16/4/2021 to amend incorrect phrasing that implied Avatar: The Last Airbender and Spongebob Squarepants were reboots. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Screamo is a polarising and often mislabelled genre, with its fair share of stans and online communities who are passionately committed to debating the genre. To define screamo: it is an extreme form of hardcore punk most notably associated with its screeching vocals, distorted guitars, frenetic drumming and emotional lyrics. While screamo is traditionally understood as consisting of the various East and West Coast American acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s including Heroin, Orchid, Pg. 99 and Jeromes Dream it also has a thriving scene of non-English speaking bands which are celebrated both abroad and within the Anglosphere.From Raein in Italy, to Datro in France, Envy in Japan, Piri Reis in Malaysia and Corea in Spain, screamo has spread globally, establishing important scenes well beyond the stretches of American hardcores musical hegemony. This hegemony is a result of the United States importance in establishing various forms of hardcore and punk. While other forms of hardcore and punk have significant scenes globally, many of the acts that are from beyond the Anglosphere are still entrenched in Anglocentricism, with many tending to only use English vocals because of the mass influence of music from the Anglosphere, with English-speaking listeners often failing to engage with non-English speaking bands. Yet, this differs in screamo, as it is one of the few smaller genres which maintains strong and active bands with non-English vocals.So why has screamo, unlike other forms of hardcore and punk, managed to spawn so many relatively large acts outside of the Anglosphere? Most obviously, screamo usually has unintelligible vocals, English or not, as the comprehension of lyrics is often less important than in other genres. Additionally, online platforms like Bandcamp and RateYourMusic have allowed for the spread of, and increased support for, non-English bands, which is only reinforced by the passionate degree to which most screamo fans are invested in the genre.Screamo, like most forms and offshoots of hardcore and punk, is heavily invested in the scene and its emphasis on the direct support of artists, many of whom rely on the communal support of fans to purchase their merch and music. Screamo bands need this support to release music, as the less-accessible nature of the genre limits the extent to which they can rely on popular and commercial success to support themselves. The passion of screamo fans for the genre also urges listeners to delve deeper within the genre itself, with the depths of RateYourMusic acting as a platform through which this exploration can take place. This can notably be seen on the genre chart of screamo on RateYourMusic where numerous non-English acts are within the top 50 albums, a stark contrast to most other genres found on the site. There are also numerous albums lists on RateYourMusic about foreign language screamo, from lists comprising various Japanese and Ex-Yugoslavian screamo acts to lists written by Spanish-speaking users for other Spanish-speaking users. This cultivation of non-English screamo, and screamo more broadly, is celebrated on these platforms within both English and non-English speaking circles.The significance of non-English screamo has found itself not only within its engagement by listeners and fans of the genre, but also in the influence that many non-English bands have had in encouraging the use of native languages by other screamo bands outside of the Anglosphere. The Malaysian act Daghlia claim on their Bandcamp that they took the foundation laid by the bands that ruled euro in the mid 90s, while another Malaysian act, Piri Reis, state that they are definitely influenced by European screamo referring to the tradition of Italian, French, and Russian screamo which developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is clear that the spread of non-English screamo has inspired and supported other artists outside of the Anglosphere to create their music outside of the English-language hegemony of hardcore music.The communal and passionate nature of screamo scenes has allowed for the creation, proliferation and promotion of non-English language bands, and has allowed for the empowerment of non-English language artists despite the less accessible and uncommercial nature of the genre. Its important that we consider and explore screamo as a niche art which defies the traditional norms of the Anglosphere and of the US hardcore hegemony. In our increasingly globalised world, screamo acts as a beacon proving that alternative non-English art and media can gain traction outside and within the Anglosphere, beyond the few hyper-commercial and capital driven cultural artefacts which have pierced English-speaking capitalist culture, like K-Pop and reggaeton. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For the past three weeks, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival has heralded Victorias return to live arts. An array of local acts and international headlines have taken to the citys stages in one of Australias first international events since the start of the pandemic. Local acts like Wil Anderson, Tom Gleeson and Gen Fricker were joined by international comics freshly out of quarantine like Daniel Sloss.For many Victorians, the festival provided the first chance to see a live performance since Victorias 102 day lockdown. Opening the Oxfam Gala, host Becky Lucas caused an eruption of sound as she asked the crowd who hadnt had a big night out in the last year. Audiences flocked to buy tickets, with artists like Nina Oyama and Aaron Chen selling out early in their runs. Producer Ryan Lisson told Honi: the biggest thing this year was that audiences were so much more receptive. Melbourne is eager to get out and support the entertainment industry. Several shows have sold out multiple times as restrictions have changed, progressively increasing venue capacity throughout the festival.The opening few days were a rough ride for many of the 300 acts as they readjusted to the stage. However, not all shows were just about the pandemic. Lisson said that Lockdown and Covid content is being treated by many as a no go area. Sydney Comic Frenchy told a sold-out crowd on his opening night that this show represents the past three years of my life, after he, like many comics, were forced to dump their 2020 tours. Some acts like Joseph Green used their extra time off to try something different and planned shows that pushed the very form of stand up itself.Australian border restrictions provided a challenge to the festivals producers, with the high cost of quarantine turning away many regular international acts. The presence of Arj Barker, Ross Noble and Jimeoin, former internationals who now reside in Australia, and recently arrived Daniel Sloss and Melanie Bracewell secured the festivals international feel.While audiences have been eager to buy tickets, multiple comedians reported that crowds initially felt more reserved in comparison to previous years. Canadian comedian Evan Desmarias said that Melbourne audiences were a bit more unsure about being out and about compared to the Perth and Adelaide Fringe Festivals. Yet, this still hasnt put a damper on the mood, with Desmarais telling Honi: For me I feel blessed, even if Im playing to just five people, its incredible to think that an international comedy festival is going ahead after the events of the Pandemic.In order to entice acts to perform at the Festival, registration fees were lowered to $350 and sign-up times were extended. This made it easier for a range of up and coming comedians like Sydneys Bec Charlwood to launch successful first runs at the festival. While establishment comics dominate the Festivals website, internet comedians and live podcasts have also been wildly successful this year. Acts like Frenchy, Luke Kidgell and Lewis Spears have been able to convert their large online audiences into ticket sales, selling close to over a thousand tickets even with sub one hundred seat venues.The death of Prince Phillip provided many comedians with an injection of fresh material. The Chasers Andrew Hanson said on Twitter that after the introduction of a new verse, his infamous eulogy song was so long it requires four lighting states A clip of comedian Lewis Spears finding out that the Prince had died, as he was halfway through a set lampooning the royal family, received over half a million views in 24 hours. Lewis told Honi that it was exciting to see just how many people across the globe disliked the royals. with many comments touching on the allegations around Prince Andrew and how Australian venues had largely returned to normal.While the Melbourne festival is out of the way for most USyd students, a range of international and local artists are gearing up to continue their shows at the upcoming Sydney Comedy Festival in May. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I first started at university, a second-year friend told me to follow USYD Love Letters on Facebook. I was new to Facebook at the time, so it was essential student reading. If youre a social anthropologist studying how university students think about love and dating, theres a lot to unpack there. Some of its funny, most of its harmless, a lot of its cringey.USYD Love Letters (now USYD Love Letters Revived) has over 20,000 likes on Facebook. Most, if not all, students on campus are amusedly aware of its existence. Most posts and accompanying comments are plainly inside jokes, interspersed with sincere applications or advertisements of oneself to the online community. Posts often follow the same formula:To (subject of adoration) + you are so (amazing / hot / cute) + but would you notice me? + plea for coffee / a date / permission to fantasizeIt doesnt take long to see the practical flaw in these posts. On the basic level of finding love (excluding advertisements that could actually yield a result) these posts are pointless. And the submitters know this. So why do they still contribute them, aside from getting a rise out of their mates? And why do students lap it up? The students who submit love letters want the basic gratification of having their feelings heard and acknowledged. Its a temporary spark of love-nourishment. The students who receive them, however, may get little out of the experience, other than temporary embarrassment or an awkward laugh with their friends who tag them in the comments.This type of anonymously submitted content represents the illogicality of the initial stage of attraction. It demonstrates the kind of impulsiveness that inspires someone to submit their feelings to a Facebook page, rather than ever approach the subject of their affections, and it allows something interesting to happen. The submission and publication of these love letters voyeuristically allows the entire Facebook community of students to enjoy the untelevised, awkward, real embarrassment of young adult attraction whittled away into its most raw, bite-size form.A scroll through USYD Love Letters shows paragraphs upon paragraphs of internal monologue that we dont usually get access to, outside our own heads. To see a nameless random throw out, into the digital ether, the proposition of a date to a cute girl in his economics class validates our own internal, sometimes nonsensical, feelings and decisions when it comes to love and crushes.On a darker level, these pages set the submitters up for failure. Comments are rarely encouraging (nor should they necessarily be), creating an environment which goads anonymous submitters into divulging their feelings in the internets safe space, while the rest of us watch, laughing, from behind our computer screens.The last 13 months have thrown new light on our sources of entertainment, distraction and escapism. USYD Love Letters, and other pages like it, existed before the pandemic and will probably continue to exist afterwards. However, what they show is the emergence of love and dating as a spectator sport. As opposed to the facade of reality TV, the encounters we see on USYD Love Letters are often quick, transient and unfulfilled. If you pour your heart out online, even anonymously, you subject yourself to mockery. For passive consumers of this content, love, failure, and cringe is the point of it all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If Electronic Arts is considered the supervillain of video game publishing, then Spotify is undoubtedly the music industry equivalent of an incomprehensibly evil and unstoppably powerful force that plagues a creative field. While Electronic Arts is bald-faced about its deceptive marketing strategies, disdain for worker rights and insatiable hunger for an ever-burgeoning profit margin, what is perhaps more insidious about Spotify is how it consistently tries to paint itself as the saviour of music. Launched just last week, Spotifys absurd Loud & Clear transparency scheme has all the hallmarks of delusional capitalistic optimism. Spotify plays a leading role in [a] healthier music industry, the Q+A section of their new website begins, as a sort of radio station and record store but without their limitations. Dissatisfied with this mere self-aggrandisement, the website then goes on to assert that Spotify was the primary force that saved a music industry ravaged by piracy, and the creator of a future that is incredibly bright for artists careers. Talk about a God complex.Its easy enough to ridicule a supervillain brand for their thinly-veiled advertising, but Loud & Clear is indicative of, and will undoubtedly be responsible for entrenching, far broader assumptions about the value of creative work engrained in the public consciousness by capitalism: that copyright is not only necessary, but the essential element that drives creative industries to flourish. Yet, one brief look at the harsh reality of the music industry makes it undoubtedly clear that it is no different from any other: the rich get richer, and independent ventures have a next-to-zero chance of succeeding. Though this article focuses primarily on music as it exists in the modern day, the arguments for copyright abolition I will make are analogous to any industry afflicted by the terror of intellectual property.Before trying to refute the problems at the centre of it all, it is helpful to briefly examine how Spotify became the giant that it is today. Since the dawn of record stores, the music industry has been inseparably tied to distribution frameworks that try to spread thin the profits of sold works away from the artists themselves. Only three decades ago, artists had no option but to turn to publishers and record labels, whose sole focus was advertising, production and marketing, in order to get their works in front of a larger number of interested eyes. Weve all heard the horror stories of record deals gone bad: internationally huge artists that earned but pennies for Platinum-certified records, or lost the master rights to their own songs out of conflict with label-heads. Since the inception of the internet, however, all creative industries underwent a fundamental transformation that the law and public understanding are still struggling to catch up to: the advent of digital publishing.What makes data special? Unlike CDs, vinyl, concert tickets or pieces of merchandise, data is inherently inexhaustible and indistinguishable from its copies; there is no concept at all of an originals value that could be displaced. Yet, just as cigarette manufacturers fiercely resisted the undeniable facts of their product, data posed a mortal threat to music distributors: it held the potential to put them out of business entirely. And so began a decade-long tirade against the very nature of data itself. Wielding copyright law as their shining sword, the industry waged war on digital distribution in all its forms, painting the ripping and copying of music files as essentially equivalent to the theft of physical objects. The contradiction inherent in this propaganda campaign is blindingly obvious: copying is not a zero-sum transaction. When a song is copied and transferred to another, nothing is deprived from the owner and the world is merrier with another copy of that song. Piggybacking on legal conceptions of property that have failed to adapt to this new reality, the war on piracy culminated with the injunction against Limewire, the consistent arrests of pirates that were threatened and charged with extended jail sentences, and multi-million-dollar fines against peer-to-peer filesharing networks in the late 2000s. Somewhere in the midst of this technological cataclysm, Spotify saw an opportunity to profit off the same model that hundreds of pirates were being punished for every day. Launching quietly in 2008, the pitch was as infuriating as it was simple: if traditional music publishing cant handle the realities of digital distribution, lets legalise its inevitabilities and profit off them.That brings us to 2021, where smaller artists get apportioned a fraction of a fraction of a cent from Spotify per play, and music lovers pay money to Spotify to temporarily rent musical experiences rather than paying artists themselves. Where larger artists with a label behind them are able to farm plays with grey-market hacked accounts, and smaller musicians pay the penalty of their exploitation. Where, despite the American-dream mythos of being able to blow up on TikTok, the reality remains that it is almost impossible to earn a living wage as an independent artist. Its not that there are no avenues to support artists directly, but rather that the culture and public goodwill of paying artists in the digital age has been irrevocably contaminated by streaming.If only the fangs of copyright law sank as deep as streaming platforms; if that were the case, this article would simply end with an encouragement to buy merch and music on Bandcamp where possible. The venom stings far worse when you begin to question the deepest copyright lie of all: that copyright protects artists profits and encourages the creation of new and original works. Otherwise, the industry professes, how would artists make money at all? Wouldnt everyone just rip each other off? Yet, the definition of original is a legal definition to be settled in court one with an ever-widening gulf between what is intuitively right and what a boomer Justice thinks is fair. The law is so hilariously behind any real understanding of music that lawyers still believe it is possible to own an original chord progression, melody or groove. As with anything that runs so deeply parallel to legal definitions, copyright cases will always favour those with deeper pockets and the financial freedom to handle extended civil trials.But even beyond the legal technicalities, how could derivative or sampled works not be considered original? Even if we look to the genres that wear their blatant sample optimism on their sleeve vaporwave, hip-hop, plunderphonics can we really say that Macintosh Plus Floral Shoppe is not original because the mere sound source of the music was not physically crafted from scratch by Vektroid herself? The contrast in affective experience between Macintosh Plus and Diana Ross could not be further apart: the former is a dread-inducing, hypnagogic trip and the latter is an upbeat pop anthem. Just like copyright law has falsely equated copying with theft, it too has incorrectly portrayed sampling as identical to plagiarism. Plagiarism is when an identical or near-identical work is published without credit to the initial author; sampling is the creative re-interpretation of a previous work as but one colour in an entirely new painting. Some of the most innovative and mind-blowingly musical projects from the past two decades have been built entirely on samples: The Avalanches Since I Left You, deaths dynamic shrouds Ill Try Living Like This and Chuck Persons Eccojams Vol. 1. Yet, these artists are legally prohibited from selling these works in their intended forms on any sort of scale. With this in mind, can we still pretend copyright protects artists rewards?Beyond the legal iron wall of copyright lies the potential for utopia, both financial and creative. Piracy and peer-to-peer filesharing is not only the most effective means of archiving and storing in the internet age, but also presents artists with revenue streams that would never have been open to them otherwise: listeners who turn to fans and buy physical media from artists, fans who then choose to donate to artists because they have enjoyed the experience of their works (Bandcamp Fridays, anyone?), and fans who might not be able to financially access these experiences, who pass them on and recommend them to people who do all pathways that eschew the landlord middlemen of streaming services like Spotify. And with free and open access to musical material, where derivative sampling can finally be seen as creativity-per-se, we might just get some of the sickest beats to have ever graced human ears. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article is part of Honis coverage of the Sydney Writers Festival.For the twentieth-century psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, aesthetics is necessarily constituted by a central hollowness, an unspeakable void; all art, he claims, is characterised by a certain mode of organisation around this emptiness. Klara and the Sun, the latest novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, and his first since winning the Nobel Prize, seems to support Lacans thesis. It is a novel concerned with lack with knowing and not-knowing. This primary dilemma is not only articulated thematically, but ultimately involves a problem of narrative epistemology, because Ishiguros project is to dissect and anatomise the vagaries of the heart from the perspective of a narrator, a character who cannot understand them at all because she is a machine.Klara is an Artificial Friend, designed to provide companionship to children in a vaguely grim near-future neoliberal hellscape. Teenagers are taught at home by their screen professors, parents host interaction meetings to acclimatise their lonely children to normal social interaction, and the adults bat around terms like post-employed with frightening ease. Those who can afford it have their children lifted enhanced by genetic editing but this is a dangerous procedure which leaves some recipients, like Josie, grievously ill. Thus, when Josie and her mother walk for the first time past the shop window where Klara spends her days on display, Ishiguro sets in motion an unstoppable boulder of a narrative, gathering emotional heft until it rolls, suddenly, over the cliff edge into the void, and a dreadful possibility is disclosed.Ishiguros prose is characteristically bloodless and transparent, and it aptly conveys both Klaras impeccably mannered dialogue and the nave, wide-eyed quality of her observations. Klara is at once highly perspicacious and yet totally innocent of the ways of the world; her narration is affecting precisely because it is so unaffected and unadorned. One day, when a pair of old friends recognise each other across the street outside, Klara watches one of them raise a fist to one of his eyes, in the way Id seen some children do in the store when they got upset. When the long-separated pair finally embrace, holding each other so tightly they were like one large person, Klara observes to her manager that they seem so happy But its strange because they also seem upset. Even after Josie picks her out at the store and she is taken home, Klara spends much of her time observing others, for, as she explains, the more I observe, the more feelings become available to me. Josies mothers response is swift and cynical: In that case, maybe you shouldnt be so keen to observe. Here is illustrated a pattern which recurs throughout the novel in manifold variations: Klara, who wishes to understand the heart, but cant, is hopelessly at cross purposes with the adult humans around her, who could understand, but dont want to.The limits of Klaras vision are not only mental but also quite physical, and the close correspondence between these two modes of knowledge in the novel deepens its sensitive rendering of her predicament. Her artificial vision is partitioned into a mosaic of boxes, which sometimes become skewed and distorted, splintered into a matrix of contradictory perceptions which she cannot reconcile. Klara is eternally poised in the gulf between perception and understanding a gulf over which she cannot leap, however hard she may try.Klaras innocence is figured most powerfully in two sequences where she participates in a hallucinatory communion with the Sun, having convinced herself, because she herself is solar-powered, that he is a benevolent deity who may be persuaded into helping the ailing Josie. There is a happy resolution to her quest to recruit the Suns special help, and the ending towards which the plot seems to have been slouching is averted. But herein lies one of the novels weaknesses. No longer building up to a crescendo of immense and awful possibility, the tempo dissipates, and Ishiguros crisp prose begins to thicken into watery oatmeal. His signature narratorial techniques of temporal translocation and retrospection start to feel awkwardly conscious of themselves, and the end of the novel is peppered with dialogue so aimless and clichd that it borders on the truly perverse.Notwithstanding these blemishes, however, once the main plot is resolved, our attention is turned to a question we may not previously have considered. What happens to Klara, Josies childhood companion, when Josie is all grown up? When the answer is revealed in the last few pages, Ishiguro, the master of pathos without sentiment, is in full form. Klara is content with her new fate, blissfully unaware of the contortions of the human heart that have landed her there but the audience is all too aware, and understands all too well. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> February 21, 1965. 21 gunshots brought about the death of a man whose name would receive every reaction conceivable. It was the end of the story of a fierce advocate of agency, power and civil rights, nothing short of mythical: Malcolm X.Malcolm X, whose Muslim name is el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, was a martyr. He had become a shaheed one of the highest honours a Muslim can ever possess. While his rise with the authoritarian Nation of Islam became his ironic downfall, he knew very well the death that awaited him, which added an almost prophetic quality to his epic, heroic tale.His experiences mirrored his communitys movement from rural peasantry, to industrial proletariat, to post-industrial redundancy. Allied to this is his spiritual redemption and movement away from nihilism. Factor in his yearning for knowledge, how can one not be inspired by the Malcolm who educated himself in the midst of a jail sentence?He moved away from the dogmatic, exclusionary Nation of Islam to the pluralistic, inclusive Sunni Islam which transcended racial and cultural creed. Much like the literary and Abrahamic prophets of old, there was a struggle, a calling to faith and the building of a world built on the tenants of radical liberation. We have much to learn from an almost messianic tale that embodied activism, redemption, and love.Indeed, prophetic and messianic are immense forms of praise. Followers and admirers of Malcolm X understand this. So did his enemies. In a memo to the offices of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stressed the need to nullify Malcolm Xs influence to prevent the rise of a Messiah who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Hoover also enunciated a final goal of preventing the growth of militant organisations and rhetoric amongst young people.But these were forlorn plans. The prophetic model of Malcolm, so beautifully detailed in Malcolms and Alex Haleys The Autobiography of Malcolm X, inspired thousands of young adults: Afro nationalists, Communists, Marxists, Muslims. Decades later, his work has become part of the canon of many university courses.Both Muslim and non-Muslim youth, with a sharp criticality and sophistication, became readers of Malcolms philosophies. I am the former, a young Muslim, struggling with his identity and the capacity to find Muslim heroes who changed the world as I knew it a Western world plagued by racism, the ravaging devastation of colonialism and a painful shortage of agency.As a Levantine Arab, I cannot entirely, and without some degree of friction, claim the Malcolm who reinvigorated the resistance of African American communities as my own. I can only respect, admire, learn, and express my utmost solidarity and support for such a struggle. However, I can genuinely claim Malcolm the Muslim, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, who I believe can be of much guidance to those to those with a deep commitment to societal and personal transformation.After his trips to the Islamic worlds of Africa and the Middle East, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz linked African American liberation to global liberation of those who suffered the brunt of US imperialism. This was a Malcolm who began to vehemently oppose the global machinations of American power and propaganda that had subjugated not only Africans but Arabs. Malcolm had begun to dedicate himself to the umma, the collective body of all believers united in faith and inseparable by any material means.As a Muslim of Palestinian heritage, to me Malcolm X had not only become a hero I could only admire and respect from afar, but a hero I could call my own as he criticised Israeli injustices against my own people. Malcolm had stressed the necessity of claiming justice for all; that justice for some would not be a cause worth pursuing. As poverty, racism, sexism, colonialism and war continue to plague the world we find ourselves in, we would do well to follow Malcolms model: recognise the universality of a struggle, tied in with all causes against that which is inhibitive, repulsive and shameful.Redemption should be at the core of such a struggle, which is the very thing that Malcolm exemplified. His conversion from crime, hatred and nihilism to that of the Islamic faith, and his reconsideration of his own racial illusions regarding whiteness is mythical. Malcolm was willing to question his once held convictions. After his iconic pilgrimage to Hajj, he wrote:There are Muslims of all colours and ranks here in Mecca from all parts of this earth. During the past seven days of this holy pilgrimage, while undergoing the rituals of the hajj [pilgrimage], I have eaten from the same plate, drank from the same glass, slept on the same bed or rug, while praying to the same Godnot only with some of this earths most powerful kings, cabinet members, potentates and other forms of political and religious rulers but also with fellowMuslims whose skin was the whitest of white, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, and whose hair was the blondest of blondyet it was the first time in my life that I didnt see them as white men. I could look into their faces and see that these didnt regard themselves as white.This redemptive open-mindedness was further shown in Malcolms discussion of Islam with Tariq Ali at Oxford University. As Ali rebuked faith with a scorn, Malcolm listened respectfully and attentively and replied, its good to hear you talk like thatIm beginning to ask myself many of the same questions.There was a humility to Malcolm that accompanied his conviction in faith and political activism. This humility and redemption should be cause for hope: people are capable of change. Hatred would not be a weapon against injustice. Malcolm recognised that and began to engage with something more radical: love.Cornel West affirmed that justice and love were inseparable. Malcolms faith; my faith; was one that affirmed that one cannot truly believe until we love others as we love ourselves. Malcolm took up that mantle of Islam and revolutionary love. One only has to consider and appreciate this prayer he once opined to understand:I pray that God will bless you in everything that you do. I pray that you will grow intellectually, so that you can understand the problems of the world and where you fit into, in that world picture. And I pray that all of the fear that has ever been in your heart will be taken out.Grow intellectually. Remove fear. Thats what Malcolm prayed for. Find a way to claim some part of his almost prophetic, Messianic tale as I have claimed him; while Malcolm died on February 21, 1965, his cause and ideals did not. Find a way to express and harness the radicality of activism, redemption, and love. The world needs that triune of progress that my Malcolm, the Muslim Malcolm, came to embody so well. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Thousands of beachgoers are to be put to sleep after flocking to Bondi last Friday, ignoring calls for social distancing amid the current COVID-19 outbreak.Dr Chris Brown is set to take some time off from wandering aimlessly around the Network Ten studio to help provide mass euthanasia as part of a live 48-hour telethon edition of Bondi Vet.Im pretty used to handling filthy, slobbering animals, both on Bondi Vet and Im a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, so this is just a typical day at the office for me. Despite initial concerns wide-scale force would have to be employed to round up the beachgoers, almost all of them have willingly turned themselves in, excited at the prospects of getting to be on TV.Ive always wanted to die on the telly. Was hoping itd be getting shot in a home invasion on Gogglebox, but thisll do. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Prime Minister and noted crisis-handling expert Scott Morrison graced us with his divine wisdom last week regarding coronavirus and its effects on the day-to-day lives of the Australian public.In a live address, Morrison assured viewers: So long as Australians keep being Australians, well get through this together.You might think this is a hollow attempt at comforting a nation at the brink of mass hysteria, but patriotism might just be that last spark of hope to guide you through the long, awful-smelling tunnel that is 2020.Heres the Rodents top tips for staying Australian during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak!Watch the footy!Shield yourself in a fort made of Australian flags!Keep watching the footy!Go to the beach!Make the leap from casual racism to full-time racism!Blast Packed to the Rafters: The Soundtrack Volume 2 as you stand half-naked on your balcony, but also wear a face mask!Tell your son that he coughs like a girl!Drink yourself into a state of total numbness to erase any anxiety you had about the societal collapse the virus has already initiated!Get into a fist-fight with someone about the footy!Or just sit back and relax with an ice cold Coron sorry, VB <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article mentions sexual assault.Harvey Weinstein has expressed his outrage that something would enter his body without his consent, after being diagnosed with coronavirus this weekend.I feel like my bodily autonomy was completely destroyed by this virus, the rapist and fallen film producer told The Rodent.Its incredibly important that those of us diagnosed with the virus raise awareness, stand tall and proclaim this has happened #ToMe.As Catharine MacKinnon tells us, we are nothing if not our bodies, the invasion of autonomy is invasion of our very selves.Weinstein has begun a reading group in prison about the importance of bodily autonomy, where the works of MacKinnon, Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde are being discussed.He has yet to realise their writings are about sexual assault. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> World Vision has announced a campaign to fight underpayment of its own staff, following revelations it had reported itself to the Fair Work Ombudsman.For just one dollar a day, you can double what were currently paying interns, one new campaign ad reads.As part of the campaign, donors can exchange letters with an intern.Stephanie, a barely-paid intern whod started in as an unpaid intern, told The Rodent that shed found the letter process strange.Lots of people have asked for progress reports of how Im doing, or got angry when I wasnt sufficiently adoring. There were lots of requests for feet pics too.The campaign is considered as a breakthrough in the non-profit sector which largely relies on unpaid or underpaid staff.We aim by 2050 for 50% of our staff to be able to pay for 10% of their rent on the salaries we provide, a World Vision spokesperson said. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In an entirely expected twist, local gay centrist Chester Greenfield has joined his leafy suburbs chapter of the Young Liberals after watching Meryl Streeps commanding performance as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.The WHO did identify the films Thatcher friendly messaging as a risk when it first came out with the Director of Public Cinematic Health stating that On its own, the narrative of the film is harmless, but when presented by such a raw theatrical force as Meryl Streepwell, thats when things get messy. Chester has a different story The Iron Lady just helped me realised what I already knew all along he told our investigative team while making an anti-union poster (which he plans to put up at school) on Microsoft Word.The reality is that British coal miners have to end this striking nonsense immediately. Theyre bringing the country to its knees. Its totally unpatriotic what with the Falklands crisis and everything. The remainder of the interview was spent explaining to Chester that he did not live in 1980s Britain. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> SYDNEY: The United States Studies Centre (USSC) has today announced that it will appoint a provisional Vice Chancellor in the wake of Michael Spences shock resignation. Spence, whose 12 year reign as Vice Chancellor and Supreme God King will come to an end in December, announced that he would be seeking amnesty at the University College, London.Earlier this morning, the University of Sydneys (USyd) Campus Security was seen occupying the administration building while Pro Vice Chancellors and Provosts were escorted into a bus on City Road. A spokesperson from the USSC denied any allegations that force was being used and told the [paper] that today was a victory for democracy. After 12 years, students at USyd can rest easy once again, knowing that the dreaded Spence regime has come to an end.In recent years, the Spence regime has been besieged by internal dissent, with attempts at reform being deeply unsuccessful. These unpopular reforms, including the introduction of OLEs and the construction of useless glass buildings have been opposed by everyone from moderate rebels (Liberals) to more extremist factions (Socialist Alternative). Peaceful student protests have been crushed brutally, as Spence has increasingly empowered his brutal personal security force.Mr. Spence has also been accused of harbouring a whole host of terrorists and criminals, including hate preacher Bettina Arndt and notorious international arms dealer Belinda Hutchinson.While the crimes of the Spence regime have long been documented, the USSC failed to receive assent from the Group of 8 universities for its university-building project. A spokesperson from Adelaide University cited that the question of who would replace Spence was an internal matter for USyd students and that any external interference may result in regional instability. Despite these concerns, the USSC has chosen to continue unilaterally, leaving the fate of the University hanging in the balance.More to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a huge win for the efficiency-minded everywhere, the controversial Ramsay Centre has decided to stop faffing about with its Bachelor of Western Civilisation and offer it directly through ADFA. Really, this is a win-win situation, said Ramsay spokesperson, Gerald Tuffington. The Ramsay degree has really always been about justifying western imperialism. By offering it to ADFA students we can give that information to the people carrying out that imperialism. Its that sort of efficiency that scratches my Protestant ethical itch.Lieutenant General Carl Carlton, Vice Chancellor of ADFA, agreed, saying wed been running out of classes to teach our students that dont mention women or queers anyway, so this was a lifesaver for our curriculum. Simple as mate.Rodney Douglas, an incoming ADFA student seemed equally enthused. Fuark mate, youre telling me I get a scholarship too? Not bad at all, said the recent Scotch College graduate. How much is it? Like, ten grand at least yeah? Fuark mate how many bags is that?University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence was unable to offer comment, being too busy seething in an unlit room at being passed over for the Racism Degree. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Students overwhelming unresponsiveness in tutorials and seminars is largely due to the thriving Sight Club, an underground student-led staring competition, an investigation by The Rodent has found. Seminar and tutorial groups across faculties have been competing against each other during lessons via social media. The uncovering comes after years of investigative reporting by student journalist Betty, 45, who states that Being the loudest voice in the room makes you wonder if all of the students are actually struggling. Then I noticed they were livestreaming themselves. Kind of related actually, when I left Tassie I was a monk in Malaysia for quite some ti-This quote has been shortened for clarity.The controversial Sight Club is being viewed by some as a low-level cold plaguing the University for years. Vice Chancellor Michael Spence, soon resigning to publish his poetry, agrees stating:They look like turkeys,Or big wagyu cows in drought,Oh woe is the smart.Postgraduate lecturer Mark emotionally delivered his gratitude to the investigative team. I dont cry after every tutorial anymore. Here he gestured to his skin. More hydrated now.Considering the alleged goal of Sight Club is that the winning seminar/tutorial group are somehow lifted up the ranks of the Universitys mental health service waiting list, there is no sign of the club stopping anytime soon. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality has ruled that former High Court judge, Michael Kirby, must not be forced to take any more photos with Australian law students, following alarming evidence. The illustrious High Court judge has not been allowed to take a rest from touring Foundations of Law lectures and taking selfies with law students since he retired 11 years ago.On one count, only three law students in Australia do not have Facebook profile pictures with His Honour. Student law societies around the country, however have denied claims that Justice Kirby was forced to do anything against his will.Kirby thrives in his natural environment of debased, sycophantic law students, a SULS spokesperson told The Rodent.This cage? This is for his own safety. He has plenty of room to roam, and hes fed daily.However leaked documents have indicated a sinister plot to acquire more High Court judges to shore up law student clout.One message from an Australia student law society, shown to the The Rodent detailed a plan to capture Chief Justice Mason with a big net. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the start of the academic year fast approaching, university students nationwide are preparing for an onslaught of new classes. Rather than the strenuous academic requirements or new social situations, it would appear the thing that incites the most fear about starting or resuming uni is the get-to-know-you games often played in the first tutorials of the semester.I would literally rather lick a bin chicken than think of three fun facts to tell a room of strangers, 3rd-year engineering student Jason Elias was overheard telling his friends. Like I would really get my tongue in there, right amongst all those bin-juice soaked feathers, were it a permitted alternative.Other approaches are being tested across campus. Enthusiastic and bright-eyed Japanese Studies tutor Jess Bosman reported being slightly perturbed to see more than two-thirds of the class kneel, withdraw ceremonial knives and disembowel themselves in the style of the Samurai ritual of harakiri, when asked to tell a fun fact about themselves in her first JPNS3002 tutorial.However, I was glad that it was performed so authentically. It is more honourable to die by ones own tanto blade than fall to the hands of an enemy, she added.The Autonomous Collective Against Racism quickly condemned the practice as cultural appropriation, and rallied outside Fisher Library in protest last Thursday morning. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Like many people from the subcontinent, the Bhutto name means a lot to us. With roots in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India alike, each of us has heard the name mentioned in the context of war, peace, and everything in between. Our grandparents each had their views on Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto both as a foreign minister and prime minister. Our parents lived through the ascent of Benazir Bhutto as one of the most prominent women in Pakistani politics. But, as our interview made abundantly clear, Fatima Bhutto transcends her family name.Fatima was one of the first Muslim women of colour wed had the opportunity to read. To us, she wasnt merely another member of a political dynasty, but a critically familiar voice in what could be, at times, a rather unfamiliar world: that of contemporary literature. She influenced the ways in which we read, the ways in which we engage with the world around us and, to some extent, our own voices as writers.Naturally, the opportunity to interview Fatima gave rise to a sense of anticipation and nervous energy. Almost instantly, however, that sense of nervousness was calmed by the elegant rhetoric through which Fatima packages incredibly powerful ideas. We discussed her latest book, The Runaways, which explores the experiences of three radicalised Muslim youths.By providing a nuanced and empathetic view of those pushed towards radicalism, The Runaways was initially met with some resistance. The Runaways is published in South Asia, its published in Australia and in England, but it doesnt have a home in [North] America because they dont want to touch it, Fatima told us. These are supposedly places of extreme liberty, tolerance, inclusion, diversity and dissent. But the more we travel through the world, the more we understand that this isnt really true.Its easy to see how The Runaways might invoke the ire of conservatives. Unlike the vast majority of Western literature on the topic, Fatima does not allow the characters of her book nor their religion to take the blame for their own radicalisation. Conversing with her, its clear that one of the key maxims of The Runaways is one that takes aim at the Western hegemonies that facilitate any such alienation in the first place.This idea that religion is the source of radicalism is completely bogus. Its not. It is, in fact, things like inequality, humiliation and lack of inclusion that fuel radicalism. People who are vulnerable to radicalism are people who are cut off from society and excluded; who dont feel they have a say in the building of their future. It is this paranoia of the West, and especially the white populations in the West, that police all of us.We tell Fatima how each of us identifies with the character of Sunny. He is similar to us in the way that he is similar to most children of South Asian migrants: his father left the subcontinent in search for a better life in the West, at the expense of the often humiliating process of assimilation.Its puzzling, then, that second-generation children such as Sunny who are at least somewhat better adjusted to life in the West are more prone to radicalisation. According to Fatima, so much is the result of heightened anxieties concerning the need to immortalise Western supremacy in what has become a culturally homogeneous world.What are European values? I dont really understand what that word means. The experience watching something like Notre Dame burning down is so profoundly alienating for anyone who is not European because it assumes, in a very tone-deaf way, that Europe is the centre of the world. That something in France must automatically affect humanity, art, culture and history assumes that the world must pay respect and homage for these monuments like the French do when they havent done that for any country but their own. Today, the experience of young Muslims like Sunny is one of discomfort in places like Europe and America because society there has decided to define itself in some kind of opposition to the world.It comes as no surprise that Fatima herself like most of us existing in brown bodies has also borne the brunt of this particularly shrewd sense of alienation, no less in the same country that refuses to publish her book.I flew to the States quite recently. The immigration officer asked me, What do you do? and What do you write? and, incredibly, Does your book advocate the use of violence? The problem is much wider than not having a publisher in the U.S. Its about a general fear of anything that is not immediately recognisable.As South Asian and Muslim student journalists, we explain how we regularly find ourselves pigeon-holed into writing about the issues that follow us around: our race, our culture, the unique diasporic experience of belonging neither here nor there, and so on.I think thats the natural experience that a lot of us have, she says. Everyone is comfortable to ghettoise you, and say, Tell us about Pakistan, but dont tell us about how racist the West is. Or, How do you explain Shamima Begum?Shes referring, of course, to the ISIS-affiliated British citizen disallowed from returning to England by the UK Home Secretary. Youre supposed to answer for people like her. But my question is: how do they explain this completely ruthless way in which they are organising their society and defining citizenship?With a wry laugh, Fatima remembers how one of her editors pushed for The Runaways to be released in 2017, fearing its loss of relevance as the decline of ISIS drew more imminent. Really, its never a good time for a book like this to come out. Youre always going to be fighting against the tide. If this book said, Gosh, look at these young, alienated Muslims, arent they dangerous, it would be received in a totally different way. And I think people are disappointed that I dont say that.On evading the expectation of creating work that is inherently political and irrevocably tied to her identity, Fatima is optimistic. For her, writing fiction has been a warm remedy to the tired and contrived realm of opinion pieces in the Sunday paper.The world of commentary felt so saturated and so controlled. Fiction is powerful because your thoughts cant be edited down, censored and manipulated like when youre writing commentary. Fiction is a trojan horse you pack it with all sorts of insurgent ideas, and people dont know whats inside it, so they come to it less suspicious than they would if you were writing an op-ed in a paper.When it comes to an antidote for the complex problem of radicalisation, Fatima is intelligent and resolute. Anytime you dont create a vision for people where they can see a future for themselves where they might have a voice, a platform the chance at a dignified, honourable life they will be vulnerable to somebody elses vision.I think the antidote is clear, but I dont think anyone is practising the antidote in any remarkable way. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I was born to an Australian father, a translator of Asian languages, and a Chinese mother, who eventually trained to become a nurse. Both parents spoke mostly Chinese to me in my early years, so I didnt speak English until I started going to preschool. I didnt notice my parents being racially different at that age I had no concept of it. My home was a blend of Chinese redwood tables and leather couches from Harvey Norman, an oil painting of the Australian outback next to a Chinese calendar with the character for good luck, porcelain dolls and jade plants. I accepted my home as my home, and my parents as my parents. It wasnt until I visited family in China that I began to realise the differences between my parents. First night in Shanghai: my mother blended in, speaking easily despite being brought up speaking the Sichuan dialect (she only began to speak in the standard Beijing dialect after meeting my father). My father was treated with great respect at having mastered Mandarin to such a high level in reading, writing, and speaking. They marveled at him and enjoyed when he picked their hometown just from the way they spoke. But there was not as much need for hospitality and politeness when at a distance. My parents, walking together on Nanjing Road, were regarded in a way that was at once both appalled and intrigued. I was stared at and some people stopped to take photographs of me. Dont worry darling. They think youre pretty, my mother told me. They like the mixed look here. And indeed, blown up to gigantic proportions in the department stores were images of Chinese women with Westernised features. The countertops were covered in products that promised to give you double eyelids, a slimmer nose, and lighter hair.There is a definite exoticism attached to the idea of mixed race. From a 2015 American survey of multiracial adults, 58% of the white-Asian group found that having a racial background of more than one race largely benefitted them and 37% found it made no difference. Out of all the groups, 19% described positive benefits and 4% had felt disadvantaged. Most reported they had experienced discrimination on varying levels, whether being subject to racial slurs or treated unfairly by an employer, again tied to racial perceptions. Since Samuel Mortons hierarchy of racial superiority, there has been extensive investigation into the scientific basis of race. In 2000, Craig Venter, a pioneer of DNA sequencing, said at a ceremony at the White House: The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis. Yet race affects us still, because we are continuously perceived according to the race we appear to most belong to.As I increasingly noticed differences in thinking and cultural background between my parents, I began to realise it within myself. The schools I went to were generally divided between white and Asian groups, which I awkwardly straddled. Any academic success was automatically attributed to being part Chinese. Apart from that, I was fetishised because of my mixed heritage: I was other enough to be exotic but not too far from whiteness. There are worse things I could recount, but most of my experiences are no better or worse than other mixed-race experiences, let alone any ethnic experience. But it is rarely explored in popular culture. Many mixed-race people find themselves living between cultures, not fully identifying with any side of their heritage. Its supposed that we are heading into a post-race era, where most people will be mixed, and the concept of race will eventually disappear. But until then, how we are perceived often has much to do with what race we are, and the external assumptions tied to that race. This can be confusing to developing our own sense of identity, apart from our cultural upbringing. Perhaps because I observed my father inundate himself with Chinese language and culture, and my mother choose to embrace her newfound Australian identity, my experiences of being mixed were not so clearly defined. There were transatlantic crossings, if you like, within both of my parents. My father had spent several years living in China and a few years after I was born, my mother became an Australian citizen. She adopted the relaxed parenting approach that I noticed in my Western friends parents, while my father maintained the strict attitude to study that my Asian friends parents had. This meant there was no clear approach, as I saw it, to either side of my heritage. But this is a good thing, not defining, and therefore restricting, any race or culture. Perhaps this means we are able to choose to combine our own familial cultural knowledge and experiences, however disparate, with our current ones. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Journalism isnt a professionjust a sickness in the head. says Ece Temelkuran, one of Turkeys most well-known political journalists. On a dewy morning at the Sydney Writers Festival, she is joined by Mexican reporter and author, Anabel Hernndez and Iraqi-American writer, Dunya Mikhail. Led by the ABCs Sophie McNeill, the panel compelled the audience in a discussion on the meaning of truth as journalists who have worked within oppressive states and a climate of rising corruption. Through humour and elaborate metaphors, the three distinct voices explored the dangers facing modern journalists who seek to report truth amidst the rise of authoritarianism and internet censorship. The insanity of journalists described by Temelkuran is embodied by the joke that journalists are people who run towards an explosion instead of away from it. Temelkuran, who in 2011 lost her job as a TV presenter due to her criticisms against the Turkish government, portrays this journalistic insanity as the compulsive need to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences that come with it. The cost of truth is no foreign concept for Hernndez or Mikhail either. In 1996, Milkhail, at the time a journalist for the Baghdad Observer, was forced to flee Iraq due to increasing aggravation from the Iraqi authorities for her writings. Similarly, Hernndez now resides in Europe in exile after investigating the disappearance of 43 students done allegedly by law enforcement officials in Mexico.When asked about the practicality of being journalists during such states of fear, the three provide an interesting variety of perspectives. Mikhail attributes her survival amidst the climate of censorship in Iraq to her roots of being a poet, saying It was a good chance for me to be understood by the readers but not the censors. Despite the dangers, Hernndez spoke to her firm belief that the reporting of truth by journalists is especially vital in countries like Mexico, where there exists no accountable systems of justice to protect human rights. Temelkuran, on the other hand, described the process of dehumanising journalists by political powers. She conjectures that in order to imprison journalists, you must first dehumanise them to the point where no one no longer cares anymore. The also panel raised an alarming warning regarding the state of journalism in the modern age. Mikhail, who now lives in the US, notes a phenomenon of self-censorship that didnt have home on ground as a building, but was in the air. In the US, censorship has become an abstract of identity that belongs in codes of conduct that precedes speech, as opposed to in Iraq where censorship follows speech. Temelkuran extended her explanation to Australia, noting that there exists a silent consensus that normalises atrocities, such as in our coverage of the refugee crisis, that is dangerous not only in terms of politics, but more-so in terms of morality. Also explored in detail is the subjectivity of truth within the age of internet journalism. When asked about whether online journalists now working without editorial controls are threatening the system or making it stronger, Temelkuran notes that there exists a deep connection between truth and shame. She says, weve been going through a transformation of neo-ideas, neo-policies, new definition of humankind that is very limited and that in this new definition morality is not integral. People no longer ask the question of whether they possess the knowledge or the authority to say something. In an already corrupted system, people are no longer ashamed of telling lies. So how exactly can we ensure that the truth is told? Mikhail answers that in some ways we need to remain children, for when there is a naked emperor with people imagining his clothes in fear, a child who sees him would cry out that he is not wearing any clothes. Despite the struggles facing journalism that range from authoritarian governments and self-censorship to a decline of journalistic integrity, this group of writers do not view it as a dangerous time to be telling the truth, so much as it is the right time. They emphasise that if we are to remain children, it is integral that we tell even the truths that we do not want to hear. For as long as there exists corruption, good journalism, through the treacherous lanes of hostility and censorship, will continue under those who are so impassioned in telling the truth that they are willing to bear the costs. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is something very oxymoronic about the phrase Michelin Star Ramen. The midnight food of the urban Japanese masses, whose popularity stems directly from a crippling post war food shortage, seems quite at odds with the Michelin brand, which, though from similarly grungy origins as a tire manufacturing company, has come to symbolise culinary refinement and quality. From the outside, where it is constantly in danger of being gentrified, its easy to forget just how commonplace ramen is considered in Japan, and that it occupies a place in the Japanese diet similar to what a kebab occupies in ours comfort food best enjoyed drunk. Nonetheless, as of 2019, there are 23 Michelin-starred ramen shops in Japan, three of which are in Tokyo. I found myself at one on a blustery autumn afternoon, in Sugamo, a quiet stop on the Yamanote line affectionately called Harajuku for geriatrics Sugamo. A few winding paths latter, I am at Japanese Soba Noodles Tsuta. The first ramen shop ever to receive a star, Tsuta sent massive shockwaves in the culinary world with the release of the 2016 Michelin Guide, and was met domestically with a resounding eh? Amazed, proud, but most of all, slightly confused, the Japanese media scrambled for an explanation about how something widely considered B-grade food for alcoholics ended up being recognised by Michelin. Before long, a one hour documentary is aired on national TV featuring Tsutas owner Yuki Onishi explaining his process and philosophy regarding ramen.But while the news was received with warm amusement, Michelin elicited scorn and distrust from the Japanese culinary establishment back in 2008 when its guides began to branch out of the Western world into Asia. Despite showering Japan with effusive praise, their love was unrequited, and Michelin was met with headlines like Michelin-san, uninvited first-time customers are not welcome and Dont treat us Japanese with contempt, Michelin!. The Japanese, it seems, did not appreciate having their food judged by foreigners. While the five person anonymous judging panel did feature two Japanese critics, restaurateurs were unconvinced that a French publication could ever understand the essence of Japanese cooking, let alone judge it. Some restaurants took their skepticism to another level and tried to refuse Michelin from publishing them at all. Eiichi Takahashi, the man at the helm of 400-year-old Kyoto kaiseki restaurant Hyotei, told media the sudden increase in customers brought about by the Michelin guide would greatly inconvenience his current customer base, hence his refusal. Michelin ignored him, and gave Hyotei three stars their highest rating. A world away from the ritualistic intricacy of kaiseki, Im surprised to see that there isnt a line at Tsuta. But before I can even thank my luck, I notice a sign saying that they had already sold out of meal tickets. A waiter notices me from the inside and comes out, kindly explaining that if I come back three hours later, I might be able to get a seat they key word being might. The alluring promise of Michelin quality ramen overpowers my hunger. Absence makes the heart grow fonder I think to myself, And the stomach as well it seems.Two and a half hours later, during which I satiated my hunger not with food but with the mental image of a Michelin star, Im back, and so are 20 other people, almost all of them foreigners like myself. After waiting in line for another 30 minutes, Im in, greeted immediately with a steaming bowl of glistening noodles that, I cant help but think, looks like any other bowl of ramen Ive had. The noodles are nice and slurpy, the shoyu broth is wonderfully intertwined with nuanced seafood flavours, and the wontons, egg and slices of shimmering chashu top it all off. But what really brings it all together is a small puddle of glorious black truffle oil dripped onto the chashu, proving that truffles really can make anything taste decadent. But, what was it that made it Michelin quality? What even is Michelin quality? My questioning grows as the soup diminishes.A mere ten minutes later and my bowl is completely empty. And I enjoyed it, I think. Sure, for the same price I could have eaten two bowls at a normal ramen shop. And sure, in those three hours I could have done so much more than fantasising in a cafe about a star. But hey! This place has a Michelin star! It was then did I realise that most of my enjoyment of Tsuta came from the fact that I was eating at a Michelin star restaurant. There was something novel about paying so little for a restaurant so internationally acclaimed, but at the same time, something strange about spending so much time and money on a food famed for its convenience and price. It was good, excellent even. But having hyped it so much in my head, it seems the only way I could have been satisfied is if I was served the star itself.The whole experience left me indifferent. A Michelin star, I realised, is not a divine decree for culinary excellence, but simply another opinion. When it comes to ramen, it might not even be the best opinion. We want our critics to be learned in their craft, hence why the Japanese culinary establishment was so suspicious of Michelins intrusion into their market, but at the same time, critics are supposed to frame and inform the experience of normal people who do not have that knowledge. We ascribe a premium to their expertise, thinking that because of it they can taste or see things we wouldnt notice, but if the experience of food is correlated to our expertise on it, why do we seek to experience food vicariously through experts when the difference in knowledge could mean that our respective tastes are not at all equivalent? Of course there is a place for food criticism, but if youre only out for a good meal, is looking to the Michelin guide, as so many people do, really the best option?A few months later, I find myself a ramen shop in Nakano, not to eat, but to work. After a shift, a co-worker asks me why I wanted to work at a ramen joint its not particularly glamorous work, and definitely not the most high paying. And so I tell him about the time I ate at Tsuta, and how I didnt understand what made it better than the rest, and how I thought I could appreciate ramen more through experiencing it from the other side of the counter. He laughs and says something rather obvious on reflection.The best ramen is the ramen you enjoy eating the most!In a city with more than 3000 ramen shops, starred or not, theres plenty of opportunity to find out what that bowl is yourself. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Gothic genre typically conjures images of trapdoors in haunted houses, dirty cobblestone streets disappearing into mist, looming gargoyles, and swooping ravens. The renderings of the supernatural might have been quite extreme, but what made the genre truly horrifying was that for many, it became part of the everyday. The Gothic was all around. An extension of the Romantic period, the study of the genre is usually restricted to its European origin. But beyond that, the Gothic juxtaposes everyday comforts with the fear of the unfamiliar and frequently confronts the horror of isolation. Though rarely discussed, the Gothic mode has had a continuous presence in Australia, lurking beneath the surface. Following British colonisation in 1770, Australia was perceived as the dark underbelly of the world. The invention of machines in Britain meant that people were no longer needed for agricultural jobs and so they moved to the cities, where crime rose exponentially and slums spread. As America had refused to accept any more convicts, Australia became a vast dungeon for Britains criminals between 1788 and 1868, roughly 162 000 convicts were transported to the colonies in New South Wales and Van Diemens Land, mostly for petty crimes.It was at this time that the Gothic novel was reaching new heights of popularity in Britain. The Gothic genre existed as the darker side of sophisticated Victorian society. Its novels were filled with social transgressions and moral misdoings. More than that, Gothic literature explored the fear of the unfamiliar typically in isolated settings. However, unlike the trap doors and tunnels of The Castle of Otronto, written by English author Horace Walpole in 1764 and considered to be the first Gothic novel, the isolation of the Australian landscape was in its vastness. The sense of displacement and unfamiliarity following European settlement was well expressed through the Gothic mode, which probed the experience of characters trapped in a hostile environment. Moreover, the land itself was imbued with its own psyche, which ultimately reflected that of the colonial experience: isolation, fear of the unknown, and dislocation. The land was harsh and nature was unforgiving.It is often simpler to understand a society through what it fears, not what it advocates. Gothic novels were the main literature of the Victorian era, following the dominance of poetry from the Romantics, where fears, perversions, and darker realities were articulated. Our literature, similarly, is not quite the Romantic poetry of Banjo Paterson or Dorothea Mackellar that expresses the deeper Australian sentiment I love a sunburnt country but rather the Gothic telling of its underside, its harsh conditions, perversions and isolated melancholies.Most commonly labeled as realistic fiction, Henry Lawsons story The Drovers Wife expresses the Gothic mode specifically through its renderings of the outback experience in 1892 from the perspective of a woman left alone in an isolated hut to raise her four children, that is, of changed realities and almost supernatural conditions. In the beginning of the story, Lawson introduces us to the bush, with grotesque rather than the usual romantic imagery: Bush all round bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No ranges in the distance. The bush consists of stunted, rotten native apple-trees. No undergrowth. Nothing to relieve the eye save the darker green of a few she-oaks which are sighing above the narrow, almost waterless creek. Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilization a shanty on the main road.The threatening landscape is central to the story as an omniscient basis for the white settlers sense of unease and alienation. A snake menaces the family, an evil pair of small, bright bead-like eyes, and the woman is forced to masculinise herself to protect her children. She later reflects on fighting floods and a mad bullock: Her surroundings are not favourable to the development of the womanly or sentimental side of nature. Using setting to reflect the conflict of the characters psyche while they remain disconnected from their surroundings is crucial to the Gothic style. In the case of Lawsons story, the relationship with the land is described in the colonialist language of battle. This is vastly different to the spiritual storytelling of the Indigenous people, who considered themselves to be in harmony with the land. While the colonial experience made for a specifically Australian brand of the Gothic genre, one that expressed the exhilarating dangers of the landscape and the displacement of the settlers experience,the white Australian narrative remains a dark side of this nations history. The concept of a new country induced a collective amnesia to thousands of years of Indigenous existence with devastating effects. This attitude persists today through the general claim that Australia is too immature to have any proper culture. While Australian Gothic literature can be seen as the literary counter to Indigenous existence and storytelling, a colonial overtaking in itself, it allows us to understand our own psyche as benefactors of this land, which is to live with the knowledge of having displaced the Indigenous nation as well as having an inadequate sense of personal history. The vastness of the country only adds to the sense of isolation and disconnect. By exploring the Gothic literature that emerged out of British settlement, not only could we start to understand the various dimensions of our psyche, but we may begin to lift the collective amnesia that discounts the existence of the Indigenous people and perpetuates the damaging statement that Australia has no culture. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dolores Umbridge is a massive c*nt, said social commentator and comedy writer Nayuka Gorrie on the Festivals flagship panel Lie to Me: An Evening of Storytelling at Sydney Town Hall. Seven speakers packed the stage with host Benjamin Law to discuss how lies dominate the post-truth era, just in time for the upcoming 2019 federal election. If not for that Harry Potter reference, politics seemed to be the heart of the evening.Telling the truth is oftentimes worse than telling lies, Gorrie said, Some lies go uncontested.She recalled being discouraged from using the word invasion with regards to white settler colonialism, and the apathy of John Howard and Kevin Rudd towards the lies about Indigenous income, alcohol and pornography statistics. In literature, national public holidays, curriculums, politicianswe repeat lies until they become truths.Speaking with Aboriginal-pessimism, Gorrie [does not] know if things will change because white supremacy is so insidious.Political commentator and human rights advocate Dr Tim Soutphommasane also challenged Australias national identity, dispelling the myth of a fair go and egalitarian country.All nations are built on lies, that potent mix of fact and fiction he said.Think about misdirection, denial, deflection or distortion, which make it all the more harder to identify lies.Dr Soutphommasane also criticised journalists who dont seem to be doing their jobs at scrutinising lies, and giving soft interviews to Pauline Hansen, Mark Latham and Fraser Anning who peddle mistruths and distortions without being challenged.Nowadays, nasty ideas are dressed up in respectable language.Neo-nazis and white-supremacists use social justice as their defining umbrella, or far-right benign slogans such as ITS OK TO BE WHITE.Former Greens senator-turned-writer Scott Ludlam said he was fascinated by elections. He traced how lies and deception scale up in parliament, and then become forgotten.Here we are, saturated in fake news, alternative facts, outnumbered by bots and sock-puppets with fake faces and numbers for names,Newspapers and television stations mutated into pieces of political weaponry, and the whole body of politics being unborn from reality.He made subtle snipes at the policies of Bill Shorten and Tony Abbott, and Scott Morrisons If you have a go, you get a go campaign (What the fuck does that even mean?) while advocating a firm stance on climate change, rallying against the lies of the tobacco industry and fossil fuel sector, as well as the strategic poisoning of the information world.[People] sometimes pay an appalling personal cost for trying to put the truth in front of the populaceHe called on the humble public library, independent publishers, scientific journal, independent publishers and whistle blowers to help people distinguish reality from bullshit. Ece Temelkuran, one of Turkeys best novelists and political commentators said, Shame has transformed dramatically, creating this political and moral madness. Today, we are facing this open buffet of truths. You can choose anything, and you can believe in them. As long as you consume it without complaining about the system. But something is wrong with the system. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Overnight, a community can be swiped empty. It was around the 14th of April when users of Chinas biggest social media platform, SinaWeibo, awoke to the complete disappearance of the popular super topic les (lesbian). The super topic, similar to our tag, had once boasted over 46 million posts and reached up to 140,000 followers. Upon the discovery, users flooded the site in protest. We Are Les, proclaimed the torrent of angry posts, pushing the term les onto Weibos top searched items. Alongside this was an outpouring of selfies that showed women with mouths taped shut by black crosses, a single red tear painted beneath their eyes. The backlash coloured Weibo in a rainbow flag. Not long after that, Chinas notorious messaging app, WeChat, banned the use of all rainbow emojis in usernames.This is not the first time that LGBTQ communities have faced censorship within Chinas cyberspace. Last year, a clean-up campaign was launched by Weibo that included the removal of all LGBTQ content, categorising it within the realms of violence and pornography. After an outburst of personal letters, threats of legal action, and protests against the company, the decision was reversed a small leap of success for a community that has yet again vanished within keystrokes. Much like the grim implications of recent events, it points to increasingly strict control over public morality and Internet freedom within Chinas digital spaces.Social media platforms like Weibo have to follow regulatory guidelines enforced by the Chinese government. Known as the Great Firewall, these guidelines are implemented under opaque standards that allow not only for their malleability but their ambiguity. This gives every opportunity for the government to eliminate undesirable content on the Internet by classifying it as corrupted or pornographic. These online restraints have only grown tighter over the years. Under President Xi Jinping, these restraints have severely intensified to not only secure Chinas cyber-sovereignty but to enforce a standard of social morality forged by the government. This is a standard that categorises homosexuality as part of abnormal sexual relations akin to incest, perversion, sexual assault, and violence according to the 2016 censorship guidelines issued by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.Over the past years, censorship guidelines have succeeded in suppressing many platforms that promoted issues of gender and identity. This includes a permanent ban on Feminist Voices (a popular digital archive that played a key role in the #MeToo movement in China), censorship of all scenes that depicted homosexuality in the film Bohemian Rhapsody, and the required removal of all videos depicting same-sex relationships by the China Netcasting Service Association. These attacks on freedom of expression mostly take place within the cyberspace. However, they are absolutely reflective of the structural inequalities that already exist in society that have seeped over time into digital realms.Even more bleak are the real world consequences of LGBTQ communities openly expressing themselves. Chinas laws in regards to violence and pornography serve as a backdoor for the purge of LGBTQ voices. In October 2018, a novelist under the pen name of Tianyi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for including explicit depictions of homoeroticism in her work. Charged with the production and distribution of obscene material, her novel Occupy was categorised as harmful to the maintenance of public morality. These attacks on digital spaces are a mirror to the wider struggle for queer expression against the backdrop of political censorship and legal ambiguity.Despite the great restraints on freedom of speech, the Chinese cyberspace remains a vital ground for the LGBTQ community. Due to the absence of offline spaces available for queer narratives, the internet acts as an essential safe space. What emerges are queer networks: networks that insecurely rock between the efforts of digital-activism and cyber-censorship. The cyberspace serves as a particularly vital aspect of queer expression in China, a country where open discussions of sexuality are rarely tolerated in everyday life.Queer digital platforms also help transcend activism beyond the borders of China. The best example of this is Queer Comrades, the only established and independent Chinese LGBTQ webcast as of today. Described by most as an online TV channel for gay people, the site has broadcasted more than 100 talk shows that focus not only on the characteristics of Chinas queer culture, but also cover global LGBTQ issues. All of Queer Comrades videos are subtitled in English, enhancing accessibility for international audiences and widening the scope of awareness on Chinas LGBTQ issues. The webcasts marked international presence is indicative of the need for this struggle to extend beyond the Chinese blogosphere in order to combat governmental censorships. Being Chinas only consolidated queer website, with many others being short-lived due to censorship regulations, Queer Comrades understands the ways in which global exchange helps strengthen the capabilities of queer activism within the Great Firewall. In connecting Chinas domestic queer community to the rest of the world, digital platforms like Queer Comrades are pushing towards a stronger, globally integrated LGBTQ+ movement. More importantly, globalised digital spaces facilitate queer dialogues between China and the voices that resound beyond the Great Firewall.Nearly 34 percent of Chinas 688 million netizens actively engage in microblogging through Weibo.The existence of a digital queer community points towards a brighter future ahead as awareness on LGBTQ issues continues to increase even amidst strict censorship attempts. Perhaps, what we are witnessing is not only a call towards the protection of these digital spaces, but also a demonstration of great resilience by a community that refuses to be silenced in the face of mounting political control. As one treads through the precarious lanes of censorship, the collapse of the Great Firewall still remains beyond sight. However, as long as there exists a narrow path of latitude, the queer comrades of China (with their smartphones ready in hand) will continue to march on. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Warning: SpoilersOne of Jordan Peeles most telling comments about his new film Us is the story of a nightmare from his childhood. In the dream, which inspired the film, he would be standing on a subway platform, only to look up and see [himself] on the opposite side of the subway track. This deeply unsettling image of seeing oneself reflected and recreated serves as the central underpinning fear of the entire film. But beneath this, Peele proposes that the real fear is the horror of truly seeing yourself.Us follows the Wilson familys summer holiday to Santa Cruz where Adelaide, the mother, played by Lupita Nyongo, vacationed as a child. Adelaide gets increasingly anxious as she recalls encountering a doppelganger of herself as a child in the boardwalks funhouse. As night falls, the Wilson family are confronted by the Tethered arriving in their driveway a family who are murderous copies of the Wilsons, led by Adelaides doppelganger, Red.The Wilsons are portrayed as a comfortable black family, wearing Howard sweatshirts and jamming to I Got 5 On It as they vacation at their lakehouse. Despite the subtle representations of racial identity, Peele avoids explicit discussion of their race, briefly allowing viewers to buy into the myth of a post-racial age. This illusion is shattered as Peele delivers another version of the Wilsons one that has been oppressed, traumatised and forgotten through the Tethered. Peeles use of duality here is arguably a reference to Web Du Bois seminal theory of double consciousness. Du Bois proposes that African-Americans often experience the sensation of having two selves one being the black self, and the other being the American self that has internalised the lens of a racially oppressive society. They exist fragmented into these two souls that conflict as each attempts to repress the other.In Du Bois framework, the Tethered family parallel the repressed black identity, violently buried by oppressive American society. The conflict between the two souls is most evident when Adelaide strangles Red (with a pair of handcuffs nonetheless, perhaps alluding to the legacy of slavery). As Adelaide laughs maniacally over Reds body, we come to see that Adelaide is in fact both characters, two reflected identities struggling for control. As her son Jason realises this, he lowers his mask over his face, choosing to hide rather than face this difficult truth.This repression of burdensome memories becomes a nod to the broader way in which we often avoid reflection for fear of confronting harsh realities about ourselves. Adelaide practices this, denying Reds existence whilst living her own ideal life above ground but nevertheless, she continues to be haunted. Despite the Tethered being perceived as the threatening Other, when asked what they are, Red responds were Americans. In this loaded answer, we realise that the Tethered are a forcibly forgotten part of America, left underground to die. But, just as Red is bound to Adelaide, the Tethered are also an undeniable part of Americas dark history.The derogatory Native American cartoon on the front of the funhouse in 1986 is replaced with a smiling Merlin by 2019. Kitty (Elisabeth Moss), another mother on holiday, comments on how fashionable the Native American headdress in her magazine is. A cheerful TV ad explains how Hands Across America can end American poverty. Peele shows that too often we choose to forget our own history, slapping a band-aid over institutionalised racism and the legacy of slavery and dispossession. But much like the Tethered emerging from the tunnels of Americas past (perhaps a reference to the Underground Railroad), the horrors of history are inescapable. And when they do ensnare us, it is in the reflected image the comparison between past and present, subterranean and surface-level, reality and denial that our flaws, traumas and wrongs become too ugly and glaring to ignore.But Peele shows us a way forward, out of this adamant refusal to confront our own history. The film itself is a mirror-image of classic horror, taking many visual cues from The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street and Jaws. But rather than replicating, Peele inverts the tropes of the tradition; notably, he places the white Tyler family in the secondary position that the black family would typically take, to be killed off early in the film for comedic value. As Jenna Wortham excellently pointed out, Us with a white family has already been made its called Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. Here, Peele re-does what has been done before, to show us what has been missing in our past. And through reflection and sometimes painful confrontation, change is created. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When thinking of the perfect environment for productivity, pumping out a last minute assignment or just wanting something to rewind, nothing beats lo-fi music. From humble beginnings in the 1950s DIY and budget music studios, lo-fi low-fidelity music has become a staple for university students. Lo-fi has come to replace classical music as the go-to Spotify playlist when it comes to needing to get things done. The popularity of lo-fi as study music however has pushed many to question whether there is something more meaningful behind the classic cymbals, bass and touches of piano all looped together that make up any standard track.For me, it is clear that the beauty of lo-fi and its ability to enable long periods of focus is its simplicity. Lo-fi often unaccompanied by any distinct vocals has constant smooth rhythms and steady beats. Where classical music has been famed for its ability to make listeners feel smarter due to its complexity, lo-fi is less demanding, with loops simulating progress and making listeners feel they are achieving more.As unassuming as lo-fi is, its simplicity has left me struggling to share or recall my favourite tracks. Instead, it all becomes lost in the moment rather than being a memorable experience in itself. There is no distinct start or finish to each track, as each song moulds into one until the task at hand is complete. Being the vehicle of productivity has potentially spelt its downfall in the most poetic form of self-sacrifice. This has been the sentiment of Australian hip-hop and lo-fi artist Henry Lin who has found lo-fi to have grown lifeless. Spruiked out of his humble bedroom-turned-studio, Henry spoke about how lo-fis simplicity risks becoming overproduced with everything sounding the same. He cynically finished by saying, I guess that is part of the reason lo-fi became what it became.Yet lo-fi is something I find myself coming back to. In these moments, and particularly out of the emotional exhaustion from the culmination of exams, extracurricular commitments and personal obligations, lo-fi becomes something else. Taken out of its usual context, it is no longer mathematical formulas that fleeted past my mind but, old friends, lovers, and painful experiences from a distant memory come flooding back. Waves of nostalgia are often triggered by provocative samples from films and songs of my childhood. Here, the gaps from the missing lyrics were filled with the words of my own journey.When I spoke to American born, Chinese lo-fi artist Jake Chan, who goes by the stage name Jake $ing, he told me that he chose the genre because it was capable of conveying intricate emotions, thus making it an outlet for young creatives. Being founded on intentionally muffled, distorted sounds, it makes sense that this flawed genre formed emanations of their makers (and listeners). Its technical minimalism and grassroots history is something very tangible and powerful as it gives young garage-studio Soundcloud producers the power to challenge high-end productions from Los Angeles. Himself led by the next generation of creators, Henry suggests that lo-fi will only survive through theauthenticity of new artists, now given the opportunity to evolve it.Even beyond the 24-hour live-streams on YouTube, lo-fis modern presence has secured itself a popular cult following for many years to come. With the narrower but popular derivatives of lo-fi hip-hop now attracting its own subculture, lo-fi now appears frequently in mainstream music, being featured in popular tracks by artists such as Post Malone, Frank Ocean and Joji.But its popularity does not come easily. Faced with a barrage of copyright and resistance from mainstream music providers like Spotify due to frequent use of samples, lo-fi faces a precarious future of misconceptions. The genre continues to resist the seemingly eternal relegation to being capable of only being study music. But for lo-fi, this isnt the end. Now, lo-fi has become its own aesthetic, distinct and pronounced as its own art form. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As Andrew Sean Greer sits down for our interview, he cant avoid the irony of the situation. Greer is at Sydney Writers Festival talking about his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Less, in which Arthur Less a gay novelist approaching fifty escapes a recent heartbreak by attending literary events in far-flung locations, getting swept up in unlikely predicaments along the way. Less explores the absurd ways we deal with uncertainty in travel, aging and relationships. As a writer, and as someone who has lived through reincarnations of queer identity and the evolving pace of gay relationships through the years, Greer is no stranger to ambiguity.Theres a whole generation ahead of me that didnt live to grow old. I saw them in their twenties dying of AIDS, Greer says.They were part of a sexual revolution where they thought coupling up was participating in a heteronormative narrative. They wanted lots of lovers. My generation was the first that said, We cant do that. We have to have boyfriends and stick together. I would fall in love so quickly because thats all there was.As Greers generation began to define for the first time what it meant to be a middle-aged gay man in America, they also acutely felt the confusion of losing their youth.Some hang on to [youth], get plastic surgery thats horrifying. [On the other hand,] Theres this whole new bear category of gay men that has appeared in the last ten years, celebrating being middle-aged and manly. But Im never going to be that.Greers protagonist Arthur mirrors these insecurities. He finds himself wanting a soulmate against the odds of circumstance, in the purgatory between the youthful gallantry and grey-haired wisdom of his former lovers. Yet Greers narrative voice isnt self-pitying, nor does it indulge in existentialist dread. Less shines when it delves into uncertainty from a place of humour and joy.It looks like everyone has it together, but most of us can barely get through the day without some disaster happening, he laughs.Its refreshing to hear such optimism in our current time of profound angst. Carrying the legacy of those who fought before, queer people now have the opportunity to remake ourselves in any way we want to be. But with so much freedom and the pressure to get it right at a young age, its hard not to feel doubt.According to Greer, the best thing to do is expect that we will never have all the answers, similar to embracing the unpredictability of travel. When the bus breaks down in the middle of a volcano and you have to figure it out, [thats] the thing youll remember most, and to know that youve overcome it is the most satisfying thing.And it was through Less that Greer sought out answers for himself. I wrote this book because I thought no one would ever read it. That gave me freedom to write exactly what I wanted to, that was not meant for the community, nor my editor, nor my agent, which was hard but liberating.He also wants to challenge how literature often portrays queer lives as tragedies, feeling that there was a missing space on bookshelves for two men in love who are willing to give it a decent chance.A lot of people read it like a romantic comedy, Bridget Jones or something. That says to me that people find two men in love to be utterly conventional There is a little bit of that feeling from an old movie, of running away from the altar to the man she shouldve married all along. But a happy ending for queer people is unconventional. We dont get that a lot.Lesss breakthroughs of joy and poignancy highlight both the ups and downs of being queer, while reaffirming its most wonderful and liberating parts.Its so lucky that Im gay. Because I think Im an uptight, anxious person. It freed me. I dont have to sit by the usual masculine standards of keeping my emotions in no one expects that of me.Its interesting that being a bad gay an oddity in an inherently non-conformist space was initially amongst Arthurs biggest fears. But Less is an encouragement to throw caution to the wind and live a little.Hopefully, for any young person who has to say to the world, Im not what you thought I was, the plans you had for me are not going to happen, you have a chance to write your own destiny and define yourself, Greer tells us. For my generation, that is the greatest reward to see.Jeffrey (Left) and Deaundre (Right) take a photo with and get a copy of Less signed by one their favourite authors, Andrew Sean Greer (Centre). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY BE HIGHLY DISTRESSING TO SOME READERS. IT CONTAINS EXPLICIT MENTIONS OF RACISM, NAZISM, HOLOCAUST DENIAL, ANTI-SEMITISM, MISOGYNY, XENOPHOBIA, SINOPHOBIA AND FASCISM. Overt racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism are not especially new to campus, nor within the Inner West. But for some reason, the idea that people who believe in the disgusting ideology of Nazism may have a covert presence on campus is uniquely sobering.Back in May, an investigation conducted by the ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald exposed relationships between neo-Nazis and the National Party of Australia, taking cues from a series of chat threads on the website Discord. These threads came to light as part of a series of Discord-related leaks made public by Unicorn Riot, an American left-wing media collective. Notably, the forums were employed to organise and mobilise the 2017 white-supremacist Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville.To aimlessly meander down King Street, to catch a bus from the Marlborough Hotel to the City Road stop, or to rush past the Eastern Avenue auditorium on the way to class are all seemingly uneventful experiences for most students at the University of Sydney (USyd). That the likes of Charlottesville organisers are prevalent in your own day-to-day routine is unthinkable.That idea is turned on its head when it dawns on you that the same routes are frequented by neo-Nazis; that they are sitting behind you in your lectures, brushing past you on the 428 bus, or sprawled out a few metres away from you on the Law Lawns. This very realisation was made by Honi, as we trawled through the aforementioned threads, discovering sinister links between USyd and the neo-Nazis lurking on Discord in the process.***The sheer volume of content on the leaked threads was astounding. In one server called VibrantDiversity, over 30,000 messages were shared by 530 users. At least 36 of those users were either based in or had some significant connection to Australia. For the most part, the threads would discuss articles from liberal media sources, or link social media posts, the politics of which outraged its users. The candid use of grossly racist, ableist and misogynistic language was commonplace, often accompanied by esoteric fascist memes.From a cursory glance of the page, it is easy to misconstrue its users as reactionaries, seeking the thrill of making outrageous comments that would otherwise be socially unacceptable. From that perspective, the servers appear disconnected from reality they exist in the alt-right cybersphere, bearing little consequence on ones actual life. However, as we delved deeper into the threads, it became apparent that these users were more than just the odd internet troll.Our investigation began with the simple use of broad search terms like Sydney or Newtown in the servers search function, in order to test whether these threads had much of a local presence. Initially, most of the messages seemed only to make casual references to recent events in Sydney, without indicating a tangible connection to genuine political organisation. Soon, however, we came across the first real indication of political action: a conversation discussing strategies for supporting the homophobic No campaign in Australias same-sex marriage plebiscite. At times that conversation would move to calls between Discord users, records of which could not be accessed by Honi. Nonetheless, we did gain access to a Google Doc in which numerous users contributed ideas as to how potential voters could be convinced to vote no.As we continued to scan the server, it became clear that certain members were based in Australia, and more specifically, Sydney. We came across an image of the Martin Luther King wall on King Street, just a few kilometres away from campus. Users disparaged the mural, particularly with regard to its pending heritage-listing status. Shortly after that, we found a message containing an image of the USyds 2017 Unlearn campaign posters displayed on the glass walls of the Eastern Avenue Auditorium at the time. The photo was seemingly taken from the users mobile phone. Stickers bearing the swastika logo used by Australian neo-Nazi hate group Antipodean Resistance appeared on the same posters around the time the photo was posted on Discord. This prompted us to refine our search terms, and look specifically for messages related to various university campuses. We started to try terms like USyd and UNSW.A prominent neo-Nazi photographs the MLK memorial in NewtownAmong the results were some links to Honi articles and references to various socio-political clashes transpiring on campus. Users were unimpressed by moves to ban ethnically-themed parties on campus Mexican themed nights at college, for example. In another server called Mens Human Rights, there was a discussion of a video posted by disgraced sex-therapist Bettina Arndt concerning those protesting her Fake Rape Crisis tour of September 2018 at USyd; many of these protesters were a part of the USyd Womens Collective. The messages about USyd werent just general in nature at various points, they indicated an uncomfortable proximity to campus culture.Screenshots of Facebook comments recognisable as have being written by current USyd student activists and Honi articles, including one titled Video Games of the Alt-Right (again written in 2017), are also critiqued and ridiculed in this chatroom. Numerous messages also attached pictures of students running in SRC elections, accompanied by various queerphobic comments. A screenshot of a motion pertaining to anti-fascist action on campus, taken from the agenda of a 2017 SRC council meeting, was discussed. Chinese international students running in the 2017 University of Sydney Union (USU) elections were described using racial slurs.Perhaps these connections are not so surprising. The presence of fascists, neo-Nazis, and their sympathisers on our campus and its surrounds can at least be traced back to 2016. An anonymous student told Honi about her experience in her first-year Modern European History class in that year. A student in her lecture sprung up randomly and started to sing the Hes A Pisspot drinking song, just as the lecturer began to speak about the Holocaust. The student then allegedly pulled a bottle of beer out of his pocket, toasted towards the lecture slide which had an image of Adolf Hitler on it, and sang heres to Hitler, hes true blue. He was swiftly removed from the class by the lecturer.A message in the thread about backlash to cultural appropriation at USydDuring the 2017 SRC elections, it emerged that Sukith Fernando, a candidate on the Vanguard for SRC ticket, had made comments online in defence of Hitler. At the time, Honi reported that, in a reply to a video questioning the Holocaust posted on his wall, Fernando commented Wow Hitler really did nothing wrong. When confronted, Fernando maintained that he simply didnt know whether the Holocaust had happened. Two months later, in the midst of the same-sex marriage plebiscite, neo-Nazi posters were found wheatpasted inside the Brennan McCallum Learning Hub. The posters, emblazened with phrases such as Nazi Youth Organising On Your Campus! were attributed to Antipodean Resistance.In 2017, a student-led anti-fascist organising group archived a plethora of images of neo-Nazi vandalism, unearthed by activists throughout the entirety of 2017. Swastika stickers placed on posters of Muslim women on Eastern Avenue, swastikas painted in the USyd Graffiti Tunnel, and a racist VB Dingo sticker in Carslaw a common neo-Nazi pejorative used to refer to First Nations people, prevalent also on Discord are only a few examples.The greatest spike in neo-Nazi organising at USyd in recent years undoubtedly occurred in 2017. In that year, a high volume of neo-Nazi material appeared on campus, pictures of which were subsequently posted by concerned activists in the anti-fascist organising group contemporaneously. Such posts were made once a month at the very least. We noticed a striking resemblance between the terminology, syntax and tone of the neo-Nazi material on campus, and that of neo-Nazis on the Discord threads, particularly on VibrantDiversity.It didnt end there, however. Several students present at a USyd Socialism vs Capitalism debate in June 2018 hosted in tandem by opposing political groups Socialist Alternative and Generation Liberty anecdotally relayed to Honi how a man present at the debate, did a sieg heil salute. Toby Cook, described by Anti Fascist Action Sydney to be a local neo-Nazi affiliated with the Sydney-based Party for Freedom, allegedly did the same gesture in response to a debate participants critique of fascism.In July of 2018, racist graffiti targeting Asian students was found in the Wilkinson building. The phrases no Asian invasion alongside other ethnic slurs the same slurs used to describe Chinese USU Board candidates on Discord in 2017 were written in permanent marker thereon.In March 2019, racist and nationalist posters and graffiti were removed from the USyd Engineering and IT Precinct by University staff. Two months later in May, a swastika was found graffitied onto a mural of the Aboriginal Flag in Camperdown Rest Memorial Park.What was arguably the most disconcerting aspect of our investigation was the appearance of Young Liberals and Nationals, alongside members of the campus right, on these servers. For legal reasons, Honi cannot reveal the identities of those involved.In February of 2017, an event was held on the border of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, at a small pub called The Royal Hotel QBN around 25 minutes drive from the University of Canberra. The event was scheduled to run after a larger Young Liberal event that had occurred earlier that evening. This meeting was far smaller, more intimate. University students, some of those now known to have been neo-Nazis, were in attendance. In a conversation Honi conducted with an anonymous source, the social groupings at this event were described as white men dissatisfied with how the world was developing. Concerns surrounding migration, what were considered to be loose borders, and stagnation in the growth of the young working-class had amalgamated into a social network of anti-capitalist young men uniting under the hateful banner of national socialism.A message linking video footage from the protests against Betina ArndtRacist sentiments at this event were plentiful, with anti-Semitic and racial slurs and misogynistic phrases flowing freely in the discussion. There was a distinct lackof women at the event. An ex-Young Liberal, Justin Beulah, who was identified as a reprieved neo-Nazi in this years major SMHABC investigation, was in attendance. He posted pictures of himself at the event on VibrantDiversity. At the time, he was also a student at the University of Canberra. Honi reached out to Beulah for comment, given that his picture and a username confirmed to be connected to him were found as we scrolled these servers. We did not receive comment in time for publication.Through examining the links and usernames disseminated on these threads, Honi can confirm that there were USyd students, then members of the Young Liberals, present at this event, with direct links to the online Nazi network. Indeed, Beluahposted photos on VibrantDiversity of two people Honi knows to have beenUSyd students at the time of theRoyal Hotel QBN meet-up.For us, Beulah (posting as Brad Small and Brads Mobile), became a link between the server and USyd. In interrogating the large array of images he shared, we have discovered that members of these threads had in-depth knowledge of University of Sydney student culture, Honi articles and USyd student politics. Beulah has also shared a range of phone snapshots taken close to and within the University. Not only this, but screenshots obtained by Honi show attempts by members Beulah and a user named Convo to understand student politics abbreviations. SRC? Convo asks, to which Beulah explains Student rep council.A racist discussion about USU Board candidatesBeulahs institutional knowledge of our University may suggest that he had direct network affiliations with USyd students who, by sending him relevant information, allowed him to be aware of, recruit within, and perhaps attempt to infiltrate USyd student politics. A prominent member of the Young Nationals, who we cannot name for legal reasons, was one possible accomplice to Beulahs work he was A USyd undergraduate, frequented the Discord servers, and a manager of one of the Universitys USU Board candidate campaigns several years prior. He was at the Royal Hotel QBN with Beulah that day.The takeaways from our investigation are quite harrowing. Examples of the ingrained connection between these networks and USyd are especially mind-boggling because they require a steadfast knowledge of the workings of student organisations. Things like SRC Council motions, for example, could not possibly have been within the institutional knowledge nor digital reach of anyone without some tangible, continuous link to someone on the insideWe know that Neo-Nazi propaganda and rhetoric spiked on the Camperdown campus in 2017. We also know that the rate at which information was disseminated within VibrantDiversity also rose with particular vigour that same year. There is an apparent temporal link to a spike in university-related rhetoric in this chatroom and the rise of neo-Nazi action on campus when this evidence is read concurrently.Our investigation only scratched the surface of all the reprehensible fascist messages sent in the 66 leaked servers. At various points, we regrettably came across messages viscerally describing sexually problematic behaviour, images of African-American people being lynched, and other extremely violent imagery. Naturally, this raised serious concerns of what had already transpired on campus and what could be happening as we write this article. Were there campus neo-Nazis lurking in those threads, who had fallen through the cracks? And, now these Discord threads have been exposed, is there a place unknown to us where new conversations are taking place? Fascist networks are quite feasibly expanding. They arent just a few rogue individuals on a single website. They are in the business of building a movement. That movement has extended its reach to non-fascist conservative groups on campus, such as the Young Liberals. Its unclear when this movement will penetrate our institutions of student representation. Maybe it already has.An SRC motion is posted into the thread <|endtext|> <|starttext|> International students working at the Epic Tea outlet on campus have told Honi Soit they are being paid between $12 to $14 per hour, and are working without payslips, superannuation and written contracts.Employees indicated they were being paid an hourly rate of $12 during a training period which lasted as long as a week in some cases, with an hourly rate of $14 thereafter. Those earnings were paid in cash on a weekly basis, without any superannuation contributions, at the outlet located in the Jane Foss Russell Plaza.In one case, a student who chose to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, told Honi they were being paid a higher rate of $18 only because they had a connection to Epic Teas parent company, Eternal Passion.These rates fall well under the national minimum wage and the casual hourly rate of $26.76 mandated by the Fast Food Industry Award for employees aged 21 years and over.Epic Tea has also withheld pay slips from its employees, according to surveyed staff, who said they had been kept in the dark over their superannuation entitlements.Failing to provide pay slips may result in a fine, according to Fair Work guidelines.None of the students Honi spoke to were able to point to any employment contract with Epic Tea or Eternal Passion.Epic Tea and its predecessor, Easyway, have been tenants of the University of Sydney Union (USU) since 2009. The store underwent a change in management with the franchisor taking over responsibilityof the store late last year, according to company extracts held by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.In that same period, Easyway rebranded to Epic Tea nationally, becoming one of several beverage brands managed by multinational parent company, Eternal Passion, who also own dessert chain, Meet Fresh.A previous Honi investigation in 2017 uncovered employees were being paid as little as $10 per hour. The USU subsequentlyprobed the shop, findingthat Easyway were paying a lawful wage because of a loophole in certain hospitality awards which allows staff to be paid 70% of the award rate for training periods of up to three months.The employees which Honi spoke to all expressed sentiments of anxiety and apathy. Some referred to a fear of immediate victimisation and chose not to participate in Honis survey. One employee suggested there was a wider underpayment problem on campus, with other campus outlets, including those in the Wentworth Building food court allegedly also engaging in underpayment.USU president Connor Wherrett told Honi the USU takes its legal responsibilities extremely seriously and has already begun investigating Epic Tea.At Board last week we confirmed that we will be working with other campus bodies, including the Uni, to better inform students about this. Underpayment equals theft, pure and simple. Education is the first step. Just last week, the USU distributed a note reminding Epic Tea and other tenants of their legal obligations.Although underpayment is illegal, it may allow international students to evade certain conditions of their student visas, including the restriction of 40 hours of work per fortnight. However, this risks a breach of visa conditions and deportation.Reporting underpayment can risk admitting to a breach ofvisaconditions, leaving international students particularly vulnerable to wage theft and workplace exploitation.One international student at USyd shared her experience working at Chatime two years ago with Honi, mentioning that she was paid $10 an hour during a trial which lasted an entire month, and $13 an hour thereafter. We were cheap labour, being exploited and terribly underpaid.The boss was also an international student at Usyd. She hired employees who just arrived in Australia and who did not understand their working rights.The student then complained to Chatimes head office but received no response.Epic Teas underpayment of staff comes after restauranteur George Calombaris withheld $7.8 million from workers at his restaurants and a national Fairfax investigation into Chatime revealed wage theft of millions of dollars from international student employees.Epic Tea will not be continuing as a USU tenant after this year for unrelated reasons, but campus is set to welcome a new tea outlet in semester two. Chinese brand Cha Li is expected to set up alongside the Co-Op bookshop.Honi invited comment from Eternal Passion, but received no response at the time of publication.Not sure how much youre supposed to be paid? Use the Pay Calculator here or call the Fair Work Ombudsman on 13 13 94 (For interpreters, call the Telephone and Interpreting Service first on 131 450).Are you being underpaid on campus? Make an anonymous complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman.The SRC also offers a free legal service available to all University of Sydney students. You can read its employment law fact sheet here.Got an anonymous tip about an employer on campus? Send us a tip here. Well keep it confidential. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At 8:00am on a Thursday morning a University of Sydney Masters student received a phone call from a private debt collector. A debt from Centrelink has been passed on to us, the caller said. We highly recommend that you start a payment plan with us today or we will have to start charging you interest. The phone call arrived the morning after a lengthy phone call Meg had conducted with a department representative. Centrelink had confirmed once again that her $2000 debt would be paused for appeal. This was well into the third appeals process she had requested and the third time Centrelink had slightly diminished her debt since a series of false debt letters began arriving in her mailbox in early 2018. This experience isnt unusual and its not particularly new either. In 2017, the Commonwealth Ombudsman conducted an inquiry into Centrelinks automated debt allocation system or Online Compliance Intervention (OCI). The investigation revealed a series of flaws in the systems operation and, in turn, outlined a fairly loose set of recommendations to suggest further improvement. Two years on and hundreds of citizens still receive unexplained, vague and false debt letters. Students on youth allowance are amongst the largest demographics most affected by these robo-debts.Meg called the department again. This time it was to get clarification on how on one end, Centrelink was assuring her that her debt was being reassessed and on the other, a debt collector was confirming that a payment plan must begin immediately. We apologise for this, said yet another Centrelink representative. Your debt was paused as a result of its reassessment, but once the reassessment time limit has ended (a period of 3 months) our system automatically unpauses the debt and passes it on to a debt to a collector.Since the government first introduced the automated system, thousands of debt letters are sent out weekly to citizens on welfare and youth allowance. It is widely considered (by the Australian Unemployed Workers Union (AUWU) in particular,) that up to 90% of these assumed debts turn out to be false. Fees can span anywhere between six hundred and three thousand dollars and they are all reasoned under Centrelinks claims of overpayment while on youth allowance. The debts are diminished gradually but rarely halted, and if they are, it is always due to frustratingly long processes of contestation from the individuals falsely assigned this debt.It is on the onus of the individual affected to respond and prove the system wrong. The problem is, in the case of welfare recipients, many are overworked, living without an occupation or surviving without a roof over their head. Students under youth allowance are away from home, studying full time and trying to look after themselves. If these individuals are unable to revise payslips and other documentation asked of Centrelink from up to seven years old, the organisation will simply continue to charge interest on that persons debt. Ironically, Centrelink auto culls all letters from MyGov after a period of twenty four months. As a result, Centrelink can never offer much aid to those searching for their own documentation and there is no guarantee that they can be accessed by Freedom of Information (FOI) or any legal department. The process sees organisation #notmydebt, continue to encourage individuals on welfare to retain all financial documentation in the likely advent that they are sent a debt letter in the coming months.Honi conducted an anonymous survey collecting the opinions of recipients on Centrelink welfare payments from a series of online forums including Not for profit organisation #notmydebts private Facebook group. It was perhaps unsurprising to find that 53.3% of these recipients were under 35 and 40% were between the ages of 26-30. 73.3% of recipients said they were on youth allowance when they started receiving debt letters. 100% of these letters were confirmed to be under claims of overpayment. It is understandable, that in the online forums of Facebook and Twitter, a higher demographic of young people engaged with Honis survey. But it is also perhaps fair to outline that in the case of students on youth allowance, particularly those from rural areas living on or around campus, are amongst some of the most vulnerable within this system. 73% of students surveyed admitted that they had no awareness of their own responsibility to follow up with Centrelink and prove their debt as false, while 46.7% revealed they had not begun a process of appeal with the organisation even after more than half of those surveyed had been dealing with robodebts for up to 2 years.The various ways individuals experience and deal with their false Centrelink debts comes down to a range of societal and personal factors. Meg, outrightly refuses to pay her false debt. They [Centrelink] claim that when I first moved from home to Sydney to study at University I wasnt correctly reporting my income. Theyre talking about a period from January to February when I first moved to Sydney. But I didnt have a Centrelink account so how could I be reporting anything, she said. They clearly assume that the money I was making while on my gap year was the money I was making while starting University. Which is not the case. Its obviously a flaw in the system and Im not paying it. Meg moved to Sydney with savings and support from her parents. She is also able to get advice and ongoing support from family and friends regarding this debt. For many, this is not the case.In Honis survey 53.3% of individuals stated that they had paid a debt that they still believe to be false. An anonymous general comment said I just started paying back the debt, even though I [still] think its wrong because I didnt know what else to do. Im $2000 through a $4000 payment and its nearly killing me (and I dont mean that in a problematic metaphorical way I mean literally financial stress is incredibly triggering for me). An anonymous comment Honi received in the early release of the survey simply states it seemed legitimate at the time. Various other recipients are simply exhausted by the system. One said, Fortunately, I was in a financial position where paying off the debt was a smaller price to pay compared to the mental and emotional cost of fighting a welfare system designed to tire you out through attrition. Regarding these varied reverse onus processes, a spokesperson from the organisation #notmydebt told Honi I find the deliberate abuse of the trust and ignorance of vulnerable and disadvantaged people [by Centrelink] to be totally abhorrent.Since the Ombudsmans Inquiry, Centrelink requests that those owing funds ask for a review of the debt from within 28 days of receiving a debt letter. Students do not receive calls from Centrelink directly, assumably as a result of an understaffed system that simply does not have the funds or resources to give any further care to its recipients. The system leaves little room for human error, over crowded student schedules or casual indifference to the debts. In a statement to Honi Centrelink said Anyone who has received a letter regarding a debt can call us on the phone number on their letter if they have any questions or require further assistance. In a follow up correspondence with Centrelink Honi was told Our priority is always to any customers who are experiencing issues. We would genuinely like to help them. If the students you mentioned have already called our department and have additional concerns, we can arrange for them to be contacted by a staff member to follow-up further. Centrelink denied any further comment on the specifics of the robo-debt system.The OCI system itself was hastily introduced by the Coalition government in 2016. It was a fairly rushed procedure with little consultation with the organisation and its workers. Unions were not contacted and the implementation clearly left room for substantial error, error felt exponentially across the professional sector, citizens on welfare and union representatives. The Public Service Association of NSW (PSA) told Honi Mandatory staffing caps provided by the coalition government really impact Centrelinks ability to run productively. These automated systems were not developed with the workers in mind and they were not developed with the recipients of welfare in mind either, they said. This kind of work needs to be done by real people with a focus and knowledge of the support needed [by recipients] for this kind of work. An automated system simply cannot provide this.The emergence of such a system is primarily a result of serious staffing cuts to the sector, which is a view shared by the AUWU and PSA. 5000 Centrelink staff have been sacked over the last 5 years and in lieu, Centrelink has been unable to keep up with the demand for its services.My debt with Centrelink has gone through a number of stages of reassessment and appeal, and the debt has been reduced multiple times over the past 8 months, Meg explains. Every time the debt gets reassessed, I ask the customer service representative what the original reason for the debt is, and they can never give me a logical answer. A vast majority of students suffering with these debt letters share similar stories. 86.7% of individuals surveyed by Honi say they have not had their debt cleared by Centrelink, while 60% of those surveyed were contacted by debt collectors at least once. 80% of respondents had called Centrelink to argue their debt several times.For so many it seems an end is never really in sight. In March of this year The Saturday Paper wrote a piece on the incredibly damaging pressure that the robo-debt process brings to those on welfare. The piece outlined that Greens senator Rachel Siewert told an estimates hearing she had received notice of at least five people that have taken their own lives directly related to having received correspondence related to online compliance. Centrelink ensures on their website that if [individuals] are not happy with the outcome of the review, [they can] either make a complaint to the commonwealth ombudsman or appeal through the court. But it is this process of dissection and the particularly harrowing stress of financial burden in the first place that really highlights the problematic elements of these automated systems and the way Centrelink representatives are trained to operate regarding these systems. On top of all this, individuals are simply looking for the reasoning behind why their debts have arisen, a central point that so many Centrelink representatives simply cannot answer. I have provided them with all the documentation they asked for such as pay slips and separation certificates, and every time I do, I continue to ask what the reason for the original debt was, with no response, said Meg. The findings of The Saturday Paper piece shares similarities with the feelings of those still involved in Centrelink debt disputes. Of those surveyed, 93.3% said the letters made them feel stressed, 80% said the debt made them feel alone and unsupported and 60% said the process made them feel depressed. Those surveyed also described their experiences with these debts as leaving them feeling helpless, and causing a lot of unnecessary anxiety and stress.Meg said shes cried over the phone to Centrelink representatives because its just so frustrating. By the time you get to speak to someone, the person on the phone can only tell you whats on the screen in front of them and usually passes you on to someone else. Its mentally and emotionally exhausting, she said. I always reported my income accurately and accepted the fact that centrelink would no longer support me when I started my Masters. So to receive a huge debt of almost $2000, and for absolutely no one to be able to give me a reason as to why I was receiving the debt, made me angry, she said.Honi reached out to the University of Sydney for comment, to which they said, we are able to provide supporting documentation for any student who wishes to challenge incorrect information being held by Centrelink in relation to their enrolment.This can include providing a letter confirming enrolment details for a previous year, or students can access a certificate of current enrolment via Sydney Student at any time, they said. We encourage any students distressed by these letters to contact our student support services or CAPS for assistance. Of the students Honi talked to, many did not even consider contacting student services as they see their Centrelink responsibilities as detached from their university enrolment, study and counselling services available. This is unfortunate, as the Student Representative Council (SRC) caseworkers are particularly knowledgeable on the operations and issues associated with Centrelinks brick wall. There is a wider discussion to be had on the worldwide issues of online automated debt systems. In early 2017 the United Nations (UN) also included in its ICESCR final submission an outline of the effect of the debts on everyday Australians. It is believed that the UN looks to investigate this issue globally in the years to come. Thus, it seems absurd that in a society where major corporations regularly tax evade, a government organisation continues to falsely prosecute some of our most vulnerable citizens. An automated system cannot understand personal context, emotional suffering, abuse or student mental health. It doesnt recognise a delayed appeals process almost halted by overcrowded Centrelink phone lines. Individuals need the human responses of a well-trained representative to be authorising and confirming these debts. The system cannot continue to function as an organiser of welfare recipients owings, until it fixes its series of fatal flaws. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In my old place of work, I witnessed something beautiful. As summers sedated half-light crept down Castlereagh Streets carbon monoxide-laden lanes one day, a crowd of ibis glided over my head in a v-shaped pattern. It was an unearthly sight, far removed from the bins they predominantly call home.But in truth, I havent always admired the ibis.The very first in-joke of my USyd experience was laughing at their plight. I developed my first sense of belonging by partaking in the collective mockery of their evolutionary quirks. Sitting on the lawn, it became a recurring social exercise to point out the creatures pungent odour, its disproportionate features and penchant for litter. The ibis was the subject of ridicule, a meme normalised by faculty mentors and friends. It encroached on human land as a larcenous delinquent and a feral intruder. We merely tolerated it, and at any moment, we would declare it a pest, and vanquish it from this world, justly.Occasionally, the joke transgressed this benign disrespect, and swelled into something more twisted active distaste and unquestioned malice.In 2016, around 20,000 people clicked going or interested on the International Glare at Ibises Day.Show general distaste towards Ibises, the event description read.When the anti-ibis movement subconsciously constructs the ibis as a trespasser, a thief or a homeless vagrant which wanders the urban environment for human scraps, it buys into the system of human exceptionalism which dismisses anthropocentric climate change, and the real impacts of habitat destruction. In the age-old brand of human hubris, it erases the fact that human urbanisation into Sydneys swamps and wetlands resulted in deforestation and destruction of the ibis home in the first place. Deprived of its natural dietary preference for crayfish, mussels, and insects, the ibis has taken refuge in our cities, resigned to living an atomised life as a bin chicken. Ptolemys discredited geocentric theory of the universe persists in our hatred of the ibis.All this represents the moral case for a free ibis state, an Ibistopia, a res publica exclusively for the campus ibis community, carved out of none other than modern-day Victoria Park a utopia with enough water for breeding and insects for eating for years to come. This is the case for returning the ibis home.Although the universes arc of justice favours the ibis, the legal requirements are less encouraging.To acquire statehood, the community must wade into the International Court of Justice in The Hague. This itself is a perilous journey. This journey alone should take the crowd up to 20 days including rest breaks at their respectable average speed of 40 kilometres per hour.Once they arrive in the Peace Palace, there will be no time to waddle. The Ibis must prove under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States that it has; a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government and the capacity to enter into state relations.Unlike The Vatican, ibis actually have a self-sustained population with estimates of more than 10,000 in Sydney alone according to the ABC although as many as 25,000 roamed the wild in 1983. Though there remain border skirmishes, its territory is sufficient in consistency across campus and Victoria Park to mitigate the need for clearly settled borders. No long-term studies have yet established that the ibis community has an effective government but animals have acquired statehood before.Dr Rowan Nicholson of Sydney Law School told Honi that one historical precedent may be the Mangani who organised into a confederal monarchy as late as the 1910s.But there may be legally pertinent differences between primates and long-legged wading birds, so this precedent may not be applicable, said Dr Nicholson.The final issue remains the sovereign status of the ibis community. The Australian White Ibis happens to have a preexisting relationship with the Australian state. Conservation legislation including the 1974 National Parks and Wildlife Act recognise the ibis protected status. If the Australian government were to recognise Ibistopia, that may at least make Ibistopia binding in Australian eyes.The practical reality for the ibis is, albeit, more difficult.Since the Emu War of 1932, there has been little evidence in Australian practice that it is willing to tolerate avian secessionism, said Dr Nicholson.For now, the humble bin chicken can only dream of a state of its own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On the Western half of the Camperdown campus, tucked away from student throngs on Eastern Avenue, there is a 90-year old cottage with an unassuming red brick veneer. It sits at the top of Grose Farm Lane, a pedestrian walkway from Western Avenue to the Charles Perkins Centre. Nestled in the trees, The Cottage has a vantage of the University Oval and on cosy afternoons, sunlight filters down the lane onto its two-metre-high, black aluminium fencing. On the Universitys online campus map, The Cottage is simply called The Sydney University Sport Cottage (Residence) D10.For the past 22 years, The Cottage has been home to Bruce Ross. Between 1991 and 2017, Ross served as the President of Sydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF). After his term ended, he stayed in The Cottage. He continues to reside in it today.In 2015, Honi Soit Editor Alexi Polden reported that The Cottage had been leased to Ross in an arrangement which saw Ross pay around $316 a week, and $16,461 per year. The arrangement was listed in SUSFs 2014 Financial Statement with the property a source of SUSF income under the entry Grounds. Polden reported that The Cottage boasts 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms along with convenient proximity to cafes, transport options and the Sydney CBD.At the time, both Ross and SUSF Executive Director Robert Smithies joined the Uni in refusing to comment on questions surrounding the lease.SUSFs latest financial documents submitted to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission in mid-2018 make no explicit mention of the leases value although income derived from it may well fall within other income.As part of an ongoing investigation, Honi can now confirm that Ross continues to lease The Cottage at below-market rates in 2019. Documents seen by Honi suggest that Ross currently pays a total of $25,319 per annum with weekly costs of around $487. Honi can reveal that Ross lease is currently in a holding over status as SUSF enters negotiations with the Unis Campus and Infrastructure Services for a lease extension.SUSF oversees various properties and engages in certain commercial lease agreements occasionally as a co-licensor with the Uni. The Cottage, however, appears to be the only residential lease agreement in place.The rental cost of the The Cottage was determined through a rental review conducted in 2016 and subsequent independent market advice in 2019. Whilst it remains unclear who requested the 2019 market advice, Honi understands that advice suggested that the market had not moved since 2016. The rental value did increase commensurate to inflation per the occupation agreement according to SUSFs 2017 Financial Report.Usually, a rental review will involve a comparison of the relevant property with similar properties in the area. Reviews are generally conducted at least every two years by landlords, often marking the end of a fixed-term lease. In SUSFs 2019 Tenant Register, no mention is made of a rental review being conducted prior to 2016. SUSF President James Flynn told Honi I cannot recall a rental review on the cottage being brought to the attention of the Management Committee during the three years I have served as a member, nor to me in my capacity as President.According to the Tenants Union of New South Wales, the median rental price for 4+ bedroom house in Camperdown in 2018 was $1,200. It is unclear what method led the independent reviewer to a final figure of $487, or 40% of the market rate. However, even where one reviewer did arrive at a price considerably lower than market averages, questions should be raised over the number of opinions SUSF sought.A SUSF spokesperson told Honi that the rate was made on the basis of the propertys several problems, including, SUSFs use of part of the property for its own storage purposes, serious disruption caused by the extensive capital works program and multiple power shutdowns and water shutdowns.Honi reached out to SUSFs Executive Director, Robert Smithies and Bruce Ross, for comment on the rental review process. No comment was received in time for publication.A University spokesperson refused to comment on whether the University was aware of rental reviews conducted of the property from 1993 to 2016.The below-market rate may not be the only perk attached to The Cottage. A University spokesperson confirmed that the The Cottages phone lines are provided by ICT, and that it would be possible to access university wifi from The Cottage if the resident holds a valid Unikey as a staff member, student, contractor or affiliate.The University Senate may have conferred affiliate status to Ross when he was made an Honorary Fellow in 2003.Had SUSF charged Ross the median market rate for the property over the last three years, they would have pocketed an additional $150,000 in income. If this pattern of paying below market-rates had spanned across the entirety of Ross tenancy period from 1993, that figure would be close to $1,000,000. The impact of potentially lost revenue is significant. SUSF ran a $163,494 deficit a year after the rental review was conducted.Clause 84 of the SUSF Constitution requires the Management Committee to engage a person who is accountable for the proper financial management of the organisation. In light of SUSFs deficits in 2015 and 2017, it is unclear whether this person considered generating substantial rental income from The Cottage.Clause 20 bars office bearers, including the President, from receiving any remuneration. If remuneration includes heavily subsidised rental, then it would seem Ross tenancy arrangement during his presidential term, was unconstitutional.Regardless, the fact that SUSF has entered into any rental arrangement with members of its Management Committee lends itself to possible conflicting interests.For example, SUSFs Executive Director, the only paid office-bearer of the organisation, is appointed by The Management Committee of which the President is a member. It is feasibly in their personal interest to curry favour with the President and theoretically support a pre-existing beneficial rental agreement.Such structural problems also apply to SUSFs three trustees, who are also appointed by the Management Committee. Trustees hold office at the pleasure of the Management Committee and have the power to enter into contracts on behalf of SUSF, with the Committees prior approval. This leads to a possible situation where a trustee, acting on behalf of SUSF, may negotiate the terms of a rental contract with a person who is partially responsible for their appointment.Honi makes no claim that office bearers, the executive director, or the trustees have acted in an illegal or improper manner.A SUSF spokesperson denied that Smithies was involved in the review process and emphasised that SUSFs accounts are externally audited on an annual basis and that rental reviews are conducted periodically.Consideration should also be given to USyds role in SUSFs governance. USyd apportions over $5,000,000 of student money to SUSF and employs both the executive director and financial manager. The appointment of the former requires approval from the Vice-Chancellor. Yet, a Uni spokesperson told Honi that the Uni had no involvement with the property, which is managed by SUSF.USyd ought to exercise oversight over the financial management of SUSF as a body formed through a resolution of the University Senate.SUSF is a perfect example of where USyd can foreseeably improve student wellbeing outcomes, for example, by further subsidising membership costs. As it stands, SUSF remains an institution characterised by opaque governance that is relatively inaccessible to most students.The problem with The Cottage isnt merely that its occupied by a former president under favourable circumstances. Rather, it is symptomatic of SUSFs constitutional shortcomings and more damningly, the Universitys negligent attitude towards providing real improvements in student amenities.SUSF BackgroundSydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF) administers USyds sporting clubs, organises sporting events on campus, and provides facilities, scholarships, and programs to student athletes, including the Elite Athletes Program. SUSF is a registered charity with more than 200 employees and more than 500 volunteers as of 2017. It consistently tops more than $10,000,000 in financial income annually. In 2017, it held net financial assets valued at $28,000,000. As a partially self-funded entity, SUSF currently charges USyd students $50 for annual membership. The bulk of SUSFs funding is derived from every students Student Services and Amenities Fee contribution, with SUSF receiving the biggest slice annually, including $5,000,000 in 2018.Key players: Robert Smithies Robert Smithies has been SUSFs Executive Director since 2008 and holds responsibility for the organisations day-to-day operation. In that capacity, he sits at the top of every reporting line at SUSF, according to its 2018 Organisational Chart. Smithies also sits on the Universitys Student Consultative Committee and the SUSF Management Committee which dictates the high-level strategy and operations of the organisation. In 2016, evidence before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal revealed that Smithies was on the Universitys payroll alongside Aleksandra Pozder, SUSFs Finance Manager. The same year saw allegations made that Smithies was subject to a conflict of interest as a representative of SUSF and an employee of the University.Key players: Bruce RossBruce Ross was President of SUSF between 1991 and 2017. At an annual University Blues Awards night in 2016, Robert Smithies said Ross would be remembered for his relationships with people, particularly with athletes and coaches, many of whom Ross mentored and guided over the years. Ross has previously fallen under the spotlight on matters beyond his residence in The Cottage. An extensive investigation in 2015 found Ross was operating his business, Bruce Ross Consulting, out of The Cottage, and that he was the director of MyoQuip Pty Ltd, a company which provided equipment to SUSF. Ross denied allegations that a conflict of interest arose out of any of these relationships.A history of controversySUSF has had no shortage of drama in recent times. When Bruce Ross quarter-century leadership of SUSF ended in 2017, the heir apparent was former USU Board Director and Liberal party staffer, James Flynn, who came into the role on the back of a significant campaign promising college students free gym memberships. In 2018, Honi reported that internal divisions within SUSF had been sparked by animosity between Flynn and Smithies on the question of incorporating SUSF which, if advanced, would have compromised Smithies role as Executive Director. Honi is yet to verify the fact that conflict between two senior figures of SUSF may have led the University to outsource an independent investigation into SUSF in 2018. In late-2018, SUSF retained an independent consultant to review its governance structures and investigate the possibility of incorporation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The microwaves at Fisher Library have gone missing. In their quake, two A4 signs stand, boasting the ever-familiar returning to services soon. The university has said that the problem with these microwaves have been reported and will be fixed as soon as possible. To the occasional passerby, this may seem like just another destined malfunction due to the myriad of abuses faced by all microwaves every single day. However, the truth as to why these microwaves have gone missing for a period of time is a rather menacing one. You see, Fisher is infested with cockroaches.It has been about two months since I first witnessed this phenomenon. It is a magnificent sight to open a Fisher microwave at 2AM and to find that it is already occupied by eight cockroaches. They are of the German variety. Tiny bodies sheltered by the finest of glossy tan coats, and two fashionable black stripes on the pronotum. As startled as I was, I was not surprised. Given the negligence of the librarys communal areas, as well as the aggregation of people who use the facility, having one or two Gregor Samsas that may have snuck in to find refuge from the grating conditions outside is a given.However, due to the species of cockroach found, I since have realised that this migration is very, very bad news. If there is anything thats to be known about the German Cockroach, its that they can only survive within buildings, and they reproduce at an extremely fast rate. Females can carry up to 40 eggs within the ootheca, and within a month those eggs hatch. The fact that I found around eight of these cockroaches, varying in different sizes and colour meant that there was a whole population of them, lurking within the structures of Fisher Library.I was unaware of this fact then, and did not proceed to report on this problem as the same microwaves were replaced the very next day when I came to the library. Naively, I believed that the problem had been taken care of. Within the next 2 months, I moved into a home with proper working internet, so I did not need to visit thelibrary as often as I had before. The thoughts of tiny Gregor Samsas also slipped away from my mind, guiltlessly, like all of my 2018 assignments. It was a joyous time in my life. However, like all things, the halcyon did not last.In the beginning of March, I found myself at Fisher again. On the upper-levels, it now boasted sets of brand-new study desks an effort to utilise more space to accommodate the rising amount of Fisher-heads. It was when I was visually appreciating these new additions did a fast-moving brown engine speed right across the carpeted floor of 4th level Fisher South. Only this time, the thing was big. Did Gregor grow? I asked myself. But this was not a German cockroach. It was an entirely different species.A thing to know about cockroach infestations is that when the population of one species reaches an exceedingly high number, it will attract other species of cockroaches to the same location. What I saw then was probably an Australian Cockroach. Voluptuous looking, with darker tones. While their reproduction rate is slower than their German counterpart, the fact that they had also come to relish upon the copious amount of rotten food in Fisher was a rather worrying situation. I was not quick to conclude that the library was possibly facing a major infestation yet. So within the next few weeks, I began to document any cockroaches that I came across in Fisher library at night.If it is not yet a major infestation, the cockroach population will be confined to the lower levels of the library, I deduced. My hypothesis being that they would enter through the main entrance and stop at the kitchen in their search for food, and having found it, would not need to go any higher. Not to mention that the upper-levels are usually much colder in temperature, and would not be the ideal environment for a cockroach.What I found was the repulsive truth that I had been too terrified to accept. There are cockroaches on all levels of Fisher. The kitchen on the lower floor is no longer enough to sustain their growing population. Their hunger now pushes them upwards.The most lovely incident occurred on the 8th level one day. I was at one of the desks that occupied the side-walls, next to the thin, vertical windows, when I heard a peculiar noise. It was coming out of somewhere next to me. A rather high, child-like shriek that resonated with a distinct vibration. Like the quiet vroom of a toy motorbike. It came out of the space between the window and the wall. I bend down to take a closer look. Then swiftly, two long antennae wiggled out from the dark cracks. Before my eyes, a loud, yelling specimen, gigantic in stature. A cockroach who would not shut up despite knowing full-well that it was in the quiet section. A tad rude, I must say.What is strange is that most species of cockroaches do not normally make noise. But however, when they do, it is to attract a mate. Yes, you guessed it. Fisher is now a love hotel for roaches. A horrible, erotic discovery. And as much as I enjoy the acoustic vibrations created by horny cockroach musicians, I must now conclude that the library has a cockroach infestation.You probably will not see them when you are there during the day. But the problem remains their population is increasing, and it will not be long until it becomes a major infestation.From my late night observations, I note three main species of cockroaches free-loading within these walls.The German Cockroach, the Australian Cockroach, and the Smoky Brown CockroachAll three of these species possess different habits, aesthetics and lifestyles. Bu tone thing they share is that they all cherish Fisher library and its unkempt bins, dirty toilets, food in sinks, and splatter of rotten sustenance within the microwaves.I am not the only nor the first person who has noticed this issue. Many students have also reported it, but no actions have been taken yet. But even if something was to be done, Fisher will repeatedly be faced with the same fate if we continue to leave it in the condition that it is now. We have all contributed to the metamorphosis of Fisher into a cockroach paradise. A certain suggestion is to remove the communal dining area completely as it seems to be impossible to ever keep the space clean. That still leaves the array of bins that always turn into a mountain of decaying matter by the end of each day (they dont get cleaned out until the early hours of the morning).As for now, Fisher remains an ideal site for student entomologists. Unlike the lonely walls of his bedroom, within this environment, many Gregor Samsas will continue to thrive. And we are reminded once again of the collective responsibility we must have for our communal spaces. We cannot simply sleep a little longer and forget about this nonsense. The roaches of Fisher are moving upstairs, and unless we care enough, there is nothing that will stop them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydneys (USyd) misconduct system exists to ensure that students behave in an appropriate and respectful manner. But does the misconduct system treat students appropriately and respectfully? Is the process one that provides comfort for the vulnerable and delivers justice to the deserving, or can the system itself be used for nefarious interpersonal or political ends? Honi uncovers a sinister side to the system where student welfare is left by the wayside.Defined in the Universitys Student Discipline Rule (SDR), misconduct generally amounts to breaches of various USyd policies, covering a wide array of issues ranging from bullying and harassment to academic honesty, and additionally relying on the Code of Conduct for Students. The SDR also stipulates that prejudic[ing] the good order and government of the University, and prejudic[ing] the good name or academic standing of the University amounts to misconduct.Much of this policy is vague and therefore open to considerable interpretation. Whilst the majority of University policy is written with benign intentions, opaque wording facilitates an easier route for vexatious and politicised complaints to be levelled at students. This is particularly the case with issues of speech. It is quite a subjective matter to determine what reasonable or non-offensive speech is when this is not discriminatory on identity grounds, such as gender, race or sexual orientation. Moreover, with a considerable rise in dubious complaints, these policies effectively work as speech codes where students may not say things they otherwise would have, ultimately curbing democratic free speech on campus.Data from the last three years shows a surge in Student Affairs Unit (SAU) cases. Numbers from 2015 and 2016 remained practically unchanged, with 56 and 52 cases respectively. This increased more than fourfold in 2017 with 224 cases. Whilst part of this is attributable to the centralisation of the Special Consideration process in 2016, which saw the SAU begin to deal with issues of contract cheating, falsification of documents, and serious plagiarism, the rise is certainly, in part, due to reports of vexatious and politicised misconduct complaints. Data from 2017 also shows quite a significant decrease in the percentage of penalties being applied to students, which in part corroborates recent reports of problematic complaints. Additionally, as a result of the centralisation of the Special Consideration process and the dramatic increase in complaints, cases are being drawn out for longer periods of time, negatively impacting complainants and respondents alike, with misconduct cases often taking several months, or close to a year.Data from 2018 has not yet been disclosed to the Academic Board, however, Director of Education Strategy and Acting Registrar, Peter McCallum told Honi that the information release date would be brought forward to an earlier date than last year. When asked about the figures, McCallum said, it is too early to say if there is an increase or reduction in misconduct cases. The caseload of complaints has been high, but I dont yet have figures on how many of the complaints turned into misconduct matters. Honi has heard that 2018 misconduct cases allegedly surpassed those from 2017 during Semester Two last year.The Australian Human Rights Commissions National Report into Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at Australian Universities released in 2017 found deeply concerning figures. 94 per cent of students who were sexually harassed did not report the matter to their university, and 87 per cent of students who were sexually assaulted did not report. The report also found that only 6 per cent of students thought their university was doing enough to provide a clear direction on sexual harassment procedures and support services, and 62 per cent had little or no knowledge on how to make a formal report or complaint to their university.Honi can reveal that the SAU dealt with five cases pertaining to sexual assault and harassment in 2017 and none of these resulted in a penalty being imposed on the respondent. In one case, a respondent allegedly appealed their initial finding of misconduct via the Student Disciplinary Appeals Committee (SDAC), where the University then decided the respondent was not guilty of misconduct (in this case, of committing indecent assault) on the balance of probabilities due to a lack of CCTV footage. USyds complaint system allows a complainant to appeal the outcome of a complaint. However, in the case of an investigation for misconduct, an appeal by the complainant is virtually impossible, as the complainants appeal rights stop there. Moreover, most complainants are generally not made aware of the reasons for an outcome due to privacy issues. As Peter McCallum put it to Honi, the complainant has no automatic right to information about the misconduct outcome and no right to appeal it. The only person who can appeal the outcome of a misconduct investigation to the SDAC is the student against whom a finding has been made.Applying this to the data above, a survivor of sexual assault or a victim of sexual harassment is not made aware of the reasons as to whether the respondent has been found to have engaged in misconduct or not, and it is only the respondent who can appeal such a decision. USyds process contravenes the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agencys (TEQSA) standards as articulated in both the Higher Education Standards Policy and The National Code of Practice, which both contain clauses on appeals. This policy specifies that the complainant gets the outcome in writing in order to have sufficient information to lodge an appeal. TEQSA, as the Australian government agency which regulates and assures the quality of Australias higher education sector, has the power to affect a universitys registration and access to federal funding.In addition to this issue of procedural fairness, the impact that powerful third party non University actors wield over the process has recently become apparent. Last year, NSW Labor MLC Greg Donnelly lobbied the University to suspend 2018 SRC Womens Officer Madeline Ward for participating in a pro-choice protest on campus. Given SAU misconduct proceedings are meant to be confidential, the fact that details of this case travelled from the complainant to the powerful halls of Macquarie Street, whether directly or indirectly, is a worrying threat to student welfare and democratic protest on campus. Ward was suspended for a semester for undermining the good order and government of the University and the good name or academic standing of the University. The suspension was eventually downgraded to a written warning.James*, who went through a politicised misconduct case that included an investigation, was found not to have engaged in behaviour that amounted to misconduct. He says the process caused [him] a lot of stress and anxiety, which was no doubt the reason [he] was targeted by the complainant. Its a great way to bully people and abuse them under a veil of legitimacy. He added that whilst he was lucky to have an understanding of the SRCs legal services, a secure housing situation and a stable income as well as professional experience as a support person in similar disciplinary meetings he believes that without these aspects of privilege, the outcome may not have been in [his] favour.Whilst neither complainant nor respondent, Katie* was called to give evidence for two cases, describing the constant calls and communication from the University to make times for interviews as very stressful, adding that whilst [she] was informed that [she] did not have to give evidence, [she] felt obliged to.The system has also shown itself to be vulnerable to considerable administrative errors. Billie* was misidentified in a case filed with the SAU. She then had to prove that she was not the person in question, which meant providing evidence that she was not on University grounds at the time. Her proof was her Opal card history showing she was at Redfern Station and could not have walked to USyd fast enough to be in the area at the time where the incident took place.After a ten month long process which included an investigation, Lisa* met with Peter McCallum, who informed her she did not breach policy which amounted to misconduct. Three weeks later, she received an email purporting to be from the SAU outlining that a decision had been reached, and was attached to the email. No decision was attached, the email contained a suspicious typo, and the style was generally more informal than previous correspondence. Distressed, she contacted the SAU, worried that the system might have been compromised given the personal nature of her complaint. The SAU replied a day later informing her it was an administrative error. Lisa* remains skeptical of this explanation.It seems increasingly obvious to those who have experienced the misconduct system firsthand, whether as complainants, respondents or witnesses, that it is in need of serious reform. The students who Honi spoke to offered the following non-exhaustive list of suggestions:The complainant should have the right to be provided with written reasons for any outcome, including a decision not to investigateA free solicitor should be afforded to all students undergoing disciplinary proceedings, or at the very least information about the SRC and SUPRAs legal servicesA clearer understanding of how meetings operate, your rights and responsibilitiesSubstantive questions provided prior to the disciplinary meetingPrejudicing the good order and government of the University and prejudicing the good name or academic standing of the University should not be considered misconductThe SAU should review its current procedures for addressing vexatious and politicised complaintsThe SAU should review its administrative proceduresThe University should tighten policies around speech codes to allow for a more democratic campusThe Student Code of Conduct should remove positive standards for student behaviour. For example, requiring students to have the highest standards of ethical behaviour.Ultimately, the only people benefiting from the current system are the lawyers from WorkDynamic that the University contracts out to undertake investigations.*Names have been anonymised. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Shonda Rhimes Regency-era romp, Bridgerton, has well and truly superseded any label of being simply a guilty pleasure. Unlike some of its period drama predecessors, Bridgerton has a hell of a lot of influence, with spades of think pieces being written (much like this one), rumours of eight seasons filling Facebook feeds and Netflix declaring that the show is its biggest series ever, with eighty-two million households globally watching it within the first month of its release after Christmas day.Though Bridgerton may not be a guilty pleasure, the show certainly generated a lot of pleasure, and perhaps guilt. Both viewers and characters were addicted to scintillating romantic scenes think three-minute sex montage, lavish interiors and costuming, as well as just the right number of dramatic entrances and exits at each visually spectacular ball. However, whilst watching the show I couldnt help questioning whether I should be ashamed of enjoying it so much. Can someone who calls themself a feminist wholeheartedly enjoy a period piece like Bridgerton for the entertainment it represents while still being critical of the gender politics it portrays?For those who havent watched the show, which by Netflixs statistics must be a pretty small number, Bridgerton details the rise and fall of several society-driven families and individuals, mainly the Bridgertons, Featheringtons and then the hunky Duke of Hastings. Theres tonnes of taffeta, tears and (sexual) tension juxtaposed with a loosely historical setting during the year 1813 under King George the Third. There are vague references to an ongoing war, but obviously, the show isnt touting its historical accuracy thats not what its about.Bridgerton attempts to realistically portray the marriage market and the process of 19th-century courting. Evidently, women didnt have much say in who they wanted to marry. They were effectively used as pawns to secure a promising match for their family; financially and socially. In Bridgerton, this inequality manifests itself in a romanticisation of the oppression that women faced. There are secret kisses and longing glances between the unwed, lingering touches in silk embroidered gloves with chaperones present, and an over-dramatized duel at dawn between the Duke of Hastings and one of the Bridgerton brothers over his disgraced sister Daphne.All that is fine. I get it. To show the possibility of love-marriages and the more glamorous sides of an oppressive reality is fair enough. It does make for riveting television and perhaps Im thinking about it all too hard. The show appears to be cognisant of the cruelty that these women faced. Some characters even question these patriarchal structures and the role of women within marriage and society in general.This is mostly represented by Eloise, Daphnes younger and more radical sister. She abstains as long as she can from wearing floor-length dresses and resists the pressure to conform to the scrutiny of entering society.But is her character really enough? Has Eloise just been added in as a token nod to modern society? Or can she genuinely prompt viewers to engage with a safe space for critique about the past, facilitating a thought process of ways to improve the present, as film and television scholar Andrew Higson argues.For every Eloise, there are still the characters whose essence is confined to looking visually appealing. As Simcha Fisher in America Magazine writes, the problem is, much of that sexism and objectification comes from the writing itself.Someone like Siena Rosso, the opera singer, was intriguing. The show could have easily expanded on her career and lust for societal acceptance instead of having her existence revolve around Anthony Bridgerton, who would run back to her anytime something went awry in his personal life.Bridgerton could have done some things better. But one thing it does benefit from is the genre it celebrates, and perhaps revived for a new generation. There is something absolutely engrossing about a period drama. Some may think they are frivolous and fluffy, often disregarded due to having a mainly female viewership, who are seen as engaging in a time-wasting pastime lacking in cultural seriousness.Yet a period dramas power lies in the way it facilitates a watching experience of a time not that dissimilar to ours. It allows audiences to critique what has and hasnt changed, and what issues continue to pervade representations of gender structures within our current society.Some may watch Bridgerton and give absolutely no thought to the female narratives it captures, accepting it as purely plot or storyline. For others, a TV show like Bridgerton may be the very impetus they needed to think about feminism in a non confrontational setting. Either way, both are perfectly acceptable. Thats part of the beauty of television, everyone takes away something different. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Yabun Festival, the largest one-day Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander festival in Australia, was held on Tuesday. Coinciding with Invasion Day rallies on January 26th, the festival provides a space to celebrate First Nations cultures survival and resilience through music, dance, art, and oration.Typically an in-person affair, Yabun 2021 was live streamed due to public gathering restrictions. Nonetheless, the energy at this years festival, as well as the hard work of all organisers, creators and leaders involved, was unparalleled.While Honi editors were busy doing coverage for the Invasion Day rally, I snuck out to attend two of Yabuns speaker panels: Love and Success. Here are the key insights from those discussions.What love means for mob on Invasion DayThe Love panel, moderated by Ken Zulumovski Hon DHSc, Gubbi Gubbi man and founder of Gamarada, explored what love meant for the speakers as First Nations people on Survival Day.William Trewlynn, Nucoorilma and Dunghutti man, spoke about his work as Founding Director and CEO of BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation.He explained that after witnessing the harm experienced by queer Blak people in Sydney, many of whom have come from rural and remote areas looking for a safe environment, he wanted to create a space where queer blackfellas are speaking for ourselves and not being spoken for.This is a really hard and complex space he said, noting that he didnt necessarily love his job in the typical sense. But I have to take it with a grain of salt and understand that were doing this because we want to see betterment for our people.Of course, while love might mean different things to different people, the concept itself may not necessarily translate across languages and cultures.Professor Jaky Troy, Ngarigu woman and Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at Sydney University, spoke about the limits of applying our language of love to First Nations cultures.Saying that she wasnt quite sure how she would say I love you in Ngarigu, she explained that for her, using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in itself was an act of love.In using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, were showing love of Country. They embed you on Country. They give you a sense of place and of people on Country.She also pointed out that her language is based on deep, complicated ways of talking about human relationships that make a place for everybody.We dont strongly gender things, we dont force people into one kind of sexuality or binaries that the English language insists on, she explained. In our languages it is still embodied that we had a connection to everything around us.This mutuality of love and connection to Country was further unpacked by Pastor Ray Minniecon, a Gubbi Gubbi and Gurang Gurang man who has worked with the Stolen Generations for much of his life.Coming from the other side of the 1967 Referendum, Minniecon knew what it was like to live under Aboriginal Protection Acts. You grow up in that trauma. It just becomes natural and normal parts of your story, he explained.He reminded audiences that traumas live with First Nations people to this day, and so the word love is an alienated word for someone who has been forcibly removed.However, Minniecon spoke of experiencing Mothers love through Country. There are spaces and places on Country here that just love you or show you what that love is.Recounting his time in the Jarrah Forest, he said: When I was in there, thats when I experienced the mystery of what we call love, because it was just there. Youre sitting in it. Youre being part of it.Its not about the action or activity of love, its just about being who you are.Talking about success after 233 years of invasionThe Success panel, moderated by Lola Forester, Yuwibara/Australian South Sea Islander woman and journalist, discussed how we could talk about success after centuries of colonial violence.Aunty Norma Ingram, a Wiradjuri Elder who has worked with Aboriginal communities for over 35 years, spoke of success as recognition and truth-telling.She recounted her time growing up on a mission, attending Sunday school and having no electricity, radio or television. Quite frankly, whilst I was on the mission, I felt safe because I was with my family, she said.But I still didnt see how the Welfare Act controlled us. And so many years later when we did leave the reservewe began to see how controlled we were, and saw it in a different light.This experience is one of the main reasons Aunty Norma became an educator, teaching Indigenous and non-Indigenous people about her culture and histories.Success is when the whole of Australia knows, understands, learns and accepts who we are as Aboriginal people and our rightful place in this country she said. I shouldnt have to go anywhere and not be Aboriginal, because thats who I am.The importance of truth-telling also drove Wok Wright, Anaiwan, Dunghutti and Gomeroi man to start the Aboriginal hip-hop band Street Warriors. Speaking about his early days working with communities, he noticed a severe disconnection between young First Nations people and their histories.We talked to the yungfellas about Pemulwuy, Kwementyaye Perkins, and they wouldnt know anything about them he said. But then theyd be able to tell us when 2Pac was born, when he was shot, pretty much everything about different rappers.Recognising that hip-hop is a culture that originated from an oppressed people, Wright said that they used it as a tool and avenue to reach younger people and promote our culture, our Aboriginality.Speakers emphasised that despite First Nations peoples work and successes, justice cant be achieved without reciprocity from settlers.Associate Professor Megan Williams, a Wiradjuri woman and Research Lead and Assistant Director of the National Centre for Cultural Competence, has been doing over 25 years of research on First Nations peoples health and wellbeing in prisons.Pointing to works such as the Uluru Statement from the Heart, she noted hundreds of stories of success of First Nations people taking the lead: Weve got so many solutions identified from an Aboriginal perspective, we know how to do all of that research.Why then do we have prison rates doubling and so much worse in the last 20 years? she asked audiences. Something doesnt add up.In one of the most poignant moments of the panel, Aunty Norma asked: What is it that the rest of Australia is so afraid of? Were 3% of the population, theyve taken most of our land, to which Wright responded: Whenever were aroundand were living and breathing, were reminding [settlers] of the genocide they didnt finish.On that point, the panel concluded with panellists being asked whether they thought that Blak lives would improve in their lifetime. While they couldnt quite say yes, they said that they had hope, with Williams stating: Its contingent onthe 97% being better.You can support Yabun Festival by liking their Facebook page and donating to Gadigal Information Service here. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Viewers familiar with Thomas Vinterbergs The Hunt (2012) will have a very different experience with the Danish directors latest outing. An alcohol-fuelled dark comedy, Another Round explores the consequences of four high school teachers and their experiments with alcohol during work hours. A simple plot that manages to unfold into tragic carnage, its protagonists are deconstructed by their efforts to dive deeper into their indulgence. Vinterberg has crafted a film that is incredibly funny, whilst remaining acutely aware of the complexities of human emotion. The punchlines are strong and the consequences hit hard. A coming of middle-age drama, Vinterberg uses alcohol as a vehicle to confront the internal anxieties born from our feelings of failure.The film opens with a scene familiar to many Australians: a teenage drinking ritual. The Danish high schoolers race in a relay around a lake. Each team member must sink a beer at the different benches along the way, incentivised by the prospect of winning the proceeds from the recycled beer bottles. An incredibly catchy pop song blares over the festivities while the adults watch on in glee. Vinterberg doesnt utilise the scene as a condemnation of youth drinking; instead, it represents a moment of joyous mischief, chaos and unity. It is this attitude of ambivalence that makes Another Round both a celebration of the revelry that can come from the consumption of alcohol, and a meditation on the importance of moderation.This messaging is largely carried by the performance of the films lead, Mads Mikkelsen. Mikkelsen plays a high school history teacher, Martin. A husband and father of two, Martin has slipped into the monotony of middle age, going through the motions of the day, devoid of spark and charisma. This changes when he attends the birthday party of his friend and fellow staff member, Nikolaj. A psychologist, Nikolaj proposes an experiment where they see if a higher blood alcohol content will improve their quality of life. This experiment brings a new spark to their experiences.The teachers experiment leads to an array of inebriated hijinks, filling the cinema with laughter for much of the first act. The teachers enthusiastically lead classes while drunk, coach childrens soccer matches and try to make their way undetected through staff meetings. This initial comedy escalates into absurdity, making the slowing down that comes afterwards more poignant, as the protagonists reap what they have sowed. As Vinterberg puts his characters through the extremes, he pauses to question if their initial newfound happiness is all placebo. The film is well paced but does take its time to transition into the third act. However, this isnt a bad thing, as Vinterbergs visuals and the dynamics he establishes between characters are a joy to watch.An important way that Vinterbergs comedy stands apart from its American counterparts is through its attention to the craft of cinema. Beautifully composed, Vinterbergs DOP Sturla Brandth Grvlen mimics the cerebral uncertainty induced by alcohol. The camera refuses to stay stable, even in the films most intense moments, with handheld shots and shallow depths of field leaving the audience with a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty. While these cinematic choices effectively connect the craft of the film to its themes, it also harkens back to Vinterbergs early career. A founder of the Dogme 95 movement with Lars Von Troyer, the young Danish filmmakers railed against the conventions of cinema. Dogme 95 restricted the filmmaking means of its followers through the signing of a vow of chastity. Directors were forbidden from the use of custom props, tripods and special effects, and instead had to live in the moment.In 2002, David Bowie challenged Vinterberg on the sincerity of the movement, stating that it sounded like a satirical affair. Vinterberg responded that it was in fact a genuine heartfelt attempt to break the conservative mould of film. These naturalistic qualities of filmmaking are resonant throughout Another Round. Vinterberg paints the protagonists as creatures on a knifes edge; teetering on the edge of primality within their urban environments.Much of Another Rounds meditation on alcohol and the rollercoaster of life can be attributed to the personal tragedy faced by Vinterberg during the films early production, as Ida, Vinterbergs 19 year old daughter, was tragically killed in a car accident. Vinterberg uses Another Round to preach a sermon about life, showing the audience the pleasures of risks and the pitfalls of excess. He invites audiences to realise that they need to take chances, experiment and explore because there is still time left. The film embraces the spectrum of effects of Danish drinking culture, weighing both the positives and negatives of alcoholic escapism. Another Round will continue to resonate as people return to a sense of normalcy following the pandemic, and have to come to terms with how to enjoy the world despite the anxieties and failures of the past. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> High Ground, Stephen Maxwell Johnsons first release since 2001, is a film essential to the telling of colonial Australias unforgiving brutality. With a strong emphasis on narrative and impeccable cinematography, the film is jarring in its ability to move between the serene and horrifying. Despite the obvious and unquestionably broader impacts of white settlement, the microcosm of High Ground, with its few characters and few key settings, rewards viewers with a rich and character-focused tale. High Ground will be released in Australian theatres on January 28.The film opens in 1910s Arnhem Land as a band of police officers massacre an Indigenous community in what was supposed to be a peaceful operation. The audience is introduced to Travis (Simon Baker), a level-headed ex-sniper and man-of-the-law, racist Eddy (Callan Mulvey) Travis wartime spotter and Gutjuk (Guruwuk Mununggurr), a six-year-old Aboriginal boy. Gutjuk is spared by a sympathetic Travis and is taken to the nearby Christian mission where he is raised and taught to assimilate. Unbeknownst to anyone but Grandfather Dharrpa (Yothu Yindis Wityana Marika), Baywarra (Mark Garrawurra), Gutjuks uncle, also survives the massacre. Skipping forward twelve years, a renegade Travis remains haunted by the past atrocity but is pressured to work with Gutjuk to find Baywarra, who is leading attacks against various white settlements. As in most thrillers, tensions, motives and pasts are revealed in a series of painful and violent events, twisting the political narrative and coming to a confronting conclusion.Despite the short length of the opening sequence relative to the rest of the film, the introduction sets a strong premise for the aftermath that is explored in the following hour. Johnsons ability to stir tension and intrigue barely falters when we are reintroduced to the mild-mannered Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul) now named Tommy and the vengeful Baywarra (Sean Munungurr) twelve years on, and equally so when witnessing the frequent arguments between Travis and a perpetually-dickish Eddy. Gently balanced with the cruelty of the subject, the film has an amazing capability to punctuate dialogue with self-reflexive humour. This is particularly evident in a translated negotiation scene between Police Chief Moran played by Jack Thompson and Grandfather Dharrpa.After just the first act of the film, it is easy to identify High Ground as an Australian meat-pie Western. Cinematographer Andrew Commis, notable for his work on 2019s Babyteeth, placesan emphasis on the wide expanses of Arnhem Land, filming in Kakadu National Park. Contrasting lengthy drone shots with quick and aggressive over-the-shoulder shots during confrontation scenes, the sense of movement is both soothing and relentlessly unnerving. The Northern Territory setting plays as a beautiful and striking backdrop while also foreshadowing the resilient stage of the bloody revenge-thriller to follow. There are numerous face-offs, gun fights and horseback shots that pull from the Western genre. However, High Ground has a lesser focus on spectacle than a traditional American Western and instead presents a deeper analysis of colonialism, racism and its brutality that leaves audiences gutted.There are only a few points where High Ground falters. In the grand scheme of the film, and as one of the few women, Claire (Caren Pistorius), the missionary who raises Gutjuk, has a significant role. Despite alluding to the deeper relationship that was shared between her and Gutjuk, there is little when it comes to understanding how far her empathy and understanding of the circumstances go. Thankfully, this is something that is made clearer in the final confrontation a moment that comes as a welcome reckoning for Eddys character.Nonetheless, the nuances presented in High Ground far outweigh the parts in which the narrative could have been fleshed out. Throughout the film, there is a strong sense of audience empathy towards Gutjuk as he is reunited with Baywarra and how this impacts his relationship with Travis. There is also an intricate and delicate portrayal of Gutjuk as he is viewed as both a part of his tribe, yet in some ways naive for his relationship with Travis. Similarly, High Ground treads perceptively in Travis sympathies towards the local Aboriginal tribe and his reluctance in further partaking in the white settlers destruction, though he is ultimately not excused. The film is grounded in its exploration and understanding of injustice, neatly encapsulated in its own dialogue consoling Gutjuk: Your anger is all you have.High Ground provides a welcome and authentic nuance to the revenge-thriller genre and highlights Australias history of injustice with a necessary harshness and nuance. The strong performances and powerful narrative make it a memorable watch.Honi Soit attended the premiere of High Ground at the State Theatre as a guest of Sydney Film Festivals Summer Season. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Lee Isaac Chungs Sundance winner and Oscar contender Minari is a familiar story on its surface. Following a family in Reagans America as they move to rural Arkansas to foster a new home and build an independent business, the film quickly establishes their pursuits and struggles alongside the likes of Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath. But unlike most canonical texts that track the futility of the American Dream, the Korean-American family in Minari have an extra card stacked against them the Dream was never designed for them in the first place.Observing the Yi family as they attempt to adjust to a different way of life, the film shifts perspectives from one family member to the next, approaching each with a deft gentleness rather than tracking a single individuals view. Initially it appears to be following the youngest child David (eight-year-old Alan Kim in a phenomenal debut performance) as he gazes from the backseat of the car to his father in the front, but this is subverted when their arrival at the house reveals that the father had been driving separately in a moving van the entire time. Quietly, the film uses familiar tropes of editing to show a disconnect in the family before anyone has uttered a single word. The disconnection is both cultural and familial, and is quickly established as a ticking time bomb.Steven Yeun, one of the great faces of contemporary cinema following his stellar work in Lee Chang-Dongs Burning and Boots Rileys Sorry to Bother You, performs as Jacob, the patriarch of the family, who presents himself with a mask of confidence that is slowly chipped away. This is the best dirt in America, he proudly tells his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri, in her first American production). Disregarding an American contract workers water dowsing technique, he instead simply digs where he thinks water will be until he finds it.Jacob sees promise in the land and believes that if he tries hard enough, he will be rewarded for his hard work and achieve the American Dream of upward mobility. Monica, however, notices what he is willing himself not to see their house (a converted caravan) is literally on wheels, a broken and precarious structure symbolic of the house of cards Jacob is betting his familys future on something that could easily shift or collapse at any setback and swallow them whole. The stability of the family is already precarious enough, with the parents marital issues exacerbated by Davids worsening heart condition. To Monicas dismay, it becomes apparent as the film progresses that Jacob is willing to put his budding business ahead of the security of his family, precisely because he wants to provide for them.The familys struggle to hold on to their own culture proves to be as gruelling a battle as anything else. Neither of their children have been to Korea and the Southern town they move into has only a handful of Korean residents in an overwhelmingly white population. We are given a glimpse into the attitudes of the town in a scene where the family attempt to make friends by attending the local church. Although they are initially welcomed by the pastor, they quickly become isolated by the language barrier and the subtly racist remarks of the townsfolk. The small victories the family does achieve in the film mostly revolve around food like Monica introducing their eccentric neighbour Paul (Will Patton) to a budding obsession with Kimchi, or in Jacobs attempts to grow exclusively Korean vegetables to provide comfort for other immigrants.The film is light-hearted while dealing with serious themes, balancing its dramatic arc with moments of humour throughout. Most of the comedy comes from the arrival of Monicas eccentric mother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung, Korean cinema veteran and a regular collaborator with Hong Sang-soo) from Korea. Soon-jas simultaneous disgust and infatuation with the crudeness of American culture (Look at how big his muscles are! She gasps in awe at wrestling on the television) is one of the funniest recurring parts of the film, and her relationship with her grandson David grows to become the emotional core of the film. Davids initial wariness of his grandmother gives way the more she teaches him to open up and not be afraid of the world.Minari is a rare case of a film that finds broad appeal by concurrently exploring the bigger picture and the day-to-day details of the Korean immigrant experience, without going out of its way to hold the audiences hand in a patronising or cynical way. Unfortunately the vast majority of US-produced films that tackle the experience of immigrants are stunted by a fervent need to comply with Hollywood clichs deriving from the same systems that make integration into the country a soul-crushing experience for many. True to the minari herbs that Soon-ja and the children plant by the creek, Minari is a journey full of joy and resilience; it holds out the persevering hope that different cultures can co-exist and flourish, and that hardship can bring families closer together. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> An epic poem is the birthplace of legends. The epicentre of tragedy, they are long narrative poems that generally chronicle a time existing outside the bounds of living memory wherein extraordinary swift-footed men and women shaped the mortal world by their grapples with gods and monsters, with creatures of legend, with morality and truth.There are some agreed-upon determinants of an epic. For instance, it begins in media res, as the tenth year of the Trojan War in the Iliad. Its setting is vast and use of epithets rich, covering rosy-fingered dawns and wine-dark seas. Arguably, the most prominent feature of the epic is not divine intervention in the form of golden apples, nor heroes stamped pious from their first appearance no, the foremost feature of the epic is its structure.In the past, works of literature were able to be distinguished as epics because of the nature of their form and poetic meter. Indo-European epic poetry such as the Vedas, the Iliad, and the Odyssey historically placed a lot of emphasis on the poetic meter and line consistency. Ancient Greek and Latin poems were all written in dactylic hexameter which has also come to be known as heroic hexameter. It is, technically, impossible to conceive of an epic poem that is not composed of in hexameters as the very rhythm of the hexameter signalled the epic nature of the poem.To break it down, a dactylic hexameter has six feet and permits either a dactyl (one long syllable followed by two short syllables) or a spondee (two long syllables). Scholar Samuel Elliott Bassett identified thirty-two possible arrangements of dactyls and spondees and stated that Homer used every one of them in the Iliad. There are seventeen places where a word may end, he wrote, and Homer makes a word end at every one of these places.In specific relation to the Iliad and Odyssey, and the Greek dactylic, the hexameter is a powerful instrument. It is used to concentrate the listeners attention on concrete details by varying the information flow by circumventing the repetition of identical rhythm and phrase-type. Homeric verses, interestingly, do not contain words whose shapes are traditionally dactyls and spondees; but, instead, only when merged into complete lines and spoken aloud do they yield six-dactyl rhythms. In the time of Homer in Ancient Greece, epics were performed in song with the accompaniment of a lyre, which allowed for such deviation. However, a lines syntactical phrasing and quantitative rhythm are commonly out of step by a syllable or two due to human error and differences in pronunciation and accents. In step with tradition, the completion of a word is only required in the last syllable of a verse as the rest of the feet are enjambed for narrative form. Hence, rhythm and phrasing are always predictable. The closing cadence for this is distinctive: the sixth foot, at least in the case of Homeric hymns, always calls for a dactyl.Bassett referred to each verse resembling a suspenseful adventure that lasted a few seconds before reaching a temporary resolution and beginning anew much like the theory of creation stemming from the Indo-Aryan Vedas wherein every beginning and end signifies the start of a phase, only to be destroyed and reborn over and over again in unending repetition. The heroic hexameter accommodates a significant amount of rhythm and phrasing, ensuring that the substitutions of spondees and dactyls cause the structure of the spoken word to be more engaging.Is it strange, then, that heroic hexameter only applies to certain kinds of epics? Old English, German, and Norse epic poetry utilise alliterative verse as the primary structural principal and do not employ a discernible rhyme scheme. Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian long-form poetry use terza rima an Italian verse invented by Dante Alighieri for The Divine Comedy, consisting of tercets wherein the first and third lines rhyme with one another, the second rhyming with the first and third of the following tercet and ottava rima introduced by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron, wherein each stanza contains eight iambic lines with the first six alternating in rhyme scheme and ending on a couplet. Ancient Sumerian epic poetry, such as the epic of Gilgamesh, used no form of distinguishable poetic meter nor did their lines have consistent lengths but instead focused the source of their rhythm on repetition.On the other hand, the existence of mock-epics, also known as mock-heroics, suggest the historic ridicule placed on the elevated stature of heroic verse. Lord Byron used his signature ottava rima to pen the sixteen-thousand line satirical poem Don Juan in all the extravagance of Teseida. It is interesting to note that Don Juan was first widely disapproved of and reduced to unnecessarily provocative and immoral but later was celebrated for its artistic brilliance for its structure and form, for its exploration of every topic of human life, with German writer Goethe going as far as calling it a work of bondless genius.Hence, the form and structure of a work are essential in its eventual outcome and reception. There are certain maps predetermined rhyme schemes and poetic meters lay out for us to follow, x marking the spots where we offer up explanations of tragedy, draw up epic catalogues, invoke divine intervention into haplessness. Epic poetry offers us lessons about individual honour, about heroism and cruelty, about our inherent autonomy in a world dictated by gods. But it also presents us with the importance of consistent poetic meter, with the evolution and differences separate languages and cultures place on form; and, if nothing else, with a better place to start. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Blessed by the munificence of the benevolent billionaire Dr. Chau Chak Wing a veritable modern-day Medici Sydney University has acquired for itself a magnificent new museum on University Place. Made possible by a $15 million donation from Dr. Chau, the $66 million project brings together the Universitys Nicholson, Macleay and Art collections together for the very first time. Honi Soit took a look.Described by its own architects as a floating white concrete box, the Chau Chak Wing Museums design is resoundingly dull, concreting over city views and presenting as a dark cloud on campus. Mercifully, however, JPW architects were motivated to recreate elements of landscapeand reference the sandstone buildings that are the foundation of the University of Sydney by throwing down a few sandstone blocks outside the front entrance. Nonetheless, the museum does incorporate the obligatory polished concrete and arctic air-conditioning which succeeds in inducing the fugue state necessary for the enjoyment of any casual museum visit.Photo: Jocelyn Prasad.Happily, the museum itself does succeed in overcoming its architectural shortfalls. The liberation of the universitys three previously disparate collections from storage and dark, inaccessible corners of the quadrangle is a genuine public good. Previously only 1% of the universitys collection could be displayed at any one time, while upwards of 400,000 items sat unexhibited. The new museum significantly increases the exhibition space available, allowing for artefacts, artworks and even entire collections to be publicly displayed for the first time.The benefits of the new museum can be seen throughout its inaugural exhibitions and galleries. The flagship exhibition Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolu foundations takes advantage of the extra space offered by the new facility to exhibit over 350 works from over 100 Yolnu artists from the 19th century to contemporary times, allowing for a depth and breadth of public display previously impossible given the restrictions of university gallery space.Photo: Jocelyn Prasad.Interdisciplinarity that recent obsession of the university is on display throughout the museum. In contrast to its ham-fisted academic incarnations, the interdisciplinarity on display at the Chau Chak Wing museum is well thought out, combining seemingly unrelated objects from previously disparate collections, and adds to the overall experience of the visitor. One display, for example, uses specimens of the Polites genus of butterflies from the natural history collection, named after characters from The Iliad, to tell the story of the Trojan War.Object/Art/Specimen is an exhibition dedicated to this interdisciplinary theme. Pop Art hangs alongside Egyptian sarcophagi and a thylacine is positioned in front of a modernist industrial painting the diagonal stripes of both (or so Honi Soit is told) acknowledge human impact on nature. Museum Deputy Director Paul Donnelly said that not many museums can bring art, natural history, ethnography, science and antiquity together like thisObject/Art/Specimen shows the world of possibilities available to the museum now its collections will be shown in one building.The Chau Chak Wing museum is an impressive addition to the cultural life of the University of Sydney. Academics, students, and Sydneysiders as a whole will be grateful for the generosity of Dr. Chau Chak Wing in making this innovative and vital contemporary cultural centrepiece a reality. In the words of Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, and a curious array of former Eastern European politicians, we commend the vision and generosity of Dr. Chau Chak Wing for making this world-class institution a realitythis inspiring museum will benefit not only Sydney and Australia, but the larger world as a whole. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Scottish Play has always held a special place in this reviewers heart. I read it as a child (well, the illustrated childrens version of it at least), I enjoyed studying it at school (nerd), and I attended the Sydney Theatre Companys 2014 rendition, with the titular character played by the legendary Lord Elrond (whom the unenlightened may know as Hugo Weaving). The play is an immense undertaking at the best of times, with some of the most iconic and technically challenging scenes in all of Shakespeare. To pull it off in the midst of a pandemic, and so convincingly, is quite a feat.This production, directed by Lincoln Gidney, features a sprawling cast of SUDS stalwarts backed up by some newer faces, as well a live band led by Mathew Forbes and Jess Snelleman. While it is beyond the scope of this review to mention them all, many of the supporting actors are the unsung heroes of this play, sweeping on and off stage to deliver perfectly rendered lines in rich Shakespearean, building the larger world around our central characters. Regarding these central characters, Annika Bates does an excellent job of adding a healthy degree of gruffness and grit to the role of Banquo, and Michael Kaufmann shines albeit briefly as a boisterous and affable Duncan. Patrick Holman is initially rather reserved as Macduff, but this turns out to be a ploy, as he builds the role to a veritable climax by Acts IV and V. Holmans reaction to Rosss (Tom Hanaee) news of the death of Macduffs family was a truly chilling moment, and one of my favourites in the play.Regarding the titular couple, Sophia Bryant does a fine job of Lady Macbeth. Bryant particularly shines in the earlier Acts, where she is able to portray the Ladys manic greed and desperation one moment, and the sincere, respectful host the next. As is fitting, however, Frank Yangs Macbeth is the performance that really dominates this play. Yang builds the character from humble beginnings in the first Act into an immense expos in the deterioration of Macbeths moral character. By the final Acts, Yangs Macbeth is a manic, larger-than-life presence that looms over every scene.These solid performances are backed up by Gidneys directing. The fight scenes notably Banquos murder and Macduffs slaying of the tyrant are well choregraphed and executed, appearing messy and desperate, rather than as flashy sword duels. In addition, Gidney makes the most of a rather limited space by keeping his actors moving. The wings and crossovers of the PACT Theatres stage allow characters to flow in and out of the scene, giving the impression of a much larger world than what the audience can physically see. This is particularly effective in the final battle, where bands of Scottish nobles rove back and forth, appearing thanks to a skilled team of costumers and makeup artists increasingly scared and haggard as the battle drags on off-stage.The addition of a live band in this rendition is an interesting and, technically, traditional choice. Macbeth is famed for its frequent use of musical cues, and Forbes and Snelleman do a good job of adding gravitas and emotion to key scenes. Particular standouts were the afore-mentioned battle scene, fight scenes, and Macduffs revelation of the death of his family. Maggie Laings trombone is particularly captivating, as well as Forbess own classical guitar. In some places, however, the music lacks polish, and it takes away from some of the soliloquies, which are adequately engrossing in their own right. In other places, the musicians could have been tighter on their cues as well.The placement of the band at upstage centre, on rising tiers, initially comes across as a bold choice, potentially distracting from the actors. However, the band is linked aesthetically with the set design of Ro Roberts and Paris Paris and the costuming of the witches, helping them to meld with the scene as well as giving the impression that the band and the witches are a singular, primordial presence looming over the events of the play. Indeed, the decision to have the witches (Eve Madden, Sienna Barrientos, Jack Francis West) come and go throughout the play, watching the events unfold with morbid curiosity is an effective touch, and Gidney makes good use out of characters that I had always personally found rather superfluous.SUDS Macbeth was a truly enjoyable experience. While it is perhaps a little rough around the edges at times, this is outshone by an experienced core cast and Yangs very convincing portrayal of the tyrant. Shakespeare revivals are often a hit or miss, and it takes an experienced cast and director to effectively portray the complexity of the bards script. In this reviewers opinion, SUDS has definitely delivered.Macbeth continues its run at PACT this week, and will close on the 22nd of November. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Project XXX opens with an overwhelming dance number. Choreographer and Assistant Director Isla Mowbray created a scene which is meant to be shocking, stepping over the line of simply risque, and it succeeds. The piece serves to set the backdrop for the rest of the play, where normal people are affected and influenced by the egregious, shocking and outlandish world that is pornography. The story follows 15-year-old Amy (Danielle Cabubas), after a video is posted of her onto the website Project XXX, a thin allegory for PornHub, showing her performing sexual acts on her then-boyfriend (Sam Martin). Seeking to reclaim control of how her sexuality is shown online, she decides to post a self-made sex tape of her losing her virginity, on her 16th birthday. She chooses and pursues 25-year-old videographer Callum (Spencer Clark) in order to film and participate in the event. Throughout the play, Callum is both comforted and plagued by his obsession with award-winning pornstar Jenna (Abi Coffey), who drops her sexualised facade to speak directly to the audience about her real experiences.The stage is split between a run down DVD-store, where Amy works, and a grubby bedroom belonging to Callum. The set, props and costumes are achingly detailed and heavily nostalgic. Elements such as the faded colours of the failing store filled with ready-to-paint figurines, or one of the characters genuinely using a velcro wallet, instantly lets us know where we are before the characters even mention the isolated town in which the play is set. The emphasis of the analogue, as well as physical copies of movies and memories, also serves as a sharp distinction to the online world that we have so quickly moved to. Following the opening dance, the play wastes no time in bringing the digital to the forefront, with screens scattered across the stage making the audience a participant. We see the navigation into incognito mode (a witty touch), and then watch clips and snippets, phenomenally created by videographer Charlie Hollands, of what was suggested in the dance. A specific clip which we see in the beginning of the show is seen being filmed in a later scene. This forethought is both delightful and clever, much like the pointedness of Amys wardrobe evolving with her intentions, as well as the music she listens to and books she reads clearly alluding to the feminist rhetoric that she espouses. The play manages to continue to come across as well-thought out during its entire runtime, while also containing several hilarious moments, such as when a a passionate monologue stressing the importance of movies is delivered while Clark holds a copy of Alvin and the Chipmunks. The jokes are funny, the actors work wonderfully together, and the pacing is quick. The audience is not bored.Yet, despite all this, I found the play deeply discomforting. Amys adoption of an aggressive feminist rhetoric is used to defend herself to her online community, and yet we are repeatedly shown that the control she so insists she has is constantly given up or compromised. I understand so deeply why she is angry at sympathisers and takes her situation to the extreme in order to not be perceived as weak. But this isnt addressed, or even really rectified. I am infuriated every time she compromises for a man 10 years her senior, comforts and reassures him, translates his feelings into words, and made even more so upset when he realises her age and then continues to date her, later agreeing to sleep with her. I felt myself having to consciously ignore Amys age in order to enjoy any aspect of the play without being horrified but that may very well be the point. It is a reality of our world that young people primarily learn about sex through porn, and that children are accessing pornography online from an increasingly young age. My favourite parts of the play are when Amy loses her temper, or when Jennas voice shifts from the breathy high pitched tones she uses for the camera and her fans, into something a lot more real. Both Cabubas and Coffey do a remarkable job in showing an emotional depth through the peeling of layers away from their performative selves. In this way and many others, I think that director Margaret Thanos has done an excellent job. Every time I noticed even the smallest detail, it was rewarded in full with an explanation that never feels underthought. But I struggled to single out a clear message in the play. Jennas character is both proud and elated with her work, but also speaks of her dehumanisation and the disregard of her boundaries while working in the industry. Clark plays Callum as strange, but ultimately endearing a portrayal which is dissonant with the fact that the character wants to have sex with a 15 year old, which is clearly unforgivable. Amy seeks to take control of her sexuality after the truly awful posting of a video of her online, but in my mind, this is a compromise that should never have to be made by a child. Thanos grapples with these facets of people and reality in a remarkable way, and I appreciate her exploration of this world. Sex education and how we come by it, as well as how we as a society interact with pornography, will not soon become a lesser issue. Plays like these are an important means through which these ideas can be explored, understood, and hopefully bettered. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My tongue is frozen, and suddenly A delicate fire spreads over My body, my ears hear only Drumming, the blindness engulfing.Fragment 31, SapphoSydney company Pinchgut Opera, specialists in the forgotten masterpieces of the Baroque, debuted their first film last month: A Delicate Fire. Born during the collapse of Australias arts industries, it showcases the works of Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677), one of the most prolific composers of the Venetian Baroque era and one of the few women of her time to publish under her own name. The film, blending gritty surrealism with more classical elements of music and dance, is an uncanny and unashamedly Australian meditation on the arts, love, and isolation in the age of coronavirus.The film is broken up into a collection of songs (madrigali), each seamlessly drifting into each other, as if they were merely sequential arias. The first memorable visual feature is the intelligent costuming that comes to define the film: sterile, inoffensive, kitsch, exquisitely out of place and entirely charming, the clothing is both modern and alien. With a full set of period instruments, we see the musicians intently focussed on their craft, serene and once again in their element.The genius of the film is in its sustained interest with the suburban landscape, and its blurring of a contemporary Australian haunting with an unfamiliar genre. In Silentio Nocivo (Harmful Silence) we see a scrolling portrait of the quiet scenes of a family home: the bubble baths, lamps, and unmade beds of any suburban interior. The spinning clothesline a recurring motif is always just within frame, a present reminder of the domesticity of Australian life. Superimposed on the works of Strozzi, we are forced to consider not just the obfuscation of female artists within history, but the invisible and commonplace barriers that still exist in the home.The music of heaven is harsh and discordant compared to the melodies I have prepared (Conclusione dellopera)The sliding scenery then shifts to a studio of marble sculptures and paintings an instant transition to high culture and its trappings. As we then return to a car and a roadkill deer, the angst of suburban existence and Australias cultural cringe is brought into focus. Still, the toiling forward momentum of the film carries onwards, elegantly accompanied by dancers Allie Graham and Neale Whittaker, their presence a recurring highlight.In Canto di bella bocca (A song of beautiful lips) the film is at its most explicitly homoerotic, pitching soprano Taryn Fiebig and mezzo Anna Dowsley on a grassy knoll, posed in an evocation of a baroque painting. The power suit and the uncanniness of the costuming makes the scene deliciously figurative. But the scenery is more than that, with its Australian eucalypts and spinifexes in the background, and the washing line in the upper corner. This is a transplanted still life, from old Venice to modern Australia; expression caught between language and music and worlds, trying to create something new.Two faithful souls in love dying in an ecstasy of healing and life (Sonetto. Proemio dellopera #2)In a scene where the women cut open and eat watermelons the film enters its most haphazardly sensual, with hazy undertones of carnality and innocent love. And then were in the morning, as if we were only in a daze, with a light snow falling although we are unsure if it is snow or the ash that cast a similar gloom across the national consciousness only a year ago.As maybe the most self-aware of all art forms, opera thrives on the irony and ridiculousness of its existence: staged, fabricated, and extravagant. As the camera zooms out, revealing the set and the many behind the scenes workers who scurry about to make the production happen, were brought into the world of art and production. We are immediately reminded of the many left adrift when this industry was shut down.Perhaps I will be hailed as Sappho reborn (Sonetto. Proemio dellopera #1)The climax of the film is Strozzis Lamento (Lament). O my tears, sings Dowsley, as she is circled by the camera in a small phone booth. There is no great wisdom in these lyrics (usually derivative and unexciting) but the framing of the lament hints at the parallels with Greek poet Sappho, a constant (if not understated) reference in the film. One wonders if the obliqueness of this homoeroticism is artistically informed, or based on a sensitivity to the target audience. Dowsleys technique is in full aching showcase, her acting and agitation in the phone booth both visceral and disarming.The film is approachable, orchestrally gorgeous, and subjective enough to give a viewer something to chew over. With its centring of an overlooked female composer, imaginative staging, and intelligent and sustained control of pacing and mood, A Delicate Fire would be a highlight in any year let alone this one.A Delicate Fire is available to stream in Australia until December 13 at athome.pinchgutopera.com.au. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds Mary Oliver, Sleeping in the ForestAt a time where the plurality of life is at dire risk of extinction and whole worlds of knowledge are being lost to the capitalist-colonial apparatus, destroying everything in its path for profit, how can poetry teach us to pay close attention? To walk through the world with our senses attuned to nature and take us back to her tenderly?Ecofeminism traces the oppression of nature to the Western construction of the white male as the dominant identity with the property of reason. Men are presumed to be closer to the spiritual, more capable of reasoned discourse which their Other supposedly lacks. Nature and all that is associated with it including women, the carnal, reproduction, and the body are devised as passive objects.Queer Ecofeminism shows us how the devaluation of the erotic and the queer particularly by Christian colonial rhetoric mutually reinforces the devaluation of women, people of colour and nature. By describing systems of oppression as divinely ordained, Christianity has been used to authorise colonial practices of genocide, rape and the persecution of third-gender identities and same-sex desire in Indigenous cultures. The gender binary and heteronormativity have been violently enforced within colonial structures: they are not the natural tendency of humans. This is why, in contemporary discourse, it is ahistorical to cite progress in achieving rights for queer people as an example of supposed Western advancement.In Greta Gaards Toward a Queer Ecofeminism, she combines the insights of queer and ecofeminist theories to form deeper coalitions. The democratic, ecological society based on the shared liberation that we dream for will be a society that values sexual diversity and the erotic. Nature will no longer be understood as a subservient woman, a mother whom we subordinate and continually deny our dependence on. Nature is meshwork: a fleeting inter-connected space that we have always been part of.In Mary Olivers poetry, she models a kind of subjectivity that is not dependent on the idea that humans are more perfect than the non-human or that reason is more spiritual than the erotic. She encourages us to imaginatively inhabit the subjectivities of turtles, geese, birds, insects, and become one with forests and oceans. The speaker of her poems continually loses subjecthood itself a tool of dominant ideology amongst a communion of vibrating, borderless ecosystems that shimmer in reciprocal connections.In The Turtle, she revers a turtle who is not faced with societal pressures to reproduce but does so out of a sense of care; she cant see/herself apart from the rest of the world/or the world from what she must do/every spring. By comparison to the turtles self-assuredness of her place, the cerebral quality typically celebrated in humans is realised as a flaw that displaces us from our bodily existence. The virtues of connectedness belong to creatures who are mothers in Olivers poetry, linked by their offsprings dependence on them the same way we are dependent on the earth.Olivers attention to the lives of animals leads us to question such distinctions between humans and nature which delude us into forgetting our place within it as animals. The turtles way of being is held up as an example for humans to follow; she knows/she is a part of the pond she lives in,/the tall trees are her children,/the birds that swim above her/are tied to her by an unbreakable string. This type of worldview, where dualities of the self and the Other cease to exist, exercises queer ecofeminist sensibilities. Oliver gestures to the potential of re-imagining our string with the non-human world as one of love as opposed to violence.As a child, Mary Oliver would walk through the woods, reading and writing poetry as a salvation from home life with a sexually abusive father and neglectful mother. She was sceptical about organised religion but still held beliefs. In The Summer Day, she recognises the divinity in all nature, I dont know exactly what a prayer is/I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down/into the grass, how to kneel in the grass. This image is echoed in Straight Talk from Fox where she criticises someone talking about God/as if he were an idea instead of the grass. Rejecting the hierarchy of mind over matter that devalues both women and nature, Oliver pays attention to living things such as grass as a form of spiritual experience.Queer ecofeminists argue that a genuine liberation of the erotic is crucial to dismantling systems of violence. I am reminded of Audre Lordes insight in Uses of the Erotic that as women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge, due to the misnaming of the erotic by Western society. It is creative power, joy, empowerment, the satisfaction of deep cravings, to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves as Oliver phrases it in Wild Geese. Queer ecofeminisms vision of liberation involves dismantling Western societys conception of the erotic as fundamentally opposed to reason, culture, humanity, masculinity and spirituality.In Olivers poem of sapphic desire, The Gardens, her lovers body is described as a deep forest of trees, and the dark country/I keep dreaming of. Unlike most of the writing by men in which nature is a metaphor for women, Oliver does not portray it as an object to be dominated or tamed. Embracing the nonrational knowledge of the erotic, she gains awareness that humans are animals which dominant ideology suppresses, finding you/the heart within you/and the animal/and the voice/I ask/over and over/for your whereabouts. She emphasises the necessity of consent to the erotic; it is a communion that affirms the agency of both actors. Sensual bodily experience is blasphemously described as the passage to God as she plunges toward the interior/the unseen, the unknowable/centre. In her attention both to nature and her lover, Oliver challenges dominant ideology through an act of love that breaks down oppressive structures.As women, we have been led to fear and suppress the yes within ourselves, the assent to life that refuses to accept a state of powerlessness. In Shimmer: When all you love is being trashed, Deborah Bird Rose calls us to consider the lush, extravagant beauty, flamboyance, and dazzling seductiveness with which Eucalypts say yes. This sense of bursting open is power, the expression of desire for a world that isnt built on the violent suppression of the nonrational, which is always constructed in opposition to the white male.In Pink Moon The Pond Oliver writes:So you relax, you dont fight it anymore,the darkness coming downcalled water,called spring,called the green leaf, calleda womans bodyas it turns into mud and leaves,as it beats in its cage of water,as it turns like a lonely spindlein the moonlight, as it saysyes.Oliver teaches us what happens when we begin to pay close attention to nature rather than seeing it as an undifferentiated abstraction, when we recognise how we are carnal creatures within it rather than denying that knowledge or projecting it onto the Other. When we do so, we become devoted to the liberation and affirmation of our fullest, most loving selves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For lovers of the performing arts at USyd, theres been a lot of cause for despair over the last month. With 2020s identity and faculty revue seasons cancelled, as well as all gatherings, events and performances, students have been robbed of much of the fulfilling cultural engagement and enrichment that is usually on offer throughout the university year. But, despite the performance aspect of these societies having seen a drastic change, many of them are continuing to provide their members with online events, classes and activities.A cappella Society (BarberSoc): BarberSoc are currently hosting social events every Monday through to Thursday nights at 8pm. These have included a movie night, a scavenger hunt, a talent show and trivia. While the current focus of the society seems to be, quite understandably, aimed at maintaining its social life, musical projects are starting to be implemented as well, such as feedback sessions for arrangements and collaborative songwriting through notation programs and Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs).Chinese Dance and Musical Instrument Society: The Chinese Dance and Musical Instrument Society have been in the process of shifting their multiple weekly classes to an online setting. This has predominantly been for members who want to continue learning choreography that was taught in the first few weeks of semester.DJ Society:The shutdowns effect on the DJ Society is particularly unfortunate, given the fact it had recently been rebooted after a year of inactivity, and its new exec was aiming to provide more gig opportunities for its membership and reinvigorate the campus nightlife over the coming year. The societys Facebook group is, however, still being used to maintain engagement, and several members have been using the space to share mixes and original compositions. Dramatic Society (SUDS): The activities hosted by SUDS over Zoom throughout the next few month include group script readings, movie nights, and the well-loved variety shows dubbed Rough Cuts. The society has set up Facebook groups for writing tasks and feedback and assistance with auditioning. They have also initiated a callout for works to be placed in an art gallery which will be displayed in the Cellar Theatre when possible. The society is set to move ahead with shows later this year, should circumstances allow it, including those that were in development before the shutdown, such as Nick Paynes Constellations, Keith Robinson and Tony Taylors Popular Mechanicals, and SUDS major production for 2020, Shakespeares Macbeth. It is eyeing performance dates at the end of the year.Jamming Society (Unijam) When the namesake of this society became no longer viable, Unijams first move was to set up a Discord server where members could socialise and listen to music together. Earlier this month, the societys page polled its followers on idea of creating a cover of Maroon 5s Sunday Morning by mashing together clips of members singing/playing the song. I will commend Unijam for choosing Sunday Morning over one of Maroon 5s more excruciating songs.Jazz Society (JazzSoc) With the majority of its usual in-person events consisting of rehearsals, performances and jam sessions in an ensemble setting, JazzSoc are one of the societies for which the task of moving online has been especially difficult. Rough plans have been made to hold Zoom sessions to stream music or to teach improvisational skills to less experienced players, but this has yet to be confirmed.Marching Band Association (SUMBA) SUMBAs current predicament has been similar to the Jazz Society, given the cancellation of rehearsals and gigs for the remainder of the semester. Added onto this is the fact that the storage facility in the Holme Building where much of the societys equipment (such as percussion and sheet music) is being kept, is, as President April Guest stated, inaccessible until the USU is open for business like normal (#GiveSUMBATheirDrums). Weekly Zoom sessions are currently being held for socialising between members.Movement and Dance Society (MADSOC) Like the Chinese Dance and Musical Instrument Society, MADSOC were quick to begin holding their regular weekly classes online. Short dance phrases have been taught over Zoom by the classes usual teachers, or posted through the newly-created MADSOC Classes Facebook group as pre-recorded tutorial videos. Despite the ongoing uncertainty regarding the viability of public gatherings at any point for much of the remaining year, the societys Annual Major Production is slated to go ahead at the end of September a time frame which had been set since the beginning of the year. Rehearsals have, obviously, been moved online, and are taking place both through Zoom and with the use of pre-recorded videos.Musical Society (SUMS) SUMS has ensured not to limit the outreach of their current initiatives, as they plan to hold a composition competition which will be open to all university students. This is in addition to the societys plans for their membership, which include distributing practice tracks for members to rehearse with at home.Musical Theatre Ensemble (MUSE) MUSE are currently in the organising stage in terms of much of its online content, but have been proactive in organising watch parties (with one in conjunction with SUDS put on last weekend).They have also promised panel discussions in the coming months. Their major production for 2020, Rupert Holmes The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was set to be performed this month, has been postponed, and the society are currently attempting to secure the Seymour Centre to perform the show in later in the year.Piano Society Piano Society has shown some creative adaptation to the current circumstances, holding their usual fortnightly jams in video format, with individual parts of a songbeing recorded by different members. Other activities have included a virtual concert over Zoom and a skribbl.io tournament. The society is also hoping to live stream a formal concert from the Conservatorium of Music later this month, where performers walk in to play their piece, and then walk out, with the piano being sanitised between performances. President Daniel ODea stated Piano Society would happily take suggestions as to what events and activities the readers of this article want to see take place. I, for one, would like to see some piano sanitising tutorials.Symphony Orchestra (SUSO) With their first two concerts of the year cancelled, SUSO is currently looking towards using the extra time to plan and prepare for their concert in September. A current goal for the society, which ties into the concerts theme, is to raise awareness for issues confronting ocean life. A camp is also being tentatively planned for the end of the break between semesters.Social Dance Society (SDS) SDS kicked off the quarantine period with tutorial videos outlining some basic dance moves, but have since made the jump to live Zoom sessions. These have been titled Sip & Salsa, and include a dance tutorial led by an instructor followed by a dinner/drink social sesh.Soulxpress Soulxpress are currently hosting multiple weekly dance classes covering a range of styles, including Waacking and breaking.Wind Orchestra (SUWO) SUWO are currently looking to combine the two concerts that they were supposed to hold in 2020 into one larger concert at the end of the year, with their annual band camp hopefully taking place later this year as well. In the meantime, the orchestra is in the process of distributing practice parts for its players online, and hope to have section leaders provide help by videoing themselves playing difficult sections of pieces and giving advice on how to play them. Theyve also expressed interest in restarting their previously-held board games nights over Zoom.Note: Madrigal Society and Pop Music Performance Society (PopSoc), do not currently have information on their Facebook page regarding online events or activities, and did not reply to messages asking for a statement. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Decades of middle class pearl-clutching would have you believe that heavy metal and feminism are more foe than friend. In reality, theyre entirely compatible and share a common enemy in, amongst other things, the Church. Their relationship is especially visible in the 1990s, the decade that brought Third Wave Feminism and a new generation of metal artists.Bracketed by two historical instances of high profile sexual misconduct the Anita Hill Trial in 1991, and the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal of 1998, the 1990s were a pivotal moment for feminism. But this extended far beyond the world of American electoral politics.More women were engaging with heavy metal than ever before. Arch Enemy, Lacuna Coil and Nightwish lead a charge of female-fronted acts that continue to influence the genre today. In the punk scene, Riot Grrls aggressively fought their way to the front of shows, onto line-ups and into history. Women were angry, growing into adulthood through the Reagan era and into an age where things seemed to be getting better but in reality very much werent.Religious violence was by no means a new concern for metal. Reviled by the Church, metals flirtations with Satanism and criticisms of organised religion are as fundamental to the history of the genre as Tony Iommis sliced off fingertips. Feminists too have toyed with reclamations and perversions of christian history and scripture, from the mythology of Mary Magdalene to the Salem Witch Trials.Sacrilege and seduction are familiar bedfellows. As the Church exerts its considerable power in controlling our social, sexual, and reproductive freedoms, who can blame us for taking pleasure in blasphemy and desecration?Though there are certainly metal bands more sacrilegious than Type O Negative, there are none more seductive. It would be incorrect to reduce their back catalogue and legacy to the indisputable fact of their mass sex appeal, but it remains a large part of their allure.Type O Negative are Mills & Boon for metalheads, Peter Steele the leading man of their gothic romance novel. Tall, menacing and supernaturally handsome, the late frontman commanded the hearts (and loins) of Type Os enormous female fan base. The band were aware of this, and marketed accordingly: Steele had his teeth filed to points, posed naked for Playgirl, and appeared as a special guest on a Jerry Springer episode about groupies.Though Steeles vampiric good looks are fundamental to the mythology of Type O Negative, his lyrical treatment of women is far more interesting.The dominant sound of 1980s metal was Thrash. The Big Four Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica and Megadeth, emerged in the mid 80s in direct opposition to Reagan era politics. Metal in this period was still the male-dominated space that it had been since the early 70s. Though metal is inherently political and frequently left-wing, it is by no means immune to the plague of the patriarchy. Lyrical depictions of sex and sexuality ranged from garden variety misogyny and objectification to violent depictions of rape and sexual violence.Which is to say that though women had been engaging with Metal as fans and musicians since its origins, it hadnt welcomed them with open arms.Its important to note that Type O Negative is not a feminist band. I would go so far as to say that Type O Negative is an anti-feminist band. Despite this, they continue to garner the affections and loyalty of an enormous female fan base, this writer included. Why?Though they cant be called feminist, Type O appear to cater to the female gaze. 1993s Bloody Kisses and 1996s October Rust, the most well known and critically favoured of their back catalogue, are laced with themes of devotion and adoration. Much of their work elevates women as sexual beings to holy, almost biblical figures. For women whose sexual, social, and reproductive freedoms were still limited by the influence of the Catholic Church, such imaginings of their sexuality were incredibly enticing. Besides, Goth was experiencing a cultural renaissance, and Type O Negative were the Goth Metal band.Type O can also be considered in contrast to the work of their peers. Cannibal Corpses 1992 release I Cum Blood vividly illustrates an act of Necrophilia. Though Type Os first album, and the trajectory of Steeles own career, carried similarly violent themes, they are mostly remembered for their work after Slow, Deep and Hard, their first and most overtly misogynistic release.Forgive herfor she knows not what she does are the words breathily uttered by Steele as the introduction to Christian Woman. Archetypically Type O, the song is one of the bands greatest hits. Like everything written by Peter Steele, its incredibly horny. Its influences can be traced to the Danzig songs Mother and She Rides, both about sex and Satan and women experiencing sexuality despite Christian morals. Glenn Danzigs compelling stare and muscled physique paved the way for the aesthetic success of Peter Steele, and both men toed an uneasy line between object and objectifier, sex symbols as much as they were musicians.In an album laden with camp eroticism, Christian Woman is not remarkable for its r-rated content, but for how it reflects a particular intersection of third-wave sexual politics and 90s pop culture. The Goth renaissance of the 1990s infected all aspects of media, from music to film. Bram Stokers Dracula, the highly erotic Francis Ford Coppola release of 1992, is as much a product of the 1990s concern with female sexuality as Christian Woman. Though its material power was ever-present, the cultural shadow of the Church seemed to be waning. Vampires were very much in vogue, and the sex positivity that would later be fully realised in shows such as Sex and The City was on the rise. What better time to explore womens sexual expression and repression, and what better medium than Goth?Bloody Kisses is Type O Negatives first album to achieve critical acclaim, but October Rust was its breakthrough. By the point that October Rust had been released, Steele had achieved a potent mnage trois of 90s pop culture: an appearance on Jerry Springer, a centrefold in Playgirl, and the endorsement of Beavis and Butthead. In October Rust, the bands lasting legacy as the sensual lords of Gothic Metal had been realised.October Rust is the album that defined Peter Steele as the Ultimate Fantasy Goth Boyfriend. Be My Druidess, the 4th track off the album, is as unabashedly carnal as the greatest of Mills & Boon romance. Ill do anything to make you come intones Steele, in between verses that are little more than romance fantasy sex scenes. This is where Steeles use of a perversion of the female gaze comes into play he seemed acutely aware of the fantasies of his female fans and was more than willing to accommodate them.In the same sense that he was literate in the stylings of Mills & Boon, Steele was unafraid of offense and taboo. He relished in it. The particular taboo that Steele explored in October Rust? Menstruation, which he referred to as unholy water and a sanguine addiction.Wolf Moon, the song from which these lyrics are taken, encapsulates the ultimate appeal of Type O. It contains the tenderness of Love you to Death and the eroticism of Be My Druidess in a seven minute ode to period cunnilingus. It also explains the bands long-standing allure: period shame is an issue that afflicts women to this day. Its no wonder that women are drawn to this heavy metal Fabio.However, understanding the appeal of Type O Negative, specifically the way that they appeal to women, does not absolve them of the misogyny that plagues their peers. Type O Negative are as misogynistic as Cannibal Corpse. From their first album, which was born of Steeles desire to kill his girlfriend and then himself, to their name, which is based on the fact that the type O-blood type is untraceable in semen tested as a part of a rape kit, Type O are mired in the same structures of patriarchy that dominate all heavy metal.I would be surprised to see an academic attempt at conceiving of Type O as feminist or feminist-adjacent, though metal journalism and culture writing on the band often skates on such thin ice. Really, Type O as an individual band is not important: though their influence and relevance can not be overstated, theyre an example of the way that media can co-opt feminist messaging for its own gain. Which is not to say that Type-O did such a thing consciously for all of their many political flaws, they were honest about being four dicks from Brooklyn, a band as firmly rooted in its working class origins as it was in goth and doom metal.Type O Negative, and others like them, are merely products of the third-wave liberal feminism that arose in the 1990s, that has been used from Type O to Twilight to obscure the thrum of misogyny that underscores all media. This doesnt mean that such things cant be enjoyed, but that as feminists we should be constantly critical of the media that we consume.Their feminist ideology may leave much to be desired, but their function as a guilty pleasure? Very satisfying, indeed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> love <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When talking aboutMacau, the first image comes to my mind is not those luxurious casinos andrestaurants. I love those cityviews hidden in the unknown places.Thats the reasonwhy I love walking on streetsTo use my camera to record these views.An old junkman was collecting discardpapers in front of a Japanese restaurant. The poor living under the surface of aluxurious city.Bright yellow with dark blue tonescomparison is common in the street.Shot in Macau, 2018.A bokeh (out of focus) photo on a personwalking on the pawnshops surrounding the casinos. A refection of the bustlingurban night city view.Shot in Macau, 2019.An old man walking alone in the residential area at midnight.Something the old solitary people will do as pastime. Shot in Macau, 2018.A Southeast Asia labour worker walking alone on the tourism districtafter the work.Lots of them come to Macau for the high salary compared to theircountries. They usually work until the midnight to earn as much as they can andsend it to their families. Shot in Macau, 2020. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Scattered across Sydneys network of railways and light rail are remnants of former railway stations. Three of these Woollahra, Enfield South and Ropes Creek tell their own individual stories about the characters and histories of each suburb and the vicissitudes of local politics.Woollahra StationDisembark from Edgecliff Station and turn right on the posh and reserved Ocean Street where curious Tudor windows dress red brick flats, This opens up to a tree-lined residential enclave. Once youve passed the quaintness of the Polish and Russian Consulates on Trelawney street, head onto Edgecliff road. Be prepared to be greeted with an unassuming bench with stunning views of a railway line. It is here that holds the only remnants of the abandoned Woollahra station project. The unassuming nature of Woollahra Station is partly due to affluence. A 2-bedroom house in Woollahra typically commands around $2.25 million. Indeed, the view that this bench affords arguably stretches all the way to the exclusive manse on 77 Wallaroy road that the University owns. The story of why and how Woollahra Station was abandoned is both intricately connected to Woollahras wealth and a state government that struggled during the 1960s. Archives from the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that the proposal of Woollahra Station and by extension, a plethora of others constituting the Eastern Suburbs line was made during the Heffron premiership between 19591964. Evidence from the Heralds Archives in 1963 indicates that the Eastern Suburbs line was delayed and the government had projected that the line would cost 29 million pounds . This was to be one amongst other delays in the chequered history of Woollahra Station and much of the Eastern Suburbs railway project.This diagram depicts the Askin Governments vision for the Eastern Suburbs line in 1968. Had Askin and Morris succeeded in persuading the residents of Woollahra, it would be likely that Sydneysiders would have been able to alight at present day Kings Cross and connect to landmarks such as Rushcutters Bay and UNSW. Indeed, one can argue that a station for Randwick in proximity to UNSW came nearly 45 years late in the form of the newly opened light rail by the Berijiklian government. However, the latter half of Askins Eastern Suburbs line caused several instances of delays owing to fierce local resistance from the suburbs affected a notable one being Woollahra. This sentiment is perhaps best summed up by a combative response from the then Transport Minister Milton Morris to Woollahra in August 1973 as reported by the Herald: No matter what the residents on the picturesque higher levels feel about it, hundreds of families near the site want that station for convenient rapid transport, and theyll get it.Finally, besieged by local rancour and the election of Neville Wran as the NSW Premier, the Eastern Suburbs line was revised. The Wran governments revision thus excluded Woollahra Station alongside the vast majority of the southern portion of 1968s proposal from Rushcutters Bay to Charing Cross, Frenchmans Road, Randwick, and UNSW with Kingsford existing as Kingsford Smith. Enfield South Station (Enfield Intermodal Lookout and Intermodal Logistics Centre)Amongst Sydneys collection of lost stations, Enfield South stands as one of the citys most obscure platforms. Located just off the intersection between Punchbowl and Cosgrove Road, Enfield South has all but vanished, leaving behind key remnants of its past as a railway workers train. Intimately connected to the nearby Enfield Tarpaulin Factory and Flemington-Campsie Goods Line, Enfield South never served as a railway line for the public. Rather, according to the NSW Rail and the Railway Digest (2008), it served as a railway platform for workers at the Enfield Tarpaulin Factory until 1996, connecting Campsie to Lidcombe Goods Junction- with similarly purposed platforms such as Enfield Loco, Hope Street, and Delec decommissioned in the same year.All these facilities were put forward in 1914 by John Harper, the then Chief Commissioner of NSW Rails to enhance Sydneys industrial prominence amidst a dramatic increase in rural productivity in NSW at the time. The chief purpose of Enfield South was to service railway workers who worked at the Tarpaulin Factory. This was a facility that specialised in manufacturing tarpaulin a highly durable, water-resistant or waterproof cloth that drapes over containers in order to protect their contents.Despite its closure, the Enfield South site is today home to several significant architectural artefacts considered to constitute state significance by heritage experts in a 2009 report to NSW Ports advocating the conversion of the derelict Enfield site into a public historical nature reserve. One of these is the Enfield Intermodal Lookout, opened in 2017 by NSW Ports, providing a wooden walkway, ecological reserve and a lookout. The walkway bifurcates the austere cast iron of the derelict Tarpaulin Factory and the vast Enfield Marshalling Yard. The latter comprising an impressive complex boasting artefacts such as two large locomotive turntables to facilitate the turning of steam locomotives as without them these trains would clock substantially lower speed in their return journeys. Other notable structures still standing on the Enfield South Station and Marshalling Yard includes the Yard Masters Office, Administration Building, and Pillar Water Tank. The Yard Masters Office, as its name implies, once hosted the Marshalling Yards Master and were responsible for tracking wagons alongside ensuring that they are properly sealed prior to departure. On the other hand, the Administration Building served routine administrative purposes and have since been subject to deterioration and graffiti. Of these structures, NSW Ports expects to retain the Pillar Water Tank and Tarpaulin Factory citing the low significance and derelict conditions of other buildings. Contrary to concerns that the absence of steam locomotives and opening of the Intermodal Lookout suggests that the future of the Enfield South, Loco, & Marshalling Yard is in decline, its contemporary incarnation as the Enfield ILC (Intermodal Logistics Centre) means that the complex maintains its role as a key artery in Sydneys logistics network. At status quo, the Enfield ILC is NSWs largest railway-based intermodal logistic centre. Furthermore, the NSW Government, since at least 2018, has given NSW Ports the permission to expand the Enfield ILC to form which is estimated to cost about $190 million by SBA Architects the firm that won the Enfield ILC design competition.Thus, although traces of Enfield South Station have amalgamated into the lives of the busy Sydney Metropolitan Freight Network and Logistics Centre, its future looks bright and will maintain considerable significance to the community in Strathfield, Enfield, and Belmore for years to come. Ropes Creek StationAlighting at St. Marys Station along the Western line, strolling north for nearly an hour past quaint streets and the tree-lined Ropes Crossing precinct, I arrived at the former Ropes Creek Railway Station. Cleverly camouflaged amidst a quiet residential quarter, the former railway station now doubling as a local recreational park and historical artifact. A small stair connects the street to the platform, with a signpost clearly labelled: Ropes Creek Station seemingly inviting contemporary passengers to contemplate trains terminating on either side of the tracks.Unlike most of Sydneys other disused stations, Ropes Creeks platform is remarkably well preserved with remnants of railway tracks still visible today around the platform. Albeit the headhouse has clearly been restored since closure to remove seats. Instead an I-beam and related machinery are displayed behind fenced enclosures now replacing the interior. At first glance, one might wonder why the line perished. After all, the modern day St Marys precinct is a firmly residential area and a pedestrian journey from Ropes Creek to the station entailed a fifty minute ordeal. Ropes Creek was constructed during World War Two in 1942 under Curtins prime ministership, serving the Department of Defence in order to transport workers and service members who worked at the nearby St.Marys Munition Factory. The factory was built to supply ammunition and related weaponry for the Australian war effort. Following the outbreak of the Korean War, the site was once again utilised to manufacture munitions until the post-Cold War era saw a period of terminal decline for St Mary and by extension, Ropes Creek and its sister stations Dunheved and Cochrane.Signage at Ropes Crossing. Remnants of railway tracks and platforms remain amidst Ropes Crossings neighbourhood. Photo courtesy of Khanh Tran.The last regular passenger trains to alight at Ropes Creek and its two sisters did so on March 21, 1986. The rationale according to the Sydney Morning Herald behind Ropes Creeks demise was that the footfall to the station gradually dwindled due to the decline in service members serving St. Marys munitions factory alongside the closure of the factory itself. This, in turn, meant that after World War Two there was seldom demand for transport on the line. Indeed, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Federal Government spent approximately $250,000 to maintain the Ropes Creek line. This is a major loss given that fares collected from the line were a mere $5,000 per month, and thus significantly smaller than the governments investment.There were only three scheduled trips a day on the line until its closure.Thus, today Ropes Creek Station and her sisters stand as a living remnant of Sydneys role in the Second World War. The station serves the local community at Ropes Crossing as a public space to rest and play, with childrens slides adorning its once sombre surroundings. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Rita Thereses debut memoir Come has been described as bold, brave and darkly funny. I can safely say it does not disappoint. Despite giving myself a couple of days to read Come, I found my eyes unwilling to leave its pages. Rita takes readers on a journey of immense loss, grief and pain; yet there were moments where I laughed harder than I have in a long time and felt seen in a way I have not often experienced.As a sex worker myself, this is the book I want to recommend to my friends, that I trust to portray an experience that does not play into the stereotypes of our work that people so desperately seek out. It is the kind of work I hope to see more and more of.I sat down with Rita to chat about her memoir, life, work and some of the things in between.Aylah Rose: How are you feeling at the moment with everything thats going on in the world?Rita Therese: I dont really go on the news anymore at this point, its better to just tune out you know, its just too stressful.AR: Yeah I feel that a lot! Its just like, a strange time, I dont know about you, but Ive had to stop working and I know a lot of other workers in the same position and things just feel super, I dont know, unstable?RT: Its a really strange, strange time and I think thats a good word for it, unstable.AR: On the plus side its meant that I had the opportunity to sit down all afternoon yesterday and read your new book, Come. I have to say when I finished reading it the first thought I had was just like wow, that was so not the typical hooker memoir you expect to read based on the way the media and film and television usually portray our stories. So often theres this reliance on either trauma porn or the glamorisation of sex work and your book just refuses to play into that. Was that a conscious decision?RT: Yeah absolutely! I didnt want that to be the way the book was and I just felt like, firstly I didnt want to bludger people over the head constantly with trauma stuff, but I also wanted it to be a really dimensional piece of writing that had a lot of different perspectives. Maybe its also something about me, but I didnt feel like it would justify my own life to make it, I think exactly what youre saying, like either really glamorous or really traumatic. I think that there should be space for writers from the sex industry to be allowed to be given the same dimension that other people who write memoirs are and there doesnt have to be this kind of, one-size-fits-all approach to storytelling, you know?AR: I really started to feel that vibe early on in the book when you tell this story about the first time you ever had to work on your period and use a sponge and, without giving too much away, had this experience with a client that I think a lot of non-workers would find pretty awkward, but you just burst out laughing the second the booking was over. It just really captured for me the way sex work, despite the stigma and hype that people create around it, is just totally normal work and that we do have off days and uncomfortable moments, but that we can laugh at them and we can take the piss out of ourselves you know?RT: Absolutely! There needs to be a lot of space for laughter because, you know, I think within work youre expected to be very serious or to present like a very particular kind of person and one of the things I really wanted to do with my book was to be a bit gross or to make fun of things and to laugh, but to also normalise a lot of things that are normal for us.AR: Something else that I found really cool was the way that you interweaved stories in such a clever way so that Id be laughing so much in one instant and then there would be these really important moments where you would talk about grief, or trauma, or some quite intense experiences, but youd suddenly pull us out of those moments and bring us back to something funny or light.RT: Yeah, I purposely did that because I didnt want the reader to be like ugh and put the book down and just not want to pick it up again you know? It was about creating scenes and momentum that allow you to go through the heavy stuff and still want to stay engaged and not feel overwhelmed. I think that when I read a lot of books that dealt with really intense trauma, I found that the best way for me to get through them was to not feel so overwhelmed and I didnt want my reader to feel that way and feel like fucking hell, you know?AR: So the book delves into your past and the traumas that come with that, and I guess I kind of got the feeling that this book is as much written for you as it is for your readers, like kind of a cathartic experience.RT: Absolutely, thats definitely what it was yeah!AR: How are you feeling now, I guess knowing that the book will be available to so many people and that aspects of your life, for total lack of a better term, will be more or less laid bare?RT: I dont know, I get asked this a lot I think the main feedback I get from people about the book is that its very honest, and thats not a bad thing but it is curious because thats just who I am as a person and I guess. I dont know, my life has been so public and so open that, I dont know, maybe I will feel something, well see. I remember when I made my first zine and I put it in the post box and I went to walk away and I had an anxiety attack and thought oh fuck, what have I done? you know, like Ive just put this really personal thing out, but now I think Im just so used to it. I dont know why it doesnt bother me anymore. Maybe it is a sense of catharsis, or a hope that it makes other people feel less alone. Because I think honesty can do that; it can help people to feel less afraid of themselves, or to feel less gross or scared of dark thoughts. I think its very freeing to bare it and be open with it all.AR: I mean, its a super interesting time for a book like this to be coming out, because you know, with social media sex work slowly being portrayed more in more mainstream media, despite often being done in a super typecast and problematic way, it definitely does feel like its a pretty rapidly changing landscape for us.RT: Yeah, its been interesting to see how things have changed because Ive been working since I was 18, so almost 10 years now, and the shape of the industry has changed, online media has changed, it all exists in a very different way to how it used to. Its exciting and cool but its also kind of sad because, you know, back in the old days [both laughing] Instagram was a really fun platform to use because it hadnt been so heavily censored yet and Tumblr was a great platform and Twitter had this great community, but because of SESTA/FOSTA [US legislation passed in 2018 that clamped down on online sex work in the name of attacking sex trafficking] thats changed massively. So its kind of both a great thing to see so many people out and being open, but its also sad that all of these laws and these changes have meant that things that we used to do, or talk about, or be able to have on so many platforms are now gone because of censorship.AR: In talking about SESTA/FOSTA and this really intensely changing landscape for sex workers, was there a part of you that, I guess beyond the cathartic element that weve spoken about and the hope to make people feel seen and heard, felt that maybe politically there was a need for a book like this right now?RT: Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately the book was always about positioning sex work as the background and for me it was more about, you know, the work being in there, the actual physical work, the emotional work, but that the main thing that happens is life. I think sometimes the narrative that gets sold, or that people want, is that sex work is the only thing in your life and its not. You know for so many of us, for all of us, we have partners and relationships and death and love. I think juxtaposing that against sex work and going through death and experiencing grief and having to deal with clients and people, I think that, I dont know, maybe it helps to create a bit more space for those stories to happen. Like, you know, you can talk about sex work because it is so intrinsically linked to the self but mainly the book is about grief and grieving; grieving the loss of my brothers, grieving the loss of my identity that I had held on so tightly to as a sex worker, you know?AR: Yeah absolutely. I think it speaks to what we spoke about earlier, that for me this wasnt that hooker memoir. Its literally a story of someones grief and immense loss and then yeah sure theres that backdrop of work and putting on your face for that, but like, in the same way that you would if you were a brickie heading out to the construction site or whatever. Which is so cool because it just normalises our work and like, yes hello we have lives that exist and intertwine with our job the way it does for everyone else.RT: Yeah I think if you swapped out sex work for any other job you dont know much about, like I dont know, maybe a rash specialist [laughing] or some obtuse business, I think that curiosity would be there and I think what I wanted to do was reframe my work as maybe a curious job, but a regular job. But just that, a job. It forms an interesting backdrop but its not the central part of the story.AR: Yeah and it doesnt indulge that thing of non sex workers wanting you to intrigue them with how fucked up the job is, or how much money you make orRT: Exactly! And I think that was really important when I was thinking about the cover for my book. One of the options that was initially pitched to me I said no to because I felt that people would pick it up thinking they would read it on a beach somewhere and kick back and get lost in this like saucy tale, and Im like uh no, thats not whats gonna happen. So it was really important to me that that wasnt the narrative that was sold because people would be disappointed. Its not meant to be glamorous; its meant to be funny and dark, but it wasnt meant to be anything but real and honest.And I think that about perfectly wraps it all up [both laughing].Rita Thereses new book COME is available online here.Aylah Rose is a Sydney-based sex worker. You can follow their Instagram, @fatlilbratz. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For as long as Ive been aware of YouTube comments, I can remember knowing that they are shit. It seems to be one of those commonly understood truths, some part of the canon of the internet, lodged as deep in the online psyche as Chuck Norris jokes and Impact font. I never quite understood why YouTube comments specifically seemed to attract such unique disdain. Of course, they can carry vitriol, but its no more than the standard level of spite that you find people reach when theyre given anonymity and a platform. There is something to be said about the pointlessness of many YouTube comments. I put this down to what my housemate calls YouTube content videos that couldnt survive on any platform that didnt have an algorithm aggressively shoving content like SCARING KEVIN HART WITH A SNAKE down your throat. I cant help but think that sterile, emotionless content designed to target a certain viewership leads to similarly lifeless comments.But despite all this, Ive come to realise that the comments section of YouTube can be beautiful and human. The first comments section that stood out to me was that of CLAUDE DEBUSSY: CLAIR DE LUNE. Despite the loud title, the comments section is more restrained, more emotional. People share stories about listening to the song with people they love, sometimes people that theyve lost. One or two people reference an anime that the song appeared in. Someone with the username RayzeDark makes the observation that the song is what will play when the credits are rolling on the universe, and people agree. The mood is calm, based on a shared appreciation of the way that the song makes them feel. To me, it feels like sitting, staring at the stars with a group of strangers. I became immersed in the habit of scrolling down to the comments when a video made me feel a certain way, and I realised that this was more common than Id thought. Other people were feeling the same way, and sharing how they felt very freely.YouTube comments sections are good for many of the same reasons theyre bad. Anonymity brings out all of the truest parts of us, not just the hate. And just like stale, corporate content brings out pointless comments, honest and emotional content brings out something human. I fully recognise that its the sappy, overly emotional part of me that is willing to invest this much energy into analysing YouTube comments the same part of me that cries at ads. But I like them; I like their earnestness, I like the stories people tell, I like how publicly stupid some people can be. I like the feeling of shared joy, as though Ive just made eye contact with someone while fireworks are going off. And I love how I can come home from a shit day, put on a video, scroll down, and have it feel like Im staring at the stars. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> An embassy is a most interesting place. Typically relegated to the sterile back streets of national capitals, they tend to only burst into the collective consciousness at the centre of dramatic and unusual news stories Jamal Khashoggis murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and Julian Assanges confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London spring to mind. Yet there is something particularly curious about these places that sit at the intersection of two states, which due to the peculiarities of extraterritoriality, exist in a sort of jurisdictional limbo, oddly removed from their surroundings not only physically, but legally.In recent years, I have begun to deliberately seek out embassies while travelling. A walk around a diplomatic district becomes a visit to a sort of live gallery of national psyches run wild on the well-to-do streets of national capitals the world over. Their dressings of pomp and decorum are often undercut, upon closer inspection, by the bemusing, quirky and mildly alarming. Presented here is a selection of the most intriguing.There are a few necessary ingredients that make for a good embassy to visit.First and foremost, an embassy must naturally represent its home country.The Belgium embassy in Beijing. Photo: Samuel Garrett.Exhibit A: The Belgian Embassy in Beijing. A small detail can make a big difference. Here, a fairly nondescript embassy block is transformed into a cultural ambassador with the simple addition of a portrait of Tintin in The Blue Lotus, a respectable effort at finding a China-Belgium link which probably represents the pinnacle of their cross-cultural relations. Nice going Belgium.A Michelin Man chained to a tree near the Belgian embassy in Beijing. Photo: Samuel Garrett.Across the road from the Belgian embassy, we find a scale model of the Michelin Man, unceremoniously chained to a tree. A veiled message to their French neighbours up the road perhaps? The language of diplomacy can be abstruse at the best of times.The Australian embassy in Beijing. Photo: Samuel Garrett.Meanwhile, the Australian embassy in Beijing presents more of a study in crusader-inspired defensive architecture than an exercise in open diplomacy, complete with anti-vehicular moat along one side. Though its concrete form appears to physically represent a xenophobic national psyche, points must be granted for the rare Tim Tams sold at a nearby overpriced corner store that presumably only caters to homesick diplomats.The North Korean embassy in Berlin. Photo: Samuel Garrett.The North Korean embassy in Berlin, alongside black-tinted vehicles parked out the front, proudly displays images of the Supreme Leader himself strolling over sun-dappled garden bridges and travelling in magnificent convoy behind a phalanx of police motorcycles. Heartwarming.The Cuban embassy in Argentina. Photo: Samuel Garrett.Sometimes the representations of home are less deliberate than are intended. The Cuban embassy in Buenos Aires presents a wonderfully detailed example of colonial architecture reminiscent of the buildings of Old Havana, though regrettably also transplants the mould that typically accompanies them.A good embassy must also be open and welcoming.Gifts from the Fijian embassy. Photo: Samuel Garrett.In the Fijian embassy in Beijing, the bustling staff of one kindly took time out of her busy schedule catering to the needs of the no doubt sprawling Fijian diaspora in China, to provide me biscuits and a complimentary bottle of Fiji Water.Pamphlets from the Kazakh embassy in Latvia. Photo: Samuel Garrett.Similarly, the eagerness of the Kazakh embassy in Riga, Latvia, to lavish me with travel brochures seemed surpassed only by their surprise that someone had actually wanted to come in.Finally, a good embassy needs a certain X-factor, something uniquely embassy that speaks to the randomness and absurdity of an international system built on occupying fancy houses in other countries capitals.The Australian embassy in Buenos Aires. Photo: Samuel Garrett.The Australian embassy in Buenos Aires reveals to the curious that it was once home (for 29 days) to Albert Einstein. Not the most spectacular claim to fame but suitably quaint.The Ethiopian consulate in Helsinki. Photo: Samuel Garrett.Finally, we come to the honorary Ethiopian consulate in Helsinki. Opened by order of a magnificent brass plaque; closed by the power of the humble post-it note. If ever there were a more apt illustration of the fragility of international diplomacy, I am yet to hear of it.So, while our borders may be closed and all outbound flights cancelled, head down to Canberra and take a stroll around the embassies of Capital Hill some time. There may be more to discover there than you expected. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Relic guitars are an increasingly popular trend in the musical instrument market: guitar brands charge a premium price to make dents, scratches, and sanding off paints on new instruments, rendering them with a vintage look. Artificial ageing had become more prevalent and accepted since the historic brand Fender introduced its high-end relic series guitars in 1995, which quickly became a cult status symbol. Some musicians also relic their own instruments in order to fulfil their desire for an ancient guitar for a lower price. Why do so many people love old and worn objects to the extent of distressing new acquisitions?I asked members of the Guitar Players on Facebook group for some insights. Aesthetics is part of our love for the instrument, one member commented. Another bought a Roadworn Telecaster because it sounds and plays awesome and has the right colour. Hence, although aesthetics is important, it is often not the priority for many guitar buyers playability and tone are often the most valued elements.But many players are willing to pay a steep price for a look Reliced custom shop guitars are often double or triple the price of standard factory-made professional guitars. According to the official Australian Fender Custom Shop website, the Postmodern Stratocaster Journeyman Relic, one of the more affordable models, costs $6599. For those in the know, therefore, reliced guitars have become an exclusive status symbol for players to show off their wealth. It is important to note, though, the premium price is not charged for the relic finish alone, but for the expert craftsmanship as well.Because of the prohibitive cost, many guitarists adapt a DIY ethic to age their instruments. Many YouTube and other online tutorials are available owners could learn to distress the metal, strip off the finish, sand the neck, hammer some dents. Despite the abundance of instructional resources, relicing remains an art to master with patience. Go too far and make the vintage markings look too obvious, the instrument becomes ugly, too subtle and no one will notice. To relic a guitar, then, requires a developed sense of aesthetics that combines tasteful restraints with technical prowess.Some argue an antique appearance could also improve an instruments sound. John Mayer, a blues guitarist and pop singer-songwriter, used his Black1 Fender Stratocaster to record and tour his 2006 album, Continuum. In a documentary about the guitar, Mayer said the stripped paint is not intended to make the guitar look old, but rather allowing the wood to sort of breath, thereby producing a purer tone through a more resonant body. Although a professional musician could sometimes tell the tonal difference, the improvement might be extremely subtle for the general audience. Mayer said the guitar sounds like its from heaven and has inspired songs such as Gravity. The Black1 was crafted by the famed guitar builder John Cruz in 2004. Its official limited-edition replica is currently priced at over $45000 AUD.In the documentary, Mayer admits Black1s design is partly influenced by his hero, Texas bluesman Stevie Ray Vaughan, who had made famous another worn-looking Stratocaster: the Number One. The difference, though, is SRVs instrument was made from authentic vintage parts actually crafted in the 1950s and 60s. The desire to capture the talents of famous musicians through their instruments seems to be the motivating reason for many relicers. For example, Eric Clapton, widely considered one of the greatest guitarists ever, has inspired quite a few reliced signature guitars. Prominent brands produced replicas of his famous instruments, such as a Lucy Gibson Les Paul he used to record with the Beatles and a Brownie Fender Stratocaster he played in the classic love song, Layla. People often prefer these replicas because it takes them a little closer to their heroes, to a golden age they had missed.Many guitarists argue that a sense of authenticity and history in a guitar could be more important to some than an artificially-crafted look. Its a personal preference to relic, but I would want to have memories with every paint chip and fade in my guitar, one guitarist commented on Facebook. Vintage guitars that have been played and show honest wear look great, but modern relics PASS not the same as an old guitar, another said.Although I would still gaze at those worn beauties in guitar shops, I guess for now Ill just hang on to my well-cared, shiny electric guitar and focus on becoming a better performer. After all, ancient facades wouldnt add more soul to songs. I know if I had John Mayers Stratocaster, I would still sound like me. The tens of thousands of dollars spent on a reliced guitar can never buy the ability to connect with the audience. While a beautifully worn axe could inspire you to practice more, its the player, not the instrument, that makes the music great.Guitars are like people, each with their own strengths and limitations and quirks. Their qualities, like peoples, could evolve with ageits often said that aged wood produces a warmer tone. Following this analogy, I wouldnt understand why a young person would want to appear beyond their age. Because often, youth is as sublime as the trail of experience. For me, guitars are most attractive when they are true to themselves, just like us. I prefer embracing new guitars youth and then growing old with them.I imagine one day, in my greying hair and thinning skin, I would graze my fingertips on this beautiful instrument sitting on my lap now, and caress its dents and faded paint with a tenderness reserved for old friends. True sentimentality, I think, could only be nurtured with years; and sincere tenderness, could only grow with thickening memories. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Three and a half years ago, I picked a medical science degree, like many confused seventeen-years-olds before me, because Id always loved biology in high school but couldnt quite close the deal on undergraduate medicine. I quickly found a genuine love for medical science. While it is true that its students are occasionally awkward and often competitive, I have never met a more earnest group of people in my life. One of my first university memories is of a lecture introducing diabetes where a lecturer wore a shirt extolling the virtues of the pancreas. I am also deeply fond of the Anderson Stuart Building, a building that despite Honis postulation that it was haunted in my first week on campus, has since become my second home.In noting these things, I would be remiss to ignore the very public crises of management that have coloured my years here. In the first semester of 2019, on my way to anatomy and histology classes, I would walk through corridors where flyers and posters begged for Anderson Stuart to be saved. The buildings staff were being threatened at the time with eviction, and I tried to show solidarity in whatever small ways were possible.In 2020, against the backdrop of a pandemic that ought to have strengthened the imperative for basic science teaching, staff in my own major of physiology were threatened with losing their jobs. I rallied with them, fought police repression and even participated in a historic occupation of the F23 building to try and protect their jobs. This year I watched as several of my friends who had gone on to start their honours years were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building, once again under the auspices of safety concerns and an allegedly toxic workplace culture. Over the past few weeks, I resolved to speak with staff, unionists and student activists to try to understand exactly why the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH) has generated these yearly crises.Jamie*, a former FMH staff member who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, describes a once drastically different workplace culture and attributes recent changes to the appointment of the inaugural Dean, Professor Robyn Ward, in July 2018. Before that time, they said that while management was not perfect, staff felt that their opinions were valued by Heads of School and that they collaborated freely and extensively.Ward was appointed three years ago to oversee the centralisation of what were once seven separately administered schools Medical Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Sciences into a single mega-faculty. Jamie says that staff in the School of Medical Sciences (SoMS) perceived themselves as particularly targeted, and that their trust in faculty leaders has been most especially eroded by a lack of collegiality or consultation over the last two years.Jamie believes that the targeting of staff in SoMS began in late 2018 when staff who worked in wet laboratories (those that use biological material or liquids) in the Anderson Stuart Building were told that they would be evicted on the grounds that their laboratories did not adhere to safety standards. Initially, Ward argued that the workplace health and safety risks were so intolerably severe that they could not be remedied by usual procedures, and mandated full relocation to other facilities by, at the latest, mid-2019. Staff say they were confused by this sudden development on two accounts. First, many staff reported that immediately before this proposal, their labs were found to meet Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) standards or had received minor, rectifiable recommendations. Additionally, management were extremely reticent to provide any detailed WHS reports on which the claim that the laboratories were unsafe was based.Rob Boncardo, a member of USyds National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch committee, says that these actions on managements behalf led staff to seek NTEU involvement to wage a dispute with the Faculty on their behalf. Boncardo argued that given the lack of WHS evidence, managements initial actions were a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) as they did not engage in a formal change process, in which consultation and discussion would be required to move staff from the Anderson Stuart Building. This motivated the NTEU to challenge the decision with the Provost, the Vice Chancellor and ultimately arbitration by the Fair Work Commission. In October 2019, the Fair Work Commission ruled in favour of staff in the Anderson Stuart Building and declared that the University should have entered into genuine bargaining through a formal change process.Both Jamie and Rob tell me that there was a noticeable shift in the narrative of management during the dispute. After it became clear that FMH had insufficient evidence to support evictions on WHS grounds, they began to prosecute an argument that the staff deserved better facilities and so ought to be moved out of their presently suboptimal spaces in the Anderson Stuart Building.Jamie says that staff were sceptical of this narrative as they had seen management promises of new buildings and facilities fail to materialise in the past and ultimately felt that the move was done to specifically demoralise and separate staff who had previously become accustomed to close collaboration. Campbell Watson, a fourth-year student in the Faculty and long-time activist, tells me that this was the first time that students became aware of what he described as a longer term culture war between management and SoMS staff. Watson also recalls the high levels of staff militancy and the horror of many students when they discovered how their teachers were being treated.In 2020, Watson was a key organiser in the campaign to Defend Medical Science Education, an involvement he says was motivated by his belief that the staff who were to be made redundant were some of the best people who had ever taught him. In late 2020, Professor Sarah Young, the current Head of the School of Medical Sciences, put forward a Draft Change Proposal that made redundant positions in the disciplines of Physiology and Pathology. Jamie was one of the many staff members whose job was ultimately made redundant under the proposal, and notes that several attempts to be genuinely consulted on the proposal were rebuffed and that directly negotiating with management was difficult.The justification for the proposal was argued on two grounds: a) an attempt to further centralise teaching and b) to address what was argued to be overstaffing of the Physiology and Pathology disciplines. Physiology staff reported to management that the data being used to calculate the full time equivalent (FTE) value of their work was incorrect and did not take into account its full scope. In one other incident, management was especially combative, insisting staff were not being paid for a bioengineering class that staff knew they were being paid to teach.Undergraduate and higher degree by research (HDR) student attempts at consultation were also rebuffed. Watson recalls a meeting with Sarah Young after the Revised Change Proposal was released, in which he and other students demanded that they be given the opportunity to make submissions and be consulted in the negotiating process. Watson describes Youngs approach in the meeting as completely retaliatory as she referred to technical descriptions showing that students did not need to be consulted on matters of staff employment.Everyone I spoke to noted that after the Anderson Stuart incident, management appeared to now be weaponising the terms of the enterprise bargaining agreement to their benefit, particularly against concerned students. Jamie notes that while the EBA required the Faculty to demonstrate that it was consulting staff, they were not obliged to make concessions to anyone, and appeared unwilling to do so throughout the process. In one survey conducted by the Defend Medical Science Education campaign in 2020, 69.17% of the 132 SoMS staff they surveyed reported feeling bullied by the actions of senior management.Despite a large-scale campaign of resistance involving two disputes issued by the NTEU and a mobilisation of both staff and students, SoMS ultimately proceeded with the majority of the planned staff redundancies. Kelton Muir de Moore, a casual staff member in Physiology and member of the NTEU, remembers the campaign as a moment of unprecedented staff mobilisation, describing the campaign as the best level of colleagueship Ive seen in my time in Physiology. Although relationships between staff had become tense, Muir de Moore says that the struggle against the brutal management of staff gave staff a commonality that nurtured friendships and desires to fight the mismanagement of the University.This year, in a sequel befitting of a scripted drama, honours students were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building (MFB) and asked to change their supervisors on short notice. The eviction was initially justified on safety grounds by the fact that an unknown white powder and broken glass were found underneath a poster criticising management. Many of the same staff and postgraduate students that were evicted from Anderson Stuart in 2019 were relocated to MFB, and the culture of the building has been described by staff to be particularly sceptical of senior management. Subsequently, the eviction of honours students was justified on the basis of a supposedly toxic workplace culture within the building.Boncardo explains that the NTEU closely engaged with the affected students in the MFB as losing honours students can significantly impact staff workload provisions and make them appear as if they were not performing their job adequately. Initially, Boncardo says, FMH management did not respond to NTEU appeals for mediation and proceeded to contact students informing them of an intent to evict regardless. The NTEU subsequently used a right of entry protocol to audit the evidence for the toxic workplace culture. The evidence, Boncardo says, was found to have been sourced from only six Faculty members, all of whom were members of the senior management team, and only one of whom worked in the building. At this point, Boncardo recalls, staff began to suspect that the phrase toxic workplace culture was managements way of describing the strong union culture in the building.Students, helped by the NTEU and the Students Representative Council (SRC), attempted to bargain with the Faculty and wrote individually and collectively in order to stay in the building and continue their original projects. The Faculty eventually reneged on good faith negotiations with the NTEU and the students were told that they would be moved out of the building at the end of the week. Subsequently, a meeting was held between management and students in which Boncardo attended in his capacity as a representative of the NTEU and the interests of students. Despite the students wish for Boncardo to remain in the meeting, management asked him to leave. Boncardo describes these actions as a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement and a transparent effort at union busting. Eventually, after two weeks of negotiations, the Faculty decided to allow the honours students to remain in their building.An honours student affected by the incident, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, described the personal toll of the two weeks on their education. The student said that they lost weeks of work and what feels like years off my life [and] I really cannot emphasise enough the mental and emotional toll. Several students expressed to me that they were finding it impossible to sleep and eat properly as they were feeling too hyped up by the adrenaline, stress and uncertainty around the decision and our meetings with management.The student further described dealings with management as devoid of empathy. Several honours students affected by the project have reportedly lost their trust in the Faculty and have strongly reconsidered their intentions to undertake further studies.The SRC President, Swapnik Sanagavarapu, who was heavily involved in assisting students as a representative during the incident, confirmed that management were particularly hostile during meetings and did not seem to want a resolution. When asked to speak generally about accusations of a toxic culture in the faculty, Sanagavarapu said that in his experiences advocating for students, he felt that there was no faculty that has had so many instances back to back of people being treated so poorly (by management).The NTEU has since conducted an audit into the workplace culture of the Medical Foundation Building and found that there was no evidence of a toxic or urgently unsafe workplace in the area. Overwhelmingly, respondents to the NTEUs audit said that the space was safe and had a positive culture among colleagues. 69% of respondents, however, felt that the senior management of the Faculty negatively impacted the culture of the building. On 27 May, the NTEU recommended that further consultative processes with staff should be taken by senior management in order to best meet their needs. As Boncardo surmises, while this process began with management cruelly accusing staff of cultivating a toxic workplace culture, it has ended with a rigorous and wide-ranging audit showing that it is in fact management themselves who have a lot of work to do to improve their relations with staff and students.Senior management may well have had an important (even good) idea when they set out to establish this mega-faculty. Change of this scale, however, requires a well articulated vision, clear communication, regular trustworthy consultation and authenticity where actions match a shared vision. The narrative so far seems sadly lacking in all of these attributes. Staff, students and unionists all appear to agree on one thing: FMH management have, for multiple years now, been engaging in a campaign of obfuscation, bullying and managerialism. If a toxic culture exists in the Faculty of Medicine and Health it is surely not one that exists amongst its students and teachers. Instead, it is one created by senior managers who have, thus far, unsuccessfully tried to divide and conquer them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> So, you want to be SRC President. Maybe you crave the power. The validation. The minimum wage stipend. Trouble is, you know you could never win the election. Perhaps youve already lost one. Fortunately for you, the SRC Constitution could be surprisingly conducive to a campus autocrat, if handled with care. With a little finesse, a little amorality, and a little help from some high-placed friends, things might just go your way.Heres your handy guide to launching a hostile takeover of the Student Representative Council in 10 easy-to-follow steps. Individual results may vary.You will need:500 supportersGood relations with the University SenateNerves of steelDisdain for the democratic processNo moral compassA power complexStep 1: Gather your forcesEvery budding dictator needs a power base even the most absolutist autocrats didnt get there alone. Fortunately, you dont need the almost 3,000 votes of the winner of the last contested presidential election, or even the 2,500 of the loser. A mere 500 supporters will prove something of a magic number when it comes to dismissing key figures in your path to absolute power. Even for a B-tier NOC such as yourself, this shouldnt be too high a hurdle to clear. Enlist them quietly, with promises of spoils and a new dawn of Freedom once you walk the SRCs (single) corridor of power.Step 2: Invent your excuseEvery coup needs a pretext. Its important for maintaining a facade of legitimacy and a justification for control. Come up with some kind of grievance, any old thing will do. Ideally, it would be something incontrovertibly unconstitutional, which past councils, presidents and Honi Soit editors alike have overlooked for years. Something blatant, yet sufficiently inconsequential for anyone to care. After all, if it was a legitimate issue, this wouldnt be a brazen power grab now, would it?Your key to victory lies in Part 6, s.4 (d) of the SRC Regulations: The President shall present the editors of Honi Soit with a written report prior to the publication of each issue. The report shall be printed on a facing page within the first nine pages [of] Honi Soit, and shall be a minimum of ten point typesetting. The Presidents Report has not been published within the first nine pages of Honi Soit for over a decade. Even within this very weeks edition, you will find it on page 24.With such an egregious breach of regulations to hand, you can set about astroturfing. Send letters to Honi, publish some USyd Rants. Complain much but resolve little. You must create the impression of a genuine movement as a guise for the sudden emergence of your 500 disciplined loyalists. Avoid at all costs the premature resolution of your chosen grievance youll need it to be in play when you make your move.Step 3: Depose the PresidentTime to get this show on the road now that your justification is well publicised and your supporters are ready to strike. Under s.4 (e) of the SRC Constitution, the President can be summarily dismissed upon the receipt of a petition signed by 500 members of the student body, and a vote at a duly convened General Meeting of the Student Body. With a significant and organised faction of 500 at your back, success should be assured. Timing will be critical here. Dismiss the President in Semester 2, and the Council can simply appoint an Acting President as their replacement under s.4 (f). But act in Semester 1, and a byelection must instead occur. You neednt make plans to participate unbeknownst to the others, this byelection will never take place. You are simply playing for time.Step 4: Activate your foreign backersLike many coups, yours is to be dependent on a meddlesome foreign power. You require an ally outside the world of domestic Stupol one whose interests are so fundamentally opposed to the SRC that they will back you to the bitter end. The University Senate is an ideal co-conspirator. They will be your CIA, the external operator who will recognise your supremacy and enable your despotism in exchange for a pliant SRC that stops interfering with their plans. Conveniently, s.18 (b) of the Constitution provides the Senate with just the reserve powers you need for your very own John Kerr moment.With the SRC now in chaos and the Presidency vacant, place a call to your friend the Vice-Chancellor. Demand an investigation into your Presidents Report grievance. S.18 (b) subsumes the Constitution under Senate Resolution 284/06 (since superseded by the Student Associations Policy 2020), which empowers the VC to investigate governance misfeasance at the SRC. Given that a General Meeting of the Student Body saw fit to dismiss a President over your Part 6, s.4 (d) complaint, the VC should oblige without hesitation. Once the investigation inevitably reveals endemic neglect of Part 6, s.4 (d), the VC will be empowered to appoint an administrator with power to manage the student associations affairs.Step 5: Install yourself as PresidentWith the Administrator secretly in your pocket, put yourself forward as the perfect outsider to take the troubled reins of power and bring Order to campus. Conducting the upcoming presidential byelection will surely result in the election of yet another Part 6, s.4 (d)-ignoring politician, you will explain to the Administrator. Over a decade of neglect is evidence enough of that. Besides, you will have on hand a convenient petition calling for your instatement, signed by 500 members of the student body (your 500 cronies, naturally) to demonstrate a clear mandate to address the rampant mismanagement which has, for years, unconstitutionally demoted the Presidents report to the back pages of Honi Soit. The populace never responds well to an ambitious coup mastermind. But a reluctant leader with a popular mandate? Well thats just the will of the people now, isnt it?Step 6: Shut down Honi SoitEvery dictator worth their jackboots knows that control of information is everything. Muzzling the free press on campus is critical. Honis irreverent reporting is much too dangerous to be left unchecked, and the ten editors will never take your undemocratic putsch quietly. You need people more used to working under a corporate structure. Have the Administrator compel the SRC to provide the Honi Facebook password, take the website offline and draft in former editors of some more pliant off-campus publications to run the show.Step 7: Scupper the CouncilNow for the legislature. Your options here are fairly wide and can be exercised to fit the situation. Under s.3 (h)(i) of the Constitution, you can direct your band of 500 to dismiss individual representatives that cause you trouble, in the same manner as you deposed the President. Or, if you prefer a more top-down approach, the Administrator under the Student Associations Policy 2020 (now your right-hand man) can dismiss any or all office bearers at will. Wielding this Sword of Damocles ought to bring those who would seek to dethrone you in line.Even better, any decision a recalcitrant Council attempts to make against you can be stalled by your 500 loyalists. Under s.15 (a) of the Constitution, a referendum on any Council decision can be forced by a petition signed by 450 students, and shall delay the operation of the decision of the Council until it has been voted upon. By abusing such referenda, you will be able to transform the once-mighty Council into a lame duck, and significantly slow its operation even if the eventual result of each referendum does not ultimately swing your way.Step 8: Announce yourself to your new subjectsNext up, hearts and minds. Make an address to students, to be carried on Facebook Live by a reorganised Honi Soit that is now firmly under your heel. Reassure the populace. Condemn the instability and neglect of the past. Promise new democratic elections in 18 months once voter rolls are audited, the will of the students can be guaranteed, and those who treacherously ignored Part 6, s.4 (d) of the regulations are sidelined. Feel free to promise that you wont stand for reelection you can always change your mind once the people, as reported in your new Honi, call on you to stay.Step 9: Deal with any dissentFrom here on, things are pretty smooth sailing. With the Senate at your back, campus at your feet, and campus security as your iron fist, there is little that can stop you. Swipe card access for any dissenters can be revoked, troublemakers removed from SRC premises and even academic misconduct proceedings raised if you play your cards right with your new friends over at F23. Your 500 core supporters are always on call if more dismissals are required, but be warned youve given them a taste of power, and they might just bite the hand that feeds if you are not wary.Step 10: Sit back, relax, and watch your backThe rest is childs play. Purge the voter rolls, rig electoral regulations, even rewrite the Constitution if you wish. Youre in charge now, go wild! Youre the new SRC Supreme Ruler of Council and nothing can stand in your way. That is, until the next coup. Perhaps you shouldve thought of that before. Thus always to tyrants. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> May 16th, 2019. I flicked my collar up to shield against the pelting rain: umbrella in hand, bag clutched to my chest. I hurried down Science Road, desperately seeking refuge from the deluge. It was then that I saw it: Courtyard Cafe. The warm glow of the Holme Building beckoned me in and the sound of chatter and clinks thrust me over the threshold. Walking up to the register, I spied a muffin in the pastry cabinet.Why not? I thought to myself, because after all, why not.I pointed to the muffin behind the glass screen and spoke those fatal words the words that would define my life at this hallowed university.Can you heat that up for me?And against all odds, they couldnt.Diving muff-inCourtyard Cafe, also known as Courty or The Yard, is a cafe/restaurant located in the Holme Building. Known for their garlic and cheese pizza, this university wateringhole has long enjoyed an era of little to no scrutiny or oversight. That era ends today.Prior to this investigation, very few facts were known for certain about Courtyards heating abilities. When a customer asks to have their item warmed up, the staff give one of two replies.We cant do that or We dont have a microwave.But can that be believed? Can Courtyard staff, who for all we know might simply be agents of this anti-warm-muffin agenda, really be trusted?No, it wasnt enough for me and it shouldnt be enough for the student body. I knew that if I wanted answers, I had to go all the way to the top. I had to go to the University of Sydney Union (USU).Jess Reed, the Director of Commercial Operations at the USU, replied to Honis email inquiry to Courtyard Cafe at 18:08 on the 16th of April, 2021. Where her muffin loyalties lie is unknown to me, but she was my best chance of getting answers.Courtyard does not have any microwaves at all, her email read.As one of our busiest and most complex restaurants, it has no physical space in its front of house or kitchen space to hold a microwave.I sat down with architecture student Kimmi Tonkin to investigate this claim.Marlow Hurst: So, in your opinion do you think Courtyard Cafe has enough space for a microwave in its front of house?Kimmi Tonkin: Almost certainly. A pair of microwaves can actually take up less than 2sqm including standing space, and just from personal observation Courtyard has more than enough room. They have the space, and thats not even considering the perceived space that their premises could have in abundance.MH: Could you expand on this idea of perceived space?KT: Sure. Say if Courtyard was to hang some mirrors, or paint their walls white, while the physical space of Courtyard would remain the same, the perceived space would be greatly increased.MH: And youre saying Courtyard could put their microwave in that additional perceived space?KT: Yes, yes I am.So with the USU already spinning a web of lies to shield its flagship cafe from the penetrating gaze of journalistic scrutiny, what else could they be hiding?The Director of Commercial Operations went on to make a number of other claims regarding Courtyards practices.When capacity allows in the morning, customers are welcome to have their muffin warmed through our pizza oven.A crack team of undercover Honi investigators sought to verify this claim only two weeks ago. At exactly 10:03 am on April 21st, special agents Alice and Shania were dispatched to Courtyard Cafe with one aim in mind: get a muffin, and get it warm.The line was empty. The time was morning. Yet still, Courtyard refused their request. Maybe we were unlucky. Maybe we missed our window of opportunity. Theres a lot of maybes with this case. All I know for sure is that something smells fishy (and it isnt their tuna pasta).One final claim that the USU made in their response to my questioning wasnt about Courtyard, but about the other USU outlets on campus.During our busier periods, customers can purchase and warm up muffins at many USU outlets, including Footbridge, Laneway, Carslaw Kitchen, and Fisher.Honi sought to verify these claims as well. Of the outlets listed, all except Carslaw Kitchen had a microwave. After inquiring with staff, we were informed that Carslaw did not have a microwave and were not in a position to warm muffins up. While Fisher Coffee Cart did have a microwave, they declined to warm up a muffin purchased at Courtyard.At this point, you may be wondering why this is all so important. Its just a muffin, my friends have told me.But theyre wrong. Its not just a muffin. A muffin is more than just fuel for the body, its a cultural touchstone. Everyone can relate to the muffin, and as such, everyone can relate to the disappointment of a cold, hard, tacky muffin.But sometimes, feeling isnt enough. To take this investigation to new heights of credibility, I needed to talk to someone who could conceive of these glutenous, sweet treats as more than just a pastry. I needed to get scientific.The science of muffinsTo better understand muffins, not just as a cultural artifact, but as a scientific construct, I sat down with Associate Professor Thomas Roberts, an academic of food chemistry and biotechnology in the University of Sydneys School of Life and Environmental Sciences.According to A/Prof. Roberts, muffins are ideal for the microwave.A muffin is a good example of a baked good that can be improved by microwaving briefly after its been sitting around for a couple of hours or more.Professor Roberts said this is true for two main reasons: 1) muffins are largely homogenous and 2) they have enough water content to remain moist.Its not the same for pies, he warned, explaining that the liquid filling and solid (dry) crust make for a suboptimal microwave experience (scorching filling and luke-warm crust): a problem that muffins do not fall victim to.This begs the question then: why not just have muffins fresh out of the oven?Professor Roberts addresses this as well. While the term retrogradation may be unfamiliar to many, its something of a rockstar in the world of starch-based food science.The best quality of the baked good is not immediately after you take it out of the (conventional) oven, A/Prof. Roberts explained. This is because the gelatinised starches need to realign themselves during cooling the flavour of the product can change with heating another phenomenon that makes food chemistry compelling.So if muffins arent best right out of the oven, and Courtyard doesnt have the means nor the inclination to warm them up for their loyal customers: what exactly is happening here?Connecting the choc chipsThe simplest explanation for all this is the one Ive been provided with time and time again: they just dont have a microwave. But thats too easy. You know what they say: theres no such thing as a free lunch and thats doubly true for Courtyard. But if there is some grand conspiracy festering beneath the surface, what is it? Why do they hate warm muffins so very much?Ive considered ancient aliens, modern aliens, the reserve bank, the actual banks, the moon landing, the Loch Ness monster, Princess Diana, JFK, Harold Holt, and about fifty other fun yet not horribly racist conspiracy theories, yet none of them seem to fit.So, dear readers, I need your help! Remain vigilant, remain alert. Investigate, snoop, and pry. And when youre done, send your theories to editors@honisoit.com.But thats not the only way you can contribute to this ongoing investigation. Follow this link to sign the petition. Every signature gets us a step closer to muffin warmth.Some final words fellow truth seekers. Trust no one. Believe no one. The only thing you can ever truly be sure of in life is a warm muffin, and the world is short on those these days.May your blueberries be plentiful and your choc chips be gooey. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The UTS Students Association (UTSSA) has been accused of political repression, censorship, and breaking collective autonomy after shutting down the activities of the Education Action Group on Tuesday.The UTSSA is the representative body for students at the UTS; it provides student services and runs campaigns on student issues similar to the University of Sydney SRC.Collectives constrained by bureaucracyOn Monday, President of the UTSSA Aidan ORourke took action against Education Officer Ellie Woodward and the UTS Education Action Group (EAG) after an EAG Facebook post asserted that the Collective would continue postering on campus to promote rallies in defiance of University backlash.The EAGs Facebook post on Monday was a repost of one deleted in the lead-up to the March 24 protest against job and course cuts. ORourke told Honi that that the relevant post was inconsistent with the Universitys rules and would place the Association at risk, hence Woodward was given an option to amend the post to be consistent with the Universitys rules while retaining its message or delete the post. A follow-up post stated that the deletion was not the decision of the EAG, and the UTSSA consequently received backlash in the comments for censorship and attacks on activism.Several sources have informed Honi that until Woodward gives an apology and guarantees she will comply with the directives of Council and the Executive, they have removed her swipe access, and required her to forfeit her keys. They have also given notice that a motion to suspend her honorarium may be presented to council, and disallowed the EAGs access to Association spaces and expenditure.Essentially, Unity at UTS has an almost total monopoly and conducts the place allowing zero defiance of any university rules, Ellie Woodward said in a statement to Honi.EAG member Holly Hayne told Honi that Student collectives have always passed motions and taken political positions independent of student union executives. The Education Action Group voted to refuse to pay any fines levied by security or management because we demand the right to poster. This is a matter of political repression.ORourkes sanctions on Woodward and the EAG were also in response to their withholding of attendance for a meeting held on April 1. Woodward told Honi that this was done in protest of an amendment to the Collective By-Laws, which now require office-bearers to send a confidential list of autonomous Collective members who do not wish to be included in the minutes to the Association Executive Officer (EO).The motion, which originally required the list to be sent to the President, was passed and amended at a Council meeting on March 31. It was met with strong opposition from Collective members who were concerned about queer students being outed and the breaking of collective autonomy. ORourke defended the decision, stating that he was concerned with student safety, verification of decisions and transparency.The postering incident, which is being referred to as #BluTackGate by the Education Action Group, is just one example of a series of decisions made by the UTSSA, that students have said undermines the work of the Collectives at UTS. Collective members have claimed that the bureaucratic running of the UTSSA impedes their ability to elect their own office-bearers, access a budget, book meeting spaces, publicise events through social media, and call snap actions.2020 Queer Officer Melissa Sara told Honi that Activism at UTS is basically dead because we have to go through so many processes to even have a contingent to an event, to hold a banner-paint, to make posts. Every decision has to be approved by them [the Executive].Sara stated that they are constantly passing By-Laws affecting how Collectives operate, while refusing to include Collective perspectives. Labor has the numbers, so even when Collective officer-bearers ask for time to discuss motions that affect and take away collective autonomy, they refuse.The By-Laws of the UTSSA state that the Collectives may only be reimbursed for their expenses if there is a financial funding agreement with the University. For the second year in a row, the UTSSA Executive has failed to negotiate its renewal. ORourke told Honi that they are working hard to secure the agreement and that they received a 19% budget cut from 2019 to 2020 with further cuts flagged by UTS.Consequently, Collectives are without a budget and any spending must be approved through the SRC or the Executive, which is using reserves to run the UTSSA. Office-bearers have to pass all decisions through the President and General Secretary for approval, with some saying they have had to wait weeks for a response.Concerns about democracyStudents have raised concerns about the democracy of the electoral process at UTSSA. During 2020 Convenor elections, members were told mail-in ballots were viable. Yet, the Education Collective Convenor nominations were announced on the day of the election and the requirements to vote were allegedly amended only ten minutes before the meeting to state that all persons must be present physically to cast a vote.Moreover, Collectives at UTS do not have the power to elect their own office-bearers, but they can elect conveners, which are unofficial positions according to the SA By-Laws. Office-bearer positions for the Environment, Education and Womens Collectives were assigned to factions in pre-election deals before voting commenced last year. Eshna Gupta didnt know what NLS (National Labor Students) was when they elected her as Womens Officer under their faction without consulting the Womens Collective.Multiple students feared that the UTSSA would respond with further punishments to the Collectives if they spoke to Honi. It has been alleged that intimidation within the UTSSA affects democratic proceedings, with men speaking over women during meetings, refusing to put them on the speaking list, and passing procedural motions to end discussions.The SRC minutes of the UTSSA from July 2020 to March 2021 were only published on their website after Honi questioned ORourke about their absence. The link to Council meetings is only sent to Collective emails and the SRC, which raises questions about the transparency of the organisation. There are also concerns about the absence of democracy for students in UTS as a whole, with low voter turnout and little active engagement with campaigns.Changes to VertigoHoni has been informed that the President, General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary held a meeting with the editors of UTS student magazine Vertigo before they could discuss budget cuts with Honi in February this year. They were allegedly advised on what they could and could not say, and told to provide a balanced view when speaking about the UTSSA.Vertigo stated that the main change to their content this year is a new quota imposed by the UTSSA wherein 35% of the magazine has to be about student issues, which must be approved by General Secretary Erin Dalton. Vertigo asserted that this would not compromise the journalistic integrity or autonomy of the magazine. Students had grievances about our content being out of touch, they said.A 2020 Vertigo editor told Honi that their experience with the UTSSA was not positive. It was quite a struggle getting a budget approved that didnt entirely undervalue the work we were doing and leave us with no money to make and print a good magazine. It constantly felt that certain members of the SA didnt take Vertigo seriously since it was more of a literary and arts magazine with some cultural commentary and political pieces.In January this year, ORourke made significant cuts to Vertigo. The Vertigo team proposed an ideal budget of $75,043, a compromised one of $65,827 and a minimum of $54,935 for their 2021 expenditure. ORourke approved the minimum budget, allowing for the printing of only two volumes of Vertigo this year. They have since been given additional funding, with volume two being printed and the possibility of more print editions subject to a mid-year review.Disclaimer: Claire Ollivain is a member of USyd Grassroots. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Unpaid internships have become a staple of the Australian media sector, promising professional experience and employment opportunities to young people looking to gain a foothold in a collapsing industry. But this job description belies a sobering reality. In most cases, unpaid internships merely sanction the widespread exploitation of students for free labour. Despite guidelines issued by the Media Alliance and legal restrictions under the Fair Work Act, the extensive use of interns has become essential to some media companies business models. A 2016 Department of Employment report states that almost 6% of people aged 18-29 had completed unpaid work in media or a creative industry. And, in a weakened post-pandemic economy, this practice will only become more prevalent.Offspring Magazine operates with a team of interns all year-round. Owned by Kate Durack, the magazine touts itself as Australias largest gloss and digital parenting magazine with 1.4 million readers annually. Its website claims the magazine is created by real mums and dads for the modern parent.Yet, according to Caitlin*, who completed an internship at Offspring in November 2019, more than half the magazine is produced by its team of eight unpaid interns, all of whom were in their early twenties.Stephanie,* who left after only a short period interning at the magazine, tells Honi that essentially all of the magazine is put together by interns, she says.Offspring relies on unpaid interns for the completion of integral tasks that would typically be undertaken by a paid employee, directly contravening Fair Work guidelines. In fact, in her introductory email to Caitlin, Durack requested that she treat it as [she] would any job.Honi was also able to view screenshots of Durack delegating work via email, confirming that the magazine enlists unpaid interns for distribution, articles, ad creation, marketing, social media posts and Search Engine Optimisation.Though interns are promised the opportunities to develop their writing portfolios, they are often tasked with menial work crucial for the economic prosperity of the magazine. Stephanie began the internship after having to leave her paid journalism role due to COVID-19.I told [Durack] that as long as I was able to keep writing articles, I would be happy. She said that would be fine.But the work Stephanie completed during her time in the program had nothing to do with writing. The largest task she completed was resizing images on the magazines website.Even when interns are given the opportunity to publish their writing, much of their work goes uncredited, meaning they are unable to gain exposure. In the six months that Caitlin worked at Offspring, she was only given credit for one of her pieces. The majority of her articles and reviews were published under the byline of freelancer.In 2020 alone, 30 articles have been published on the Offspring website attributed to an unnamed freelancer. Many appear to have had little or no editorial oversight, with several appearing to be restatements of product press releases and one stating incomprehensibly amar number e call dao.A lack of educational guidance further renders Offsprings use of unpaid interns as unlawful. The Fair Work Act states that observation, learning and skill development are indicative of a role that should be unpaid. Yet, despite promises of industry mentorship, Stephanie says that the program provided negligible educational opportunities for the interns, who worked from home.There was no mentorship and very little oversight. Id be thinking to myself what the hell are we supposed to be doing?Caitlin had a similar experience.I chose to specialise as a writer but never received any constructive feedback on anything that I wrote. I can honestly say there was no effort from [Durack] to help me become a better writer.Durack also regularly allocates assignments that take longer to complete than the agreed-upon hours of work, or are entirely outside of the job description. In the six months she worked at Offspring, Caitlin says that half of all of her weekly tasks exceeded the original commitment of one day per week.[Durack] often would give us work that took way longer than one day to finish. I would spend two to three days some weeks working for free. [Durack] was pushy and I felt pressured.At one point, I spent two weeks of the internship researching resorts and tourism activities in Thailand for [Duracks] upcoming holiday two full days of working as a personal travel agent. While I was there, all eight interns were made to do research for her holiday.On top of this, it appears there were little to no prospects for paid employment upon completion of the internship, with none of the interns in Caitlins program continuing at the magazine on a paid basis. According to Caitlin, Durack alluded at the start of the internship to the possibility of future employment opportunities at the conclusion of the six month unpaid period.[Durack] implied over the phone that there was a chance of getting hired so I pushed myself to excel in the role. I wanted to impress her and I was excited to learn new skills.But Caitlin quickly became disillusioned.It took two months for me to regret the day that I applied. Now that Ive finished Im hesitant to go for another internship and am fairly apprehensive about entering the journalism industry. Its gotten to the point that I am looking at other career paths, Caitlin says.Stephanie says that during her time at the magazine, several interns kept working at Offspring after their program had ended. She understands that they too were unpaid. Under the Fair Work Act, an intern is entitled to payment for the work they perform where they are in an employment relationship with an employer, and the internship is not a vocational placement that is a requirement for a course.While vocational placements are easy to define, it can often be unclear to interns whether they are in an employment relationship. Though unpaid internships are often advertised as work experience, where interns find themselves doing the same work as paid employees with little by way of professional development they have rights to payment.Mass layoffs at NewsCorp, Fairfax and the ABC, as well as the shuttering of BuzzFeed News Australia and eight Bauer Media magazines, have seen hundreds of young journalists lose their jobs in recent months. Desperation amongst young people has made them even more vulnerable to exploitation.Its frustrating because I dont want this to keep happening to other people, Stephanie says. I was lucky that I had enough industry experience to see the internship for what it was, but a lot of younger and less experienced people wont. And they can be taken advantage of.As the consumption of goods and services declines in a post-pandemic economy, businesses like Offspring will look to further cut costs, potentially by appointing unpaid workers. Additionally, COVID-19 is severely limiting the number of jobs available to university graduates, thereby increasing competition and the perceived need to stand apart from ones cohort by having unpaid industry experience. This further allows companies, like Offspring, to hire unpaid interns in perpetuity to undertake work that should be occupied by an employee in a paid role. Now, more than ever, there is a need for legislators to provide stronger work protections for unpaid interns.Ive honestly become quite jaded over the whole experience, Stephanie says.Interning in this industry is something you really need if youre going to get anywhere and you need to be very privileged to be able to take on unpaid work.If were going to keep that norm, we really need to reexamine the relationship we have with unpaid workers. Perhaps if people are getting genuine skills, unpaid internships can be justified. But there is a lot of exploitation. It needs to stop.Kate Durack did not respond to Honis request for comment.*Names have been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Honi can reveal several new allegations of racist, sexist and hazing incidents which have occurred at St Andrews College since the Broderick Review into Cultural Renewal at Residential Colleges report was released in late 2017.Written by former-Sex Discrimination Comissioner Elizabeth Broderick, the review was a million dollar report into sexual violence at the University of Sydneys residential colleges, with the exception of St Pauls, who joined on later. Criticised by anti-sexual assault activists for its superficial approach, the report neglected to include case studies or quotes from survivors, and only conducted a small number of interviews with current and former college students. The review failed to mention the scandal-ridden history of the colleges or include the events in 2016 which led in part to the commissioning of the report, including articles from Pulp Media and Honi Soit on Wesley Colleges Rackweb, St Pauls Bone Room and sexual violence at St Andrews itself.In response to the perceived failings of the Broderick Review, End Rape on Campus Australia published the Red Zone Report in early 2018. The report found that 1 in 12 female St Andrews students had experienced attempted or completed rape or sexual assault since commencing the joint highest rate of all the colleges. Other notable incidents include the words enter the halls of misogyny spray painted at the College in 1993, residents advertising their 2006 formal with the slogan More Moles, More Holes, and the burning of an LGBTQ pride flag in 2016.The Broderick Review laid out a number of recommendations for cultural renewal at residential colleges, including an end to hazing rituals, the development of a harm minimisation alcohol policy and a specific sexual misconduct policy, along with greater gender diversity in student leadership. As a result of the report, St Andrews College committed to a policy of zero tolerance to hazing and sexual misconduct, harmful alcohol, use, harassment and damage to property. St Andrews lists the outcome as being accomplished in their 1-year progress report. St Andrews Principal, Wayne Erickson, tells Honi that he believes that the college has now implemented all of the Reviews recommendations.But concerningly, hazing practices known as walkabout at St Andrews continued after the publication of the Broderick Review. Walkabout a hazing ritual in practice since at least 1997 involves the auctioning of first year students to second year students. First years are made to kneel on hands and knees during the bidding. Popular students are sold for several hundred dollars, and less popular students are sold for as little as $5. The money is donated to charity.First year students are then made to perform different tasks for the buyers. One student told Honi that she was made to steal and break street signs. First year students are then forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol, and afterwards are taken to unknown, often remote, areas and left to find their way back home.Emma* told Honi that in 2018 she was left in rural NSW as part of walkabout. The group was allowed only $50 between them, and had to hitchhike back to Sydney. So it was really demeaning to be auctioned and the event itself was dangerous, she says.Post-Broderick Review, participating students were asked to sign a consent form, doing nothing to remove the significant social pressures on students to participate. Everyone knows that unless you go to Highlanders, unless you drink, unless you participate in group stuff, youre probably gonna have a shit time at college, Emma says.Getting students to sign consent waivers so that institutional responsibility is abnegated is the very opposite of cultural reform and accountability, Red Zone Report lead author Nina Funnell tells Honi. Students should be provided with a safe living environment, not asked to sign waivers accepting that they understand the environment is unsafe. Though the forms were issued by the Student Club, Emma says that staff were aware of walkabout, and that sort of thing could not have happened without the greenlight from staff. Walkabout was cancelled in 2019.St Andrews declined to respond to questions regarding whether hazing rituals still occur within the College, and failed to provide Honi with details as to whether any students had been suspended or expelled from St Andrews in the past year.Other toxic elements of college culture have only become more secretive. Though St Andrews has abandoned the Lolly Buffet where students announced recent hookups over the colleges PA system (including an instance where an alleged sexual assault was broadcast to the college), similar activity is now run online through a Facebook profile Drews Buffet. The page posts about recent hook-ups in a closed college resident Facebook group.For some, a mention by Drews Buffet is a point of pride. I know that for a lot of people being tagged by buffet in these posts is almost a cool thing because it shows that the things youre doing matters and that you matter, Emma says.One post, from May 2019, shows results from a poll of the hottest mums following a Mothers Day event at the college. Another, from September 2019, discusses a resident hitting on a 50 year old woman, with college men in the comment thread referring to each other as tunnel buddies a reference to group sex. A separate post from the same month contains a timeline of a previous evenings events, including the entry [redacted] roots a girl while his dad is passed out on the floor.Its unclear to what extent the college administration actively monitors the page or the student Facebook groups, but a 2012 post promoting the colleges public Facebook page on the Drews Buffet profile from the then-Dean of Students indicates that the administration is at least aware of its existence. St Andrews College failed to respond to a question concerning the extent to which the College monitors any students Facebook groups.This is particularly concerning given a history of unsavoury social media use at Sydney Universitys residential colleges. The Red Zone Report details a St Johns College ritual called the Purge where students were invited to share embarrassing photos of themselves and details of sexual encounters. In 2009, St Pauls College came under fire for a pro-rape Facebook page, and again in 2017 for a Facebook group with sexist posts describing having sex with women as harpooning whale[s].Though the Broderick Review canvasses harmful uses of social media, reporting that approximately 8% of students at St Andrews had witnessed inappropriate commentary/images/film distributed on social media without consent, none of its recommendations specifically pertain to social media use.Honi can also reveal two serious instances of white nationalist sentiment at the College. In one case white power was graffitied on a memorial to a deceased St Andrews College student. Honi understands that the graffiti was done within the past year. When questioned on whether the College knew about the incident and had investigated it, St Andrews Principal Wayne Erickson said, This has previously not been reported to meI would be grateful for any information you might have (time and date) which will allow us to investigate it further.In another instance, a current St Andrews student posted in the college students Facebook group saying that shed lost her guinea pig, and if found it would respond to the name Adolf. Honi understands that the student deleted the post after a period of time, but not before other students had haha and love reacted to it.Students are also known to defecate, urinate and vomit in common areas of St Andrews. This is an expected occurrence after nights at the Highlander and Salisbury (the bars of St Andrews and St Pauls, respectively), and such behaviours occur pretty frequently.A post from May 2019 in a closed college Facebook group shows a video of faeces left in a hallway, with the caption WARNING: Someone has taken a massive shit on the second floor of main. Watch your step. The hallways are a common target of faeces, and urine and vomit are often found in the showers. The clean up is left to college staff.Such behaviour is not isolated to hallways and showers, with students also defecating in the bedrooms of fellow residents. Honi has obtained an image shared in a messenger conversation between two former St Andrews students, showing a man, naked from the waist down, who has defecated in the room of a female student and fallen asleep on her floor after she had left her door open overnight.This behaviour recalls similar instances described in the Red Zone Report, including a 1986 incident where male St Andrews students would break into the Womens College and masturbate in their corridors, to more recent reports of male students ejaculating into the shampoo and body wash bottles of unknowing female residents who would then wash themselves with the semen and product. These most recent events are appalling, but they are by no means isolated incidents at St Andrews, Funnell says. There is a long history of sexism, misogyny and racism within the college; its like asbestos, its in the very walls.Emma says that staff responses have been unsatisfactory. Theres been a lot of complaints from girls to the VP of college regarding the lad behaviour of boys, she says. But ultimately it just turned into an awkward conversation in the Highlander Bar, post-dinner with the students club to discuss what was inappropriate behaviour.These incidents support fears that the Broderick Review would be used as a tick-a-box measure for residential colleges to respond to embarrassing scandals, rather than impetus to engage in the deep structural and cultural reform necessary. Indeed, St Andrews appears to have deleted its own Broderick Review report from its website.Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence, has said that whilst weve made a lot of progress in terms of implementing structural changes to encourage cultural renewalthis doesnt mean our work is done. Racism and any other form of intimidating, abusive or discriminatory behaviour on our campus is completely unacceptable. The University, however, was not aware of any of the incidents detailed above. When contacted, Elizabeth Broderick stated that St Andrews had not been in contact with her since the Review occurred.A college culture resistant to change remains. Emma says that students who spoke out against the college in 2016 remain the focus of hatred even now. Ultimately college is a bubble that exists in its own world, distinct from reality. Drews survives on secrecy, and denial of its issues. Despite the platitudes offered by the University of Sydney and St Andrews College, it seems that very little has changed at all.____________________________________________________If you have any more information on this story, cultural renewal at the colleges more broadly, or anything that you think is in the student interest, please feel free to contact us at editors@honisoit.com. Should you wish to remain anonymous, we will respect that. Alternatively, you can send us an anonymous tip. We only receive your message, and the time and date of submission.If you are a student at the University of Sydney and you wish to report an instance of sexual assault or misconduct to the university, you can do so through the universitys reporting portal, available on their website. The student liaison officers can be contacted for assistance in this process through their email (safer-communities.officer@sydney.edu.au) or by calling 1800 SYD HLP.If this article has caused you any distress you can reach out to the following organisations for assistance:Free counselling through RPA Sexual Assault Clinic , 9515 9040 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am 5:00pm).RDVSA NSW Rape Crisis Hotline, 1800 424 017 (24hrs, 7 days)*Name has been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the New South Wales Government introducing the Public Health Act on 17 March in a bid to curb cases of coronavirus in the state, Honi takes a look at the rates of COVID-19, how the NSW Police Force is punishing breaches of the legislation, and incidents of anti-Asian racism.To date, the majority of confirmed cases in every state in Australia were acquired overseas, with low rates of community transition nationwide. In terms of overseas travel, the considerable majority of COVID-19 cases have been traced back to cruise ships and travelling in Europe and the Americas.This goes some way in explaining somewhat of a correlation between higher income postcodes and rates of the coronavirus. For example, in Sydney the highest rates of virus cases are in the local government areas of Waverley and the City of Sydney.Yet, whilst rates of the virus are comparatively high in Sydneys leafy, beachside suburbs, rates of fines are comparatively low. With 177 cases in Waverley, two fines have been issued. The Northern Beaches report 151 cases but only four fines have been issued. Yet, in Sydneys more working class and ethnically diverse western suburbs, the rates are notably higher. By local government area (LGA), Blacktown (106 cases) has been hit with 12 fines, Canterbury-Bankstown (88 cases) with 13, Liverpool (48 cases) with 9 and Parramatta (45 cases), with 9.Whilst the highest number of fines have been issued in the City of Sydney (with the second highest number of virus cases), the CBD and its surrounds may be considered to be an outlier, bucking the general trend.The table below compares COVID-19 cases with highest and lowest 7 LGAs, in terms of median weekly income (personal).Top 7LGAMedian Weekly Income (personal)COVID-19 CasesFinesMunicipality of Woollahra$1,365921Mosman Council$1,295420North Sydney Council$1,165420Lane Cove Council$1,149370Waverley Council$1,0481772Inner West Council$957704Ku-ring-gai Council$946222TOTALS$1132 (avg)4829Bottom 7LGAMedian Weekly Income (personal)COVID-19 CasesFinesCity of Blacktown$63310612City of Campbelltown$632345Municipality of Burwood$55280City of Canterbury-Bankstown$5028813Cumberland Council$501662City of Liverpool$466489City of Fairfield$439297TOTALS$532 (avg)37948Further, whilst Sydney accounts for close to triple the amount of COVID-19 cases compared to the rest of New South Wales, when it comes to issuing fines, there is a disproportionate split. For fines where a location has been logged, Sydney has been hit by 147, and the rest of New South Wales by 145.Of particular interest are the seven LGAs with no confirmed cases of COVID-19 who have been hit by fines. These include: Balranald Shire (7) in the Riverina region, Bourke Shire (3) in the Orana region, Cobar Shire (10) in the Orana region, Moree Plains (1) in the North West slopes region, Murray River Council (1) in the Riverina region, Murrumbidgee Council (2) in the Riverina region and Walgett Shire (3) in the Orana region.If we take these laws and the enforcement of them by the police to be a) necessary and b) enforced purely for the sake of our public health and safety, the geographical implementation of them seems disproportionate.It is pertinent to mention then that six out of seven of the above LGAs have high Indigenous populations, with Balranald Shire at 13.3%, Bourke Shire at 31.5%, Cobar Shire at 11.8%, Moree Plains at 21.6%, Murrumbidgee Shire at 7.5% and Walgett Shire at 29.4%. As of the 2016 census, the states Indigenous population was 2.9%.In response to Honis questions regarding how the Force is policing the pandemic, a spokesperson said there was no correlation between the number of people with the virus in a specific area and the number of people who have breached the public health order.Click on the top left link beside Mapping COVID-19 to compare COVID-19 cases, fines and racism-incidents in LGAs across Sydney and greater NSW.Yet, the notion that the NSW Police Force are a neutral body and police in such a manner must come into question. Continual instances of oppressive police relationships with Indigenous communities and more general heavy-handedness typifies the problematic allowance of discretion especially in the current health crisis, which has long-term and pervasive impacts.Moreover, the very nature of non-income dependent fines as a punishment mechanism by nature are discriminatory as their role as a deterrent is undermined for wealthier demographics. These effects are pronounced in the current situation, where wealthier LGAs have higher cases of the virus.Instances of anti-Asian racism have also been on the rise throughout the coronavirus crisis. Last week, a 55 year old man was charged by NSW Police after he allegedly threatened people with a whip outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney. In response to increased racism, the Asian Australian Alliance has put out a survey, which is forming a database of incidents. Whilst only launched just over two weeks ago, national convenor of the alliance, Erin Wen Ai Chew told Honi that there have already been 66 complaints via the survey in NSW alone, as of 17 April.Whilst seven of the complainants did not include locations, most did and these have been plotted on the map.This table shows the top 7 LGAs by incidents of racism, courtesy of data provided by the Asian Australian Alliance.LGAIncidents of racismMost common ancestryCity of Sydney10Australian, English, Chinese, IrishBankstown-Canterbury7Lebanese, Australian, English, ChineseNorthern Beaches Council4English, Australian, Irish, ScottishCity of Randwick3English, Australian, Chinese, IrishBurwood Council3Chinese, English, Australian, ItalianCity of Parramatta3Indian, Chinese, English, AustralianCity of Ryde3Chinese, English, Australian, ItalianAs indicated above, six out of the seven LGAs have high Chinese populations.Ultimately, whilst many say that this virus doesnt discriminate, its clear that responses to it do. Whether in the form of policing or anti-Asian racism, this virus, much like other crises continues to exacerbate the structural inequalities in our society.All data as of Friday 17 March.FinesInformation on fines was collected from the NSW Police website and samples 292 fines out of 609.COVID-19 informationVirus information was collected from NSW Health.Demographic informationDemographic information was collected from 2016 Census data.Racism incidentsAnti-Asian racism information was compiled from data provided by the Asian Australian Alliance survey into racist incidents from 2 April. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In recent years, Chinas growing dominance and geopolitical aspirations have sent shockwaves across a world that is still coming to terms with what is perhaps a changing international order. And no where have these shockwaves been felt more keenly than in Australia. This is reflected in our media, a quick skim of which will reveal a fixation on our ties with China ,with numerous articles and segments put out on a daily basis updating the public on what is becoming an increasingly volatile relationship. Of particular interest is a concern about Chinese interference in Australian society. While Chinese interference in Australia seems all-pervasive and ever-present, it is actually a very recent national worry. Searching it up on Factiva, a news database, and localising it to ten major newspapers in Australia show that before 2017, unique articles which mentioned Chinese interference or influence, whether they be news or opinion, averaged around 15 a year, with some years not even breaking into the double digits. However, everything changed in 2017 with the Sam Dastyari donation scandal, which saw him resign from his Senate position after it was exposed that he had informed prominent Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo that he might be under surveillance by Australian intelligence agencies. Huang had previously donated around $44,000 to Dastyari, in a move that was suspected as being on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Later in 2017, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced laws aimed at cracking down on foreign interference, and the number of articles about Chinese interference had soared to 331 from only 40 in 2016. If 2017 was the year when the fuse was lit, 2018 was when concerns about Chinese interference exploded, the media fixation skyrocketing to 747 articles. And with two months of the year left, almost 500 articles about Chinese interference have been published in 2019 by major Australian news outlets.However, as fears about Chinese interference increase in Australian society, so have fears that this anxiety could potentially spiral into something far more sinister. The unavoidable shadow of the increased media scrutiny on Chinese influence is the risk of spreading Sinophobic sentiment across Australian society. The gravity of such a risk cannot be understated. 1.2 million people of Chinese heritage call this country home roughly 5.6% of our total population; Australia has the largest Chinese community percentage wise out of any country outside of Asia. At the locus of both these fears is a subset of the Chinese community in Australia the 150,000 or so international students from Mainland China who are currently studying at an Australian tertiary institute. How these international students have been represented by the media has been a glaring point of public contention. While some argue that criticisms of the scrutiny placed on them seeks to use race as a means of deflecting conversation on Chinese interference, others believe the discussion has taken on an inflammatory nature that will further isolate what is already a vulnerable group of people.Corpus AnalysisTo unearth the hidden ideologies and patterns behind the media discourse surrounding international students from China in Australia, Honi undertook a corpus analysis of the reporting done on this topic. A research tool from linguistics, corpus analysis examines language from the bigger picture, allowing for incisions to be made on a large body of texts a corpora to reveal patterns of language that would not be seen if these texts were read separately, sentence by sentence. More importantly, it allows for a more quantitative evidential basis for phenomena which we intuit from anecdotes or our own gut feeling. Media discourse in particular represents a treasure trove for corpus analysis, for it can tell a great deal about the underlying ideologies and beliefs held by a society in the way it frames certain current affairs issues. In the past, it has been used to illuminate how the medias use of language has reproduced and reinforced societal prejudices against groups such as refugees and transgender people.By using the terms Chinese student and its variations and combining it with the localising term Australia, we built a corpus of 95 news articles and 56 opinion pieces, all published in 2019, sourced from 10 major newspapers in Australia across different Australian states. We then analysed every instance in which the term Chinese student(s) appeared and the context it was framed by, in particular, noting the verbs which followed it. Our analysis found systematic language patterns which seemed to infer three separate categories in which the Australian media represents international students from mainland China as a commodity, as a victim, and as an aggressor.CommoditySitting at the forefront of national thought on China and the Chinese government, international Chinese students in Australia have become an avenue for the media to link foreign interference with Australias dependence on Chinese trade. They are framed as income for Australia, cash cows, whose assumedly wealthy Chinese parents contribute to an ever dependent national economy. In our reading of over 95 news articles, most language associated with depictions of Chinese international students referenced was quantifiable and economically focussed. Many articles focussed on shifting higher cost markets and the boosting of revenue. Out of the 170 times the term Chinese student(s) was mentioned, 82 of them were couched with economic language. In the same way a resource such as iron or coal would be written about, our analysis showed a preoccupation with Chinese students as a fee-paying commodity that must be bolstered in response to a flattening of growth that signals the end of a boom. And while it is clear that their presence on Australian campuses presents a risk (the word and its variations appearing more than 70 times), the majority of media references to risk are not political, but economic, and are often accompanied by terms such as over-reliance and dependence.AggresorWith Chinas growing geopolitical dominance and the advent of the Hong Kong protests, Chinese students have been deemed simultaneously both victims and aggressors. The media conceptualises them as aggressors, towards pro-Hong Kong protestors and Australias democratic institutions, yet they remain devoid of their own agency, shackled to an omnipresent and oppressive Communist government. In the corpus analysis of Chinese students in mainstream media opinion pieces, Chinese international students are linguistically associated with aggression, intimidation, spying and an escalation of tensions.Theyre also recognised as being disproportionately represented, living in Sydneys Chinese bubble and surging into Australian universities enmass while engaging in thuggery. In news pieces, this linguistic association is not as strong, but still visible. International students from China do not win political power in campus elections, but seize it. They do not go to Canberra for a pro-Chinese government rally, but descend upon it.Part of the problem is that, given the increasing commercialisation of news in Australia, there is a tendency to focus reporting on sensational events that can draw clicks and views while leaving out less eye-catching events which are equally important in painting out a complete portrait of the issue. This was noted in a tweet by USyd professor David Brophy, who remarked how pro-Hong Kong protests at USyd which happened without disruption, while attracting a significant physical presence of the main media establishments, generated no actual coverage.If you only cover HK activism when theres conflict, you risk creating an incentive for conflict, his tweet concludes, referring to a past protest which ended in physical confrontations between pro-China and pro-Hong Kong protestors, and was frequently cited by media as an example of Chinese student aggression.VictimYet paradoxically, media representations conceptualise this aggression to hide a deep vulnerability and passivity. Their actions, though seen as violent, are not spurred by carefully cultivated personal belief or rational thinking, but is the result of being mobilised or orchestrated by some larger organisation in the background the CCP. These conflicting traits of aggression and passivity often manifest in the same sentence, and can create an image of Chinese international students as being mindless fanatics. Likewise, more sympathetic media representations of Chinese students occur when they are the ones being spied upon or intimidated. Once again, the organisation behind this is the CCP. Further highlighting how intertwined these three categories are, representations of victimhood in Chinese people,brought about by Australian society as opposed to the CCP, is often coupled with references to negative economic consequences for Australia.Those Chinese people in Australia who sang the praises of local goods such as food, infant formula and healthcare products to their friends back home on WeChat and other social media sites boosting the China sales of many Australian companies are now also telling friends about the anti-China debate in Australia.China Trade Tide slowing, The Australian, 25th September 2019This reveals a wider societal thinking where we must care for Chinese people victimised by the CCP out of our commitment to Western liberal values, but when they are victimised by Australian society, we must care out of economic necessity.While deep-seated yellow-peril fears underlies some of Australias increasing societal paranoia against Chinese international students and the larger Chinese-Australian community, it would be inaccurate to attribute this anxiety solely on racial tensions. This is especially given that a sizeable amount of the concern regarding Chinese influence in Australia comes from the Chinese community itself. However, with it has come a trend of certain outlets airing out more inflammatory comments about Chinese influence through critics of Chinese heritage the seeming rationale being that their Chinese ethnicity both legitimises their opinion, and also shields it from any criticism. For example, in the latest edition of The Quarterly Essay, Feng Chongyi, a Chinese-Australian academic who was detained in China for a week in 2017, is quoted as saying;The majority of Chinese-Australians have been wavering politically They are Australian citizens but they have never shown that to the Australian public. But hundreds of thousands of them will come out to wave the red flag to welcome Chinese government visitors.Red Flag, Peter Harcher, The QuaterlySuch sweeping statements position Chinese-Australians as a potential fifth column in Australian society, characterising them as being more loyal to the Chinese state than to their home country. Putting aside the dangerous implications of the statement, it exposes the tenuous position many Chinese-Australians currently find themselves in a powder keg of legitimate concerns mixed with a growing paranoia about their loyalties.Nothing written in any of the newspapers analysed, even the most inflammatory of opinion pieces, can be said to be overtly Sinophobic. However, the underlying ideology reproduced through the language of the Australian media can be argued as being one where problematic, if not Sinophobic, inferences can be drawn and harmful stereotypes are perpetuated.Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations,The aforementioned incident in particular presents an alarming case study of how inflammatory reporting of Chinese international students can have damaging consequences for Australias Chinese community in general. In the Sydney Morning Herald article Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations, Chinese protestors at the event are reduced to jingoistic slogans and disturbing threats of violent. It states that the protestors were there to support Beijings policies in Hong Kong without explaining what these policies actually are. While it is undeniable that ugly confrontations did occur during the protest, the report prioritises eye-catching outbursts of violence from the protestors over an exploration of the motives behind their protest. Instead of featuring a protestor explaining their reasons for protesting, it outsources this work to official sources, the Chinese ambassador, thus framing the protestors as devoid of any real agency or independent thought. This is in stark contrast to an SBS news report on the same protest, which does not shy away from reporting on the violent actions and words of some protestors, but contextualises this with quotes from more moderate protestors giving reasoned explanations about why they attended the rally. While the SMH article generalises the anti-Hong kong democracy protestors as mainland protestors, the SBS article instead highlights the diversity of the attendees, stating that they were new migrants, international students and second or third generation Chinese-Australians. Finally and most interestingly is the question of translation. At the rally, a Chinese protestor is heard saying into a loudspeaker with regards to Hong Kong protestors; the SBS report translated this into get out while the SMH one translated it into the more inflammatory get the fk out. While an argument can be made for both translations, this example highlights how translation itself can be used as a tool to frame a news story in order to advance a certain narrative. Unsurprisingly, the SMH article elicited an outraged response from the Australian public. On the r/Australia subreddit, a A dusty corner on the internet where you can chew the fat about Australia and Australians with almost 380 thousand members, a post sharing the article amassed numerous comments calling for the mass deportation and surveillance of Chinese Australians. While some commentators were careful to distinguish between the different groups of Chinese-Australians, others used the article as an opportunity to air larger racial grievances against Chinese-Australians seemingly taking over Australia. More disturbingly, many of the top comments in thread seemed to suggest that race riots directed against Chinese-Australians were inevitable should these Pro-China protests continue.Let me know when the race riots are scheduled. Having scumbags on Visas, protest in a foreign land about the benefits of oppression, is something I feel is only resolved with beating. one comment reads.USYD Rants as a microcosmic forumThe mainstream anti-Chinese sentiment that has cascaded about the Australian public sphere of late is alarmingly recognisable in the online spaces in which University students engage. Facebook page USYDRants, the locally iconic hub of student sentiment produces a daily linguistic representation of student opinion. It is here that our original search began, where student thought is unedited and university bureaucracy is removed from the conversation.Whats particularly important to note is that the rise of these online blasts correlate with the rise of international student representation in student politics as much as they interact with the focus of foreign interference in the mainstream media. Since last year, when the University of Sydney Student Representative Council saw its presidency won by Chinese domestic student Jacky He and headkicker of one of the major international student factions on campus, Panda, a wave of foreign interference narratives have made gains in University campuses across the country. This year a government taskforce was released, a Four Corners report brought producers to Eastern Avenue and the university was forced to condemn an unregulated survey that asked students if international students should be restricted from student politics. The pages of USYD Rants reflects these transformations that now appear to be at the forefront of student consciousness.The rise of Sinophobic commentary in USYD Rants peaks in the same way that we have seen an emergence of anti-Chinese sentiment in the headlines of major Australian publications. The last year has seen an exponential rise in this kind of language and phrasing. Though the rants of individual students reflect similar anxieties of the Australian mainstream media landscape, these are more centralised, more individually punitive. The major panics of anonymous university student blasts are associated with either an invasion of what they deem to be their space or a depiction of Chinese international students as dishonest, lazy and deviant.In a study of up to 50 USYD Rants posted sporadically throughout the year of 2019, one can see a pattern of students considering international students positions in Australian universities to be undeserved; a breakdown, if you will, of the power and prestige of this sandstone edifice. Overwhelmingly, the posts either centred or included the use or misuse of language in education spaces. Over 90% of these rants suggested that international students should either be learning more English before they commenced their studies, that English was the only language that should be taught in university settings, that international students should not find it hard to get by with a foreign language and that standards of language and communication at the university were being pulled down by the presence of international students in tutorials. One rant for example reads, I dont understand the arguments that highlight the difficulties of living internationally and having to get by with a foreign language. This is a university, it should require the highest standards of language and communication. Though the rants, amassed together, paint a picture of the othering of international students by domestic students across the board, many of these ranters go to great lengths to separate themselves from the label of racist. One rant reads I dont understand how it is racist to expect a professional level of English ability from your classmates in a university course with English language instruction Ive had issues with people from ALL parts of the world in this respect.Geographically, the descriptions of these rants are often situated in the universitys libraries an environment overcrowded with hundreds of students desperately attempting to find a place to focus. The second most common location is the tutorial room in which group coursework encourages domestic student engagement with international students. In and outside of these spaces, comments on the admission of international students to degrees regardless of intelligence and the universitys reliance on international students are commonly discussed.The danger withinResearch has shown that the ramifications of interactions between Western and Chinese students can more often than not lead to more open hostility. As Henry Chiu Hail has noted in his 2015 research paper Patriotism Abroad: Overseas Chinese Students Encounters With Criticisms of China, assumptions of Chinese life and governance by Western students has more often than not left Chinese international students feeling isolated and disconnected from the country in which theyre studying. Anti-Chinese sentiment is no doubt rising in the West and it can now be found in our very own quadrangle, obfuscated by the language of our media. While Australia must remain vigilant about Chinese interference in our society, we must keep an equally vigilant eye on how the media we consume, whether it be newspapers or Facebook rants, perpetuates harmful ideologies about Chinese people, particularly international students. For if we are not, the greatest threat to our nations democracy is not some foreign actor, but ourselves. The newspapers used in the analysis are; The Advertiser (Adelaide) The Age (Melbourne) The Australian Financial Review The Australian Canberra Times (Canberra) Courier Mail (Brisbane) Daily Telegraph (Sydney) The Herald Sun (Melbourne) The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) The West Australian (Perth) Corpus analysis was carried out using AntConc, developed by Laurence Anthony <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Enter the cubicle of any bathroom on campus, and youll see ads for essay help and ghostwriting services plastered to the door. Advertisements for these services circulate on social media platforms like WeChat, and find their way into student inboxes and message banks. At USyds very own Welcome Week this year, two stalls were shut down after distributing contract cheating materials.The contract cheating industry seems only to be growing but so are efforts to crack down upon it. In April, screensavers on USyd library computers were changed to a digital notice warning that contract cheating puts everyone at risk. USyd licenced Authorship Investigate for trial this year, a machine learning tool developed by Turnitin to learn a students writing style and flag divergences. In July, the federal government drafted legislation making contract cheating a criminal offence, a move that was welcomed by USyd.In August, a new detection method developed by the University of New South Wales recognised that contract cheating practices had risen on campus by 2000%. With deterrence through assignment design being deemed impossible by university faculties, the focus is now on prosecution. Perhaps this aggressive stance is where the problem lies.In a corporatising system that places the onus on the individual, institutions often fail to recognise the complexities behind the issue. The normalisation of contract cheating for students within certain communities, the targeting of students by major organisations, and the financial, cultural and familial pressures that come with completing a university degree far from home are just some relevant factors. In underground networks of ghostwriting communities, one can see an issue far more complex and intricate than can be Unlearnt through C-Sight Forums, writing hubs, mandatory modules and criminal offence legislation.What has clearly been missing in public discussions of contract cheating is a middle ground, as well as a look into the intricacies of what truly forms the contract cheating network.Understanding the Uni responseThe force surrounding the eradication of contract cheating is understandable when one observes its broader effect on a universitys reputation.Even for students who shun any form of cheating (the overwhelming majority), contract cheating poses a risk to the reputation of the degrees they will earn, a University of Sydney spokesperson told Honi. Cheating can undermine the rankings of individual students, as well as the academic integrity of entire units of study.We go to great lengths to protect students and their degrees from this risk.Yet the ways in which universities have cracked down on contract cheating has created a public narrative that fails to consider or investigate the issues nuances. Scare tactics do not seem to have any effect because they do not recognise that if students are either in desperate need of support or consider the networks to be so well concealed that they will not be found out, then they will continue to cheat regardless of university meddling. Surely universities should be informing students of the potential risks that go far beyond just failing a unit.We spoke to Cath Ellis, an Associate Professor at UNSW and a researcher in academic integrity. She elaborated upon some of the considerations that often fail to be explored in university discussions on contract cheating: The emotional and financial costs of getting caught, the risk of blackmail, the risks from the lax data security of people who are providing these services (as the 2014 MyMaster scandal demonstrated), and the risks of receiving poor quality work and failing anyway and therefore the risks of losing money.This month, USyd distributed a series of emails introducing the implementation of a C-Sights forum: an anonymous and confidential academic integrity discussion that asks students to consider the reasons why contract cheating is occurring across campuses, and what it can do to help prevent further misconduct.This investigation is the first time a Sydney university has attempted proper peer review research into the ins and outs of student cheating. Nevertheless, the impact of this survey will likely be minimal. Students are not encouraged to engage beyond this new online space. Theyre also not reminded in classes of the issues significance. Those who do engage in contract cheating out of a genuine disregard for academic integrity will shy away, whilst those who cheat out of desperation will perhaps not consider the forum a priority The university needs to consider the structural change at play and this starts by ensuring that all students are engaged in the conversation.The vulnerable cheaterBut why do students cheat at all? Cath Ellis identified three key factors that had a high correlation with contracting cheating behaviour.Students whose first language is one other than English, students who were feeling dissatisfied with the teaching environment in which they were learning and students who saw an opportunity to cheat, she said.An anonymous survey of international students conducted by Honi demonstrated an overwhelmingly negative perception of contract cheaters. Students who cheat were called rich and lazy, serial procrastinators, indolent, useless. These views conjure the popular stereotype of affluent international students simply too lazy or unbothered to do their own work.However, this stereotype is not necessarily reflective of the reality. Many students appear to cheat out of struggle, necessity, desperation and inadequate support. A 2018 joint paper written by academics Susan Rowland and Christine Slade and students Kai-Sheng Wong and Brooke Whiting coins the notion of the vulnerable cheating student.We propose that the vulnerable student is a person who does not set out to cheat instead, they slide into cheating because they can be persuaded that it is appropriate assessment behaviour for their particular circumstances, the study reads.The term vulnerable does not mean that the student is innocent of blame when they cheat. It does, however, mean that the student is facing extenuating circumstances that make cheating appear to be less distasteful than other outcomes that may eventuate.One of our survey respondents, a computer science student, hired someone to complete their entire assignment through a friends recommendation. They said that they resorted to this method due to an unbearable university workload, and pointed out that the university does not do enough to support students who need writing help. For international students in particular, the price of studying at USyd can cost up to around $5500 a unit. Failing a subject and needing to retake it will add further thousands to the cost. Combined with other pressures, one can see how vulnerable international students might resort to cheating when the consequences of failure are so severe.The agencies hiding behind the sandstoneInterestingly, certain types of students are specifically targeted by contract cheating outlets most notably, students whose first language is not English. With 38% of all international students in Australia coming from China, advertisements for ghostwriting companies are typically written in Chinese. They are also frequently circulated around WeChat and other social media platforms, with many agencies even directly reaching out to students themselves leaving comments on posts, messaging people directly, or sending personalised emails to their inboxes.Furthermore, most contract cheating companies don a guise of legitimacy, masquerading as tutoring centres and essay editing services. EasyGPA, an organisation that USyd has refused to confirm is amongst those targeting its students, has sent thousands of emails to various students across campus, seemingly targeting students with Chinese last names.Researchers at Deakin University also found that some companies were scamming students into believing that working with an organisation would guarantee a high grade. They described the organisations as offering variable quality assignments, late submissions, and slow responses to user queries. When markers graded work, 52% of cheated tasks failed to meet the university pass standard, academic Wendy Sutherland Smith noted in the study.Some websites, mostly written in Chinese languages, also claim to be affiliated with particular universities. This creates an illusion of trustworthiness and accountability, something all too needed for students who are suffering academically. Plustudy is one example, a company that provides essay writing and editing services, that claims to cooperate with university institutions like RMIT, UNSW and UTS.The next stepAs yet, there have been few major student-led perspectives on contract cheating in Australian universities. Students have little opportunity to address this issue publicly, and the task is therefore mostly left to the University which, with its bureaucracy, will never truly understand the student experience. Ultimately, contract cheating, while on the rise at the University of Sydney, remains low across the board. And for those who do cheat, the focus is concentrated on their actions rather than the circumstances that led to them. Our increasingly corporatised universities have focused most of their attention on tackling the symptoms of the root issue, rather than ensuring that all students are adequately supported.But what can the university do to help students? Our survey respondents suggested several possibilities: more workshops for international students, writing workshops focused on Western essay-writing structures and styles, mentorship, and greater flexibility with extensions.While universities continue to push their drastic fear-mongering narratives, the student voice consistently goes unheard. Instead of criminalising contract cheating, an issue that cannot be solved at surface level, USyd needs to engage with the environment that so often leads to these behaviours. To start, the University needs a vast expansion of the Brennan McCallum learning hubs services, and better facilities tailored to working students and students whose first language is not English. Asking for help should not facilitate an environment of embarrassment or anxiety. Existing services should be better advertised and tailored more specifically to individual student needs. In the case of special considerations and extensions, university staff should take a compassionate investigative approach to each individual student and balance fairness with flexibility.Ultimately, the University needs to stop engaging with students in such antagonistic, limited and tokenistic ways. Students cannot thrive in a punitive and alarmist culture. We need a supportive university environment that is responsive to each students individual needs and circumstances. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article was published in the 2019 Semester 2, Week 1 edition of Honi Soit.Australians lose more while gambling than any other country: we lose more than $24 billion each year, approximately the GDP of Nepal. Per capita, we lose $1,200 each year. And gambling technology is only getting better at making us want to lose: the proliferation of randomised electronic race betting has meant that you dont need to wait for more than 2 minutes to place a bet on the next virtual horse or greyhound race; whereas many jurisdictions have banned special prize rounds on pokies, they can be found on every machine in Australia. By comparison, we have laxer gambling regulations than in the US, where pokies are restricted and most forms of online gambling are prohibited.Gambling shapes our lives and our cities. There are 10 different places within a 10 minute walking distance from the University of Sydney where you can play pokies.That fact cannot be separated from the reality that the gambling industry carries outsized importance within Australian politics. A recent proposal for a federal parliamentary inquiry into Crown Casinos was met with bipartisan opposition. In Tasmania, 90% of the Liberal Partys declared funds at its most recent state election came from pro-gambling lobby groups, a response to a promise by Labor to phase out pokie machines. In the ACT, Labor Party operated clubs see a $24 million annual return on pokies.But in no state does gambling dominate the way in which it does in NSW. The most recent state election saw Labor run on a platform to support clubs, whilst the Coalition has signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with Clubs NSW containing key election promises prior to each of the previous three state elections (2010, 2014, 2018). Weve let Racing NSW advertise on our Opera House, excluded Crown Casinos from lock out law zones, and allowed Packer to shape the Barangaroo shore front.Its not only that the political parties are tied to the gambling industry, but also that state governments have a clear incentive to retain gambling as a key tax base. The 2018 MOU between the Coalition and Clubs NSW notes, for example, that clubs are projected to add $3.4 billion to the state economy over the next four years.Gambling is big business, and vested interests have a lot to lose. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that industry bodies have taken particular interest in funding research.Critics of gambling industry funding and its involvement in research argue that even with strict disclosure requirements and codes of ethics, investment shapes research agendas. Specifically, gambling industries and the governments that support them have an incentive to construe gambling that is enjoyed responsibly by most, with a small minority problem gamblers. State government conducted problem gambling prevalence studies use narrow, pathological, definitions of problem gambling. Tellingly, such findings feature prominently in industry publications. The first substantive page of the Clubs NSW Responsible Gambling Strategy 2019-21 states, for example, that the prevalence of problem gamblersidentified in this NSW study (0.4%) is lower than the all of the other jurisdictions.That framing obscures the fact that much of the harm is borne by non-problem gamblers. A 2017 study, for example, finds that 85% of years of life lost due to gambling come from persons at a low or moderate risk of problem gambling. Moreover, it ignores the fact that though a small minority of gamblers are defined as problem gamblers much larger proportions of gamblers experience some form of gambling related problem. A 2014 prevalence study by the ANU Centre for Gambling Research found that, in the ACT, low-risk gamblers are spending five times as much, on average, as gamblers who consider themselves problem-free.As Sean Cowlishaw and Samantha Thomas from the University of Deakin argue, that is analogous to the way in which the alcohol industry has argued that alcohol harms are limited to a minority of problem drinkers, and thus opposed population-wide policies that threaten financial interests.Problematically, gambling research has not always made its industry connections clear. In 2014, Professor Rebecca Cassidy (University of London) criticised the International Journal for Gambling Studies (of which USyds Alex Blaszczynski was and remains the Editor in Chief) for its failure to require disclosures of conflicts of interest in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics. The journals embrace of industry support in its disclosure requirements were criticised, them staring at the time: The Editor(s) accept that such support is often essential to enable research to occur. In her criticism, Cassidy specifically criticised an article co-authored by Sally Gainsbury, the Deputy Director of the Sydney University Gambling Centre and editor of journal, for its failure to disclose conflicts of interest.Blaszczynski and Gainsbury have since tightened the journals disclosure requirements.If gambling industry funding shapes research outcomes, however, its unclear whether government funding is any better. Where governments rely on gambling as key tax bases (not to mention where political parties are wedded to industry), they have a similar incentive to promote a narrative that most gambling is harmless and that problem gambling is limited to a very small minority. Government embrace of this specific responsible gambling framework is obvious.Further difficulties arise with the characteristics gambling research itself. Unlike other much established addiction research such as with cigarette smoking or alcohol one cannot measure the effects of pokies anywhere except in a pub or club. As Blaszczynski puts it, industry-supported research is required if valid conclusions can be drawn from studies involving real gamblers risking their own money in real venues. Particularly when researching new forms of gambling technologies that have not yet made it to market, researchers must rely on industry to access gamblers and gambling technology.These criticisms have not always been met with open arms. A recent piece by James Boyce on the relationship between gambling industry investments and problem gambling research, published in The Monthly, was met with complaints of inaccuracy. (Boyce and The Monthly were unable to comment to Honi as to the identity of the organisation making the complaint or its substance.) Honi has also been told that a similar piece written for a state authority was removed after similar complaints, but has been unable to confirm this at the time of publication.Director of the USyd Research and Treatment Gambling Clinic, Dr Alex Blaszczynski, argues that allegations of industry influence are ad hominem attacks reminiscent of McCarthy-era communist witchhunts. Since 2016 the Centre has received almost $2.5 million in funding from Clubs NSW, the Gaming Technologies Association and Aristocrat Technologies Australia (the company which introduced to Australia poker machines, or as founder Len Ainsworth, termed them, the mouse trap). That is, in addition to funding received from Aristocrat Leisure Industries, Responsible Wagering Australia the peak body representing the Australian online wagering industry and a yet unfulfilled grant of $186,204 from Clubs NSW.Accepting such funding by no means make the University of Sydney an outlier: most respected gambling researchers have received industry funding at some point in their careers. Such researchers argue that there is no impact on research outcomes. In correspondence with Honi, Blaszczynski points to a 2019 meta-study of existing gambling research that he co-authored, which finds there to be no difference in research produced with gambling industry funding. Importantly however, that study does not engage with the key criticism made of industry funding: that it shapes the research agenda, pushing researchers to focus disproportionately on pathological cases of problem gambling. The study compares studies on the basis of research design variables and whether the hypothesis is proven correct.Blaszczynski and a University spokesperson also make clear that all research conducted by the USyd is bound by strict codes of conduct to ensure conflicts of interests do not affect research outcomes. Blaszczynski argues that industry retains a hands-off approach to avoid allegations of influence. Where the Centre undertakes a research agreement with industry for example, it is made clear that the industry does not have any input into the design and methodology of the study, the data is retained by USyd, and there is no requirement to provide manuscripts for approval before submission to peer-reviewed journals, whereas government contracts require such approval.Its difficult to believe, however, that industry groups would continue to fund research if it harmed their bottom line. Strict codes of conduct might mean that the findings of research conducted by the Gambling Clinic are not influenced by industry funding. But the influence of industry may shape what questions are asked and how. In a nascent area of research like gambling studies, that can shape research priorities for decades to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The word multicultural likely had its heyday sometime in the 1990s in Australia. While debates on the perils of a so-called Asian invasion were had in Parliament House, thousands of non-white migrants moved to Australia. They moved not only from one country to another, but perhaps between states, or even from suburb to suburb. Among these thousands were our parents and grandparents, some of whom arrived even before the infamous nineties migration boom. Between us, we share a sense of nostalgia for the period of time during which our relatives found our feet in their new abodes even though we werent necessarily alive at the time. That sentimental feeling is evoked by the pictures in this piece: an earnest sense of novelty, excitement and subdued fear.My mother often recalls feeling lonely in her first few months in Australia. Compared to India, this country felt empty and there werent a lot of people; she could identify with. In her first few weeks here, she opened up a White Pages telephone book and called one of the only other Jhas in there, just to find someone to talk to. As more Indians migrated to Australia, a sense of community started to develop. This is a photo of my parents, celebrating my sisters first birthday in a park, along with ten or so other young Indian families Pranay JhaMums family is Hoklo and their ancestral home is Tangbeiyuan, a riverside village in Guangdong. Mum came to Sydney just before the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, after which she became one of thousands of Chinese students to be granted asylum by Bob Hawke. This is her visiting Canberra not long after the news. She was learning English at the time and had her first job: boiling rice in the schools kitchen for $20 a day. Annie ZhangThis is my mum and dad on their second day in Australia; Mum had just joined Melbourne Uni as a research fellow. Both of my parents have had their adult lives defined by academia; both of them have PhDs, mum in biology and dad in genetics. Mums continued that theme through to this day after my brother was born, she became a school teacher and is now a principal. With both my brother and I fully invested in academia as young adults, not only does this photo capture my parents migrant experience, but my entire familys. Daanyal SaeedThis is an image of my Tayta and my Jedo in the middle of the 1970s in an unknown location. They were only supposed to be in Australia for one year, but forty-three years on, my Jedo swears that he will only lay to rest here. My Jedo was a farmer by trade in Lebnan and he told me that in background on the left there is a Zaytoon (olive) tree. Zaytoon trees can survive in neglect for hundreds of years, with some living as old as 1500 years. Layla MkhHere, my parents are waiting for a train at Gymea station sometime in the early 1990s, around the time they moved to Australia. They have been living in Gymea, a suburb in the Sutherland Shire, for over 25 years. They were one of few ethnic families to migrate to this traditionally white enclave not much has changed. I catch the train to university from this station, too. The rose bushes have been replaced with lavender and camellia.My dad had come to Australia in 1986, having well established a life as a bachelor who worked at Timezone and spent his money on clothes, cricket and travelling. My dad travelled home eight years later after he had gotten his citizenship and had an arranged marriage with my mum. My parents lived apart for a year, waiting for my mum to come over to Australia. My mum, a quiet introvert came one year after marriage to this fast paced life her husband had, both excited and in awe. Rameen Hayat <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I love elections. Theyre my equivalent of the Super Bowl. Though its foolish, Im still enamoured by the grand idea of citizens, just for one day, holding the fate of characteristically arrogant politicians in their hands. So, last week, I signed up as a polling official to get into the thick of election season. When it hits 6pm, polling booths across the country get a brief reprieve before the first challenge of the night: unfolding the metre-long Senate papers, akin to laying a tablecloth, and removing the informal votes, those ballots that are incorrectly filled out. And as the votes rolled in, I began seeing informal votes stack up, one after the other, until they formed a tall pile.It was interesting to analyse those informal votes. Many possessed artistic talent; I counted ten penises and a detailed portrait of a corgi, and elsewhere I heard of a whale that spanned the entire length of the Senate paper. Give people a rule, and it seems theyll find a way to disobey with creativity and flair. More common were comments laced with anger, at politics (ALL A BUNCH OF MORONS!!!!), at the process (what a waste of paper, eat a dick) or at specific politicians (my favourite, simply Fuck Hanson).One voter wrote a veritable monologue on their ballot. Sorry nobody thinks about us, they claimed. They all preach, say, promise to get into power and then they forget who put them there. We dont matter. It was filled with a combination of resentment, resignation and despair that was powerful, yet futile. Who did they think would see it, apart from a polling official so far removed from decision-makers who actually run the country? Even more perplexing were the completely blank ballots, voters who made the effort to turn up and wait in line, and then decided they didnt want any say at all, formal or informal.Initially I thought informal voting was simply a callous waste of a precious right. What was the point? And while that might be true, I now think theres more nuance to it. In some small way, the point was rebellion. What I saw were voters so disenfranchised from the system, so apathetic about its importance, that they didnt expect anything from it. I dont think any of them believe their ballot will actually find its way to someone in power or trigger an epiphany. And the positive feelings that arise out of expressing frustration with political leadership is arguably more irrational than earnestly engaging with politics and agitating politicians to change dire situations. While I agree that people have a duty to educate themselves politically, not just for their own sake but to understand how their vote affects others the thing with democracy is that on polling day, you have to take it as it is. In a 2016 post-election paper by the AEC, the informality rate was described as a key measure of democratic health. That year, the informal voting rate in the House of Representatives was 5.1%, and 3.9% in the Senate. From those numbers, I cant confidently conclude that politics, on a macro level, is broken. Maybe the reality is not as exciting as people want. Working at an election is repetitive, arduous and devoid of the spectacle Id expected but nevertheless insightful. For one, you forget how many people live where you live. From kind elderly couples who held each others hands in the voting booth, to 20-strong ethnic families whose kids sprinted around the hall (one asked me for a ballot paper so she could vote for Angelina Ballerina), the interpersonal conversations I had were the best part of election day.Maybe theres something to be said about reframing our democracy in terms of those human interactions and how we sustain each other. Whether its highlighting human impacts in policy debates, or making the experience of polling not so intimidating, were a better, more informed populace when were more cognisant of what our vote means, and when were less inclined to draw penises on our ballot papers. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Many university students know they should work hard and save for their future, but most students dont bet their way to wealth. I do, and I think all university students should be betting.A few years back I was researching ways to make extra money and came across matched betting a method of exploiting bookmaker promotions to make guaranteed money.Three years later I was working in a management consulting style role. The days were long, and I was dissatisfied with my boss. It was a coincidence that I came across an article about sports betting hedge funds like Primoha Capital. Matched betting methods in mind and with the Australian Opens bookmaker promotions rife for the picking, I set out to raise money.I didnt have a business plan, marketing plan, sales script or anything. I reached out to friends first. Some invested their own capital, and we split all the profits.At its heart, matched betting is simple. Bookmakers run generous promotions costing them millions of dollars to lure customers in to bet and then lose money. Bonuses are a loss leader for bookmakers. The trick with matched betting is that you only bet on promotions, and you hedge your position so you cant lose.Heres an example. The classic offer to a new customer is that if you deposit $500 youll get $500 in bonus bets. Now, you just find a game or race. Lets say theres a soccer match between Arsenal and Chelsea. Most people would say there are three outcomes Arsenal wins, Chelsea wins, or its a draw. Backing one of the three results to win is a classic punt and normally doomed to lose money in the long run because the bookmaker always prices in an edge in their odds to win over time.But theres only ever two results on a bet. The bet wins or it does not. Either Arsenal wins or it does not. Either Chelsea wins or it does not. Betting on a winner is a back bet. Betting on something not winning is a lay bet.And if you place one bet on an event occurring and another on it not occurring, you are guaranteed to win on one bet. Of course, if youre using your own funds, youll still lose money because of the bookmakers edge in the odds. However, unlike a regular bet, you wont lose all of your money. Rather, youll lock in a small, mathematically guaranteed loss. This is matched betting.But, unlike a supermarket promotion, bookmaker bonuses can generate profit. With the $500 deposited, a punter can back and lay Arsenal to win. This locks in a few dollars loss because of the bookmakers edge, but over 95% of the $500 stake is retained. Then the punter can back another team using the bonus bet and lay with their own money. Like usual, one bet is guaranteed to win and the punter gets the winnings. But this time the punter bets with the bookies own money.The exact return on the bonus bet depends on the odds you bet at, but a 70% return is easily achievable. That means a $500 sign-up bonus is worth $350. That means the $3000 in bonus bets available for signing up to bookmakers in NSW is an easy $2100. Not bad for a few hours work.And just like any supermarket, bookies dont stop offering promotions. For a university student, matched betting is a great side job. Theres no bar to entry, and you can make 15k a year tax free with just a few hours of work a week easily enough. Thats enough to make a real difference for students struggling to get by.Right now, Australians lose $920 million a year through betting. But, if even 3% of the 2.1 million Australians between 18-24 years of age joined me in matched betting, these losses would be eliminated, and thats based on conservative historical matched betting profits.Betting is not inherently wrong. All betting does is redistribute wealth. For me, taking money from bookmakers to support friends, family, social causes, and strangers which need help is noble. In my eyes, Im countering corporate bookmakers who make morally questionable profits by incentivising problem gambling. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I lived at St. Pauls College throughout 2017 and 2018 when the college experienced the unflattering glare of the public spotlight for the first time in its history.Students at St Pauls College proudly proclaim that their college is uniquely self-organised. Both first-year freshers and older students participate in jobs referred to as convenorships. Through this, students gradually accumulate responsibilities. The Student Club (S Club) are the leaders at the centre of student activity.The 2018 Broderick Report noted a strong belief among students and former students that the students, rather than the staff, run the College. The report, however, didnt explore this tension in depth. During my time at Pauls, I quickly found out that Paulines werent opposed only to outsiders: some residents also resisted the staffs management of the college.During my time, college students told me they saw the interloping hand of adult governance as a toxic influence, corroding the traditions of the College. Some referred to themselves as the last of an era. College staff cracked down on O Week hazing and in response, the rituals preceding ANZAC day expanded in the name of tradition, overseen entirely by student leaders. The staffpreviously unopposed to the ritualsand now declaring new rules, were seen by students as bowing to external pressure. And so, students paid lip service to staff requests.2018s S Club was left in the uncomfortable position of declaring bans on hazing before ANZAC day, knowing that several platoons led by their mates would ignore their requests, and also knowing that they could do little to enforce those bans. At least one member of the current S Club organised an initiation last year. It is difficult for me to imagine him declaring a ban with any moral authority.The disrespectful opposition to adult intervention surprised me at times. At the daily formal dinner, when controversial changes were announced or discussed by the Warden, disgruntled older students would give off low hisses, reminding first years of the traditions at stake.A common frustration was a perceived lack of consultation between staff, the S Club, and the residents. Some felt unable to bring up ideas for reform, and saw themselves cordoned off from leadership positions for not conforming to expectations.Others felt that everyday changes to room allocations and events had occurred without their input, despite affecting their lives in significant ways.A final group felt that reforms, such as bans on hissing at first-years and hazing, were unreasonable, and felt excluded from the conversation.Students feared that the development of more undergraduate housing and a larger St. Pauls community would irreparably compromise the Colleges tight-knit community and limit the space in Victory Dinners, ANZAC celebrations, and similar events.A common complaint was that the quality of candidates for entry would reduceironic, I thought at the timegiven those same residents propensity to either urinate on or kick down each others doors. To me, it felt like residents were sometimes complaining for its own sake. Despite that, the S Club did an admirable job of communicating sometimes sudden changes.There was also student dissent towards the admission of female students into the now-completed co-educational Graduate House, largely driven by references to the foundational values of the college as an all-male institution. At a mock debate about combining with Womens College, a 3rd year leader aired a perhaps more honest articulation:What makes Pauls so great is that theres no chicks here. What that means is that we can all get fucking weird. I can just walk around naked. I dont need to watch what I say at dinner.He went on to describe his freedom in pursuing sexual conquests, the audience cheered, and in the eyes of impressionable freshers, he became the heroic flagbearer of college tradition they aspired to be.Students saw themselves as responsible for continuing the traditions of their college, in opposition to a new wave of staff conforming to political correctness. At an annual student meeting, one of the leaders of the Salisbury Syndicatethe group running the college barreceived enthusiastic applause for opposing the introduction of RSA guidelines and CCTV cameras, in objection to adult management. A particular feature of his speech were allusions to the need to uphold Pauls values in the face of adults changing the nature of the college. Students I talked to were worried that newly appointed management would either cave into external pressure, or more worryingly for residents, seek cultural change.The relationship between adults and residents at the college is more complicated than I have sketched out. The parts of management that lived at the College grew understandably close with students who spent many years there. As noted in the Broderick Report, this facilitated effective and genuinely unique pastoral care, but also led to complications. Residents who sought to complain about the behaviour of an older member of the community either baulked at complaining to adult staff who were close friends with the older student in question, or didnt feel as though their concerns were taken seriously.Dr Don Markwell, appointed in 2018, is in his second year as Warden. As a strong and respected moral leader with an excellent track record, he promised to enact positive change. The question remains: how will students respond to this? Will student leadership continue murmuring bitterly about adults involving themselves in their business, or will they seize the chance to reform themselves?Possible change to the enmity between students and adult management may be on the way. Previously, only the College Council could expel a student through an elaborate process. The student who posted the infamous whale screenshot received a short suspension and continued to engage with the College community during that time. Recent governance changes mean that, amongst other changes, the Warden is now empowered to expel students.Current residents of Pauls described how the relationship between staff and students has changed since I left. No students would go on the record. When I was at St Pauls, the College advised students not to correspond with media.One student said that the College is unified with [the Warden] in the fight against sexism and the process of cultural renewal.Over the last year or so weve tried really hard as a college to remove traditions which werent good, he said, mentioning that the Broderick review has been a really great thing here thats made [St. Pauls] become a better place.Such comments must be taken critically. During my time, many students defended their college with similar messages. I was ostracised by the Pauls community for talking to Honi, and so have plentiful reason to be suspicious of its shiny exterior.Nonetheless, if some older residents are now on board with the reviews recommendations, that represents a significant reversal from the declared community consensus of my time there that the review was a witch hunt.The new Warden occupies an uncomfortable middle ground between the conservatism of some residents, and the activist demands of others who believe more should be done.It remains too early to conclude whether staff will be able to carry the students with them, and whether wiser heads amongst the S Club will promote cooperation with management.For now, I can only be cautiously optimistic that the relationship between staff and students will improve with time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For the uninitiated, which is the overwhelming global majority, the idea of taking a few minutes out of their busy lives to do nothing at all seems like an uneconomical use of time, if not utterly pointless. For its burgeoning disciples, however those who prefer to start their day with their back upright against a chair, eyes closed, merely paying attention to their thoughts and sensations doing nothing is an indispensable exercise.It is not difficult to explain why meditation has only recently begun to amass a following in the West. Since emerging in India around 400 B.C.E and promptly spreading to China, the practice of meditation has remained substantially confined to the religious and demographic context from which it sprung. After being treated to intellectual flirtation during the Enlightenment, kindled by Western intrigue in the 1960s, the phenomenon has exploded in the last decade. This surging popularity has been generated and seized upon by a motley crew of individuals and organisations keen to reap its therapeutic and financial benefits. In the first camp are those seduced by meditations practical utility: lifestyle addicts, sufferers of anxiety and depression, companies trying to combat stress levels in the workplace. Schools, government organisations and even the military, are recent additions. In the second, the meditation industry: paid courses, app developers and anyone else making a profit from selling a meditation related product or service. According to a report in 2015 by IBISWorld, the American meditation industry (excluding yoga and pilates) is worth around USD $1b. Apps providing guided meditation courses also attract a huge and growing consumer-base. Headspace, one of the most well-known, soared from 20.5m to 40m downloads in 2018 and boasts over 1m paid subscribers.Although westernised forms of meditation, such as yoga and mindfulness, are derivatives of Hindu and Buddhist practices, they are far removed from their rich religious and cultural roots; stripped down and secularised to be rendered consumable for capitalist society. On one view, severing faith from meditation and imbuing it with a rational, scientific basis, is a necessary step towards universalising the practice so that its benefits are more widely accessible. To the cynic, however, the mindfulness movement is little more than a fad, amounting to white-washing and cultural appropriation. Perhaps the most scathing critics are those wielding the commodification argument. Here, the assertion is not just that Eastern culture has been conveniently repackaged and remarketed to forward the bottom line of meditation companies. Rather, they claim meditation has, under the guise of rationalism, been wrenched from its ethical and religious backbone and fully co-opted by capitalism. In Buddhism, the practice of meditation itself is similar to that of modern mindfulness, both in terms of purpose and method. The basic premise is that, by paying close attention to thoughts and sensations as they arise in consciousness, the subject develops a sense of awareness and peace. And yet, this is arguably the extent of the similarities. Some of the central tenets of Buddhism (which meditation is supposed to conduce) are the renunciation of ego, greed and desire. Mindfulness abandoned these religious virtues: the void filled by capitalist antipodes, egotism and individualism. Instead of encouraging the participant to transcend the self, and furnishing them with the virtues to create a better world, mindfulness functions as a temporary antidote to the pressures of everyday life. Like the self-help industry, it is the perfect compliment to capitalism, anaesthetising workers to the stress and banality of wage-labour so that theyre able to work longer, more efficiently and without complaint. Headspace even contains a course of guided meditations under the label of productivity, hardly a notion that could be squared with profound spiritual enlightenment. Whats more, the evidence seems to suggest that if work-output is what youre looking for, meditation is the practice for you. American entrepreneur and investor, Tim Ferriss (a pretty well rounded capitalist himself), interviewed 140 industry leaders and found that the vast majority of them meditated. The cynics, thus, would agree that meditation is an antidote to our woes an antidote which addresses the symptoms, rather than the systemic causes, of the problem. So, should we accept these critiques wholeheartedly, or is there something positive that meditation can offer us? In my opinion, strongly influenced by my own experience of meditating consistently over the past year, there absolutely are. That is not to say that there is not an element of truth to the cynics claims, but to acknowledge that they do not represent the complete truth. For one thing, they are cynics, defined as such for their proclivity to take contrarian stances. Indeed, some of the staunchest opponents of mindfulness, like notorious Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek, are well known for dismissing most facets of modern culture (Zizeks favourite target is political correctness) as malignant creatures of capitalism. But the fact is, not all those who meditate are rapacious capitalists looking to enhance their work ethic. Many, myself included, are simply looking to find a way of coping with anxiety, or achieving the mental clarity necessary to be better to others. I do not doubt that if the cynics took some time out of their brooding to properly attempt meditation, they too would profit. While some courses, particularly those offered by big corporations to their employees, emphasise productivity, some emphasise compassion. For example, my go-to-app (and one of the most popular), Waking up with Sam Harris, incorporates a Buddhist practice called Mett, which involves deliberately wishing goodwill upon others.Meditation is not, and nor does it promise to be, the antidote to societys ills. Only critical thought and political action can rectify capitalistic machinations. But if we can harness meditations benefits, while remaining vigilant of capitalisms invidious hand, we will be all the better for it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ive lived most of my life not being that much of a romantic. Romance as a genre didnt appeal to me and while the thought of having a partner was nice, a relationship wasnt something I was desperately searching for.So Im sure you can imagine my surprise when last year in the midst of the chaos that was the HSC I was suddenly approached by my friends for relationship advice of all things. Somehow, without my noticing, almost everyone in my friend circle had found themselves cute partners to canoodle with. My own romantic history was seemingly bare. It was a short timeline filled with quick two-week crushes on the new guy at work or the girl in the cafe with the brightly coloured hair, but nothing too serious. Id never even been on a date. With Year 12 ending and uni fast approaching, my time at an all-girls Catholic high school had done me no good. Panic set in and I began to fully prepare myself for the life of a spinstress, or the role of Katherine Heigl at the beginning of 27 Dresses.Admittedly, at first I felt quite honoured that my friends felt comfortable enough to come to me with their problems, and while I did make a few Just break up! jokes here and there, I also did offer some genuine advice that miraculously worked.Got a boyfriend hanging out with people you dont like? Talk to them about it, calmly explain why it is you dont like those people, but dont flat out tell them to stop being friends with people anybody would get defensive in such a situation.Got a girlfriend who been distant lately? Literally just talk to them about it, gently asking them if something is wrong, but dont try to force it; make yourself somebody they can be open and honest with.To me, it all seemed so simple, how could they not get it? The honour I felt soon turned to annoyance, and the annoyance to envy. How could I still be single while they were not? How could I somehow give out such sage-like relationship advice, yet never find a relationship of my own? It wasnt fair, there had to be some god upstairs laughing at me. Danielle Cabubas, The Perpetually Single Relationship Counsellor. But a few months ago, as I was scrolling through my Tumblr dashboard, I came across a phrase that opened my eyes and changed my perspective completely. Three simple words:Coaches dont play.I was the coach and my friends, the players. It was like having my own team of children to train and guide to victory. I had to be patient with them, comfort them when they got hurt, and cheer them on from the sidelines. It was my damned duty. In fact, it was my being single that made me the only person who could do it. I saw the whole picture, through the eyes of someone on the outside. Thats what made me so special, thats what allowed me to dish out such good advice, and honestly? That was definitely something I could be proud of.If theres one thing Ive learnt from my time playing agony aunt its that the best way to take things, was slow. I realised it does you no good to force something into happening. In the end, the best course of action was to sit back, relax, and see what fate brings me.There is of course still some of that lingering fear that Ill end up alone until the day I die. But I can safely say with the utmost confidence that right now, Im 18-years-old, single as fuck, and living my best life. And theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Domestic violence is a global issue whose effects are felt across national boundaries irrespective of social-economic, racial, religious, and cultural distinctions. Regardless of who it impacts, the impacts or often heartbreakingly similar severe damage on the well-being and health of women and children in particular. Domestic violence is defined as the misuse of power by one individual (mainly the man) to establish fear and control of another individual through violence and other forms of abuse.Domestic violence leads to submission by fear of sexual, financial,physical, social, and psychological assault.Through the perspective of the children, domestic violence not only causes physical injury, but also undermines the social, psychological, spiritual and emotional well-being of the victim, the perpetrator and society as a whole.* * *On March 27, 1996, a baby girl is born in a small city in northern China. Nobody is happy with her birth. As she grows, so does her fathers resentment towards her.I used to peer out the door and tiptoe to the front entrance of the house and glance up and down at our street repeatedly Iris* half laughs, shaking her head. I was listening for footsteps. When I heard the gate click, I ran away immediately and then sat in front of my small desk without moving. A child waiting for her father to arrive home.In fact, he rarely came home, maybe only once a week, usually on Friday. I can remember every time he went home, he was silent and reticent.Her father, tall and square-jawed. Her mother, his mistress.He was a perfect gentleman; besides, he had a family. Iris mother would tell her when she was in her teens. Recalling these words now, she finds in them an undeniable, tragic irony.My mother said that she cared what my father wanted. When she got pregnant with me, she told my father that I was the son he always dreamed about. She was going to have me, no matter what. My father was 38 years old at that time, a product of traditional patriarchal culture, and he madly wanted a baby boy.But then things went wrong. When Iris father found out that the baby was a girl outside the delivery room, he felt cheated. He refused to look after the mother of his newborn daughter, and then he left them both for months after she was born. When he came back, the abuse began, and from there, it just escalated into a downward spiral of despair.* * *In China, like in most cultures, domestic violence against women is an age-old phenomenon. In the modern day, it is one of Chinas most serious social and human rights issues. However, it is a hidden epidemic a public health crisis dismissed as a private affair that is all too often discounted or covered up.According to Chinese government statistics released in January 2013, one in four women in China are subjected to domestic violence, including marital rape and beatings. Tens of millions are at risk. The state-run China Daily newspaper reported in 2013, nearly 40 percent of Chinese women who are married or in a relationship have experienced physical or sexual violence.Chinese feminists fought for decades to get the government to take action against domestic violence, and a string of brutal cases galvanized efforts in recent years. In 2011, Kim Lee, the American wife of a Chinese celebrity Li Yang, the creator of a popular English learning technique called Crazy English, went public on social media with photos of her battered face and her failed efforts to seek help from police . The news immediately scandalised China, drawing headlines and thousands of online comments. People condemned Li Yang and demanded him to apologise for his violence. Li stayed silent for days, but later he admitted to domestic violence against his wife and his kids that caused them serious physical and mental damage. But in an interview with China Daily, Li sounded not at all sorry for his actions, saying the problem involves character and cultural differences, which are difficult to solve through counseling and interview. More disturbingly, he also said I hit her sometimes, but I never thought she would make it public since. its not Chinese tradition to expose family conflicts to outsiders..Speaking to her own experiences, Iris can only smile indifferently.My mum wont tell anyone she was beaten for years and her lover tried to strangle her more than once. Whats more, my mother is not even his wife, she is just a mistress. The law has no obligation to protect a mistress who can only live in the shadows.* * *Domestic violence, as the name suggests, is not just an argument of strangers but and a continued coercive control of partners. Ruth McIntyre from Womens Refuge (2013) says the high rate of domestic violence in Australia boils down to one fundamental concept: gender inequality. Women were always considered weak, vulnerable and in a position to be exploited. Traditional cultural mores, religious practices, economic and political conditions may set the precedence for initiating and perpetuating domestic violence. It is a similar situation in China.In China, husbands who beat their wives typically feel that they are exercising a right to maintain good order in the family and punish their wives wrongdoing for me, my wrongdoing is that I didnt give him a son. Iriss mother explained.Domestic violence is mainly meted on women owing to ingrained cultural beliefs that a man is superior to a woman. In this regard, domestic violence is viewed as abuse against women. Indeed, according to White Ribbon, one in three women have suffered from physical violence perpetrated by an intimate partner in Australia. On the contrary, the fraction of men that are abused by their partners is significantly smaller. Most cultures are male-dominated, where men are right regardless of their actions, and women blamed for things they had no power to control . For instance, in Iriss mothers case, a failure to give birth to a baby boy is blamed on the woman but not on the man.Perhaps, though, the ultimate victims of domestic violence are children. For Iris, the abuse she and her mother suffered at the hands of father has resulted in an intense fear and anxiety towards being around men. She is afraid of relationships and resists marriage. Her bond with her mother, however, is strong.I dont think my mum can leave my dad. In fact, I cant leave him either. For my dad, my mother is a selfish woman, but for me, she loves me. She wants me to be independent, so she let me study abroad in Australia alone.I rarely speak to my father. But my mother has always been proud of me. *Names have been changed <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Amidst the chaotic hum of New York City, my father had a strange encounter that would ultimately change the course of his life.It was a hot day in the city. My father was walking down 47th Street to the jewelers shop where he worked. He noticed an older woman struggling to gather her groceries on a steep sidewalk.My father knelt beside her and began to gather her fallen apples, oranges and canned foods. In return for his gesture, she offered my father a glimpse into his future. A rare and unprecedented gift for what my father perceived to be a natural and logical act of kindness on his part.She briefly stared into my fathers eyes, using her weathered hands to uncurl his fingers. She delivered the following prophecy:This place, this city, is not your final destination.Her black-rimmed eyes met my fathers expression of surprise and disbelief. She raised her eyebrows and continued to speak. Your heart will be the anchor that moors your body beside the woman who will bear your children. You will know her as a siren who bears your mothers name. A name that is rare and therefore sufficient proof of the truths I have told you.She paused and began to chuckle as my father subconsciously pulled his hand away, wary and fearful of her words. Are my words too generous? she mused, seemingly reading his mind. Am I overstaying my welcome?My father was a ripped-jeans-wearing, Bronx-bound Latino with a cigarette perpetually behind his ear. He wore his self-confidence like the bronze, diamond-studded lion that dangled from his neck. The shock of being told his lifes fate made him stiffen his backhe puffed his chest, and shook his thick, curly mane of dark hair over his pale shoulders. He bent his legs as if assuming a fighting stance, leaning into his back leg, tilting his chin upwards and folding his arms. Could she be telling the truth?As the son of a provincial witch doctor in Ecuador, he didnt take the womans words lightly. Yet, his steadfast belief in fatethat nothing happens by chanceseemed to ring hollow. Tears sprung to his eyes at the memory of his uncle transferring him his life savings on his nineteenth birthday, telling him that he could now travel to the land of dreams and vivir sin pobrezalive without poverty.My destiny is here, Seora, my father curtly replied, quashing his emotions with a stiff smile.With that hint of innocent curiosity, the woman divulged the rest of her wisdom, She will give you daughters, only daughters. together you will suffer greatly. But the trials you will endure will teach you to love her greater still. Luckily, and for this I am glad, in the end, you will be compensated for this suffering. I can see the gold waiting for you.New York City, 1987.When my parents met for the first time, my Australian mother was dressed in a mini Barbie pink dress with thick triangular shoulder pads. A cropped electric blue blazer hugged her waist. Her hair, a delicately sculptured afternoon cloud, cushioned a red lipped, daylight moon.My father was entranced.After minutes of studying a crisp map of New York City Highlights, my mother looked up at that [a]moment, catching my fathers gaze. She smiled to herself, trusting her instincts.Buenas tardes, my mother began. Me pudiera ayudar? Good afternoon. Could you help me? I am not sure how to get to the Statue of Liberty.Sabe, seorita? Si gusta le acompa. mi nombre es Edgar, a sus ordenes, my father eagerly replied. You know what, miss? If you think its okay, I can take you there my name is Edgar. At your service.My mother struggled to suppress a wide smile. Porque no! Why not! She replied, briefly looking down at her flashy pumps. Mi nombre es Eugenia gracias. My name is Eugenia thank you.Over 25 years later, my father, an aging face of multicultural south-west Sydney, never tires of retelling this improbable love story to anyone willing to listen. He never skimps on the detail, and his energy is never lacking. I am often by his side as he recounts, and I enjoy it every time. His black mane is now peppered with grey, and his speech is now full of Australian colloquialisms like bloody and mate as well as more familiar Ecuadorian slang. These quirks track the lifespan of an accidental migrant who has made Australia his own. He doesnt regret coming here. Abandoning his dreams of a better life in the United States and distancing himself further from family in Ecuador wasnt easy. But as my father often concludes, how could I live with myself without her she gave me my daughters my gold. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As we enter into the fifth month of 2019, we acknowledge and pay our respects to the lives lost in Sri Lanka last week. On the 21st of April, while many were observing Easter Sunday mass, three churches across Sri Lanka and three hotels in the capital of Colombo were the targets of a series of coordinated suicide bombings. 253 people were killed and up to 500 were injured in the attacks, many of whom were children. Moreover, a further 10 civilians were killed this weekend in a police raid. The scale of human loss and devastation is obscene and we stand in solidarity with Sri Lankans and all those affected.Speaking as an editor born in Sri Lanka, I am at a loss for words at the scale of human suffering that befalls our country. As a majority Buddhist nation, its unimaginable that the inescapability of human suffering described in Buddhist philosophy extends beyond metaphysical description to reality time and time again. A motivating factor in my move to Australia was the horror of the civil war, and its impact on civilian populations Tamil, and Sinhalese. My parents constantly grew up in a climate of fear, with one insurgency after another. Despite escaping the trauma, this horror is inherited by the diaspora. As we hear, story by story, of family, friends, acquaintances whose lives were torn apart, we vicariously inhabit the lived experiences of the generations preceding us. As a Sinhalese man who had benefited from the wealth and prosperity of Colombo life, its confronting to understand that my pain is an infinitesimally small part of the collective suffering of my people.I cannot do justice to the history of what has happened. From colonisation to independence, from ethnic cleansing to mass-killings, from poverty to governmental despotism my perspective captures only a minority of conflict fought along class, ethnic and gendered lines. This event to me is another iteration of the flux between small periods of prosperity, and large periods of pain. Amandas amazing feature article on the following page elucidates the horrors of Governmental despotism in the 80s and 90s. Anyone with beliefs in democracy, press-freedom and civil liberties were challenged by tyrants who tried to maintain a status-quo on the accumulation of their private wealth. Even the so-called Democratic Socialism espoused by post-independence Sinhalese nationalists is fraught with violence. Modern Sri Lanka was built on the displacement and subjugation of the rural, Tamil poor whose hopes of well-being were squandered by the Civil War, Indian paramilitary occupation, and economic warfare. The revolutionary socialists of the 80s continued the tradition of Sinhalese chauvinism, whose visions of utopia excluded those who were Tamil. While its difficult to go in length to the complexities of Modern Sri Lankan history, I can only point to our constant division. Whilst this polemic may sound naive in nature to unite in the face of suffering, it is necessary to mention in a place confounded by so much division on class, on ethnicity, and now, on religion.In the wake of the attacks, mob violence has led to the assault of Muslim communities all across Sri Lanka. Multiple reports have been made over Sri Lanka of gangs of men breaking into houses, smashing down doors, dragging people into the streets, and beating up children. Islamophobia is a phenomenon that needs to end before we end up in the next mass conflict. How many more must suffer until we understand that our divisions whether they be socioeconomic, ethnic or religious constantly draw us into conflict?In spite of Islamophobic discourses, it is important to recognise that the ideology informing these terrorist attacks is alien to the majority of Muslims in the world. The spread of hyper-conservative Wahhabist interpretations of Islam is not the result of some inherent deficiency in Islamic theology. Rather, they are the result of highly cultivated, century-long geopolitical strategies from the dominant imperial powers of the day.Before the 19th century, the dominant interpretation of Islam around the world was Sufi; emphasising a personal relationship with God and an appreciation of other religious traditions, within and outside Islam. Similar ideals predominate in the practices of most Muslims today. To brand someone a kafir, a non-believer, was unheard of among Muslims of the time, yet it is a discourse that predominates among ISIS and other similar groups.The roots of Wahhabist ideology can be found in Islamic revivalist movements of the 19th century, however its modern manifestation is primarily the result of British colonial designs. To aid in the domination of the Arab world after WW1, the British cultivated an alliance with the most reactionary force in the region the House of Saud. For two centuries, the al-Saud family had been one of the most powerful Arab tribes in the Hejaz, and had wedded themselves to the rigid doctrines of Muhammad Ibn Abd-al Wahhab (from whose name Wahhabism is derived). Wahhabi doctrine proclaimed a return to the golden age of Islam, condemning mainstream progressive interpretations of Islam as innovation, contrary to the word of God. When the British chose to grant the al-Saud family a state, they institutionalised the chauvinist ideology of Wahhabism in the Saudi state.Since then, imperialism has used Wahhabism as an ideological bulwark against progressive and revolutionary movements across the Global South. In a rare moment of candidness, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia admitted that the Saudi-operated Muslim World League had been used to spread Wahhabism across the world throughout the Cold War to assist the United States in countering the rise of progressive national liberation movements. In South Asia, the military dictatorship of Pakistan engaged in a period of Islamification, turning the country into the de facto base of Wahhabism in the Indian Subcontinent. This is the context out of which the terrorists in Sri Lanka emerge. Only recently, it was demonstrated that Saudi backed Wahhabist groups in Colombo have been actively victimising Shia and Sufi Imams, refusing them Islamic burial and even inciting violence against them.In such a context of hatred, we should know that colonialism divided us once, but it should never divide us again. We reject the politics of fear. We reject inter communal strife. We stand in solidarity with the victims of these attacks, and with all oppressed people fighting for their liberation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A week before Mardi Gras, I was on my way home from a movie with friends. As the bus started to cruise down Oxford Street, the woman behind me started to rant. It started with her complaining about the disgusting gays ruining the area, and gradually grew into her making an appalling incitement of violence against the LGBT community. The gays should be lined up Oxford Street and shot, she said, before escalating to the suggestion that the Mardi Gras parade should be bombed. This left me with a dilemma: do I out myself to a hostile stranger, risking my personal safety to confront them about how what theyre saying is not even remotely acceptable, or do I just try to get away from it as soon as I can and live with knowing that I stood by and did nothing?I did end up getting off the bus as soon as possible, but the experience left me knowing I had to do something. The following week, I went to my first Mardi Gras to send her a message. We the LGBTQ+ community arent going anywhere.Mardi Gras is sometimes described as just one big street party. Thats not entirely wrong, but its certainly not the whole story. Mardi Gras is so much more than just a party, its a safe space where queers can be themselves without consequence and show each other the affection that we might not otherwise display in normal life. Its a place where an increasing number of allies can come to celebrate our community with us. Its us showing the world that we are who we are, and were proud of it.With this show of visibility, were telling the homophobes and transphobes that we will keep standing strong together and will not accept their bigotry no matter how much hate they throw at us, and no matter how many cowardly threats they make, they cannot scare us. Visibility is such an important part of our day-to-day life, not just as a statement against hate, but as a message of hope. By being openly gay or otherwise queer at work or amongst friends and family, we are telling everyone that its OK to be gay and that as a queer its possible to be proud of who you are, and thrive as an individual. It shows the closeted folks among us that there is a welcoming community waiting for them.Personally, it is this that has had such a big impact on me. Going from a boys high school rife with homophobia to an LGBT-friendly university filled with queer role models has given me the courage to be proud of being gay, to explore who I am and to come out to an increasing number of people. I hope that in doing so, I can inspire people in the same way Ive been inspired.Every time you casually show how queer you are is a step closer to equality, whether youre holding hands with your significant other, giving them a pash or talking about your crush. Some straight people might complain were shoving our gayness down their throats. If they do, just remember that theyve been doing the same to us with their heterosexuality since time immemorial. Rather than hiding our queerness from them, we need to display it loudly until they get used to it. We need to let them know that were queer and we have always been here.A week before Mardi Gras, I was on my way home from a movie with friends. As the bus started to cruise down Oxford Street, the woman behind me started to rant. It started with her complaining about the disgusting gays ruining the area, and gradually grew into her making an appalling incitement of violence against the LGBT community. And here I was faced with a dilemma do I out myself to a hostile stranger, and risk violence by confronting them about how what they are saying is not even remotely ok, or do I just try to get away from it as soon as I can, knowing I stood by and did nothing. I did end up getting off that bus as soon as I could, but I knew what I had to do. The following week, I went to my first Mardi Gras to send her a message we, the LGBTQ+ community, are not going anywhere.She said The gays should be lined up Oxford Street and shot and ISIS should drop a bomb during mardi gras. Go ISIS. Might be a bit too violent to put in, but it gives it context.)Mardi Gras is sometimes characterised as big street party. Thats not wrong, but its not the whole story either. Mardi Gras is so much more. Its a safe space where we can be ourselves without consequence, where we can show each other the affection that we can have trouble showing in normal life. Its a place where an increasing number of allies celebrate our community with us. Its us telling the world we are who we are, and were proud of it. With this show of visibility, were telling all the homophobes and transphobes that no matter how much hate they throw in our direction, no matter how many threats they make, they cannot scare us away Well keep standing strong together and we will not accept their bigotry.This has had such a big impact on me personally. Going from a boys high school rife with homophobia to an LGBT-friendly university filled with queer role models has given me the courage to be proud of being gay, to explore who I am and to come out to an increasing number of people. I hope that in doing so, I can inspire people in the same way Ive been inspired.Every time you casually show how queer you are is a step closer to equality, whether youre holding hands with your significant other, giving them a pash or talking about your crush. Some people might complain were shoving our gayness down their throats. Just remember that theyve been doing the same to us since time immemorial. Rather than hiding our queerness from them, we need to display it loudly until they get used to it. Lets let them know that were queer and we have always been here. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article contains information about domestic violence.On Wednesday 19 February, a man murdered his ex-partner and three children by dousing them with petrol and setting them alight in a car in Camp Hill, east of Brisbane. Hannah Clarke (31) and her children Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey (6, 4 and 3) lost their lives in the most abhorrent, brutal way. Statistically, by the time this article is published, another woman will already have been murdered by a present or former partner.In the immediate wake of the murders, headlines ran as follows: Former Rugby star and three children die in car fire tragedy (The Standard); Goodnight my babies: Camp Hill car fire dads Facebook posts leading up to horror (News.com.au); Ex-NRL player Rowan Baxter dies alongside his three kids, estranged wife in Brisbane car fire tragedy (FOX Sports); Dads Haunting posts before car fire tragedy takes three children (Seven News).The official police statement on the matter came from Detective Inspector Mark Thompson, who asked,is [this] an instance of a husband being driven too far by issues hes suffered by certain circumstances into committing acts of this form?These are just some instances of the institutionalised victim-blaming and sympathy for violent men that have arisen from the Camp Hill murders. They humanise a man who murdered his wife and kids by reminding us that he was a sportsman and a father. They are suggesting that somehow society is able to collectively rationalise his actions and accept the loss of four lives. When powerful institutions like the media and the police force platform this kind of apologist rhetoric, they open up a grey area in the public square, where one can begin to justify Baxters actions, rather than framing them as symptomatic of the rampant and systemic issue that is domestic violence in Australia.The media has told us that Baxter was a good man who fell from grace, an ex-sports hero, a loving father who was driven over the edge. We are time and time again presented with notions of incident or tragedy instead of crime and murder, in a way that absolves this man of responsibility. These misuses of language are insidious. In understating the morbidity of Baxters actions, the media and the police force are dampening our outrage and our grief in a way that goes to the heart of this nations refusal to hold men to account for treating the women in their lives violently.We cannot forget the racial caveat in this issue either, as discussed by activist against mens violence Tarang Chawla on ABCs The Drum, the apologist standpoints taken in the media are only enabled because Baxter was a white, Australian sportsman he was one of the boys. If Baxter were a migrant or person of colour, the medias coverage would undoubtedly take this into account in their reporting. Conversely, domestic violence victims who are people of colour (and especially Indigenous women) often fail to make headlines at all.The mainstream media has failed to report on the inarguable facts of the case: murderer Rowan Baxter had a history of domestic violence and was known to police. In December, Hannah Clarke left the relationship to go live with her parents. Shortly afterwards, he abducted their 4-year-old daughter for 4 days. Weeks ago, he breached a Domestic Violence Order. We know that 50% of domestic violence homicides occur within three months of separation, and that Baxter had a long history of using methods of coercive control. These facts are a checklist of warning signs for what became the worst possible fate for Hannah and her children.Every time our institutions enable us to forgive a man who has murdered a woman, they stagnate any traction the movement to combat domestic and family violence might have gained. We are stuck in the pattern of repeating the statistic that one woman each week is killed in Australia by a partner or former partner as if it were a catchphrase for this nations identity. However, we watch on as nothing is done to prevent Hannah Clarkes murder from happening over and over again.Politicians have offered their sympathies, yet domestic and family violence services are continually being stripped of government support while communities are begging [the government] for money to keep people safe.Mere days after the murders, the Morrison government announced that 2.4 million dollars would be given to fund mens behavioural reform programs. This move has been criticised by domestic violence specialists, who see it as a trojan horse for government inaction on domestic violence. Chief executive of family violence prevention services Mens Referral Service and No To Violence Jacqui Watt has called this move a drop in the bucket of whats needed. Watt claims that government funding decisions surrounding these programs have left men at risk of using violence with waiting lists as long as six months. Womens crisis shelters are also criminally underfunded and under-resourced: more than 50% of women seeking crisis accommodation are turned away every day, leaving them with nowhere to go during what is potentially the most high-risk time.If a man incinerating his partner and children isnt going to drive policymakers, media outlets and the general public to act seriously to combat Australias domestic violence epidemic, what will? Women and children are being murdered by men who are meant to protect them. Our institutions are designed to keep us informed and safe and they are failing us. This betrayal is twofold, and we should be gutted and angry. More than this, we should be even more hellbent on fighting to end the scourge of domestic violence in Australia.If this article has raised concerns for you or someone you know, contact the National Domestic Violence hotline on 1800 Respect (1800 737 732), use their free 24 hour online chat service (https://www.1800respect.org.au/) or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The mass hysteria that followed the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus has been met with skepticism and disdain by those in progressive circles. These critics contend that the response to the epidemic has been Sinophobic and orientalist, drawing on Yellow Peril narratives of East Asians as carriers of disease. This legacy has its origins in the colonial conscription of indentured labourers from China who, during industrialisation in the United States, were exploited in the garment and railroad industries. These unhygienic working conditions were ripe for disease, and following outbreaks, Chinese communities were ostracised.Notably, the environmental causes of illnesses were ignored and the outbreak racialised Chinese immigrants were seen as disease ridden due to inferior racial make-up. In an article published by Slate, Jane Hu argues that this stereotype remains pervasive in discourse on the Wuhan virus whereby the Chinese brought the disease upon themselves by eating the weird animals where the virus originated. As news of the outbreak spread, a viral video of a young woman eating a bat with chopsticks was promoted by media outlets like the Daily Mail and RT as the cause of the Wuhan virus. Contrasting the resulting uproar on Twitter deriding Chinese eating habits to reality provides ample confirmation for Hus argument the video wasnt set in Wuhan, or China, but rather in the Pacific Island nation of Palau.While Hus article successfully interrogates the racialised narratives that emerged following the outbreak, it has two key limitations. Firstly, it ignores the enormous public health risks posed by commonplace industrial food production in the West. Secondly, in trying to counter Sinophobic rhetoric, this enormous risk is obscured by the authors misguided attempt to sever the link between meat production and the outbreak, implicitly characterising the epidemic as a highly contingent phenomenon. As evolutionary ecologist Rob Wallace argues in his book Big Farms Make Big Flu, these structural factors cannot be ignored. Not only do capitalist relations of production engender the likelihood of a pandemic, in its current form, they make this threat practically inevitable. This makes orientalist narratives of exotic meat consumption being the sole cause of the outbreak particularly sinister as it obfuscates and racialises the destructive potential of mundane, Westernised production.An open letter to the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed by nearly 300 public health experts outlined the countless ways that industrial meat production could be the perfect breeding ground for the next global pandemic. Factory farming the dominant form of industrial meat production refers to the large-scale enclosure of animals to mass-produce meat as efficiently as possible. As humans became more prone to deadly outbreaks of pathogens as they congregate tightly in unsanitary cities, factory farms have urbanised animal populations that were previously distributed in small holdings across small-scale farms.Additionally, the increased risk of disease by large populations of animals in close proximity, as well as the added stress of constant exposure to faecal matter, ammonia and other gases arising from this matter make these creatures far more susceptible to infections. These infections can be, and often are, viral but factory farming also engenders the threat of antibiotic resistant super-bacteria. Currently, this threat kills 700,000 people a year, with this number expected to rise to 9.5 million by 2050. In the United States (US) and European Union (EU), 75% of antibiotics are used in agriculture, often dangerously and in violation of minimal regulations. Animals are given antibiotics routinely in small doses, a practice that is ineffective in preventing disease, but very likely increases the risk of producing bacteria resistant to treatment. Moreover, since factory farms systematically dump animal waste into local waterways, antibiotic resistant bacteria efficiently spreads into the populated areas.It would be incorrect to regard this issue as a trade-off between public health and attempts by food producers to efficiently meet the demands of a meat-seeking global population. Rather, it is better characterised as a struggle between a handful of autocratic corporations on one side, and their exploited workers, the health of the global population and a sustainable future for the planet on the other. Corporate agribusiness primarily consists of a handful of state-backed monopolies; 75% of world poultry production is carried out by a handful of multinationals, with this number decreasing. In 1989, 11 companies controlled the breeders market for broiler chickens while in 2006 this number came down to 4.These multinationals perfectly understand the potential of a dangerous pathogen emerging from food production. However, they externalise these costs onto contract farm workers, who often have little to no insurance and require government subsidies to recover from the extreme economic burden a viral outbreak can place. In 2016, the New York Times (NYT) reported that an outbreak of avian flu cost up to $2.6 billion dollars in expected earnings, $400 million in foregone taxes and up to 16,000 jobs. If it werent for the minimal government intervention that occured requiring farmers to slaughter their poultry en masse the NYT projected that it could have cost up to $40 billion dollars.Economic cost aside, low-income contract farmers and exploited factory workers are at extreme risk of infection. A 2007 study in Iowa highlighted that rural residents exposed to pigs were 55 times more likely than non-exposed individuals to have contact with the Swine flu. Moreover, these labourers, often from marginalised racial backgrounds, suffer under inhumane working conditions. For example, in 2016, Oxfam revealed that poultry workers at major American corporations were forced to wear diapers while working as they were denied bathroom breaks. The threat of human-animal interaction promulgating a global catastrophe cannot be understated; a 2017 research study by the University of New South Wales highlights that of the 19 influenza strains that have infected humans in the last 100 years, 7 had occurred in the 5 years preceding it, with this rate increasing. The neoliberal mantra is in full swing; socialise the economic burden of free enterprise to the taxpayer, privatise the rewards, and externalise the risk of catastrophe to the global population.As in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the environmental causes of disease state-subsidised corporate greed and poor working conditions are ignored, and the resulting outbreaks are racialised. Having understood that overt Yellow Peril narratives are too obviously racist for their woke reader-base, outlets such as Bloomberg Media in their article Chinese Food Will Determine the Spread of Pandemics have opted for red-baiting and Orientalist characterisations of the CCP as foreign despots. Yet these attacks ring hollow when comparing industrial meat production in the West to China. While 95% of EU and US meat production is done via factory farming, 44% of livestock in China in 2010 was still raised traditionally. Furthermore, given that the American health care system has reportedly been discouraging many possibly infected people from seeking medical attention due to financial burden, the idea that Chinese Food rather than McDonalds has a greater likelihood of determining the spread of pandemics exposes the ideological entrapments of the Western media class. When confronted with the self-destructive impulses of the system that their power rests upon, all they can do is shift the blame to a foreign boogeyman.Moral considerations aside, the threats caused by industrial meat production cast a dark shadow over the possibility of a thriving, future human population. Like climate change, the dominance of its economic actors in the state-corporate complex seeks to limit the possibilities of our actions. We are consumers in the economic world and spectators in the political if we want to change the world, we are told to change our consumption and the spectacle. To foster the possibility for political action, we must shift our attention from patterns of consumption to the relations of production and the system that reproduces them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1990, the toaster was connected to the Internet. In the 2000s, television sets and fridges were made smarter and more connected. In the 2010s, alongside the growth of the Internet of Things (previously ordinary objects connected to the internet) like lightbulbs, showers, beds and smart speakers, 2014 marked the overtaking of the number of devices relative to people.This level of connection requires a new level of voluntary surveillance. We are living in a future forecasted by science fiction. However, where fictional citizens were involuntarily controlled by an omniscient power, we brought it into our pockets, homes and workplaces, eagerly clicking I Accept when asked, without considering the repercussions.Research by the Consumer Policy Research Centre found that 94% of Australians dont read their privacy policies.The time consuming process of unpicking the overly wordy and jargon heavy terms that we agree to is overlooked as we dont really have another option, needing whatever software it applies to for work, socialising or university. These unread privacy policies have enabled technology corporations like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google to track every digital move we make, and now our physical ones as well.We brought smart devices into our homes and workplaces to make the mundane easier, like playing music, finding out the weather and setting alarms. This was initially met with an understandable paranoia, which has faded as these products become increasingly present.In a 2019 letter to a US senator, Amazon admitted that audio recordings from Alexa and Echo devices were retained until users requested their deletion, and even then, some transcribed data remained, although separate to the device, with the attempt to improve Alexa through machine learning.Its in this supposed machine learning that devices become smarter, as Amazon (and other) workers around the world process the recordings to help the voice assistants learn when a French speaker is saying avec sa instead of Alexa and when a Spanish speaker may be saying Hecho instead of Echo.Amazons foray into video recording, through their digital doorbell Ring, extends their reach into our lives and our data as live video and facial recognition tracks anyone who walks up to or past your door. The concerns surrounding video surveillance are wide-reaching and becoming increasingly prevalent, emphasised by the existence of the website Insecam, which offers a global live feed of unsecured cameras. IP cameras have long been subject to breaches-everything from baby monitors to digital doorbells have been temporarily taken over, giving access to the video stream and speaker.In buying and using a smart speaker or digital doorbell, a consumer consents to the surveillance it entails. However it becomes more complicated when in environments you dont control. Googles Rick Osteroh admitted that visitors should be informed about the presence of smart speakers.Without structural change, privacy concerned citizens are forced to resort to measures such as counter wearables, where scarves, jackets and jewellery are used to avoid or minimise the tracking of the wearer. You can buy reflective glasses that conceal your eyes on camera (by deflecting visible and infrared waves), RFID blocking jackets and wallets, clothing that masks your heat signature from drones, makeup that attempts to trick facial recognition or a bracelet that interferes with the recording capability of nearby microphones (by emitting high frequency waves that replace your voice with white noise on the recording). These reactive measures aim to give users the means to protect their physical and digital identity, much to the chagrin of technological companies. But the consumerist nature of these products means an individual is forced to continue to develop and maintain a pseudo-digital armour.Whilst both Amazon and Google rely on opt-out systems, requiring a user to withdraw consent for their recordings to be kept, Apple utilises an opt-in system which allows users to share their dictation recordings to improve its accuracy. Opt-in systems make privacy the default, a notion shared by the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the United Nations institution of the right to digital privacy. Schemes like the GDPR created a precedent in favour of digital privacy and protective regulatory measures.So, where do we go from here? Its easy to become apathetic towards privacy policies and digital surveillance, under the guises of having already revealed too much. But, we must attempt to confront the complex tension between embracing benefits offered by technological advancement and protecting our digital lives.The path ahead is best put by James Bennett, an editor at The New York Times, Rather than hurriedly consenting to someone elses privacy policy, its time for us to write our own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Mardi Gras is heavy. The corporatisation of the parade, which first hit the streets as a protest against the discrimination and persecution of LGBTQ+ people in 1978, has in recent years weighed down on the shoulders of a new generation of activists. Community groups have fought against issues of corporatisation, police brutality and the sponsorship of companies who profit from human rights violations, through running candidates for the Mardi Gras board, passing motions at the organisations Annual General Meeting (AGM) and staging protest actions at Fair Day.While it is important that these issues are met with dissent, at what point should this dissent be aimed at larger systems of inequality rather than the microcosm of Mardi Gras? How much space is it taking up in political circles?For the past two years, the focus of new group Pride in Protest has turned to reforming Mardi Gras to the detriment of other important issues, such as the current Religious Exemptions Bill, which would allow discrimination on the basis of religious belief towards LGBTQ+ people in certain areas of public life. Running a board candidate is no easy feat, and it becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming when the candidate is backed by community groups compared to the individualistic, better funded and conservative platforms that make up a majority of successful board candidates. Pride in Protest currently holds one position out of eight on the Mardi Gras board after narrowly failing to elect a candidate the previous year.In order for groups like Pride in Protest to elect successful board candidates, they must encourage people with similar politics and beliefs to join Mardi Gras, a membership that will set you back $50 annually. With only one successful board candidate, it is unlikely that any meaningful change within Mardi Gras can happen and it is impossible that any change of the larger systems that Mardi Gras is situated within would eventuate. Indeed, the demands levelled against Mardi Gras often seem to be aimed within the confines of Mardi Gras policy.This year, one motion called for a review of corporate sponsors on the basis of human rights violations, including Qantas, who play a role in the deportation of refugees. Information obtained by BuzzFeed under freedom of information laws found that Australian immigration officers routinely asked queer refugees if they could pretend to be straight in order to avoid persecution in their home countries. However, while this motion highlights the very current and real issue of the deportation of queer people back to persecution, it does nothing to change the systems that allow it. With or without involvement in Mardi Gras, Qantas will play a role in the deportations unless they are met with direct action.Perhaps the most important action Pride in Protest has performed was handing out fliers at this years Fair Day outside the Qantas stall highlighting the atrocities committed by the corporation. This was because it happened outside the confines of Mardi Gras policy and was aimed directly at the systems of inequality we should be seeking to change.By contrast, LGBTQ+ London solidarity group Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants (LGSM) have less involvement in pride events, focusing on community action, raising funds for refugees and protesting deportations with direct action. Their campaign Dear BA has received 100 letters in support of migrants remaining in the UK and dissent against British Airways who, like Qantas, play a role in the countries racist border control. LGSM seeks to change larger systems while simultaneously directly funding homeless youth and refugees who have been persecuted by the government of their home country, as well as the British government. They resist involvement in corporatised Pride in order to respond to more alarming calls to protest.Another motion at the recent Mardi Gras AGM sought to condemn Gilead, a Mardi Gras sponsor responsible for the price gouging of the antiretroviral medication, PreP, in the US. The motion was one of two motions successfully passed by Pride in Protest, with the other demanding for the creation of an ethics charter for corporate sponsorship in consultation with community and members.Despite these two triumphs, Mardi Gras highlighted that the final decision rests with the Board which currently has a more complacent stance on the issue of corporatisation. Gilead remains a corporate sponsor of Mardi Gras which leads to an important question: if they are not listening, why not go beyond Mardi Gras to hold companies like Gilead and Qantas accountable for their actions?Queer liberation is heavy work. This year will see the rights of LGBTQ+ people put into question with the Religious Exemptions Bill coming to the forefront of discussion in Federal Parliament. With Newstart payments and other welfare programs remaining stagnant or inaccessible, we will only see the disproportionate homelessness of queer youth rise. With rising racism in Australia, the countrys borders will only harden.Mardi Gras may have begun as a protest, but it is apparent that this is no longer the case; it has become part of the issue. However, in order to overcome it, it is imperative that we look at the broader picture. Now more than ever, it is important that we know which heavy load we must carry. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In most circumstances, a match between Pedro Sousa and Enrico Dalla Vale on an outside court at the Florence challenger would not garner much attention. The majority of people watching on the live stream would be gamblers. As such, players and officials can usually get away with almost anything. Match-fixing is rife and surprising results frequent. However, this time, when an official stepped out of line, it was caught. Gianluca Moscarella, an umpire with ten years of Gold-Badge status (the highest rated official status in tennis), was recorded on the live stream saying to a young ball girl Sei fantasticamolto sexy Sei accaldata, fisicamente o emotivamente? [You are fantastic Very sexy Are you ok? Its hot. Do you feel hot? Physically or emotionally?].Allegedly, this was not Moscarellas first foray into these types of comments, previously telling a senior ATP official that you provoked me by having big tits and a big ass. Whilst Moscarella denied this allegation, there are other similar allegations made by journalists that can be found on the internet. After some external pressure, Moscarella was suspended indefinitely from umpiring but the media backlash was muted in comparison to the offence.I'm not surprised. Moscarella took pictures on girls behinds with his cellphone during a night out in Bstad this year Alex Theodoridis (@AlexTheodorid1s) August 24, 2016And he took pictures on two of the girls standing at the bar, but the flash went on and he was busted Alex Theodoridis (@AlexTheodorid1s) August 25, 2016This issue is not isolated to tennis. When cricketers Lasith Malinga and Arjuna Ranatunga were accused of sexual harassment (the former by a prominent singer), there was almost no attention in the cricket-mad Australian media. Even when soccer star Cristino Ronaldo was accused of sexual harassment, this was not reported as widely as could be expected for a person of his stature.This is in stark contrast to the entertainment industry, where there has been much greater scrutiny into allegations of harassment and misconduct. This begs the questions: will sport ever have a #MeToo movement like the entertainment industry?When examining this question, it is important to recognise that the structures of power in sport and entertainment differ vastly. At least at a superficial level (such as on the stage), there is some degree of gender parity in entertainment. Although global numbers are unquantifiable and men still dominate the screen in many ways, musical theatre casts are often comprised equally of men and women and often bands achieve relative gender parity when all things are considered. Whilst this is a simplistic and reductive idea that does not interrogate the structures of power that lie behind the superficiality of the stage, it does heavily contrast with the world of sport. Gender parity in sport is still such an emerging concept that it almost seems foreign. Even in Australia, where womens sport is thriving, sports like cricket will only generate a fraction of the crowd. This could certainly be construed as creating a tiered system of belonging in sport where men in sport bureaucracy believe that they are superior on the basis of gender.How does this apply to tennis though? After all, tennis was the first sport to introduce equal prize money and at most grand slams (the biggest tennis tournaments in the world), women actually play more than men on the main show courts. On the surface, it seems like a sport that would have greater gender parity than any other. And it does. However, can this explain the behaviour of officials who think that it is acceptable to harass very young ball girls? In a way, it stems from the perceived gender parity in tennis. As tennis has been at the forefront of social change in sport, there is the potential for tennis authorities to deny that sexism persists and for officials like Moscarella to think that this change can excuse poor and harassing behaviour. For example, in response to the initial Moscarella allegations (published as part of a larger piece on a tennis blog), the ATP said This report relates to a disgruntled former chair umpire contractor who has not worked for ATP since 2014. The article makes numerous untrue statements about ATP and its personnel. Whilst this should not be the case, it does reflect the hegemonic structures of masculinity that have always and continue to dominate sport. Judy Murray, mother of tennis stars Andy and Jamie Murray, has said I think anybody would tell you that there are examples, regarding abuse of women in tennis. Until these structures are meaningfully and comprehensively interrogated, there is little that can change in this regard.There is also a public relations aspect to the persistence of sexism in tennis that must be noted. The #MeToo movement has garnered a lot of negative attention for the entertainment industry simply by being in the press. Sports administrators seem keen to deflect from the problem simply by ignoring it. The surface level equality in tennis does not equate to equal structures of power. Hence, as true parity is not achieved, sports administrators still have the ability to deflect the conversation. If it is not perceived to be a systemic issue, then there will not be a media bandwagon to the level of #metoo in entertainment. Without the media attention, the perpetrators will largely be able to continue in stealth and in silence.So, is sport capable of having its own #MeToo moment? Maybe sometime in the distant future but to do so requires a comprehensive examination of hegemonic structures of masculinity in sport. Whether this will happen as womens sport continues to rise remains to be seen. The one thing that is clear is that to address an issue like this requires media attention and the media to acknowledge that sport and entertainment arent all that disconnected. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I still remember the awkward moment when my German friend sent me Frohes chinesisches neues Jahr (Happy Chinese New Year) on Facebook a month ago. At that time, I didnt even know what the sentence actually meant. He was one of the few local students I met at Humboldt University of Berlin.When I replied, with my poor German knowledge the only word that appeared in my mind is danke, which means thank you in English. Shaking my head helplessly, I grinned bitterly and ended this brief greeting with danke. It was only then that I finally realised I could barely remember anything that I learned during the half month exchange in Germany. I do wonder about the value of the Open Learning Environment (OLE) in-country experience, aside from the freshness of visiting a totally strange country, the indulgence of exchange life and the considerable achievements on my transcript.The OLE in-country experience program is a brand new study unit put forward by the university in 2018 after teaching reform. The program usually consists of two parts, learning a new second language in foreign countries and participating in several cultural courses offered by the partner universities. It aims to provide students with interdisciplinary learning experiences and enriches their language learning background when they complete their degrees. Today, the development of OLE in-country experience units seems to deviate from the original goals set by the university.The first and most prominent problem is that it is difficult to achieve the expected language learning target during the two or three weeks study time. Initially, when the School of Languages and Cultures established the unit curriculum, the target groups for OLE in-country experience units were students with little or no knowledge of a second language. Referring to the European Common Language Reference (CEFR), the language learning outcome planned by the OLE unit of study outline only reaches A1 level, breakthrough or beginner, which is the same as the other language units provided by the university. Apart from that, the learning results of OLE experience country programs are more limited than other language units.I have taken two language units in the university, FRNC 1601 French Introduction 1 and OLES 2153 Experience Germany. Compared with German, I have a more solid French background after finishing these two units. Learning and memory established through repetition and practice throughout a whole semester are far more effective than a half month of intensive learning.Next, the unit of study outlines provided by the partner universities are nearly out of supervision. Thus, it leads to another serious consequence learning experience and outcomes between different courses may vary from unit to unit. Isabella Cui, a Medical School student, told me in the interview that, I strongly recommend everyone to take OLES 2147 Experience Italy. We dont have any quizzes or exams during the exchange time. Only need to shoot a short Vlog. And everyone gets a satisfactory score. However, not every student is as lucky as Isabella. Fengwei Yu, a Sydney Law School student, holds a different view towards the OLE unit. We are the first exchange students to attend The Jean Moulin University Lyon 3. During the three weeks study time, we have to suffer endless French grammar quizzes and tests. Most importantly, the majority of students get very low marks. Initially, I wished to improve my WAM through this unit. Indeed, many students are forced to undertake unnecessary risks of selecting the wrong course in the lack of uniform assessment standards.Therefore, for most students, there are two reasons to choose OLE exchange units being able to achieve a relatively high score with minimal effort and travelling to a new country to have fun in the name of study. Students purposes in picking study units may no longer be to choose the language of their interest but, rather to select high-score courses and travel destinations.Another problem that needs to be considered are the costs involved for what is a less effective learning program. Since most partner exchange destinations are in the northern hemisphere, the round flight ticket is about $2000, taking the cheapest economy class ticket as an example. Taking into account accomodation, food and travel, the costs are exorbitant for both domestic and international students. Although the university provides $1000 exchange scholarships for students who achieve over 70 WAM, its still hard to cover the full cost of the exchange.Lastly, as exchange students, we rarely have opportunities to communicate with local students. During my exchange in Germany, Humboldt University of Berlin did not provide us with the opportunity to connect socially with local students. The only non-language course an introduction to the German political system was also studied with my classmates from the University of Sydney. It seems like we are observing others across the glass, but still cannot truly get involved.The only thing that the exchange confirmed is that I still use English when communicating with other non-native English speakers. We always talk in English unconsciously after a brief greeting in the others mother tongue. I know its an unrealistic thing to master a completely foreign language in such a short time. But I do hope that OLE exchange units can provide students with better and more authentic language learning experiences rather than becoming a choice to escape from the pressure of other units. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A recent questionnaire undertaken by Honi Soit shows that most students feel their dietary needs are somehow ignored by the university. Since, as per the questionnaire, over 90 percent of students rarely or never bring their lunch to university, it is problematic if they cannot find a suitable canteen for meals. The survey received 97 answers, from 55 international students and 42 domestic students.Broadway Shopping Centre is students first choice for lunch, followed by the Wentworth Building Cafe. The results suggest that these food outlets satisfy the needs of both domestic students and international students thanks to their comfortable surroundings and ambience, menu variety and convenient locations. The Courtyard Cafe ranks as the third most preferred dining place among students. One student told Honi that the price of food at Courtyard is relatively high. However, Courtyard provides the most pleasing environment for students. This student therefore cited Courtyard as his favourite food outlet on campus.The conflict of customers dietary needs and profit is always a problem for the majority of canteen owners. Limited time and reasonable prices are key reasons for which students to choose one restaurant over another. Personalized taste preferences still appear to be the most important factor, even if it means that students may spend more time and money than expected. According to the survey, more than 70% of students prefer to have an authentic Asian menu or a mixed cuisine menu. However, most cafes at the University of Sydney provide European or Western food only. An international student studying a Bachelor of Commerce and Law, told Honi Soit that he thinks Little Asia, located in the Wentworth Building food court, seems to have big troubles with providing food of good quality. The taste of food provided by Little Asia doesnt meet its higher price. Food there is extremely oily from my own perspective. I strongly recommend a new canteen business on campus starting from next semester. It deserves to have a better Asian restaurant which can replace Little Asia. Other students made different comments about Little Asia. They feel lucky to have an Asian food outlet with good prices. For most international students, Little Asia is the place where they find Asian food. At present, the number of canteens providing Asian food or mixed food are still quite limited. Another example is that, there was an improvement of the menu in the Abercrombie Business School Cafe when Koko Kong served as the first international student USU Border Director. Ginger fish matched with rice as well as other western food are all fairly popular meals among students now. This is a successful business model. The rising influence of Chinese students in student politics has also brought changes to the food outlet menus on campus, which demonstrates that the influence on food of an interest group can be strengthened through student politics.Surprisingly, fast food is shown to be accepted by around 90 percent of students. A large portion of students support having McDonalds or KFC on campus. Many students choose to control their intake of fast food to remain healthy and limit weight gain. But they are willing to accept fast food if there are no other choices. The attitudes towards junk food probably suggest that functions of food are not just nutrition. On the one hand, the result might suggest conscious choice and a high metabolism as indicators of fast food behaviour. Attitudes, perceived self-behavioural regulation and self-identity as a fast food eater are possible predictors of intention to eat fast food. It may relate to peer pressure and the fast pacing of university life, which forces students to save time and money. On the other hand, although abundant evidence shows that a large number of people make unhealthy food choices worldwide, even those who are capable of accessing and purchasing healthy food, since human beings are naturally attracted to sweet tastes, heavy salty tastes and high calorie intake.The research shows that food choice is closely related to a students cultural background. Over 70% of respondents express preferences for hometown flavours. The potential reason is the special social roles of food playing in peoples daily life, especially for international students or minorities. Ethnic identity can be maintained through assimilated dietary habits. A student being granted permanent residency in Australia provides a new angle for us: I first came to Australia when I was 12 years old. I got used to the food in Australia as time passed by. I began to feel excited about the diverse choices offered by this multicultural country. It is a pleasure for me to explore new cuisines. I think it will be the same for other international students or domestic students to see new restaurants or new menus on campus. When you constantly eat western food everyday, that special taste of home and the happiness of sharing diverse foods with friends may not exist anymore. More seriously, a gap may appear between an individual and whole family at home in a sense that things matter to them might no longer be relevant to you. She also emphasises that having cross-cultural eating will not weaken national identity. The result suggests that multi-cultural and multi-dimensional menus seems to be necessary for our university canteens.With multiculturalism on campus thriving, providing more diverse food types may be a wise choice for the university. For restaurant operators, it would be a wise decision to embrace multicultural menus to augment profits and customer satisfaction. In addition, the social constructions mutual communication and the diet attitudes and beliefs of consumers decides the form of the food consumed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Compulsory Open Learning Environment units are well known to most students completing degrees at USyd. Those enrolled in designated courses are required to undertake a mandatory 12-credit points of Open Learning Environment units throughout the course of their degree, most of these being worth 2 credit points each.At the programs genesis, the Universitys 2018 Annual Report states that over 6000 students undertook Open Learning Environment units throughout the year. These figures are set to dramatically rise in 2019.As one of the only two 6 credit point units which doesnt involve an overseas exchange, the Digital Influence through Social Media unit (OLES2107) attracts handsome enrolments each year. Structured as an introduction to social media marketing, the University advertises that the unit serves to highlight developments within this communication space, while also providing a wide range of new and exciting employment contexts that include specific social media communication skills.The Unit itself consists of a major group project, in which members must collate a social media marketing campaign for the Universitys future O-Week, complete with historical data, theoretical justifications, layout pitches and a detailed calendar of events and media content. Students receive the pitch for the project from the Universitys own marketing team, who assure participants that the Unit will give them real-world experience and increase their likelihood of future employability.OLES2107 has been notorious for epitomising the pitfalls of group-work projects, with students left to their own bearings to coordinate major projects with very little guidance offered by lecturers or assigned mentors. With four compulsory in-person lectures throughout the semester, which attempt to shed a light on contemporary marketing theory, the Unit essentially revolves around the detail applied to students O-Week marketing campaigns.University staff have long heralded Open Learning Environment units as a contemporary progression from traditional tertiary academia towards more hands on skill development, justified as a necessity for all entering into todays workforce. However, the supposed real-world experience offered by the OLES2107 unit appears to benefit the University by imposing these units on fee-paying students.With each of the enrolled students having to pitch a hypothetical O-Week marketing campaign before the commencement of group work, the Universitys marketing department, who organise the unit, are left with thousands of detailed resources at their fingertips. Throughout the course, students are offered no information regarding the rights or claims they have over their own work. The unit is also exclusively offered in Semester 2, which flows on nicely to coincide with the upcoming O Week of the following year. Whilst all these facets can be justified under the guise of work experience, the context which the unit emerges from raises some particular ethical concerns. As the quickest means to complete the compulsory OLE units, the University has created the perfect storm by funnelling students through both the OLES2107 unit and its sister course Writing for the Digital World (OLES2129). The latter unit requires students to write, design and publish an entire Wikipedia page on an undocumented topic, marketed to be providing skills in academic referencing and encyclopaedic writing. Both these units consequently involve undertaking real-world projects, which benefit corporations despite being marketed through the benefits they possess for paying students.The Universitys 2018 Annual Report reveals that the University spent over $10 million on marketing in 2017 and 2018, an act which has been deemed inappropriate by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). As Australian universities increasingly utilise Orientation Week as a competitive marketing scheme it would be well within the interests of USyd to utilise as much labour in their campaign as possible, paid or unpaid.The lack of transparency provided to students, and the convenience for plagiarism within this context is counterintuitive to the real world experience that the unit advertises. Rather than increasing employability, the University is generating its own internal labour through a compulsory system of carefully marketed units.The extent to which plagiarism has occurred in the past is unknown, as is whether the Units 2020 coursework will be more transparent. However, its safe to say that the University has truly created the perfect ploy to exploit the tertiary system to their benefit through the OLE system. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the upcoming Climate Crisis National Day of Action, pessimists, couch-dwellers and pseudo-intellectuals will seek to undermine the value of protests and their pledge to stir solidarity and incite change. Unprecedented crowds of people of all ages, professions and ethnicities are encouraging, but are barely acknowledged by the government. Given that fact, the question must be, what can we do? Not, how can we incite the government to do something?The issue at hand then becomes what ecocritic Richard Kerridge describes as splitting, which is a process of intellectualisation that separates abstract awareness of the crisis from real emotional engagement. That is, we understand that the climate is changing and we protest because of this awareness but what happens when we go home, when we arent surrounded and inspired by a plethora of other like-minded people? Climate change itself is such an abstract and complex issue that it can become mind-boggling and overwhelming to assess the links between our everyday lives and our footprint on the world. Therefore, just as we are inspired by others, others can also become the reason for helplessness in the face of such an omnipresent issue.Writer and environmental activist George Monbiot terms our visual relationship with the world as selective blindness, which occurs when your brain quickly identifies what it considers to be the most significant aspects of your surroundings, and focuses almost all of its attention on these elements. Stark images of cracked earth, ghoulish animals floundering on stilt-like legs and dust storms sprinting through bare lands have been cycling on news feeds and media outlets for years. Frequent water restrictions and reportage on rapidly falling dam levels are distressing and engaging. I hate seeing the wilting of my plants and burnt grass, which used to be a haven for walking barefoot through on dewy mornings but why should I shorten my shower if the guy across the road cleans out his truck every day with a hose?In my life, water wastage is the most obvious manifestation of Kerridges split. Our next-door neighbour once told my mum, your boys have such long showers. I would have thought the younger generation would be more aware of these things. My mum is also a stickler for short showers and consistently condemns me for their length. She correlates my age to the degree of my environmental responsibility. She gushes at the shortness of her showers (always below three minutes) and has enforced a rule where buckets must be placed under the showerhead to gather water for the garden while it reaches the desirable water temperature. Yet, on hot days and on occasions when we cant be bothered to walk my dog, she turns on the hose and drenches Leuca for close to ten minutes as he frolics under the liquid umbrella. I try to ignore this wastage by marvelling at the minuscule rainbows that appear between droplets. When I attempt to reveal her hypocrisy, she scoffs and tells me that it is in the best interests of Leuca, that we love him and therefore, it is our responsibility to make sure he is active. We have also been discussing digging a hole in the back of the garden for compost but mum cant do this because of a crippling tennis elbow; dad prefers lawn-mowing and smoothie-shopping for his weekend chores. She has been asking him for weeks to help her but every weekend there is another task that needs to be completed. The conflict between this desire to affect a change and it actually happening arises not from our own passivity. It arises from the inability of others to understand and relate to them.We seek attachments (dogs, long showers, smoothies) in order to stabilise ourselves but is it these attachments that are destabilising the world around us? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On 28 February, the University of Sydneys (USyd) 160-year-old Nicholson Museum will close its cobwebbed doors. The museum, tucked away inside the walls of the Quadrangle, is home to the largest collection of antiquities in the Southern Hemisphere. It will be integrated into the Chau Chak Wing Museum and united with its siblings, the Macleay and University art collections, both of which migrated from their original sites last year.The relocation of the Nicholson Museum reflects our collective re-evaluation of the character of USyd. Once a jewel in the colonial crown, it is now a learning resource for aspiring archeologists and historians, a popular school excursion site, and a place to pay homage to cultures both living and lost.The move will see our aging Nicholson Museum reborn phoenix-style. When reopened in late August, it will include an Indigenous Australian history and culture collection alongside the current Egyptian, Greek, Middle Eastern, Cypriot and Italian collections. This in turn represents the Universitys shift from ancient history and culture toward global history and culture, recognising the importance of foreign cultures, whilst also educating visitors about those that define our history.To find out more about the change in location and focus of the museum, I spoke with Mr. James Fraser, who has been the Senior Curator of the Nicholson Museum for three years calling it a dream job as it allows him the breadth to flex his curatorial muscles. According to Fraser, the Museum enjoys a high level of public engagement hosting between 80,000 and 100,000 visitors each year, 10,000 of those being school age. He believes it to be a pivotal learning resource not only to USyd, but to the City of Sydney and to the country.Frasers most rewarding experience as a curator occurred three years ago when he and his colleagues discovered that a cedarwood coffin from the 26th Egyptian dynasty, which was purchased in the 1850s by Nicholson and thought to be empty, contained mummified human remains. This discovery triggered months of deliberation, which culminated in the decision to excavate the remains, reorganise them inside the coffin and display them in a more respectful manner. Hieroglyphs indicated that the body is that of an Egyptian high priestess, Mer-Neith-it-es. The mummy will be moved to the Chau Chak Wing Museum to be displayed there when the Nicholson Museum reopens.Before the creation of the Chau Chak Wing Museum, if you wanted to see Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islanders cultural material, you had to visit the Macleay Museum, located at the top of the Edgeworth David building, down a little alley, past some bins, and up a staircase. Now, USyd is able to contextualise ancient cultures with global cultures in a single, accessible location.The Nicholson Museum last underwent change when it was refurbished by Alexander Cambitoglou in the 1960s, transforming it from a Victorian-era style museum to a modern university museum. Despite its connection to us as USyd students, its significance as the largest, most diverse antiquities collection extends beyond the University campus and its evolution reflects the progression of ethics and education in Australia.When the Museum was founded in 1860 by Charles Nicholson, it was intended to bring a sense of enlightened learning to the colony of New South Wales by exposing British people to cultures starkly different from their own. The University has adapted to its contemporary context since then, but stirring a desire for knowledge in those who visit and study its collections remains critical to the Museums ethos.The Nicholson Museum is open from 10am to 4:30pm Monday Friday until the 28th of February. Mr. Fraser is leaving us in April to become curator of the Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The idea of the fair go is one that has become a cornerstone of the Australian political and social discourse. And yet, with notable changes to family structures and gendered participation in the workforce over the past twenty years, the presence of fairness in government childcare policies has come under considerable scrutiny. With childcare at the centre of Labors budget reply speech last month, Anthony Albanese articulated the stance that in the worst recession in a hundred years, we have to make sure that women arent forced to choose between their family and their jobs. But does the new policy offering signal progressive economic and social reform, or is it merely another example of middle class welfare?The current reality of the workforce is that the longer an individual spends outside of it, the more difficult it is to get back in. Consequently, after having children, many second earners and single parents, of which a disproportionate number are women, will return to work merely to keep their foot in the door. However, with the current annual childcare subsidy cap of $10,560 per child for households that earn between $189,390 and $353,680 a year, many second earners and single parents are limited to returning for no more than three days a week, as they cant afford to pay high, unsubsidised childcare fees.In view of this, the Labor government have proposed to scrap the subsidy cap, and raise the maximum childcare subsidy rate from 85% to 90%. If this policy were to be introduced, households earning up to $80,000 a year would only have to pay 10% of their childcare costs annually. Additionally, Labor hopes to more gradually taper the proposed subsidy for higher earning families by decreasing the amount subsidised by 0.2% for every $1,000 earned above the $80,000 threshold. Thus, unlike the current policy, which prevents families that earn over $353,680 from accessing any childcare subsidies, Labors tapered subsidy system would support families earning up to $530,000.But what would the effects of this change look like?Drawing on the social implications that often sit at the core of childcare policy analysis, Labor are removing the long-standing disincentive for second earners and single parents to return to the workforce by scrapping the cap. However, this benefit is often construed as middle class welfare, introduced to support those that want the best of both worlds. This argument is overly simplistic, and fails to acknowledge that wanting to go back to work is for many no longer a choice, but a need. Whilst over the past 20 years, a woman returning to the workforce acknowledged that their wages would be used almost exclusively to cover childcare, with the norm having progressed from that of the stay at home parent, to having two working parents in most households, this is no longer satisfying. Where caring was once a womans issue, and children a family issue, Labors policy acknowledges that this is no longer the case, and that women deserve a fair go to return to the workforce without a debilitating economic disincentive guiding their decision.For those unconvinced by the social argument, Labor claims that such changes to childcare policy would promise national economic growth and bring direct benefits to the business sector. The Grattan Institute has estimated that the implementation of Labors plan would increase work hours for second earners and single parents by approximately 11%, and that this increased participation would boost GDP by more than double the cost of implementing the childcare policy itself. As such, it is timely to shift the way that we view childcare, and acknowledge that it is a service that directly impacts the national economy, rather than a service that only benefits part of the population. We support the building of a second airport in Sydney, or better roads in parts of Australia that are foreign to us, because even though we arent all likely to use these facilities, we acknowledge the economic benefits to the broader community. Why are we not willing to do the same for childcare?But perhaps the most perplexing aspect of previous childcare policy considerations, is the lack of attention paid to the benefits expounded by such a service for the child itself. Quality childcare is often a fundamental part of a childs academic and social development. This is because Australian childcare providers are guided by a national framework that provides a play-based means of incorporating pre-school skills, and gives all children the opportunity to learn using resources that may be limited at home. In addition to this, by interacting with childcare workers and other children their age, children are able to develop their communication skills and sense of trust in others; skills that are more difficult to develop in the familiar home environment.Whilst the aforementioned benefits highlight the social and economic transformations that could be fostered by changes to childcare policy in Australia, Labors budget reply speech still failed to acknowledge how greater support would be provided to childcare workers, falling mute on the issue of a wage subsidy. This is an issue that extends to much of the care industry, as childcare, aged care and disability care workers remain some of the most poorly paid service people in the country. Thus, whilst Labors policy points to a fair go for families, it needs to be considered whether those providing the service are getting a fair go themselves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Throughout this year, the issue of racial equality has remained a persistent topic, dominating election campaigns, social activism, media and education globally. Many people have spent time during lockdown educating themselves on racial discrimination, often coming to the realisation that they were not as informed on the topic as once thought. A recurring argument regarding this issue relates to the lack of education surrounding issues of race, more specifically the study of historical events through a Pan-African perspective. This field of study is generally referred to as African studies, which focuses on the societies and cultures in the African continent and its diaspora communities.The African studies field covers numerous major events in recent history, including but not limited to Slavery, the Civil Rights movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, Apartheid and the colonisation of Africa. Internationally, many institutions of higher education such as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge already boast African studies departments or majors within a specific degree. However, the University of Sydney and its Group of Eight counterparts lack any African studies departments or majors within their Arts faculties. Notably, the University of Sydney includes departments representing the Arab world, Asia, South America, Greece, Japan, Italy and numerous others within their School for Languages and Cultures. The absence of the second largest continent in the world is a cause for concern, considering most continents have the benefit of a dedicated department within the School of Languages and Cultures.In order to investigate this omission, I requested an email interview with Dr. Yixu Lu, the head of the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sydney. After submitting questions intended on discovering the reasoning behind the omission of the African continent as a major in her department, I was provided a paragraph long non-answer stating that the School of Languages and Cultures provide courses in two widely spoken languages in Africa, Arabic and French. Furthemore, Dr. Lu stated that her department offers content on Africa through the Department of Arabic studies, listing two units focusing on North Africa. In the end, I was informed that measuring the University of Sydneys interest towards the African continent through the absence of a major in her department was a narrow assumption.While the comments from Dr. Lu are greatly appreciated, some points are relatively unpalatable. Firstly, it is not a narrow assumption to base the departments interest on an entire continent based on the majors offered. The Arab studies major does cover some nations in Africa but leaves out approximately fifty African nations containing over a billion people.Is it not rather narrow for a major universitys entire syllabus on a continent to not include over a billion people?The universitys argument that the African continent can just be covered by Arab studies, an entirely different culture to most of the continent, is inaccurate at best and culturally insensitive at worst.Dr. Lu mentions that two predominantly spoken languages in Africa, French and Arabic, are represented in the school of languages and cultures. It is important to note that neither are African languages and that the French language has a complicated history in Africa due to it being initially introduced through colonisation. This substitute for African languages is insulting, not only to Africans that have no relation to the language but to individuals that have directly experienced colonisation and its effects.She also attempts to make the distinctive lack of African language and culture units look more acceptable by listing units in the Arabic studies major that cover the African continent, though there are only two in total that are related to North Africa. In comparison to the dedicated African studies departments of other celebrated international universities, the list of units on African culture provided by the head of the school of languages and cultures implies an active decision to ignore the study of African culture.Another perspective to consider regarding the absence of African studies is that of Black students at the University of Sydney. As students of African origin, the issue regarding the omission of our culture from the School of Languages and Cultures syllabus has a considerable impact. In a year in which many non-Black individuals came to terms with a lack of education on African studies, the absence of this major is all too apparent.In writing this article, I interviewed Sophie Pereyra Bowdler, the events co-ordinator for the Sydney Pan-African Association, a society that represents Black students on campus. In our interview, Sophie highlighted the importance of African studies, a major that would include relevant topics such as the Civil Rights movement and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. Furthermore, she considered it essential to reflect upon past horror such as apartheid, slavery and colonisation, in order to never repeat them. She indicated that there are students on campus, both Black and non-Black that would appreciate the content of these courses.I also discussed with Sophie the impact the lack of an African studies department has on the Sydney Pan-African Association. Many cultural societies at the University of Sydney benefit from having a representative department. The existence of an African studies department, according to Sophie, would provide necessary support to the society, which is currently fully student run.In regards to Dr. Lus statement, Sophie agreed that it was an inadequate response to a question held by many students on campus. She also notes the controversial nature of French being considered as an African language, a sentiment I share. As for reforms, Sophie notes that the University of Sydney could start with an Open Learning Environment unit about either the politics or languages of Africa, with the view of establishing a department representing the continent.The absence of African studies at the University of Sydney was not solely limited to myself and members of the Sydney Pan-African Association. Amanuel Woldemariam, the president of the Economics Society at the University of Sydney, noticed the absence of an African studies department when advising the Sydney Pan-African Association about a potential event. As president of the premier society for economics students on campus, Amanuel has worked closely with the School of Economics, providing much appreciated assistance to the society. Therefore, the first task of priority for Amanuel in order to assist the Sydney Pan-African Association was to find a department on campus that represents African students, only to discover that there is not one.It must be noted that the absence of African studies is not only detrimental to African-Australian students but to wider Australian society. The study of a culture at university provides students with a cultural and societal context about a specific region. Graduates of Asian, Pacific and Middle Eastern studies have proved beneficial in better educating Australian and international students about these respective regions. This benefits foreign relations between Australia and these regions as well as domestic relations between the government and communities from these regions. The absence of African studies at any major Australian university, let alone the oldest, provides a bleak picture regarding relations between Australia and its African communities.In recent years, the African-Australian community has been the target of controversy, most notably the African gangs comment by Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton that dominated political discussion in Victoria. As a population, the African-Australian community numbers approximately 380,000 individuals, remaining a smaller population than their overseas counterparts in the United States and Europe. In spite of this, the Australian government maintains numerous embassies across the African continent. The Australian embassy in Ethiopia located in Addis Ababa, home to the African Union as well as several UN agencies, is the most prominent. However, it must be noted that Ethiopia, unlike many other African nations, does not have any European languages as an official or recognised language. This means that Australians that are not proficient in Ethiopian languages will find it difficult to communicate in Ethiopia. Australian universities do not provide African culture or language studies, meaning the number of Australians that are diplomatically inclined yet fluent in Amharic are minimal.The absence of African studies as a department or major in Australian universities, especially the University of Sydney is considerably important. It affects individuals of African descent on campus, the wider Australian society as well as Australias diplomatic relations abroad. As an individual of African descent at the University of Sydney, I would be greatly appreciative of a major that represents my history, culture and society, a sentiment that is shared by many of my peers. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disclaimer: Vivienne Guo is a former member of Sydney Grassroots.In a break from tradition, the infamously rowdy National Conference (NatCon) for the National Union of Students (NUS) took place on Zoom this year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Your friendly neighbourhood Honi editors attended so that you didnt have to.SKIP THIS SECTION IF YOURE A SEASONED HACKThe NUS is the peak representative body for undergraduate students across Australia, though many students remain unaware of its existence or the (questionable) role that it plays, despite the fact that student money funds the organisation. Indeed, the NUS is funded by universities, through the payment of affiliation fees in order for each university to receive a certain amount of delegates proportionate to their student population. As an affiliated university, the University of Sydney Student Representatives Council pays over $75,000 of student money to the NUS for operational and conferencing costs.Each year, The University of Sydney receives seven delegate positions. They are currently held by Angelina Gu (Unity), Meredith Eicherly (Unity), Shreyaa Sundararaghavan (NLS), Lily Campbell (SAlt), Jack Mansell (SAlt), Maia Edge (Liberal), and Liam Donohoe (GI).So how does NatCon and voting work? It is, like all student politics, a factional affair. If you havent read our explainer article, heres a quick breakdown of the conference floor:Student Unity (Labor Right): Masquerading as left-wing and progressive despite regularly working with members of the Liberal Party, SU are historically the largest faction in the NUS, controlling 45%* of delegates.Grassroots Independents (Broad Left): Casually referred to as Grindies, this profoundly underwhelming faction claims a broadly left-wing stance (though their voting patterns dont always reflect this). Grindies have seen a swell in numbers this year, holding 22%* of delegates on the conference floor. Grindies lay claim to esteemed former SRC President Liam Donohoe, though Donohoes voting record shows a significant deviation from the rest of the faction.National Labor Students (Labor Left): NLS prides itself on holding the NUS presidency for every year since its inception, though how much of this is attributed to the actual competence of their candidates is up for discussion. As a broadly left-wing faction, NLS votes fairly predictably, often voting further left than Grindies. NLS hold 20%* of delegates at NatCon, bringing them to the third most prominent faction after Grindies despite traditionally being the second.Socialist Alternative (Trotskyist Left): Arguably the rowdiest faction present at NatCon, SAlt are infamous for patting themselves on the back at every given opportunity, claiming to do the lions share of activism everywhere. Their voting pattern reflected a more consistently left-wing position. As a smaller faction, they hold 11%* of delegates on the floor.Australian Liberal Students Federation (Right): The Libs were curiously absent from NatCon this year, despite USyd Delegate Maia Edge telling Honi that she would be in attendance. They hold a meagre 1%* of delegates. Know when to admit defeat?*These numbers are only rough estimates and not intended to be precise projections.Kumar (Salt) goes on to praise Jack Mansell and Shovan Bhattarai in their work for the education campaign in Sydney. Strangely, no mention of Jazzlyn Breen? Not in the right faction, we assume. #nusnatcon2020 Honi Soit (@honi_soit) December 10, 2020Though NatCon 2020 was originally intended to be spread over three days of pandemonium, this years was cut tragically (or blissfully) short due to the unusually speedy process of the conference. In truth, it was a bland occasion. Sadly, the conference lacked much of its usual chaotic flare, with no heckling to be heard in the Zoom, ostensibly due to the muting function available on the platform which consistently cut off the lengthy speeches of Socialist Alternative members. Boring! Policy and motions were voted on during Day 1 and 2, with report backs from 2020 office bearers and candidate statements from next years office bearers given in the second half of Day 2.THIS IS WHERE IT GETS SPICY: POLICIES AND MOTIONSNatCon debates are broken into eight different policy sections in relation to various portfolios and topics: Education, Welfare, Womens, LGBTI, Disability, First Nations, International, Ethnocultural and Small and Regional Campuses.There were also a number of urgency motions, another new feature of this years unconventional conference, which encompass motions and amendments that were urgently submitted after the deadline, and can be about any topic matter relevant to students and the NUS.For the most part, motions were carried or voted down swiftly. In the humdrum, certain motions were notable. The conference took a controversial turn when two motions were put by Socialist Alternative members pertaining to the removal of a policy point that made the argument that toxic masculinity contributes to the underreporting of domestic and family violence. The motions, titled Men are not oppressed for being men and Its not about men respectively, split the votes on the conference floor with support from Socialist Alternative, NLS and one Liam Donohoe (who technically remains affiliated with Grassroots Independents). Unity and the majority of Grassroots Independents notably abstained and/or voted against. The motions failed. If you listen hard enough, notorious mens rights activist Bettina Arndt can be heard cheering in the distance. Grim!In the Womens Policy, a motion was put by Socialist Alternative to remove Clause 9 of the Sexual Harassment and Harassment Prevention section in the Womens Chapter, which endorses the presence and hiring of female security services on campuses. Supporters of the motion argued that student unions shouldnt advocate for universities to expand their security forces, which often control student organising and activism. The motion ultimately failed; real #girlboss moment!The Ethnocultural Chapter saw one of the most contentious moments of the conference, with Student Unity moving a motion to remove a number of points in the NUS National Policy platform regarding opposition to war and militarism. This would overturn its recognition of the destructive role that Australia has played in military interventions and its rejection of the idea that militaries are a force of good among other points; which is not a great look considering the recent revelations about Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. The motion failed.A number of amendments to urgency motions raised en bloc by Unity sought to cut NUS material support for student protests, including printing of materials, support for student protesters paying fines, and involvement in the organising of various campaigns such as abortion access, anti-transphobia and Black Lives Matter. After a moment of confusion from the Grassroots Independents, who accidentally voted in favour of the changes and requested a recount, the controversial amendments still passed.In less hotly disputed moments of the conference, motions were passed to increase support for regional campuses and international students. The NUS reiterated the importance of opposing the police and Australia Day in the First Nations Policy chapter. Student Unity also voted against the right to protest.ET TU, DEMOCRACY?A number of complaints were raised during the webinar conference regarding democracy and transparency. For the start of NatCon, attendees could only see the host 2020 NUS President Molly Willmott (NLS). Willmott was the only one with access to a view of everyone else on the floor and their voting decisions. There was immediate dissent in the chat, with some denouncing it as undemocratic. Outgoing Ethnocultural Officer Vinil Kumar (SAlt) went as far as saying it was the most un-transparent method of voting they had ever seen.Another delegate complained about the lack of clear, accessible information in regard to the functioning of the conference. Grassroots Independents claimed they had not been sent the supplementary motions and amendments to motions which had misguided their vote.Allegations were made against 2020 General Secretary Sam Roberts (SU) after a supposed call to Natalie Acreman (SAlt) wherein he allegedly threatened to block SAlt from moving any more motions if they moved more procedurals.Honi was also tipped that a coup was staged two days before NatCon against presidential hopeful Josh Rayner (NLS), which resulted in Rayners ambitions being thwarted by now incoming NUS President Zoe Ranganathan (NLS). Honi noted that Rayner was absent from the conference, along with other members of South Australias NLS chapter, due to the allegedly unfair democratic process within NLS.A STUDENT UNITY DIVIDEDHoni has heard whispers of a rift in Student Unity. It appears that NSW Unity are in turmoil after their NSW State Convenor failed to secure the preselection of a NSW Unity member to a National Office bearer position. As if this wasnt already enough chaos, it seems that UTS Unity also broke ranks and proxied away their votes. RIP Student Unity, you will not be missed.WHERES LINCOLN? National Education Officer Lincoln Aspinall (GI) was the subject of significant controversy and the hottest topic of NatCon; he has been repeatedly condemned by Socialist Alternative for his glaring lack of involvement in the education campaign in a year, which has faced an onslaught of staff and course cuts, university austerity measures and the passing of the Job-Ready Graduates Bill in October which was fervently opposed by students and staff across the country. Some particularly colourful insults were thrown around, with Ethnocultural Officer Vinil Kumar (SAlt) dubbing the NUS a joke and Aspinall worse than a doorstop. Honi notes that Aspinalls faction, Grassroots Independents, made no comment about these criticisms.Aspinall was called to speak during a motion titled 2020 shows why we need a left wing, activist union, again moved by Socialist Alternative. Mysteriously, he experienced some conveniently-timed microphone problems and ultimately failed to make an appearance. The chat went off; Madeleine Clark (SAlt) asked: does he even exist? Here at Honi, we were left wondering the same until the elusive Lincoln gave a quickreport towards the conferences close. Some say you can still hear the sound of Lincoln saying nothing at all if you listen closely.The infamous Lincoln Aspinall (GI) is called on to speak but mutes himself. Maddie Clark (SA) asks in the chat "does he even exist?" we are waiting #nusnatcon2020 Honi Soit (@honi_soit) December 10, 2020Honi have contacted Aspinall for comment but have received no response.SALT AND THE IRISH GOODBYEWith little to no fanfare, SAlt unceremoniously exited the Zoom as we began to hear statements from office-bearer candidates for 2021. This abrupt exodus may be related to whispers that SAlt had been locked out of all positions, which had been effectively predetermined by factional dealings before the commencement of NatCon. But like all good dishes, NatCon is nothing without its seasoning. Withhold the SAlt, and youre left with a bland, tasteless affair which leaves you thoroughly unsatisfied.MEET YOUR 2021 NUS EXECUTIVEWith the untimely departure of Socialist Alternative, who had submitted nominations for some positions including National President, all remaining positions were left uncontested. Heres the full list of the National Union of Students office bearers for 2021:National President: Zoe Ranganathan (NLS)National General Secretary/National Deputy President: Param Mahal (SU)National Education Officer: Christopher Hall (GI)National Welfare Officer: Arabella Wauchope (SU)National Small and Regional Campuses Officer: Hamish Whitten (SU)National Womens Officer: Georgette Mouawad (SU)National Queer/LGBTI Officers: Emily Boyce (NLS) and Bridge Truell (GI)National First Nations Officer: Keenan Smith (SU)National Ethnocultural Officer: Maryam Hasanova (SU)National International Students Officer: Varun Kale (SU)National Disabilities Officer: Kit Sanders (SU)Check out our live blog for our live NatCon coverage! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Today marks the start of the National Union of Students (NUS) National Conference (NatCon). While a traditionally lively in-person affair, NatCon 2020 will be held over Zoom and therefore will be boring.For the most part, factions have already made submissions for votes and speeches, which represents a significant shift in how the conference will run.What is the NUS?The NUS is the foremost representative body for tertiary students through Australia. Student unions can choose to affiliate with the NUS or not.The specific policy objectives of the NUS vary from year to year, but traditionally involve activism and advocacy across all issues concerning university students, especially national education policy.The NUSs purpose as either a student lobbyist to government policymakers or an external activism body is hotly contested. Certain factions, like SAlt, advocate for a stronger focus on student activism, while others, like Student Unity, argue for direct government consultation.The National Executive is made up of a number of Office Bearer positions, as well as 12 General Executive members. These positions are filled by student politicians and are both paid and unpaid.The paid Office Bearers are: President, General Secretary, Education Officer, Welfare Officer, Womens Officer, and two Queer Officers.The unpaid Office Bearers are: Ethno-Cultural Officer, First Nations Officer, Disabilities Officer, Environment Officer, Small and Regional Officer, and International Students Officer.Like all things stupol, these positions are heavily contested and deeply factional. But there are some consistent alliances. In all but one year since the inception of the NUS in 1987, NLS (Labor Left) and Student Unity (Labor Right) have had a sweetheart deal where NLS has held the Presidency and Student Unity has taken General Secretary.What is NatCon?NatCon is the annual general meeting of the NUS, held in the second week of December. The National Executive is elected at NatCon (unsurprisingly) and who gets to claim paid Office Bearer positions is a central point of conflict.Delegates also decide on the NUS draft platform, which consists of value statements about what the union believes in and what it will be campaigning for in the upcoming year.No filming on the conference floor is allowed at in-person conferences. Attendees have been known to crowd and heckle other factions, eat pieces of paper that contain motions they do not want moved, and leave the conference in order to disrupt quorum.Who are the delegates?Student Unity and NLS have traditionally had the most delegates in conferences past, but 2020 is once again an exception. While Student Unity has retained the highest number of delegates, the Grassroots Independents, a broad left-wing coalition, have shot forward to second place.USyds NUS delegates were elected earlier this year along with the SRC Council and the Editors of this rag. They are: Angelina Gu (Unity), Meredith Eicherly (Unity), Shreyaa Sundararaghavan (NLS), Lily Campbell (SAlt), Jack Mansell (SAlt), Maia Edge (Liberal), and Liam Donohoe (Grassroots).Why should students care?As an affiliated university, the USyd SRC pays over $75,000 of student money to the NUS for operational and conferencing costs.With the Federal Government and university administrations across the country introducing austerity measures, impacting education quality and job security in the higher education sector, how the NUS uses its funds in its campaigns is relevant to all affiliated students.So, how will it work this year?Among all the things the pandemic has taken away from us, in-person NatCon is one of the harshest.To be conducted over Zoom, this years hack-a-palooza will be a shyer, more reserved take on NatCons of the past. While therell certainly be less unhinged madness, its very possible that NatCon 2020 could be the quickest conference yet. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.Factions have already made submissions to the draft platform and motions will be moved for amendments to the platform itself, which will be done chapter-by-chapter.Each faction will have a predetermined list of speakers, and as all delegates (except the Grindies) are bound to vote with their faction, voting will be conducted at the discretion of the chair.The chairs of each chapter are usually run by Unity or NLS, but in the case of identity chapters (such as First Nations Officer) it has to be someone of that identity. Given their unprecedented control of Education and Queer positions, there is some hope for a Grindies chair in these chapters this year.How does voting work?All of the factions except the Grindies bind; which means every delegate is committed to voting the same way as decided in pre-caucus.For example, Student Unity has a two day pre-con wherein they caucus on policy, and caucus democratically binds.All in all, there is not much latitude for change. The deals made pre-NatCon tend to be broadly stable.The FactionsStudent UnityPercentage of NUS Delegates: 45-47%*Tipped to pick up: General Secretary, Womens OfficerStudent Unity, the Labor Right faction, has been the largest NUS bloc for some time now. Theyve consistently held onto the position of General Secretary under the guise of their supposed superior skills in financial management. In a regular year, they also tend to pick up a swag of other OBs, with 2019 seeing Unity scoop Welfare, Womens, Small/Regional, and International. Their election of Humaira Nasrin as Womens Officer, with the support of flip-flopping Grindies delegates, was particularly controversial considering it was originally intended for NLS.With the release of the most recent National Survey into Sexual Violence at Universities being pushed back, Nasrin is widely thought to have been spared a great deal of scrutiny in her role as Womens Officer: scrutiny which may very well come back to Unity in 2021.Angelina Gu, USyd Unity NUS delegate, was offered factional pre-selection for the role in the lead up to this years NatCon but turned it down in what was generously described as a messy exchange. While its uncertain if Unity will pick up the paid position again, it looks like the odds are in their favour.While in 2018, Unity and SAlt secured a number of executive positions with the help of USyd Liberal delegate proxies, Honi can confirm that NatCon 2020 (like NatCon 2019) will see lone Liberal USyd delegate Maia Edge attending rather than proxying. In general, virtual attendance will make conference attendance much easier than years prior.With a diminished NLS and the Grindies swelling in size, the Labor2 alliance might face stiffer competition for paid OB positions this year. But even then, Student Unity remains the largest and most influential faction in the NatCon Zoom gallery and that is unlikely to wane.Grassroots Independents (Grindies)Percentage of NUS Delegates: 21%*Tipped to pick up: Education Officer, Queer OfficerThe Grassroots Independents, or Grindies, are an ostensibly progressive grouping that has dominated UWA and ANU in the past. Sydney Grassroots is presently the biggest faction at USyd.The Grindies have the most variance based on campus. In WA, the Grindies are the Labor Left faction. In Victoria, they are idpol tenderqueers. In the ACT, they are what essentially amounts to a faction of law students and/or debaters. And, well, NSW, is home to our beloved Liam Donohoe hero-worship cult Sydney Grassroots.Lincoln Aspinall, present National Education Officer, is expected to come under intense scrutiny this year, being described to Honi as useless and accused of prioritising UQ factional organizing over his positions duties. This comes after the Grindies withdrew their support from a deal with NLS the previous year wherein NLS would get Womens and Aspinall Education in order to vote with Unity.As previously reported by Honi, Ellie Wilson (2020 USyd Womens Officer) will not be vying for the National position anymore as she is no longer a student.National Labor Students (NLS)Percentage of NUS Delegates: unclear*Tipped to pick up: PresidentNLS is a nationally organised Labor Left faction. Their four pillars are democracy, socialism, unionism, and feminism.In previous years, NLS has held the second-most delegates behind Unity but that is not the case this year. Honi understands that multiple delegates (including those from the University of Wollongong) will be excluded from NatCon because NLS failed to meet the payment and registration deadline.The machine appears to have been sleeping up until this point, but Honi can now declare that it is well and truly dead.Socialist Alternative (SAlt)Percentage of NUS Delegates Controlled: unclear*Tipped to pick up: Probably nothingSAlt is a revolutionary Trotskyist faction that is organised on a national level. SAlt has been notoriously known for screaming and heckling other delegates during conferences. This might be difficult to achieve this year in particular, but Honi has not forgone hope as of yet. It is hard to determine how SAlt will perform as they have picked up paid roles with little control of the floor in the past.Disclaimer: Marlow Hurst is a former member of Student Unity.*Delegate counts are projections only.UPDATE: A previous version of this article contained misinformation about Student Unitys binding process. It has been updated accordingly. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The money was easy, the risk seemed low and my clients were always respectful, but I would never have trusted any of them, Sarah, a university student in Sydney, told me during a conversation about her lockdown job. She lost her casual job in retail during the COVID-19 lockdown. Having worked less than 12 months with her employer meant she was ineligible for the Federal Governments JobKeeper payment. She started doing online strip services as a means of generating an income during lockdown.I had done some sugaring before, but I wouldnt have met up with anyone during lockdown. It would have been too risky meeting people face to face in the midst of the virus in Sydney, she said.When lockdown hit Australia this year, our workplaces changed overnight. The once bustling Sydney CBD turned into a sleepy village. Many people began blurring the boundaries between work and home life, disguising bedrooms as home offices. Others relied on the JobKeeper payments. Yet many casual workers fell through the cracks and faced the frightening task of generating their own income as a means of survival.For women in particular, sex and pleasure an always precious and popular commodity became an empowering, yet risky means of supporting themselves.Ive had sugar daddies before the lockdown, Sarah tells me. The first man was in his early fifties. Before we met, he gave me a list of cars and asked which one I would like to be picked up in. I chose the Bentley, she laughs. When we went into lockdown, I wasnt in a paid arrangement, but I knew this would be an easy way to maintain an income. I reactivated my account on Seeking.com. But COVID made the reality of sugaring hard. I wasnt going to meet new people out so turning to online strip teasers was a safer option, in terms of complying with the lockdown restrictions.Like many industries facing the lockdown, the sex and pleasure industry was fraught with new challenges. Unlike other traditional industries however, sex workers were already frighteningly vulnerable. The pandemic revealed major flaws in the legal systems ability to protect those engaging with the sex work industry for both clients and providers.Although sex work is decriminalised in NSW, there remain legal grey areas as how best to protect sex workers. With a rapid increase in both the amount of sex work being performed in online spaces and the amount of people who turned to unqualified modes of providing adult services through an online forum such as Skype and Reddit, the law continues to remain silent.In a physical brothel setting, regulated by the local council, sex work services in NSW are legal. For those engaging in online services however, the law remains ambiguous. In the first instance, whether online strip teases or Skype calls can be constituted as sex work within a legal definition remains unknown. Whether an online brothel can constitute a setting capable of being regulated by the local council raises questions as to the validity of sex work being performed in an online space. From here, the questions are endless; can I advertise sexual services online, despite advertising in newspapers being a (rarely prosecuted) crime? If my client is interstate or overseas, what jurisdiction is capable of prosecuting a crime or protecting my interests? If I get hurt, am I entitled to workers compensation? And what responsibilities do websites such as Seeking.com and Reddit have when it comes to protecting my interests?The answers remain unclear, though it would be reasonable to assume that online service providers have excluded all liability for any harm suffered by parties engaging in paid arrangements.I asked Sarah about her fears of taking part in online pleasure services. I suppose I was scared I would not receive the payment. I know theres no one you can go to if you get hurt or if they steal from you. Unless you have a pimp, she jokes.In contrasting her pre-COVID sugar daddy work with the online strip services she provided in lockdown, Sarah said the latter was far less demanding, yet not without newfound risks. The physical element isnt there but yeah there is a fear of someone taking a screenshot, she relays. I didnt really think about it until you mentioned it. But yeah I guess someone could run off with an image of you and theres not a lot you could do about it.The pandemic exposed both the financial benefits and work-life flexibility open to sex workers. Whether the perks of the industry outway the risks comes down to a matter of personal opinion and privilege. The shift to online services opens the door to many people, but closes it to more still. For those without devices and the internet, the industry is falling out of arms reach. Yet despite the change in the demographic engaging in the industry and indeed, the way in which the work operates online, it remains clear that the law fails our sex work industry on every level, leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Curumbilbarra, otherwise known as Townsville, is considered to be one of the most conservative parts of so-called Australia. Its easy to understand why this is the case: Clive Palmer and Bob Katter both hold offices in Townsville, its a home base for many, if not most of the fly in fly out miners in the region, and its also the location of Australias largest military base, Lavarack Barracks.Aside from this, the city looks conservative. One Nation, Palmer United Party (PUP) and Katters Australian Party (KAP) have billboards on almost every street corner. The offices of Adani are prominently advertised in what would be an otherwise delightful restaurant strip on one of the main streets of town.The military is omnipresent there are several military museums, the aforementioned barracks, a disproportionate amount of war memorials and the frequent sighting of military aircraft, not to mention the live firings that occur on neighbouring islands and bushlands, advertised in the Townsville Bulletin.That paper, of course, is the main culprit in perpetuating such conservatism, assumed and actual. The Townsville Bulletin publishes without concern for integrity, ethics or shame: anything from a list of residents due at court to the onlyfans profiles of local women, to advocating for vigilantism in response to a supposed youth crime crisis, can be found in the pages of the Bulletin.Recently, the Bulletin has had two main areas of preoccupation. The youth crime crisis, the hysteria of which it is largely responsible for, and the construction of the Adani Carmichael Coal Mine, for which it naturally advocates.Such conservatism is considered by many to be so innate that any level of leftism is often framed as being something of a southern import. This was naturally not helped by those southern leftists that did in fact travel to North Queensland to resist Adani, the most reviled of which being Bob Browns ill-fated convoy.But as much as the Townsville Bulletin, and others of that ilk, may want us to think so, leftism in the far north is not an import at all.In fact, it was in Bowen the site of many an anti-Adani dispute that Fred Patterson, a member of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), was elected to state parliament in 1944, the only member of the CPA to ever hold such a position.The moment in which Patterson was successfully elected into government is often referred to as the Red North, a historic period wherein North Queensland was proliferated with communist, anarchist and anti-fascist sentiment. This was driven by the rise of the Communist Party of Australia and their growing influence in driving the union movement further left.It was in the canefields that much of this sentiment was to be found, amongst Italian migrant workers agitating alongside their Australian comrades for better working conditions.In 1935, cane cutters striked over Weils Disease, a condition that resulted in fevers (and in some cases, death). Spread by rats urinating on wet ground and cane stalks, the spread of Weils Disease could be prevented by the burning of cane, something farm owners furiously resisted as it resulted in a loss of profits.3000 workers went on strike, despite substantial opposition from the Australian Workers Union (AWU), as well as the Brisbane Trades and Labour council who passed a resolution condemning the strike. It ended two months later, thanks to a combination of police force, the use of scab labour, and the efforts of the AWU.But it was not without victory: a year later, in 1936, the industrial court passed a general order that cane must be burnt before harvesting. Beyond this, the strike was a considerable achievement in organisation and mobilisation for the CPA and engaged a number of community members that were traditionally considered to be a-political women and migrants, but also allies such as shopkeepers, miners and small farmers.The presence of the Communist Party in the unions was what led Collinsville, a mining town 90 km south-west of Bowen, to be termed Little Moscow a name given to communities in the 20th century that held radical communist or socialist beliefs, often the result of the influence of a militant trade union. It was also a large part of their popularity amongst migrants and the working class, which is what ultimately led to Fred Pattersons electoral successes in 1939 in the Townsville City Council, and later to state parliament in 1944.Though the strikes themselves certainly made the CPA, and communist sentiment, popular, it was the mutual aid and relief efforts during and beyond the 1935 strike that curried real favour within the community. Relief kitchens, as well as social and community events, went a long way in broadening the appeal of the strike, and of communist values as a whole.These connections were what allowed the rapid organisation and mobilisation of a solidarity movement with the advent of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. 16 of the 21 relief committees in Australia were in North Queensland, and large amounts of funds were raised in aid of republican fighters. In Ingham, where wages were low and unemployment was high, only two families were reported as refusing to donate.A large factor in the successes of these projects was the involvement of women, most of whom were the wives of cane cutters, members of the CPA, or outright communists themselves (or a combination of all three). Womens Progress Clubs were common throughout the region and organised everything from political activity to social dances and hospital visits. In Collinsville, the aforementioned Little Moscow, the Country Womens Association (CWA) sent a representative to CPA conferences, and in Gladstone, the CWA organised a petition to call on the government to lift the ban on the Communist Party.It was these activities that Diane Menghetti identified as weakening the Red Bogey, in her book The Red North. Menghetti suggests that the unusually extensive social life of the Party, as well as the regular publication of newsletters and bulletins, was crucial in undermining the sinister reputation of communist ideology amongst the community. Fred Pattersons North Queensland Guardian went a long way in furthering this aim publishing advertisements from local businesses, shying away from overt communist iconography, and advocating for the compatibility of communism and Christianity.All this meant that, by the late 1930s, North Queensland had the largest and most active communist population outside of Sydney.By the early 1940s, the Red North had faced two major setbacks the signing of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, and the Soviet invasion of Finland, followed shortly thereafter by the banning of the Communist Party in 1940 by the Menzies government. Menghettis history of the Red North, the most comprehensive of its kind, ends about there.But that doesnt mean that the decline of communist industrial and community organising in the North was the end of political activity full stop. The ongoing resistance of Indigenous communities, which began in the North at first sight of European invasion, flourished in the years following the second world war, and remains the most consistent and active form of organising in the area to this day.When local authorities attempted to deport Albie Geia from Palm Island in 1957, workers called a strike, which lasted for five days and ended with police raiding homes at gunpoint. In 2004, following the death of Cameron Doomagee in police custody, residents on Palm Island burnt down the local police station, barracks and courthouse. Most recently, Townsville has seen an increase in political vandalism the hands of a statue of slave trader and town founder Robert Towns painted red, and the words Black Lives Matter spray painted on a bridge through the centre of town and at the entrance of the Palmer Street restaurant strip.Anarchists Against Poverty NQ, which started organising in late 2019, identify this as some of the most radical activity in Australia full stop. These have been some of the most radical acts of dissent our country has ever seen, including the burning down of a police station on Palm Island. They identify party politics, particulalry those of the Greens and Labor, as a thorn in the side of radicalism in the region. Political dissent has otherwise been captured and pacified by social democrats who may spruik loudly (but mostly do not) about their dissatisfaction with the current system while pursuing reforms which present no coherent systemic challenge.Anarchists Against Poverty have recently opened a shop front and resource centre in South Townsville, conducting mutual aid as well as activism. They see [providing] immediate relief to impoverished and otherwise marginalised and disempowered people within our community as the most important part of their work, which is grounded in the principles of mutual aid. They receive support from the local community for their mutual aid project, mainly through the donation of groceries and other goods. According to Anarchists Against Poverty, the community gives and the community receives.Such a strategy, of providing mutual aid and facilitating greater community connection, as well as establishing a book shop and resource centre, is not unlike that of the communists and anarchists in the Red North of the 1930s. Our praxis does in some ways coincide with what was being done here previously although our direct action has been for the most part related to mutual aid and alleviating poverty whereas back in the day praxis was moreso geared toward workplace organising. Its certainly a far cry from Bob Browns Anti-Adani Convoy, and other such misguided attempts at winning hearts and minds in North Queensland.Anarchists Against Poverty NQ see the spirit of the Red North as being alive in individuals, albeit hampered by the dearth of political organisation outside of the Greens, Labor and the unions. They are optimistic at the thought of reviving it by finding individuals and empowering them through our praxis.Looking through the political history of North Queensland, particularly that of Indigenous organising and activism, I share their optimism. The North is not as conservative as detractors would have you believe. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is no doubt that higher education is in a dire state in this country, with fees increasing, courses being cut and staff being fired at rates not seen for years. Class sizes are expanding and course options are shrinking. Objectively, the quality of higher education is under attack and its important to question why institutions which are meant to protect and improve the quality of education are acting in this way. Are universities actually failing at their jobs, or are mainstream understandings of the role they play within society actually wrong? I argue the latter: universities are not neutral education providers, but ideology factories, and they are not failing us now they are working exactly as they have been set up to.Universities exist as institutions which uphold the framework of capitalist production, entrench class divides and hold monopolies over the value of particular forms of knowledge. At their very core, universities are not just degree factories, but ideology ones too. They teach the skills required to produce efficient professionals who will go on to uphold and maintain the capitalist project. As universities have been further commodified, the invisible hand of the free market has become increasingly responsible for the valuation of particular kinds of knowledge.In popular discourse amongst the liberal left, universities are seen as bastions of intellect and education, places where critical thinking is developed and systems questioned. In this years higher education campaign, a common argument against increasing the fees for arts subjects is that they are one of the only places in which critical thinking can develop. In the conversation around the US election, Republican voting preferences were put down to a lack of education, as if people voted for Trump because they lacked critical thinking skills and not because of the deep institutional problems which maintain racism, poverty and disenfranchisement. While there is truth to the ability of arts degrees to help develop critical thinking among those who study them, and statistical proof that Republican voters are less educated, I would argue that the conversation around higher education needs to be much more nuanced. Higher education is incredibly important, but universities themselves and the ideologies they reproduce are not radical or emancipatory.Knowledge is not neutral.The production of knowledge is not neutral. It is reliant on and a reflection of the society in which it is produced. Within a university setting, this is not just seen in traditionally political subjects such as sociology, anthropology and international relations, but also within subjects seen as apolitical, such as engineering or science. What is taught, and how that knowledge is used is a deeply political and ideological process.The types of knowledge prioritised within universities are simply a reflection of the ideologies prevalent within capitalist society, and the money of corporations who employ graduates. Corporate sponsorships of the information shared and developed within universities means that big business can effectively control the fields and types of research which are prioritised. Decisions about what to teach and fund, and who to hire has to come from somewhere, and within the corporate university system, economic interests will always win out.One of the best examples of this within Australia is the recent introduction of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, which was able to fund an entirely new degree within the University of Wollongong, University of Queensland and the Australian Catholic University. This is not only an issue because of the racist and colonial nature of the Ramsay Centre, but also because the knowledge which is taught within our supposably public universities can effectively be purchased for top dollar.Another example slightly closer to home is the Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation within the USyd engineering faculty, which is focused on mining innovation through automation and machine learning. Projects like these show how important it is to remember that no knowledge is neutral or apolitical, even in subject areas which are intuitively thought of as such.In this way, the university acts not as a place for intellectual pursuits, or the improvement of society as a whole, but as preparation for a workforce determined by the prevalent ideological projects of capitalism. In no way is education neutral. It serves a purpose, to uphold and reinforce the norms, values and economy of the society it is produced within.We cant save our education because university has never been good.The aggrandising corporatisation of universities is undeniably detrimental to the quality of higher education, but were universities ever that good? We need to be thinking beyond the scope of the traditional university, and aiming for a genuinely emancipatory and equitable alternative, rather than simply fighting course cuts with the rhetoric of save our education.Yes education has been commodified, but even if that commodification was removed, the systems in which we produce knowledge are still deeply colonial and capitalist in nature. In almost every way, Western systems of education, or what we have come to value as the best forms of education as a society, replicate the violence, competition and oppressive nature of capitalism. They have been developed by and work for colonial, racist and patriarchal systems and are therefore self replicating in their upholding of these systems.So called quality or prestigious education stems from the West. It values Western religions, histories and opinions while leaving little room for much else. The concept of academia itself is a deeply colonial concept, and while academia can and has produced important knowledge, in practice it continues to prioritise Western knowledge to the detriment of all other forms. In a country like Australia it is also particularly essential to recognise and value the systems of knowledge which existed on this continent pre-colonisation, and which have been either wiped out or undermined by capitalism, colonialism and imperialism. In fighting for a form of education which serves society, we must first uncover, question and destroy the ways in which colonialism has shaped the way we conceptualise knowledge and learning. Even a free university, governed by staff and students would be colonial if we do not also undergo a process of decolonisation.Universities, including USyd, invest millions in fossil fuel companies, arms manufacturers and pay their vice chancellors millions while, at the same time, cutting subjects, reducing staff numbers and increasing class sizes. In every way the university acts as a business, because thats what it is. It has commodified knowledge so successfully that it is no longer questioned that these institutions are both making money off, and have a monopoly over knowledge.Education cuts are intrinsic to neoliberal universities.The current attacks on education coming from university management and the government alike are rightly viewed as ridiculous and nonsensical, and as undermining education accessibility. However, for the capitalist project these bodies work to serve, they make complete sense. Allowing the market to decide what type of education will best serve it aligns with the way universities have always worked. Our education system is set up to serve capital, to produce the most workers, and to maintain and progress capitalism. It is important to call these changes out for what they are: a further entrenching of corporatisation and neoliberalism within our education institutions.Yes, we should absolutely fight against course cuts, staff cuts and fee increases, because these things further entrench the inequalities which are inherent to the system. But we cannot kid ourselves into thinking that in achieving these things we will have met our goal of equitable and fair education. Instead, we need to fight for a radically different form of education, and this cannot come about with education reform, policy changes, or even free university. All these things are good, but they are not radical, they do not deeply question the system of capitalism and they do not meaningfully address the issues embedded into our entire education system.We need to fight to create a version of education that serves people rather than big business and corporate agendas. We need to work to undermine the dangerous and violent ideological boundaries that education and knowledge production is currently bound by. We need to be confronting capitalist power, fighting against corporate management, undermining the binaries of students and staff, rebelling against all cuts, and working together to build and create types of education which serve us, not business, not capitalism, not imperialism and not colonialism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disclaimer: Daany Saaed managed Zest for SULS in 2019. Several former members of Zest are on Flare for SULS.Law students truly are insufferable. The only society on campus that warrants itself important enough to have a public election instead of an AGM, and the only cohort of students that thinks that this election warrants more debates than our actual federal elections. Nonetheless, the Sydney University Law Society is possibly the biggest society on campus, and it is certainly one of the most prevalent. The Societys leaders often go on to become prominent members of society across law, politics, academia and business, and the faculty by itself lays claim to more Prime Ministers than any other university in the country.Naturally then, the elections are heated. Courtesy of some constitutional quirks, an election is not a regular event it is only held if the Presidency is contested. Last years election was the first since 2016 and this year is the first three-way race in recent memory. If youre not a law student, it is difficult to care, but often for those stupol nerds amongst us there can be some underlying political tension at play in the SULS election, with Liberal staffer Amer Nasr elected President last year on Pop for SULS.Voting this year will be conducted online from 9AM on Monday 9th November to 9PM on Tuesday 10th November. All members are eligible to vote and will receive an email containing a link to vote prior to the opening of polls. All law students up until this year are automatically SULS members; if you are a first-year student (undergraduate or postgraduate), you must register to become a member of the society in order to vote, and can register at any point up to the close of polls.Whos running?Flare for SULSFlare for SULS (or FLARE, as they like to style it) are being headed up by Wendy Hu, apparently pinching their 70s branding from the 2018 Law Revue, Austin Powers of Attorney. Flare are branding themselves as the experienced ticket as the only ticket with students who have been on SULS Executive and Committees pre-and-post coronavirus. This is not uncharted territory for Hu, who ran unsuccessfully on Zest for SULS in 2019 on a similar brand of experience and assuredness. Hu is joined on her leadership team by her fellow Zest compatriot Sophia Semmler (Social Justice), current Womens Officer Sinem Kirk (Education), and first-year JD student Cameron Jordan (Careers). The tensions of last years election seem to have softened, with current Publications Director Alison Chen (Secretary) returning alongside Zests aspirant Campus Director Calvin Kwong (Sport), in addition to the ticket being managed by stupol newcomer and Zest candidate for Sponsorship Dasha Moskalenko.When asked by Honi what the current administration could have improved, Flare pointed to the lack of support SULS has provided to international students this year. From the SULS COVID-19 Student Experiences Survey, it is clear that international students are disproportionately (affected by the pandemic). SULS has an imperative to support ALL students. In contrast to the other tickets, Flare were invigorated by the advocacy role SULS took this year in relation to issues affecting law students such as fee hikes and course cuts, where the other two tickets were disappointed. The current Executive has been explicitly reticent to encourage student activism, and pressed on this support, Flare acknowledge[d] more can be done to encourage direct action, and added Flare will commit to supporting law students organising under Law Against The Cuts. Law Against The Cuts is a similarly named, but separate campaign to the broader and united Clubs Against the Cuts it came about from the current Executives reluctance to allow advertising and encouragement of protests against the Governments attacks on students this year. Directors were instead permitted to advertise the protests in their personal capacity, and Law Against The Cuts became a forum for this. Despite this, Flare committed to taking further steps than this years Executive, specifically in providing salient avenues for direct action such as protest, training legal observers, and advocating against adverse changes to the law student experience.Another major distinction between Flare and the other tickets has been a response to reports of wage theft and underpayment as rampant in the legal industry (particularly at large corporate firms, which Sydney Law has a reputation for producing graduates for) that surfaced last year in the Australian Financial Review, and prompted a stern public stoush between then-USU Board President Connor Wherrett and the Executive. When asked how Flare would protect students in their capacity as Executive, Flare took a pragmatic approach, committing to diversifying the sponsorship base beyond the major commercial firms, kickstarting the Investment Project to avoid reliance on corporate sponsorship, and coordinating with the Australian Law Students Association (ALSA) to avoid firms simply shifting their funding to other societies and avoiding responsibility.Flare for SULS have shaped up as the safe choice this election a highly experienced executive led by a Society stalwart in Wendy Hu and running with highly polished branding, their achievable and progressive policy positions are reflective of an understanding of the capabilities of the SULS Executive. This perhaps may turn off voters looking for fresh faces in the Society or altogether more ambitious policy, but certainly Flare present an attractive option for the voter that values competency and security.Splash for SULSSplash for SULS are led by Dani Stephenson, with muted branding of lavender and baby blue. Splash has focused on social justice and equity in their approach to the election, which could prove decisive in a year where activism is at the forefront of most, if not all student interactions. Splash have brought on board as vice-presidents ex-presidential candidate Max Vishney (Education), current Queer Officer Eden McSheffrey (Social Justice) and JD student Tatiana Neumann-Murphy (Careers). Stephensons recruiting approach seems to have been rooted in electioneering, with big names across the ticket former USU Board Director and Honorary Treasurer Maya Eswaran has fittingly joined as the Treasurer candidate, Socials Director Alex De Araujo (Secretary) was considered a driving force behind Pops comprehensive victory last year, and perennial Law Revue star Genevieve Couvret (Publications) has joined on as well. Whilst the Law Revue was one of the casualties of COVID-19 this year, it seems it has served Stephenson well during election season, with many of the popular figures involved in the annual production turning out for Splash on social media. This has intersected with a very strong debating presence; Vishney, Couvret, De Araujo, Eswaran and Grace Wong (Socials) are all active members of the well-connected USU Debating Society.In critiquing the current Executive, Splash spoke to the importance of representative infrastructure, citing it as a primary reason why the Societys response to Government policy changes in education was ad hoc and insufficient this is a curious critique, given the strong representation of the current Executive on the Splash ticket. Do as we say, not as we do? Stephenson has been conspicuously absent from discussions on student activism throughout the year. Pressed on this, Splash raised the experience and policy positions of Eden McSheffrey, its Social Justice candidate, and emphasised that they have the fullest faith in his ability to oversee our focus on social justice. Nonetheless, Splash have detailed policy on social justice, and their flagship policy of a Community Legal Centre akin to that at the University of New South Wales is unique amongst any of the tickets.In responding to issues of sponsor impropriety in terms of wage theft, Splash were reticent (as were other tickets) to consider dropping sponsors that committed wage theft altogether, but emphasised the importance of diversifying the careers programs in place in the Society, allowing students alternatives to the grind of clerkship applications at corporate firms this uniquely manifests in an internship for credit program, prioritising paid internships and valuing public interest legal work. Other unique and equally ambitious policies brought forward by Splash include a wellbeing stipend for every law student (which despite not being costed, Splash assures us has the support of the Faculty) and a publicly available reference generator compliant with the Australian Guide to Legal Citation.Splash for SULS are the idealists choice Dani Stephensons team have presented by some margin the most extravagant policy platform, despite the challenges presented in a post-coronavirus climate. Whilst their commitment to social justice is admirable given the ongoing attacks on law students, their electoral choices obfuscate the strength of this commitment slightly. A student familiar with campus society machinations would perhaps be skeptical of the package in lavender, but nonetheless it seems an uncontroversial prediction that Stephensons ticket will poll well, win or loss.Vibe for SULSA conversation with Casper Lu makes clear very quickly that his first love was not met at Law Camp, but was the Society itself. Lu is practically part of the furniture in the Law Faculty, and his ticket, Vibe for SULS, aims to bring a range of new faces to a Society historically criticised for its narrow engagement. Vibe have led with party-esque branding characterised by garish neons and highly processed election profile pictures, in a campaign managed by recent campus politics upstart Riley Vaughan. Vibes ticket lacks the star power or the established experience of its rivals, but they look to make up for it with an innovative policy platform that should intrigue a new range of voters and law students who may not otherwise engage with the society.On the issue of advocacy, Vibe keeps to the straight and narrow, joining the other two tickets in opposing the fee hikes and course cuts that have been so controversial in federal politics. In keeping with Lus structured approach to most political issues, Vibe articulated a two-pronged criterion regarding broader advocacy in the community whether the issue affects a not-insignificant group of law students, and whether on balance a proposed action is beneficial to the Society. On the issue of sponsor relations, Vibe departs from the activist position of Flare and the laissez-faire approach of Splash, emphasising the importance of education on work rights. Their proposed approach is however curious this would involve firms that have been accused of underpayments coming in to assuage potential graduates of changing work practices. Giving advertising to bosses with a history of worker exploitation in return for sponsor dollars may be lucrative in a tough economy, but it may not necessarily have the educative effect Vibe desires.Despite their fresh faces, the question of cliques was raised in assessing the makeup of the Vibe ticket. There are more graduates from The Kings School alone than there are women in their senior leadership team (President and Vice-President), and all of their vice-presidents are white domestic students. Pressed on this, Vibe contended the SULS clique is hard to define, and it seems to depend on their involvement in SULS. Our ticket will help detract from that perception (that SULS is reserved for the clique). This is because our candidates arent drawn from past SULS executives. Vibe further stressed the multidimensionality of privilege, and that members of the ticket that had attended elite schools on scholarship were equipped with a point of insight for what it may be like for students entering Sydney Law without a great deal of educational or high-SES privilege, allowing engagement with those of disadvantaged backgrounds [as] a priority in our policies. Vibe further stressed the wide-ranging diversity of the ticket; we bring a wealth of backgrounds, experiences, cultures and perspectives to the fore. The legal profession is notoriously straight, white, and male it is gratifying to see sincere commitments to diversity across the board and across all tickets, regardless of the level of previous involvement with SULS.Membership and guidance is at the forefront of the Vibe policy platform with mental health becoming such a prominent and salient issue for the cohort during the pandemic, Vibes commitment to ongoing mentorship programs that extend significantly upon the rudimentary programs already in place is welcome. this is an area that has been criticised in the past for structurally excluding students from diverse backgrounds that werent immediately comfortable in the strange and pretentious surrounds of the Law School.Vibe for SULS presents as an intriguing choice for a student perhaps disillusioned with the cliques of years gone by, one that has spent time on the outer of the SULS machine or is new to the faculty this year and sees value in starting afresh. Vibe has more first year representation than other campaigns, and this may be where their electoral path to victory may lie. Whether their commitment to a non-establishment team is a winner, as Pop for SULS was last year, is yet to be seen, but certainly it will be interesting to see how Vibe polls in contrast to the heavyweight campaigns theyre competing with. Read the full policy candidate list and policy responses here.Editors note: An earlier version of this article stated the following: Splashs commitment to social justice in light of this also reads as inconsistent given the selection of Eden McSheffrey for the Social Justice candidacy. On Executive this year, McSheffrey voted against a call to action encouraging law students to volunteer as legal observers for campus protests, which saw students brutalised by police. Minutes of the meeting show that McSheffrey voted in favour of an alternative motion supporting the protests but without encouraging law students to attend as legal observers but is not listed as abstaining, voting in favour or voting against the call to action motion. McSheffrey and other members of Splash say this is because he was not on the meeting call when the first vote occurred. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As we approached the US presidential election, calls to vote so we can beat Trump were widely voiced, maintaining the liberal electoralist doctrine that no matter how bad the evil, voting will save you. However, laments about the lack of real choice in the electoral system resonated with people on a level not seen before as the failures of modern electoral democracies become clear.While our Australian system differs slightly, the theme is familiar. So disillusioned are we with politics in its current form that playing politics is an accusation politicians themselves use against each other. Corruption scandals come and go to lazy eye-rolls from a populace too used to dishonesty and self-serving MPs to expect anything else. Solutions are intermittently suggested: restrict political donations, royal commission into x, vote below the line, vote for minor parties, etc. Whether the electoralism that is the backbone of so many modern representative democracies is inherently flawed is rarely questioned.Firstly, lets consider the electoral process. The logic goes thus: a populace has the right, every x years, to elect representatives to the government which embodies the state. This populace is therefore governed according to their wishes, since no one would vote against these wishes (theoretically). If a government performs badly, a better candidate will be chosen; if it performs well, it will be re-elected. This logic has many flaws, though I will concentrate on one problem: the election itself. In this system, the entire political force of the populace is concentrated to an extreme degree into one specific element: the election day ballot. In the ballot, all a constituencys grievances, ideas, and opinions are neatly reduced to two pieces of paper. When citizens cast their vote one day in every 1065, huge errors of governance and corruption scandals become one issue out of many. Even if seething with hatred at one party or candidate, one may feel compelled to vote for them if the other option isnt up to scratch.To be sure, grievances can be aired outside of election cycles. There may be letters to MPs and consternation in the media. What the ballot does, however, is distil these political rumblings into a singular element that, being so concentrated, is easily manipulated by political, social, and financial capital.Another flaw of electoralism is its function in legitimising the state and the reigning government. With the vote being the only legitimate political action recognised by the state, all other forms of politics including direct forms such as protest and striking, are discouraged. Under electoralism, protests only serve the purpose of airing grievances, while strikes are simply a special way of getting a pay rise. The modern liberal democratic citizen would barely consider taking these actions and if they did, it would only be with the goal to encourage (not force) the state and capital to make changes. The benefits of society thus become gifts from the state. JoFry and Scomo brought the economy back from the brink, not the millions of workers who produced that wealth. Welfare payments and health services are delivered by the relevant ministers, not by individual health and social workers. The relationship is one of dependence who will guarantee your government subsidies, your health benefits, your work rights if you dont elect me?The introduction of electoral democracy had a stultifying effect on the populace and popular movements. When the state extended this privilege to the people, direct action against the state was appropriated into elections. Instead of occupying streets in protest at a politician, simply vote them out! Instead of legislating working conditions in a union hall and striking, vote for the Labo(u)r Party, well get those conditions for you! While it is good that better conditions are won for workers and citizens, the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta notes that these can and must be obtained by the workers themselves through direct action which, unlike electoralism, develops in each individual worker a consciousness of their own rights.The flaws of electoralism considered, we ought to question the need for politicians at all. The current justification is that politics is a special job that needs doing. If we suppose that the politicians carry out some sort of labour, it follows that election day is one of the greatest instances of outsourcing labour in our society. In representative democracies, the logic is that the citizens are individually too busy or too lacking in the relevant expertise to manage the state and society. Thus, they give that job to a politician by electing them to represent their opinions and ideologies within government. Questions ranging from on whom we should wage war to if hospitality workers ought to get compensated for working on weekends are all outsourced to the government and the MPs that comprise it.This logic is acceptable if we suppose that the political labour undertaken by these politicians ought to be removed from the hands of the citizen to the abstract entity of the state. However, politics is everyones business; perhaps more importantly, the governance of one workplace or community is the business of the individuals that comprise that workplace or community.We only have to critically regard the current system to see this concretely. Contrary to the statist myth, Scomo isnt studying the minutiae of data on Australias infrastructure when he announces increased spending for building projects. Health Minister Greg Hunt doesnt know jack shit about health systems (at least no more than you or me). What these elected representatives rely on is advice from local sources. Local communities know how much they need a new road, individual registrars and nurses can tell you how many beds are available in a given hospital. Ordinary citizens, in coordination with one another, are the ones who manage society day by day.Given this, the legitimacy of politics as a special profession (and, by extension, the idea of the state) is dubious. The idea of professional politicians is even more odious when we give even a cursory glance at our representatives. From shitty advertising execs to failed furniture importers, MPs are generally not geniuses who have risen to the parliamentary chamber through a genuine connection to local constituencies. Instead, they are largely chosen through complex pre-selection processes which prioritise connections to financial and political capital and which even officials from the major parties in the US would envy.Beacons of hope seem to emerge from electoral politics from time to time. Social democrats find solace in the re-election of Jacinda Ardern, for example. Upon further analysis many criticisms, such as Arderns inability to address growing inequality (up from when she attained office) and to remedy the effects of austerity measures on New Zealands schools and hospitals, can be made. Accepting her successes (real or perceived) uncritically belies the deeper problem with electoral democracies that is leader reverence. Similar to the way in which one may thank Scomo for leading Australia through COVID-19, New Zealands collective successes are laid at the feet of a beaming Ardern. Again, this neglects the part played by workers and citizens in the management of society. Not only that, it allows the systems and institutions which the state represents (such as capitalism) to be presented with a human face, in the words of former Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters, blunting any critiques of said systems. Furthermore, these arguable successes of electoralism are infrequent and idiosyncratic. Indeed, their rarity in electoral democracies itself shows the inefficacy of electoralism in achieving fundamental change. Finally, the idea that we must wait around for a saviour-politician reveals the level of powerlessness to which electoralism has brought us.This critique doesnt necessitate abstentionism, nor does it deny the importance of democratic decision-making. What it questions is the viability and legitimacy of electoralism as a method of political action. The state and capital are the sole purveyors of democracy in the modern world; we wont rid ourselves of them by voting within such democracies. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Arderns 2020 election win has been marked as historic, the first time the Labour Party has secured a wave of red by turning once secure National Party seats into Labour strongholds. Following Arderns election win, social media was inundated with praise for Kiwi voters, commending them for electing a compassionate, progressive leader, in contrast to other political leaders chosen across the globe.During her first term as New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern maintained a message of kindness. The phrase be strong, be kind became a tenant of her governments response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, team of five million- another phrase coined by Ms Ardern to refer to unity within the country also reinforces her discourse of compassion. International media has generally adopted a positive framing of Jacinda Arderns politics, a girlboss angle often used in media packaging of Ms Ardern. Her television appearances on episodes of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and other entertainment news media, including her savvy social media wit has curated a persona that is difficult to dislike.Ms Ardern acknowledges her unconventional political persona too, speaking to the New York Times in 2018:One of the criticisms Ive faced over the years is that Im not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow, because Im empathetic, Im weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.While this analysis does not deny Ms Arderns successes, it will challenge the widely held notion that her government adequately considers all New Zealanders in their policies. As her new term in power begins, with a single party majority in the country, it is important to consider who is left behind as a result of Labours win. Is a kind New Zealand as shaped by Arderns campaign rhetoric, truly kind to everyone?Jacinda Ardern caught the worlds attention through her strong leadership during the Christchurch terror attacks, Whakaari volcano eruption and the global pandemic. However, critics of her leadership point to her governments failure to tackle child poverty in the country a key election promise during her 2017 campaign.UNICEFs report into child well-being released in September of this year analysed the performance of 41 affluent countries and their progress on child welfare issues. From the 41 countries assessed, New Zealands efforts were dismal, achieving 35th place. Although the conclusion of 2018 saw Arderns government introduce the Child Poverty Reduction Act to tackle the issue, the meeting of targets at three-year and ten-year intervals as stipulated by the legislation has afforded little improvement.The latest figures from statistics on childhood poverty in New Zealand reveal a relatively flat trend of improvement on key measures. For example, the before-housing-cost poverty measure (median income before deducting housing costs) sits at between 14% and 16.5% of New Zealanders or roughly 183, 000 people. This increases to 22.8% when housing costs are factored in, to about 254,000 people. Material hardship, that is the ability for an individual to access healthy, fresh food, medical services and other lifestyle aspects are at 13% or 151,700 individuals.The Ardern governments response to Indigenous issues within New Zealand has been fraught for some time. Last year, hundreds of protestors demanded Jacinda Ardern visit Ihumtao, the site of a major Indigenous land dispute that has fed into larger anger at government inaction in addressing inequality in Mori communities. Further, an inquiry into New Zealands child services agency Oranga Tamariki has found systemic discrimination of Mori families. The review was sparked by ongoing issues regarding the treatment of Mori children in state care.Returning to the statistics of material hardship mentioned earlier, when considering Mori and Pasifika households 23.3% of Maori children and 28.6% of Pacific children live in material hardship. This is in contrast to 13% of the general population. The higher percentages of poverty in Indigenous communities reveals an under reported aspect of New Zealands society, which has been so often coloured as generally prosperous and stable.In preparation for this article I spoke to Dr Lara Greaves, a Lecturer in New Zealand Politics and Public Policy at the University of Auckland. I asked her whether European/white New Zealanders have a very different life experience to Maori or Pasifika citizens. She says:There is clear evidence based in Mori and Pasifika individuals lived experiences and based in scientific research that shows there is pervasive systemic racism across multiple areas, such as health, policing, education, everywhere really. There are also the socioeconomic and other, broader impacts of colonisation, which continue to impact Mori in the current day.Eleanor Roy labels child poverty as New Zealands most shameful secret. In her article on the issue in 2016, prior to New Zealands last election she interviews Hirini Kaa, an academic within New Zealands Child Poverty Action Group. Kaa says:It is interesting the world believes New Zealand to be an ideal country,He continues:Child poverty has always been here especially among Mori and Pacific populations but it wasnt until homeless people started interrupting middle-class voters having coffee in central Auckland that the government decided to tackle it.My conversation with Dr Greaves evokes similar sentiments, she tells me that in fact, many New Zealanders turn a blind eye to these issues.Many people in New Zealand do not know about these issues, so I am not surprised that internationally people do not know about this I guess its not something New Zealand really wants in our international image.In her next term as Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern and her government will have the opportunity to make significant improvements for Mori and Pasifika communities, particularly with the high representation of Mori and Pasifika members in the incoming parliament. Dr Greaves notes:Labour just needs to spend some of its political capital on it which they have not really done in the past There are a number of huge systemic issues that need fixing to improve the lives of Mori and Pacific communities. A few issues, for Mori at least, that are yet to be addressed are Ihumtao, water rights, Mori representation at the local government level, the idea of a Mori health authority and creating opportunities for Mori led solutions to Mori problems.There is no doubt that the eyes of the world will watch on keenly as the next three years of New Zealand politics plays out. With an increasingly complex sociopolitical climate, and Jacina Ardern at the helm, the New Zealand Labour party has important decisions to make, particularly in regard to quality of life of Mori and Pasifika communities and the nations child poverty problem. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In my old place of work, I witnessed something beautiful. As summers sedated half-light crept down Castlereagh Streets carbon monoxide-laden lanes one day, a crowd of ibis glided over my head in a v-shaped pattern. It was an unearthly sight, far removed from the bins they predominantly call home.But in truth, I havent always admired the ibis.The very first in-joke of my USyd experience was laughing at their plight. I developed my first sense of belonging by partaking in the collective mockery of their evolutionary quirks. Sitting on the lawn, it became a recurring social exercise to point out the creatures pungent odour, its disproportionate features and penchant for litter. The ibis was the subject of ridicule, a meme normalised by faculty mentors and friends. It encroached on human land as a larcenous delinquent and a feral intruder. We merely tolerated it, and at any moment, we would declare it a pest, and vanquish it from this world, justly.Occasionally, the joke transgressed this benign disrespect, and swelled into something more twisted active distaste and unquestioned malice.In 2016, around 20,000 people clicked going or interested on the International Glare at Ibises Day.Show general distaste towards Ibises, the event description read.When the anti-ibis movement subconsciously constructs the ibis as a trespasser, a thief or a homeless vagrant which wanders the urban environment for human scraps, it buys into the system of human exceptionalism which dismisses anthropocentric climate change, and the real impacts of habitat destruction. In the age-old brand of human hubris, it erases the fact that human urbanisation into Sydneys swamps and wetlands resulted in deforestation and destruction of the ibis home in the first place. Deprived of its natural dietary preference for crayfish, mussels, and insects, the ibis has taken refuge in our cities, resigned to living an atomised life as a bin chicken. Ptolemys discredited geocentric theory of the universe persists in our hatred of the ibis.All this represents the moral case for a free ibis state, an Ibistopia, a res publica exclusively for the campus ibis community, carved out of none other than modern-day Victoria Park a utopia with enough water for breeding and insects for eating for years to come. This is the case for returning the ibis home.Although the universes arc of justice favours the ibis, the legal requirements are less encouraging.To acquire statehood, the community must wade into the International Court of Justice in The Hague. This itself is a perilous journey. This journey alone should take the crowd up to 20 days including rest breaks at their respectable average speed of 40 kilometres per hour.Once they arrive in the Peace Palace, there will be no time to waddle. The Ibis must prove under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States that it has; a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government and the capacity to enter into state relations.Unlike The Vatican, ibis actually have a self-sustained population with estimates of more than 10,000 in Sydney alone according to the ABC although as many as 25,000 roamed the wild in 1983. Though there remain border skirmishes, its territory is sufficient in consistency across campus and Victoria Park to mitigate the need for clearly settled borders. No long-term studies have yet established that the ibis community has an effective government but animals have acquired statehood before.Dr Rowan Nicholson of Sydney Law School told Honi that one historical precedent may be the Mangani who organised into a confederal monarchy as late as the 1910s.But there may be legally pertinent differences between primates and long-legged wading birds, so this precedent may not be applicable, said Dr Nicholson.The final issue remains the sovereign status of the ibis community. The Australian White Ibis happens to have a preexisting relationship with the Australian state. Conservation legislation including the 1974 National Parks and Wildlife Act recognise the ibis protected status. If the Australian government were to recognise Ibistopia, that may at least make Ibistopia binding in Australian eyes.The practical reality for the ibis is, albeit, more difficult.Since the Emu War of 1932, there has been little evidence in Australian practice that it is willing to tolerate avian secessionism, said Dr Nicholson.For now, the humble bin chicken can only dream of a state of its own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If youre like me and consume a shameful amount of entertainment news, you would have recently encountered a flood of articles headlined 10 Oscars moments that made us scream YASS QUEEN!!!!. Much of the post-Oscars discourse is that the award ceremony was a watershed moment for LGBT+ representation in mainstream film. Indeed, a total of eight awards went to films with queer themes. But beneath the velvet tuxedo gowns, Hollywood still has a problem of queer erasure, and the big winners of the night reflect that practice.Cishet actors have been nominated for playing queer characters since the 1940s, but this year was a curious digression three out of the four major acting awards were won by straight actors in queer roles. This raises a touchy question: who should these parts be given to? While it certainly rings true that queerness is an intrinsic facet of identity that only a queer person can truly understand, a persons identity should not have a place in the casting process if we ever want to see a truly impartial film industry. The casting decision should come down to who the best actor is for that role, else we would regress towards tokenism. We should instead focus on the issue of authenticity: the way that characters are written, developed, performed and presented.Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic of Queens eccentric frontman Freddie Mercury for which Rami Malek won Best Actor, was a poor and damaging representation of queerness. It reduced Mercurys sexual fluidity and psychosexual imagination to a duality of good versus evil; same-sex attraction entices him into a decrepit life of promiscuity and drug abuse. Because the people making these films live in a different skin, queerness is often manipulated to fit stereotypes and moralising narratives, rather than being granted the richness it demands. When you consider that Bohemian Rhapsodys director Bryan Singer is a bisexual man who called his sexual assault accusers homophobic, his treatment of same-sex desire as perverse unfortunately begins to make sense. To ensure these stories are authentic, filmmakers must include not queer people per se, but people who have the clearest insight into their characters lives those with similar identities, lived experiences, as well as their family and friends throughout the entire process. Even when queer characters are aptly written, erasure still occurs in the way that films are presented and received. Often, popular films with integral queer themes arent promoted as LGBT+ cinema, nor are they accepted as belonging to that genre. Green Book, which took home Best Picture, depicts a gay, black classical pianist embarking on a concert tour through a Jim Crow-era South. The Favourite, for which Olivia Colman won Best Actress, was a nuanced depiction of a monarch entangled in a love triangle with her female advisers. However, the queer aspects of these films were largely overlooked, often being overshadowed by isolated dissections of race and gender. Many critics described The Favourite as a salacious and sharp look at power dynamics between women, as opposed to queer women. We as an audience need to recognise and celebrate the fact that these stories are exploring intersectional identities; that not all black men or women on screen are straight by default; and break away from one-dimensional frames that the community has long sought to do.Winning an Oscar is a career milestone, but a poor yardstick for assessing representation. There is still much to do in Hollywood, and award shows are but one small aspect in our wider battle for acceptance. The stories we tell through our artforms have an increasingly profound impact on the way we perceive queer identities and experiences, so its important that we get these stories right. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> 7am I swallowed a bit of toothpaste. Does this count?8am I squeeze in two beloved sips (approximately 15ml) of a coffee and throw a muesli bar in my bag. I promise myself that Ill eat it at some point.9.30am I fork out $5.50 for a soy flat white9.31am Should I have ordered a muffin?12pm Im in a lecture. Ive done a risk assessment and have decided that disturbing the silence with the cracklings of my muesli bar wrapper is better than my stomach grumbling. 12.01pm I am acutely aware that I need to eat this muesli bar quickly, so that I draw minimal attention to myself.12.02pm but its excruciatingly chewy12.34pm My stomach grumbles anyway, frick me.2.30pm Ive walked past about four cafes knowing that I cant buy anything because Im super poor. I am hungry and poor.4.05-4.45pm Two Monte Carlos. I start making a veggie burger, eat another Monte Carlo waiting for the patty to cook, and a dry slice of bread waiting for the patty to cook. More coffee. I assemble my veggie burger with anything pre-cut and a lot of mayonnaise, an apple, two to three spoons of Nutella and green tea (for my health, of course). 5.15pm I forgot I made the tea. It is now cold.6.00pm I can smell dinner.6.01pm Im not hungry though.6.30pm Half a plate of pasta salad.10.30pm A green tea. I drink it this time.10.35pm Another Monte Carlo.10.40pm Noodles? Noodles.10.41pm I literally only wanted noodles because supposedly thats a uni student thing, but I just find them intolerably salty.1am Im so hungry I might eat my own shins. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I was first told, being white passing is the same as being white, I immediately rejected the idea. For me, regardless of how I look, I dont feel white and Ive always been eager to correct people when they assume I am. Upon further reflection, Ive started to wonder whether this eagerness is a product of pride or privilege.Racial identity is not entirely rooted in the physical. For example, where you are from informs your identity in different and more complex ways than how you look. A key aspect of racial identity is our personal interaction with our heritage, cultural exposure and family. Culture is not a varnish painted on top of who we are but embedded in us via our memories, superstitions and taste buds. So, regardless of my appearance, I have been exposed to a culture which I have internalised as a positive part of who I am.Being a person of colour is also relational, and the disadvantages faced by being othered are an important feature of this identity. Our identity, although in part a product of our own agency, is to some extent influenced by our relationship with others on both an individual and systemic level. How a person is perceived is an important determinant in the kind of experience they will have as a member of a minority culture. Ethnicity, in this case, is a sort of structure imposed on you rather than one freely internalised during ones upbringing.Because of this, it has been difficult for me to reconcile a personal sense of otherness with the experience of being ostensibly white. I acknowledge that for me, feeling different has usually been positive. Whenever Ive been forced to do ice-breakers in the first tutorial of a semester, one of my fun facts was always that Im half-Japanese. Its fun by virtue of the fact that people are often surprised. It always bothered me that members of my family didnt want me to advertise this fact, because Ive always been proud of it. Im only now beginning to realise that those who are not white, or not white passing, do not really see their ethnicity as a fun fact. This enjoyment of personal difference, and desire to inform people of how cultured I am is not a benefit nor option available to non-white-passing people of colour. Being different doesnt make a person feel special when their differences are disadvantageous. I fear that my attitude towards my racial identity is itself a product of white privilege I can share in the fun aspects of culture without actually engaging with the realities they stem from.Physical features are used to define our identity because they help us contextualise the spaces we are in (or not in): they are part of our reflections in the media, constructed from a specific worldview. Physical aspects of racial identity are the lines across which people draw their assumptions, their fears and their hatred. Yes, there are religious and cultural practices that divide us, but they are also often signified by some sort of physical trait whether it be inalterable like race, or an active choice, like a hijab. Physical features are the most accessible element of identity that can be used to simplify and categorise who we are. Appearance connotes difference and is the easiest way to recognise and, in turn, vilify it.Interracial people sit on an ethnic fault line. We are an example of how internal identity may differ from the identity society more broadly imposes on an individual. The gap between how you identify and how you are identified exposes racial structures at work within society.Privilege is the power to define your own reality: to not be subject to or inhibited by peoples perceptions based on how you look, what you believe or where you come from. People of colour have to exist in a world that they did not define, a world that has defined them. My ethnic ambiguity means the majority of my experience being biracial and thereby part of an ethnic minority has been positive, insofar as our experiences are defined by how others perceive us. This means that ethnic-identifying people arent necessarily immune to white privilege. In a society where our physical differences are recast as threats, I get to be proud of being an ethnic minority because I share in another culture but dont actually have to deal with being a perceived threat. The physical features of whiteness which engender my white privilege mean that, until none of us are perceivably, inherently, threatening, I ought to do that same thing we should all do: register it and realise that its on a spectrum.Ultimately, just because its not your fault that you have privilege, or you dont feel particularly advantaged, doesnt mean that its not your responsibility to recognise it. And that doesnt mean you cant be proud of who you are. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A Chinese translation of this article appears hereCONTENT WARNING: Article mentions suicide, mental healthI have no memories from that year, my Japanese friend tells me as we drink in an izakaya at Takadanobaba Tokyos liveliest student neighbourhood, and the only place in Japan where you can litter and piss in public and no one gives a damn. Hes talking about his year as a ronin. Centuries ago, that word would have evoked images of a wandering samurai, condemned to live a life of shame for choosing to live after his masters death instead of dying with him. Nowadays, it refers to high school graduates who fail to make it to their desired university, and subsequently spend an extra year of study in the hopes of getting in a gap year minus the fun.Every day was the same. Waking up at 6:30 to study, then going to cram school for 6 hours, then studying by myself at night until 1. What memories were there to make? he continues, before finishing his beer in one go. His story is a common one. In 2018, one in five Japanese university entrants were ronin. Some had been ronin for over a year.It was tough, but it was worth it. I got where I wanted to be, and now its the summer vacation for life. Anyways, lets get some more. Is sake fine by you?Judging from the amount he is drinking, I wonder if he will have no memories of tonight either.* * *Do you know what they call university in Japan? They call it the summer vacation for life. Sandwiched between high school and work, university functions as a four-year respite where you recharge yourself after working so hard in high school, so that youre fully energised to work hard after you graduate. Most courses are comprised entirely of lectures where attendance isnt taken, the standard of work expected is laughably low, and more importantly, university marks have no bearing on future employment. In place of study, university students busy themselves with part-time work, extracurricular activities and drinking. Haruki Murakami, one of Japans most celebrated writers, took seven years to graduate from a four-year course because he hardly ever bothered to turn up to class, preferring instead to spend his time at jazz cafes and record stores. China and South Korea, two other countries also infamous for their gruelling high school education system, operate under a similar, unofficial tertiary system of hard to enter, easy to graduate.Of course, this fact is little-known about in the West. Instead, we are fascinated by the East Asian education system as symbolised by the faceless student, buried beneath a stack of textbooks and paper, studying in a harshly lit classroom after the rest of the world has gone to sleep. However, this academic intensity must be contextualised with reference to the tertiary sectors lack of intensity in order to gain a complete understanding of East Asian education.For example, bold phrases such as the damaging path to success abound when discussion about East Asian education flares up in the West, often in comparison with our own system. But what does damage and success even mean in this context?On damage, our instinctual reaction to the idea of adopting elements of East Asian education in Australia is often to go to the extremes, and point out the high rates of youth suicide in those countries as proof that their hyper-competitive nature is fundamentally damaging. But using youth suicide rates as a metric to gauge the value of an education system is both perverse and devoid of meaning, but even if it was used as a metric, it would show a very different story from what most of us in the West believe to be true. According to a 2015 study conducted by the OECD, Japan and South Korea actually have lower rates of teenage suicide than Australia. Of course, we in Australia know that there are many complex factors and causes behind youth suicide, and boiling it down to one issue would be grossly oversimplifying the problem. However, we do not afford the same complexity to the East, both in regards to mental health and other oft-said stereotypes such as the idea that East Asian students have no creativity and can only rote-learn. It is because of this that discussions of comparative education devolve into a game of at least were not, where we can conveniently ignore the alarming realities plaguing our own system, like how the mental health of Australian students has deteriorated dramatically in recent years. According a 2018 study by Headspace, 80% of Australian students in tertiary education experience anxiety. 35% have had thoughts of suicide or self harm.Whilst the start of university marks the end of academic-related stress for our East Asian counterparts, does it not signal its continuation for us? In East Asia, the success of working so hard in high school can be felt immediately upon entering university, where students are gifted with four years to do whatever they want. Regardless of whether they are attending a good university or not, the social ladder has already largely been set in stone and nothing much will change it, barring an exceptional case of effort (or lack of it). We might look at this in Australia and revile in how unfair it is to determine someones life by a couple of exams they sat while they were 18, but does not something similar happen in Australia, albeit delayed by a few more years? One look at any university rants page on Facebook will show that extreme anxiety regarding studying is pervasive amongst Australian university students, who often have to battle financial worries on top of academic concerns. Obviously, academic stress is linked to a belief that bad marks will put you at disadvantage in the increasingly competitive job market. Everyone says high school marks dont matter, but how many would extend that to university? In East Asia, Ps get degrees is a veritable truth. In Australia, it is a meaningless consolation.It is inevitable in any capitalist society that a selection must be made at one point in our lives about what labour we are entitled to perform in the future, and by extension, what type of lives we will live. The problem, then, isnt that high school is too stressful for students, but rather, should the stress of social selection be delayed until later in life?In East Asia, the selection is made at the cusp of adulthood. Who you are at 18 is viewed as representative of who you will be for the rest of your life. The name of the university you attend speaks much more than the marks you get there, because the abilities and effort you demonstrated by getting in shows others that, if the need ever arises, you can work hard. That is why East Asian students stay up late studying during high school, and drinking during university.In Australia, however, we love stories of the student who languished in high school but then picked up in university, and is now living a successful life of wealth. These stories are often contrasted with the cautionary tale of the brilliant high school student who never adjusted to university, and lived their whole life in perpetual disappointment. But is not social selection implicit in both of these stories? Why is it then that we detest it when it happens at age 18, but not when it occurs a few years later? Instead of praising the dropout who became a lawyer, and disparaging the dux who became a cleaner, would it not be more useful to question why the two jobs are viewed so differently in the first place? We need to ask these questions before we use East Asian education as an example to aspire to or avoid.One thing, however, is clear. While East Asian university students are enjoying their summer vacation for life, it seems we in Australia are going through a winter of discontent. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Although the bans on the three Australian cricketers involved in the ball-tampering scandal last March are soon to be lifted, fiery discussions around their place in the team rage on. At the core of this is the question of whether the trio, regardless of their formal ban, should be allowed back into the Australian Test side to defend the Ashes in August, if at all.In an attempt to resolve this question, the Longstaff cultural review was commissioned by Cricket Australia to investigate the events that transpired in South Africa and shed some light on their cause. The preamble of the review concludes with a damning indictment; that within Australian cricket, there [are] a web of influences that made ball-tampering more likely than not. Newlands was not simply the consequence of corporate mismanagement, but instead also a reflection of the toxic masculinity that runs deep within the veins of Australian cricket.The tour of South Africa itself had been high-stakes; a newly resurgent Australia had been coming off the back of a 4-0 home Ashes victory, and was relishing the opportunity to become number one in the world rankings once again.David Warner, the then-Australian vice-captain is widely considered to be an antagonistic and polarising character, known for his unbridled aggression on and off the field. Given that, it was expected that South Africas notoriously hostile crowds would target him. What was not expected however, was the explicit and wilful sexist abuse directed at Warners partner (endorsed by members of the South African board). This came to a head in Durban during the first Test, where Warner had to be physically restrained from South African wicketkeeper Quinton De Kock over another wife-related sledge.This abuse was obviously problematic on its face; the attacks on Warners partner, Candice Falzon, were sexist in the extreme. Former Australian netball captain Liz Ellis noted, The controversy is that 40 years after the sexual revolutiona players wife is being dragged through the mud because theyre attempting to shame her for her past. What have been largely ignored are the underlying sexist assumptions in Warners reaction that Falzon is his property to defend.Opposing teams have often criticised Australia for building their entire brand of cricket on expressions of toxic masculinity whether it be Michael Clarke telling James Anderson to get ready for a broken fucking arm, or the modern ubiquity of champ culture. When a cricketer is raised in this environment and his desires to perpetuate these problematic ideas of masculinity go unchecked, it is foreseeable that he reaches a breaking point. Surely its inevitable where theres a focus on winning without counting the cost where personnel and strategic decisions are systematically reckless and are excused by winning.When Steve Smith and David Warner return, well be a more successful national side. But if were to build a sustainable model for our national teams going forward wherein theyre considered the perfect intersection of professional conduct and sporting achievement, our standards for our cricketers must be higher than lavishing praise upon them for simply not being homophobic. It starts with David Warner not being re-selected for the national team.Hes representative of the rotten core of Australian cricket, and we can and should be better than that. If we dont win a sixth World Cup this year, so be it. If we dont defend the Ashes, so be it. If it means were making steps towards our cricketers being genuine representatives of the gentlemans game, then its a sacrifice worth making. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A brief glimpse at stock photographs in University of Sydney (USyd) marketing spotlights the relentless branding of universities as optimal places to make lifelong friendships. Amid a whirlwind of expected parties and pub crawls, less emphasis is placed on experiences of student isolation a feeling which many students, adjusted to recent social highs from post-HSC holidays and high school networks, have likely not felt for several years. Pei Wen Tan arguesagainst campus loneliness:Loneliness sucks. A 2015 VicHealth survey found one in eight young people experience a high intensity of loneliness an emotional response to social needs which are not met with correlated impacts on mental and physical wellbeing.The stories behind these statistics arent hard to find. Clique-y societies littered with so-called BNOCs (big names on campus), and pre-formed social circles dating back to high school can be polarising for those outside of established private school and selective school groups. A limited culture of making new friends runs through USyds tutorials where making acquaintances is the norm but true friendships remain hard to find. The combination of commute times and new working pressures blend into a potent cocktail which primes students for social burnout and disillusionment after the initial weeks of semester. According to a 2017 study, students generally believed peers were more socially connected, leading to a lowered sense of well-being and belonging, and difficulties recognising others were in the same, isolated position. No one wants to seem desperate for friends, says third year Commerce student May*, You have to be vulnerable to put yourself out there.Even when students attempt to join social circles, the universitys fast-paced teaching schedule complicates the formation of meaningful, long-lasting connections. Even after making acquaintances, its possible to feel isolated. Theres so much pressure to not seem like a loner that most friendships you form feel superficial, May* tells me.When expectations of an easy social transition into university clash with an unfamiliar and isolating reality at such a critical juncture of life, it is inevitable that consequences ranging from an increased likelihood of depression to social anxiety follow.Vivienne Davies arguesforcampus loneliness:Solitude the comfortable, self-satisfied state of appreciating the merits of alone time is frequently stigmatized as shameful or unsettling, but experiencing isolation can actually benefit personal growth. The struggle to forge meaningful connections at university can be an instructive ethos, capable of breeding both contentment in pre-existing relationships, and understanding of qualities valued in friendships. Im more content by and with myself, Liang* says. Im more appreciative of what [friendships] I had versus what I wanted.Reflecting on social solitude, students found it engendered deeper self-growth. It helps you mature, Liang* told me, admitting, I dont think Ive felt lonely beyond what is normally just part of life. Accepting solitude at university is crucial preparation for later life, where it becomes inevitable. Solitude forces you to confront the most important relationship in life that with oneself. A sociological study conducted by the California State Polytechnic University showed that individuals who removed themselves from their social context were better equipped to reflect on the impact of that context. This allowed students to recognise why they were feeling lonely whether due to expectations of prolific socialization at university, or because one is used to a stable network and adjust accordingly.If university is a microcosm for society at large, solitude teaches us to stumble through bouts of isolation in order to mature. Disappointing social experiences are a fact of life. Thats not to say we should give up meaningful connections altogether, or dismiss prolonged or depressive bouts of loneliness. Rather, we should understand that contentment comes with being alone and being realistic with social expectations are the first steps away from loneliness and towards embracing solitude. You are not alone in feeling lonely but finding company in yourself might be the best remedy yet. *Names have been anonymised <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Tragic deaths, media outcry, political pressure, law reform. And so it goes for much of the law that governs us. But in an age in which media outlets exploit highly charged emotional issues for maximum commercial gain, should reactionary sentimentalism play such a dominant role in shaping law reform?Its not uncommon for shocking events to prompt impassioned calls for change in the legislation. In fact, one of the key roles of law reform is to respond to the evolving needs and values of the community. Famously, the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre resulted in the establishment of the National Firearms Agreement just five months after the incident. In what was an anomaly for the Howard Government, the reforms proved to be both comprehensive and in the best interests of Australians.More recently, however, the medias emotional portrayal of the ideal victim has narrowed discourse on social issues and culminated in insufficient and problematic solutions. The scattered vestiges of Sydneys wounded nightlife provide a sobering reminder of one such solution. With the tragic one-punch deaths of Thomas Kelly and Daniel Christie as their poignant catalysts for change, the citys most prominent newspapers launched an emotional campaign to reduce alcohol-related violence in the CBD. It was through this manufactured lens that public discourse was invigorated yet narrowed, ultimately at the cost of reason. Lockouts were equated with saving one punch victims. It didnt matter that enforcement would become active over three hours after the times that Kelly and Christie were assaulted, or that violence would be displaced to surrounding areas. It didnt matter that businesses and industries would be crippled while civil liberties were restricted. It didnt matter that the domestic violence epidemic was ignored.And history may yet repeat itself. With the current pill testing debate reverberating passionately in the echo chamber of media discourse, consequent law reform would be insufficient in tackling Australias illicit drug problem. While pill testing should certainly be implemented at festivals due to its recorded effectiveness in reducing deaths and cleaning drug markets, the current discussion distracts from a much broader social matter. Like 2014, the debate is being narrowed by the medias evocative portrayal of young victims. Five fatal overdoses at music festivals in the past five months dominate the conversation on drug reform, conflating rational criticism of the status quo with some sort of disregard for the victims lives.In reality, overdoses from illicit drugs at festivals make up a minute fraction of the 2177 yearly drug-related deaths in Australia as of 2016. Additionally, although the youth are at the forefront of current debate, middle-aged Australians between 30 and 59 constitute 70% of all accidental drug-related deaths. This phenomenon can be attributed to the growing prevalence of Opioids and Benzodiazepines largely garnered from medical prescriptions. All five festival overdoses involved MDMA, placing Amphetamines at the centre of discussion despite only being involved in 20% of drug-related deaths. In contrast, Opioids and Benzodiazepines are involved in 82% of all deaths, suggesting that more attention should be placed on the regulation of pharmaceutical treatments. Unfortunately, however, sentimental stories about the structural flaws of the medical industry are rare and narratives of lost youth are far more attractive for media outlets, driven by clicks and reacts.Similarly, debate should focus on the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are 2.8 times more likely to die a drug-related death. Unsurprisingly, this rate increases in rural areas. Indeed, inhabitants of rural areas are 23% more likely to suffer a drug-related death than an inhabitant of a metropolitan area, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders making up 51% of all Australians living in remote or very remote areas. While greater social policy is required to ameliorate the entrenched inequality that faces Indigenous Australians, preliminary measures should see the implementation of methadone programs, withdrawal centres, detoxification services, and syringe programs in rural areas.If the Australian public achieves the sensible policy step of pill-testing, we should be under no illusion that society has solved the complex issues surrounding drug use. Ambitious and much-needed reform needs to look beyond the loudest voices to craft a policy that serves more than just festival attendees. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Late last year, Tumblr announced that it would be banning all posts it deemed to contain adult content. In the original post circulated by Tumblr staff, female-presenting nipples fell into this category. Both the ban and the gendered language received swift backlash from users and non-users alike. The sexualisation of female breasts and nipples is not a new phenomenon. Tumblr is following in the footsteps of other social media giants like Twitter and Facebook in its ban, though the wording of the sites respective terms of service differs. Tumblrs ban taps into issues of oversexualising the female body and raises issues about the nature of the body more generally.One concern raised over the ban was its consequences for queer content. Tumblr, for all its many flaws, has provided a home for content made by queer people, who have been able to self-affirm their identities by connecting with other queer people and by posting about their experiences. Singling out female-presenting nipples threatens the sense of safety many people might feel the website offers, because the statement assumes a certain version of femaleness.But what makes a body female? According to academic Thomas Laqueur, there was a strand of ancient Greek thought that stated there was only one body. This body was said to be female if it was cold and weak, but male if it was hot and strong.Since the ancient Greeks, our knowledge of the body has become more nuanced. Ideas of biological determinism suggesting men and women were just like that bowed to the idea that gendered behaviour was learned. In the 1950s, a group of academics at John Hopkins University were among the first to state that biological sex didnt decide gender role and orientation. In 1962, psychoanalyst Robert Stoller published a book that described gender as psychological rather than biological. Unfortunately, Stollers work was focused on trying to fix those who deviated from the gender binary and from traditional gender roles.While the Robert Stollers of the world still exist, our knowledge (and acceptance) of diverse experiences of gender is infinitely more developed. With the internet and social media, transgender, non-binary, and intersex individuals are able to make themselves better known and heard. Discussions about what makes a body one thing or another have become more complex.Transgender YouTuber Natalie Wynn, for example, often discusses what she terms girldick or the feminine penis. On the flipside of this, there is the idea of the masculine clitoris. At their core, terms like this are ways to point out that even if someones identity fits into the male-female binary, the way they physically presentboth to the world and in more intimate settingswont necessarily conform to normative ideas of what visually makes someone a man or woman. For many non-binary people whose identity falls outside the gender binary, their gender is almost guaranteed to conflict with their physical presentation.Freckle, a genderfluid character from the comedy web-series The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo, is a good example of this. In one scene, Freckle slips a dress strap off their shoulder to reveal a nipple. Nip slip, they say. Is it? asks their friend. I dont know, Freckle says, is it?In a Tumblr post circulated by user obovoid, which notes that a screenshot of the scene has been flagged by the sites new system, it is. And this is a problem. By banning female-presenting nipples, Tumblr is not only singling out a certain kind of inadvertent presentation as wrong, its making itself judge and jury over who or what fits the criteria of female-presenting. The policy is a reassertion of a particular kind of binary that a lot of the websites users are trying to escape.It might be time for me and my queer, female-presenting nipples to go elsewhere. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CW: violence, sexual assault, domestic violence, drug use, police brutalityIn July of 2001, members of the Italian police force conducted a raid on the Armando Diaz School, the temporary headquarters of a coalition of anti-capitalist protestors during the G8 summit. In that raid, police indiscriminately brutalised all in their wake, engaging in acts of assault, sexual misconduct and the planting of false evidence. Ultimately, their actions inflicted serious injury upon sixty-one people, placing three of them in a critical condition.In April of 2015, almost 14 years later, the European Court of Human Rights finally ruled that Italian police had violated the European Convention on Human Rights during the Armando Diaz raid. However, the Court required compensation to be paid to only one of the numerous people harmed by police actions. That same year, all charges against the police officers responsible for placing a twenty-five-year-old African American man, Freddie Gray, into a coma were dropped, sparking protests across the United States.Whether they are targeting queer communities in recreational spaces, attacking unassuming people of colour walking home or silencing protestors voicing dissent, violence from police tends to produce a tiring and repetitive social response. It begins with a paradoxically familiar sense of shock, as the police push the boundaries of inhumanity with their callous brutality. Some of us follow that shock with anger, which may even eventually translate into calls for reform. Those in power pretend to listen to these calls and by way of response offer a reductive reminder that there are only a few bad apples (if any). Suddenly a debate begins over re-training police officers, changing their attitudes towards marginalised groups, or perhaps even restricting their use of weapons. Both camps push back and forth, throwing around facts, figures and anecdotes. Meanwhile, we slowly forget the names of the victims and survivors, and the police continue to antagonise broader society on a daily basis.For a significant proportion of society, their engagement with these debates is underpinned by an often unchallenged assumption; whether good or evil, the police are a necessary protective force. In fact, for most people, questioning the necessity of the police is incredibly unintuitive. If asked to picture a world without the police, images of unadulterated anarchy feature in their minds- windows of shops shattered by looting rapscallions, cars being set on fire, the distant sound of gunshots, and so on.Interestingly, however, the crimes we often picture when thinking of a police-less world are crimes that the police rarely prevent. In the case of theft, for example, the police, at best, can transport an already detained thief to a station. More often, they will take down the details of the crime and attempt, often unsuccessfully, to find the thief. In either case, the police have done little to prevent the crime and are merely reacting to it. What then causes the false equivalency between protection and reaction in our minds?For most rational people, if someone were to break into their house or they were to witness someone breaking into another house, their first response would be to call the police. Subsequently, an association forms within their minds between the police force, and crimes against property. Problematically, this association is often misconstrued as one of protection, where the police, like a group of wise shepherds in blue, are protecting us, their beloved livestock. However, have the police really done much to protect us from or prevent the crime?Realistically, their presence does little to actually engage with the crime itselfthey have not pre-empted a crime, nor are they likely to actually stop it from being carried out. Rather, they have merely acted as a calming force for the person reporting that crime to feel as though something is being done.By conflating their capacity to deal with the aftermath of a crime with any genuine protective function, were problematically granting the police a lot more importance than they deserve. Of course, pointing this out isnt enough to demonstrate why the police force is unnecessary. Some sort of group is still needed to catch reported criminals or transport them to a processing facility. The issue with the police force, however, arises out of the discordance between where they are required and where they act. For most of us, our most common interactions with the police force are not in reporting a crime but rather seeing them when theyre patrolling a neighbourhood. During such patrols, the police are on the lookout for crimes, supposedly performing some sort of deterrence function.There is conflicting empirical evidence regarding whether the police force genuinely deters crimes. At best, going off studies, the police may have a marginal impact on the rate of crimes being committed in some neighbourhoods (although the methodology and accuracy of these studies are often contested). Given the inconclusive nature of such studies, we are perhaps better served by our faculties of reason when assessing the necessity of the police in these scenarios. The argument for the police force acting as a deterrent is, essentially, that the fear of being caught by the police makes an individual less likely to commit a crime. The question we must therefore ask ourselves is: what is the true cause of these crimes, anddo theyhave any association with a fear of being caught by the police?Theft is usually the product of necessity imposed onto an individual by circumstances of poverty. Crimes associated with drug use generally tend to be the product of addiction. Violent altercations or threats may sometimes be the product of poor mental health issues.Instances of domestic violence, which disproportionately affect women, are but the product of men operating within the mindset of patriarchal entitlement. The police are often the last port of call for women and families in situations of domestic violence, and it would be entirely unsound for to decry them for doing so. The critique to be made is once again levelled at the police force. In NSW, the efficacy of domestic violence liaison officers (DVLOs) is questionable, both practically and otherwise. DVLOs often pressure women to undertake apprehended violence orders (AVOs) against their perpetrators as a primary solution, without taking into account the existing situation of the woman, and in particular, her capacity to house herself elsewhere. With federal budget cuts to domestic violence services in 2018Australias oldest running womens refuge in Canberra, Beryl Women Inc, received a thirty-two per cent cutthere is incongruity as to the fate of women in situations of domestic violence after they make the 000 calls.Realistically, it is difficult to conceive of many crimes where the cause is an absence of police oversight coupled with the criminals joy of committing a crime. Subsequently, it seems questionable whether a significant deterrence effect is produced by police patrols. Although, even if we were to believe that the police force does have some sort of minimal deterrence effect, wed need to balance this against the harms wrought by police forces patrolling neighbourhoods. In many instances, such patrols result in dangerous high-speed car chases, the over-policing and harassing of minorities and the general antagonisation of the neighbourhood in question. It then begs to be asked: is some sort of minimal deterrence effect that fails to reach to the causes of these crimes really worth it?Before disgruntled conservatives and their beloved News Corp take to their keyboards, it is necessary to note that this article does not call for the removal of all law enforcement. Rather, it calls for smaller, more targeted groups that perform law enforcement functions which are actually effective. For example, a small group that is tasked with reporting crimes and transporting criminals. Similarly, cases where first responders are required, such as terrorist threats or active shooter situations, could be dealt with by a better-trained group. This would allow us to do away with a police force that spends a significant proportion of its time on the lookout for working-class and ethnic victims and giving out jay-walking fines when their superiors tell them to get their numbers up.Of course, many jaded progressives will recognise the validity of such arguments but point to the fact that it is unrealistic to hope for a police force to be dismantled. While tragically, this may be true, the benefits of questioning the necessity of the police arent singularly tied to the hope of having them removed. When we begin to question the use of the police force, we also change the way we as a society interact with them. Perhaps we start thinking twice before calling racist police forces into our neighbourhoods to deal with issues. Perhaps we begin to question whether an issue is even harmful enough to even require any intervention.Eventually, we may even get to a state where a bloodthirsty group of thugs go from becoming a necessary evil to simply an evil. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ahhh LGs and LBs. Little Girls and Little Boys. Every Asian in Sydney seems to know one, but no Asian in Sydney will admit to being one. When theyre not muzzing at raves decked out in Nike, theyre flexing their KPMG company badge at Sanctuary hotel while drinking more long islands than the zantac they took an hour before can handle. Either way, theyre back home before midnight, because at the end of the day, theyre still filial Asian children beholden to the whims of their overbearing immigrant parents. A lone Asian-Australian male with a fade cut who swears hes retired from raving is called an LB. A group of them is called a UNSW BSoc. A group of LGs, on the other hand, is called an I Heart Uni photoshoot. The mythology surrounding LGs and LBs is endless and their presence in the Sydney Asian social scene is now inescapable. But where exactly did they all come from?* * *I start my search for the origins of the LG in the most obvious place I can think of The Muzzing/Chopping Appreciation Society Facebook group. Founded in early 2015 and currently boasting over more than 75,000 members, this online community has been at the forefront of rave cultures surging popularity amongst Asian-Australians youths. Muzzing is a dance style commonly done at raves which, on first glance, looks like a horny person directing traffic. Its become associated with rave culture because its movements are well-suited to the beat heavy music of hardstyle, and MCAS is the place to be for aspiring muzz-kings and muzz-queens to show off their skills. So it makes sense that LGs and LBs originated there. Indeed, their explosion in popularity can be traced in the group to a video one of the moderators posted in early April 2016 of herself muzzing encaptioned Calling out all LGs in the Southern Hemisphere #LGSTARTERPACK. That video quickly amassed thousands of likes and then triggered a flood of muzzing videos captioned with LG or LB, each thumping beat matched with a confused commentator asking below what the fuck is an LG? The terms then spilled over from the group and, thanks to how interconnected the Sydney Asian community is, soon made its way to people like me who at the time at least had no interest in raving. In late April 2016, I used the word for the first time on Facebook messenger when I asked someone in a group chat lol when did LG become a word?A post in the MCAS group.While a recruitment post for MCAS moderators from June 2016 required prospective candidates to answer what is an LG, suggesting that the definition was still not widely known, by 2017 things had radically changed. The rise of popular Asian-Australian facebook pages like Sydney Asian Memes for Selective School Teens and LGs of Sydney and Melbourne gave LGs and LBs digital immortality, thus introducing them to thousands of unenlightened, unsuspecting individuals. Before long, even the New York Times (yes, the New York Times) ran a feature article about them, making LGs and LBs possibly one of Australias most successful cultural exports in recent years. The rest is, of course, history.A post in the MCAS group.However, slang words dont just pop up like this from thin air. A quick search in MCAS shows that low-scale usage of LG existed in 2015, suggesting that it had existed for much longer than the group itself. Intrigued, I look to Urban Dictionary for guidance, only to find that the top definitions for LG and LB are dated to November 2017 long after the terms had become popular. But beneath the top definition of LG is a much older entry from 2009 which gives a very different meaning a girl between the ages of 10-14 who adopts the mannerisms of someone much older. More interestingly, the definition notes that the term originated in the Canadian city of Vancouver. Much like Sydney, Vancouver has a huge Asian population. This couldnt be a coincidence, could it? Were the two definitions somehow connected then?* * *If something has ties with the Sydney Asian community, chances are it involves our other major cultural institution the selective school. With this hypothesis in mind, and knowing that selective school students have a long tradition of making videos to promote school events, I start looking on Youtube. I soon come across what Id been looking for and I feel ecstatic. Techstatic to be precise. The jackpot was a video from March 2013 made by the prefects of Sydney Tech and St George Girls, two selective schools in Sydneys south, promoting their school dance Techstatic. In it, a teenage boy tells his Asian-squatting mates in a thick ethnic Sydney accent that he saw an LG the other day, to which they respond by ritualistically chanting LG. The video gives no explanation as to what LG means, suggesting that the term had already become well-known in the vernacular of a small subsection of the Sydney Asian community by 2013.Techstatic (2013)Following this lead, I reached out to Shabab Jahan, a friend of mine who graduated from Sydney Tech in 2013. Shabab tells me that he first heard the term LG in 2012, and that it started circulating just as the Asian teeny-bopper scene was dying out (RIP Gatsby, Country Road bags and LAN Gaming). He notes that the term initially had no connections with raving and was more derogatory than it is today. However, Shabab admits that he doesnt know where exactly the term came from, but only that he doesnt think it originated at Sydney Tech (or more accurately, sincerely hope it didnt). To find out more, he connects me with Johan Bui-Nguyen, a fellow graduate of Sydney Tech and the person who directed the Techstatic video. Johan tells me that he started using the word LG after hearing it used in videos made by a YouTuber called Chengman, whose skits often revolve around being an Asian Gangsta and picking up LGs. Chengman, as it turns out, is a Chinese-Canadian from Vancouver. Eureka. I slowly begin to understand how all the pieces of this etymological puzzle fit together.The term LG originated in Vancouver as a way to describe a girl who acts or looks much older than they are. Over time, probably due to the large Asian population in Vancouver, and the fact that Asians often look younger than they actually are, the meaning of LG reversed and narrowed to refer specifically to Asian girls. The term then travelled from Canada to Australia thanks to a Chinese-Canadian Youtuberand was quickly picked up by Asian-Australian youths. Johan notes that teenagers from other highschools in the Bankstown area were also using the word in 2012, suggesting that it was adopted independently by many different people all at the same time. This is confirmed by Twitter, which shows a huge uptick in Asian-Australians (mostly in Western Sydney) using both LG and LB from 2012 to 2013. Interestingly, some mentions from the early days explicitly tie the terms to rave culture a particularly amusing tweet reads if i see any lgs post status about going defqon with FAKE ID, im fucking reporting you. Strangely however, usage of LG and LB by Asian-Australians virtually disappears from Twitter after 2013, suggesting that the terms didnt gain widespread usage amongst Asian-Australians at the time and were, like most fad words, on the road to being forgotten forever.Twitter posts, 2012.Consider the fate of the word luvo. Back in the early 2010s, this is what I wouldve called a digital self-portrait, most likely taken on a phone. While its obvious from just looking at the word that its of Australian origin, a search on Twitter shows that it was largely confined to the Asian-Australian community, and this corroborated by anecdotal evidence of it being widely used in selective schools. However, its usage was to be short-lived. Another piece of Australian slang Selfie, was declared Oxford Dictionaries International Word of the Year in 2013, and the hit song #SELFIE by The Chainsmokers dropped shortly after in 2014. Luvo on the other hand never latched onto any viral piece of culture and became completely subsumed by selfie,, unused not even by the Asian-Australians who first created it. The internet, it appears, is as much a promoter of linguistic diversity as it is of linguistic uniformity.Time waits for no one.But as we all know, LGs and LBs didnt disappear. Somehow, they survived wandering in linguistic limbo for two years before being revived by MCAS in 2016. The question is, how? Were now in the land of conjecture, and my guess is about as good as anybodys. But my hypothesis is that after the initial hype created by Chengman, the terms lay dormant. Due to a lack of a high-profile platform like MCAS, they did not spread into the wider Asian community in Sydney or Melbourne. However, the chain of existence was never completely broken, and the terms were probably continuously used by Asians in the rave scene even though their usage had little exposure. Concurrently, the terms possibly quietly survived in some selective school circles in Sydney. Shabab remembers LG spreading from Sydney Tech to students from other schools at tutoring, meaning that a sizable number of Sydney Asians had at least heard of the term despite never using it. Like those microorganisms which go into stasis during droughts and only revert back to their original metabolism when it rains, the initial burst of popularity gave LG and LB enough momentum to wait out a period spent in highly reduced usage until something like MCAS came along. And when it did, a group of people who had never stopped using the words were able to connect with a group of people who were already somewhat familiar with what they meant.Contrast this with what happened to LGs and LBs in their native Canada. While the term quietly lives on in its original meaning, the Asian dimension has been completely overtaken by ABGs and ABBs (Asian Baby Girls and Boys) pieces of Asian-American slang from California. ABG and ABB have existed for quite some time as street-slang, but their explosion in online prominence only came after a video by Vietnamese-Canadian youtuber LeendaDProductions called How to tell if youre an ABG went viral in early 2017. However, LGs and LBs had already become firmly ingrained in the Asian-Australian lexicon by that point thanks to MCAS and Facebook meme pages, who gave the terms a form of official online patronage which made them more resistant to external pressure. While its commonly thought that LG and LB are simply an offshoots of ABG and ABB, it seems that their popular online usage actually predates their American counterparts. Not even the takeover of Subtle Asian Traits by boba-addicted Asian-Americans could dampen their usage in Australia. For better or for worse, it seems that LGs and LBs are here to stay.* * *While talking to Shabab and Johan, I floated the idea to them that Sydney Tech could have played a big role in popularising LGs and LBs. If that was the case, I asked them how theyd feel. Johan tells me hed feel half-embarrassed, half-proud while Shabab bluntly answers with denial. Even though the exact details of those early days will probably never be known, there is something that feels very fitting about this hypothesis. Remember the video they made to promote Techstatic? Turns out it was much less of a school dance and much more of a full-blown rave, complete with strobe lights, smoke machines and of course, gabbering. A school-sanctioned rave, at a selective school no less. When you think about it, the attendees there would have been the original LGs and LBs, in every sense of the word. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disneys live action remake of Mulan is the most expensive film to be directed by a woman. $200 million was lavished on it in hopes that the Chinese market would in turn flood Disneys coffers with yuan. But upon its releaseamong a spectrum of non-Asian, diaspora Asian, and the coveted Chinese criticsthe reception has ranged from ambivalent about plot changes to downright hostile about its cultural missteps.Lets not feign surprise at the reception. The project was doomed to failure from the start; it all comes down to how Disney addressed its two key directives.The first directive was to satisfy the Chinese market with a more authentic story. This meant revamping the script to exclude elements that Chinese viewers in the 90s had disliked and introducing a cast comprising only of Chinese faces, including Chinese action heavyweights Donnie Yen and Jet Li. The film also borrowed distinctive visuals, like wirework, that were pioneered in Hong Kong kung fu films.The second directive was to still appeal to the expected modern Disney audiences. In the last few Disney princess live action remakes, this has meant dialling up the feminismthat is, as YouTube film critic Lindsay Ellis describes, a corporate-friendly girlboss version of feminism. It was in this spirit that Li Shang was cut from the script, because a relationship with a superior was deemed inappropriate after #MeToo; Mulans superhuman qi powers in the live action also stem from this agenda. Niki Caro was Disneys ultimate choice to head the representation of the culture of Disney in the new Mulan.As a white female director, Caro was expected to bring the feminist chops to Mulans updated and more authentically Chinese story. But in this choice, Disney revealed a fallacy in their thinking: that Chinese authenticity and feminism are mutually exclusive. See, the cast and the influences are Chinesebut Chinese directors are not similarly entrusted to make sure the story is feminist. Even though directors dont appear onscreen, they make every decision in the film. The Chinese aesthetics and actors masked a mechanism composed entirely of white people. This is where the films dissonance emerges.The problem from the start was that Disney could not conceive of the film in an intersectional way. Caro, as feminist and determined to respect Chinese culture as she may be, does not have an insiders perspective on what it means to be feminist as a Chinese woman. Its not enough to get the script, written by four white people, ticked off by the Chinese governmenta body that we all know is the ultimate purveyor of culture and filmmaking, obviously.In a time when Chinese feminists are becoming more outspoken about the constraints of traditional values like filial piety, Mulans story seems like fertile ground for a culturally appropriate feminist revaluation. Instead of hamfisted references to honour and family, the film couldve sent Mulan to war at first motivated only by filial piety, before embracing her identity as a soldier and genuinely coming to embrace her otherwise-suppressed martial abilities as a female warrior. By handing the reins of the live action Mulan to Caro, Disney dismissed the fundamental differences between white womanhood and Chinese womanhood.At the very least, Disney could have united these two elements by giving a Chinese woman the directors chair. Thats not saying that this measure would make the film magically perfect but at the very least it wouldnt be plagued with that jarring inauthenticity, which even the least culturally literate filmgoers could detect.Now, as it stands, Disneys failure to understand the importance of an intersectional feminist approach to the film has left it inevitably dissonant as it fails to tap into Chinese cultural realities and Mulans humanity as a Chinese woman. In the end, this kind of portrayal isnt going to benefit anyoneexcept the two sets of boycotts railing against the film. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a time of global pandemics and social distancing, true human connection is hard to come by. While we stay at home, avoiding bars and clubs, Facebook role-playing groups have become a keystone in social interaction, providing us with ample distraction from the troubling world around us. The groups begin with a simple concept, a premise which everyone must follow. It may be that its the year 1453, that everyone is a middle-aged dad, or that everyone must speak gibberish and pretend to understand each other (that one is a personal favourite).The most popular of these groups is undoubtedly A group where we all pretend to be ants in an ant colony, which has now amassed almost 2 million members. Originating on Facebook in June 2019, the group gained significant momentum at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March and April, reaching 1.6 million members in May. It is now so popular that the group recently released its own ant-dedicated merch line, with profits going to a conservation organisation. Ant-related content floods the page, attracting hundreds of thousands of comments and likes on a daily basis.Following the success of this group, both old and new groups have been gaining members rapidly. While some groups seek to evoke a sense of nostalgia for childhood, encouraging members to pretend its 2007 again, others seek to encourage a particular type of communication, such as a group where you can only communicate in auto-complete or a group where we only talk like Raymond Holt. The majority, however, are built on pure stupidity, where people can only say egg, everyone gives you terrible advice, or everyone pretends to be pieces of bread. Upon entering the strange world of the role-playing Facebook group, ones first reaction is to ask why?. While it may seem ludicrous that adults are spending their time pretending to be ants on the Internet, these groups provide an innovative and safe environment to interact with other members, make connections with like-minded people, and have some good old-fashioned fun.The development of these online communities reflects the greater shift towards online communication and interaction that we have become accustomed to in a time of COVID-19. In contrast to how we might usually interact on Facebook, with only those who we know personally appearing on our feed, these groups make your feed much more unpredictable. Content from strangers appears frequently, almost mirroring the everyday ambiguous and interesting interactions that you would receive in a pre-COVID era.Built into these groups are a high level of moderation and extensive rules, reminding their members that even though they are hidden behind a screen, anything that wouldnt be acceptable in real-life interaction would not be acceptable in the groups either. Hate speech and highly politicised materials are removed as well. These rules provide a judgment-free zone to be silly and fantastical while being yourself, without the need to hide behind an avatar or a persona, like in most role-playing games.All in all, teamwork, a collective desire for escapism, and a sprinkle of childlike delight holds this little corner of the Internet together. Whether its the wild fantasy of being an ant in an ant colony or the nostalgia for the 2000s, the rise of the role-playing Facebook group is sure to provide all with their fair share of satirical humour and reinsert a sense of unpredictability back into their lives.As the world continues to ease back into face-to-face interactions and the seats at the bar slowly fill up, it is possible that these groups will begin to dissolve. In the future, perhaps they will be remembered as a part of the greater migration of interaction and community from the in-person to the virtual, alongside Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Tiktok. But while they are still fulfilling and abundant communities, they are reminders that we are all going through a shared experience of hardship and isolation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Earlier this year, I wrote an article about how you shouldnt learn a language at university. In it, I argued that while learning a language is an enriching intellectual endeavour, studying one at university probably wont make you fluent, so those thinking of doing it should go in with tempered expectations. Much of this was based on my own experience of studying Japanese at USyd. Never would I have guessed that this article would be the most controversial thing Ive ever written.This is such a poor take. Ive finished Japanese 2 and I have some ideas of how to express my daily thoughts pretty simply in Japanese one comment reads. A particularly angry reader even sent a letter to Honi warning them against posting one-sided articles like the one I had written as it would dissuade people from studying what theyre really passionate about. One comment that did stick with me though was from someone asking where else you would learn a language if not at university? Of course, immersion is the best way to go, but not everyone has the luxury of time or money to move to a different country for a year.So I took it upon myself to see if there was a better way to study a language. I decided to start learning French and promptly enrolled in classes at the Alliance Francaise. But given the lockdown which happened afterwards, I soon had no choice but to go with Duolingo. Much maligned as nothing more than a technological gimmick, I was initially skeptical of how useful it would be. Little did I know that it would soon become the only thing keeping me sane during lockdown. Like most people, I struggled to maintain any sort of routine while stuck at home. Duolingo was the only thing keeping any semblance of structure to my days. I would try to spend at least twenty minutes a day on it, give or take a little depending on how busy I was with my studies. Some days, caught in the depths of lockdown despair, I felt like I spoke more to Duo, the little green owl mascot, than I did to anyone else.More than 160 days have passed since I started learning French on Duolingo. I know because the app keeps a streak counter for everyday you complete a level on it. Though many people who have tried Duolingo report findingreport to finding it hard to stay motivated and continue learning, I had built up enough momentum around day 30 that I now feel anxious if I dont do my daily Duolingo. Not all of my motivation has been out of pure linguistic curiosity, admittedly. Sometimes the only thing compelling me to open up the app is the fear of losing my streak. Other times its the simple joy of seeing my name overtake others on the in-game leaderboard. Reflecting on this, I realise that Ive spent more time studying French on Duolingo in five5 months than I ever did in two years of studying Japanese at USyd. Had I taken the same consistent approach to my university language studies, I might have got more out of it.That said, there are parts to Duolingo that I genuinely prefer over in-class learning. The freedom to learn at your own pace, and the ability to get immediate feedback are obvious ones. More importantly, the underlying pedagogy it uses to teach languages suited my learning style much better. Traditional language learning often revolves around learning rules or vocabulary and then doing exercises so they stay in your memory. Children on the other hand learn their first languages very differently - they arent formally taught it, they just hear it so many times that it becomes second nature to them. Duolingo is somewhat similar to this. It doesnt give you much guidance in terms of grammar rules or vocabulary, and instead encourages you to develop an intuitive understanding of what they are yourself through repetition. After doing lots and lots of exercises, linguistic patterns become clear to you even though youve never actually learnt what they are. And because youve actually had to make these links yourself, theyre much harder to forget.So hows my French? Well, there are eight8 levels in Duolingo and Im about to start level 5. After doing a whole heap of online diagnostic tests, it seems that I wont have any problems passing the first level for the Diploma in French Language. This is around where I would be after a year of studying French at university. Of course, Duolingo still has its problems. Its not the best at fostering listening or speaking skills, and I dont think its possible to become fluent solely from using it. But for a free application, Id say its pretty impressive. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When one reads the word cult, all sorts of images immediately spring to mind. Maybe its occult symbols and men in long red robes, like youd find in Resident Evil 4. Perhaps its a Scientologist auditor, slowly drawing out experiences from past lives through intense and intruding interrogation. Or, specifically of the doomsday variety, its a crazed pastor auguring the downfall of human society to thousand of devoted fans and raptured listeners.Behind all of these disparate images, however, a few things remain consistent: some kind of conspiratorial ideology, a fervent devotion to membership, a well-developed hierarchy of roles and a clear collective goal of some kind. The 5 September 2020 cult, which originated on the internet late last year, has none of these features. In fact, its such an absurd and hilarious failure of a doomsday effort that it could hardly be called a cult at all. And its something that could only have originated from the silliness of Reddit.While the subreddit does seem to have some loose ties to real-world cultlike behaviour and a strange performance art project in Portland, Oregon revealed through investigative videos by YouTubers Nexpo and ReignBot the actual online space is anything but enigmatic. Navigate there now and youll find a webpage well and truly taken over by shitposters and 14-year-old memers trying their best to scrounge up a Gold award from their peers.Thats not to say that the cult never had dedicated followers at one point. Scroll back far enough and youll find all the fun and schizophrenic hallmarks of aggrandising doomsday paranoia. Photos of canned pineapples expiring on September 5? An email from a telephone company stating that there would be disruptions on September 5? QAnon-like rants about the global cabal kicking off the next world war on September 5?Yet, despite such fervour in the groups early days, truthers are all but an endangered species on the page these days. Any posts actually discussing doomsday are quickly shut down by an endless barrage of copypastas and nice cock bros.So, where did 5 September 2020 fail? For one, there is almost zero mythology or recognisable iconography that establish the cults identity. For a doomsday cult to have any kind of attractive power, it should at least provide a compelling narrative for why the world is ending at a particular time, preferably dressed up in kitschy graphic design la Heavens Gate. Not only is the landing page for the group objectively fugly, but there barely exists a backstory for the apocalypse that was supposed to happen last week. The most in-depth lore youll get are vague phrases like the man in blue flames or The Organisation is not to be trusted. Dig any deeper as to why the group formed in the first place, and youll hear roughly the same: that some dreams happened to coincide leading to an omen about last Saturday being filled with misfortune?One other reason 5 September 2020 was doomed to collapse is due to its lax hold on constituency. Being a public subreddit, any user can simply register an anonymous account and begin posting. Though there are rules against offensive and unrelated content listed in the subs sidebar, they are utterly unenforced due to a lack of moderation. The result? The subreddit now sits at almost 14,000 members, 85% of which are probably trolls jumping aboard what promises to be a hilarious trainwreck. Without a tightly controlled information stream, even those hypnotised by the promise of apocalypse will soon have to come to grips with the fact that their discussion page for survival tips and end-times portents is instead being used to share monke memes.But perhaps most embarrassingly of all, 5 September 2020 is a doomsday cult without a clear idea of what doomsday even looks like. In the sparse communications sent out by the groups de facto leaders, the sketch shifted from world-shattering apocalypse, to localised cataclysms across the United States, to the final admission early this year that the world was in fact not ending but rather many bad things will happen that day. What sorts of bad things? How bad? And how many? Who knows! Certainly not the members of 5 September, thats for sure.Thus, despite its lofty ambitions to connect those across the world that had received an omen in their dreams and create a tight-knit community of survivors, 5 September 2020 set itself up for failure from day one. Now that the heralded date has come and passed without so much as a stubbed toe for most, its safe to conclude that any believers still sticking around are probably thinking about abandoning ship, or selling off the thousands of dollars of survival gear theyve accrued in the past year.The lesson to be learned is this: in order to make a successful online doomsday cult, youre going to need a cool logo. Maybe hire Dave Rudnick to do some lettering for you, and commission Keith Rankin for some surrealist artwork. Next, set up a tiered list of roles, vaguely sci-fi sounding. The Elites do all the dreaming, and the Grunts do all the recruiting. Keep membership highly exclusive and locked behind an interview that participants must study for. Finally, market the hell out the apocalypse. Consider hiring an e-girl on TikTok to dance to your cults original hyperpop song. Youll get there.Art by Keith Rankin. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It is hard to deny that there is something soothing about the images of cosy, flower-covered cottages, home-made bread and hand-picked mushrooms that proliferate across cottagecore social media. I have always felt the appeal to this aesthetic; it evokes comforting memories of reading fairy books with my grandmother, watching Studio Ghibli films and dreaming of running away to the woods as a child. The shared desire many of us have for a stronger connection to nature and a simpler way of living speaks in some ways to an anti-capitalist sentiment, but the romanticisation of the pastoral has a darker political history which we should be vigilant of.Cottagecores fantasy of escaping to an idyllic life on a farm has roots in the cultural division of the urban and the rural. While the modern city has been constructed in discourse as a site of degeneracy and moral decay, rural life has been imagined as a more natural and wholesome way of living. This is a common right-wing dog whistle. Visions of national identity and traditional, patriarchal gender relations are often grounded in a mythology of the rural. This distinction is also heavily racialised; immigration to cities has been met with fears of the deterioration of the white race.Social media users who are sceptical of cottagecore have observed that those who uncritically embrace the aesthetic will often romanticise settler colonialism, many without realising it. In a Tumblr thread titled time to stop tagging cottagecore alongside solarpunk, one user observes that in anothers defense of cottagecore they regurgitate white supremacist talking points by equating rural life with a perfect past, glorifying the domestic role of women and insisting that it is wholesome by definition. This is just one of many examples where people have used cottagecores base of women and queer people as a shield from recognising its problems.A common criticism of cottagecore not only as an aesthetic but as a practice is that peoples attempts to live out the fantasy are connected to the legacy of homesteading and farming on stolen Indigenous land. In the United States, the Homestead Acts accelerated colonial expansion by providing an incentive for mostly white settlers to populate what was considered large empty spaces. Almost 10% of the total area of the US was given away by the government for free, which led to the coercion and forced displacement of Indigenous peoples from their lands and onto reservations. American settlers sought justification for genocide in the cultural belief of manifest destiny a moral mission to spread democracy and capitalism across the continent.Similarly, in so-called Australia, settlers attempts to dominate the harsh and unyielding bush has been mythologised as the essence of a national identity that is rugged, masculine and anti-authoritarian. In Fears and Fantasies: Modernity, Gender, and the Rural-Urban Divide, Kate Murphy writes that the glorification of the bushman was a projection from urban literary communities, bearing on settler anxieties that the failure of the population to spread itself across the rural landscape would put them at risk of invasion. While cottagecore conflicts with these masculine, patriotic myths by providing a fantasy of women and queer people in rural space, it is nevertheless a projection of the urban and carries with it the colonial assumption that land is up for grabs. An aesthetic that promotes a life of self-sufficiency in rejection of the city carries with it the danger of encroaching on Indigenous country when Traditional Owners arent consulted.A common response to these criticisms is that they dont apply in European nations which havent been colonised. Yet, the nostalgic romanticisation of an agrarian lifestyle also has historic associations with fascism. The parallels between the Nazi Blood and soil idealisation of rural values and the aesthetics of cottagecore has led to some startling cross-overs in online spaces. As one twitter user @thelucydoherty commented, I love cottagecore but I always have to check if Im reblogging from Nazis. Regardless of the left-wing political leanings that many of us who enjoy cottagecore might have, its similarities with the aesthetics of white supremacist propaganda is alarming. With the rising popularity of cottagecore accompanied by feelings of disgruntlement with modern life, some have expressed concern that Neo-Nazis are exploiting it as a recruitment base targeting people who already accept white, westernised beliefs about nature.Is it possible then, to separate cottagecore as an aesthetic from its ambivalent connections to the rural-urban divide which has been historically underpinned by white supremacy and colonialism? Ideology is effective because it doesnt always present itself as such; what might appear to be a wholesome utopian ideal can obscure a history of genocide, theft, and violence. For many who are fond of cottagecore, these horrors are a far cry from fields of flowers and gingham picnic blankets. Whether or not we choose to continue enjoying the aesthetic and Im not calling on anyone to pack away their floral cardigans into boxes it is important that we are aware of its historical precedents and how it might be weaponised by the far-right, particularly given the rise of eco-fascist rhetoric in recent years. Fighting for Indigenous liberation and being conscious of whose land we are on is something we should all strive to do and we must be open to criticism; lest we allow our escapist fantasies divert us from the important work of transforming reality. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Art by Prathra Nagpal.Miro Bilbrough is a New Zealand born writer, poet and filmmaker. Her new memoir, In the Time of the Manaroans, reflects on a distinct mythological milieu of the seventies, a self-adopted group of commune dwellers hailing from a small remote bay and farming community of Manaroa, New Zealand. The inspiration behind her 2003 film Floodhouse, she joined her father in isolated rurality at the delicate age of fifteen. The Back to Land movement and nature and nudity became part of her teenage years, alongside water from the Wakamarina River flooding the house where nature encroached so you could see the sky through chinks in the walls boards. It was a time and place now gone, distinct and extinct, Bilbrough remarks, but despite leaving the Manaroans, it is easy to see the tides of that time have stayed alive in Bilbroughs veins. She was eventually, albeit briefly, a Manaroan herself.Sarah Jasem: Youre a filmmaker, a published author and poet, teacher. Yet elsewhere you state quite simply, I am a filmmaker. I was wondering how do you navigate all of those identities, do they feel discrete at all?Miro Bilbrough: My spontaneous response to that would be that they all talk to each other, that they are all part of the same changing thing that is the self. Sometimes, its a case of needs must, or you find an idea that suits a certain medium, so you switch to that medium without even necessarily consciously thinking about it. The idea may present itself and its a poem, or it presents itself and its a memoir. Having said that, I did do a film that was very much like the precedent for the memoir.SJ: Floodhouse (2003)?MB: It was Floodhouse, yes. Its just a different way of skinning the same cat I would say the poet, the filmmaker, the memoirist, they are completely polymorphously perverse, theyre completely entwined with each other.SJ: You say that theres a back and forth in your work across different forms, a poetic dialogue. What are the topics of conversation you feel youve been having in this dialogue across your work and now in In the time of the Manaroans?MB: I think if I too clearly identified that conversation, and was too conscious and analytical about it, I would no longer be interested in it. I am fascinated by mysteries, incompleteness, things that are only semi-visible, contradictory or paradoxical, and that sounds abstract but its not. Its the way I encounter experiencing other people. So, a lot of my work is nutting out and not arriving at answers, but enjoying immersing myself in complications, the unknown, other people- because other people are always the unknown and aspects of the self. Irrational behaviors and inconsistencies. As soon as a position is identified or something is clearly articulated and resolved, I cant really work there. Theres no work for me to do.SJ: I can see that within some of the imagery in your films. Theres a lot of imagery of women coming in and out of murky water, being submerged into an unknown deep.MB: Yes, that makes sense. Immersion and the unknown- thats the emotional world. By the time I left University in the eighties, where postmodernism was at its height, I felt embarrassed by having an emotional life, where to make a narrative that was fired by strong emotions was somehow a shameful thing to do. However, there was a point in the late eighties where I acknowledged that the audience was largely in the cinema for the emotional experience. Reintegrating that knowledge enabled me to start my working life as an artist. Having complex or powerful feelings to work on wont give you a narrative, wont help you technically, but it gives you something that can hopefully stay alive, something you can keep making contact with, even though its ephemeral, for the lifetime of you making the work.. Identifying that material that you have emotional stakes in, thats a big deal. It doesnt come around that often for me, so I wouldnt say that Im super prolific, because its like coal, it must have some heat in it to last. To make a feature film that lasts for seven years for example, so you need to be able to keep fanning the flames. We have moved from water to fire weirdly!SJ: In your work you focus a lot on travel.What made you want to travel back to that part of your life in the seventies, and why now?MB: The simple origin of this book was as a palate cleanser. I came out of finishing a creative Doctorate of Arts, so I had just written a 30,000 word exegesis. Its a highly circumscribed space, language and series of protocols which I struggled to write within, I think as nearly everyone does. I came from a background as a creative writer, so there was a bit of a pressure cooker environment for me, in that my relationship to language was really under fire. When I came out of it, I think I just craved an open space to write in again, where I was deciding and regaining my language, whatever that might be. I probably wrote 10,000 words in a week. I have periods where I work within institutions, so by the time I get to go back to my work, Im so desperate to make it that I dont arse around . I said to my partner, coming out of the doctorate, Im not going to be anybodys bitch. I was unemployable, stone broke, and suddenly felt rebellious. I didnt want to apply for money, I didnt want permission. It was probably quite an angry phase? Which was great, because it was energizing, to discharge it all after pushing right to the edge of myself, working obsessively to get it done. It was a cleanse.SJ: Like a pent up desperation to start something new.MB: Exactly, except the desperation stops as soon as I start again, then its quite joyful really. I just sat down and just started writing the first pages of the book, which are still the first pages. It turned out to be a piece about my father, going to live with him at fifteen years old. I havent really analysed why. If we are living in a fast time now, it was a slow time then, pre-digital, pre-internet My family all cohabited while living very intensely in our heads, inside a space which allowed us to do that, which was kind of a blessing and a hell. It always is, when youre inside your head, especially at fifteen. My dad was just newly divorced, so he was inside his head and my sister had just come to live with him as a child of separated parents, so we all had a lot to process. I also felt that when I wrote Floodhouse, there was a lot of unfinished business. I also started writing just before the whole #MeToo phenomena erupted, and as early as 2007 I remember always being in film schools with women and girls under twenty who were leaving home and suddenly negotiating their sexuality. II wanted to speak about it the trials, the missteps, the traps and the exploiters, filtered through my own experience. That strong impulse had been accruing delicately, subliminally in the back of my mind and it was ready. You dont have a lot of say in that.SJ: In your films, your characters live in nature with creatures alike. Theres a creature in Floodhouse that flutters within a windowpane, the moth. In Virginia Woolfs, On the death of the moth, she views the moths activities with a simple kind of pity. Would you say you view your characters with pity or empathy?MB: I hope not pity. To me, pity implies superiority to the characters. I prefer the word empathy. I think writing out of pity is problematic. Empathy thats the writers job, unless youre writing satire. Thats how you get to attempt to occupy anothers perspective and get under their skin. With pity, youll collude with them and be blind to their complicity and their flaws.SJ: How did you turn that empathy onto yourself?MB: Its always very hard to write yourself as a character. Often my characters are an eye on a scene, a witness, and maybe thats the artists character, Im not sure. You have to occupy all your characters at some point to write anything that comes out of their mouth Once, a woman in the audience in Heidelberg, Germany, said the men in your films are all like colorful birds. Theyre exotics, they have no truth to them! I, of course, bridled at the time, but she was possibly pointing out that they werent as occupied. Maybe they were support characters.SJ: Its interesting that you lived in a state of freedom surrounded by nudity and nature, but at the same time, it was hard to negotiate your sexuality as a young girl.MB: It was still patriarchal. The hippie movement wasnt necessarily feminist. Although there were plenty of strong women around asserting their point of view, there was plenty of sexism too. Those paradoxes are always at work. I think whenever you get a tribe or a group of people strongly espousing one value or set of values, theres usually going to be a subtext or an unconscious area that might be in defiance of the conscious position. I was also a child amongst adults, so negotiating sexuality in a world where everyones older than you is problematic. It was a libertarian kind of set up. Everyone was reluctant to enforce rules or laws, so in that dismantling of decorum, taboo and etiquette, invariably some of it backfires. There were women living on the commune who were more consciously influenced by American seventies feminism, but I wouldnt say that was the governing ethos. Its kind of complicated.SJ: I guess in reading the book we can experience the complexities at play.MB: Yes, and the book, its definitely not an essay. Its a series of portraits, and a self-portrait running under that, often quite indirectly.SJ: Its amazing that the place you left at fifteen had such an impact on your life.MB: I think that probably anyone that lived at Manaroa feels like that. It functioned almost outside of a monetary economy, because of its isolation, which meant we were actually very poor. A cultural anomaly. Theres been nothing like it for me since and nor was there before, right down to the music that was played and the weather.SJ: What would you suggest to students who want to have autonomy over their own creative life, in this digital era when there is already so much out there?MB: Getting it out in the world is hard but first and foremost, you make creative autonomy in the relationship between you and your materials. Investigate, find it, play, have fun. Some of the most pleasure I have in life is rubbing words together on the page and thats total creative autonomy there. Getting published is another matter, but I always believe that you should make work for yourself first, invisibly. In the early days of my film career, I found the right people and I think that enabled me to make the work I wanted to make.In the Time of the Manaroans is available by ordering from your local bookshop, FROM Gleebooks and Victoria University Press from the 10th September in New Zealand, and shortly after in Australia. (Bilbrough suggests Bob Dylans albums Blood on the Tracks, and Desire, as the unofficial soundtrack to the memoir.) <|endtext|> <|starttext|> BTS latest single Dynamite a glittering funk fiasco released August 21 marks the septets second record-breaking release this year since Marchs album Map of the Soul: 7. The group currently dubbed the biggest boyband in the world became the first Korean act to top the Billboard Hot100 songs chart on September 1, outselling the next 49 songs in America combined with the charts biggest first-week debut in 3 years. But Dynamite is also BTS only all-English release, sparking controversy, not for the first time, over whether the group has been Westernised by their global fame.I believe that, far from conforming to the standards of Western pop, Dynamite consolidates BTS status as a global cultural phenomenon.Dynamite is a serotonin boost in music video form. Think 70s flare pants and pastel diners, 90s streetwear and choreography reminiscent of Michael Jacksons Billie Jean. Though Dynamite has no singular visual style, era, or musical genre it pays tribute to, the message is clear; as darkness looms, we must resist by light(ing) it up like dynamite.For the group, whose main message, if at all condensable, is one of authenticity and resistance; Dynamite may just be a quintessential BTS song. (At least, since they began dishing out brighter, poppy-er title tracks with 2017s DNA). Thats with one exception; it contains no Korean.But for BTS, so-called Western validation competitiveness in the American pop market as a measure of success has never been the objective. Originating from a small, previously bankrupt company outside K-pops Big 3 (YG, SM, and JYP), the rise of BTS has triggered a shift in the K-pop industry. More than music in Korean, K-pop was born with 1992 act Seo Taiji and the Boys, the first to combine hip-hop and youth-focused political messaging with Korean popular music.Yet throughout the 2000s, K-pop metamorphosed into an assembly-line of staggeringly high-quality performance, glossy aesthetics, and in-house musical production style, as entertainment companies trained and produced idols.Debuting in 2013, BTS, though undeniably a product of this industry, diverged by writing most of their own song lyrics encoded with socially conscious and political messages, like 2017-18s Love Yourself series, actively using social media, and talking openly about their struggles instead of maintaining a polished image. The comparison to K-pops fathers is hardly imagined; the group covered and even performed with Seo Taiji in 2018.Credit to this organic ascension, BTS have refused to create English music to appease a Western market in recent years; We dont want to change our identity or our genuineness to get the number one, said leader RM in a 2019 interview when the topic was raised.Whilst Dynamite surprised followers of BTS, English lyrics simply fit the melody a little bit better, member V explained at the recent press conference. Dynamite is a song that can lift anyones spirits, added Jimin.Id add that, rather than compromising BTS identity or cultural impact, Dynamite symbolises their semiotic disruption of the Western pop industry.In Dynamites first scene, main vocalist Jungkook dance-improvs in denim-on-denim around a bedroom plastered with the Beatles and David Bowie posters, like the star of an 80s American drama. Shooting the camera a cocky side-eye, he sings, King Kong, kick the drum, rolling onlikeaRolling Stone.Dynamite exudes Western retro-revival. One Forbes article says its crafted specifically to be a chart-topper. Yet its also, undeniably, K-pop. From perfectly synchronised choreography, to designer-brand outfits and infectious melodic hooks, to looks that transcend the aesthetic binaries of masculinity and femininity still dominant in Western pop, Dynamite is no exception to K-pop standards.But the singles successes also represent the emergence of a new cultural identity unique to BTS, who sold out Wembley stadium last year (one of only 10 artists to ever do so the only in 90 minutes), and matched a feat achieved by only the Beatles and the Monkees when album Map of the Soul: Persona became their third in a year to top the Billboard 200.Throughout their seven-year career BTS have consistently decontextualized and fused cultural content. Rather than devaluing cultures, this task equalises them. Adapting texts and styles from Western canon while consciously rewriting the metanarratives embedded within them is a prominent part of BTS artistry.Dynamites disco sound, for instance, actually originates from the 70s American disco subculture formed of Black, Latino and LGBTQIA+ people. Its not the first BTS song to reference elsewhere; 2016s Blood Sweat & Tears video mixes biblical imagery with Hesses 1970 novel Demian. 2019s hip-hop hype track Dionysus pays tribute to the Greek god of wine and festivity while referencing Korean folk song Ongheya.In fact, reworking elements of Korean culture is something BTS have done since debut, from older songs like Paldogangsan and Baepsae, to 2020s Daecwhita, or 2018s IDOL. In IDOL, BTS wear gat and modernised hanbok (traditional Korean dress-wear), and weave in elements of traditional korean culture, like ulsoo () , an expression encoding joy originating from traditional pansori performance. As academic Sujeong Kim has stated that it is not because the Korean-style attraction helps spur the popularity of BTS but because BTS popularity helps spur the Korean-style attraction.BTS was awarded a fifth-class cultural merit by South Koreas president in 2018 for spreading Korean culture to the world the only K-pop act to receive such.Like Dynamites English lyrics, this re-contextualisation of Korean and Western traditions displaces the power hierarchies and divisions that have long defined East-West cultural interactions.Rather than be recognized as the rise of a genre or the rise of K-pop as a genre, I would like more talented Korean artists to be better known around the world, said Member SUGA in a 2019 Grammy interview, alluding to generalisations and stigmas surrounding the K-pop world.Whats more, BTS proves not only the commercial success of this task, but how soft power can re-focalise Eurocentric lenses of globalisation and capitalism through legions of devoted fans.A 2018 report found that 1in 13 tourists come to South Korea because of BTS roughly 800, 000 people. BTS accounts for $4.65 billion of South Koreas GDP, putting them in the same league as Samsung and Hyundai.Riedel also writes, K-Pop shows that not everything related to globalization is about homogenization or Americanization, as social media adjusts the tastes of global fans.Many argue BTS success should be treated separately from K-pop due to their divergence from industry norms. But answering such a question becomes difficult when those norms are shifting in real-time, as producers seek to mirror BTS global popularity and the industry recognises the consolidation of a new idol image. New groups including ITZY and Stray Kids are pushing songs about self-love and personal struggles and there is more artist involvement in songwriting.However, its safe to say the septet, with their new world records, remain untouchable for now in their pastel-hued bubble of flashing disco lights.Dynamite, despite being an all-English song, is just the next step in BTSs journey. As they rewrite Western pop-cultural history, other K-pop acts will likely follow in their footsteps. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Anyone who has gone too far down a YouTube rabbit hole of Japanese reality show clips might have found themselves staring into an abyss of human suffering. In one prank show, unsuspecting victims are ushered into an elevator only for the floor to give way, with victims falling down a slide as a studio audience howls with laughter. Victims screaming faces as they plunge to (what they believe will be) their deaths are shown in slow motion for the audiences delight. In another clip, a woman dressed as a yrei slowly emerges from the ceiling as men shower. Hilarity ensues. In a third, victims walking down the street suddenly find themselves in the middle of two armed gangs charging towards one another, and again must face the reality of their (perceived) impending death.*Of course, that observation is not limited to reality television shows hailing from Japan. As a genre, reality shows trade in the small grotesqueries of human life: mean girls, humiliating challenges, and unhinged judges living out sadistic fantasies as they sample participants Hollandaise sauce.And those cruelties have given rise to a not insignificant body of case law in some countries. In 2019, a landmark NSW Workers Compensation Commission ruling found that the reality show House Rules must pay compensation to a contestant who had suffered depression after being framed as the shows villain. In the US, so many people sought to claim damages in tort a legal action against another person for damages done to your body, income or emotional well-being have forced shows such as Jackass off air. Indeed, as law students will know the founding case for the action wilful infliction of nervous shock (the only available tort action for emotional harm in Australia, where you must prove psychiatric injury) involves a prank gone awry.**Assuming they are real then,*** Japanese prank shows are something of a novelty. Whereas most participants in reality shows will be asked to sign forms releasing the show from liability in the case of injury, the premise of a prank show is that the victim doesnt know whats coming. The show, therefore, has less opportunity to protect themselves.In some jurisdictions like the US claimants would have an action for intentionally inflicted emotional distress. Indeed, the decline of American pranks shows like Scare Tactics and Punkd appears in large part due to the costs of prank victims bringing lawsuits, many of which are likely settled out of court. Such expenses discourage companies from insuring such shows, meaning many cannot go ahead at all.Though in Japan such actions exist in theory, the potential payouts are often prohibitively low for claimants. Compared to Australia or the US, judges in Japan have a far wider discretion in ordering payouts for damages in tort. Payouts generally are much lower, with claims for defamation which frequently sees damages orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars in other jurisdictions averaging at around $1 million JPY ($13,000 AUD).Given generally lower damages, and wide discretion from judges, lawyers are discouraged from pursuing claims for emotional distress. With less claims being brought, there is less clarity on the standards that must be met to prove such claims, placing heavy burdens on lawyers to prove them. This creates a vicious cycle of low damages orders for emotional distress, economist Osamu Saito argues. [B]ecause judges can freely determine the amount lawyers do not know if their request is going to be granted even if they advocate for it, and even if their request is granted the amount is usually low and the burden on the lawyer is very heavy, therefore, they do not press for the emotional pains of the victim too strongly, and because of that their understanding of this type of pain diminishes, as a result the amount in non-economic losses cases has stayed low, Saito writes.Ultimately, a system that privileges the mental or emotional well-being of individuals is simply incompatible with good prank shows. Does this mean we should rehaul our tort law regime? Probably not. Should we nevertheless be thankful that there are still safe havens for extreme pranking, made accessible in the internets ether? Definitely.* Not directly relevant to this article, but always worth mentioning, is also Orgasm Wars, where gay porn performers are challenged to make consenting straight porn performers ejaculate within 40 minutes.** Wilkinson v Downton involved a man pranking a woman by telling her that her husband was lying in the street with his legs broken. The facts of the case state her hair turned white, she vomited, and she went into nervous shock. Some chicks just cant take a joke!*** If they are not this entire article is pointless and wrong. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Tropical Fuck Storm (TFS) have been busy. Theyve released three songs since May, including a cover of an Australian punk-rock classic with Amy Taylor of Amyl and the Sniffers. We had a chat with band member Gareth Liddiard after the release of their latest single, Legal Ghost.Madeline Ward: Youve likened Tropical Fuck Storm to your pre-Drones project, Bong Odyssey, in terms of how out there they both are or were. Would you say that TFS has allowed you to get in touch with a more unhinged side of your creativity that you had reined in after the Bong Odyssey days?Gareth Liddiard: Sure, I mean, with the Bong Odyssey stuff, we moved from Perth to Melbourne, and we had to sell all of our mad gear, cause we had all sorts of wacky synths and drum machines and stuff. The sort of stuff that costs a lot of money now; its all vintage now so it costs heaps, but back then it was all seen as crap so we could buy it at Cash Converters for $50. But then we had to ditch all that stuff, and when we got to Melbourne, we only had guitars, and the only pub that would have us was the Tote, so we kind of became a guitar band by default, but we were never really that. I mean, we could do it, but we were kind of always weirder. It was like fucking 15 years of being a sort of what I kind of think of as a normal guitar band, so the TFS thing has been great, cause we can just do whatever we want. We just go silly.MW: TFS has been quite prolific with its output thus far. Have the lockdowns afforded you extra time to spend writing or recording, or was this pace and length of this process pretty standard for you guys?GL: Not really, cause the whole Victorian thing, weve gone to Stage 4, so its been a drag. Me and Fiona live in central Victoria, and Erica lives in Melbourne, and [Laura] lives in Castlemaine with her girlfriend, so its hard to get everyone in the same place legally. Its actually been a real pain in the arse.MW: Thats really incredible that youve managed to put out so much stuff despite fighting against those lockdowns and those restrictions.GL: Yeah, whenever theres a window, well do it. Basically, what we do is we just end up getting hammered; getting really drunk and wasted, because were all sort of party animals. And then somehow we manage to record shit while we do that.MW: Youve covered the Saints song This Perfect Day with Amy Taylor I cant help but feel theres a parallel between the music of the Saints, recorded under the Bjelke Peterson regime in the 70s in Queensland, and punk under our current political climate, with the introduction of anti-protest laws and the heightening of police powers country wide. Is this something you were considering when you decided to cover this track?GL: It would be both. It still sounds really fresh their first two albums were just so energised, and its freaky that they were doing that in isolation in England and New York. It was definitely the Bjelke thing that put a rock up their arse. But its great, people like Amy and her band. Shes like 22, Im fuckin 44, but shes the first Australian that has been good for fuckin 20 years, you know what I mean? Like, shes fuckin amazing, she just goes berserk. Were all a bit older, but shes definitely well shes just freaked out about it all. Like, shit, I mean all the Black Lives Matter stuff, and the cops, and the madness thats ensuing. So it made sense, cause she just came up to hang while we were recording and it kind of made sense just to throw her the mic and get her out for that, cause shes totally energised.MW: I think shes pretty incredible just in terms of bringing Australian punk back up into the mainstream. Like, shes done campaigns for Gucci and shit, which is pretty fucking huge.GL: Yeah, worldwide.MW: Yeah, its massive.GL: But shes really smart. Shes not stupid, and she is what she seems like she is, which is hilarious. Shes kind of Mullumbimby bogan, you know what I mean? Shes not pretending. But then, shes super sharp when it comes to the biz side of stuff. Shes awesome.MW: I found it super interesting because I really admire what Amyl and the Sniffers do based on I hate to revert to identity politics in this way having a female-fronted punk band. On its own, its really fucking cool. But then beyond that fact, shes so unafraid to just get on stage and howl and scream and growl.GL: Thats what I think too. Shes not self-conscious, and shes really talented, but at the same time shes been lucky enough to be born at a time when she can do that without giving much of a fuck, you know? Doing that 20 years ago would have been hard, and doing that 40 years ago would have been twice as hard. Shes just born for this time; she was made for this time. Shes just this weird punk rock Dolly Parton machine.MW: Thats a great way to describe her: punk rock Dolly Parton machine. Thats fantastic.GL: From Mullumbimby.MW: From Mullumbimby, of all places. So, In an interview with NME you said the the concept behind Suburbophobia questioning whether these suicide cults where onto something was timely not cause of the cult thing but because its probably a good time to leave the planet. I was wondering if this is in some sense in dialogue with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards eco-thrash Mars for the Rich? Mars for the Privileged, Earth for the PoorGL: Its like a zeitgeist thing, I guess. Which is cool, cause zeitgeists only come around every 20 or 30 years. So theyre on the same wavelength. Their Mars for the Rich thing is about dudes like Elon Musk, that sort of privilege. What were doing is more, you know, QAnon and all that weird online cult conspiracy stuff. Everybody just believes shit that is not founded in reality at all, and everyones just ready to hoover up bullshit, carte blanche. So rather than getting up there with a song and say thats bad, it gives us a laugh to go Well, why dont we say its good? Theyre dead and gone, theyre probably wrong, but maybe they were right. The Jonestown suicides: maybe they all did go and land on the beautiful planet out there in the universe, and live happily ever after. Who knows? Its highly unlikely, but I dont know, it just seemed like a more subversive way to write about whats going on than just condemning it.MW: I think theres a lot of public discourse where a lot of Australian influencers and celebrities are starting to jump aboard this conspiracy theory trend. You have Pete Evans coming out about like every conspiracy theory under the sun, because hes a fruit loop. But then youve also got people like Ziggy Alberts, who was, until recently, quite an acclaimed musician, releasing anti-vax beliefs my original question was: is this a theme that the band will continue to pursue? But I think youve answered that, it sounds like youre going to.GL: Yeah, its just around. All that shits around. I tend to just write about whats out there, and so does Fi, and so does Erica. This shit is just everywhere. You cant get away from it. You cant pick up your phone without [seeing] more weird QAnon shit; more Trump stuff. We actually played at the venue the one where Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Oprah were meant to have a paedophile ring at, that pizza joint. Its called Comet Ping Pong.MW: Do they lean into their conspiracy theory?GL: No, they hate it, cause the guy came in with a semi-automatic one day and shot the place up but he was such an idiot he didnt hit anyone, luckily and demanded to see the basement. This torture basement, where they did all this paedophile stuff. Theyre just like, Dude, we dont have a fuckin basement. But he said that classic conspiracy thing where he sort of said, Well, prove you dont. Youse had to prove you did something, now you have to prove you havent done it. Which is impossible.MW: Is that why you guys entertain these kinds of ideas in a lyrical sense? Because theyre so ridiculous that its almost as though they dont really need to be debunked, its more fun to just make fun of them in that way?GL: Yeah, its like old-school stuff like Dead Kennedys, where they would just mock, rather than being serious. If you were railing against everything in a really earnest, serious way all the time, youd end up shooting yourself, youd be so depressed. So laughing at it, while kicking it away, is probably the survivable way of railing against it.MW: Legal Ghost and its B-Side, Heaven, are both songs [that are] quite concerned with mortality you wrote Legal Ghost in the 90s, and Heaven is a Talking Heads song from 79. Do you feel that re-recording both of these songs in a time where we are constantly confronted with death and dying, both due to coronavirus and the American imperial war machine that Talking Heads song was released in a time of pretty huge political upheaval, and now were experiencing that again do you feel like that maybe changed their meaning in a way?GL: It certainly did with the Talking Heads one, because thats like: Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.MW: Its a pretty fucking depressing song.GL: It really is, but before all this COVID stuff; before the whole world ground to a halt [David Byrne] was, the way I see it, kind of saying: If you want a utopia or a heaven, its just gonna be dull. Heaven is a place where nothing happens, so its better to be dissatisfied than bored out of your mind. But then, with the COVID thing, suddenly nothings happened or something is actually happening, theres an unprecedented worldwide crisis, and now I sort of wish nothing was happening, that wed just go back to boring old normal, because that would be better. Its almost like the meaning of the song reversed itself completely, 180 degrees. Legal Ghost, as well thats written about a couple of people I knew who we lived with who died. They were never gonna get far, they were just drug addicts, and even before they were dead you could tell. No matter how much you try, there was nothing anyone could do. Its a song about the walking dead, or something like that. For some reason, I just thought playing with the girls, with their great singing and shit like that, I just thought, fuck, these guys could kill this if I let them have a go at it.MW: Not that I dont love your vocals also, but it is really nice to hear their voices come through, particularly with Suburbiopia.GL: Well do way more too. Its kind of been a process of me going come on, just go. If you guys wanna sing stuff, just sing it. Cause they do anyway if theyre not playing with me. So I think theyre getting more easy with it, cause Im fuckin 20 years-deep into a music career and Im sick to fuckin death of my voice. You know what I mean? [In a comically throaty singing voice] La la la la la.MW: With The Drones being such a huge band, and with your voice being so distinctive and your singing style being so distinctive, do you find, sometimes, its really hard to escape those Drones comparisons? Which I have obviously done in this interview.GL: Thats fair enough. Yeah, I do. Im not a good singer, but Im good at dramatics. I wish I had a superb 6-octave range, or something like that. But I dont, so I have to deal with it. I feel like Im a guitar player, mainly, who twiddles with other equipment as well, and experiments. But then I have to sing, cause no one else will. So now, with Erica and with Fi, Im just like, Cool! Alright, you fuckin sing this. Yeah, its really nice. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Cultural safety, cultural competence, higher morbidity and mortality rates, lower life expectancy, closing the gap.These are the words which buzz around the room of the NURS6033 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health unit, a mandatory final year nursing class.Throughout my nursing degree, I have heard healthcare students continually express that issues relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health are often taught tokenistically that although they are aware of what cultural competency is, defined by The University of Sydney as the ability to participate ethically and effectively in personal and intercultural settings and collaborate across cultural boundaries, students feel confused and discouraged to implement it. They feel that they will fail before they have a chance to practice these concepts, due to an inadequate education that is stiffened and enshrouded by the exclusive sandstone University environment.The University is an institution which is failing to include First Nations people. Only 360 students in 2019, out of over 60,000, identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in 2019, and only 1.02% of the staff across 15 faculties. In fact, The University of Sydneys 2019 Annual Report showed a decrease of 8% in students who identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders compared to the year before.In all my classes, First Nations people have been discussed at length, but there has not been representation of even one student in the room to advocate for themselves. Amongst students within this exclusionary environment, despite the best efforts of tutors, there is likely some guilt, shame, and possibly bewilderment as a result of this lack of genuine consultation.Indigenous health topics at USyd are taught through a narrative of lack and disadvantage our perceptions of First Nations people are shaped to highlight lower life expectancy, chronic illnesses, and exclusion under oppressive government policies. Meanwhile, First Nations different ways of healthcare, meanings of wellness, mental health and health practices are brushed over. Students are thus only taught how to be culturally competent if First Nations people interact with the NSW healthcare system, a system which has and continues to neglect First Nations people, and told to be culturally competent whilst not affording weight to First Nations cultures, and ways of practicing and maintaining health, wellness and mental health which is not dependent on the Australian healthcare system. The result is an uncomfortable settling of dust that no one is equipped to wipe off. In the case of university health subjects, the emphasis on First Nations peoples illness, and how healthcare professionals are only taught to be culturally competent within the hospital environment, relegates First Nations people not only to the sick role with a lack of agency, but as only valid through interaction with dominant institutions which have been, and continue to be, insensitive to First Nations cultures. The unit seems to be a tacked-on afterthought rather than something which is truly incorporated into every aspect of ways of understanding health. Students have also criticised the First Nations healthcare subjects as generalistic and uninformed, with some students even criticising staff for using prejudicial language, and perpetuating colonial narratives and racism, such as by insinuating that the Aboriginal Medical Service is based off the public health model, rather than predating it.Whilst it should not fall upon any person to have to represent an entire population with a diversity of ways of being, knowing, and practicing cultures, the lack of First Nations people in the room is reminiscent of Closing the Gap government policies, which have also denied leadership to Indigenous communities. This denial of participation in decisions meant to foster autonomy has contrastingly created policies whose objectives are only equitable for First Nations people found to be participating within socio-cultural standards set by white Australian, default culture.Indigenous health subjects at University unfortunately remain insular and are held to no accountability other than the complaints of a few non-First Nations students. Even this article is struggling to go beyond the breadths of there being something unsettlingly, deeply and institutionally skewed. It begs the question of who these units are meant to empower, and whether they serve any purpose other than a badge of lip service by the institutions who run it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres a tension in the idea of the modern university, between the essentially borderless nature of knowledge production, and the rival claim that universities should serve the national interest. This is a view that requires universities to conform to the policy priorities including foreign policy priorities of politicians. Taken to its logical conclusion, it requires universities to have friends and enemies.Theres been a tug of war going on here since the Middle Ages, and universities have been losing it of late.Having long been encouraged to internationalise and seek alternative sources of funding to make up for government cuts, universities have become deeply engaged with China in the last two decades. Theyre now bearing the brunt of a political climate that casts suspicion on such ties.There has been grumbling from the sector about this: not all administrators are happy with the encroachment of Australias security agencies into university affairs. Nevertheless, they are falling into line to demonstrate their willing compliance with the new discourse of foreign interference risks.This was highlighted recently in reports that the University of Sydney hired private consultant John Garnaut to conduct an audit of the Universitys engagement with China.While a journalist, Garnaut was responsible for such sensational stories as Chinese Spies at Sydney University in 2014. As prime ministerial advisor in 2017 he influenced Malcolm Turnbulls turn towards confrontation with China, the centrepiece of which was a suite of new security laws. He is now a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the think-tank most responsible for hyping threats from the PRC.In commissioning this audit (of unknown cost), it seems that the University may have singled out certain of its staff for special scrutiny: either those of PRC background, or those who collaborate with the PRC. Were entitled to ask: which was it, and why?The University also needs to clarify what this audit was looking for. For some time, ASPI has been pushing exaggerated narratives of PRC interference via recruitment programs such as the 1000 Talents plan. In 2020, Sharri Markson picked up on these ASPI reports to splash the names and faces of Australian academics across the pages of The Australian, citing the director of the FBI to brand the program economic espionage.The University presumably abhors such public targeting of scholars, but it is a predictable outcome of todays scare campaign towards China. If the Universitys approach to foreign interference is to be dictated by foreign policy partisanship that positions the PRC as an enemy, it puts its Chinese staff at risk of future such attacks.As the brewing new Cold War with China reshapes the university environment, theres a lesson we can take from the first one. As much as McCarthyism is associated with the paranoia of one politician, most of the damage to lives and reputations in that period was done by universities preemptively capitulating and policing themselves to show loyalty to the policy imperatives of the day. Were not there yet, but there are trends in the current climate pointing in this direction, and they need to be resisted.Dr David Brophy is a Senior Lecturer in Modern Chinese History. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On Tuesday, the 4th of May, the Academic Board will vote on the Academic Calendar for 2022-2026. The Board will have to choose between either a 12 week semester, or a substantially altered 13 week semester, in which the 13th week has no new content or substantive teaching. Theres nothing new about this proposal. Its been defeated twice before at the Academic Board (in 2017 and again in 2020), and universities like ANU have only been recent adopters. But when it comes to 12 week semesters, one thing is clear: its a bad idea.Its hard to be a student in 2021. Students these days work long hours in casualised jobs to support themselves. Many students face structural barriers that prevent them from fully participating in university such as being Indigenous, being first in family, being working class or having a disability. Since the passage of the Job-ready Graduates Bill in 2020, students are also paying higher fees and can be summarily kicked off their Commonwealth Supported Place if they dont pass 50% of their units in a given year. To top off all of this, students just dont have much time or energy to dedicate exclusively to their study.All of these problems are simply going to be made worse by a shorter semester. A shorter semester means that students have less time to dedicate to their studies. In many disciplines, it would be totally unsound to reduce the amount of content or assessment, which means that students will need to do the same amount of work in less time. This is going to greatly affect students mental health, worsen their stress levels and increase the likelihood of them failing their units. The proposal argues that a 12 week semester would remove the light introductory course guidance weeks, but it is these weeks that are essential for students to get acquainted with their study. An extra week in the semester also helps students catch up with missed work, which is essential in particularly demanding courses and disciplines. With a shorter semester, students will also be paying more money for less time, an outcome that is especially problematic for full-fee paying international students.12 week semesters are also bad news for academic staff. Staff are going to see more intense workloads if this proposal passes. More assessments and more content are going to be crammed into less time, which means more teaching, more marking and less time to prepare for classes. If staff want to reduce their workload, theyre going to have to reduce the content they teach, or reduce the amount of assessment. In many courses, this is simply untenable. Similarly for casual staff, one less week of semester means one less week of teaching income and a similar increase in workload.All of these concerns have been empirically verified. In a recent survey carried out by the SRC, 93% of undergraduate students preferred 13 week semesters to 12 week semesters. Similar results were reflected in a survey carried out by SUPRA. Students expressed that a reduction of the semester length would hurt them in a number of ways. Many students were concerned about workload, increasing fees and greater stress.The proposal for 12 week semesters offers few tangible benefits. The proposal claims to allow for greater intensive teaching in the summer and winter breaks. However, there is no reason why increasing the number of intensives cannot happen in the current semester structure. For every student who benefits from increased intensives, there are also many more who are totally ambivalent to them.Increased intensives also make life much more difficult for professional staff. As previously argued by Grant Wheeler from the CPSU, some intensives start in January, forcing the Student Centre to expedite results processes from the preceding semester. This is a serious problem for international students, who may face visa problems if they cannot enrol in intensives on time and meet their mandatory study requirements. This increased stress is borne by staff in the Student Centre.Its not worth sacrificing our semesters in the name of increased intensives. On the 4th of May, Im going to vote in favour of maintaining a 13 week semester. I encourage all other members of the Academic Board to do the same.Swapnik Sanagavarapu is the President of the University of Sydneys Student Representative Council. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last year, as a result of the pandemic, we trialled a 17-week academic calendar during Semester 2 (with 12 weeks of scheduled classes).The trial was successful, despite the challenges created by COVID-19: both student satisfaction of units and student performance were positive and higher than the year before.It showed our students are able to have an effective learning experience and achieve good academic outcomes over a 12-contact week semester. This is not surprising, given it is already the more common semester structure at other Australian universities.Were now asking the Academic Board to consider making this change permanent from 2023 and to adopt additional changes that respond directly to extensive student and staff feedback on the proposal.Feedback on improved orientation, welcome and preparation for units of study was very positive. This aligns with our ongoing efforts to improve students experience of transition to the University. We therefore propose to make this change irrespective of semester length, as we also work to make better use of online resources, offer interactive face-to-face learning experiences, provide better in-time academic support through the new Learning Hub, ensure more even workloads across the semester and avoid excessive assessment. These approaches best support the success of all students.We dont expect any substantial impact on the volume of student work or course content, but what is on offer is more opportunity for intensive teaching between semesters for those who want it. The format also supports the distinctive experiential forms of learning we have here at Sydney such as internships, placements and projects, multidisciplinary learning, and learning experiences involving travel and cross-university collaboration as well as any other commitments students might have.Flexibility for the professional disciplines with unique start and finish dates for semesters will continue to be provided.The proposal also commits to avoiding any substantial workload implications for staff.For academic staff, the recommended semester model provides more time for activities that normally take place between semesters. It allows all staff to complete the array of academic and administrative requirements between the main semesters including finalising results and enrolments.Were also proposing to offer up to three hours of relevant paid professional learning for any impacted casual academic staff members, supporting them to work towards Associate Fellowship with AdvanceHE.I want to be clear. This proposal is not about cost cutting nor about a move to a trimester model. Its about providing a consistent and high-quality offer for all our students and making the most of time on and off campus. There are no other major changes to the calendar on the table.Academic Board will choose between two options: the proposed model with 12 weeks of scheduled classes; and the current model with 13 weeks of scheduled classes and some minor changes that respond directly to student feedback. These latter changes are effective orientation and an integrative final week, good teaching practices that are already incorporated into most units. We are also proposing greater flexibility for students to manage assignment and exam preparation.Students will soon be invited to take part in a survey of their interest in intensive offerings, and Im looking forward to receiving your feedback so we can ensure were providing the best student experience possible.Pip Pattison is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) at the University of Sydney. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Unbeknownst to many, the 2021 Super Rugby season started on the 19th of February. Its perfectly reasonable to not have noticed, considering rugby has moved to streaming service Stan with only one game a week televised on Nines secondary channel 9Gem. Recently, rugbys battle for viewers with perennial heavyweights NRL and AFL has been a bit of a struggle, but its move to online streaming seems an admission of defeat in its ability to compete on television.Rugbys recent struggles for relevance have a lot to do with the waning quality of the product. Due to COVID the competition only has five teams, all from Australia, meaning the variety of opposition has been eradicated. While this means the Australian teams win a whole lot more often than when forced to play teams from New Zealand or South Africa, it does diminish the title of Super Rugby Champions.Another big problem, especially when negotiating a TV rights deal, is that Sydney is rugbys biggest market and NSWs team, the Waratahs, are abjectly terrible. At time of writing, they have failed to win a single game and have lost their seven games by an average of 20 points. Ratings suggest that the Waratahs first match on 9Gem had only 26,000 Sydney viewers. By contrast, the NRL on Foxtel averaged 372,000 viewers per match on the opening weekend of the season.Now these viewers dont take into account those watching on Stan Sport, and frustratingly Stan dont publicise how many subscribers they have or how many viewers watch each game. Stan Sport was advertised relentlessly throughout the summer in an attempt to prevent Australian rugby from slipping even further into obscurity. Channel Nines Australian Open coverage was as memorable for incessant Stan Sport advertising as it was for commentators insisting it was okay to support Nick Kyrgios again.While the move to streaming may or may not save Australian rugby, it is part of a larger pattern of live sport moving online. Since 2016, most international football has only been watchable (legally) through Optus Sport. Earlier this year, relative unknown Sports Flick launched a AU$60 million takeover of the UEFA Champions League rights from next season. Foxtel has launched Kayo to play the role of an online version of a standard television subscription to Fox Sports.This transition to streaming does have some benefits. The more sports that negotiate broadcast deals outside of traditional television structures lessens the monopoly of large organisations like News Corp, who own Foxtel. Of course, Stan Sport is owned by Nine-Fairfax so it is not really fighting the battle for the little guys.But this is clearly outweighed on an individual level by the financial pressures placed on sports fans to subscribe to new streaming services. Foxtels most basic plan that includes sport is $50/month. Kayo starts at $25. Currently, Stan Sport is only available to Stan subscribers for an extra $10/month meaning the real cost is about $25. Optus Sport is $15. Sports Flick suggests that theirs will be no more than $10 which seems most reasonable until you realise that other than the Champions League the next best offering on their platform is probably Indian baseball.These micro-deals with smaller streaming networks can also impact the quality of the sport. For example, Rugby Australias last broadcast deal was worth around $57 million per year. Their current deal with Stan is worth only $33 million per year. This means that RA is unable to offer larger contracts to its players to play domestically so star players like Michael Hooper have chased big bucks in places like Japan. This not only hurts the domestic competition but also the Wallabies due to archaic rules about player eligibility.It might be a good thing for Sydneysiders to not pay attention to the restart of Super Rugby, otherwise theyd be forced to reflect on how even though theyre potentially paying more to watch rugby, all their best players have left. But while both the Waratahs and the Wallabies remain as hopeless as they are, I cant see too many people knocking on Stans door for a subscription. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Troy Heffernan and Lynn Bosettis Incivility: the new type of bullying in higher education in the Cambridge Journal of Education (2021) is an excellent example of bad scholarship. For this self-serving article to have progressed through peer-review is not just disappointing but dangerous to higher education. More frustrating is the fact that Anna Patty of the Sydney Morning Herald provided the authors a greater platform than they deserve by publishing Smart bullies emerge in universities in new workplace trend on 19 April.Confusion lies at the heart of Heffernan and Bosettis article. The authors open with the false equivalence that incivility is bullying. Confusingly, however, the authors and interviewees move on later in the article to discuss bullying and incivility as separate behaviours. This conceptual confusion is never resolved, and the authors contention seems to be that bullying and incivility could be considered the same because they make recipients feel bad. The key difference is intent. Bullying is intended to cause harm. Incivility is behaviour that does not conform to certain norms.Besides the articles flawed conceptual foundation, there are many other problems. The methodology employed is not really a methodology at all. Rather than striving for a representative sample (the bare minimum for social science research), they drew on connections to solicit twenty participants. Bosetti herself is also a dean, one of the many conflicts of interest ingrained across the article. Indeed, the authors take the interviewees at their word, demonstrating an alarming lack of critical distance. Having assisted in the dismissal of thousands of university workers, deans have something to gain by claiming victimhood.Gallingly, the authors fail to acknowledge the grossly unequal power structures within universities, placing top down bullying at the same level as so-called upward incivility. In fact, the authors suggest upward incivility is worse because it is allegedly more common and harder to identify. These are bold claims for a study that rests on interviews exclusively with university executives and a misunderstanding of what bullying is. Even if we accept deans claims that they have been victims of incivility, it is not the case that employees who disagree with them are bullies. One also has to wonder how widespread this crisis of incivility really is given the considerable power that university executives have over their subordinates careers.In the workplace, policing of incivility is a method to redirect workers frustrations into proper channels, which are often bureaucratic cul-de-sacs. Confronted with civilised processes that tend to bury complainants issues instead of resolving them, it is unsurprising that employees become uncivil when confronted with poor working conditions. Incivility might get better results than a meeting with HR and line managers. (As an aside, anyone who has dealt with HR departments during disputes will find Heffernan and Bosettis recommendation that HR departments need to be better equipped to detect and police uncivil behavior amusing.)Crucially, the civil/uncivil dichotomy carries racist baggage that Heffernan and Bosetti seem resistant to address. Colonial logic rests on the racist assumption that the uncivilised can be denied rights that the civilised take for granted. Not contained to a grim, distant past, this logic still finds expression in many modern institutions, including universities. Bryan Mukandi and Chelsea Bond, in particular, have provided powerful insights into the many ways (including notions of civilised academic discourse) the Australian academy disciplines Black thought and behavior.Incivility: the new type of bullying in higher education is not newsworthy and remarkable only for its weakness as a piece of scholarship and the troubling managerial attitudes that it highlights. The suggestion that incivility and insubordination in universities must be more strictly policed is troubling for those with the least power within these institutions. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My first interaction with social media was on the precipice of adolescence. After being given a brand-new smartphone upon completion of Year 5, I would in my room at 2am surreptitiously immerse myself in digital worlds, which, at the time, were in their rudimentary stages of development. For me, the digital world consisted of mystical kik chat rooms, repetitive finger-tapping video games, and Reddit. For others, the digital world meant similar things, but it was almost universally regarded as something positive an educational medium, a social instrument, and most importantly for some, a coping mechanism. It was a place where people bogged down by the unrelenting hostility of public life could lather themselves in anonymity and chat away endlessly.Since my entrance into the mysterious depths of the web, it has undergone an intense period of expansion, becoming an integral component of everyday life. Now, with the webs absolute privatisation, it constitutes a second, parallel world; the lines are blurred between the digital and the physical. It must be noted that this process of universalising the internet would have occurred on its own, but the pandemic has accelerated it beyond the wildest dreams of the most optimistic Silicon Valley sycophants. In countries hit the hardest by the virus, socialising happens exclusively within cyberspace. News is delivered to us with clickbait notifications, and importantly for us, education is transmitted to us through Zoom webinars. Zoom meetings, barring their convenience at times, have rapidly solidified as the prime mode of educational delivery in the coming post-pandemic era.Universities and high schools across the world have completely abandoned any preconceived notions of educational normality. Theyve shoved aside the numerous benefits that accompany physical education and erected a service that most students and professors alike would repudiate if they had a choice in the matter. I mentioned when I began writing that when the technology was new, all engagements with it were exhilarating. It was mysterious, it was spectacular, it even felt avant-garde.That excitement, which I imagine many of us felt, has slowly evaporated. There is no longer a binary of online/offline, but rather we live in a world where partaking in the internet is a matter of necessity over choice. I dont think I would be challenged in saying that there has been a collective immunisation to the enthusiasm that once accompanied browsing posts on Reddit, finding original content on YouTube, or talking to people in online forums. No doubt, that debilitating unenthusiasm will manifest in the digital educational sphere too. Synthesising the increasingly milquetoast, yet somehow addicting allure of cyberspace with educationa vital resource that requires a specific type of delivery and engagementwill not come without its consequences in the future.At first, the combination of technology with the educational apparatus might have seemed the smart thing to do. But at such a widened scale, were starting to see the contours in a crueler light. In her book Alone Together, Sherry Turkle explores the recent adoption of social media technology by young people. To those who have lost a sense of physical connection, connectivity suggests that you make your own page, your own place, she writes. Utilising her knowledge as a psychoanalyst, she chastises social media, saying that it atomises emotionally vulnerable people by its very nature, confining them to overly comfortable environments. Over time, the prevalence of these online domains has rendered them hypersensitive to the demands of the real world. Turkle, while examining the mixture of techno-consumerism and learning in its early stages, identifies that students, when confronted with things that aggressively command their attention, are much more likely to engage with the online spectacle than their own learning. She speaks of her interactions with various students, recounting certain strange things theyve said about their relationship with technology. He cycled easily through them, she writes, He told me that RL [real-life] is just one more window. And, he added, its not usually my best one. Technology, even back in 2011 when Turkle wrote, was individualising young people, rendering them incapable of social interaction in the real world. The recent shift to online learning has meant that education is simply another thing absent from the RL a domain with diminishing relevance.One might ask: But if the goal of education is that the student obtains new information, how does Zoom inhibit this process? They would be right to question this. Technically speaking, utilising Zoom as an educational apparatus doesnt greatly limit ones ability to absorb information, but rather, in the context of a university, it impedes everything else associated with the student experience. Lectures, ever since their inception, have always facilitated the cultivation of social relationships among their participants. The thirst for social interaction held by students has always supplemented the thirst for educationbut now, they have become restricted to the latter and made absent the former. Zoom lectures leave out the intimate experiences that make university, university. The experience of bumping into old friends from high school, the happenchance event of sitting by someone who shares an interest with you, and even, if youre lucky, meeting a future partner all of these have been completely eliminated by the imposition of webinars as the new (ab)normal.As many people have observed, theres something noticeably demotivating about learning through the same device you use to socialise, game or watch Netflix. Where teachers would chastise people for browsing their phone during class, online classes allow anyone to flick to other tabs with impunity, immediately diverting their attention to something far more interesting, but far less rewarding. In a classroom or lecture hall, the pedagogue at the front demands the attention of the students. But if youre glued to a mosaic of pixels and LED backlights, your favourite YouTuber or Twitch streamer, commands far more attention than the teacher. On top of that, the powers that be have accelerated these changes without regard for those that they are leaving behind. We expect professors who still carry flip phones to transition from the physical to the digital without complaint. And after over a year of hosting lectures via webinar, the university administration still incompetently handles educational technology, leaving professors old and young alike muddled and disoriented.When leisure time becomes fused with study time, the very idea of leisure loses its meaning. This isnt a new phenomenon by any means, rather, it has been occurring incrementally over the past 60 years. In his book, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Greil Marcus writes: What could be more productive of an atomized, hopeless fatalism, than the feeling that one is deadened precisely where one ought to be having fun? Marcus, who was remarking on the nihilism that the youth held in the 1970s, unintentionally encapsulates the present condition. The internet and its superficial relationships, its cycles of dopamine releases, and its presence as a space that blends leisure and work, has caused young people to become increasingly bored, increasingly purposeless, and most tragically, increasingly depressed. According to World Health Organisation statistics, 300 million people worldwide have some sort of anxiety disorder with suicide being the second leading cause of death among 15 to 29-year-olds. Technologists have conditioned young people to believe technology is some magical discovery and must be harnessed at all levels. The truth is that while technologys positive elements stretch far, its negative ones stretch much further. Tearing down the wall of hypnotic enchantment that cyberspace has erected in front of young people is the first step when confronting the mental health epidemic.The youth subcultures of the Sixties and Seventies revolted against the mundanity that had started to creep into their personal lives. In modern times however, young people have simply accepted the dullness of digital media with a pathetic meekness. Instead of rebelling against the oppressive atmosphere of cyberspace, it seems as if weve inexplicably folded to its power. Perhaps, we feel our efforts to push back against the normalisation of online learning would be futile and met with disregard. Perhaps, our fear of the virus overrides our fear of overwhelming loneliness.Or maybe we just dont care after all, its comforting to not have to worry about ones appearance, or personality, or demeanour, if were situated in front of a screen all day. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sydneys new airport has become the latest hotspot for the shady dealings of the NSW government.So far, they have been accused of leaking confidential information to developers, favouring large landowners for acquisition, allocating government funds exclusively for Coalition seats, and prioritising projects that are not in the publics best interests.In 2017, Risland Australia, a developer with links to disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire, bought $85-million worth of farmland at Cawdor in Sydneys south-west. In December that same year, it lobbied planning authorities to build a road interchange at the site because it knew the proposed M9 motorway was going to pass through it.The problem was that no one was supposed to have that information. Plans for the M9 were publicly announced three months later.Naturally, one would assume the government leaked Risland Australia confidential information, allowing them to buy a prized block of land next to a vital piece of new infrastructure. Transport for NSW deny such a leak took place and Risland Australia claim they were able to discern the M9 route from an earlier, though much less-detailed map.In another strange occurrence, Landcom, the property development branch of the NSW government, seems to have paid $100 million more than market-value for a parcel of land at Milton. In 2019, the 873-hectare block owned by the developer Bradcorp was only valued at $155 million. In 2020, Landcom bought it for $258 million. Later, it was revealed that the bosses of Landcom and Bradcorp were old mates.Landcom denies a conflict of interest occurred, and Bradcorp claims they had their property re-evaluated before the sale, finding that the actual price was much higher than previously thought.In October, 2019, the NSW government revised its plans for the Badgerys Creek airport, rezoning various landholdings around the site for different uses. One mans home in Bringelly went from $12 million to $1 after it was rezoned for environmental use by the state government. Many other small land-owners had their propertys value drastically reduced.However, neighbouring large land-owners with political contacts will make hundreds of millions of dollars. One already has. The property-developing Medich family, for example, sold their 344ha block for nearly $500 million in February. The University of Sydney seems poised to make a similar windfall if it sells its 140ha neighbouring block to the government, whose acquiring agencies it is currently in negotiations with.The University of Sydney and the Medich family, along with the help of former Labor MP turned political lobbyist Graham Richardson, have been lobbying the government to prioritise their land for development since 2006.When asked whether the University had any reservations about this, a spokesperson responded We strongly support the rezoning of Badgerys Creek. We worked extensively with the NSW government and relevant planning precinct authorities throughout the process and all landowners have benefitted.Most recently, controversy has erupted over the governments proposed airport rail-link. The new train line would run in a northern direction from Badgerys Creek to St Marys. The federal Labor MP for Macarthur has accused the Morrison government of pork-barrelling. The new rail-link goes straight through the federal electorate of Lindsay and the state electorate of Mulgoa, both of which are held by the Coalition. Infrastructure Australia, an independent advisory body, has raised doubts over whether the route is an appropriate option.Given that the new airport city will develop in the South-west corridor, it does seem odd that the government wants to build a train link heading in the opposite direction. Its also strange the airport train will go towards Penrith, rather than somewhere closer to the city like Parramatta. Then again, all the seats in South-west Sydney are held by the Labor Party, both on a state and federal level.Last month, a parliamentary inquiry into government land acquisitions and infrastructure projects at Badgerys Creek was launched. These recent controversies surrounding Badgerys Creek may not come as a surprise, as the NSW Coalition does this kind of thing frequently. Two well-known examples include John Barilaro funnelling the vast majority of bush-fire recovery funds towards Coalition seats, and Daryl Maguire receiving payments from developers for political favours.The fact that the government is doing it again suggests it is not even fussed anymore to hide it. Then again, the Coalition will probably win the next election in a landslide. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Like so many other industries, Sydneys art scene was hit catastrophically by COVID-19. Large institutions managed to remain mostly unscathed, but smaller galleries and emerging artists have been left in the lurch.The Art Gallery of NSW succeeded by pivoting heavily into education and general interest content, like many international art institutions. Theres good content on their YouTube page that continues their general approach to digital public programs pre-COVID.The digitisation of Art After Hours was a personal highlight of the lockdown era; Benjamin Laws dulcet tones make even the grainiest jpeg of a portrait pop. But whilst a solid suite of digital content, it doesnt appear that engagement was high. Few of their videos have cracked even a thousand views (unlike their pre-COVID content) save, of course, for a feature of Delta Goodrem singing in the abandoned gallery. Apparently thats where the views are. Yet even the Art Gallery now faces an uncertain future, with multimillion-dollar cuts to its budget recently announced.Virtual shows became all the rage mid-lockdown new independently crowdsourced shows, or an established space using their pre-existing platform to collate and amplify voices. I was excited by the prospect of these digital shows, and how the rise of new digital modes of collaboration gave room for artists to experiment. But when people are trapped in their homes with little ability or energy to engage with these new spaces, what do digital shows become?I organised a few and was in a number of them. Each time, it felt as though I had done nothing. Most digital shows I encountered from emerging or student artists were a collection of deep-fried photos on a trial Squarespace page. Unlike digital art, physical objects do not read well on a screen. A 3D object will never be as engaging in a 2D space, especially when you dont have the financial support to apply a coat of digital polish that lends legitimacy.As restrictions lifted, there was a groundswell of voices desperate for a space or platform to engage their ideas and feelings. By then, however, Sydneys physical arts landscape had changed to reflect the new world. Longstanding project space Down / Under Space (alongside Fredas) closed in November. Small venues have collapsed, changed or been hindered by capacity restrictions, to the detriment of experimental and dynamic modes of expression.Luckily, people are industrious, talented, and desperate for a creative outlet. New, short form, small and COVID-safe spaces emerged, domestic spaces became live music venues and in-game chats became symposiums. In one case, a corner store became an art gallery: the EZY ART SHOW collaboration between Brodie Cullen and and artist/corner shop purveyor Yu Xin Jia led to two experimental and energetic group shows of local artists in a Darlinghurst corner shop.A stand-out for me is the Pink Place Collective: an artist-run initiative created by four emerging artists. Engaging and exploratory, its physical space ran with a wide array of bold exhibitions and projects over four months, each one different, exciting, and new. Theyre temporarily closed but Im eager for whatevers next. These spaces tend to be inclusive the desire to make for the sake of making is so present and engaging.Venues large and small have been financial casualties of COVID. Carriageworks went into voluntary administration back in May 2020 after citing a catastrophic loss of income. Luckily, it was saved from liquidation only weeks later due to a philanthropic bailout and a colossal sum of donations from an array of moneyed benefactors. The stark contrast between the stories of Carriageworks and Down / Under is perhaps unsurprising, given its higher profile and demographic target. Nevertheless, the fate of an art space should not be left to wealthy Sydneysiders to decide.What has stood out to me throughout these changes, closures and new programs is how COVID reinforced that we exist in a culture that does not engage with art on merit of culture or commentary, but rather the merits of how that culture can benefit commercial systems.All this educational content from massive institutions came with a caveat that we should be engaging with content that makes us better workers during a time of mass trauma. Repugnant encouragement to stay productive and build entrepreneurship during lockdown contributed to a cultural undercurrent that subtly guilted people for not being useful.What we can take from this is the importance of making art for self-fulfilment, community engagement and pleasure. No one should have to sew masks to feel successful during a global catastrophe. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 2014, a teacher at my high school decided that issues surrounding feminism, gender and consent needed to be talked about more with young people. So, she created what was known as the Girls Group. All students from Year 7 to Year 12 were able to join. Students met once a week during lunchtime and a Facebook group was created to facilitate discussion online. Although initially intended for girls, boys at the school were able, even encouraged, to participate.The idea was a good one. Our ideas may not have been the most sophisticated, and discussions of intersectionality were regrettably far beyond our reach, but it was a solid start. Yet after a speedy descent into personal attacks and a torrent of complaints and reports of cyber-bullying from aggrieved parents, the Girls Group was disbanded and the Facebook page deleted within six months from its inception.Where did it all go wrong?Despite its good intentions, the Girls Group was born with some fundamental flaws that can be traced to its downfall. Students across all year groups were thrown into a Facebook group and power imbalances attributable to age differences quickly emerged. The older girls dominated the group and younger girls, like myself, were terrified (although utterly intrigued). There was a significant knowledge and maturity gap between the members and a few of the older students werent afraid to point it out the tone would quickly shift from educative to belittling, insulting and accusatory. A void of empathy and disregard for peoples level of previous exposure to such issues ran rampant. Without parameters or structured topics for discussion, the group actively invited pandemonium.At 14, my understanding of gendered issues and feminism was rudimentary at best, derived from the instructive teachings of tumblr and John Green. But this lack of knowledge was not limited to me; it extended to the vast majority of the group. It exacerbated tensions that already existed a fatal flaw that the education system remained unwilling to confront. Nothing I knew of feminism had been taught to me in my ten years of formal education.Interestingly, this problem wasnt reflected in the weekly meetings held at school. While the Facebook group spiralled into mayhem, the meetings remained civil and uneventful. This may point to the difficulties of relying on online communication. It is hard to use a platform that lacks structure or moderation to start a dialogue about important issues, where there is a lack of prior solidarity between its members, and particularly where power imbalances exist.Perhaps most shockingly, there was a critical failure to engage half the school. Being at a co-educational high school, not everyone took the Group and its aims seriously. The boys were indifferent at best, and antagonistic at worst. These attitudes undeniably rubbed off on those who were curious, yet unsure, about participating in the Group.The Groups tragic demise tells a tale that appears crucial to todays society. A safe, supportive space is critical for young people to learn new things and, even more importantly, to make mistakes. Young people need to feel supported and able to discuss their opinions with others, without the fear of being attacked or belittled. If early engagements with feminism are negative, toxic and downright scary, people will not only be intimidated, but may feel ostracised and it may be really hard to get them to re-engage.In light of current events, an adequate conversation about introducing young people to feminism and gendered issues is long overdue. Yet this must be done in a way that is thoughtful and responsible. Take heed of the fate of the Girls Group and its important lessons on what not to do when attempting this vital task. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In Australia, the Black Lives Matter movement has amassed an overwhelming amount of support across the country, with thousands speaking out about racism and demanding justice for Indigenous people.But unlike the US, which is experiencing stunning levels of sustained protests with 16 cities taking up calls to defund or disband their police departments, it seems that our cries have remained unheard.Thus far, governments and police departments have not expressed any intention to examine our policing system. There have been no pledges to conduct independent investigations and inquests into black deaths in custody. There have been no proposals for reducing police brutality and racialised policing.All the while, police violence against Indigenous people continues.As social media goes back to normal and recent protests fail to attract sizable crowds, its clear that the movement is beginning to lose momentum.The main issue is that our spectrum of supporters is not expanding. The death of George Floyd mobilised thousands of people to become active supporterswhile there have been active efforts to shut down protests, the fact that over 30,000 people attended a protest in Sydney despite it being initially illegal shows the strength of our current support.But we must now start bringing in neutrals and passive opposition (i.e. people who sit on the fence, are disengaged, or disagree with the movement but dont try to stop it).Its been made clear through recent debates, notably on the health risks of protesting, the phrase all lives matter, and the attribution of blame to all police or a few bad eggs, that a lot of people hold reservations about some of the ideas or methods of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some people dont have a strong opinion at all.This is to be expected. Many aspects of the cause, from the phrase of all cops are bastards to the very concept of protesting, will not come easy to those who have rarely questioned the status quo or dont exist in a galvanising space.Ideas like abolitionism or civil disobedience are really challenging for me because it goes against everything youre taught to believe or do says one USyd student.The mistake that supporters commonly fall into is assuming that people who are not active supporters are active opponents of the movement. Non-supporters are often shut out or their opinions and actions are ignored. There are also accusations of ignorance or racism frequently made towards these people.In one USyd rants post, one user stated: if youre against the protests and posting this anonymously on usyd rants, i hope to god youre not too much of a pussy to post it on your personal facebook, or are you scared of getting called out for being racist (sic).But if a person does not currently support the movement, it does not necessarily mean they oppose its overall message. What is more likely is that they simply havent reached a point where they can understand and accept its ideas wholeheartedly.On why they havent attended recent protests, another USyd student says: I dont think we should have a blanket abolition of police. It might be worth replacing these systems in some states, but I think it depends on their situation and youd have to do trial and error.Calling out or condemning these people is almost always guaranteed to fail. Being accused of racism, ignorance, or complicity is extremely threatening, especially because people want to feel like they arent capable of such behaviour. And when people feel threatened, it is generally difficult for them to change or listen.Make no mistake: it doesnt mean that we should stop challenging destructive opinions or silence altogether.Instead, understanding where these people come from is a much needed step to be able to engage with them in a way that is productive for building the movement. And then actually making the effort to speak to them is critical. Interacting exclusively with people that already agree builds insular subcultures that are incomprehensible to everyone else.Another issue is that we are not having widespread conversations about policy. Active supporters generally know the aims of the movementending racist state violence, stopping black deaths in custody, defunding police and prisons, and investing in communities.But when it comes to achieving these aims, the movement in Australia lacks consensus on the tangible outcomes were working towards.The 8 Cant Wait campaign in the US sets out a roadmap for police abolition, starting with immediate harm reduction and then divestment. Currently, campaigners are pushing for changes such as banning chokeholds and adopting a duty to intervene. Regardless of criticisms towards some of its reformist aspects, the focus on policy is working.In Australia, however, public discourse is lagging, with much of the conversation still fixated on broad anti-racist or anti-police sentiments. We need to move beyond this and begin discussing exactly what law enforcement should look like in Australia and how we can achieve this.Further, for those who arent ready to accept certain ideological arguments about race or the police, shifting the attention towards policy can allow us to find common ground.Its not a far cry that people would support policies such as scrapping armed police response teams or restricting the flow of military-style gear to police departments. People would also be responsive to the fact that divestment from police already occurs in several rural and remote communities through justice reinvestment programs.The inherent idea behind these doesnt have to be racial or ideological; it can just be about keeping all communities safe and investing more in community services for everyone.Of course, these policies have an explicit racial element to them, so we cant be completely race-neutral. Rather than just glossing over them, actually reducing peoples racial anxieties is necessary in the long term. But in the process of growing the movement, we must choose our battles.While the scale of the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia is impressive, existing supporters must not get complacent. Each and every one of us is responsible for the task of keeping the movement alive and building it.It is crucial that we continue to protest and engage in online activism. It is also important for us to make the effort to reach out to people who sit on the fence or quietly disagree, and start important discussions about policy.The next few months will be challenging, but a challenge we simply cant afford to decline.The next action is a protest scheduled for Sunday 5 July at 1pm, and is being co-hosted by Justice For David Dungay Jnr, Justice4Tane, and Indigenous Social Justice Association Sydney. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dolphins have returned to the Venice canals. Air pollution is so low you can see the sky again in cities all over the world. Birds can be heard once more in suburbia. The earth is healing. We are the virus. These stories have become an easy target for light-hearted ridicule on social media. But they represent a misanthropism which actually has a fair bit of currency in the modern environmental movement. Mainstream commentators, including household names like David Attenborough, often explain environmental crises as a simple matter of too many greedy people. If we love nature, we are supposed to hate ourselves or loathe those uneducated people in the Global South who keep having too many children. The documentary film Planet of the Humans fits right into this narrative. Released in April to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day (and freely available on YouTube to maximise its reach), the film sets out to expose the inadequacies of green energy as a solution to climate change. With over 8 million views in the month since its release, the Michael Moore-produced film has obviously struck a chord. Director and narrator Jeff Gibbs explains that he was driven to an environmental consciousness as a child by seeing places he loved bulldozed, making way for developments that nobody seemed to really want or need. This passion became an obsession, and he quickly found himself locking on to machinery and ultimately devoting his life to environmental journalism. He came to understand that humanity was destroying our common home. He was hopeful that renewable energy could point us towards a better future.But pulling the thread revealed some disturbing truths. Many projects claiming to be renewable energy actually turned out to be incredibly destructive, like the practice of logging forests in order to burn them to generate power. When energy corporations say clean power, they often mean gas-fired plants which release more potent greenhouse gases than coal, and fill rivers and groundwater with toxic chemicals. Solar arrays and wind farms are manufactured using significant amounts of fossil fuels, and include components made from minerals that are mined in hugely environmentally and socially damaging ways by exploited Third-World workforces (often including child labour).While this is not the space for me to fact check, many of the films assertions are certainly outdated and incorrect. Solar panels have become cheaper and more efficient and battery storage technology has come in leaps and bounds since the documentary was filmed. But Gibbs dismisses this out of hand, shining a spotlight instead on renewable industry insiders who furtively admit that some level of coal power is necessary as a baseload to keep the system working. People who know better have thoroughly debunked this idea. There is actually no longer any necessity for coal or gas fired power anywhere in the world.Like all tall tales, there is a reasonable dose of truth in Planet of The Humans. The environmental impacts of the renewable energy projects shown in the film are real; they are big projects, built by big corporations, and unsurprisingly the results sometimes do indeed look like something out of a dystopian sci-fi movie. The documentary also somewhat interestingly traces the seldom-explored links between the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street, big international environmental organisations, renewable power projects and the climate movement. Gibbs essentially paints a picture of the environment movement as unwitting pawns for big fossil fuel corporations, who have realised that climate change is bad PR and investing in renewable energy technology will save face and market share, thereby maintaining their commanding position in the global economy.This story is simplistic and inaccurate . Certainly, the left have often criticised big NGOs for focusing too much on technological fixes and neglecting the need for social and economic transformation. And certainly, fossil fuel capital is keen to position itself as a key player in the transition to new forms of energy. Environmentalists can sometimes be so eager to see renewable energy rolled out that we do not want to see how our sustainable sausages are being made. However, the real danger of the film is its overarching narrative. The movie is an incredibly depressing affair, with Gibbs and his scientist collaborator Ozzie Zehner showing us one devastated landscape after another, resolutely bursting our bubble and insisting over and over again that renewable technology is no solution to climate change. They explain that big fossil fuel capital, the finance world, politicians and (bizarrely) the climate movement itself have duped the public into seeing these new green projects as the answer. But in reality industrial civilisation is not compatible with a healthy planet because, according to Gibbs, there are just too many people on planet Earth demanding too much. No solutions are forthcoming from the director, but it is implied by interviewees that civilisational collapse and massive depopulation are the only things which can save humanity from itself.Gibbs is very concerned with proving that green technology is an illusion in the fight against environmental destruction. But he has nothing to say about the most powerful illusion out there in big business fight to destroy the climate movement the illusion of green consumerism. Fossil fuel companies, global finance, advertising and the media have spent half a century systematically delegitimising calls for collective action by promoting the idea that we can make a difference to the environment by being more careful about what goes in our shopping trolley. These ideas are a deliberate ploy to divert energy away from the movement-building work that is actually needed to challenge powerful interests and to build a sustainable and fair society. His lazy calls for us to reduce our population and our consumption have nothing to say about this reality.Curiously for somebody who claims to have been a grassroots environmentalist, Gibbs has nothing good to say about his comrades. He spends a great deal of time trashing the green credentials of mainstream movement figures like Al Gore a board director on companies that take big money from the oil industry even as he preaches the Inconvenient Truth about climate change. He also takes aim at Bill McKibben, whose climate NGO 350.org has apparently taken money from the Rockefellers (who also finance huge fossil fuel projects). The film shows McKibben nervously dodging questions about 350.orgs stance on gas fired power and biomass. This behaviour is what it is, but any fair dinkum environmental campaigner would know that these suits do not in any way represent the people who give up their weekends to campaign on climate change. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry and the climate-denying right are lapping the film up, seeing it as a welcome attack on renewable energy and therefore as useful ammunition against the climate left.The average person watching this film will finish it feeling profoundly hopeless and disempowered, with nowhere to channel their awareness of the crisis. If real action on this existential mess is as urgent as the film says it is, such a careless attitude to educating the public cannot be excused.Even in the relative comfort of suburban Sydney, climate change has long since ceased to be an abstract threat, looming, out of sight, in a distant future. Compounding crises biodiversity loss, the depletion of global freshwater and the collapse of ocean life are real and terrifying. It would be easy, like Gibbs, to retreat into defeatism.But all around the world, people are not giving up. Climate change has become a generational issue. In Australia, high school kids already understand the links between climate change, capitalism and colonialism, seeking out representatives from Aboriginal communities who are engaged in fights against extractive industries. They are also seeking out relationships with the workers whose livelihoods are on the line in a transition away from fossil fuels. This movement shows not only a determination to fight against the fossil fuel industry, but an ability to articulate an alternative blueprint for a truly sustainable and egalitarian society.Wharfies and construction workers turning out in force for the last Sydney Climate StrikePlanet of the Idiots be damned. I care about the environment exactly because I care about people, and I have enormous faith in our capacity to overcome adversity and fight against injustice. People power gave women the vote; people power overturned racial segregation laws in Australia and the USA and South Africa; people power ended the war in Vietnam. People power underpins our wages and conditions at work. It created and defends our public services. It has even at times managed to save our beloved urban parklands from the developers bulldozer. We dont need a blind faith in people power we can find proof that it works all around us in the real history of our communities. If we harness that power to drive forward an ambitious vision for change, we can absolutely save the planet. Its time to get to work. Andy is a bush regenerator, member of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and an activist with Workers for Climate Action. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Andre Gides Corydon tells the story of a young shepherd that falls in love with another shephard, engaging in same-sex passions and musing about the mysteries of sex with women. The name Corydon was used as a stock name for a shepherd in Ancient Greek poems such as Virgils Eclogues. However, while Virgils Corydon was a shepherd who longed for another boy, Gides Corydon is a sophisticated individual deciphering same-sex passion, natural innocence and opposite-sex eroticism as a learned social order. He comes to the realisation that a friend is of better counsel to an adolescent boy than a mistress.Corydon was influential in shaping the later field of queer ecology, a practice which seeks to disrupt heterosexual articulations of nature, to reimagine evolutionary processes and ecological interactions, and broaden environmental politics in light of queer theory. Drawing upon the work of ecofeminism and environmental justice, it seeks to draw important connections between the material and cultural dimensions of environmental issues.The distinction between what is natural and unnatural has long been used as ammunition in battles waged against queer bodies. The rise of evolutionary thought in the nineteenth century centred on the primacy of sexual reproduction for species survival and development. Consider Darwins ideas on sexual selection in The Descent of Man, which observes that certain traits in animals have evolved as a result of mating competition. This has served to legitimise procreative heterosexual acts as the only true form of natural sex, denaturalising all other forms of sex unless they can be explained within the overall operation of reproduction. Sex came to be understood not as a set of acts, but as expressions of an innate biological condition.By this logic, if the ability of a species to survive in nature is tied to its reproductive fitness, then healthy environments are those in which heterosexuality flourishes. Accordingly, homosexual degeneracy has been explained away using pollution or environmental contamination, factors which are believed to interfere with reproductive capacities. Some ecologists have insisted that female homoerotic activity amongst seagulls is evidence of habitat changes, or that sexual pairing of male ibises is a result of mercury poisoning (in reality, there are probably just a lot of gay birds). Such reasoning is guided by heteronormative biasesthe fact that heterosexuality is more common does not take away from the diverse social relations of sexuality occurring in animal species.Evolutionary thought has, however, moved away from these ideas. Recent work has attempted to reclaim the naturalness of queer bodies and liberalise sexual minorities. For sexologists such as Havelock Ellis, the fact that non-heterosexual sex is congenial allows it to be morally neutral and therefore part of the narrative of evolution, rather than its aberration. Research also documenting the vast range of homosexual behaviour in non-human animals also presents possibilities for radically rethinking nature as queer. Bruce Bagemihls 750-page volume Biological Exuberance presents an extensive compilation of species in which same-sex acts have been scientifically observed. These appeals to nature have been powerful, especially when science is purported to reveal natures truth.However, such assertions of the naturalwhether heterosexual or homosexual essentialises sexuality to material conditions; a product of some innate biological trait rather than an expression of agency. Queer ecologists challenge these biopolitical regimes, arguing that sex is always indivisibly material and social. David Bell coined the term queernatureculture to criticise binaries between what is natural and what is cultural, and to emphasise the ambiguity of queer sex acts. Animals are cultural beings, enmeshed in social organisations with agency over their sexual lives. By uncovering these complex realities, we open up a space to rethink nature and sexual politics.Spaces of nature have been organised to promote and prohibit certain sexual behaviour. Emerging discourses around urban development in the late nineteenth century articulated that the effeminate homosexual and lesbian gender invert were not only against nature but symptoms of a moral and even physical decline of the American population, attributed to urban sociality and pollution. The natural world was therefore transformed into a space in which heterosexual masculinity could be recultivated, free from the influences of urban degeneration.The American wilderness became heavily dominated by communities of men cowboys, prospectors, rachers. Boy Scouts and mountaineering expeditions provided opportunities to simulate more conventional paths to manhood, solidifying a connection between conquering wilderness and ones expression of heteromasculinity. In The History of Men, Michael S Kimmel tells readers that due to material conditions of urban life, men have been running away off to the frontier, the mountains, the forests, the high seas, the battlegrounds, outer space to retrieve an essential part of themselves, their identity, their manhood.But these visions of a heteromasculine wilderness could not be farther from the truth. According to sexologist Alfred Kinsey, in the nineteenth century there was more sexual activity between men in the remote wilderness than there was in cities. Various worksites in the Pacific Northwest such as logging camps and fishing grounds included complex networks of sexual activity among men, and some men would even leave the city in search of them. At the same time, queer women experienced a complete invisibility in dominant wilderness discourses.More recently, the framing of queer culture as exclusively urban has erased the ongoing presence of queer bodies in rural communities and has contributed to the assumption that country spaces are inherently hostile to anything other than monogamous heterosexuality. While many gay men and women leave small towns for urban centres, many do not queer couples reside in 99.3% of all American counties.The emerging practice of queer ecology has reclaimed natural spaces as sites of resistance and exploration for sexually diverse people. In Sarah Orne Jewetts writing, particularly in her novel Deephaven, natural environments are sites of both romantic friendship and eroticism between women. Ang Lees Brokeback Mountain contrasts two sheep herders frayed heterosexual relationships in the 1963 Wyoming to their deeply romantic high altitude fucking in the wilderness.A queer interpretation of ecology blurs boundaries of identities and liberates queer people in their connection and belonging to the natural world. The natural world defies current heteronormative politics, enabling humans to redefine cultural understandings of natural and queer environmental spaces as we have with sex and gender. It also serves as an important basis for coalition building, since both queer and environmental justice perspectives observe nature and the environment as not neutral or ahistorical. Rather, we can look to how the language of nature can mask human and environmental destruction.Ultimately, an understanding of environmental sexual politics, alongside existing discourse on race, gender and class envisages a possible future of common liberation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Like about half of postgraduate students at the University of Sydney, I arrived in Australia in January and sat through seemingly endless hours of introductions: to my school, to the university and the various organisations surrounding it. One organisation in particular stood out: the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA). From what I gleaned from its slick presentation, this organisation would fight for my case, whether it be against corrupt landlords or an unfair university administration. SUPRA is an advocacy organisation run by student-elected representatives. It provides casework support, advocacy and free wine and cheese nights for postgraduates.But despite the importance of the organisation, the students competing to run this years SUPRA council displayed no vision for the organisation, no distinct political or policy platform, and no real excitement about the election itself. Though initially excited to have a say in the governance of SUPRA, scrolling through this years candidate list and reading platitude after platitude soon became depressing.Rebels Without a Cause?April rolled in, and the candidates for the SUPRA general elections have been announced. But despite a lengthy list of 50 candidates more than last years 39, but less than 2018s high of 66 there appears little to get excited about for potential voters. The candidates and tickets statements are vague and incredibly similar to one another, most failing to provide any description of policies, vision for the organisation or political ideology. Almost none of these candidates showed strong opinions on anything, except some vague concept of making the university better for students.The Orange ticket wants to Speak for the students and serve the students, and we are willing to be the communicating and representing people of SUPRA and fight for their rights and needs (sic.). Bishengdui, on the other hand wants to try our best to enlarge our influence among the postgraduate students in The University of Sydney and collect more suggestions and advices. Trying to extract values from the candidate statements is an uphill battle, the closest I could get from Xiner Yuan of U-Supporter, was I am nominating myself for SUPRA council because I hope to make students voice heard and provide students the support they need. While Chang Wang of Bang Bang Bang says Im a very enthusiastic and dedicated student that wants to make a difference not only in the Supra (sic) but also in the USYD campus by having a voice and being there for all you guys university life by proposing various motions including having better study support, more social and networking events and a place thats enjoyable for everyone. One almost wishes that a candidate would express a controversial opinion, just to be able to distinguish between the vague platitudes.These candidates may have students best interests at heart, but they have utterly failed to elicit anything resembling enthusiasm for this election. The tickets have meaningless names like Cheese, Bang Bang Bang or ORANGE which give no indication of their stance on any issues. The ticket statements do seem marginally better than the candidate statements, in regards to concrete policy proposals. What I find however, is that a large part of these proposals are things that, to the best of my knowledge from intro events, SUPRA already does. The SUPRA is great, and we will keep doing things is an immensely popular platform among the candidates and tickets. The only rivalling cause is some vague promise of coronavirus support, which would be nice but probably the most inoffensive opinion to have.Elections as job interviewsWhile all policies and causes are left vague, there is one thing the candidates do not fail to elaborate on: themselves, their passion, and their oh so valuable experience. Most of the candidate statements are written exactly like cover letters. Theres a little bit of praise for the prospective employer to show you are actually interested, a nice listing of your previous work to show you are qualified, and then of course how passionate and motivated you are.It even seems like some of the candidates see this as an opportunity to have some experience for their CV. Kai Lao of Xiaolandui, for example, says that SUPRA is well aligned with my personal development goals. It is a good platform for me to gain skills, make connections and broaden my knowledge. All of these will help me become a more well-rounded individual. While I commend their honesty, this might have been a good time to practice the ancient political tradition of lying to the voters, because I am definitely not going to vote for someone, just so they can land a cozy job when their tenure is over.A changing organisationPerhaps it is unsurprising that postgraduate students elections are less politically volatile than those of undergraduate students. Postgraduate students generally participate less than undergraduates in clubs and societies, and SUPRA elections consistently see lower turnout than comparable SRC elections. In 2019 less than 1,200 people voted in SUPRA elections, about 4% of the postgraduate student body, compared to 5,362 in SRC elections 16% of the undergraduate body. Many postgraduates are older and feel no need to involve themselves in campus life, whilst others struggle to juggle full-time professional work, thesis writing and night classes.But it also seems that this level of vague, undifferentiated political campaigns is new. In 2018, for example, ticket Postgrad Action for SUPRA ran on tangible policies such as international student travel concessions, free childcare for staff and students, fighting against staff cuts and campaigning for an end to investment in fossil fuels by the University. Agree with these policies or not, these provide a clearer vision of what they want SUPRA to be like more than any platform competing this year.Comparing the Presidents Annual Reports from even just a few years ago to this years also indicates key changes: whereas the 2017 report mentions action on areas as diverse as sexual assault on campus, anonymous marking schemes and staff rights, the 2019 report, to a large extent, vaguely discusses improved communication with students and the organisations budget. Of more concern however, is the fact that it seems few elected representatives take their roles seriously. Last years elected president Weihong Liang promptly resigned and left for a job after his election. It appears that despite lucrative stipends of elected office bearers the organisations 2019 Financial Report states that more than $133,000 were paid to elected student office bearers SUPRAS representatives havent been as effective as their undergraduate counterparts this year. Whereas the SRC has implemented an emergency coronavirus food and support service, the big ticket items for SUPRA this semester were welcome events ($3,500) and a fitness program ($11,500).Its difficult to see this, coupled with this years self-involved candidate statements, and not think it is indicative of a trend where those running for SUPRA council are doing it for themselves, rather than the students they represent. I strongly hope Im wrong, but it appears that this years candidates have no real vision for the organisation they hope to run. If this years SUPRA council is anything to go by, well be lucky if they even show up after their election. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Campaigning for the University of Sydney Union (USU) Board is officially underway. Yet, away from all the bright campaign colours and flashy text videos, the Union is in turmoil. With the coronavirus pandemic forcing a campus closure, the USUs revenue has taken a considerable hit. Controversially, the organisation has reacted to this by implementing austerity measures. First came staff layoffs as the USU closed most campus outlets. Then in a dramatic move last week, the organisation announced wage cuts of 40% across the organisation by reducing staff hours to 60% of what they were originally. Apart from a bizarre buy fruit to save the Union scheme, it remains unclear to us and the rest of the student body, Union membership and staff, what alternatives were considered, if any, prior to these decisions.The USU is undoubtedly in a precarious financial situation, certainly not helped by operating in an era of voluntary student unionism (VSU). That being said, the University of Sydney Union has been much luckier compared to student unions across the country and the Universitys help, when VSU was introduced, combined with USyds renowned political and student culture, helped keep the USU and other student organisations afloat. Last year, the Union was a $31 million organisation, and was set to make an operating contribution at the end of the year.With the end of compulsory student unionism came the cessation of an uninterrupted revenue stream, and ultimately ushered the Union towards a more corporate turn, with a focus on sponsorship and marketing initiatives. This is perhaps no more confronting than at Welcome Week, wherein the USU, in collaboration with corporations tries to sell us a commodified vision of student life. VSU also brought with it a political shift: pre-VSU the Left was stronger on board, with less Indies and Liberals.However issues with the USU run much deeper, and arent relegated to funding concerns in a VSU world. Indeed, former progressive USU president Anastasia Polites reflected on these very issues in an Honi article from the late 90s where she laid out the difficulty of reform via nine lessons: 1) board directors are powerless, 2) one Senate vote does not equal one vote, 3) having the numbers does not make you control the organisation, 4) the president has no control, 5) management is opposed to change, 6) conservatives equal the status quo, 7) there is a great divide between workers and management, 8) the organisation hides behind in camera sessions and 9) the structure is at fault.That so much of what Polites wrote still rings true is indicative that issues of student control and transparency are systemic and have long plagued the organisation. Of course some board candidates including this years running for directorship have noble or benign intentions. They have benefited greatly from the positive aspects of student life from revues to clubs and societies to outlets, and wish to give back. Yet, why does everything seemingly change once these candidates become directors? Can it just be put down to sycophantic student politicking? Surely its not so simple.It is an obvious (but necessary) point to make that most board directors are around twenty years old when elected. With limited financial knowledge, pages of technical readings, an honorarium of $4994 (for non executive board directors pre COVID-19) combined with study and often other work, knowledge hierarchies dictate the organisation, and board directors often defer to the advice of Heads of Departments (HoDs). Importantly, whilst the HoDs are staff, they operate more as managers, and board directors themselves have very little engagement with the vast majority of the USU staff (the bartenders, the chefs, the cleaners) who actually keep the organisation running, and whose pay they just voted to cut.Additionally, power is not distributed evenly amongst the board. Most power lies within the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee and the Executive. Of course, getting oneself into those positions also requires an additional level of politicking. In addition, with two Senate appointed directors (SADs) making up the 13-member board, the Universitys influence is ever-present in the boards decision making processes. Indeed, with voting rights in the Executive elections, candidates seeking office may neuter their politics so as to sway the SADs. The University also has a more sinister link insofar as the Senate has powers to audit the USU over the nebulously phrased alleged financial, electoral or other governance irregularities. The USU in this instance must hand over all information and documentation.More broadly, that the USU is unincorporated makes all board directors liable for its decisions. Honi believes that board directors remain liable for their decisions on board for approximately ten years after their directorship ends.The coronavirus-induced financial crisis exposes underlying problems with a lack of transparency on the Board. Despite consistent calls for greater transparency from candidates of a wide variety of political backgrounds (including this year), the Boards most controversial decisions are increasingly made out of the watchful eye of members. Three of the most controversial decisions passed by the Board in recent years the 2017 refusal to close outlets in solidarity with staff strikes, the 2019 decision to close Manning Bar, and the 2020 decisions to cut staff numbers and staff pay occurred in-camera. Indeed, it appears that the USU has become more opaque over time: a similar debate over closing outlets in solidarity with staff strikes occurred publicly in 2013.The current in-camera policy of the Board requires that discussions and votes on staff, negotiations with the University, legal matters, and sensitive financial matters or those that may impact upon commercial relationships occur confidentially. When asked at last weeks Special Meeting as to the motivation behind holding decisions on staff in-camera, president Connor Wherrett stated that Honi would have to ask the policys drafter. We did.Kade Denton, a 2013-15 board director who drafted the policy, said it was intended to give transparency for observers about the reasons underpinning Board decisions to move in-camera. For discussions on staff pay, for example, Denton said: its important for the Board to be able to communicate that to the number one stake-holder, staff, in a considered way, rather than them just finding out through an Honi tweet. But as Denton clarified, despite the policy, the decision to move in-camera remains one for the Board.Hiding behind the policy to justify secrecy is not particularly persuasive where it would be quite easy for the Board to pass a motion to change it. I think its the role of the USU president to represent the policies of the USU, not to shaft it to a Board director from seven years ago, a former director told Honi. We also understand that Wherrett expressed a desire to a Pulp editor to reform the policy, but was unable to because the COVID-19 crisis had been too time consuming.Despite the policy, it appears board directors may use the cover of secrecy for other, less popular debates. In the most recent special meeting, for example, it appeared that board directors had used the cover of in-camera to raise concerns about directors Maya Eswaran and Decheng Sun supporting the Defend Our Education campaign. Eswaran stated that shed moved a motion to make the discussion public, and that board directors who had been happy to make criticisms when the meeting was closed were suddenly quiet.Not only are in-camera policies a way of removing board directors opinions from the public eye, but they are a useful way of maintaining a veneer of Board unity. Though Wherrett was happy to tell Honi that all board directors had voted in favour of closing Manning Bar, he would not reveal the breakdown of the decision to cut staff pay where it had passed by only a majority.But in-camera policies are not the USUs only tool in remaining opaque. Members seeking to ask questions to their elected representatives are likely to be disappointed: when Honi attended last weeks meeting CEO Alexis Roitman and Wherrett said that questions should only be directed to the CEO or president. When other directors were asked via email about whether they would support reforms to the in-camera policy, all board directors refused to provide an answer. Most cited section 8.2(a) of the USU constitution, which states that it is the presidents duty to represent the Board, though does not prohibit other members from speaking out decisions or policies they are considering. On this (unpersuasive) view of the provision, board directors would be barred from speaking about the policies they campaigned on as soon as theyre elected.Honi spoke to a former board director who stated that it sounds like there are a lot of directors who just dont want to give their decisions. Its definitely OK for board directors to say that they support [for example] more reviews into transparency, or sexual harassment in the USU. If theyre not sure where the line is, they argued, they should be using the resources available to them: the USU staff and former board directors.But the difficulty for board directors is that in large part the obligations of directors are up to their own interpretation. The Board can vote to punish any director it deems to have spoken out in contravention of their duty to act in the best interests of USU members. Unless a board director is prepared to risk censure, expulsion, or mount a legal challenge to the Board bearing the risk of a loss and heavy penalties they are likely to err on the side of secrecy. Maya Eswaran, one of the few directors to respond to Honis questions about the secret vote to cut staff pay, indicated this cautiousness. I am unsure if I am able to answer how I voted without breaching my fiduciary duties in relation to confidential information during an in camera vote, which could expose me to risk of censure or legal action, she told Honi.Whilst COVID-19 has both exacerbated and exposed problems within the Union, these issues existed long before the pandemic hit. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is an undeniable romance about the student movement. It conjures images of Vietnam-era demonstrations, of pre-VSU hi-jinks and of mass protest. Though much of what makes the mythology of our political past so alluring has changed form, the spirit of campus activism remains steadfast. This is particularly true in womens collectives, which form the basis for feminist organising on university campuses across Australia.Its for this reason that I believe it is important to vigorously criticise these collectives, and the broader movement that they operate within. As a former Womens Officer, I am intimately aware of the responsibilities and difficulties of feminist organising. I offer the following critique with love, and in good faith.In recent years, the issue of sexual assault on campus has come to national attention. This is largely thanks to the work of student activists and sexual assault advocates, who have been agitating for this issue since the late 1970s. It is an issue that affects all university campuses, and is often the predominant uniting cause of the womens collectives.Despite this, there is no real national organisation of university womens collectives. Though there is some cross collaboration between campuses, they otherwise operate as separate entities. In particular, the University of Sydney Womens Collective is viewed as a vanguard, frequently touted as the most radical, and the most active, of the collectives. This presents a number of problems. Most obviously, the aims of the movement as a whole are less effective when championed by a single campus. In addition to this, the reliance on a single collective to drive the momentum of a campaign means that, should that collective falter or fail, the campaign will fail with it. It also relies on the assumption that USyd Woco is the most radical and active of the collectives, or is more so to a significant extent, which is not necessarily true.Amongst the campus collectives, there is a definite political divide. This is especially present in years where members of student Labor factions hold a majority of convener or officer positions. Irregardless of the proclivities of the individual, party politics dont exactly lend themselves to radicalism. Many of these collectives focus on community, rather than activism devoting their energies to social events over movement building.The current USyd Womens Officers, Ellie Wilson and Vivienne Guo, have identified this as an issue that affects the movement at large. At the moment, when social media presence is crucial to our organising due to social distancing measures stifling other channels of protest and collective activity, weve seen very little from other university collectives. When we do see content, its often very tame and a bit liberal, rather than really pushing for any sort of radical feminist ideas or action. Though this is likely a fair comment, its worth questioning what USyd Woco are doing that differentiates them from their less favourable counterparts. Their Facebook page is regularly used to fundraise a worthy endeavour, but hardly a radical action. Much of their work since the beginning of 2019 has been focused on community building and social events, rather than acting on their claimed radical politics. I dont mean to single USyd Woco out in this criticism there are much less active collectives. Its simply worth considering that inactivity is an issue that affects all collectives, not just the ones on other campuses.There is very little in the way of national organising. Though there is the Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA), and the Womens Department of the National Union of Students (NUS), neither do anything particularly effective or meaningful. NOWSA only functionally exists as a yearly conference, and the effectiveness of NUS is dependent on the whims of whichever Labor hack is instilled at the NUS National Conference (NatCon). Ultimately, NUS cant be given too much credit in either the success or disappointments of student feminist organising, because it does very little at all.The lack of collaboration between collectives is a generational issue, one that has persisted for several years, and that wont be solved under the structure of NUS. It is perpetuated by a frustrating resistance to criticism that is present in all the collectives, and which is further ratified by the fact that they are autonomous, affording them an almost holy status in the liberal, identity obsessed world of student politics.I believe that such an issue could be fixed first by an increase in cross-collective communication, and further by a move to organising under a structure similar to the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN), which is a democratic student network that elects state and national conveners, and organises through campus collectives. Though there is no easy fix to such long standing issues, a move away from NUS as a means of national organising, and toward an alternate structure, will go a long way in improving the overall strength and effectiveness of the movement.If we accept that NUS is functionally useless, then the importance of individual and collaborative campus activity is twofold. Notwithstanding the importance of sexual assault as an issue for all campuses, there is a noticeable lack of long term planning or co-ordination around attempts at reform that have existed, in some form or another, for decades.In recent years, collectives have relied on the release of a report or event, such as the 2017 AHRC Change the Course report, to mobilise. These reports emerge every few years, and by their nature are overwhelmingly disappointing (the exception being the Red Zone Report in 2017, which was authored by unpaid activists and advocates). Campaigns are organised in reaction to these events, rather than sustained to build momentum and respond when they do occur.I dont believe that this is a particularly effective or strategic method of organising. In relying on the output of institutions such as the AHRC, or the work of Elizabeth Broderick in recommending measures for cultural renewal of the colleges, we ultimately weaken our aims. Our political action should not be relying on the work of agents acting in favour of the University.The University of Sydney SRC Womens Officers identified the delay of the Universities Australia survey, which was due to occur this year, as a reason for why they have not yet established a specific campaign around campus sexual violence. The Universities Australia review has unfortunately been delayed for the foreseeable future due to the host of new issues in tertiary education that have arisen due to COVID-19, which makes it hard for us to organise around sexual violence on campus in the ways we had intended to when starting our terms.Though I understand and accept that the pandemic has caused considerable setbacks, I cant help but feel that the absence of a sustained campaign in 2019 and 2020 will ultimately leave the movement in a weaker position post COVID-19. Why wait for the release of a report, review or survey to organise, especially when such an event is being organised by a university peak body? By reacting instead of acting, we ultimately give universities the upper hand. Aside from coordination and strategy, I believe that there is a major issue in the historic and contemporary demands of the sexual assault campaign, especially at the University of Sydney namely that of demanding punitive policies to police sexual assault from the University itself.In campaigning to increase the scope and severity of penalty for reported sexual assault, we have given the University increased powers to control student behaviour. This is evident in the rise in cases of student misconduct levelled against student activists in recent years. Right-wing interventions into the misconduct process, such as that of Bettina Arndt and Greg Donnelly against myself, have often been labelled a perversion or manipulation of a system that had been partially reformed to better assist survivors of sexual assault in acheiving some semblance of justice.Though I used to agree with this idea, I now know that this is not the case the system is working exactly as it has been designed to. We, as student activists, have failed to properly consider the full implications of what we have demanded from the University.Beyond this, advocating for such punitive measures is incompatible with left-wing ideals, especially abolitionist politics, which have recently risen in popularity within the USyd Womens Collective. When the broad majority of the left considers processes of community accountability and restorative justice to be best practice in achieving justice for survivors of sexual assault, it seems odd that we would suddenly revert to more punitive measures under the structure of the University itself. This contradiction is a symptom of a broader issue, where false importance is placed on the relationship between Womens Officers and University administration. As communication and collaboration between Universities and Womens Officers has increased, many collectives, including USyd Woco, have substituted participating in university committees and meetings as a meaningful avenue for agitating for reform. In the absence of a campaign, these meetings become the only consistent action around the issue which is an obvious problem, given that they are conducted by management with conciliation in aim.Despite my criticisms, I have an immense fondness for campus feminism. For many of its members, its an entry point for a deeper engagement with left-wing politics and activism. Though this may be easier said than done, I am optimistic that a better movement, an actual movement, can be built across university campuses. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Religious clubs are some of the largest societies at the University of Sydney. Yet with COVID-19 restrictions disrupting most social interactions, theyve been forced to come together behind screens to practice their faith.Rituals like prayer, sacred ceremonies, and large communal gatherings hold deep significance for religious groups. For many believers, these practices are intricately tied to social and cultural identity. So in a time when the very fibre of our lives is shifting, it is particularly difficult for religious adherents to adjust.How are the biggest faith groups on campus helping members through the pandemic?Evangelical Union (EU)With community or fellowship a fundamental part of Christian beliefs, many of the EUs practices rely largely on interpersonal relationships.We seek to regularly gather together in order to encourage one another and worship God together, President Jacob shared. This communal aspect has been particularly difficult to replicate in online formats.For many members, staying part of this community has been an essential part of coping with the crisis. With activities such as Bible studies, one-to-ones, prayer meetings, and public talks continuing on Zoom, the EU has sought to provide avenues for believers to express themselves and receive emotional support.Jacob also spoke of the hope and certainty Christians can hold onto during the pandemic. The society has been reminding members that we know our sins have been forgiven, and we have a glorious eternal future with God awaiting us, where there will be no more crying, hurt, sickness, pain or death.The President encouraged students to seek out answers to their longings during the virus. Wed love to welcome you into our community, no matter your background or the beliefs you may have we think Jesus is for everybody!Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS)For Jews, communal prayers and holidays have been particularly hard to practice. For example, recently Jewish students celebrated Passover (or Pesach), one of the most important events in the Jewish calendar. As a festival which revolves around spending time with family and sharing meals, this year has proven particularly difficult.A large part of the Jewish faith is community, said AUJS Education Officer Timothy. Keeping those connections strong has been a challenge when you are at times only a voice at the other end of the phone or an image on a screen.However, Timothy also noted that adherents had been getting creative within the restrictions to uphold these important rituals. He felt that religious clubs may have an easier time transitioning online, being identity and community-based rather than activity-based. AUJS has been keeping in touch with members through social media and video conferencing platforms, and creating video messages to encourage solidarity in believers.Timothy similarly felt that our relationships with others are most important to cultivate during the virus.If you are ever feeling isolated, make sure you reach out, he encouraged. We are all in this together.Sydney University Catholic Society (CathSoc)President Teressa spoke to the emotional difficulty her society felt in cancelling weekly events. Rituals such as praying together, attending mass, and practicing acts of charity have been interrupted by social distancing rules.Though we have been running our regular events on Zoom, its just not the same as being in the presence of other people, Teressa said. We really had to trust that this was not the end, but only the beginning of a new mission for the Catholic Society.This new mission has largely taken place over Zoom, where the club has been running prayers, Bible studies, and social events. Executives have released daily Bible quotes and spiritual reflections over social media to provide hope and encouragement for members. The society has also started making food packs for homeless and elderly people.Teressa was optimistic about the role CathSoc has played in supporting members during the virus.We have faith in knowing that [God] is transforming our lives and the world, to bring light, restoration and hope, she explained. Our community is a much-needed source of strength and accountability during these difficult times.Sydney University Muslim Student Association (SUMSA)Adapting to virus restrictions has been a unique process, to say the least, said Executive member Alifa.SUMSA has provided online spaces for adherents to come together during the crisis through WhatsApp threads, Zoom events, and sharing reflections on Facebook.Alifa still saw the positive side of the pandemics effect, as it has forced the club to think outside of the box in their engagement with students. She expressed excitement about collaborations with the Muslim community both locally and abroad that could be facilitated in the online space.Significantly, last Friday marked the first day of Ramadan, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. Typically the month is marked by believers coming together to break their fast and pray at the local mosque. This year, Ramadan celebrations are looking very different.Alifa said while isolation will made it hard to feel like a community during the fast, Islam is unique in allowing worship to extend beyond the mosque and into the home.For many, the mosque is home away from home. But as we stay indoors this Ramadan, our homes have become our mosque away from the mosque.* * *Practicing beliefs has never been more difficult for religious clubs. But clearly for many members, it has also never been more important.From behind screens, between walls, and across spatial divides, believers are still living out their faith. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I believe that Anzac Day serves a purpose. It serves as a yearly reminder of war, its pointlessness and other oft-annotated evils. And so long as there are the sad people standing and remembering, we shall also remember. But in another 60 years or so, there will be very few left to recall the sadness and horror and idiocy. Perhaps this will be the time to do away with Anzac Day.In edition seven of Honi Soit in 1958, Geoffrey Havers wrote an article that ended with the above statement. His piece was a searing indictment of the culture of alcoholism and nationalism that pervaded Anzac Day, a critique which still rings true today. It has now been just over 60 years since this piece was written. Indeed, we are in the time in which Havers thought we might have done away with Anzac Day altogether, yet the tradition remains as robust and as booze-soaked as ever. Given that things did not eventuate the way that Havers suggested they might have, it seems pertinent to question how well his arguments have held up from 1958 until now.At the time of publishing, it had been 43 years since Australian soldiers landed on the shores of Gallipoli and only 13 years since the end of World War Two. In this light, one might understand the extreme backlash the article received. In 1958, there was little room for criticism of any military ventures. The article circulated through the Australian media landscape, causing severe uproar. RSLs threatened to withdraw their funding from USyd scholarships and there were even calls for the editor to be stood down.Havers wrote in a time where critique of Anzac Day was near blasphemous, yet it seems that such sentiments are still widely unpopular 60 years on. Rather than doing away with Anzac Day, we have become aggressively, almost terrifyingly protective of April 25. Why is white Australia still so defensive of Anzac Day? Is there, perhaps, some salient collective shame that we feel about the way that our national day of mourning is steeped in alcoholism?Out of this rather speculative and routine beach landing has developed a festival of hero-adulation unequalled anywhere in the world.Isnt it interesting that two of our national days of celebration are premised on the event of a beach landing? Indeed, when we are assessing the validity of Anzac Day we cannot forget that we live in a country that throws a nation-wide yearly party on January 26 to celebrate the beginning of Australias settler-colonial project and the continued genocide of Indigenous peoples. This misplaced celebratory venture forces us to call into question why we might hold festivities on any day deemed a national holiday. Alongside Anzac Day, Australia Day is a glaring example of the way in which an illusion of commemoration masks our national culture of excessive inebriation.Anzac Day strikes me as opportunistic. Those of us who feel little affiliation with the emotional matters of the day are still handed a public holiday and are rewarded for our respectfulness in the morning with permission to drink in the afternoon. A militarist, masculinised national identity is kept safe inside this one sacred day of the year, and we quite literally drink it up. We are labelled un-Australian if we reject the festivities.Havers contends that we are remembering the wrong way, and I agree with him. What he ignores, however, is that we are not remembering the right thing. We must call into question what it is we are commemorating in relation to all that we dont commemorate. As we glorify the soldiers who have lost their lives in war, we continue to ignore the lasting impacts of Australias involvement in other types of conflicts: the intergenerational trauma of the frontier wars, subsequent policies of mistreatment and Australias inhumane policies of holding asylum seekers in offshore detention. Havers was right when he said that Anzac Day is an embodiment of Australias selective empathy: we stand solemnly in silent prayer at the cenotaphs at dawn; we head with as much reverence towards the racecourses as [we] did towards the memorials in the morning, and we remain as apathetic and detached as ever to the atrocities that are right in front of our eyes.Havers depicted Anzac Day as a gigantic day of enjoyment and mourning: a description that I would argue is still sufficient today. There is some semblance of genuine mourning seen as swarms of people gather to pay their respects. I dont want to suggest that we dont commemorate Australian citizens who have fought in war. Who am I, someone who has enjoyed a life of immense privilege, to claim that Anzac Day shouldnt exist? If I were born a century ago, I would be watching my friends go to war. My personal disconnect to those who have served the military isnt enough for me to rationalise the claim that Anzac Day should be abandoned. But there still is something increasingly uncomfortable about our treatment of April 25.Australia has spent more than any other country on commemorating the first World War. Between 2014 and 2028, there will be a projected minimum of $1.1billion spent on new war commemoration projects in Australia. The government is adding fuel to the fire that is the culture of Anzac Day. Contrary to Havers suggestions, we havent done away with Anzac Day. Quite the opposite: the state continues to legitimise the day as a key facet of our national identity in a way that further militarises our collective consciousness.In this light, it seems that we wont do away with Anzac Day for some time. It feels too bold for me to follow in Havers footsteps and suggest that in another 60 years it might be time to finally abandon the day altogether, but I am sure that he was both right and brave to critique the day. Two weeks after Havers piece was published in 1958, Honi published an editorial to defend the article, stating that criticism is one of the many foundations of democracy. The importance of such criticism hasnt waned, and thus we must keep asking ourselves: is Anzac Day still alive and well because of intergenerational impacts of war that have been passed down, or has the display of institutionalised alcoholism totally overridden the days original intention? I am left wondering what Honi reporters will write about this in another 60 years. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> People go into public office for a number of reasons, and, ostensibly, theres a certain degree of humility and altruism involved. The same lines are trotted out routinely from budding student hacks to weathered careerists alike; a desire to represent ones community, to voice their grievances, advocate for their interests, and help those less fortunate. On campus, well soon start to hear some of these platitudes in the upcoming USU Board race. Often however, this is all simply a smokescreen to justify a career in pursuit of material, selfish ends. In the 1970s, one such hack was Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, later to become our 29th Prime Minister. Turnbull, in his time at the University, was an avid contributor to this very paper, unsuccessfully vying for editorship in 1974.Fast forward to 2020, and Turnbull has added his own piece of pulpy environmental vandalism to the growing genre of autobiographies released by resentful, deposed Prime Ministers. This cottage industry of manufactured rehabilitation has given way to an unrelenting downpour of glowing profiles, reviews and reprints of salacious excerpts in national broadsheets. Turnbulls recent appearance as a major headliner for the Sydney Writers Festival, where he is interviewed by Annabel Crabb, is no exception. Their conversations traverse much of Turnbulls experiences as detailed in the book, and over the course of an hour Turnbull is indulged further and further into an endless pit of his own self-aggrandisement. He freely admits he was motivated to write the book so quickly after his demise at the hands of the conservative wing of the Liberal Party, the implication for the audience being that it is largely out of a residual anger and spite from the unsavoury spill that delivered us a Morrison government.Crabbs initial interruptions, altogether more curious than challenging, are aimed at unpacking Turnbulls psychology as an author over anything else understanding the nature of his diary habits, or the lessons he learned from his recent contemporaries in writing autobiographies. This, however, quickly devolves into tittering flattery, as if Malcolm were an overstrung schoolboy in desperate need of confidence. As they reminisce over their memories filming Crabbs famously vacuous Kitchen Cabinet and giggle about Malcolms wild transgressions of outdated New South Wales civil law on the waters of Port Jackson, one begins to wonder whether the ABCs chief online political editor intends at all to interrogate any of Turnbulls indiscretions as Prime Minister.The conversation then turns, on his terms, to politics a reflection on his role as the contemporary saviour of media diversity in Australia, having had a key role in the founding of The Guardian Australia in 2013. Crabb goes to remarkable lengths to portray Turnbull as a man in control, describing his membership of the Liberal Party as merely an intellectual exercise, his relationship one of convenience. Her reference to his insouciance in the face of being exiled from his party takes on a tone of adoration that never seems to shrink; whether intentionally distancing oneself from committed ideology is a thing to be adored is another question.Crabbs evasion of the marriage equality miscarriage stands out as possibly the most glaring omission in the entire conversation. On no other social issue was Turnbull more morally fluid and incomprehensibly spineless, capitulating to the Rights cavalcade of culture warriors and their legislatively impotent plebiscite that permanently scarred this countrys democracy. In spite of the fact that 85% of the LGBTQ community would have preferred delayed reform over the survey process, Turnbull continues to this day to champion the eventual Marriage Amendment Act as one of his crowning achievements as Prime Minister, and a feather in his progressive cap. For Crabb, this is apparently just not worth pressing.Turnbull does seek at various junctures to move away from his past and engage Crabb in the present, discussing the Governments response to COVID-19. Extraordinarily, he manages to insert himself into proceedings here, noting how glad he was that the Morrison administration got on with their implementation of the JobKeeper scheme, at his urging. For all of her obsequiousness, it is here that Crabb seeks to restrain Malcolm slightly, bringing him back to the book and one of the most genuinely interesting elements of it his diplomatic relationship with US President Donald Trump, and specifically the turbulent crossover period between the Obama and Trump administrations.Here, Turnbull manages to spin a story about getting Trump to honour a deal that resettled refugees arbitrarily imprisoned in offshore detention into one of delicate heroism and diplomatic prowess. Turnbulls conversation with Trump is better known for the Presidents remark about Australias offshore detention regime: That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am. He makes a point of his describing the refugees he tortured as wonderful people, whilst conveniently skipping over the fact that they had been detained at all. If one was reading the book in a vacuum, youd wonder why they needed to be resettled in the first place. Naturally through all of this, there is little to no accountability nor interruption from Crabb; only knowing, pursed smiles. The bulk of the rest of the interview goes in uncritical circles around how, as a leader, he was formidable, accomplished, exceptionally progressive and yet simultaneously powerless to the right of his party. Its an extraordinary piece of sustained intellectual gymnastics, and its as grating to listen to as the book is difficult to read.It is hardly surprising that Turnbull has attempted to reimagine himself as a moderate, classically liberal Prime Minister, shackled by the Murdoch press and a rogue, antediluvian cabal in his own party; even less so when weve seen the Australian media establishment come running to his aid. For those who continue to be marginalised by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison administration, it is nothing short of grotesque. Crabbs Kitchen Cabinet theory of political coverage seems to be that if you pull back the curtain, we come to appreciate the realities of political life, and the nuances involved in the callous policies of Coalition politicians, (who are actually just like us, if youd just care to listen).This operates on the assumption that softball questions about fish curries and multi-layered pavlovas are enough to get politicians to open up at all, or on anything relevant. Politicians can be, and frequently are, likeable and charismatic; but this is largely irrelevant to their efficacy as public servants. Turnbull as a political operator has always known this hes spent years perfecting his image of an articulate, polite Liberal that was palatable across the political spectrum. Turnbulls firm grasp of respectability politics (no doubt learnt in his formative years brown-nosing billionaires) is central to his historical resurrection, and weve seen it when any halfway-contentious social issue is raised what is important for Turnbull is that we are civil and well-mannered, even if it is to the detriment of justice; because of course, he would never bear the brunt of what follows. In line with a lifetime of paying lip service to progressive movements, in retirement Turnbull has had the arrogance to brand himself an activist, and sees no issue of praxis in his arena being Twitter, where hes recently proselytised about the climate action he never had the fortitude to deliver, and told people of colour to buy his book to fix racism.Instead of taking him to task over his time in office, or asking questions of him that could potentially see him become a more legitimate, if flawed figure in progressive politics in the future, our media establishment has chosen to simply fawn over him until his hurt feelings are soothed by a bestseller. Here, Annabel Crabb was no exception. Malcolm Turnbull didnt need the curtain pulled back; weve been subjected to years of his trying to tell us how we should see him, with nothing short of disdain for those who sought to hold him to account.Humility is for saints. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Inescapable in the triumphant stories we hear of Prime Ministers, actors and great poets of Australia forming the beginnings of their journey on our campus, is the colonialism which underpins it all.From the moment I started first year, my goal was to beat the system of the university in every way I could, to pay them back for stealing my ancestors land. I detested the seemingly stupid obsession the people around me had with a culture that didnt appear to be there anymore. Something about this has been troubling me lately in wanting to beat the system, like many, I got swept into the nostalgia of it and had became one of the obsessors too.Being a shamefully full circle Sydney Uni student stupol hack, performing arts wanker, slave to the Honi archives I should probably live in a dingy share-house in Glebe. Fit with a broken gate and a mouldy cast-iron ceiling that I stare at each night before dreaming of dirty bongs and dodgy SRC preference deals. But I dont. Because not many people do anymore. I live with my parents in the bedroom across the hall from theirs. And, like most people, when I get home from the Flodge on a Monday (usually just after they close the beer garden well before midnight, early enough to adhere to the Unis 90% attendance policy the next day), I have to be careful not to wake my family.It was a few weeks ago when I realised what I was doing. Late one night I glanced at my side table and let out an embarrassed sneer when I noticed Comrades by Dominic Knight (for the uninitiated a novel about student politics at USyd) sitting nestled amongst the clutter. My sneer was not just because it is a shocking excuse for a book, but more because I realised that from the moment I stepped foot on Eastern Avenue, for all my denying it, I had been engaging in the fixation so many have on the past culture of our campus. Id spent my time trying desperately to live out an experience that doesnt exist anymore. So desperately that I was reading about it in a novel. More upsettingly, I realised that there was something deeper I was missing out on by doing this.***Growing up, many of us hear stories from our educators that if we go to university, the years spent there will be the best of our lives. 9am lectures: optional, midday beers: compulsory. Unfortunately, decades of neoliberal governments and subtle, but consistent jabs by University management have meant that this reality is nothing but nostalgia.VSUEvery student politicians favourite buzzword.Until 2005, students had to pay a fee directly to their student unions, under what was known as Compulsory Student Unionism (CSU). The unions were rich, their parties were plenty and their theatresports jams full to the brim with the creative fruit of time not spent on degrees. Their wealth meant they had the money to create a culture of leisure appealing enough for students to turn a blind eye to study; there was something there that seemed more valuable than any lecture hall.In 2005, the Howard government legislated Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), meaning this money had been stripped away by the nightmare of SSAF. The dream was over. Live music on campus disappeared seemingly overnight, Footbridge was sold and left to become a ghost of what it once was and could have been, and Manning became a victim of countless half-hearted makeovers.More than anything, Howard detested leisure. He hated the thought of any student having copious amounts of time in which to not be productive. He couldnt stand that they were putting his hard budgeted dole money into buying six packs to entertain themselves. What he missed, however, is that some of the most important takeaways from the intellect we develop at university, are born out of leisure. It seems Howard never pondered these ideas during his university years.GentrificationWhile gentrification has certainly contributed to the subtle killing of student culture, I hesitate to paint students as the sole victim of it. Sydney Uni and its surrounds are on Gadigal land, and one of the suburbs it sits on, Redfern, has one of the most strong and vibrant Aboriginal communities in the country. In the wake of students taking up cheap rent around the university (which enabled them to spend so much of their time at, and build a culture on campus), it was the local Aboriginal community and low-income earners that were left in the property dust.However, now that the second wave of gentrification is taking place, with the uni students of the 90s grown-up and ready to buy million dollar terraces, most current students cant afford to live anywhere close to campus. This has been a major factor in the loss of campus life. No one is going to want to hang around at Manning until midnight on a weekday if theres no safe route home back to the suburbs.Manning, we miss you (we think)The closure of Manning Bar earlier in the year was devastating for many. The response of the student body, however, seems peculiar. So many of us spoke about how wed miss it, but so few of us spoke of our own experiences, deferring instead to those of generations past.Manning, in reality, hasnt been cared for by many since they banned smoking on the balcony in 2012, and there seems to be more middle-aged heavy metal bands playing there than student beers bought.It makes sense then, that when Manning died, we felt a grief that wasnt ours; it was a grief for what we never got, for what we wanted so desperately. For what those who come after us will never have. For what we will only ever read about in the archives.***While its important to critique the reasons behind a great cultural shift in Australian campus life, its equally important not to over-grieve it. Because in doing so, we miss whats right in front of us. We miss the opportunity to build a culture well be proud to tell stories of. We cant sit around pretending Sydney Unis still great we need to rally for better funded student unions so that it actually can be. Manning closing doesnt mean we cant get drunk anymore. Rooms in shithole share-houses costing $300 a week doesnt mean we cant have coming of age crises. All these things are still happening to us. They are just happening differently. And were missing the opportunity to experience them by waiting for them to arrive. There is something incredibly endearing about living through a new and unique period in student culture dont let it slip by you. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Six hours north of Sydney, a straight shot up the Newell Highway, lies the Pilliga Scrub: the largest remaining stretch of native forest, west of the Great Dividing Range. Pilliga (or Billarga) is a Gamilaraay word meaning swamp oak, reminding visitors that these woodlands are sites of unceded Gamilaraay land. During a trip up to Narrabri in February alongside a group of students from universities across Sydney, I had driven up to Narrabri in rural northern New South Wales with (admittedly) little-to-no knowledge as to what to expect. As our car convoy trundles into the forest, tracing deep tire tracks left by trucks and ranger utes, I notice that the wiry native grasses seem to shimmer like fine satin. The mirage hides coarse stalks that catch on your clothes; the woodland is beautiful and resilient.The sun beats down on ephemeral creeks, disguised as sandy dunes that break up a semi-arid backdrop of white cypress pine and eucalyptus. Yet, this seemingly harsh landscape is a place of extraordinary conservation value, providing desperately-needed refuge to endangered fauna such as squirrel gliders, barking owls, koalas, black-striped wallabies and the iconic endemic Pilliga mouse. The Pilliga is also one of the handful of areas that provides significant groundwater recharge to the Great Artesian Water Basin, the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world. This natural wonder provides essential freshwater to rural Australian communities and a vast network of ecosystems.But looking at the native landscape, peppered with pipes and Santos signs, one cant help but dread destruction on the horizon. In 2018, the Pilliga was approved by the New South Wales Independent Planning Committee (IPC) as the site of a controversial $3.6 billion coal seam gas project (CSG), spearheaded by Australian mining giant Santos. Under the Morrison governments promise of a gas-led recovery for Australia a supposedly sustainable and less harmful alternative to fossil fuels the project will see the construction of 850 new CSG wells in the region. However, CSG is hardly a sustainable alternative.CSG refers to the natural gas found in coal seam formations deep in the earth, contained by underground water pressure. Despite years of unwavering community opposition, Santos has been extracting CSG from the Pilliga for twenty years under exploration licenses, granted by the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997. These explorations are leaving devastation in their wake. CSG wells bring untreated production water up to the surface in order to release the natural gas from the seam, which is often contaminated with salt, heavy metals and other toxic contaminants. In addition to this, hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) is frequently used to stimulate gas flow in the wells, allowing companies to drain the land. Well-known for its devastating environmental impacts, fracking increases the likelihood of contaminating precious groundwater sources. The problem is that coal seams are often linked to underground aquifers, such as the Great Artesian Water Basin, and extractions risk the poisoning of the entire water source as well as the innumerable ecosystems that rely on them.The Pilliga is not expected to go down without a fight, and it has become a battleground against Santos for First Nations people, citizen scientists and passionate members of the local community for many years. The fightback is often unglamorous and seldom reaches the ears of city-centric, mainstream media, but there is a rich history of protest on this land.On the ground, lock-ons and protest camps have held the line against Santos and the encroachment of gas extractions as far back as 2014, camping along highways and in the scrub to delay or halt Santos advancements. Additionally, a battalion of citizen scientists and locals, as part of a community gas watch, make regular trips into the scrub to check on existing gas operations, test soil and water and check for new sites of pollution.I had the privilege of chatting to Dan, a dedicated local who makes regular trips into the scrub as part of the community gaswatch. He tells me about a protest camp in 2014 that occupied a strip of the Newell Highway for 3 months. The protest camp would not have been possible if not for the community banding together from far and wide. The local Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) looked the other way when asked to remove protesters, and truckers driving down from Northern Queensland would drop off food and supplies for the protesters, including watermelons, mangoes and one time, even a second-hand couch. With this community effort, the protest camp held the line against Santos encroachment on the Pilliga. But despite their efforts, Santos has continued to quietly extract gas from the land.Before we drove into the scrub to investigate Santos gas operations, we were given an information pamphlet to prepare us for what we might find, detailing the location of the gas wells and water treatment plants, and types of pollution that we should look out for. On a visit to the Bibblewindi Water Treatment Plant, we discovered infertile topsoil as well as an unlit flare which is supposed to burn up unusable combustible vapours and liquids to prevent pollution. Oddly, there was not a worker in sight. One of my companions made the comment that Santos had promised jobs to the local communities, yet all sites of operation that we encountered were being run by automation.Local workers arent the only ones to lose out if Santos moves ahead with their controversial gas project; Santos operations have already and will continue to inflict damage on sacred Indigenous sites. The Pilliga is a sacred place for the Gamilaraay people, and while the IPC requires all relevant information regarding the land to be disclosed publicly, there is much information regarding the Gamilaraay relationship to the Pilliga that is culturally sensitive. In the process of discussions with the IPC, councillor Kodi Brady from Warrumbungle Shire Council, believes that there has not been sufficient respect for First Nations culture and sovereignty of the land.There has been a total lack of engagement and respect for First Nations people of these communities. The conversation needs to be had and led by First Nations people, says Mr Brady, who is a Gamilaraay man himself. We [the Gamilaraay people] dont own the Pilliga, the Pilliga owns us as a people and were a part of it.As a step towards platforming Indigenous voices in the fight to protect the Pilliga, Mr Brady believes that discussions between official bodies such as the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) and Gamilaraay people should occur on Country, in the Pilliga itself.Anna Christie, an anti-CSG advocate from the North West Protection Agency, believes that places like the Pilliga should be at the forefront of climate justice movements. The imperative of frontline activism is felt less in cities, where we often see thousands rallying for climate justice. In Narrabri and the Pilliga scrub, where sights of environmental and community destruction are unavoidable, the urgency mounts. Anna tells me that Santos patently understates its environmental impacts.They dont calculate the roads theyre going to build and they underestimate how much clearing there is. Its not just about adding up how many square kilometres theyre going to clear, because if youre fragmenting the forest, that has impacts of its own. Fragmentation is really harmful for small animals that need shelter. It creates super-highways for ferals.It is worth noting that if an area is fragmented by deforestation and other developments, it becomes harder to revive and restore. Fragmentation destroys the blueprint for what an ecosystem should be, thus destroying the ecological history of the area. There is no intent to restore, Anna says.While the case of the Pilliga has been touched upon by the mainstream media, it is certainly not the first of its kind. As we venture into the scrub, Anna tells me about the town of Tara in Queensland, which has already fallen to the coal seam gas rush.Its over. Theyve wrecked the place, the people have left, the place is polluted. Seriously, you dont hear a bird sing. The only birds you see are crows, and they are the most sick-looking birds. Its like a science fiction apocalypse. Its dead.As Anna talks, I hear it then; the twittering of unseen birds in the trees that surround the ephemeral creek that wed taken momentary refuge in. While much has been lost, there is still life in the Pilliga, still hope for restoration.Its sad because out in Tara, there were a lot of dreams, Anna reminisces. Here in Narrabri, theyre still drinking the Kool-Aid. Despite the fact that its happened in Roma, Miles, Tara, they still think that Narrabri is going to do well.My trip to Narrabri brought me into contact with many locals within the community, painting a picture of a town divided by their hopes and fear of what Santos may bring. Given the looming threat of environmental devastation, it would be easy to assume that the community would stand as a united front in opposing further CSG developments. However, it quickly became clear that the shadow of Santos hung over the local community, masquerading as a selfless benefactor. Anna tells me that 98% of around 23,000 submissions in a local survey were opposed to Santos, yet the reality doesnt seem to line up with the statistics.Recently, Santos sponsored and commissioned a Santos Festival of Rugby in Narrabri which was welcomed by many people in the community who rejoiced at the financial influx that the rugby would inevitably bring. On the other hand, local activists argue that Santos has long been trying to drive a stake through the community, splitting the people with their promises of prosperity. To Dan and Anna, Santos Festival of Rugby represents community division. The towns tearing itself apart, says Dan. Its been a nightmare.Anna admits that within the local community, Santos CSG projects are taboo to talk about let alone oppose, as many locals fear retribution from Santos in the form of withdrawing economic support and investment in the town. More than that, many fear retribution from their neighbours and friends in the local community. Indeed, in the days leading up to the Santos Festival of Rugby, an Extinction Rebellion protester who had grown up in Narrabri was verbally assaulted by an enraged local, who accused the protesters of wanting to take away the harmless recreation of rugby away from her kids and the wider community.Experiences like this are sadly not uncommon, and I heard many similar stories as I met more climate protesters who had worked to keep up resistance on the frontlines. These kinds of misunderstandings run deep in the community, as misinformation runs amok. On another day, I was chatting to a vendor at the local market, and we got on the topic of the CSG projects. Theyre not fracking though, she said to me. Yet, fracking is used to stimulate the gas flow in about 40% of CSG wells in Australia, allowing gas companies to extract as much as possible from the land.As our little troup left Narrabri, we took with us fresh hopes and renewed vigor for change. Anna hopes that future generations of activists will make more efforts to bridge the divide between the city and the frontlines. If they get their foot in the door, were sunk, she tells me.In the face of encroaching climate catastrophe, it is difficult but important to envision a future free of mining giants, a future where we arent constantly immersed in a ubiquitous sense of doom and desperation. Yet, such a future is possible. Weve kicked them out of everywhere except here, says Dan. Weve kicked them out of Gosper, the Northern Rivers, weve stopped them drilling in Sydney, weve wrapped up the rest of the state and every other [gas] company except this one, and thats because its Santos. Theyre a big company, theyre backed by the government and theyve got a lot of power.On the long drive back to the city, one memory sticks in mind; Anna handing me a small flyer with a map of the Pilliga forest on the back and a collage of wildflowers on the front. We dont like to just talk about the bad stuff, she says. We like to remember the good stuff too. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> One of the first stories I ever heard about Honi Soit was a bizarre tale of censorship. In 1979, Tony Abbott was President of the Students Representative Council (SRC). The story goes that Liberals on campus would request archived editions of Honi Soit from the Rare Books section of Fisher Library. Then, they would cut the pages out of them, graffiti over them, and tear them up. There are even rumours of Honi pages churning in the stomachs of prominent parliamentary Liberals.In a trip to the New South Wales State Library, I hunted down editions from Abbotts tenure and was met with exactly what I had expected torn out parts, missing pages, and blacked out names but sadly no bite marks. It was impossible to imagine that the missing sections could have possibly been worse than what remained Abbott calling to defund the SRC, Abbott saying too much money was being spent on education campaigns, and (unsurprisingly) articles about Abbott being a raging misogynist.It is difficult to deny the power of student journalism on campus. As a historically radically left-wing paper, Honi has played an important role in amplifying student voices against institutional power, oppression, and producing content that challenges readers to consider injustices in the world around them. Such activity has often drawn the ire of right-wing, conservative groups and powerful institutions.But Honis controversial takes have not been bound solely to campus happenings. Honi has also been involved in large scale political movements, playing an integral role in the development of the Anti-Vietnam War campaign in Australia. Blamed for instigating the run the bastard over campaign, Honi was described as filthy and scurrilous by the Legislative Council of NSW. However, such radicalism was not without consequence. During the 1960s, Honi was under threat with advertisers unwilling to fund the publication and the University Senate threatening to disestablish the paper.The subjects of controversy have changed radically over the years, from publishing information about birth control in 1945 (a radical move back in the day), to calling for the end of ANZAC Day in 1958, and reprinting the infamous article titled The Art of Shoplifting in 1995. In 2013, censorship of Honi Soit made national headlines after an edition known as Vagina Soit featured images of 18 vulvas on the cover of the paper. Concerns about the legality of this display led to the printing of black bars over the vulvas. However, when printed, the black bars appeared transparent which led to the subsequent removal of all 4000 copies of Honi from campus.After extensive debate and compromise with the SRC Legal Service, the paper was returned to campus, and labelled with the same R+18 rating found on pornography. This was ironic, as the cover, and its corresponding feature The Vagina Diaries aimed to de-stigmatise and de-sexualise the vulva.Either accept vaginas as normal, non-threatening, and not disgusting, or explain why you cant, wrote the 2013 editorial team. Here they are, flaps and all. Dont you dare tell me my body offends you.Honi Soit was founded in 1929 to provide a counterbalance to the critical portrayal of Sydney University students in mainstream media, creating a platform for student voices. Since then, Honi has grown into many different things: it is a time capsule for student life at USyd, an independent voice in an increasingly profit-driven media landscape, and a forum for the exchange of diverse perspectives.For decades, student journalism has also served to expose the horrors that lurk beneath the surface of an otherwise innocuous campus, including the ongoing culture of sexual assault, hazing, sexism and racism at USyds residential colleges. An Honi expose of hazing and excessive drunkenness at the colleges in 1952 was met with uproar from the colleges, resulting in a particularly notable incident that saw a group of college students chasing a truck carrying copies of the edition out of university grounds.In more recent years, student journalists have kept the fire lit under the colleges, often in collaboration with the Womens Collective. Pulp Media reported on a publication by Wesley College students from 2014, wherein a section titled Rackweb detailed inter-college hook-ups, and awarded titles to students like Best Ass, Best Cleavage, and Biggest Pornstar. Six days after the story broke, then-SRC Womens Officer Anna Hush led a silent protest at Wesley College and demanded it publicly release the names of the editors of the college publication and introduce mandatory sexual harassment education.In 2020, Honi uncovered a raft of allegations of ongoing racism, sexism and acts of hazing at St Andrews College. Soon after the article was published, the Womens Collective organised a protest outside St Andrews College. Speakers called to repurpose the colleges and turn them into safe, affordable student housing. 2020 Womens Officers Vivienne Guo and Ellie Wilson told Honi: The elite residential colleges have never changed or improved, they have only gotten better at hiding the violence under the surface.Of course, the colleges are not the only bogeymen to haunt the campus. In 2019, editors of Honi published an expose of an Neo-Nazi network on campus, involving members of the Liberal and National Parties. The investigation detailed years of evidenced Neo-Nazism on campus, from sieg heil salutes in student debates to reports of a student singing Hes A Pisspot and toasting Hitler in the middle of a lecture. A week later, the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) responded to the investigation with a rally on Eastern Avenue that pushed back against covert forms of racism on campus. Protesters carried a banner that read: Fuck Nazis, smash the fash.In publishing content that challenges injustice, it is unsurprising that student journalists are often at the center of widespread controversy. In 2018, Womens Honi drew international controversy with its front cover depicting Palestinian freedom fighter Hamida Mustafa al-Tahir with a rifle in her hand. While this cover drew ire from organisations such as the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), then-Womens Officers Madeline Ward and Jessica Syed noted that al-Tahirs actions occurred in the context of war. We believe in and support the right for people to resist occupation and oppression, they wrote in a statement.Today, student media continues to platform voices which are often locked out of mainstream media, holding powerful institutions and individuals to account. 2020 was a year of unparalleled chaos. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University pushed ahead with a lengthy agenda of austerity measures, aiming to cut innumerable staff and courses; they were met at every turn by student journalists who shed light on the unscrupulous actions of University administration. The efforts of student media sparked heated dissent from the student and staff community at USyd, leading to months of protests that saved many jobs and courses from the chopping block.Organisations like the University of Sydney Union (USU) came under heavy fire after it suffered heavy losses at the hands of the pandemic, thus hoping to justify the quiet laying off of all casual staff and several of its full-time staff. The USUs efforts to profit from the health and financial crisis of many of USyds students through overpriced grocery boxes were also criticised in an article by 2020 Honi editor Madeline Ward who wrote: the grocery boxes are a product of an organisation run by a board of bourgeois idiots.Student journalism is often not safe or comfortable work. With the Black Lives Matter movement and education activism coming to a head, Honi reporters regularly found themselves in the thick of police violence, risking arrest and heavy fines. Yet, student media have managed to capture snapshots of a university community under siege: students slammed with arrests and tens of thousands of dollars in fines at education protests, hundreds of students sprinting across Victoria Park to avoid being crushed by police horses, and the forceful arrest of law professor Simon Rice which made media headlines across the country. Yet, as it often does, student journalism coloured in the gaps left by mainstream media, documenting a vibrant year of student protest.Engaging with student media provides another way for students to practice their activism. Those who cant attend protests are able to draw attention to the issues that matter to them through their writing and art. In addition to independent investigations and news reporting, Honi has often published anonymous letters and tips, many of which have pierced the veil that protects the most privileged individuals at USyd. For example, a letter to Honi in 2012 drew attention to a racist British Raj party hosted by St Pauls. The event spurred think pieces across campus and in mainstream media, provoking national debate about the racist culture within Sydneys colleges.The future of student activism is bright, and student journalism will always have a role to play in upholding a proud tradition of protest and revolution. Just last year, student activists occupied the F23 building for almost 6 hours, a physical demonstration of campus discontent in a year defined by physical separation. The occupation that took place spontaneously after an NTEU rally was covered by Honi which then ignited a wave of solidarity and saw more students flood into the administration building. Student media, such as the likes of Honi Soit and Pulp Media, are vital records that hold future political leaders to account and their editorial independence is as critical as that of the mainstream media. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a year marked by Covid, it seems relevant that our last feature article this year analyses how the pandemic has played out within the Australian university sector, and how we have and should be responding to what is a national crisis, with variegated manifestations across campuses. The mainstream narrative has attempted to isolate the pandemic discretely, often buying into managerial rhetoric regarding the unfortunate necessity of staff and course cuts, yet properly grappling with this crisis requires a historically situated and holistic approach.Whilst the pandemic has weakened universities, the coronavirus has not infected a healthy higher education sector from within, but further exposed its vulnerabilities and accelerated the systems decline. Of course, it has given crisis cover to university managements to pursue austerity measures, alongside a Coalition Federal Government hellbent on remaking the higher education sector.How did we get here?The government refused to extend JobKeeper to public universities, even changing the scheme a third time, following Sydney Universitys brief eligibility and use. Further, the LNPs relief package announced in April included an already budgeted for $18billion for domestic students regardless of higher education enrolment numbers and provided no targeted welfare measures for international students. So, why did the government deliberately exclude universities from the supplement, and only offer measly crumbs?The Coalition has a longstanding record of attacking the university sector. John Howard, as Liberal opposition leader, established the Coalitions waste watch committee in 1986 to track what was deemed as unnecessary spending. This opposition to university research was again seen in 2018 when then Education Minister Simon Birmingham personally intervened to secretly reject Australian Research Centre grants in the humanities. Much of conservative opposition to universities appears to be ideological from attempts to deregulate the university sector in 2014, to the manufactured free speech crisis at universities where the French Review found campus freedom of speech to not be under threat.The Ramsay Centres attempts some successful, some unsuccessful to set up Western Civilisation degrees on campuses also had the LNPs fingerprints all over it. Chaired by John Howard, counting Tony Abbott as a board member, and set up by Paul Ramsay, the biggest individual donor to the Liberals, the Centre functions as a political project motivated by a belief in Western supremacy, and the desire to instil this vision within the public university sector, seen as too left-wing and anti-Western.This year, the LNP also passed their Job-ready Graduates Package with support from the Centre Alliance. The measure, more than doubles the cost of humanities degrees, lowers the cost of degrees including: maths, science, engineering and teaching, and is largely underpinned by a culture-wars-opposition to the humanities. The policy effectively sees the student contribution rise from 42 per cent to 52 per cent, and ironically, also makes STEM students worse off, as explained by USyds Gareth Bryant. However, the ALP cannot be let off the hook when interrogating Australias university crisis. Despite introducing free education under the Whitlam government, the ALP set the groundwork for the neoliberalisation of universities with the Dawkins Revolution, and replaced free education with the HECS system. Additionally, the Gillard government uncapped the number of places universities could offer students, without increasing funding. Contextually, Australias public investment in tertiary education is also low when compared to similar economies. Australian students pay higher fees than those in most similar OECD countries.Over the past three decades, casualised employment has ballooned, with up to 70 per cent of staff at some universities precariously employed. Wages paid to casuals typically do not encapsulate the amount of work staff are required to do, either because their rates do not reflect what is mandated in Enterprise Agreements or because such rates do not actually translate to the hours worked in performing contracted tasks. Currently ten universities have been forced to repay unpaid wages owed to casual staff, including almost $9million at USyd alone.The NTEUs responseGiven this crisis was decades in the making, the pandemic left the sector especially exposed. Universities had adapted somewhat to decreased government funding and support via casualisation, wage theft and revenue raising from international students, though this income dried up in large part as a result of border closures, in tandem with inadequate government support.In response to the pandemics additional burden on the sector, the senior leadership of the NTEU negotiated the Jobs Protection Framework (JPF) with Vice-Chancellors, represented by the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association. At its core, the JPF (an opt-in agreement), was a concessionary strategy which sought to trade decreases in pay and conditions (including wage cuts of up to 15 per cent) in exchange for a nominal commitment from university managements to save jobs.Theoretically, the JPF would save 12,000 of the 30,000 jobs estimated to be lost. The NTEUs strategy was for individual branches to vote in favour of the agreement, and if their respective university managements agreed, negotiations would begin in officially changing existing union branch agreements with universities. Ultimately, the proposal was deficient, and arguably illogical insofar as it represented bosses and an organisation meant to represent workers coalesced around the logics of austerity and implementing cuts. Accordingly, the agreement was premised on the notion that the crisis had to be shouldered by students and staff. There have been some apt comparisons made between the JPF and the ALP-ACTU Accord. Whilst the Accord and the JPF are by no means indistinguishable, both shift the terrain in fighting for better wages and conditions from the grassroots level to the officialdom level via bureaucratic mechanisms.The JPF has been resoundingly defeated as a national project. National NTEU President Alison Barnes told Honi the agreement failed because: it would have required universities to be financially transparent, pinning it on Vice-Chancellors walking away from any accountability or any pressure to actually open their books and make their finances clear. She also characterised the agreement as a tactic designed to save jobs. This comes off as a somewhat unsatisfactory answer given the agreement was negotiated with four Vice-Chancellors in the first place. Importantly, there was also no membership consultation in drafting the agreement. Unsurprisingly, the framework was met with widespread opposition from the rank-and-file. Whilst Barnes acknowledged there was resistance to the framework (anything that you design is going to attract criticism), she dismissed pushback as a key reason for the failure of the framework. When push comes to shove, it was really the Vice-Chancellors, she explained.On whether she thought pursuing a concessionary approach in the JPF early on would set campuses back during enterprise bargaining agreements fast approaching, she was resolute. I dont think that at all. I think we have to focus on bargainingbuilding our membership and being prepared. NTEU membership has increased this year, and is the highest it has ever been, which Barnes touts as a success. This is in part because of the three month fee waiver the union offered casual workers towards the beginning of the pandemic, though Barnes notes growth across all sections of the membership. However, the National President also stressed the importance of building density across campuses. Addressing the NTEUs successes, she highlighted being one of the first unions to secure paid pandemic leave, including for casuals, along with significant engagement with the Fund Uni Fairly campaign.Yet, many remain unsatisfied with the Union leaderships approach.The rise of new networksGiven the JPF was negotiated without members consultation, there was considerable backlash when the deal became public. NTEU Fightback formed soon in response, and was central to organising the vote no campaign around the framework. The group has local origins, beginning at Sydney University. Professional staff member, Alma Torlakovic, in collaboration with other activists successfully moved a motion condemning the national leaderships approach at a USyd branch meeting.Melbourne University and RMIT also voted against the JPF before details emerged. It is no surprise then that these universities are understood to have the highest density nationwide. At USyd in particular, the dispute over a second strike in 2017, and the contested 2018 NTEU elections showed there was potential to organise outside the regular structures within the Union, NTEU member and Senior Lecturer in History David Brophy explains.Rank-and-file members, especially from these three campuses began informal discussions on resisting the framework via social media. However, after approximately a fortnight, Honi understands there were divergent views regarding the structure of, what was at this point, a loose assemblage of left-wing union activists, set to become something more coherent, formal and public. Two groups emerged Fightback, with a more disciplined and centralised organising approach, led by Socialist Alternative, and NHEAN (National Higher Education Network), a more non-hierarchical and pluralistic network. Significantly, NHEAN also voted in favour of unprotected industrial action, with Nick Riemer telling the Sydney Morning Herald: Our motion commits us to the goal of making democratically planned unprotected industrial action possible.On the success of the vote no campaign, Torlakovic told Honi: There were eight campuses in the end out of forty across Australia, that the officials managed to push some kind of framework, because of weaker opposition at those places.Ultimately, NHEAN and Fightback are similar, emerging in opposition to the JPF and characterised by desires for more militant unionism. Speaking to members from both, there was one main distinction the strategic relation to union officials. Whilst both broadly understand officials as often preferring to mediate, over agitate, and view them as generally less militant than the rank-and-file, engaging with such officials is a point of contention. For example, regarding the National Day of Action a car convoy to Liberal Party headquarters aimed at the Federal Government a NHEAN member told Honi that the day was perhaps not the time to have slogans about the JPF highlighted on your material. Maybe you want people to come out to the rally that dont know where they stand yet. Contrastingly, Fightback thought endorsement of the event from more militant members gave left cover to the concessionary approach.Both have condemned issues of transparency within the union or examples of officials alleged or demonstrated intervention. Fightback publicly rebuked the National Councils recent vote (71-41) to not reinstate delegate access to lists of members in local areas. Honi understands this was revoked in light of the JPF debate, and that prior to this year there were no issues in elected representatives gaining access to lists. Whilst not a public statement, a post in NHEANs organising group with over a thousand members alleges that NSW NTEU Secretary Michael Thomson intervened in a panel NHEAN was set to host, which included an MUA organiser, on the possibilities of industrial action. Michael said that doing so would represent an endorsement by the MUA of NHEAN over the elected leadership of the NTEU.In addressing opposition to the JPF, Barnes spoke positively The union should be able to embrace debate. Though such debate seems to not extend to union staff. In an email dated May 19 seen by Honi, National General Secretary Matthew McGowan said:Branches of the Union have no separate legal personality and may not overturn the decisions of the National Executive. To be clear, this means that Branch resources including staff should not be used for the circulation of materials hostile to the Unions adopted position. Union members who are not staff are entitled to campaign individually howsoever they wish, but union resources are not to be used to campaign against the Unions own position or decision.The email was sent on the same day USyd Branch President Kurt Iveson came out publicly against the framework.In addition to Fightback and NHEAN, campuses have seen the proliferation of casuals organising. Whilst almost always union members, casuals networks operate autonomously in decision-making processes. In attributing the reason behind the rise of such groups, USyd Casuals Network member, Rob Boncardo puts it down to the fragmentation of the workforce itself and drew distinctions with groups like Fightback. Its really the new recruits, or the people who dont have a background in organised left or organised union politics, even if theres a lot of sympathy and overlap between the groups, particularly in terms of the critiques made of the JPF.The USyd network recently released their interim report, which showed that 84 per cent of participants performed unpaid labour. Honi understands the network had been approached to formally join the NTEU, which has supported the groups documentation of wage theft, though ultimately the network prefers to remain autonomous, and doesnt want to be subsumed. The Casualised, Unemployed and Precarious Uni Workers (CUPUW) organisation, a national grouping of casuals networks around the country also formed in May this year, in a meeting called by the Monash Casuals Network. A CUPUW spokesperson told Honi: Casuals have been left out of the discussion. We need to organise and we need to organise in solidarity with other workers in the sector.The role of students and student organisationsAll union members that Honi spoke to expressed the importance of student solidarity with staff whether it was Barnes quoting the mantra of staff working conditions being student learning conditions, Boncardo drawing material comparisons between casual workers and students, or staff reminiscing about picket lines. From defeating fee deregulation, to mobilising against the Vietnam War, students have historically played a critical part in fighting for a better higher education, and in social movements more broadly. Its clear that students can secure wins if they organise collectively.However, we are in many ways dealing with more difficult circumstances than generations past organising in a pandemic, the cost of living near campus, and the implementation of Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) in 2006. Speaking on the latter, National Union of Students (NUS) President Molly Willmott tells Honi: VSU was more than a financial move, it was a sustained campaign to destroy students mobilising. Historian and former USyd student, Tim Briedis, who has researched student activism extensively said, VSU served to enclose the realm of student politics, helping the richer metropolitan universities have better funded and more vibrant activist scenes. At Western Sydney University for instance, there was an active and effective left pre-VSU that was more or less entirely wiped out.Whilst there is little disagreement over the shared interests of students and staff, and students as active agents in the higher education struggle, as with staff there are key disagreements over strategy, the degree of militancy, and of course, the relevance of student unions. Whilst acknowledging that having a left wing President certainly doesnt hurt, Briedis highlights that students havent necessarily needed left wing student unions to organise effectively. Comparatively, USyd SRC Education Officer Jack Mansell, USyd SRC President Liam Donohoe and Willmott place more emphasis on the relevance of them.There are noticeable distinctions in their assessments of this year however. Willmott thinks that the NUS has had one of the more successful years in recent history, pointing to two national campaigns Save our Students and the campaign against the Job-Ready Graduates Package. She counts NUS biggest win as the amendment to the coronavirus welfare supplement in April, and the biggest failure as failing to defeat fee hikes. Comparatively, Mansell describes the NUS this year [as] a pretty shameful indictment on the politics of both Molly (NLS) and Lincoln (Grassroots-Independents). In the midst of an historic crisis in higher education, NUS shouldve been organising protests, meetings, actions, stunts, and taking a confrontational approach to management and the government.Based in Melbourne, there were certainly difficulties in NUS office bearers organising on the ground for the most part. Of course, relocation elsewhere in the country may have been feasible, though it is questionable what tangible impact a couple of paid office bearers would have in coordinating what is ostensibly a national campaign from a different city. Pertinently, both NLS and the Grassroots-Independents place importance on lobbying, so whilst a failure to organise on the ground, can in some instances be explained by the pandemic, efforts to persuade, in particular Centre Alliances Rebekha Sharkie (initially seemingly against the fee hikes), highlight a misstep in either NUS political orientation, the pairs persuasive capabilities or both. Structural barriers also impede left-wing organising within the NUS, including a Labor Right majority on the National Executive. NUS also typically adopts a policy against paying student protesters fines, particularly relevant this year.What unites Willmott, Mansell and Donohoe though is the belief that USyd has led the student fightback this year, with the campaign successfully drawing new students aside from established campus activists. Willmott attributes this to a culture of on the ground militant activism which doesnt exist in a lot of places. Mansell, meanwhile, says USyd has the best campus activist culture, in addition to a solid rank-and-file union and the biggest revolutionary socialist club in the country.Donohoe describes USyds dominance as a complex confluence of various factors. He posits that USyd is pretty much the only campus where a genuinely activist left controls the student union relatively uninhibited. He also mentions the considerable presence of Grassroots, Solidarity and Socialist Alternative, in addition to many unaligned people with left wing views. Further, he motions to the Universitys Political Economy Department, the campus history in attracting more left-wing people, and finally the SRCs traditional structure, which, compared to other campus unions, gives students more resources and allows for a more activist orientation.USyd students have consistently mobilised in actions against the government and management, accumulating the overwhelming majority of the $54,000 in fines at protests. Students have borne the brunt of police brutality, taken to City Road on more than one occasion, occupied F23 the University Administration building, defied the Public Health Act, and have certainly played an integral part in the NSW Governments decision to allow protests of up to 500 people. Speaking on this, Donohoe says USyd students have shown themselves to be really brave, quickly becoming used to repressive organising conditions. People have so much more confidence, like taking City Road willy nilly, which people used to never do.Where to from here?In assessing the path forward, there are no easy answers. Many unionists Honi spoke to highlighted Jane McAleveys deep organising approach, and most staff and students alike believe strike action looms, though conditions are precarious. However, in transforming our university sector into one which benefits society at large, what a former USyd NTEU organiser says rings true: The only people who are capable of doing that are the people who work at universities. No one else is going to do it. If its not the people who work in them, its going to be the managerial forces that control them currently. Its incumbent on the people working within universities to do it not just for themselves, and their fucking pay packets, but for the whole of society.In what will be my last ever print article for Honi as an editor, I hope I can return to the Fisher Library archives (in the hopefully not too distant future), look back on this piece fondly and see a truly democratic university. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In light of recent instances of police repression on student protests, Honi Soit asked some activists who have been involved in past movements and protests to see whether their experiences with police have changed or not. Words by Eleanor Morley, Thalia and Dora Anthony, Dr. Rowan Cahill and Shovan Bhattarai.Eleanor Morley on the Abbott governments attempts in 2014 to deregulate university fees.In 2014, the most sustained and successful student campaign in a decade managed to defeat Tony Abbotts attempt to deregulate university fees. The hated Abbott government handed down a horror budget of sweeping cuts to welfare and the public sector in May, provoking nationwide outrage. Visits to the GP were no longer to be free, the already punitive welfare system was to be made worse, and higher education was in the firing line.Deregulating university fees was intended as another big step towards a US-style higher education system. Allowing universities to charge whatever they like for each course would lead to an entrenchment of the two-tiered model; the sandstone universities were to become the ivy leagues, and the rest of the sector the community colleges. It was clear at the time that the next step for the federal government would be overhauling the HECS system which is already deeply flawed forcing students without wealthy parents to be trapped in a lifetime of debt.Of all the neoliberal measures in the 2014 budget, fee deregulation quickly became the flashpoint of resistance. This was because the student movement had already started to dust itself off the previous year when the Gillard government tried to cut $2.3 billion out of higher education funding. Education activist collectives had been re-established on campuses across the country, and the left had won considerable influence in the National Union of Students.These networks quickly moved into gear, organising protests and disruptive stunts in every major city in the weeks following the budget. A diversity of tactics allowed us to bring thousands of students into the campaign, garner considerable media attention, win public sympathy, and eventually defeat the bill.We crashed Q&A when the hated education minister Christopher Pyne was on the panel. We hounded down Liberal ministers whenever they set foot on our campuses; Pyne announced on national television that he was cancelling a visit to Deakin University for fear of student protesters. We blockaded university senate meetings when they were voting to endorse the bill. But most importantly, we organised nationally coordinated rallies that drew thousands of students and some parents into the fight against Abbott.The campaign was not without controversy. Some student representatives argued our energy should be focused on lobbying the conservative Senate crossbenchers including mining magnate Clive Palmer. Others said they were tired of rallies and instead wanted to prioritise small actions of a dozen or so people locking themselves on to university buildings. But the mass character of the campaign was decisive. It was a loud and angry visual representation of the mass opposition to fee deregulation amongst the wider student body, and it gave many young people their first taste of political activism.In the end, our campaign managed to defeat the fee deregulation bill in the Senate twice. This was the first major victory for a student campaign in almost two decades. Pyne quickly became the most hated senior government minister, and the mass public opposition toward Abbott eventually lost him his job the following year.2014 was a vindication of the strategy of mass, disruptive protests. We didnt win by politely asking politicians to support our cause; we won by organising and mobilising a widespread discontent into a powerful and defiant force.Thalia and Dora Anthony on the UTS tower occupation against the Howard governments fee hikes and university cuts in 1997.The UTS occupation was part of a broad campaign opposing the Howard Governments fee hikes for university students and massive cuts to university funding. Feeding into the governments agenda, in 1997 university managements were considering the option of up-front fees to supplement university income. UTS was the first university in the country to take decisive action towards introducing full-fee student places when the UTS Council moved a motion to this effect.The student body chose occupation as the means of dissent, corresponding with actions being pursued across the country in protest against the governments attack on higher education. Around the same time as the UTS occupation, there were several occupations of the University of Sydney Vice Chancellors offices, often ending after a number of hours when police violently entered and removed us, and there were sit-ins at RMIT, Western Sydney University and Wollongong University.Throughout the occupation, police had under-cover operatives deployed on campus and used phone taps. In one incident, students created a fake protest, talked it up on the phones, sent fake faxes to media outlets, all of which led to scores of police being deployed at site on the other side of the city from where an actual occupation took place. Undercover cops were central to the police strategy at the UTS occupation.When the police ultimately stormed the occupation, we had been occupying the UTS administration/management block of the Tower for five days. The Tactical Response Group arrived with German Shepherd dogs in the early hours of Sunday morning when about 100 of us were asleep or just waking up. The police intervention came after days of student negotiation with UTS management, yet police did not enter in the spirit of negotiation or de-escalation. Police forced their way into the occupied area in their dozens. They unleashed German shepherd police dogs on us. Some students were seriously wounded by dog bites. After the initial frenzy, all of the students huddled together in a large circle on the ground floor, with arms firmly linked. Some police officers filmed us and watched from the upper level, others surrounded us, and many more waited for us outside. Police detached one student at a time, using torture techniques such as neck holds and pressure points, and took each student outside. In solidarity with one another, we all resisted when it was our turn at being removed from the circle, and so we were all tortured, including some students under the age of 18. It was a terrifying and traumatising experience.Following our ejection from the building, some students were arrested and charges were laid. Some others were approached by undercover police officers dressed as students, who were soliciting information. They gave themselves away partly by the questions they were asking us and partly by their clothing that contrasted with that of the protesters.The mainstream media did not expose the police torture of students that occurred at UTS, and elsewhere at Sydney University. The media instead focused on us as troublemakers and drew attention to the food waste that had accumulated in the offices. However, the UTS Students Association published and widely disseminated a broadsheet newspaper of the police violence, including with pictures of the vicious German Shepherd bites.Following the protest, UTS Council refrained from introducing up-front fees for a number of years. Unfortunately, Sydney University went on to introduce full fees soon after.Protest at the time of the UTS Occupation 1997. Image: The UTS Occupier: The Journal of the 1997 UTS Easter Occuopation.Dr. Rowan Cahill on The Siege of Sydney University in 1968.The Seige of Sydney University, 1968.[The author was a participant in these events. He is co-author with Terry Irving of Radical Sydney (UNSW Press, 2010)]New South Wales Police Special Branch (1948-1997) was established to curtail and thwart labour movement militants and leftist activists generally. During the 1960s it targeted the student and anti-Vietnam War movements. Head of the outfit in this period was Detective Sergeant Fred Longbottom. He was an in-your-face operative, for instance sidling up to protest newcomers and referring to them by name, just to let them know he knew who they were and implying threat. At large demonstrations, Longbottom and his cronies often directed regular police as to who to arrest.On 2 August 1968 Longbottom and a colleague visited Sydney University to test a new long-range recording device on a scheduled Front Lawn student protest meeting. Arriving in an unmarked pursuit Mini Cooper S, their entry on campus was tagged by observers and reported to the universitys administration. Vice-Chancellor Bruce Williams, no friend of student militants but wary of the inflammatory potential of this incursion, despatched his security chief to advise the officers to decamp.By the time he did, it was too late. As the Mini was about to leave its covert station near the Tennis Courts opposite the Front Lawn, a prominent student militant spotted the vehicle, identified its occupants, and placed himself in front of the car. Threatened with arrest he retorted, Go ahead, and proceeded to deflate the front tyres. Drama is hard to hide; he was joined by comrades, and eventually a large crowd. When the officers tried to leave campus on foot, they were detained. Their recording equipment was seized and the car trashed engine wiring ripped out, fuel tank filled with sugar cubes from the main campus eatery, its body festooned with anti-war stickers shaped to form swastikas.Police reinforcements and the media arrived simultaneously in droves. A tense, long, potentially violent stand-off followed as angry students erected barricades from garden furniture and blocked police entry to what in those days was a more confined campus than today. It was before the advent of tasers, pepper spray, the Riot Squad, attack dogs, and special punitive legislation.Leading activists got together to figure out what to do with the captives and how to avoid prosecution. They came up with the idea that in exchange for their release, the police needed to publicly sign a document promising never to spy on campus again. A meaningless document of course, but symbolic and humiliating. A senior officer was sought to do the signing, and Acting Metropolitan Superintendent Fred Hanson reluctantly arrived and did the honours.Document signed, the captives were released unharmed. Their crippled car was carried by students and dumped in the evening traffic of Parramatta Road. The media dubbed the event The Siege of Sydney University. No prosecutions ensued. Later, however, Special Branch took revenge against the tyre deflater with a frame-up, but that is another story.Sit-down protest part of Vietnam moratorium march and demonstration, 1969: Image: University of Sydney Archives.Shovan Bhattrai on the education protests this year.I was violently thrown into the gutter by NSW Police at the student demonstration against education cuts on October 14th. In the video of me being thrown that has since gone viral, I am picked up like a ball and hurled through the air as a swarm of riot cops try to shove me back from marching onto Parramatta Road. I was left with bruises up the side of my body and a deep graze on my elbow requiring four visits to the doctor to address the wound.My experience at this student rally was not an exception. NSW Police mobilised in full force to intimidate student protesters at Sydney University on October 14th, sending multiple squads of riot cops and mounted police onto campus. Their policing was aggressive and intimidatory, chasing us around the campus, kettling us in, riding police horses into crowds, smashing phones, and violently shoving us back from the road. They bent wrists back, including that of UNSW Education Collective activist Macy Reen, and kicked out legs from under student protesters when arresting them and giving them $1000 fines. They dished out the same treatment to Sydney University Law Professor Simon Rice who was only attending as an observer.Unfortunately for NSW Police, their attempts to intimidate student protesters and drive us off the streets have backfired. A wave of public outrage and publicity followed in response to Simon Rice being arrested and myself being violently shoved. The incidents shone a light on the cynical application of the NSW public health measures by the police, state government, and the courts, to stamp down on our right to protest. While football stadiums, casinos, and a litany of profitable enterprises were reopened across NSW, the authorities facilitated an effective ban on protests.Since that date, the Liberal government has been forced to retreat. The state government is now allowing demonstrations of 500 people to go ahead, up from a previous public gathering limit of 20. This concession is a huge victory for activists. It proves that the public health grounds for clamping down on protests are a sham, that they have always been about political repression. And it proves that activists were right to defy the ban on protests. It was right to defy the government and the courts and to stand up to escalating police attacks.The fight must now continue. We should not accept the ongoing restriction on our right to protest with a cap of 500 attendees, and we must continue the fight to overturn the hefty fines levelled against protestors. We should challenge the existing restrictions on our right to protest pre-COVID.This concession on the right to protest is also a victory for every social justice campaign, including the continuing campaign against education attacks. The next step for NSW education activists will be 1pm this Wednesday at Sydney University at an NTEU rally against job cuts and police repression. UNSW staff and students have organised a speak-out on their campus against police repression of student protests for the same time.The concessions we have won on the right to protest should be celebrated as a massive victory for activists in the education campaign. We need to take the same approach of organising mass, defiant resistance on the streets in our fight against every injustice in our society.Education cuts protest and NTEU teach out at the University of Sydney Quadrangle 2020. Image: Jazzlyn Breen. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> He said he did it because he wanted to show me off. Then I realised that when Id met his friends, they mustve already seen how I looked naked. What kind of sick fucks would be able to do that and even look me in the eye?It was back in high school that my friend learned about how her boyfriend had been secretly recording intimate images of her and passing them around. She only found out because he had gotten into an unrelated argument with a friend, and in a vengeful mood, his friend decided to tell her what was going on. Even in discovering the abuse, she had been disempowered used as a pawn in their juvenile spat. Its been years, but her expression is still bitter as she grips her mug tightly, studying the smattering of cocoa topping her cappuccino as if shell find the answers to her hurt there.As a victim of image-based abuse, shes not alone. The wonders of technology mean that image-based abuse (IBA) now takes a plethora of forms, from your garden-variety perverts sharing Snapchat screenshots of their girlfriends in group chats, to those who monetise and make a living out of people they dont know at all. In 2017, Leigh Abbot used Tinder to convince a dozen women to send him nudes in a con that lasted months, then used those photos to blackmail them into handing over their life savings.When I think about the hurt that IBA has caused to people in my life, I am, of course, angry at the perpetrators, but I am increasingly angry at those the perpetrators performed for. What clout, profit or views can be gained without an eager audience? When supermodel Kate Uptons nudes were leaked in 2014, what else allowed prepubescents halfway across the world to eagerly participate in the consumption and shame of her body other than the fact that everyone had done so? Why would a Snapchat screenshot be shared in a group chat, if not for the anticipation of a round of congratulatory slaps on the back from the boys?The combination of cultural acceptability and lack of consequences creates a conducive environment for IBA to proliferate, now even more with COVID-19. As human life has shifted online and more people are turning to the Internet to fulfil their needs for intimacy, the opportunities to participate in this behaviour have increased exponentially. The eSafety Commissioners annual report, published 2 weeks ago, revealed a 370% spike in the number of reports of IBA received by its office since the beginning of the pandemic.So why is IBA growing so rapidly? I invite you to consider two complementary situations.1. The year is 2014, and Celebgate leak has released a huge collection of nudes from various celebrities into the Internet. Youre at lunch and its a hot topic. One adventurous soul clicks on the Reddit link, and you all crowd around the screen for a look.2. The year is 2020, and the mood hits. You open up an incognito window (or just a normal window if you dont anticipate anyone typing P into your search bar) and in an instant the familiar yellow and black logo pops up. The first result in the Hot category is a 2020 LEAK featuring a familiar face. You decide to check it out.These experiences are so common that they could almost be branded as part of the modern pubescent experience for many in our generation. However, they are also prime examples demonstrating the insidious ways that IBA has ingrained itself into our culture.For many, celebrity nudes are the gateway into habitual consumption of IBA products. When I mentioned this article to a friend, he said that hed looked at Kate Uptons nudes in Year 7 out of curiosity. How did we end up at a point where prepubescent teens think that consuming the products of IBA is acceptable? The answer lies in the widespread dehumanisation of celebrities in modern culture.The Paris Hilton sex tape 1 Night in Paris, filmed when she was 19 and released on DVD (complete with a special 2-disc Collectors Edition) by her ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon three years later in the wake of Hiltons TV debut, was a cultural watershed moment in the normalisation of IBA. It was everywhere and everyone watched it even Donald Trump boasted about watching it with Melania. In an interview this year, Hilton described the 2014 tape release as being electronically raped and something that will traumatise [her] for the rest of [her] life. In an ugly turn of events, now expected whenever something bad happens to a celebrity, the public turned on Hilton and accused her of orchestrating the abuse in her pursuit of fame. Society presumes an implied license to access intimate details of a celebritys life as a form of social tax for fame, but this event marked a dangerous extension of this presumption into socially acceptable derogation of an abuse victim through the power of herd validation its okay since everyone else is doing it.For those whose consciences impede them from looking at authentic celebrity nudes, IBA has produced a lite version that is seemingly a little gentler on the moral compass celebrity deepfakes. The suaver, more polished older cousin of cutting and pasting a celebritys head onto a Playboy spread, deepfake technology uses artificial intelligence in the form of GANs or generative adversarial networks to produce super-realistic fake videos. There are whole websites dedicated to celebrity deepfakes at the time of writing, a deepfake video of 19-year-old TikTok star Dixie DAmelio on one such site has amassed nearly a million views. Deepfakes soothe the viewers conscience with the assurance that they arent seeing something real, but fake intimate images can wrest control of ones bodily autonomy away in the same way that real intimate images can, especially so if they are hyper realistic.Another way that IBA casts its wide net is through the platforms people use to access porn on the Internet. Between October 2019 and March 2020, the adult entertainment sites XVideos and Pornhub received an average 3.14 trillion and 2.85 trillion monthly visitors respectively, outranking Netflixs 2.21 trillion monthly visitors. However, these giants of the online porn industry have a terrible track record when it comes to facilitating IBA. In November 2019, XVideos hosted a recording of the murder of 29-year-old Dr Priyanka Reddy, who was sexually assaulted by multiple men and burned alive. The video was hosted on XVideos for weeks and even became one of the sites trending videos.Pornhub has also hosted and profited from videos depicting victims of sexual abuse. In February this year, 25-year-old Rose Kalemba came forward with a harrowing story of how she was kidnapped and raped as a 14-year-old and had the videos of her assault uploaded to the site. Her repeated requests for the videos to be taken down went ignored until she sent an email posing as a lawyer threatening legal action. On platforms where violence against women is present in almost every video to varying degrees, it can be hard to tell between those involving roleplay kink and those depicting nonconsensual abuse. The availability of real abuse videos on hugely popular platforms provides people with a seamless segue into unconsciously consuming the products of IBA, or even worse, consciously doing so while waving the free pass card of curiosity. On a broader scale, since these platforms profit models are based on views, viewing any video on the platform amounts to supporting firms that profit off sexual abuse.Thus, IBA has morphed into hyper-accessibility by presenting its products in insidiously palatable forms, integrating itself into lives in a way that normalises and encourages complicity with abuse. The astounding mundanity of consuming these products in our modern context evidences a disturbing cultural phenomenon where facilitating IBA is default and opting out is hard. One especially concerning consequence of the normalisation of such behaviour is that offenders can sometimes be blissfully unaware of the consequences of their actions. My friend tells me that, evidencing an astounding lack of self-awareness, her abuser approached her a year later to invite her to his school formal. What that told me was that he never really understood how much he had traumatised me. I felt so powerless.The normalisation of IBA is especially harmful because the audience plays an integral role in the operation of IBA. Unlike other forms of abuse that revolve around the perpetrator-victim nexus, IBA necessarily also involves a crucial third party the audience. Speaking to my friend, she said, I remember sitting outside the classroom during that lunch break taking that call when I found out what was happening. I was obviously really hurt because he broke my trust, but at that point I didnt even give a fuck about him, I was only concerned with how to contain the damage. All I could think about was how disappointed my parents would be and how this would follow me around for my whole working life. It was like I was in survival mode. Research has shown that, regardless of whether an intimate image was captured or distributed consensually, the depicted subject of the photo is viewed as promiscuous, which is perceived as a negative attribute. This force of social stigma is precisely what gives the perpetrator their power.My friend noted that her fear of negative judgements from her parents, teachers and friends stopped her from ever reporting the abuse. This fear of social stigma has led to a gross underreporting of IBA cases, especially since IBA disproportionately affects vulnerable groups in society. In a 2017 study, a staggering 1 in 2 Indigenous Australians and people with disability reported being a victim of IBA. When perpetrators target those who are already vulnerable, they do so with the knowledge that it will be even harder for their target to seek justice.The cultural barriers to legal recourse are compounded by a lack of awareness about options available to victims. Not many people are aware that the eSafety Commissioner has powers under the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 (Cth) to issue removal notices to perpetrators or the hosting platform, calling for nonconsensually shared intimate images to be removed within 48 hours. Noncompliance with the removal notice carries a civil penalty of 500 penalty units, equivalent to $11100 in current Commonwealth penalty unit values. However, the eSafety Commissioner presents victims with confusing advice.In a recent public messaging video on adult cyber abuse, which they define to include IBA, the eSafety Commissioner advises victims to first block the perpetrator, then contact the platform to request that the content be taken down. Only if the platform doesnt resolve the complaint is a report to eSafety recommended, with no guidance as to how long they should persist with the platform. This places considerable burden on victims to address the abuse themselves which can be an incredibly confronting and isolating process, and having to continuously recount their fresh trauma to strangers on a customer helpline is made more distressing. However, on a separate page dedicated to IBA, the eSafety Commissioner recommends collecting evidence and making an immediate report to eSafety. Between making a report to the eSafety under civil law, to the police under criminal law and reporting directly to the platform, this conflicting advice from a peak body makes it even harder for victims to navigate a confusing legal landscape.Should a victim decide to report the abuse to the police to pursue action under criminal law, they may face obstacles of a completely different kind. Accounts of victims who have made reports of IBA to police reveal that they officers often convey victim-blaming attitudes during the victim interview process, giving responses like what did you expect online? Studies have also shown that police forces prioritise directing resources towards offences with a physical dimension over virtual harms, meaning that reports of IBA are taken less seriously.The rise of IBA thus comes down to the combined normalisation of IBA and the lack of serious accountability for its perpetration, stemming from social attitudes towards victims of IBA. This primes people to push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, backed by herd validation and the knowledge that their victim might not ever report their actions.IBAs prevalence is gaining increased public concern, and the legislature is responding. According to a discussion paper released earlier this year detailing proposed changes to the Enforcing Online Safety Act, the permissible period for content takedown would be reduced from 48 to 24 hours in a currently undrafted Bill. While this is important infrastructure to have in place for victims, it represents a shift in the policy space further towards responsive measures, playing catchup to the mass of digital content constantly being churned out. IBA is a multifaceted problem that has planted deep roots in society, and as such it requires a holistic response which addresses the cultural source of the issue.The narrative around IBA needs to shift away from imposing culpability on victims, and instead force people to acknowledge the consequences of what they do when nobody else is watching. Advising Year 10s in cybersafety seminars that they can effectively protect themselves against IBA if they avoid sharing nudes is akin to proposing abstinence as a solution to sexual assault it denies the reality that abuse is perpetrated by the abuser, not by the victim. As a society, we need to start initiating difficult conversations and taking ownership of our complicity as passive observers.The normalisation of IBA in our culture has lulled us into a collective state of cognitive dissonance, collectively denouncing abuse while retreating into our beds at night to gleefully rewatch and relive records of abusive behaviour bearing stamps of public approval. In a society where it is not only acceptable but normal to perpetrate abuse and enjoy looking on, while victims are blamed for the hijacking of their own bodies, it is not enough for us to mourn the state of affairs and give stern talks to young girls about trusting boys. Each click on abusive content perpetuates this toxic culture. Only we can control what we do when were alone. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1967, three students and two young members of the History department met on the Quadrangle lawns to talk about the state of Australian education. The manifesto they later published in Honi Soit is a rare kind of document that only becomes truer over time. The Lost Ideal argues that training for the economy is the de facto centre of the universitys operations, that students enter university following a prolonged training in forced-feed learning techniques in school and are put through a pre-structured processing led by staff that are experts in their field but rank amateurs at the specialised and difficult tasks of tertiary education.Because of this, the authors argue, only probably one in a hundred people who pass through the university get a university education in the proper sense of the term. The words ring true in a world where the Government is attempting to cut university funding and hike fees for Arts degrees on the premise it will promote job-ready graduates. The authors are cynical about the ability to provide such an education within the existing framework of the University, writing that when students make an ideological stand they are tolerated until they try to do something about that stand. In a particularly painful reminder that the forces restraining student dissent are by no means new, it notes that the recent uses of force by police at Sydney University are meant to keep student radicals in line.The manifesto proposed a radically new type of education, a Free University (or Free U as it came to be known). It is free in spirit, not in cashit will get no government grants, no scholarship scheme, it says. It grants no degrees and offers no status. It is a small group of students and teachers who come together outside the established university system because they find that system inadequate. It promised to break down the hierarchies between students and teachers, to open access to subjects like materialism, gender or race that were ignored or underfunded in universities, and to allow cross-collaboration of many working in different areas.Some of the authors will be familiar to students. Amongst them is Raewyn Connell, perhaps Australias most pre-eminent sociologist, whose work on masculinity has taken her to Harvard. Her most recent book, The Good University, has assumed a position of particular prominence for student activists and unionists, as accessible literature about what a university built on democratic principles might look like remains sparse. In it, she canvasses a number of radical experiments in education, noting briefly the Free U she helped found in her early twenties.Others include Bob Scribner, who was completing his history PhD at the time and would go on to become an esteemed historian of Central Europe and a lecturer at Harvard. In the years following the end of the Free U he travelled to East Germany, where he was one of only two historians from capitalist countries studying the Protestant Reformation in the country. There, he drove from city to city in a camper van stuffed with books, letters, and bags of Sainsburys Red Label tea, according to an obituary published in Central European History after his death in 1998.Terry Irving and Rowan Cahill, who met in a Government class Irving was tutoring, went on to become prominent historians of Australian labour movements. They became life-long collaborators, in 2010 co-authoring a history of radicals in Sydney Radical Sydney. Cahill had been conscripted into the Vietnam War soon after coming to University, and organising opposition to the war and working on his own conscientious objector case soon consumed his time at university. I sometimes think of it as a lost youth, he says. I didnt come to uni to be a radical, I came to write poetry. Im a bona fide enemy of the state now, theres an ASIO file on me. Conscription changed my life.Irving says that the Free U emerged during a period of pessimism amongst the Left at Sydney University. It is easy now to romanticise the decade as a Golden Age for activism in Australia, looking at photographs of tens of thousands at the Vietnam War Moratorium. When I hear about the 1960s now, I dont recognise it, and I was there! Cahill laughs. The anti-war movement was very unpopular in 1964, opposition was small. From a student perspective it was frustrating in many ways. You cant forget how much work it took to get there in 1968.At the time the Free U was formed, the conservative Menzies government had been recently returned to power where many had campaigned for Labor, and the University had been successful in expelling a student who had been lobbying against rises to library fees. We began thinking that we might need a better idea on what we were on about, he says.Universities in Australia were increasingly under strain. A generation of Baby Boomers entering Universities and increased access for women to tertiary education had outstripped class capacity. Cahill describes packed out lecture theatres for first year Arts subjects, with students being forced to sit on the stairs and in stand doorways to hear their professors. Students studying curricula written in the 1930s and 40s were calling for more democratic forms of assessment such as the now-much derided group project, Irving says, but it was difficult to implement within largely conservative faculties.Free U was also largely inspired by similar experiments in the US happening at the time. Cahill and Irving had shared a class on American society and culture, which touched on the new radicals. Students there had begun radicalisation programmes that took education into the ghettos, and we were inspired in that sense of a model of education based on reaching out to the local community, Irving says. It was in studying them that we found out about the Free Universities.Its difficult to reconstruct an image of what a regular day at the Free University might have looked like, half a century later. Classes ranged from the Brain to Atrocities Explained. A copy of a newsletter published by the Free U, held in the Universitys archives, provides summaries on seminars held by Charles Perkins on Poverty Amongst Aborigines, historian Baiba Berzins on the Political Effects of Poverty and Ted Noffs of the Wayside Chapel on Community Organisation. For students of the time, Free U was one of several simultaneous student-led radical movements. When I email Professor Duncan Chappell, who is in now an adjunct professor in the Law School and is listed as giving a seminar on Mental Illness, Crime and Disease in the newsletter, he tells me that though he remembers 1968 being a year of great ferment in Australia at large, and in universities in particular his memory bank is completely bare about the Free U.It became a meeting point of people involved in various different campaigns. The Free U facilitated a a friendly relationship of different campaigns observing each other, Irving says. Several people involved in the Free U were involved in the Aboriginal Freedom Rides, the Labor Party or feminist groups. Cahill remembers it fondly. It was like the orgasmic dream of a tutorial for everyone whos ever taught one. It was a free flowing discussion of academics great world academics students and future great academics, sitting on the floor engaging with one another.Free University in Calder Road, Redfern. Left to right: Rowan Cahill, Terry Irving, Corina Clarke and Jon Collings. Terry Irvings archives. Connell and Irving taught a course on class in Australia which turned into a research project, which in turn produced a data-gathering exercise that became a paper published in a journal at the time. That in turn led to Irving and Connells long-term project Class Structure in Australian History that has led to several published books. The course had a huge effect on my intellectual development, Irving says.Everyone I spoke to describes the Free U as a place where people were constantly coming and going, some choosing to live at the house itself. In the best New Left style, we made decisions by talking until some kind of consensus emerged, Connell says. Membership peaked in the 1968/9 summer, with Cahill estimating some 300 people were involved.In the second summer we got ambitious and rented two larger buildings, one in Chippendale and one in Paddington, and some folk moved in for the summer and slept there, as well as keeping the place open for courses, Connell says. It could be noisy, it could be quiet. People might make music, sit around talking, do some organising for instance for anti-war demonstrations. There was housework of course, some attempt was made to have people do that on rotation as part of the self-help ethos. There were parties, and I forget who had to clean up afterwards but the idea was that everyone committed to the place would pitch in.The vision of the Free University stayed with its founders. Ive been an educator all my life, Ive worked in the technical education system. Ive worked in schools, prisons and universities, Cahill says. I value education, I value teaching. Its meant to involve people in a mutual way to recognise we all bring different understandings, not everyone is going to be a fucking Einstein. Thats the vision we had in that opening manifesto.But universities have never been comfortable with that. The move to online classes, to lock people up. What COVID has done is given universities what theyve always wanted, break down a degree to its parts, break people up. I taught an online course recently, and itll be my last teaching gig. Its entirely contrary to what education should be, and what the Free U tried to be.Connell talks about several courses that had a long-term impact on her work, describing how a course on Gdels Theorem sparked an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at reading Russell and Whiteheads Principia Mathematica and a more successful attempt at reading Wittgensteins Tractatus, which had the advantage of being shorter.But the most important thing I got from Free U wasnt from a particular course, she says. It was the overall idea of the place, and the practical experience that we could actually make it happen. That became for me a key idea: that it wasnt enough to do social criticism which we did, and were even good at, but it was too easy. The hard thing was to weave ideas and practices together and build something new. Ever since, Ive thought that the key thing the Left had to do was to create new social forms and make them work.Its unclear exactly when the Free U ended, as most of the founders left a year or two after its formation. Irving tells me that for several years he would meet different people saying that the Free U was operating out of this or that house in Sydneys Inner West. But the key problem was that it eventually became impossible to afford a house for the Free U. Raewyn Connell (left), Terry Irving (second from left) and two students at the Free U in Calder Road, Redfern. Terry Irvings archives. It was always hand-to-mouth financially, we asked people to chip in $10 [equivalent to about $125 in 2020] to be a member but a lot didnt have it or didnt make it a priority, Connell says. In a story that will be familiar to any activist, there was also no long-term planning that would have been able to keep it going for long.But, more generally, she says, there was not much concern about permanence. People didnt lament the closure of the Free U because many of us were already busy doing similar things in other forums at the time. People who had put energy into it found other political projects taking up more time: the Moratorium movement, the Womens Liberation movement, Gay Liberation, the Labor Party which in 1969 seemed on the brink of winning power and in 1972 finally did.Perhaps we naively assumed that the cultural ferment of the late sixties would just keep going, she says. Looking back, however, I think something was lost, and that was the interplay between all the different projects and courses. For a while it had produced some synergy.But the vision of Free University didnt die, even if nothing similarly ambitious has been created by Australian students since. In 1973, two graduate students, Jean Curthoys and Liz Jacka proposed a course on The politics of sexual oppression in the Philosophy Department. Despite it being approved by the Department, it was ultimately rejected by the Professorial Board. Feminists protested the decision by pitching a tent on the Quadrangle Lawns emblazoned Womens Embassy, teaching free classes on feminist philosophy until the University with some pressure from the Builders and Labourers Federation allowed the course to proceed.In 2016, young activists set up a stall on Eastern Avenue to conduct a free Radical Education Week, an event which has continued (with a pause in 2017) ever since. In 2019, Raewyn Connell returned to her alma mater to give a class on the Good University as part of the Radical Education Week program.Half a century after the publication of the Lost Ideal, the barriers to a truly democratic education remain much the same. If it is disheartening to think that we are further from the vision presented by the Free U than ever, we must remember that it is always in our reach.It is always only us who can create it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Following the explosive resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement in Minneapolis, professional radicals and clout-seekers alike took to the annals of Twitter and Instagram. These activists extended solidarity, symbolic protest and a discourse aimed at challenging anti-Blackness. One prominent anti-racist weapon in the arsenal of every experienced WokePoster is the notion of allyship. To be an ally, particularly a white ally, requires one to acknowledge their privilege in being recognised by major cultural and political institutions. It is argued that this privilege is one which Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour (BIPOC) lack. Rather, BIPOC are subject to violence and control by a hostile state apparatus. Their voices of resistance are drowned out by underrepresentation in dominant institutions of bourgeois society both repressive and ideological. To overcome this structural imbalance, the ally must follow BIPOC leadership within the culture industry, the corridors of government, and corporate boardrooms. The President of the Portland-branch of the NAACP, pastor E.D. Mondaine echoed such a sentiment, urging white people to be with us in the classrooms and the boardrooms [and] in the halls of justice.Allyship can only challenge the status quo when deemed appropriate, with Modaine denouncing the supposed white spectacle of the anti-carceral insurgency in Portland. As such, the white ally must forgo their role as an independent political actor and elevate the voices of leaders of oppressed groups. Since white people have the privilege to engage in riskier political actions with less repercussions, they are expected to. By doing so, they safeguard vulnerable BIPOC from being targeted by police repression and entering the prison system. Resources detailing allyship politics are often shared with good intentions: white supporters of anti-racist movements have, in my experience, acted with an arrogance and condescension not conducive to productive organisation. Nevertheless, this framework remains fundamentally flawed.The notion that there is one Black or POC voice that allies can elevate is, to borrow a term from this discourse, problematic as it obfuscates power differentials within communities of colour. Black and brown communities are not a singular bloc with a unified political worldview. The seminal sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, for example, forcefully argued that class divisions within the Black community were a crucial part of racialised capitalism. For the Black bourgeoisie to maintain a hold on their precarious class position, they were compelled to distance themselves from the rest of the Black community: those toiling in sharecropping, performing drudgery in industrial worksites or being brutalised in urban ghettos. Rather, they had to communicate to their white class allies that they had had no sympathy for black criminality, emphasising their status above the Black working and middle classes in the socio-racial hierarchy.Such power differentials are not remnants of the 20th century. Today, a new aristocracy of media personalities, politicians, and financiers claim to represent the interests of Black people as a whole, while functionally demobilising and depoliticising the poor and working-class. In effect, this political-economic elite maintains bureaucratic control over NGOs and activist groups through a network of financial flows, interpersonal relationships and political campaigns. In their analysis of the class composition of the early BLM movement, the radical journal Endnotes argues that the Civil Rights legacies [of the 60s] perform important social and ideological functions for this elite. Many civil rights veterans like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who played a prominent role in organising civil resistance following the murder of Trayvon Martin, occupy central positions in this political class, garbing themselves in the cloak of 60s radicalism while having the ear of media and political elites. Thus, Endnotes concludes that racial struggle in America is vertically mediated: these movements are hierarchically composed with actors in NGOs, municipal governments all the way through to upper state institutions and political parties. While these race leaders can build momentum for campaigns, when crowds pose a sufficient threat to the state and private property they will often use their influence to control and discipline spontaneous action.Following the murder of 16 year-old Kimani Gray by plainclothes police in 2013, a spontaneous wave of action spread throughout New York City under the Twitter hashtag #BrooklynRiot. Endnotes observes that this incident led to an early instance of Black leadership repressing struggle in the first waves of the BLM movement. Councilman Jumaane Williams brought in riot police on behalf of the community, claiming that outside agitators from Occupy had escalated peaceful struggle into unnecessary rioting. Given his precarious position in a hostile political environment, it is easy to see why Williams would opt for such a tactic as the legitimacy of his campaign rested on [his] ability to rein in the violence. The outsider agitator narrative was even more prevalent during the 2020 uprisings, where white anarchists were accused by bureaucrats at all levels of government of inflaming what to the white imaginary were respectful, non-violent civil protests. This discourse reached its crescendo when Twitter influencers called out the Karen who had allegedly been responsible for the burning of the Wendys following the murder of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.Activists and influencers reduced the Atlanta revolt against police repression to the actions of a white outside agitator, leading civil protests astray by a single act of property destruction. Beyond its absurdity, these cases elucidate the crisis that Black leaders working within the state-NGO apparatus face. To retain their access to funding, prestige and a media spotlight, organisers must regiment the organic mobilisation of those affected the most by police brutality. The cruel irony here is that this Karen is in fact Brooks girlfriend, Natalie White, whom he mentions in the bodycam footage before his death: You know, Natalie White, shes my girlfriend. She left. I said, Baby, Ill get Wendys and then Ill go back When white allies are told to promote Black leadership, they are drawn to the voices with the most power, prestige and name recognition. This in turn reinforces hierarchical relations within the Black community that are structurally opposed to interests of the urban poor and marginalised, whose voices, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., are unsilenced through the language of riots.White allies drift toward representatives and leaders whose politics are closest to their own. In Australia, the racial discrimination Adam Goodes faced within the AFL has become a symbol of liberal-progressive outrage at the backwardness of Australian race-relations. Yet, in the well-intentioned elevation of Goodes as a symbol of Indigenous leadership, allies obfuscate that his class position (an estimated net worth of $5 million AUD) is incongruent with the abject poverty many First Nations communities face. Further, Goodes is enmeshed with the very state apparatus that disproportionately carries out heinous police and military violence against Indigenous people. In 2017, Goodes became the CEO of the Indigenous Defense Consortium, a subsidiary of the UK weapons-manufacturing giant BAE systems. In 2020, BAE systems was revealed to have sold $27 billion AUD worth of weapons to Saudia Arabia in their genocidal war against Yemens civilian population. One wonders how Goodes, entangled in the Australian military-industrial complex, could advocate for Indigenous campaigns such as Stop Deaths In Custody, Black Lives Matter, or a spokesperson for those who faced military repression during the Intervention.Similarly, one wonders how white support for Black small businesses as espoused by POC influencers in the Twittersphere is conducive with solidarity towards the disenfranchised who face police violence, structural unemployment and general immiseration. The anarchist polemic emerging from the first wave of BLM, Aint No PC Gonna Fix It, Baby, put it poignantly when they noted that the white ally is repositioned to to wield the power of determining who are the most representative and appropriate black and brown voices, asking, who white allies [are] to determine who is the most appropriate anything?In this understanding, allyship does little to offer genuine solidarity. Rather, it functions to reinforce the vertical mediations within the socio-racial hierarchy. This structure, I claim, is best understood as the activist-industrial complex (perhaps activist-NGO-municipal-state-industrial complex is more appropriate but for brevity I shall henceforth refer to it as the AIC). The AIC is comprised of a network of activist groups, NGOs and community organisations interlinked with the government at the municipal, federal and state levels. This network is industrial inasmuch as these political organs receive funding from an elite donor class and philanthropists looking to recycle their money in woke NGOs. In place of traditional support from large public-relations firms, the AIC operates more decentrally, receiving its prestige from influencers and WokePosters on Instagram and Twitter.Due to this lack of centralised coordination, allies need not even look up to the powerful and prestigious names in POC leadership just a brand name. During the post-Minneapolis uprising, many white anti-racist protestors were led by the officiated Black Lives Matter activists who called on white people to use their privilege to fight the status quo while pacifying protests, negotiating with cops and disciplining protestors deemed unruly.The political cache used to propagate this message is largely drawn from privilege theory. The viral Instagram post, 10 Steps to Non-Optical Allyship, which made it onto the cover of Vogue magazine, is a case in point. Undoubtedly, many of its proposals are harmless (Check in on your black friends). Notably, however, the creator of the post is a public relations consultant and sensitivity trainer. This situates projects like these squarely in the AIC, where nonprofit organisations run diversity training courses to help white allies recognise and overcome their racial privilege. Such projects obfuscate the centrality of racist institutions like the judicial and prison system and centres anti-racist organising on white behaviours and privileges that can be checked given the right training. Race theorist Noel Ignatievs ironic comments on the diversity industry resonates here it is fortunate that in the nineteenth century they had abolitionists instead of diversity consultants; if not slavery would still exist, and representatives of slaves and slaveholders would be meeting together to promote mutual understanding and good feeling.Underlying allyship is an infantilising logic that require BIPOC (a nebulous term in its own right) to have allies defending them from a perceived vulnerability to judicial and financial repression. As Jackie Wang argues in her groundbreaking essay Against Innocence, in placing emphasis on safety at all costs, this politics creates a false connection between militancy and whiteness. This further undermines and obfuscates the history of BIPOC militancy in the anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles of the 20th century. Moreover, it prevents us from imagining what other less alienated forms of relatedness and solidarity would look like, broken free from the shackles of allyship. This renewed understanding of solidarity is the fundamental problem radicals face: given that the subjugated classes are heterogeneous in nature, how can we unite in the face of catastrophe?The politics espoused by privilege theory is one of passivity and weakness. When the vulnerable are asked not to take risks, Wang impassionately argues that the only politically correct politics becomes a politics of reformism and retreat, a politics that necessarily capitulates to the status quo while erasing the legacy of Black Power groups like the Black Panthers. A praxis of non-violence, performative protests, Woke Tweeting and electoralism necessarily follows. Privilege theory is the ideological sheath by which the vertical mediations of the AIC exercises its influence. Community organisers and NGOs take the lead in organising these massive demonstrations. For their hard work, they are rewarded with media attention, online support and new recruits. This supporter base becomes the perfect funnel into electoral campaigns with officiated sects of BLM having close ties to the Democratic Party at local and federal levels. In Sydney, we see nexus of state, NGO and activist organisations with the NSW Greens and their support for popular social justice measures #ChangeTheDate, an Australian Green New Deal etc.The intermeshing of activism and bureaucracy can be seen at every level of political organisation, even on campus. Its no secret that the progressive wing of student politics Socialist Alternative, Labor Left (NLS), Solidarity and Switchroots use activist campaigns as a massive recruiting pool, directing starry-eyed inductees to get involved with the latest SRC or USU campaign. This venture into electoralism is justified on the basis that it provides access to financial and organisational support for activist campaigns, facilitating a rapid expansion of consciousness and radical action. However, it seems that the opposite is true certain avenues of praxis, particularly those popular with the university students are chosen precisely because it leads to the reproduction and expansion of power blocs within these bureaucracies. The focus on formal political battlegrounds both diverts energy away from praxis while exerting a mediating, disciplinary effect on what forms of activity are viable. For example, if recruitment and media-friendly visibility are priorities for a particular faction, activism becomes a means to reach these goals. Organisers often tone down their content to have a wider appeal, materialised in the appeal to notions in the liberal-progressive imaginary such as human rights and state entitlements. Moreover, they will set a particular level of intensity for the demonstration to attract particular types of participants; the goldilocks mean between overt passivity and combative struggle.I acknowledge that it is unfair to compare the dynamics of university politicking with the repressive function of the AIC seen in the history of BLM. Having participated in a number of university campaigns, its clear that many student activists approach protesting with passion, just intentions and a genuine sense of solidarity. However, despite benevolent aspirations, activists often engage in a panoptic self-discipline. Their embeddedness in networks of advocacy organisations with ties to local and state government, unions and NGOs lead to an internalisation of modes of activity that dont challenge the Australian state or capital. The social consciousness of this activist strata is largely reflective of these institutional arrangements not vice versa. By virtue of these connections with the State, it is framed as an ally and defender of the oppressed for progressives to rally behind, despite how deeply contradictory this is with the objectives of anti-racist struggle. When activity diverges from the modes of organising allowed by the State, narratives like the outside agitator are brought up and activists will reign in struggle in accordance with a pre-determined itinerary.Recently, the most disheartening examples of this are community organisers in the U.S. handing protestors to the police to maintain a level of respectability. However, this self-repression materialises in a multiplicity of forms. In the latest upswing of BLM struggles in Sydney, an activist bureaucracy has been responsible for enforcing a rights-based, state-approved series of peaceful marches with police escorts. This further includes lobbying with, and seeking the validation of NGOs and politicians. Initially, BLM saw a return to spontaneous organising in Sydney, with #RIPGeorgeFloyd vigils and marches being held without the approval of professional anti-racist organisers. The largest protest was held on the 6th of June, when over 10 000 people marched from Town Hall to Belmore Park chanting I cant breathe, remembering the death of both George Floyd and David Dungay. While the rally was led by a myriad of activist groups with a presence from the Greens, on the train there from the Western suburbs I noticed an extemporaneous energy emerging from groups of teenage protestors, self-organising with their circle of mates. During the rally, spontaneous actions by these teenagers were either restrained by rally marshalls or isolated and then repressed by the police. It seemed to me a fundamental violation of the principles of the post-Minneapolis Resurgence to co-operate with the police while organising the vigil. The event thus became an object to be governed, with mandatory social distancing and management by intermediaries between activists and the police. Moreover, it seemed unfair that activist groups, whose members were from diverse but often middle-class backgrounds, could choose whose voices were heard and whose were not. Given that they are part of communities most immediately terrorised by police brutality, why were the Western Sydney youth not given a chance to vent their frustration?At a subsequent rally in solidarity with protesters at Sydneys Long Bay Correctional Centre who faced tear gas attacks by prison guards, the regulatory behaviour of the activist class was farcically visible. Firstly, the rally was held at Town Hall, to attract larger crowds, despite the action being purportedly for Long Bay prisoners. Secondly, the action consisted of walking around the Captain Cook statue in circles for less than an hour quite a threat to the status quo. Thirdly, rally marshalls, negotiators between the police and protesters, immediately called off the protest at the polices behest, more effectively and efficiently than the police would have (no doubt they would have faced some resistance). Despite being authentic supporters of BLM, marshalls inexplicably became better cops than the cops present in their ability to quickly break up the crowd. Additionally, marshalls and organisers spent the hours following the end of the rally breaking up independent actions by non-organisers on a purported basis of safety. Many veteran radicals were aghast at the extraordinary power the police had over the crowd when they mediated their demands through the bodies representing the voices of the struggle. A key organiser of the Long Bay rally I spoke with urged the Sydney left to critically examine the ways in which activism can embody carceral logics like marshalling at protests, which functionally becomes a mechanism of policing.A spectre is haunting the world; the spectre of an abolitionist, anti-racist, feminist radicalism actively opposed to the decimation of the planet. For those that wish to see a world beyond capitals destructive desire for profitability, a world that can facilitate the endless flourishing of human potential, we must exorcise the unholy alliance that activists have formed with the state and NGOs. To avoid becoming our own cops, we need to jettison the platitudes of allyship politics that ask us to look for leaders, abandon a politics of safety that pacifies and divide us, and break free from an AIC that makes our struggle impotent. Jackie Wang, citing Franz Fanon, reminds us that militancy is not just strategically beneficial. Struggle, real struggle, emboldens those involved, transforming their anger into strength, cleansing them of the core of their despair. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are bizarre elements within the 107-year-long story of the Holme Buildings Refectory. The striking, slightly erotic murals on its back wall, for example, or the fact that their creator reportedly died for a few minutes during the process of creating the final mural. This grand hall has an eccentric flair and a history that links it to the more vibrant and unusual aspects of student culture. These elements are, unfortunately, not exactly reflected by what takes place there now.The university-related functions that take place underneath its unsettlingly high roof are usually sit-down dinners, cocktail parties and balls. The kind of USU events you have to google dress codes for, to quote Sam Langfords 2016 Honi article. But external events, such as weddings and receptions, corporate dinners and networking nights, are also common. This is all overseen by HostCo, a self-described boutique catering and venue space nestled in quiet, picturesque gardens. The company sells itself through the elegance and charm of the various venues found in the Holme Building, the Refectory being the second largest of these.My initial feelings towards the Refectory were characterised by a slight grudge regarding soundproofing. For students involved with the Dramatic Society (SUDS), The Refectory is best known for emitting the muffled yet consistently distracting noise that can often be heard from above during performances in the Cellar Theatre.Usually, its during a Saturday night wedding reception, throughout which the oh-so irresistible grooves of whatever wedding band is playing can be heard as they undoubtedly fill up the dancefloor with a slightly funk-oriented pop song. If there was one thing that SUDS 2019 production of Relative Values needed, it was a cover of Robin Thickes Blurred Lines scoring the plays final act. With a corporatised, dolled up venue encroaching upon a dingy yet communal space of immeasurable significance to student culture, its difficult not to see this situation as symbolic, and equally difficult to imagine anything fun happening there.Hence my surprise late last year when I discovered that some of the most important figures from the Australian rock music canon Midnight Oil, INXS, You Am I and Hunters & Collectors had all played the Refectory on several occasions. Not only that, but international bands such as the Smashing Pumpkins, The Lemonheads and They Might Be Giants graced the venues stage during their Australian tours. Raymond Ahn, bassist for the seminal Australian punk band Hard-Ons, describes the venue as a legendary hub of university life, in terms of entertainment.As a venue located within a university, the Refectory was part of a larger trend that was occurring at the time where on-campus venues were moved to the centre of the live music scene, both in Sydney and in other major Australian cities. Ex-Rolling Stone editor Toby Creswell says that a lack of venues in Sydney in the 1970s resulted in university shows being a critical part of the gig circuit.The university was kind of the only place where you could get much by way of cultural activity in Sydney, he says. The student union ran everything they were obviously motivated towards the interest of their members, but also making a very vibrant culture. So venues at universities became an important part of that.At that time, many Australian universities would have Entertainment Officers employed through their respective student unions. A de facto circuit, as Creswell describes it, involving on-campus venues was formed through communication between these Officers, and became an important stepping stone for up-and-coming bands.Uni venues were regarded by musicians as being at the same stature as regular large capacity venues, says Amanda Brown, formerly of the Go-Betweens. She also notes how beneficial university campuses were for small acts. A lot of local independent bands were hired because the students booking them were fans Lloyd Swanton from The Necks says they were given a room at Sydney Uni to practise in for free. That sort of thing is unthinkable now.The ideal nature of these campus venues was heightened by the fact that, as music writer Clinton Walker says, they werent at police attention.Uni gigs always had a great vibe because they were kind of I hesitate to say safe spaces but they sort of were.Its such a different time for me to think about now, journalist Caleb Cluff says, reflecting on the notable lack of police presence on campus during his time at the University. There were no security guards everywhere.Its hard to imagine that now. Lets not forget the words of ex-Head of Campus Security, Simon Hardman in 2013 (when he was the Superintendent of the Newtown Local Area Command): police do not require any invitation from the University management to enter the grounds and conduct police operations. If the current lack of live music on campus wasnt enough to indicate how much less exciting this campus has become since the 70s, the plans to introduce Coffee with a Cop sessions last year certainly were.Back then, the university was a cultural breeding ground; a campus with creativity oozing from even the most unlikely of places. Shows took place in the middle of the day out on the Front Lawns. Tim Freedman, lead singer of The Whitlams, once witnessed Hunters and Collectors playing Throw Your Arms Around Me in the Engineering Building (!) before its release.The Refectorys visual splendour, size and acoustics made it the ideal space for shows that could be considered events such as the well attended End of Semester shows rather than the smaller gigs and band competitions that would take place at other spaces around campus.Keith Welsh, the manager and a founding member of Icehouse (or Flowers, as they were known during most of his time in the band), reflected on the Refectorys status. When it became a regular venue for rock bands, it became one of those points from an artists career where theyre getting bigger, or theyre able to play bigger shows.The band played at the venue in August of 1979. We probably would have been headlining that show because wed hit a point where our album was coming out, things were going well we could feel a momentum.The presence of a proper stage in the venue was a great assistance to the band on the night, especially in terms of sound. So many places that we played would have a pretty loose idea of what a stage was it could be something on milk crates.The shows at the Refectory would often boast a 3-band bill, with headliners needing to have some sort of substantial following. Up and coming bands or acts were far more likely to have their first discovered moment elsewhere on campus.But thats not to say the Refectory wasnt enjoyed and remembered fondly by USyd students, indeed the opposite is true. Both Cluff and Ahn named a Go-Betweens show in 1987 as their favourite Refectory story. It was around the time Robert Forster had taken to wearing slinky sheath dresses and channeling Prince, Cluff described. Amanda Brown had joined. My friend Phil Garrett was rather taken by her stage presence, and there ensued a protracted long staring session between Amanda and Phil, which was not unnoticed by Robert. He stopped the gig between songs and with great headmasterly aplomb looked down his nose and pointed directly at Phil. Hilarious and beautiful, like the band.Adam Spencer, former president of the USU, recalls seeing The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tear the place apart on more than one occasion, as well as great performances from real darlings of the indie scene, such as The Hummingbirds and The Clouds.What could be considered as a watershed moment for the Refectory came in 1977 on May 11, when Brisbane punk band The Saints played the venue with Johnny Dole & The Scabs supporting them. These were two of the leading figures within the Australian punk scene, which was just burgeoning when this gig took place. The Saints had released their debut single, (Im) Stranded, in September of the previous year, but with that song alone had predated any recorded musical output by UK punk rock contemporaries such as The Clash, The Buzzcocks and Sex Pistols, and launched the punk and new wave movements in Australia. The explosion of these movements were greatly assisted by the accessibility and inviting and relaxed atmosphere of on-campus venues.Welsh holds the gig Flowers played at the venue in similarly high regard.Physically I remember the venue being fantastic because it was packed, and, as those gigs used to be, it was just fantastic, the response we would get from various people.As Welsh suggests, live music was met with a great deal of enthusiasm across campus an enthusiasm which largely stemmed from the same question that propelled pub rock forwards during this era: what else was there to do? Often costing only $4 or $5, and in a convenient location for those who studied at the university, it was a perfect source of cheap entertainment at a time where there was little else of it or any kind of entertainment and an example of the unifying and energising effect of live music and legitimate student culture.The whole idea of the audience being that into it they were all ready to have fun, Welsh says, and if the band was good it was that wonderful symbiotic relationship between the audience and the artist where everybody winds one another up and things get better.The social quality of these gigs, as Freedman remembers, was only enhanced by the presence of the Courtyard area (which, at the time, was essentially a set of wooden tables, rather than the open plan caf current students know and love). Located just behind where the Refectorys stage would have been, it was a great spot to escape noise, drink and talk.And on that noise, one particular feature of the venue was the subject of differing appraisal amongst those who attended gigs there: the sound.For Welsh, as mentioned before, the experience in this department was nothing but positive, and he believes that the room was built for there to be good sound.I can recall our front-of-house guy used to be quite specific about trying to get the best sound everywhere, and I remember him remarking that it sounded great that night, whether its those old wood panels or whatever it was that was in the room.Ahn stated that the blueprint strategy employed by sound technicians was to have bands play quieter so that the sound could be pushed out the front by the P.A. system. With that tiny extra bit of reverb it was a really-good sounding room.Ahn recalled seeing Sonic Youth at the venue and witnessing them go into a free-form segment of their set where they were just playing anything they wanted, it was just pure noise, but it was blissful. Whoever was mixing them did it perfectly.However, without a decent crowd, as Freedman says, the same conditions that made the venues acoustics optimal for larger gigs (high ceiling, all hard surfaces) were its downfall.Putting it more bluntly, Creswell mentions that he always found the sound to be really bad in there, it was a pretty horrible experience.A particular gig highlighted this for him: in 1979, Skyhooks, who were on their way out by that point, played the venue to an audience of what he estimates to be around 12 people. Between the tirades that the bands bassist subjected their audience to, Toby noticed that if you dont have a lot of people in that room, it just sounds terrible, it all bounces around.This is, as former USU employee Alistair Cowie confirmed, at least part of the reason why the Refectory no longer hosts gigs. Manning Bars multi-million dollar renovation and expansion, finished in 2000, turned it into an ideal, ready-made space for the kinds of gigs the Refectory was known for, but without the need for the expensive and tiresome process of loading in the stage, lights, sound, etc., nor the sound issues that that venue was perceived as having.Whats more, the safety of the considerably old, wooden-floored Refectory was, according to Cowie, questionable. I dont quite know what the capacity is, but I can assure you that the capacity would have been exceeded in those days. I think I remember an INXS concert in there once that had maybe 8 or 900 people crammed in the floor could only take so much.As the heyday of the pub rock phenomenon continued throughout the 80s, more venues began to emerge specifically, venues that were more successful in meeting the criteria of the industry at the time, which Toby believes was built around how much beer you could sell.While the decision to can gigs at the Refectory may not exactly be part of a grand conspiracy involving the Universitys endless quest to ban fun, there were other factors at play aside from those cited above.Live music in Sydney has been experiencing what Clinton Walker labels a death by a thousand cuts for several decades now. Some of these cuts included regulations regarding the safety and noise levels of venues, and, of course, poker machines.But the bigger blow to campus culture was the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism and, subsequently, the USUs ACCESS program, in 2006. The reasonable budget that universities had allocated to cultural and social events before this was no longer seen as viable. Thus came a decrease in students engagement in the campuses cultural offerings.Amanda Brown, formerly of the Go-Betweens, saw live music on campus as one of the first casualties of the introduction of broader fees and the pressure to turn a profit rather than offer a well rounded education (including a vibrant campus social life).Going back further, a political shift occurred on campuses during the late 1970s and beyond. Creswell describes watching on as this sort of conservatism started to sneak further and further into [the student body]. On-campus demonstrations decreased and an activist culture was leached out. Both Creswell and Walker stressed the importance of this aspect of student culture to the live music scene on campus. Music was completely intrinsic to political activism, says Walker.But the Refectory was more separate from this culture than other venues on campus. It did not have the same grassroots agenda as, for instance, shows at the Tin Sheds, an art workshop near where the Wentworth Building currently is that was completely run by students at the time.The gigs that occurred in the Refectory werent as frequent as other spaces, nor did they showcase that much by way of underground music. The kinds of events that take place at the Refectory now arent new. Graduation ceremonies, weddings, college functions they were all happening during the day (though corporate events werent as common as they are now).Live music on campus is no longer the cultural force it once was. Of course, musical societies will organise their own performances, and take the stage during O-Week, though the collective organisation that was inherent to live music in the past is nowhere to be found.The live music that does go on at Manning and Hermanns Bar feels distinctly separate from student culture. Youd be lucky to see any sort of substantial promotion of these shows from the student union that was once running them.According to setlist.fm, the last gig to take place at the Refectory was as far back as April 7, 2000, when The Whitlams played there to a full house. Tim recalled seeing the crowd through the large windows which line the venues colonnade while walking through there to get to the stage. If this was, in fact, the last gig to take place there, at least it would have been a packed one.The birth of the idea behind this article came from a perception of the Refectory as a victim of gentrification a symbol for the demolishment of an authentic student culture that has been replaced by corporatised schmoozefests and boring cocktail parties for college kids.In some ways, this is true. Yet, as Toby described it, USyd used to be a melting pot university, and that is, perhaps, what the Refectory was actually symbolic of. It can still be said, though, that what the pot cooks up nowadays doesnt have as much spice as it used to.Maybe the Cellar Theatres roof can be thankful for that, at least.Art by Jocelin Chan. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If you, like me, frequently use the Spotify Private Session feature to go and listen to corny movie soundtracks in fear that your Spotify friends will cancel your music recommendations and taste well, then Im glad Im not alone. In the culture of surveillance and the merging of public and private digital space, we open up small nooks of anxiety-inducing indulgence and shame for guilty pleasures. Whilst I believe that no one should feel guilty for any pleasure they feel perhaps this cant be a universal claim the subjectivity of music and why we love certain music is a question that remains difficult to answer and hard to admit.As the Bill Clinton Swag Meme continued to trend during the period of self-isolation and quarantine, I felt a growing knot in my stomach as I struggled to find the perfect curation of four critically-acclaimed albums that I could credit for polishing off my outstanding and in all ways, elite (sophisticated, superior, better than you, etc.) sense of music. However, there was only one album I could think of that would encapsulate what music has significantly impacted and shaped my music taste, albeit a social sacrifice that I was hoping would bring all my followers to their senses to realise its goodness and influence. The Twilight Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2008), despite the actual films commercial success but underwhelming critical and cultural legacy, has miraculously stood the test of time and can be credited as a breakthrough for a number of successful 2000s and 2010s indie and alt-rock bands.It would be ignorant to say that every teen movie has a flawless and perfectly curated soundtrack, though a few stand out over the past few years. Specifically, films such as Jonathan Levines Warm Bodies (2013), and iconic television dramas like Gossip Girl (2007-2012) have soundtracks which introduced a blend of new indie artists to a more commercial ground. Without placing too much credit on the shoulders of any of the said narratives and plots, the aforementioned films demonstrate the true art of music supervision and curation; a craft that can be credited to those who seem to be able to dissect, describe and prescribe the perfect soundtrack to the right moments. Initially booking bands to play at the University of Illinois, then later working as music supervisor for producer Roger Corman, Alexandra Patsavas seems to have been part of the Midwest American indie scene before I knew it existed. Since founding Chop Shop Music Supervision in 1998, she and her team have accumulated quite the impressive resum, working not only on said soundtracks, but also on Mad Men, Greys Anatomy, The O.C., and 2010s films, The Perks of Being A Wallflower and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Chop Shop, 2020).For those less familiar with the soundtracks of each of these films and series, an easy explanation would be that Chop Shop Music Supervision is the name behind your music taste and the songs you associate with growing up the reason you probably listen to Death Cab for Cutie or Iron & Wine. A certain timelessness is discovered in her work and that impressively showcases artists like Radiohead alongside Paramore, and then John Waite alongside the Black Keys; a number of these soundtracks marry artists genres apart and push the cinematic image and narrative forward.Unlike the more commonly discussed art of scoring films, music supervising involves the collaging of various pre-existing musical works. Less guided by conventional tropes, music curation dabbles in individual works of artists that create mood and feeling that strictly exist in those few minutes. Patsavas has made a name for herself over these past few films as a tastemaker of the indie genre thats guided more by the sounds that arent heard than those that are. An observer of filmic needs, her selections give movies the oomph necessary to push that mile ahead, channelling the intimacy required for Twilight, humour for Warm Bodies, and mix of Manhattan-Brooklyn hipness to makes you recall tracks like Peter Bjorn and Johns Young Folks when meeting it-girl, Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girls pilot episode. In an interview with Fast Company, Patsavas stated, Of course you think of a cohesive album, but none of that works unless the songs tell the story The first time the audience experiences the track, its in the context of the movie.Its interesting that Patsavas breakout supervision was for Twilight, a film notoriously (love)hated by film buffs, purged by old fans and even ridiculed by its own star, Robert Pattinson. Though, it is exactly that hatred that makes the soundtrack even better in comparison and maybe, the only agreeably redeemable quality of the film. Upon examining the soundtrack, its clear to see how the selection was most probably influenced by its iconic rural Washington state setting. It could have just as easily been titled as a Sounds of Isolation compilation album fit with a pine tree album cover not an uncommon thought, it seems. The connection between indie music and the foggy, mossy setting of Seattle is one thats been discussed by many music geography scholars and journalists why is it so difficult to separate gentle folk music and garage rock from this particular region of the United States?Discussed by Thomas Bell in his article Why Seattle? An Examination of Alternative Rock Culture Hearth, he pulls apart the idea of the Seattle sound: An element congealing the Seattle groups into a scene if really a sound, is the musical honesty (Bell 1998, 38). The whole idea of musical honesty seems to be exactly whats amplified through highlight tracks featured on Twilight: Decode by Paramore, Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation, Supermassive Black Hole by Muse. Grant Alden and Jeff Gilbert say, Seattle is not Los Angeles or New York. Its not a place where things happen and the world notices. Its at the far edge of an enormous country hemmed on all sides by mountains and water. Its beautiful, remote and claustrophobic (Alden & Gilbert in Bell 1998, 39). A sense of isolation is consistently amplified throughout the tracks on the soundtrack, utilising recording techniques of heavy reverb, quiet whispering and humble guitar plucking that echoes the danger that the films setting of Forks, Washington, presents. Though the exclusion of perhaps the most well-known Seattle band, Nirvana, seems to be a curious choice that indicates a greater creative intention to stick towards smaller artists; artists on the outskirts of mainstream culture, lurking and waiting for someone daring enough to step forward and curate them into the perfect compilation.In the case of Warm Bodies, the music curation exists with a generic function rather than geographic probably out of necessity for a Romeo-and-Juliet, zombie-rom-com. The soundtrack consists of a heavier 80s sound, focusing specifically on romance and acoustics, undoubtedly to contrast against the otherwise more depressing post-apocalyptic setting. Notable mentions of this genre curation include John Waites Missing You and Bruce Springsteens Hungry Heart. Ordinarily associated with the heavy rotation of the Smooth FM sound, the music functions for a different and more meaningful purpose here. A growing sense of nostalgia is achieved in its use in Warm Bodies, drawing viewers into the record-playing, knick-knack-collecting, generally endearing zombie character of R, who in the opening scene reminisces about the human lives of zombies lingering at the airport to Jimmy Cliffs Sitting In Limbo. In an iconic scene from the film, R is broken-hearted and being consoled by his friend M (I promise that most characters in this film have a name longer than a letter) who encourages him to pursue his romance and also indicates towards a growing emotional change among the zombies; theyre becoming more human. As R asks for their help reaching Julie, the scene cuts to the group of zombies against a morbid backdrop of destruction, shuffling determinedly along to the hilariously juxtaposing, searing guitar solo in Scorpions Rock You Like a Hurricane. A general focus on overall cohesion is the element of prime importance when stringing songs together, and you would think that this is more easily done by picking songs from a similar era, complementing and leaning on the musical similarities and cultural substance of one another. Patsavas presents a curious case against this. Cleverly accenting all the comedic beats of the film, its impressive to be able to integrate indie artists like Bon Iver and The National alongside more timeless acts without a jarring contrast.The case for Gossip Girl, is, again, quite different. This time, the supervision dictates the relationships between the characters, balancing themes of fame, glamour and prestige. Gossip Girl is, for the most part, a teen-drama that preys on the spectacle of New York City celebrity culture and elitism that seemingly resides in four Upper East Side families, narrating their Met Museum yogurt-and-granola morning routines and equally pretentious high school concerns. While this explains the prevalence of more poppy club tracks, that also admittedly sound ten times worse retrospectively, the indie features seem to draw from the hipster, Brooklyn upbringing of character Dan Humphrey, who seems to be tormented and taunted for his apparently inferior, off-the-island upbringing for the full six seasons. Unsurprisingly, Patsavas found the perfect playlist. Though, unlike Twilight and Warm Bodies, upon relistening to the Gossip Girl Soundtrack Season 1-6, it becomes almost painful pairing JAY-Z back-to-back with Washington Social Club, then Flo Rida with Cold War Kids. The result ends more as a mishmash, people-pleasing playlist that feels all too common at primary school discos. Yet, Patsavas makes these songs work in the context of the show; as viewers we quickly realise that the presence of pop music only exists to frame the superficial personalities presented in certain characters. The more honest substance of reality that carries the actual story is instead, humbly complemented by the unique originality of indie artists and songs.With this in mind, its easier to understand why music from my teenage years seems to have a timeless quality that settles into a sticky nostalgia. This could partially be due to the fact that young adulthood is a time where we come to our senses and begin to develop likes, dislikes and learn. A romanticised notion thats only affirmed in the fact that a lot of the tracks from Chop Shop Supervision still hold a sense of first-time listenability. Anyone who has watched a teen flick in the past five years may struggle to find the same success (though some more recent exceptions may include Beautiful Boy (2018), Eighth Grade (2018), Booksmart (2019)). Though perhaps, it has more to do with the reputations of the bands since their features in these films and television series. Now critically-acclaimed and reviewed by publications like Pitchfork, The Atlantic and Rolling Stone, artists like Feist, The National and Vampire Weekend have become defining figures of 21st century indie and alt-rock that carry way beyond the late 2000s into the late 2010s.Patsavas curation wrapped smaller indie bands into commercially-consumable packages of narrative, plot and sprinkled them with renown and timeless musical works from past decades. If anything, its a clear example of the golden mean of musical and production intentions in films and television. The emerging beauty of film, television, streaming and independent production lies in the growing avenues for rising artists to reach audiences Thats the new way with the digital age says Patsavas. Without judging the quality of a soundtrack based merely on the critique of the overall film, theres something to be celebrated in a good playlist, even away from the screen. What becomes apparent is that despite the mediocre critical reception of Twilight, Warm Bodies, Gossip Girl and most other works supervised by Chop Shop, the legacy of the featured music has forged a kind of subliminal connection to these fictions in turn, the fictions to the music thats eternally romanticised in Generation Z teenhood. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The desktop computer that sits in my room glows in rainbow colours, my keyboard is backlit in red, and I have two monitors. Growing up, I had a boyish interest in military history, and the video games I played for entertainment aligned with such tastes. My first memory of this simulated murder comes from when I was eight; I was a United States Ranger storming the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day in Call of Duty II, and I had Nazis to kill. The Second World War became my favourite subject matter. To many, these things might register as warning signs the hallmarks of a nocturnal life spent engaging in what are violent pastimes, woven within a troubling relationship with the internet.These days I take to a more diverse array of hobbies. But with an abundance of free time in the isolation of earlier this year, I began replaying many of the games that had brought joy to me as a boy. Amongst these was a strategy game called Company of Heroes II, which requires the player to command squadrons of soldiers from the armies of WWII on a 3D battlefield. As such, the player can choose to play as the Nazi Wehrmacht. Each faction is unique, but there is a golden rule Wehraboos only play Germany.A Wehraboo is a Nazi military enthusiast. The word is a portmanteau of Wehrmacht and weeaboo, and its a term that emerged from strategy game circles to describe those that play Nazi factions to engage with their military fascinations in an interactive way. These interests often appear harmless, as the average conversation between Wehraboos is not a political one, but a technical one; play one of these games and youll much sooner hear an argument about the superiority of the German Panther tank to the American Jackson equivalent. Lull one of these people into a sense of interpersonal comfort, and they may feel inclined to disclose the full extent of their relationship with the Third Reich. In one such game of Company of Heroes II, I inadvertently found myself, an ardently progressive uni student from Sydney with a Jewish surname and Grandfather, engaging in conversation with a Finnish national socialist.Playing a 1v1 game of Company of Heroes II as the Soviets, I was matched against the Wehrmacht. The crucial moments of the game mass assaults, flanking manoeuvres, armoured encounters were punctuated by messages from my opponent in the games text-based chat: fucking T-34s shit tanks Zis OP (over-powered) eat shit. blitzkrieg time. Such messages are part and parcel when playing these games.As sometimes occurs after a closely contested match, my opponent asked for a second game. I agreed. Unexpectedly, the other player then sent me a link to a Discord server. The server was populated by some sixty users, and of those who were online, they were mostly listed playing strategy games: Company of Heroes II, Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV, Civilisations V. The text channel was mundane, this appeared to be nothing more than a generic gaming Discord.I joined a voice channel with my opponent, whose accent I did not recognise. He explained that he was Finnish. We began our second game and each played the same factions. The conversation that followed was sporadic, and grew increasingly troubling. Unlike the latter conversation in this piece, which was documented verbatim, I didnt think to record this one I hadnt yet decided I would be writing an article. What follows is a version of that conversation, which I jotted in the notes on my phone after we stopped speaking. As was the case in our text conversation during the first match, he did most of the talking.As the second game began, we discussed the previous match. My opponent criticised a tactic I had used: you shouldnt spam T-34s like that, its a scummy tactic.Theyre much weaker than Panzer IVs, spamming them is necessary.But theyre way too cheap. Its not balanced!Balance refers to how well the game designers have weighed the strengths and weaknesses of each faction against the others, making a match fair. The balance in Company of Heroes II is designed to mirror the strategies of the armies they represent. The Soviets prefer quantity over quality, the Nazis vice versa.T-34s are cheap because theyre not good. Its balanced, I replied.The point at which I understood that my opponents Wehraboo fascinations extended beyond weaponised machines occurred when I repeated this tactic in the second game, to a greater effect.If this were real, two Panzer IVs and a Panther would fuck up four T-34s. Soviet engineers were dog shit.Adopting an inquisitive and polite tone, I decided to bite. I dont think they were bad engineers, they just had a different design philosophy. If Russias greatest advantage over the Germans was scale, then it only made sense that they extended a strategy of overwhelming numbers to their tank production as well.Thats bullshit, the Russians are idiots. They cant design shit. Their armour was simple because they werent smart enough to design anything better. We fucked them over so badly they couldnt even conquer us. Theyre cockroaches.The conversation had become personal to him. The event that he was referring to was the Soviet invasion of Finland over the winter of 1939/40, in which the Russians were forced to compromise on the peace treaty, having initially failed to take little more land from the Fins than they needed to sure up the defence of Leningrad. The war is held as a point of national pride for Fins. The fact that the Fins then cooperated with the Nazis during the subsequent Continuation War remains a difficult truth that many Fins, and many Europeans at large, believe remains unreconciled by the national conscience.At this point in the match, my tank column had reached the Fins base and I was about to win. Cockroaches? I asked.Yes, the Russians are fucking cockroaches. Subhuman.I had never spoken to a real fascist, and the conviction with which this man spoke led me to suspect that he meant subhuman quite literally.In what way are they subhuman? I continued to be polite, Im not sure what you mean.Its genetic. You know what a Slav is?An Eastern European, right? I wanted to keep it personal for him and continued: Arent Fins Slavs?Fuck no, were natives, always been here. Fins are Fins. The Russians are Slavs and Slavs are genetically inferior.Our match had finished and I had won. I was now thoroughly convinced that the man on the other side of my screen was a Nazi. In the fifteen seconds of silence that followed, I decided that I wanted to better understand this person, and that I may be able to write about it. It was at this point that I started jotting notes in my phone.Is that not what the Nazis thought about Jews? That they were genetically inferior? With the Holocaust and all. I couldnt appear utterly incredulous.Yes, but what you learn about the Holocaust at school is not accurate. There are a lot of lies told about it.Oh, what kind of lies? I didnt learn that much about it at school.A lot of it is lies. The gas chambers, for one. The number, six million. You know it wasnt even Hitlers idea?No, I didnt. Thats really surprising to hear. Where did you learn about this? Ive never looked into it.If you want to know, I can add you to another Discord.I had hit a potential goldmine for understanding these people, and I was horrified. I wanted to meet characters, individual Nazis. I wanted to know, plainly, what a crypto-fascist was like as a human being.Yeah man, send me the link. Ive got to head off, but Ill join on my other Discord account.At this point we parted ways. I didnt need to go at that moment, but didnt want to progress any further using my personal accounts. Using a VPN, I gave myself a Canadian IP address. I created a new Discord account, linked back to a new email. At this point, I felt I had sufficiently distanced my real self from the inquisitive gamer the population of this new Discord would meet.Joining the Discord, I was met by a myriad of disturbing memes in a text channel populated by only 16 accounts. It was a horrifying thing. The humour of the posters was racist, sexist, homophobic, and Christian-centred. No topic was safe from their commentary: the Crusades, the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Balkan Wars, the Spanish Inquisition. This humour was also competitive posters would egg each other on to express increasingly detestable views. One image depicted a pregnant Anne Frank standing alongside Confederate soldiers, who had liberated the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.Such alternative history fantasies proved common. One evening I spoke to an American whose favourite game was Paradoxs Victoria II. From 2010, this strategy game has an expansion pack that allows the player to play as the Confederacy. He joked to me that he had played the game so many times that Robert E. Lee has stepped foot in every country on the map.Another member of the Discord joined this conversation and began sending us links to downloadable Hearts of Iron IV modifications that allowed the player to pursue the Final Solution as an in-game event. Hearts of Iron IV is another World War II strategy game.In the discords text channel, a discussion of Rule 34 followed the disturbing image of Confederate Anne Frank. Rule 34 is one of the rules of the internet, which holds that if something exists, there exists pornography of it. A user then sent a link to the Deviant Art page of an artist he had commissioned to draw an image for him. According to the user, the artist was willing to draw anything for the right sum. When asked what he had had drawn for him, he simply responded: femboy hitler. I was thankful he didnt follow this by sending the image.I decided to message the artist; the idea of an illustrator enabling such horrid sexual fantasies seemed resoundingly unethical, and I wished to understand whether the artist had somehow justified this consciously, or if they were some kind of crypto-fascist too.I introduced myself in text conversation: Hey, I heard that youre open to doing commissions on any subject, is that true?Taking me as a potential customer, the artist confirmed, Yep! If you pay me $40 for every hour of my time spent I will draw whatever you want.I was hoping to ask you about some of the work youve done in the past.My commissions are exclusive and they are owned by the patron. If you want to see the work you have to ask them. I respect the privacy of my customers.Of course, I more wanted to ask about the nature of the work.What do you mean?I heard from someone that youve done Nazi and Confederate porn. Is that true?Yeah I have is that what you want? No judgement from me. And its not porn, its lewd art.Ah, right. But you wouldnt call yourself a Nazi?Haha no definitely not.Well, how do you justify facilitating that kinda stuff?The way I see it is that its a private transaction. I have a skill and theyve got cash. Whatever they do with the images is up to them.I was glad that the artist was being responsive to my questions, and I began pressing harder. It was clear that they had, at least to some degree, considered the ethics of their work. Continuing, I asked: Would you consider someone using your art as porn inappropriate?Yeah I guess I do but I dont lose sleep over it. Better that I can draw what they want in a controlled environment than if they tried to live it out.But surely your role in the process reinforces the customers mindset, right? And contributes to the normalising of this kind of porn?Its not porn. And hey sex is weird. As I said Im not one to judge.Is there anything you wouldnt draw?Yeah probably if someone asked for something super fucked up. I havent been asked to do anything that I havent been okay with doing.Wouldnt a lot of people describe drawing lewd Nazi art super fucked up?Nah I mean necrophilia and that shit. Wouldnt draw it.Not only had the artist thought about these things, but they had drawn their own proverbial line. I was stumped as to what to ask next, before they continued: Look do you want me to draw something for you or not? I really dont judge.I dont think I will, but thanks for answering my questions.Yeah whatever.Reaching the end of this conversation, I found myself feeling as if I had also reached the end of my plunge into this dark corner of the internet. I was beginning to suspect that my time as a newcomer to the Discord, who the other members were treating kindly so as to bring me into the fold, was over. They had come to expect me to take part in their humour, and as each conversation began with gaming and moved towards politics, they were taking note of the fact that my contributions would cease.One evening, after I failed yet again to laugh at a joke about Jews, I was, seemingly jokingly, accused of being a kike. Later that evening, I quietly left the server, deleted the Discord account, and turned off my VPN. I was a member of that server for ten days, and I had experienced the alt-right pipeline.The competitive nature of the games that these people play shapes the social and political organisation of their Discords. The new gamer seeks at first to prove to others that he is a capable gamer. The hierarchies that form within the communities of particular games are skill-based. When the content of these games is historical, the best players emerge from those who are invested in this subject matter. In the case of WWII games, these are often the Wehraboos. To earn the fellowship and advice of the best of players, those of lesser skill seek validation, and when the Discords top dog happens to also be a fascist, the pipeline forms. A search for guidance as to the mechanics of a game can become guidance as to how one should understand the subject matter of the game itself. German tanks are the best because Germans are the best.They had thought I was one of these vulnerable gamers, and as they realised I was more self-assured than they had thought, they had grown tired of me. I reported the server to the Discord company. Following the link that the Finnish man gave me months ago now yields a 404 error. I can only imagine these people are routinely starting new Discords. I never learnt a single one of their names, they will remain usernames: TheBigSlip, Deus Gulp, aut0sensational, KEISERbill I imagine these usernames are constantly changing too. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a fast-paced urban environment where we are obsessed with the fine art of Keeping Up, we often forget to slow down and appreciate the little things in the world around us. In our day-to-day lives, we are surrounded by greenery, whether we realise it or not. For something easily taken for granted, nature can have phenomenal impacts on our mental health and the way that we live our day to day lives; I say this confidently from experience.A plant in the home is more than just an embellishment: you are quietly breathing life into your everyday living spaces. Whether youre a seasoned botanist or never seen a houseplant in your life, owning and caring for a houseplant is chicken soup for the soul.Lets take a trip down memory lane. Though my personal foray with houseplants has only recently picked up speed, I feel the need to acknowledge my father, who is the unheralded inspiration and support behind my botanic adventure. Dad cultivated a greenhouse in our backyard when I was growing up, a jungle filled with all manner of aroids, bromeliads, and ferns. It was these fond memories that I drew from when my houseplant hobby began to grow in September last year. Inextricably inundated with assessments and missed lectures Id promised to watch online, I naturally found myself seeking the shallower compensations in life through mindless online retail therapy.Amongst my first plant purchases was a swiss cheese vine (monstera adansonii). It remains nothing short of remarkable how the millimeter-by-millimeter growth of a quiet little houseplant sitting by my window gave me such a profound sense of fulfilment and peace.This was horticultural therapy in effect defined by Cultivate NSW as a process in which plants and gardening activities are used to improve the body, mind and spirit.Growing plants teaches us to care for the world beyond ourselves, a world so often viewed in retrospect as we torpedo through a student life riddled with exam stress and social woes. My swiss cheese vine brought me so much joy that I have since fallen down the rabbit hole, accumulating over 100 houseplants. I blame this on dopamine or, as I like to call it, the nice, do it again chemical signal in our brains.According to neuroscientist Dr. Caitlin Vander Weele, the dopamine acquired through plants can affect our day-to-day motivations, decisions and emotions.Speaking from experience, plants have certainly bolstered my mental health, making day-to-day things easier to handle. I dove into this hobby at a time when I was struggling with depression and anxiety, which went on to cripple the way that I interacted with my friends, family and other work.Plants provide a focal point through which I can slow down time and re-approach challenges with a different angle when I feel less burdened with the world on my shoulders. However, I find a need to state the obvious: though buying and caring for plants has helped me make strides in caring for my mental health, it will in no way be an effective substitute for therapy.Engaging with greenery doesnt have to be huge task or long-term commitment. Nature therapy can be as simple as setting a naturescape as a desktop wallpaper. Even something as easy as going for a mindful walk an example of shinrinyoku, or Japanese nature therapy has been proven to lower blood pressure and boost wellbeing. I personally find the most joy in houseplants. The prospect of caring for houseplants can be quite daunting for many I was terrified that I would somehow manage to kill mine but the activity is much easier than you might think. Im not the biggest fan of succulents, which demand a deceptive amount of bright light and are very easy to overwater. There are many houseplants that are relatively easy to care for and add a nice pop of green to your life. Here are just some of my favourites:Pothos (epipremnum aureum): Famously easy care, most varieties can handle low light situations and thrive on neglect. Watering once a week is more than enough for these beginner-friendly beauties.Zz plants (zamioculcas zamifolia): Troopers of the plant world! They tolerate pretty much any light situation, but thrive in moderate to low light. Water once a month and they really do just sit still and look pretty.Peace lilies (spathiphyllums): These are famous air purifying plants, and look beautiful and jungly to boot! Peace lilies can tolerate low light situations and tend to droop dramatically when they need to be watered. They are ideal if you arent confident in your abilities to read your plants needs.Various species of philodendron: Philodendrons are the second largest genus in the Aracae family. They are, for the most part, incredibly tough and easy care. Although care differs, general consensus is that bright, indirect light and weekly watering are all you need to keep them happy. Also, their genus name literally translates to love and tree!The quiet tranquility of my houseplants has helped me appreciate smaller jubilances, the tiny markers of growth and vitality easily overlooked in the humdrum of modern living. Walking to Redfern Station, I often slow down to look at the flora around me: the variegated umbrella plants on the sidewalk, the snake plants in someones front yard, the tree ferns growing quietly out of the brick wall.Mental turmoil, though still a villain at large, doesnt seem to be so challenging in my day-to-day life. Plants add a little routine, stability and some gratification as I try to navigate the stressful stretches of uni life that never seem to end. In the short months that Ive been caring for my houseplants, Ive found that plants are far more resilient than you initially think. Ive stepped on them, dropped them from their pots, even forgotten to water them. Yet, they grow.In that way, the growth of plants becomes a powerful metaphor for us. Maybe the care that we put into these little undisturbed artefacts of nature can improve the way that we live our lives, and help us love our people, and ourselves, just that little bit more. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There it was: the fog wall. The tall, hazy barrier indicated that I was about to face another great test of skill and patience. Passing through the mist that separated me from an ominous arena, a lone figure peered at me from afar: Pontiff Sulyvahn. A womans voice echoed in the cathedral, emphasising the loneliness of the situation the Pontiff and me, and nobody else to interfere.The Pontiff, through his enigmatic helmet, lunged forward for the preemptive strike. Soon, I would realise that he was a challenge like nothing Id ever faced before. Ignited dual blades catching my most minor of errors, I mashed my controller in frustration, and realised that despite the punishment I would face many times over the Pontiff meant serious business.Whilst video games like these might not be to the taste of every video game enthusiast, games like Dark Souls III rekindle a long lost ember burning within every persons heart a yearning desire to achieve the impossible, and bask in the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it. However, this development didnt happen overnight it has a history that spans all the way back to the origin of take-home video games in the eighties and nineties.The birth of take-home video gaming occurred during the time of take-home computers. A significant consequence of this was that video game developers were constrained by the storage capacity of cartridges, and making a simple, easy video game that could be completed in one sitting just wouldnt be a financially viable experience for a customer. As a result, games were often deliberately designed to display a few game over screens for even the best players, and many games had single-hit death mechanics that stretched out the playability of a game that was only kilobytes large on cartridge.However, many newer releases like Risk of Rain and Cuphead have continued this trend of making games very difficult, and its because there is a certain appeal in facing a formidable challenge. Risk of Rain puts the player into a platform shooter that gets progressively harder the longer the player takes to get to the final level, but also rewards the player the longer they play with stronger items and powers. However, throughout the whole game, there exists the possibility of being defeated in one hit. To be able to succeed in a challenge that youve failed at countless times before, even in a video game, is a rewarding feeling that is one of the primary sources of appeal in difficult video games.As computing power began to grow, developers were able to stretch out video games in more immersive ways, including better worlds to explore or more captivating storylines. However, the games that have aged the best are those which have retained the use of difficulty as a way to engage players, despite difficulty outliving its original purpose. A fine example of a game that has catered to both the casual player and the difficulty enthusiast is indie platformer A Hat in Time. The game, which introduced a series of extremely hard side-missions, had had an option to make the missions easier to complete for the player who didnt feel the need to prove themselves to anybody. While developers continue to blend rich, rewarding experiences via explorative gameplay with profound accomplishment by skill or strategy, the needs of the casual player and the enthusiast are continually met at the same time in increasingly synchronous harmony.The Pontiff meant serious business, and I wasnt backing down from a challenge. Passing the fog wall again, and well, probably another ten times, I braved the steely cold eyes of the Pontiff: with every single encounter, I learned his fighting style, and eventually, I was met with a fearsome victory I had done it!The Pontiff had been slain, and I stood over his body, inheriting his fallen power. Feeling overcome with satisfaction, I came across an odd message, etched on the ground while leaving the battle arena:Now the real fight begins. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While the number 6 repeated has been associated with all things evil in the West, there can be nothing more desirable to second generation Asians. 6 foot, 6 pack, 6 figures, 6 inch you get the point. But you know what we have? Personality. And more importantly, such a lack of dignity that we found ourselves on a Saturday night attending an Asian dating meetup. Fuck you, everyone whos ever matched with us on Tinder but then ghosted us! Jokes! One of us is an Asian male! He doesnt have any Tinder matches!It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Asian in possession of a large social media following, a banging bod and absurdly good grades must be in want of a romantic partner. If there is any lesson to be learnt from the rise of Subtle Asian Dating a wildly popular Facebook group and the cause of a recent drop in our self-esteem it is that. But what about the rest of us, who dont have the holy trinity of everything it means to be an azn_babygurl or boy? Go to the aforementioned event hosted by Subtle Asian Dating, of course!Subtle Asian Dating (SAD) is a virtual meat market on Facebook. Hot Asians auction off their hot Asian friends with emojis (and sometimes actual words!), plug their instas and accumulate social capital while the rest of the group and their mums gawk at their mastery of the modern dating game. As if the pressure from old Asians to deliver them grandchildren wasnt enough, now we have a bunch of young Asians telling us pretty much the same thing through their constant urging of shoot ya shot. A far cry from the straight-laced Im a 52 virgin who works in IT image of Asians which the Western media seems to love, SAD reveals a very different story of love and romance in Asian diasporic communities one of obsession verging onto desperation. Almost as a reaction to the difficulties of dating while Asian, SAD is the communal equivalent of the nerdy high schooler who goes wild at university to compensate. Remember Kevin Chan who you used to laugh at in high school for his awkward manners and bad haircut? Yeah well he has abs now, and can one-shot a bottle of soju. And he goes to Harvard. So long, self-worth!But for those who would rather shoot their shot outside the perfectly curated virtual world, dozens of real-life SAD meetups have taken place in America and Canada. Thinking about it, its kind of strange that its taken so long for one to happen in Sydney, which is statistically speaking one of the most Asian cities outside of Asia. But better late than never!The first SAD event in Sydney happened on Saturday (the night after White Party, would you believe it?) and was attended by approximately 100 single Asian hopefuls at the Smoking Panda 50 girls and 50 guys (or so it was planned). Despite earlier concerns that the event would only provoke the interest of Asian men, it was surprisingly not as unbalanced as we thought. Speaking to this, the organisers admitted that the male tickets had sold out in four days, but even after three weeks there were still 20 female tickets left. Have fun analysing this, MRAsians! Like most great ideas in the Asian community, the inspiration to start a real-life meetup for Asian singles was sparked at a KBBQ over an unspecified amount of soju. Perhaps, in a fit of alcoholic passion, they sought to engage with the politicisation and racialisation of Asian bodies in the white hegemony and forge their own narratives in a stunning move of sexual self-determination. Honestly, it was a meme at first, says Olivia Kosasih, one of the three organisers and a UNSW medicine student of Chinese-Indonesian descent. Whilst having soju and lamenting the woes of being a single Asian, she created an event which caught the eye of Hong Kong-born Humphrey Chan, who proposed that they elevate the event from meme to reality. Joining them was Cindy Hoang, a Vietnamese-Australian from Bankstown, who got on board after Humphrey asked whether anyone was interested in helping out at another Asian social gathering (I was the only person who raised their hand!). Humphrey, a business and science student at USyd, explains that he was very eager to do an event for Asian-Australians, by Asian-Australians, given that there is no designated space for Asian-Australians to mingle outside the virtual world. (All three organisers are also single and very ready to mingle, but admit that they are more excited at the prospect of facilitating a match than finding one for themselves classic collectivist thinking.) A key source of inspiration was Crazy Rich Asians, a popular film released last year that was the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to star not only an all Asian-American cast, but an all Asian-American cast thats HOT. Even Ken Jeong looks alright from a specific angle, under a certain lighting setup! You dont really see Asians portrayed in a romantic context very often, explains Humphrey. This movie showed that Asians can also be attractive, and can also be the star of romantic storylines. What a revolutionary idea! So how did our Rachel Chus and Nick Youngs fare?The three organisers greet us at the door, and hand us a free entry pass to the nightclub Flexx before we enter. Its 7pm, and the first influx of attendees is comprised of bright-eyed, hopeful young Asian men in the age range of 19 to 24, their polo shirt sleeves about to burst from the sheer size of their biceps. The atmosphere is buzzing with anticipation and fear? Some women start trickling in eventually and the awkwardness begins to dissipate slightly. Attendees mingle over the finger food, which to our disappointment includes dumplings, har gow, and siu mai. What about party pies? Sausage rolls? Wheres the exotic cuisine we didnt grow up eating? Surveying the crowd, neither of us have ever seen so many fade haircuts in our lives and weve been to Defqon! We hope you can all get a success story out of this, Olivia declares to the crowd in an announcement. And the games begin. Lets get LIT, someone shouts, before more cautious whispers of actually lets not I flush really bad.The games provide some structure to the evening, but are centred around the very tired, very heterosexual, very gender essentialist theme of battle of the sexes can boys or girls get dressed faster, can boys or girls think faster, blah. More interesting is a competition which involves passing notes to your partner while only using your mouth. (Bob, despite his best efforts, did not win that game. But he almost kissed someone so theres that!)The event adopts a more wholesome tone as the evening draws on, with a greater focus on friendship and making connections than thirsty pursuits. People talk about where they live (Bankstown is a very popular answer), their hobbies (Asians like dancing?), the high schools they went to (Omg you know Kevin Chan from NSB?). Indeed, many of the participants tell us theyre just here to meet new people whatever that means. Then again, maybe the real treasure is these friends weve made along the wayAmidst it all are more serious discussions about belonging and cultural identity. People speak of a refreshing sense of familiarity within the confines of the dimly lit city bar. I dont feel like the other in this space, an attendee tells us. Theres so much common ground to fall back on here. One of our observations is that this is the first time weve ever been in a space thats exclusively Asian on purpose. (And NO, it isnt just all East Asian people, thank you very much. Tonight we saw with our very own eyes ONE South Asian person, so there you go, critics! #Diversity.) While there are many institutions and organisations in Sydney which are very Asian (have you been to BSOC camp?), none of them are explicitly so they just so happen to be that way. From selective schools to every second youth group, maybe we in Sydney havent felt a need for a special Asian space because we already have them, albeit in an unofficial capacity. And though a special Asian space can be a fun, wholesome place of belonging for some, theres still a long way to go in making events and creating spaces where all Asians (not just light-skinned, straight ones) can feel like they belong.The organisers seem aware of these issues, however. Specific Asian ethnicities and groups face more specific issues, Humphrey agrees. But were not at the stage where we can get specific about these issues yet as we dont have that encompassing Asian space yet. With the success of the first, we remain hopeful for the future.The event ends and we all somehow end up at Sanctuary Hotel. Because of course we do. And guess what? Timstar is here. Because of course he is. Despite having a lot of fun, weve ended the night as single as we started it. But single or not, some things will always be the same. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Based on a true story, Discover the truth behind the legend, What you are about to see actually happened. Of last weeks eight Academy Award Best Picture nominees, six of them were inspired by true events.Whilst some films such as Roma and The Favourite simply interpreted a true story, others like BlacKkKlansman and Vice aimed to galvanise social outrage and political mobilisation. These striking and successful films carefully deployed a true story moniker to be poignant and profitable at great expense to the actual truth. True story cinema cannot intend to inform the truth if it privileges entertainment through scandalisation or reverence. Authorial intent ought to balance the precise research with Hollywood spectacle that big screen audiences in the fake news era demand.It is unfortunate then that BlacKkKlansman and Vice, the two films marketed on their confrontation of polarising political tensions ultimately render an oversimplified truth lite of their subjects. Yet dont let it be said that these were bad films. By all aesthetic accounts they had good reason to attain some measure of praise. Spike Lee won the Cannes film festivals Grand Prix award, its second highest honour, for BlacKkKlansman. Nonetheless, it received targeted criticism for its characterisation of a police officer as a hero in post-civil rights era America. Hip-hop artist and director Boots Riley spoke out on Twitter shortly after the release of the film last August, critiquing the films conferral of hero status on its protagonist and real-life inspiration Ron Stallworth. Riley identified that systemic inequality in payscale, housing, healthcare and other material quality of life issues are the predominant experiences which African-Americans confront today, areas not touched on by Lee.Additionally, the films moral absolution of the police institution from their contribution to escalated racial tensions, disproportionately targeting African-American people, remains a factor despite these tensions enduring in the present as exemplified in the well-documented killings of Trayvon Martin and Philando Castile.Ultimately, the punch of the films message of social mobilisation is watered down by its adherence to a filmmaking model which demands a traditional hero; co-opted by familiar white institutions that ignore the truth of contemporary race struggles in America.Similar to BlacKkKlansman in constructing an intended movie hero, Adam McKays Vice forgoes detailing much of the Gulf War, during which its subject Dick Cheney was accountable as Secretary of Defence. Nor is the invasion of Iraq and the fear-mongering leading to consolidation of executive power in the United States depicted in little more than a few short montages. These scenes do little more than have the audience perceive Vice President Cheney as the worlds Bond villain of the early 2000s. Vice narrates the truth of Americas thinly-veiled imperialist and exceptionalist foreign policy in the aftermath of September 11, as Cheneys personal desire for power, and nothing more. Christian Bale makes an utterly convincing Dick Cheney pitch-perfect speaking mannerisms and all but when the audience is made to not only revere him, but also empathise with his journey from wayward country boy to political powerhouse, the Hollywood truth movie model where Dick Cheney is a hero leaves the impression of a story haphazardly told. When it seems as though a film cant decide to be driven by its political contentions or a narrativisation of the characters embroiled in them, the finer details are treated with kid gloves or not at all.What guides filmmakers to find truth in true story films will always be a contentious discussion. Undoubtedly, it remains a dangerous manipulation to recount something inherently problematic and polarising. Whether lesser commercial and financial pressures like in Australias publicly-funded film industry can give way to a more faithful level of truth in films such as Rabbit Proof Fence or Balibo, depends on Hollywoods priorities. True story cinema and its uncomfortable connection to an ultimately santisied entertainment product seems as though it will continue to populate Hollywood for many years to come.Hopefully time will beget the realisation of the whole truth and nothing but. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Champagne Socialist (Outside Merewether)Annie: This pole has been instrumental in student activist movements and in supporting campus culture. This pole protested Adani, urged people to join FMAA, and is now promoting an eBook on Amazon. What cant this pole do?Alan: Theres a bit of an epistemological dilemma here, right? Like, poles inherently support structures but all this pole supports is a rare colour mix of hot pink and mouldy sticky tape.Mr Thick (On City Rd)Alan: Im not a big fan of this one. Something about it screams pole performativity to me.Annie: Thats not very nice. Girth matters more than length.The Three Generations(ABS/Codrington)Alan: This is our first triplet and they arent ordinary poles. The more I look at them, the more they cry out a sad story of intergenerational assimilation and the severance of cultural memory.Annie: They are my children.Joe: Im not sure Id call them poles. Theyre like electricity pillars.Michael Spence (Outside F23)Alan: If the F23 Admin Building is the Universitys beige cargo pants, this pole is its phallic core.Annie: Quite white.*The poles did not provide comment in time for publication. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Oscars season has come and gone. The past year has been a fruitful era for African-American films, with Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Hate U Give, and many more achieving financial and critical success. Out of the ten Best Picture nominations at the 2019 Academy Awards, three featured African-American narratives. But despite what has been a successful year for black cinema, Peter Farrellys Green Book, a film whose tone departs from Farrellys previous portfolio in Dumb and Dumber and was a strong contender for the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay award, remains mired in controversy.Green Book depicts the relationship between Dr Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), the acclaimed African-American pianist and Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), his Italian-American driver and bodyguard. Their friendship solidifies as they experience several incidents caused by the infliction ofracism, segregation and indignity.Despite its release only a month ago, Green Book follows a familiar script. As Shirley and Vallelonga make their way through Americas Deep South of the 1960s, they follow in the tried-and-tested footsteps of a long lineage of films in the genre of feel-good race relations alongsideother films like The Help and Hidden Figures. Films of this genre have been subject to common criticism they lack nuance, oversimplify complex racial dynamics and essentialise characters into stereotypes. Even Farrellys exploration of the interplay between Shirleys sexual orientation and his racial identity is little more than a plot device, lasting two scenes and skimmed over for the rest of the movie. But despite the feedback received by these films, they are frequently and continuously accepted by mainstream organisations like the Academy and its oft-discussed preference for placatory rather than confrontational films on social problems.The Academys support for Green Book, no matter how well-intentioned, comes at a cost. Conferring Green Book contender status for Best Picture provides it with social capital and magnified public attention at the expense of acknowledging a more diverse range of African-American films which emerged in the past year.Sorry to Bother You, written and directed by hip-hop-artist-turned-director Boots Riley, depicts the story of Cash, a black telemarketer, who rises through the ranks at work by using his white voice over the phone, and in doing so, unravels a corporate conspiracy of modern-day slave labour. David Cross voices Cashs white voice and Tessa Thompson wears outlandish earrings with antisocial captions, all within a realm of extreme satire and science-fiction absurdity. While by no means perfect, Sorry to Bother You gives audiences an intersectional representation of racial issues, appropriately tailored to our current social consciousness and races entanglement with capitalism, classism and gender.Sorry is symptomatic of a new wave of independent black films, some following in the wake of Moonlights Best Picture win at the 2016 Oscars. Through a rapidly growing quantity of films in African-American cinema, the breadth of films being produced has also concurrently expanded in variety. The increasing range of creative approaches to the African-American experience has allowed films like Sorry to provide an interrogative depiction of enduring racial tensions. On the other hand, the 1960s setting of Green Book erases any sense of immediacy or urgency in its depicted struggles of racial identity and resistance, reducing race issues into a relic of past times.The growing force of African-American films is made invisible through the prioritisation of films such as Green Book, whose easy-going nature creates a comfortable option for the film industry. Studios have conventionally underrepresented African-American films due to the mistaken idea that black films dont travel an industry myth that African-American narratives dont perform in global markets, making them supposedly less financially viable. Disappointingly, as a result, the amount of attention that the industry is willing to allocate to African-American film is limited. Within this zero-sum game, conventional, accessible and pacifying narratives prevail.Despite the fact that two of the past five Best Picture winners have been African-American films, Green Book continues a pattern that is yet to be broken. By equating Green Book to Black Panther and Blackkklansman, which represent a new generation of black films, the film industry actively rejects a novel, dynamic definition of what African-American films can be. Instead, the construction of its own Academy-endorsed narrative is favoured, packaged for the emotional comfort of the highest number of audiences. One Academy voter told the New York Times that he would vote for Green Book because he was tired of being told what movies to like and not to like, a testament to the regressive nature of his support for the film.While this is disheartening, African-American cinema has undeniably flourished and grown in recent years. But this trajectory can only develop if we can avoid overlooking the Sorrys of the future for the Green Books that will inevitably arrive. In doing so, it becomes possible to avert the risk of stagnating in the satisfaction of films with yesterdays relevance, which now have little to say. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Fresh after theyd performed a round of successful gigs in January around the CBD and the Inner West, including headlining at the Chippendale Hotel, I met up with The Frisson at Harpoon Harrys in February to have a chat about their progression as a band and their plans for the future.The four piece consists of Ethan Reginato on vocals and rhythm guitar, Kai Ollmann on lead guitar, Chris Cooper on bass and Tom Firth on Drums. Ethan and Kai are at USyds Conservatorium of Music, Chris studies at USyds main campus, and Tom goes to The Australian Institute of Music (AIM).Having all gone to the same high school, the four formed the band in Year 10 as part of a school co-curricular activity. The boys decided to get serious after playing a memorable performance at their Year 12 graduation. During their time at school the band went through several name changes. At one stage they were known as The Hobbits, later simply as The Year 12 band, before finally settling on The Frisson after graduating in 2016.Kai explained that the word frisson is a French word describing a sensation of ecstasy that sends shivers up the spine, an experience people may get when they listen to music that moves them. Kai explains that the bands goal is to invoke the same sensation in their listeners.Since starting at USyd in 2017, the band has played at numerous high-profile venues, including World Bar and Frankies Pizza By The Slice. One of their most notable gigs in February last year was opening for Bad Pony at the prestigious Oxford Art Factory. Playing at the Art Factory is an opportunity that most up and coming bands would kill to have as it serves as an indicator of their rising profile in the music industry.Ethan explained that The Frisson aims to engage the audience beyond their dedicated fans in their large performances, especially those who didnt intend on getting on the dance floor. One song which has particular success in this pursuit is Come Knocking, a song which would not sound out of place in an Arctic Monkeys set.Ethan goes on to refer to another band that The Frisson once opened for, Hiaground, who, according to him, possess the ability to engage the audience in this way. Replicating the crowd engagement Hiaground were able to draw has been one of the Frissons goals this year. Ethan, the bands frontman, thinks that theyve already surpassed that benchmark.Having attended Falls Festival to welcome in the new year, The Frisson returned, inspired by the performances from Catfish and The Bottlemen, ready to play their first gig of the year at the Chippendale Hotel. We came back from Falls that day after a three-day bender, inspired by the music we saw there, and we ended up playing a killer show, explains Kai.The Frisson also draws much artistic inspiration from other Australian indie bands. Their single, Revolution, launched in July last year, is very reminiscent of Ocean Alley.Given their wide range of inspirations and versatile experimentation with music genres, Ethan said that during the production of Revolution, the band stopped to ask themselves what makes them stand out as a band.We havent found our edge just yet but were getting to the point of narrowing in on what our edge would be as artists, Ethan explains.The band revealed that in early March, production will start on their new single, Stay. The band hopes that this time in the studio will take them one step closer to finding their voice.They were recently in Bega preparing their single, experimenting with sound and strengthening their discipline as a band.We created a studio vibe with our speakers and instruments and chilled, whilst at the same time experimenting with music for eight hours a day, the group explains.It remains to be seen whether the bands next single will bear the fruits of their labour. If their ascent is anything to go by, however, their next single will be sure to draw a crowd.Find The Frission on Triple J Unearthed, Spotifyand Facebook. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Given how close we are to the start of the next decade, movies based on comic books by Marvel and D.C. defined the majority of 2010s cinema. The universal acclaim and box office success seen by The Dark Knight and Iron Man back in 2008 ensured that they would be the archetypes for superhero cinema going forward.There are two main categories that subsequent superhero films fall into: gritty, dismal takes on well-known characters, and flashy action-adventure flicks with charismatic, wise-cracking heroes and epic narratives that span across multiple movies.Theres often a clear sense of self-importance coming through in both these types of films, through their attempts to intellectualise the intended ridiculousness of comic book storylines. Sonys Venom and DC/Warner Bros Aquaman were two of the biggest movies of this genre in 2018. Despite being from different comic houses, the two films managed to stay incredibly self-contained, allowing audiences unfamiliar with other superhero films to enjoy it as much as avid fans, which is probably for the best (I for one would love to forget that Justice League exists).Theres another fundamental element that both movies possess and which helped them connect with so many moviegoers: theyre pure, dumb fun. Theres a campiness to these movies thats reminiscent of many superhero flicks from the early 2000s.Aquaman is rife with ludicrousness: battles between gigantic sea creatures and merman soldiers riding sharks; a lead villain insisting on being called Ocean Master; a giant octopus playing the bongos. Well before the fourth or fifth explosion, youre clued on to exactly what kind of movie director James Wan was trying to make.The energetic spirit and over-the-top presentation of it all harkens back to the kind of corniness that made early 2000s superhero movies like X-Men and Sam Raimis Spider-Man movies all the more enjoyable. But, Aquamans heavily stylised action sequences, have far more visual character to them than much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.Then theres Venom, which is far from the consciously excessive spectacle that Aquaman is. The movies dark humour feels aligned with Deadpool, at times. Yet theres parts to it that are far too bizarre to ignore, like Tom Hardys incredibly hammy performance and Venom, a sentient pile of alien goo, possessing Michelle Williams character all to make out with Hardy. Watching this, it was hard not to think of the inexplicable sexual energy of movies like Catwoman or Spider Man 3. Theres also the unbelievably hilarious soundtrack choices made in both movies. Theres a scene in Aquaman in which Jason Momoa and Mera (Amber Heard) walk out from the ocean into the desert, to a Pitbull song which samples Totos Africa. The song itself is complete garbage, but throwing it into the movie in such a shamelessly tacky fashion makes for a pretty entertaining time. Venom, thankfully, doesnt force you to listen to the disastrous theme song Eminem coughed up for it, until the credits. The cheesiness and eccentric filmmaking of a lot of 2000s-era superhero films could only go so far before it became intolerable. But in a time where so many of these movies are trying harder to be serious, dramatic and culturally defining rather than being traditionally fun you cant help but appreciate how unpretentious and mindlessly entertaining they are. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Okay first-years, I know youve all seen that fucking white bird on campus.They are quite inescapable, arent they?As a university student, youve probably met them when getting closerto their bins, or simply lying on the Eastern Avenue lawns . Say youve just walked out of the New Law building with a baguette in hand, and pass the Taste bins. If you look approachable and they feel brave, they will come and stare into your soul, as if theyre planning to steal whatever youre having in the very next second.The Australian white ibis (Threskiornis molucca), also known as the disgrace of thebird family, tip turkey and the bin chicken, is overwhelmingly hated by themajority of students, who are yet to grasp what they mean to the campus environment.Ibis birds scare me, a student says. Its only because they seem like they are tryingto steal my lunch and will be vicious should I not comply.Admittedly, their face looks like a taper that connects with the extremely long and bendybeaks that are often hidden in dirty bins. Whats weirder, their whitefeathers contrast with a tail thats as black as the head and neck, whilst the undersides of their wings have rosy pink streaks only visible in flight a truly odd kaleidoscope. Believe it or not, the ibis is native to this land and their congregation in the city indicates that humans have conquered their traditional habitats. And yet, in admiring this majestic flock of birds through the window when they fly as a group and make a long V shape in the sky, it is clear that urban ibises have adapted well, just as many first years will also learn to adapt to campus life. Perhaps it it is something in our bins or the bin juiceDespite occasionally overhearing students claiming to like ibises, my interpretation of their use of th word like is that they enjoy their infamy as walking memes on campus, and their role as the butt of many, many jokes. If you are one of the 4000 followers of the Sydney University Ibis Watch Facebook page, then congratulations! Your impassioned reactions have enabled you to stand out amongst the legions of other indifferent students. If not, I encourage you to check the page out.Student William Edwards was an ignorant first year from the Arts faculty in 2014,when he confessed to a nascent personal and emotional connection with the Australian white ibis on campus.We students and academics are not content with what appears on the surface, but instead, we probe deeper, like ibises, for nourishing scientifictruths, philosophical explanations, sociological solutions, and so forth.Surprisingly, the seed Edwards planted as an ibis lover has now grown into a sapling.More and more students on campus now love to hang out alongside this curious creature, and regard the bird as a campus mascot. There is much to be gleaned from their charming personality, commitment to protecting the environment by eating our leftovers, and no-fucks-given attitude.Whilst there are some who choose to meet in anger on Glare at an Ibis Day, there are also those among us who want to fight back. The Ibis is now part of USyd culture and identity, even if they do continue to occasionally wreak havoc by sneaking food and chasing after baguette-wielding students. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Sydney Conservatorium of Music was established in 1915 by Henri Verbrugghen, a Belgian conductor and violinist. It was opened with the aim of providing tuition of a standard at least equal to that of European Conservatoriums. In what was formerly the Government House stables, the Con attracted musical talent from across Australia with its first intake of 320 students in 1916. It was a purely classical place, said my former piano teacher, Gerard Willems, who studied there in its earlier years and continued as a teacher for a total of thirty-seven years. Jazz wasnt around.Australia first became acquainted with jazz after the international sensation caused by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918. Already since the 1890s, Australia had been exposed to African American music, such as spirituals and ragtime, but it was in 1918 when the first known jazz group appeared, a comic vaudeville act formed by Billy Romaine with Belle Sylvia as the singer. It was also at this time that references to jazz began appearing in Australian entertainment journals as the new American craze. Lacking its own roots in Australian culture, the popularity of jazz music grew alongside the rise of social dancing, despite vehement opposition from the conservative thinkerseven though jazz was the blanket name for popular music at the time, the very term seemed to evoke a sense of exoticism, and musical and social transgression, which conservatives considered to be morally crude and socially undesirable. But less diluted styles of jazz began to appear, largely supported by emerging jazz clubs and societies.With the emergence of the record industry in the 1920s the so-called Jazz Age Australians began to have access to American records, from both white and black groups. However, it wasnt until the 1930s that Australians began to absorb the work of leading African-American jazz musicians. Having access to the music of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and later Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, exerted great influence over Australian jazz musicians the Australian Jazz Quartet was formed in 1953 with American saxophonist and bassist Dick Healey, and together they recorded ten albums and appeared alongside Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, backed Billie Holiday, and performed at Carnegie Hall. Going into the 1960s, rock n roll was gaining popularity amongst youth, and the public seemed to lose interest in jazz. But the 1970s saw a resurgence of jazz music.There was one thing that had a lot to do with itthe inception of the jazz course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1973. If not to further legitimise jazz as music worth studying at tertiary level, and pursue as a career, the course at the Conservatorium would help to streamline the sound heard throughout Sydney, which would later emerge as a distinctive Australian voice.The Conservatorium continued to expand, offering musicology, music education, and composition as well as classical and jazz performance. This was realised by Rex Hobcroft, director of the Conservatorium between 1972-82, as a complete Music University in which various musical disciplines enriched each other. Since then, the teaching methods private lessons la master and apprentice and traditional class structures have continued, but an expanded curriculum requires a broader style of teaching. For example, the gamelan performance elective relies only on listening and imitating to learn the instrument; and jazz students are able to explore their own forms and styles during class performances. The Eurocentric focus of the Conservatorium, ingrained in its very conception, began to give way to other traditions. Reflecting this change, the jazz course, introduced as an Associate Diploma, was changed into a two-year diploma when the Conservatorium was remodelled in the early 1990s, and finally became a Bachelors degree around 1998, at which point further postgraduate options also became available. At the core of any musical practice is tradition and improvisation. While classical music pedagogy has mostly weeded out improvisation, focusing instead on tradition and leaving stylised improvisation to the historically informed practitioners, the Conservatorium has again broadened to introduce the Creative Music and Improvised Music degrees. I was particularly interested in the latter, which, according to the course description, gives students with a high level of musical performance experience and come from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to direct high-level technical and musical frameworks and contribute to collaborative music-making. The necessity of the course perhaps lie in the growing divide between free and traditional jazz. Craig Scott, Senior Lecturer of Jazz Studies and double bassist, says that in in spite of the changing jazz landscape, the jazz course remains ever relevant, saying its about developing a unique professional and artistic voice that is later retained or discarded, according to the individual.But more than traditional jazz, non-Western musical traditions are taking an increasingly important role in free improvisation. Speaking on the ethno-musical influences on the jazz course, Craig says theyre especially prominent in the postgraduate level, recalling back a students thesis exploring how Arabic music modes could be applied to jazz. There is nothing formally studied in the way of improvisation from other cultures in the jazz degree, but we encourage familiarity and it is about developing a unique voice.But maybe it is where the jazz course lacks formal study does the improvisation course find its relevance. Reflecting on the new course, Craig says:It was developed, as far as I know, to give people an opportunity to look at a cross-section of improvisation across different cultures. There isnt the same emphasis on jazz improvisation, of course, as there is in the jazz course, and there are different approaches to improvisationIf you were learning to play Indian music, for example, you would probably spend about five years learning mantras before even touching an instrument, and youll sound like you are playing that music. The significance is giving people the tools and knowledge to bring something unique to the table. To find out more about how traditional study can lend to students the ability to self-actualise their own interests, I spoke to Jack Stoneham, a graduate of the Jazz Performance Honours degree who focuses on free improvisation. I know him as someone who methodically isolates the elements of music, whether specific rhythmic patterns or harmonic possibilities, and practices them as tools for improvisation. Talking about practice with him, you cannot help but begin to question the common perception of jazz being a totally mysterious performance of frantic romance. Rather, you learn that the illusion of improvisation is conjured by structure and a continuous process of conscious decision-making, based on years of learning and practice. I learnt that improvisation is not necessarily random and only heard from musical geniuses, but that it is learned and fundamentally requires a deep understanding of harmony and solidity of rhythmic feel. Speaking about the Improvised Music degree and about moving away from strict traditional forms of improvisation, Jack admits:It is difficult to say but maybe the thing about playing either of these two languages [traditional and free jazz] in Australia is that both have their origins in a time period and historical context that is quite removed from living in Australia. As an Australian playing jazz I dont think I can ever have the same connection to jazz as someone from its origin who has experienced the context that gave rise to it.He mentions how many Australian classical musicians seem totally invested in recreating the European sound and influence as much as possible. I have found this to be true. While a student has some autonomy in their choice of repertoire, the process of learning the music is more about exploring the composers experiences and intentions rather than ones own.I think it is not possible to do in the same way that the people did at the time it was created in their own context. Perhaps the benefit of a degree that does not seem to focus on a genre, rather the act of improvising, is that rather than try to teach students to position themselves in a language that they may or may not be connected to, geographically and contextually, it may instead encourage students to create their own shared language which is perhaps more directly related to their current experience and context. In the walls of the Conservatorium, one often forgets ones own context. It is, of course, a place of tradition. But it is not quite Australian tradition, but rather an adoption of others. In the style of European institutions, the classical stream of the Conservatorium preserves the music of past geniuses, carried on by generations of new performers, who learn to communicate the composers voice and intentions, seemingly forgetting that the composers themselves were formidable improvisers and studied composition as well as performance. You need only listen to a Chopin mazurka or certain Beethoven sonatas to feel the strong presence of improvisation within the composition. Even the stream of continuous development in Bachs works can be understood simply as an improvisatory exercise. It is perhaps presumptuous, but certainly not unreasonable, to hope that the classical students of today could also learn to be composers and improvisers and performers, or anything they would like to be in music, much in the way the great composers were taught the only difference being that they would be developing and functioning in an Australian context and experience. The Conservatorium may be a complete music university, but does it provide a complete music education? In choosing a particular discipline of music, one largely misses out on other aspects of music, or at least, they exist only to serve and aid the main course of study. In a classical-stream performance degree, the most compositional study a typical student encounters is the weekly harmony homework. Perhaps, then, the value of the Improvised Music degree is that it opens up possibilities of developing Australian jazz and improvised music as a whole in a way not previously entertained by the established pedagogy.I spoke to Kevin Hunt, Director of the Improvised Music degree. He tells me about the popular Australian band The Necks, formed in 1987. Their set up is deceptively traditional piano, double bass and a drum kit. But they are an experimental improvisation band that is primarily interested in developmental stasis. In concert they often stay on a single phrase for an hour. The pianist, Chris Abrahams, went to the Con, Kevin says. He lasted about six weeks.Kevin goes on to tell me that Chris couldnt contemplate playing just bebop or any strict form of improvisation. He did everything for a whilerock n roll, classicalbut eventually found his own style of improvisation. He wanted to explore the harmonics in the piano with the pedal down, and how he could manipulate those sounds vertically. In performances, he would stay on a single note for a long time, but it would all eventually develop, with the trance eventually deepening.Hes really the model for this course, Kevin tells me. We can no longer expect musicians to have a career in a single form of improvisation. Big bands are no longer importanteven though theyre wonderfuland bebop is a bit of a novelty. Were focused on the individual having a career. But its early days.What the course does is give an opportunity to develop the students individuality because the degree is not centred on a specific musical style or pedagogy. Students in the jazz course are often overloaded and in exams, he says they tend to overplay. The jazz degree emphasises scales and arpeggios but the common result is flash scalic patterns but without the rhythm being in line. Instead, the improvisation course teaches or works with the individuals strengths.In the first year, students are involved mainly with free playing and clave rhythms South American rhythms with African influence that form the basis of many musical traditions, from swing, to bossa nova, to salsa. There is a focus on folk melodies and simple songs, using a maximum of three chords in a year, sometimes in a minor key. Typical jazz pedagogy would involve deliberate inundation of harmonic possibilities and their customary usage, but Craig instead seeks to encourage students to play what they hear. In terms of free playing, the main focus is on the concept of development. There are six students in each class, and whatever is played is reciprocated or responded to. In a way its like visual art, where you have a colour scheme, you have the essential character but theres a main design.In the second year, students begin to look at specific styles. In the early weeks, for example, they focus on early jazz. The course avoids the predominance of scales in the bebop style students will grab a scale and forget what theyre hearing. Input is purposefully kept to a minimum, unlike the jazz course, so students can focus on what they are doing.And the third year? We dont know what the third year will be. We havent written it yet, he laughed. But itll be steered by the students.The students are developing their own stream of music. Its about creating phrases that you like, practising those phrases, and listening to how they sound in different areas on your instrument. You have a group of sounds you know before you play.Now, some people may ask, is that improvisation? The answer is yes. You have a platform that is developed through improvisation. Its like Bach extemporising from just six notes. It can be very clear and methodical.Essentially, what the degree tries to do, Kevin concludes, is develop the individuals musical approach what their own strengths and interests are. Its not for everyone, but its an opportunity for a certain type of student to develop their individuality, because the degree is not centred on a specific musical style or pedagogy. Thats where were goingits self-motivated, rather than style-motivated. Certainly a product of moving times in the Australian jazz scene, the new degree is not just a study of stylistic tropes, but also of self. The concept of education being structured according to an individuals own strengths and desires is unbeknownst to me, a classical piano student at the Conservatorium, who has been taught with a strict pedagogy her whole life. I, and most likely many others, grew up with the notion that individual thinking must be earned. You are granted that privilege. The problem is, however, how much of your mind has been conditioned and, in some cases, indoctrinated by preconceived structures. Pedagogical structure is necessary, certainly, to develop the skills necessary to perform your individual ideas, but so often this overpowers the individual. Tradition is a beautiful thing. All musical forms seek to preserve their tradition. But to preserve tradition is not to impose singular mindsets upon individuals, but rather to encourage a mentality of exploration within their context. Tradition itself is formed on such a spirit. If the Conservatorium is to keep such a spirit alive, in any discipline, the Improvised Music degree is certainly a giant step in the right direction. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the wake of the worsening military coup in Myanmar, which left a university student dead during protests, the Australian government remains unwilling to fully sever military funding with the Tatmadaw. Instead, some human rights critics argue, Australia has further legitimised the military leadership by engaging in direct contact with Vice-Senior General Soe Win.On February 1st, during the first sitting of the newly elected parliament, the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, accused the National League for Democracy political movement of election fraud following the November elections. Despite constitutionally having 25% of seats in the parliament reserved for the military, Tatmadaw leaders categorised the elections as having been unfairly won. As such, the state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and other leaders have been deposed, placed in detention, and the country has been declared a state of emergency.The Australian governments response, or lack thereof, is jarring in the context of the global outcry against the coup. The Morrison government has been heavily criticised by Labor, the Greens Party and Human Rights Watch Australia for a lack of proactivity in responding to the military coup. Penny Wong of the Labour Party has called on the government to send a clear signal to Myanmars military leaders that the deposition of a democratically elected government will not be tolerated.Historically, the Australian government has sanctioned six members of Tatmadaw, but no new sanctions have been announced since the coup. As such, Human Rights Watch has highlighted in their criticism that Australias response to previous human rights issues, such as in Thailand in 2014 led to immediate severing of ties. Internationally, the US has announced sanctions against coup leaders, blocking access to 1 billion USD held in America.The Australian government has long had military ties with the Tatmadaw. It has been one of the few countries to continue to cooperate with their armed forces since the ethnic cleansing and genocidal actions against Rohingya Muslims in 2017, having spent around 1.5 million dollars in funding in the last five years.This funding was provided under the rationale of aiding to smooth the transition to democracy and further educating officers. Australia aimed to be an example and highlight the importance of international humanitarian law, but this influence has not proffered the desired effects. The military in Myanmar continues to reject democratic elections, and a coup has been staged through the utilisation of force to overthrow the first freely elected government since 1965. Thus, the question stands, should Australia maintain these ties?Although on the surface, withdrawing support and following international suit may seem appealing, this option is not as simple as it may appear. Such a withdrawal, whilst fundamentally rejecting the actions of Tatmadaw, may further drive them to form closer alliances with China. This, according to the Australian government, is the biggest risk in changing tact. China and Russia have blocked a UNSC statement to condemn the military coup, and the strategic position China holds, sharing a border with the nation, makes it likely that the Tatmadaw will return to China as a key partner in trade and policy.Surely, the current game plan, to stop, pause, see what is going on, and thenmake further decisions, according to Trade Minister Dan Tehan, is not enough to prevent considerable damage to a new democracy. Surely, any business as usual becomes untenable when it fails to avoid violating constitutional law and constrain the rights of citizens.As tension heightens and pressure from the international community continues to mount, Australias government has attempted to secure the release of detained Professor Sean Turnell, an Australian academic working as an advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi. In a recent phone call with Soe Win, Vice-Admiral Johnston urged the Myanmar military to refrain from violence. This call again emphasises the precarious position that Australia is navigating. On the one hand, by using the Australian military, Aaron Connelly suggests that Australia has avoided legitimising the Tatmadaw as government. Nonetheless, human rights critics, such as the Australian Centre of International Justice suggests that this directly undermines the coordinated global effort against the Myanmar military.The growing complexity of the coup only increases interest in Australias stake in the conflict, and brings attention to the decision that Australia ultimately has to make. Will Australia maintain a relationship with a military that has long prioritised power over the citizens they govern? Or by refusing to entertain normalise the coup, will Australia side with nations such as the US, Canada and the UK in an attempt to prevent further atrocity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As a long-time old man yelling at cloud on the subject of digital rights and the power of the tech companies, I was initially cautiously in favour of the News Media Bargaining Code when it was announced last year. I have long written about how tech companies are eroding democracy and heightening socio-economic inequality. Ive been waiting for some time now for the backlash: for the revolution against big tech.I was disappointed, however, to discover that the revolution was being spearheaded by Josh Frydenberg surely the least-interesting person in Canberra and that it was merely another age-old story of two groups of elites wrestling for power. The code effectively ensures that Facebook upholds the Murdoch media monopoly by paying major news sources for the content they provide on their platform.While I am no fan of the Murdoch empire, the precedent this code sets is interesting: making social media companies pay for the data that has so far been freely given to them. Facebook claims that the bargaining code fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between its platform and media companies. It argues that Facebook functions as an advertising platform that media companies can choose to use in order to increase their viewer base.Here, Facebook is deliberately misrepresenting its business model.Facebook markets itself as a free-to-use product financed by advertising revenue. In this understanding, the product is Facebook itself, and we are the user. What this explanation misses, however, is how we pay for this product. In return for providing us with a service, Facebook collects our data. At first glance this may seem fairly benign. It is important to remember, however, that Facebook is not a charity but a business, and the goal of any business is to grow: to accumulate capital. Thus, as Facebook generates capital by collecting data, its business goal is to accumulate data.This means that the Facebook platform is not the product: its the machinery that manufactures the product. Instead, we are the product; the product is our data. Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard professor and author of Surveillance Capitalism, describes how social media platforms have thus become extractive operations that quantify and commodify human experiences online in order to accumulate user data. They build complex profiles of us to present perfectly curated news feeds that will draw us in and maintain our engagement for as long as possible. This practice results, at best, in addictive behaviours that distance us from each other socially. At worst as Nolan Higdon describes in The Anatomy of Fake News this business model encourages the spread of content that appeals to strong lower emotions that have been shown to increase user engagement like hate speech, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.The first step to ending this dangerous and exploitative business model is to regain control of our data. One thing the News Media Bargaining Code gets right is it recognises that the labour input in the process of data accumulation comes from the user, not the platform provider. When we share a post or care react to a puppy photo, we are freely providing Facebook with our data. Likewise, when news media companies share their articles on Facebook, they contribute to Facebooks data collection efforts. The News Media Bargaining Code thus attributes the labour of data accumulation to the companies who create the content and rewards them as such.The problem with the code, however, is that it takes a good premise making Facebook pay for data and twists it to solidify other hierarchies of capital accumulation. This is the bourgeois revolution: Australian media companies are piggy backing on legitimate criticisms of social media companies to increase (or, perhaps, reclaim) their own power, just as the urban bourgeois of Europe inspired the revolts against aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries.What Australia needs, instead, is a version of the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation, which gives users more control over who can access their data, and obliges tech companies to be transparent about how user data is collected and stored. Tech firms must explicitly ask for users consent to collect any data, and privacy settings are automatically set to their highest. We dont need more bargaining power for big media companies, we need legislation that asserts these rights of the digital citizen. It truly shows the lack of imagination in Australian politics that our first national confrontation with big tech is merely a defence of big news media. I had hoped the revolution would be a little more original. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> TW: Sexual AssaultOver the past few weeks, and in the wake of International Womens Day, Australia has witnessed inconsistencies in how we treat women and how we approach conversations about sexual assault.We have seen several ironies unfolding over the past few weeks. Grace Tame, an advocate for survivors of sexual assault, was announced our 2021 Australian of the Year. She founded the #LetHerSpeak campaign, calling for survivors of sexual assault to have a voice a vessel of dignity among the demeaning legal processes. Weeks later, Former Liberal Staffer Brittany Higgins came forward with an allegation of rape in Parliament House; a place meant to represent and radiate probity, dignity, and governing.We witnessed a feat of linguistics in Scott Morrisons apology to Brittany Higgins, which omitted any mention of the alleged perpetrators name. The speel contained tactical uses of passive language, including there should not be an environment where a woman can find herself in such a vulnerable situation. This seems to subtly avoid the issue at hand. There should not be any environment where predators can assault or attack their colleagues.Scott Morrison uttered the now infamous words, You have to think about this as a fatherWhat would you want to happen if it were our girls? An insular association that forged an abrasive start to Brittany Higgins apology. The Prime Minister has foundationally orientated the sexual assault narrative around a male perspective, contributing to the systems that render many survivors voiceless.Weve witnessed the mishandling of this attack, rhetoric of insularity, and a lack of acknowledgement that every survivors story should warrant empathy.This sequence of events has unleashed a sense of turbulence in the realm of sexual assault discourse. It has unravelled the ironies of sexual assault victims feeling muzzled in Parliament House, while Scott Morrison shakes Grace Tames hand as Australian of The Year. These inconsistencies were baffling for us all to watch. It has reignited conversations that are often pushed aside or subdued.Seeing this behaviour by our politicians prompts one to wonder where these patterns begin, and how these malevolent actions can be perpetrated from an early age; set in motion from as early as high school and university.Unfortunately, the University of Sydney is no stranger to a sexual assault scandal. We have had: Facebook groups harbouring misogynistic anti-consent content; women subject to assault having to endure convoluted complaint processes, only for the perpetrator to be met with meagre consequences; internal Investigations and college self-governance which dispense little accountability.USyd groups such as the Womens Collective (WoCo) and End Rape on Campus (EROC) have organised activism against sexual assault on campus, and the enduring culture that allows for sexual assault to occur.In 2016, members of the Womens Collective penned an open letter to then-Vice Chancellor Michael Spence, asking for issues regarding consent and handling sexual assault cases to be addressed and improved. Many of these demands have still not been met.In 2018, End Rape on Campus published The Red Zone report, an investigation into sexual assault and hazing rituals at the university. The report revealed a living culture of these occurrences on USyd college campuses and administration turning a blind eye to reported incidences.Today, it is clear that these areas are still an issue.A viral petition has circulated Sydney demanding better consent education in our schools. The creator of the petition, Chanel Contos, was inundated with testimonies from young women who had experienced rape or sexual assault during their high school years, perpetrated by boys from other Sydney schools. Some testimonies recall sexual assault from occurring as young as 13.Links can be made between the testimonies in the consent petition, the absence of accountability, and our federal politicians predatory behaviour. We can see here a progression. Predatory behaviours that arent extinguished at a high school level can extend onto university campuses. These behaviours can build upon each other in insular environments, where predators justify each others actions. They carry on into the workforce, even into Parliament House.The crusade against sexual assault must begin with an attitude shift. The pervasiveness of rape culture reveals a compromised set of ideas towards women and bolsters narratives that blame the victim for others violence.These attitudes must be phased out at every aspect of life through schooling, university, and the workplace. It must be actively shunned. Our schools, universities, and workplaces must cultivate an environment where survivors can feel as though they can speak out, and be heard regardless if theyre someones daughter or not.Without respect for consent, there is no respect for ones agency. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Upon first glance, the murnong plant can easily be mistaken for a common dandelion. Its long, narrow, and toothed leaves sprout yellow flowers during the years warmer seasons. Yet, despite its common appearance, the murnong carries thousands of years of Aboriginal history. Prior to colonisation, the murnong was a crucial staple in the diets of First Nations people. With sweet and coconutty edible roots, the plant was abundant across the grassy plains of south and southeast Australia. Historical observations from settlers reveal that there were millions of murnong all over the plain and that First Nations people had complex methods of harvesting and managing them. But over the past two centuries, the murnong has been decimated by invasive pasturing and introduced species. In particular, they were palatable to sheep and rabbits, and the hard hooves of livestock damaged the soil in which they grew. Today, while they may be found on roadsides and rock crevices by the sharp forager, wild murnong has virtually disappeared.Indigenous knowledge surrounding food production derives from a mutually beneficial and caring relationship with the non-human, allowing the land to replenish itself of what has been taken. Its a different way of looking at food; not just for nutrition, but as something innately spiritual that connects people with Country. In Lou Bennett and Remaine Moretons essay Looking for Murnong, they write that Murnong is more than a plant. Murnong is an Ancestor. To speak her name affirms our place and our belonging as Original peoples. They reflect on the Jaara women who grew Murnong in the basalt plains and cooked their roots in Earth ovens: The ancient hands of the Jaara have fashioned these necessities with intimacy, love and familiarity.Native food systems have protected human and natural life for millennia. Though much of this wisdom has been erased through dispossession and genocide, historical accounts from settlers detailed by Bruce Pascoe in Dark Emu reveal sophisticated farming practices that demonstrate First Nations peoples intimate knowledge of native species, soil and climate. For example, nardoo, a species of waterfern which produced sporocarps used to make bush bread, was grown in otherwise inhospitable regions by being planted in the beds of shallow lakes. When the lakes dried, seeds were swept back into vast stockpiles. People would move seasonally from camp to camp in order to ensure that the landscape had time to heal. Even in land of extreme heat and aridity, they were able to produce grain surplus to their need. Charles Sturt, in his travels to northern Australia, described grassy plains spreading out like a boundless stubble field.Because the relationship of First Nations people with nature was one based on reciprocity, the land also gave back by generating healthy and nourishing foods. In their Paddock to Plate project, research scientists at the University of Sydney recently discovered that dhunbarrbila native grains and seeds are highly nutritional, containing many macronutrients that provide energy to the body and micronutrients to protect against disease. Grains such as kangaroo grass, which has seeds that can be ground and mixed with water to make damper, were found to have 40 per cent more protein than the bread wheat we consume today.When Indigenous lands were pillaged and destroyed, so too were these sacred food systems. Due to the importation of European crops, grazing animals, and extractive farming practices which were not ecologically compatible with Australias natural environment, there has been widespread erosion of soil. Today, about two thirds of agricultural land is degraded, producing low crop yields while preventing many native plant species from growing. Further, with the rise of agribusiness, food has become commodified, produced for the purpose of sale and profit rather than use. While native food systems provided sustenance to all members of the community, millions of people today live below the poverty line despite a surplus of food production and 7.3 million tonnes of food waste annually. Where food-bearing plants were once gifts of the Earth, wealth is now extracted from them at every point of the production process farmers to buyers, to packagers, to wholesalers, then to retailers all before it reaches the people that need (or can afford) them. As Bennett and Moreton write, Western colonial industry has always relied on the exploitation of storied lands of Indigenous people, thus poisoning the symbiosis between humans and nature.While many settlers died due to starvation or nutritional disease, there are also documented stories of settlers raiding Indigenous food stockpiles, stealing their crop in order to survive. Pascoe tells the story of explorer Ernest Giles brother, who came across huge stores of grain on platforms three metres high: He was lost, and he was angry. He took the grain that had been stored for the harvesters. It is even more harrowing to trace how colonisers have weaponised food against Indigenous populations. When First Nations people were forcibly relocated into missions, they were cut off from their native food sources and forced to subsist on nothing but highly processed food rations. These rations often comprised only white flour, refined sugar and alcohol, which resulted in nutritional diseases and health disparities that persist decades on. Today, food coercion continues to exist, most evidently in prisons where predominantly Indigenous inmate populations across the country are underfed and malnourished. It is difficult to forget the story of David Dungay Jr, an insulin-dependent diabatic, who was killed in Long Bay Prison by guards for eating a packet of rice crackers.Restoring native foods through ecologically sound food systems, as well as allowing communities to directly control and receive the benefits of their own agriculture, are vital aims of decolonisation. This concept has come to be known as food sovereignty which, as Professor Kyle Whyte of the University of Michigan envisions, gives First Nations people the capacity to self-sustain and adapt to environmental and economic changes. In Yuin Country, Pascoe has started a small-scale farming project known as Black Duck Foods, which seeks to restore traditional knowledge and farming practices by growing native crops in the region. The farm, which employs First Nations people, has been able to harvest mandadyan nalluk or dancing grass for the first time in in what is believed to be over 200 years. Thats what this farm is all about, Pascoe says. [T]rying to make sure that Aboriginal people are part of the resurgence in these grains, rather than being on the periphery and being dispossessed again. Similarly, Paddock to Plate seeks to breathe life back into a native grains industry one that is owned and managed by local Aboriginal Land Councils rather than corporations. They are currently in Gomeroi researching its agricultural ecosystem and cultural practices of caring for Country, uncovering thousands of years of traditional knowledge that has been lost.We must be wary of conceiving food sovereignty as something primarily concerning remote communities, as this upholds the colonial imaginary that authentic Indigenous people are from the bush. It is important to also consider what food sovereignty can look like in urban contexts. In Eveleigh, the first Indigenous-run rooftop farm atop Yerrabingin House has brought 30 species of native foods back to the local community. It adopts elements of Indigenous permaculture, planting species such as finger limes and old man saltbush which can thrive in harsh conditions of high sun and wind. Much of the produce goes to local chefs who incorporate native ingredients into their cooking, and the community is also taught how to grow plants in their own spaces using traditional practices. However, in order to expand urban agriculture to an extent that would sustain communities in cities, challenges such as soil erosion, the high price of land and strict regulation, directly linked to colonial structures such as private land ownership and expansion, must be addressed.While hope can be drawn from these acts of resilience, there is a deep sadness in how much has been lost since colonisation. We may never bear witness to the overgrown plains of dancing grass, or relish the taste of wild nardoo. In Looking for Murnong, Bennett and Moreton return to their Country of Djadjawurrung in search of the yam daisy. They speak the language of their Ancestors and listen to the messages that the wind brings, pulling them closer towards the yellow flower. But they do not find it. For now, our search for murnong continues. Growing in those spaces where she is safe from hooves, cars, colonialism and whiteness. We choose not to purchase murnong seeds. How can this be a right relationship? We seek her on the basalt plains, wild and free. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Setting passwords is a chore. You know to avoid choosing your dogs name, or your grandmas birthday. But then youre faced with website constraints. It labels you weak and demands a number. You insert a 1 at the end of your simple word. A 123 if youre feeling particularly adventurous. Insistently, the website now requires a special character. Unsure of any others, you add an exclamation mark. Your password is as secure as Alcatraz. Right?Actually, your security could be hacked in a couple of seconds. Websites insist on a host of requirements for passwords in an attempt to increase strength and reduce hackability. Considering hackers are well aware of these, it can be counterintuitive. Behavioural security studies conducted by software researchers Florenico and Herley in 2007 also suggest that if there are too many constraints, users feel overwhelmed and subsequently create the simplest possible password to meet the demands.It is unlikely you can think of a website that does not mandate password constraints, including Sydney Student. AppleID constraints are notoriously prescriptive, requiring the inclusion of a number, capital letter, and symbol; additionally, the password must be at least 8 characters and not contain 3 consecutive identical characters. The latter constraint actually decreases the amount of possible passwords that could be chosen. Users should be wary of any means that decrease possible password options, as this increases the likelihood of hackers making accurate guesses.Websites utilise the mathematical property of entropy, which favours passwords with a higher range of possible characters. If a password includes only lowercase letters, there are 26 possible characters per space, which is known as the alphabet size. A password with lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers and special symbols increases this to 84, clearly amplifying strength. Florencio and Herley developed a formula that measures the bit-strength of any password, as follows: log2(alphabet size^n), where n is the character length of the password. You can use this formula to evaluate the bit strength of your own password! For comparison, the average password has a bit strength of 40.54, with a password over 60 bits attaining the goal of strong.Constraints such as those set by Sydney Uni can be potentially satisfied with simple and common passwords for example, Password1 would meet the requirements, yet it was named in the Global Security Report in 2012 as the most frequently employed password. Despite the majority of websites stipulating certain criteria, password security expert Mark Burnett found that 91% of passwords can be found in the list of the top 1,000 frequently used passwords. Without extensive password-setting guidance, our passwords are often rendered less secure due to constraints as they encourage us to choose less unique passwords. If your password is P@ssw0rd, I suggest you change it immediately.American whistleblower Edward Snowden heavily criticises the modern culture surrounding password-setting, and proposes a new method of the pass-phrase. This collates four random words to form said password. This pass-phrase would not meet the requirements for most websites, but mathematically it is very strong, as character permutations are replaced with possible words. The inclusion of four words ensures the password string would be very long, which typically signals a strong password. Additionally, considering the almost unfathomable range of the English dictionary, the entropy of any pass-phrase is very high.Obviously, if the pass-phrase becomes standard practice and a known constraint, hackers could develop software to target commonly used phrases. Instead, it would be better for people to begin adopting similar password construction methods on their own. In terms of security, it appears that we should send websites the message, less is more. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Life is hard. Crumbly and unsteady, we are routinely overcome by self-improvement trends that undeniably find ways to pull us apart and make us feel awful.As we are routinely reminded by conservative newspapers and rouge Twitter hounds, our position as the unfortunate prototypes of the internet-plugged world leaves us primed to gobble up poisonous advice out of a coaxing, pixelated hand. Fourteen ways to wear this very specific bum-bag, what I eat in a day (for weight loss, hehe), how to retire by thirty, best ever skin care routine, etc. etc. We are obsessed with image, and addicted to self-improvement. Rarely satisfied, preachy, but critical we are puffed up and deflated by ourselves.Although the sticky tendrils of internet trends continue to pull us into a well of unforgiving self-obsession, being a University student is an experience that is fraught with self-evaluation and doubt in a manner that, I would argue, is more visceral than the stabs launched at us by hot TikTokkers. Between classes we fret about our career progression and our abilities, we flip our skin inside out comparing ourselves to our peers, we question our reputation, identity, friendships, word choices, lunch choices, and cry about essay deadlines. And for each of these deficiencies, theres advice to make us better drink more water, use this study method, revise before bed.It seems we are compelled to make ourselves better, to keep turning our eyes to face our own insides, and when we do, everything goes dark.Against the darkness of introspection, Julia Bairds Phosphorescence (2020) is strong and luminous. Phosphorescence is difficult to describe a sort of philosophical masterwork, lyrical memoir, and tolerable self-help guide rolled into a deliciously readable book. Among her expansive wisdom stoked from multiple near-death experiences, Dr Bairds primary recommendation to soften hard lives is to hunt for awe and wonder. She writes,we spend a lot of time in life trying to make ourselves feel bigger to project ourselves, occupy space, command attention, demand respect so much so that we seem to have forgotten how comforting it can be to feel small and experience the awe that comes from being silenced by something greater than ourselves, something unfathomable, unconquerable and mysterious.This advice, to look outside of oneself, is not only a Romantics dream, but compelling advice. Of course, for the existentialists among us, such advice is heady feeling like an insignificant blotch on the face of human history is indeed a risk. But there is something soothing about feeling dwarfed that makes the pangs of day-to-day self-consciousness feel manageable.So, where can we go hunting for awe and wonder on a campus so unrelenting and loud?The Quadrangle is difficult to ignore. Its immensity, to begin, does a good job of making even the tallest students feel short. There, I often struggle to suppress a lick of elitism that makes me feel mighty, but Ill equally get lost in tightly knitted spindly vine leaves, rows and rows of old names engraved on plaques, humming echoes of briefly amplified conversations in hallways, immaculate lawns and gargoyles. If experiencing awe means appreciating details, the Quad will inevitably hold you captive.Ideally, we are all here motivated by insatiable intellectual curiosity, committed to sinking into the intricacies of human anatomy, the expansive sky, conflict or complicated ethical dilemmas. Realistically, we are worn out and unbothered. Still, wonder is very accessible. A short trip to the Chau Chak Wing Museum is usually enough to slap me with a sustaining sense of wonder. It is hard to care so much about all that I have and have not when faced with centuries old artefacts, dense with clues about who we are and have always been. Busts representing people who were also likely wrapped up in their own lives feeling unfulfilled, completely neutral and exuberantly joyous are now used to piece together meaning for ours.Silence is less easily discoverable. Sydney is encased by an unrecoverable hubbub. Trucks grumble on City Rd, coffee shops whistle, people talk (even in the library, geez). For those seeking silence, an underutilised resource is Victoria Park pool. Get in it. Swimming has a way to make loud thoughts, and loud everything else, dribble into tiny bubbles and pitter-patters. Few things are as freeing as feeling completely weightless and yokey, encased by noise cancelling water.Phosphorescence stresses that seeking awe, wonder and silence can be as simple as finding inspiration in the ordinary and the temporary. This is resourceful. Micro-doses of reprieve are available in the brief life of wispy clouds, recognising yourself in your friends, a surprisingly good muffin, a compliment, seeing the moon at 2pm.Taking this advice, Im fighting the impulse to whip myself for being deficient for not seeking an acceptable quantity of awe or checking off a daily quota of silence so as to ensure that Im constantly becoming a better person. Life advice, no matter how it is delivered, is a trap in that way.Perhaps we ought to digress from the impulse of seeking awe and wonder as a way to self-improve, and suppress the apparent burden that partners self-cultivation. Self-improvement need not be scheduled and regimented. It need only be a shift that takes the edge off. A light in an internet-addicted student lifestyle that can so often turn dark. Phosphorescence. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Earlier this month, the University of Sydney and the NSW State Government announced a $40 million refurbishment of Darlington Terraces, owned by USyd. It will entail the construction of four new buildings directly behind Victorian-era housing between 86 and 131 Darlington Road. Once finished, it will be sandwiched between the Business School, Aquatics Centre, Storie Dixson Wing and Darlington House.The redevelopment will contribute single and double-occupancy rooms for 336 students and visiting academics, adding to the 151 residents already living in Darlington Terraces.Architectural drawings of the proposal indicate that the new extension will be connected to the Darlington Terraces via a planted outdoor corridor. This aims to preserve heritage features whilst modifying interiors to reflect the entire complex. Each standard 15-bed floor is anticipated to feature 10m2 rooms and three shared bathrooms, while upper floors will host an assortment of twin occupancy lofts and premium ensuite rooms. Finally, akin to arrangements at Regiment, informal study spaces, a communal dining hall/kitchen and a rooftop terrace will form part of the new developments social offerings.Figure 1. Cross-section of the proposed Darlington Terraces redevelopment. Source: NSW GovernmentFollowing the projects approval, USyd Vice Chancellor Professor Stephen Garton praised the plan as an improvement on USyds affordable housing stock. The cost of housing in Sydney can be prohibitive [we want to] provide a range of affordable housing options for the community, Garton said.However, given the wide-ranging renovations and upgrades to facilities, the project will likely result in an overall increase in rent. For instance, a small room in the Terraces cost $225 per week, whereas Regiment charges $338 per week. The latters more expensive fees are attributed to extra study and social facilities that the Terraces lack.Drawing from a 2017 submission the University made against the City of Sydneys proposal of a 12m2 minimum room size, there is a strong possibility that the University will set prices to align with Regiment, the Queen Mary Building, and Sydney University Village. In that submission, the University argued that such requirements would constrain universities from delivering housing at 25% below the private student housing market.In response to the announcement, SRC Welfare Officer, Lia Perkins, argued that: Affordable housing for students would be welcomed, but if the suggested price is similar [to] other programs called affordable housing for students, its not affordable. Why is the university focused on this development rather than lowering fees for offshore students and keeping staff jobs?Felix Faber, SRC Student Housing Officer, said: While more affordable student housing is always welcome, the Universitys track record of providing such accommodation is patchy at best.The University hasnt provided a figure for how much rent at the new accommodation will cost if current rents are anything to go by, the rent for the new development will well exceed 30% of the typical students income.Further concerns must be addressed around what arrangements will be made for the current residents of the terraces during construction, and the likelihood that such a development would ramp up the already out-of-control gentrification of the area.As of the time of writing, it is unclear whether USyd or a third-party organisation such as Campus Living Villages will preside over the new accommodation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> One Thursday afternoon in the thick of Semester 2 exams last year, every USyd student received one of those weekly Student News emails that I assume no one ever really reads.Nestled a few paragraphs down, it loftily proclaimed: From Semester 1 2021, our brand-new timetabling system, Sydney Timetable, will make it easier for you to plan, schedule, and adjust your timetable.After clicking the hyperlink a smoothly copy-written announcement on USyds website questioned me: Timetables are changing next year what do you need to know?The only question I had was: Why?How, between accepting hundreds of staff redundancies, suppressing legal student protests, and releasing its own version of Monopoly (RRP: $99.95) did USyd find the time and more importantly, money to overhaul a timetabling system that, many would argue, didnt really have anything wrong with it to begin with?Though some might disagree, I would describe the old timetabling system as deceptively simple, even ingenious: block out the times of the week when you dont want to have a class for instance, nothing before 10am or on Fridays and assign yourself to your preferred tutorial time. For the first three years of my university life, this mostly worked a treat. Sure, the process of arranging a swap was a bit clunky but, as one friend remarked, getting the classes you wanted was like solving a puzzle. The system was thoroughly exploitable, to the point where you could block out all of the times around your preferred classes, effectively guaranteeing you exactly the timetable you wanted.Then came the change.When re-enrolment opened in mid-January, the new and improved system awaited: the trendily-named Allocate+. The king is dead; long live the king. Gone was the refined aesthetic of the old interface, replaced by a far more visually-perplexing grid of sans-serif fonts and masses of dark grey.Under the Allocate+ regime, students must now submit so-called preferences. So-called because, for units that may only have three tutorial times, youre still made to indicate three preferences. So, for a class that only has one Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday time, you still have to indicate all of them as preferences, even if you only want the Tuesday class; an illusion of choice that essentially allows the almighty algorithm to place you wherever it prefers.I found my disdainful sentiment echoed through the annals of popular Facebook page USYD Rants 2.0. As one rant eloquently put it: new timetable interface bad.This trend is no flash in the pan either. At the time of writing, of the 140 rants posted since the beginning of February, 18 of them were about the timetabling system, 13 (72%) of which expressed some sort of negative sentiment towards it. These ranged from the straightforward (The new allocate system is the fucking worst,) to the elaborate (To whoever on earth invented the new USYD Timetable platform, I truly hope from the bottom of my heart that you die a very slow and painful death).Most friends I asked had similar feelings, with two calling it far less streamlined than the older system. Another said, [Why not] fix the current issues with Sydney Student and subject selection? Why did they change it? What was the point? Two others missed the ability to block off times, another said they had received an email asking them to swap into a newly-opened tutorial time or else they may be randomly reallocated to it anyway, and one just said I hate it. It also meant that students who had enrolment difficulties, often through no fault of their own, missed out entirely on submitting preferences before the deadline and were left at the mercy of the algorithm, like me.The veritable Dr Frankenstein to this Creation is a small software company based in the suburbs of Melbourne that goes by the name of JDR Software. It also runs timetabling for several other universities including UTS, Western Sydney, ACU, Notre Dame, Monash, and La Trobe. And, while none of their student newspapers have, to date, published diatribes lamenting the bygone days of quick and easy timetabling, it seems that they may not have to deal with the same preferences nightmare USyd does if one rant is to be believed.But surely its not all bad though?Maybe its just that people just dont like change? And admittedly, there are some redeeming qualities of our new organisational overlord. For one, its still exploitable! Clashes between online lectures and labs or tutorials can be forced by first deallocating yourself from the lecture and joining a lab or tutorial in its place. It also has a dynamic calendar where you can sync your timetable with friends by adding them as a connection la the once-popular Timeweave app.As to why the change, who made it, when was it made, and how much did it cost? The University didnt reply in time for publication. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As the national economy experiences another recession due to COVID-19 and the demand for reskilling grows, Australias largest and oldest vocational education and training (VET) provider, TAFE, hangs by a thread. It is hard to understand how the Federal Government can stand by continued funding cuts to vocational education while the very public institutes under fire are best positioned to re-skill and upskill Australian workers.Despite TAFE injecting $92.5 billion per year into Australias economy, the Federal Government has slashed $3 billion in vocational education funding over the last decade. Industry advocates such as the Australian Education Union (AEU) have long expressed concern over the defunding of vocational education, claiming budget cuts have demoralised staff and narrowed education choices for students with regional and rural communities hit the hardest.But how did we get here? In 2008, under Labor Premier John Brumby, the Victorian government restructured TAFE funding from fixed allocations to a model based on student enrolments. This meant that TAFE had to compete directly with registered training organisations (RTOs) to attract students. Enrolment costs were shifted onto TAFE students, who would no longer be eligible for concessional fee rates, instead having to borrow from the Commonwealth VET FEE-HELP scheme.Because VET FEE-HELP granted all VET providers virtually unregulated access to government subsidies for every student enrolled, private training providers exercised dubious marketing tactics to lead students away from TAFE. Suddenly, vocational education was made a cash grab. Private colleges offered inducements such as free iPads or laptops upon enrolment, or miraculously short courses where 600 hours of training were seemingly provided in 60 hours.This resulted in the allocation of substantial government funding to commercial training providers. Unsurprisingly, TAFE enrolments began steadily declining as the public provider could simply not compete with the offerings of private RTOs on a dwindling federal budget. This has been described as the most disastrous education rort in Australian history.The marketisation of the vocational education sector ultimately led to a collapse in confidence of the public sector. Thus, while cash flowed in for private training providers, reaping in billions of taxpayer dollars through the VET FEE HELP scheme (replaced with VET Student Loans in 2017), TAFE was hit with some of the biggest funding cuts in its 130 year history. From 2007 to 2016, VET funding was cut by more than 15% and government expenditure declined by 31.5%. In 2012 alone, Brumbys Liberal successor Ted Baillieu cut $300 million to Victorian TAFE campuses; a decision that sparked a rally of over 1500 protesters, and teachers and education workers to stage a 24-hour stop-work protest.Yet despite decades-long protests to stop TAFE cuts and union calls to end VET marketisation, the Federal Government have stood strongly by their privatisation agenda. Most recently the Berejiklian Government proposed to slash nearly 700 frontline TAFE NSW jobs, leaving campuses across the state unworkable, despite Berejiklian explicitly ruling out that possibly just a year ago.The impact of decades-long federal neglect of vocational education had recently been laid bare in an AEU survey last year. It found that 68% of TAFE staff were aware that their institution stopped providing particular courses, with a lack of funding cited as the most common reason for course closure, while 81% had departmental budgets slashed in the last three years. Additionally, more than three-quarters (76%) of respondents said that they had considered leaving the sector in the last three years, and 94% of those were currently working in the job they had considered leaving. Thus, with TAFE funding at a decade low, so is the morale of its practitioners.However, the gross undervaluing of vocational education is only part of a larger nation-wide public education crisis. According to the Productivity Commissions annual Report into Government Services (ROGS), in the ten years to 2017-18, funding for non-government schools rose by 33.9% per-student while funding for public schools only increased 13.2% in the same period. Despite the passage of Gonski 2.0 to the Senate in 2017, funding for non-government schools is still growing at a faster rate than their public counterpart. Over the past decade, it has become painfully clear that the Federal Government favours profit over public education.A continuation of funding cuts to VET, and indeed the entire public education sector, will not only substantially hinder Australias economic recovery post-COVID-19, but will heighten barriers to affordable and accessible education for millions of Australians. Indeed, research from the Centre for Future Work has found that the TAFE system is critically important to addressing systematic inequalities in Australia, helping bridge the gap to further education and jobs pathways for those in regional areas and for special and at-risk youth groups. Without TAFE, such gaps are likely to increase.Its time for the Federal Government to ditch its failed VET marketisation model and invest in rebuilding Australias vocational education sector. Public education is too valuable to gamble away. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney sits directly between the sites in Glebe and Eveleigh where public housing is now under threat of demolition from the New South Wales Government. The existing public housing, which was purpose-built to provide liveable, community space, will be demolished by developers and replaced with 70% private accommodation and 30% public housing. These actions have been planned under the Communities Plus initiative by the NSW Government with the underlying intention of diluting the proportion of social housing in traditionally strong, lower socio-economic and working class areas.As inner city suburbs grow in popularity, the working class, poor, disabled and elderly are continually pushed out. Developers and landlords are seeking profits in inner city areas, which has seen the cost of housing rise exponentially over the past decade. Subsequently, it becomes increasingly difficult for university students to rent houses that are close to inner city university campuses. The crisis of university students being unable to afford to live, with international students being forced to choose between food and rent, is intrinsically connected to the eviction of public housing residents. Solidarity between people who are struggling under the housing and homelessness crisis is important, as Sydney should not just belong to the rich.Hands Off Glebe organiser Denis Doherty has expressed the need for non-public housing residents throughout the Glebe area to support their neighbours and for resident action groups at Glebe and Explorer St in South Eveleigh to strengthen connections and alliances. The residents of public housing throughout Sydney should have a seat at the table when it comes to discussing their rights, rather than being totally ignored by politicians and bureaucrats implementing the changes.In this way, many residents have been given no clear direction about where they would live during the unnecessary construction that wont be finished until 2025. Glebe resident Emily Bullock expressed that the idea of having to leave is horrendous. Additionally, the new development is inadequate for families because it will only be providing one-bedroom properties, while the existing although run-down properties have two to three bedrooms.On January 30, Hands Off Glebe held a community action at Minogue Reserve where residents and supporters spoke about and marched against the changes. In their publication The Glebe Grapevine, they wrote: Demolitions and evictions claimed to be for social mix disrupt support networks and social structures. Forced relocation from a neighbourhood brings with it serious impacts on physical and mental health. This sentiment highlights the unfortunate human cost the changes to public housing have had.There are currently 60,000 people on the social housing waiting list in NSW, and the type of housing needed for the families doesnt require evicting hundreds out of their homes, it can be solved by building intentional housing, rather than selling land to developers. The reduction of public housing space is not the solution to a housing crisis of this magnitude.The USyd SRC Welfare Action Group is holding a public forum on 18 March (Week 3 of Semester 1). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last year, images of Ellen DeGeneres laughing with former US president George W Bush at a football game went viral. In response to the backlash she received for being friends with Bush, who not only stood against LGBTQ rights but is responsible for countless war crimes, she stated, Im friends with a lot of people who dont share the same beliefs that I have. Were all different. And I think that weve forgotten that thats OK that were all different. Ellens words downplay how Bushs actions have destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives, ultimately revealing that her allegiance with Bush through whiteness and as members of the wealthy elite far outweighs any remorse she might feel about his homophobic record. Interested in preserving and being included in the status quo, the white upper-middle-class queer community betray the radical roots of the liberation movement.This June will mark 51 years since the historic 1969 Stonewall uprisings where retaliation against police raids at a Greenwich Village gay bar sparked six days of spontaneous riots, leading to the birth of radical queer liberationist groups like the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). Stonewall sparked a political awakening that spread across the globe and inspired the first Mardi Gras protest in Sydney nearly a decade later. It left a revolutionary legacy, due to instrumental roles of trans women of colour such as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson and their radical politics. Importantly, they were united in solidarity with feminist, black, and workers struggles. Groups like the GLF built a mass movement against not only homophobia, but imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and the patriarchy, aiming for revolutionary changes to society. Parallel to these struggles were assimilationist strategies that sought acceptability to the values and institutions of white bourgeois society, leading to the depoliticisation of movements needed for true liberation.Its unfortunate that the LGBTQ movement has lost much of its radical fire. Rainbow capitalism has since emerged as a way to open up new markets through the targeted inclusion of queer communities. Alan Sears wrote that the commodification of public lesbian and gay life has distorted our communities. The nature of market relations is that access to goods or services is based not on need or desire, but on the ability to pay. A community structured around commodified public spaces is economically exclusive. Rainbow capitalism ignores the reality that queer people are directly and disproportionately impacted by police violence, homelessness, incarceration, and economic inequality. Everything once transgressive to bourgeois morality is drained of its subversive content; difference becomes a rehearsed and marketable essence under capitalism.A tendency has emerged in Western liberal politics to conflate queerness with progressiveness, placing value on what is perceived as ones intrinsic identity rather than anti-normative political activity. This has given rise to a rainbow bourgeoisie who are poised to benefit from the modern popularisation and celebration of queer pride, cloaking their nefarious exploitation of workers and destructive imperialist mindsets beneath a veneer of glittery progressiveness.Ellen shot into the public eye in 1997 after coming out as gay on her sitcom show Ellen. She has courted controversy for taking advantage of her standing as a queer icon to defend a Republican president who spent eight long, blood-stained years at the helm of the worlds most destructive settler-colonial state, but she also has a long track record of exploiting and abusing her workers. Recently in response to COVID-19, nearly all of Ellens crew members were slammed with a 60% reduction in pay. Furthermore, Ellen has compared self-isolating in her multi-million dollar Montecito mansion to being in prison. She joked, This is like being in jail. Mostly because Ive been wearing the same clothes for 10 days and everyone in here is gay. This tone-deaf statement betrays her complete lack of compassion for incarcerated people who are far more vulnerable to COVID-19, not only because they eat and sleep in communal settings but because they lack access to adequate healthcare. Her calculated indifference to the systemic policing of the queer community further exposes how her performance of progressiveness lacks any substance.Recent US Democratic party candidate Pete Buttigieg built a campaign around being a political outsider with a humble Midwestern upbringing, aspiring to be the first openly gay president of the United States. While queerness has been theorised as a challenge to the norm, Buttigieg is the paragon of white normalcy. A thoroughly establishment figure, he has said I think of myself as progressive. But I also believe in capitalism. As a mayor, he oversaw the doubling of the eviction rate in South Bend and the bulldozing of empty homes in working-class neighbourhoods to gentrify the city. It appears there is nothing in Buttigiegs record that would make him progressive apart from his identity as a gay man, for which he has been applauded for offering LGBTQ representation in a role which is imperialist and capitalist at its core. As a veteran, he appeals to the US ruling elite, having served a tour of duty in Afghanistan where he helped identify targets for assassination squads, a far cry from the GLFs solidarity with Third-World struggles. Buttigieg has built a political career that assimilates itself to traditional values and the American spirit: war, destruction, and white supremacy.The prevailing tolerance of the rainbow bourgeoisie, despite their destructive influence, is a symptom of positivity cultures normative, bourgeois underpinnings. In his 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance, philosopher Herbert Marcuse argued that the liberal idea of universal tolerance across the political spectrum as if life were simply a debate hall mainly serves the protection and preservation of a repressive society [and] neutralises opposition. Present-day positivity culture, as touted by such figures as Ellen, is universal tolerance incarnate. In defending her friendship with Bush, Ellen also said: When I say be kind to one another, I dont mean only the people that think the same way you do, I mean be kind to everyone. When tolerance is applied to both movements of aggression as well as to movements of peace, in Marcuse terms, the status quo is preserved. Positivity culture is premised on the assumption that we have made considerable advances which make us safe from the acts of violence our predecessors fought against. For some, this may be true. But it is not for those who continue to be positioned by prevailing systems in proximity to death: queer people of colour, working-class, disabled, transgender, and incarcerated queer people.This attitude of being kind to everyone that Ellen asks of us is possible only in a world where there is no violence. The culture of universal tolerance misleads us toward embracing all manifestations of LGBTQ culture and representation even where they are harmful in the name of equality. In reality, such tolerance is weaponised by white, wealthy people to protect their standing and obscure the effects of systemic violence in communities. They point fingers at those who are unapologetically vocal in their solidarity with the downtrodden, claiming that what is needed is more positivity a knee-jerk reaction to their sense of discomfort when confronted with existing violence.We have inherited the battles of our predecessors, and we must be ready to assume the mantle. In the spirit of the post-Stonewall movements which demanded active solidarity with black liberation, workers rights, feminist justice, and more, its time we brought back the radical agenda. The existence of rainbow capitalism and a rainbow bourgeoisie is a symptom of neoliberal ideas which cannibalise and anaesthetise dissent. In a world free of violence, the bourgeoisie class and classes altogether will be eradicated. Instead of settling for being accepted as normal within a repressive system, we should be dismantling the system that makes normal possible altogether. In 2009, queer theorist Jos Muoz wrote of the term queer as a rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality or concrete possibility for another world. When we think of queer as a political practice rather than just an identity signifier, our struggle becomes enmeshed in the collective striving toward a new horizon of being, in complete refusal of the values of the bourgeoisie. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ramadan is often misunderstood as a one-month hunger strike. Whilst abstaining from eating and drinking is one aspect of Ramadan, and admittedly one of the more testing aspects, the month demands a unique isolation from the material world, with the aim of refreshing and strengthening ones connection to God. This isolation is also achieved by abstaining from excessive spending, gossiping, and trivial uses of timegoodbye Netflixand instead devoting oneself to learning about the Islamic faith.As COVID-19 forces the world into stasis, Muslims seek solace in the knowledge that isolation is not foreign to the Islamic doctrine. Roughly 1400 years ago, Islam was born into the folds of isolation. Into an Arabian peninsula untouched by the empires of the day, into the home of nomads and traders, our beloved prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) was born. Muslims believe that on one of the last 10 nights of Ramadan, age 40, he received the first verses of the Quran from God, whilst in spiritual isolation in a cave on Mount Hira.The Kaaba (Mecca, Saudi Arabia) is the holiest site in Islam, believed by Muslims to be originally built by Abraham and his son, Ismail. Muslims across the globe pray in the direction of the Kaaba everyday, but are currently restricted from visiting it as Saudi Arabia is in lockdown due to COVID-19. Left: captured in Ramadan 2019. Right: captured in Ramadan 2020. But there is unity in this isolation. Ramadan reconnects the Muslim community, through taraweeh (daily, communal nightly prayers), halaqas (group study of Islam and the Quran), and the Eid celebration after the month ceases. With the backdrop of COVID-19, we have had to adapt. In my household, my brother has assumed the role of imam (leader of prayer), we have resorted to Zoom halaqas, and we have come to accept that the iconic Eid in Lakemba will simply have to wait a year. For my shamelessly Arab family, refraining from eating iftars (the meal after breaking the fast) with our dozens of cousins and uncles and aunties, has been a difficult but necessary sacrifice. However, no pandemic could stop my grandma from dropping in with plates of kofta (spicy, minced lamb), fattoush (a Levantine salad) and koshari (lentils, rice, macaroni with chilli sauce) what she likes to call not much.With the extra time at home due to COVID-19, my twelve year old sister painted canvas silhouettes of a mosque dome and minaret and a traditional lantern, as house decor for Ramadan. My personal quest during this Ramadan has been to reflect on my purpose as a Muslim living in the 21st century, a purpose beyond self-service and betterment. COVID-19 has plunged the world into solitude. Ramadan encourages Muslims to embrace the solidarity in solitude, specifically for those, like myself, who live in predominantly secular nations. We are reminded that without our fine dining, our furnished households, our high-end educations, we are no different to our brothers and sisters practicing Islam across the seas. Paying zakat, is an obligation that realises this sentiment. As one of the five pillars of Islam, it requires all, able Muslims to pay two and a half per cent of their savings to a charity of their choice during Ramadan. When the time came for me to decide where to send my zakat, I was swamped with an overwhelming despair at the breadth of choice I had.Should I send it to the Muslims in India, who are defenceless against the Islamophobia plaguing COVID-19 headlines? Whose recent persecution has moved employers to advertise that they will no longer hire people of the Islamic faith? Navigate West to Afghanistan, where the Taliban smear the name of Islam with blood. Should I send it to the innocent Muslim women and children suffering at their hands? How can the Taliban claim to serve Gods demands, when in the Quran, God forbids injustice, immorality and oppression (16:90)?Jump to the Middle East, to the land of Palestine, where my fathers family cannot visit the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. During this Ramadan, they observed Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe) on May 15th, marking 72 years since 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their country. Should I send my zakat to the generations of refugees residing on the fringes of their homeland? And even if I wished to, I cannot send my zakat to the Uyghur Muslims in China, as the CCP ferociously monitors the camps in Xinjiang. The Uyghur Muslims will witness Ramadan amidst those who wish to decimate their religious freedom. I can only pray for them.A Palestinian woman protests at the separation fence in the southern Gaza Strip on Nakba Day (2019). Nakba Day was observed through online forums this year. Image courtesy: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa. Cross the Indian Ocean back to Australia, and I realise that my purpose is inseparable from my blessings. So when the sun sets and I break my fast with a warm meal, I remember the millions of Yemenis who will sleep on an empty stomach during Ramadan. I remember the Indian, Afghani, Palestinian, and Chinese Muslims whose suffering has not eased during this pandemic. Though Ramadan is coming to a close and ending the spiritual solitude of Muslims across the globe, the COVID-19 crisis will keep the world in stasis.Like Ramadan, the crisis brings with it an opportunity to remember, and as Islam encourages, to give. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Over summer, I spent six weeks in a wheelchair. It was a trying time everyone else was flaunting their hot, able bodies around Sydney shores, while I grew paler and saggier, emotionally sustained only by the tiny thrills of karting around my kitchen in my grandmothers motorised pensioner scooter. While everyone else soaked up artisan coffees from very cool, very urban, clearly very Instagram-worthy cafes, I became extra-hyped on my one instant Moccona for the day that coursed through my thin-blooded body at a nauseating pace.In hindsight, spending six weeks completely housebound was incidental training for the limitations of physical distancing in 2020. Id hate to flex, but Ive been preparing for this moment for months.The coronavirus lockdown has been an interesting time for people with disabilities. For many, its been a punch in the delicate guts a time of feeling particularly overlooked and disposable (yeah by the way, that time people hoarded vital medications was not cool!) For some, transitioning to a life online with disrupted audio and blurry screens has been seriously disadvantageous and, for others, life at a distance has worsened pre-existing conditions, especially mental health. It is virtually impossible to capture the range of experiences for people with disabilities in this time, but what I can offer is my experience. In a word: I have bloody loved it.Digitally streamed concerts, plays and seminars have torn down ableist barriers and made attendance possible. Mosh pits are death traps (fight me), and COVID-19 has made concert attendance a possibility for me, and others, who cant do crowds. Ive been able to watch the Sydney Theatre Companys live table reads of plays without first having to check for disabled parking, or mentally prepare myself for the long walk down to the Bar at the End of the Wharf.Avoiding the logistics of travel has been mint. With uni online, I have not spent a single morsel of my mulla on an Uber between Redfern Station and the Social Sciences Building, or on tolls and petrol driving to campus. Being able to avoid well-meaning stares as I limp from class to class has also been welcomed, and should I lock a hip or slip a rib walking between classes, bed and the next meeting is about a metre away.Now my internships are online, I have been able to fearlessly network with representatives from various organisations without concern that my unexplained ring splints make me look like an untrustworthy punk. In fact, the general concealment of my splints, braces and taping has helped me avoid a lot of awkward conversations (what did you do? Sports injury? yeah nah, all my joints are just structurally gelatinous okay). This semester is the first in three years that I havent dipped into my special considerations. I think thats telling.You might not have realised, but your experiences in lockdown have probably made it easier for you to sympathise with people like me. For those with disabilities, the walls between public and private life are porous. Few would have experienced the awkwardness of explaining the daily struggle to brush your own hair in a professional context, but zooming from home has put cracks in your walls too. Remember that time you had to apologise for Zoom call interruptions caused by your cat, or your kids, or your obnoxious choice of wallpaper? Those cute little snippets where your at home identity had been exposed scrapes the surface of the blurry lines between public and private conversation commonly experienced by those with visible disabilities.Feeling a bit stir-crazy stuck at home is another taster of the experience of being someone with mobility issues. You lying in bed all day, binge watching Sex Education and dreaming about being able to go to a bar, is you reliving my summer break. However, when Im housebound with crippling joint pain, I dont have ten to fifteen B-grade celebrities from Channel 10 condescendingly reminding me that times are tough. Ill take that as a win.The fact that my quality of life and ability to participate in public spaces has improved during a time when most people are feeling severely limited, is an indictment on our profit-driven way of life. Our fast-paced lifestyle, the need for hands-on, in-person experience and the usual lack of accessible options is uniquely burdensome for people with disabilities.This time of lockdown begs the question: why are we expected to keep up rather than help establish the pace?As restrictions ease for some, how do we prevent accessibility restrictions from rising up again? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We will die here, here in the last passage.Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree The Earth is Closing On Us by Mahmoud DarwishStanding tall in front of our suburban Sydney home is a large olive tree. Its big enough that if you drove or walked past, it would be hard to miss. I often joke to myself that its presence is how you would know we were Palestinian. Its presence, a reminder of our heritage.Driving through Palestine, the hills and land are laced with olive groves upon olive groves from Tulkarem to Jerusalem to Hebron embodying and defining the landscape. Many of these trees are centuries-old, some dating back 4,000 years. They signify a deep attachment to the land, inherited over generations and generations. They have become rooted in the Palestinian collective consciousness. For Palestinians, the importance of olives and the olive tree are bound up in a rich history. More than just featuring in the cuisine, it is one of the many ways Palestinians assert their belonging to the land. Forming a part of the Palestinian national identity, especially amid experiences of exile and dispossession, they symbolise steadfastness and resilience. In the Palestinian cultural imagination, they feature prominently in poetry, film, music, and literature, especially in contemporary narratives about resistance to the Israeli occupation.In Mahmoud Darwishs poetry, the trees represent immortality. In a time where Palestine and Palestinians are often associated with violence, conflict, and death, this provides a significant contrast. It also signifies the resistance of a people whose historical existence and identity is continuously denied by their occupiers. Through documentaries and films, the ongoing battle between the Israeli state and Palestinians for the right to their land is commonly depicted. One example is Budrus (2009), a documentary detailing the resistance of Palestinians from the village of Budrus against the construction of an Israeli security barrier inside their village, which would result in the loss of 300 acres of land and 3,000 olive trees in the process.Every year my extended family, who live in a rural town near Tulkarem, partake in the Olive Harvest, a seasonal tradition. Mum tells me that olive picking is a delicate process. After gathering them, they pick and single out the white or hard ones, storing them for pickling or selling, whilst the green and black ones are pressed in refineries to make olive oil.Many Palestinians depend on the olive harvest as a source of income to support their families and livelihoods. Overall, olives contribute a large portion to the Palestinian agricultural economy, estimated to exceed $84 million in profits annually. They are then sold in domestic and foreign markets, pressed into olive oil, or produced into olive oil soap. An Oxfam report in 2010 found that profits from olive oil could double if Israeli restrictions, such as access to land, and settler violence ended.Attacks on olive trees by Israeli settlers while Israeli soldiers stand idly by in the West Bank are, unfortunately, a recurring occurrence and are quite well documented. This is often coupled with instances of assaults, theft, vandalism, threats and hold ups, enacting violence against Palestinian farmers. Since Israel first occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israeli authorities and settlers have destroyed around 800, 000 trees. The destruction of centuries-old trees is symbolic, and to many Palestinians it is reminiscent of being uprooted from their land during the Nakba in 1948.Israel continues to seize land and enact environmental destruction by razing down groves to make way for more settlements, apartheid walls, and military zones. This is part of a larger ploy to reduce ownership of Palestinian land which not only limits the chances of establishing a potential state but deprives Palestinians of their rights, needs, and freedoms.The very pride and joy of Palestine is wrapped up in a painful political history, making its significance as a symbol of resistance all the more powerful. With the recent news about Israels plans to annex its settlements in the West Bank, it is worth wondering how many more olive trees will be destroyed in the process.Ultimately, no matter how many trees are destroyed you can never truly destroy a culture and identity that is so deeply embedded in the land. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Year 8. The talk of the year would usually be assessing the attractiveness of a new student, but this year it wasnt the case. With a locked door in the centre of the changing room muffling our gossip from the boys, we spoke openly about who else started their period in the summer and who believed in their 13- year old bone structure enough to shear their hair into a pixie cut this time.But we were closed about other, physical things like our starchly ironed armpits stuck rigidly by our sides, lest we let out the result of that dark damp hotbox seep out.The hushed talk of that year was my petite friends face sprouting cheeks like raised bread dough, whilst the rest of him remained the same: petite, birdlike.Our smelly bodies belonged everywhere, so we couldnt understand why his face didnt belong to the rest of his body anymore.I remember being at his house. He was angry at his dad a lot, which confused me because he had given him a kidney.Its been almost a decade since the day when he came in with cheeks puffed as a result of steroid side effects, a common medicine given to organ transplant receivers, and only now does his anger make sense to me.After realising that being tired and feeling not normal, was a chronic illness and not just a result of being twenty and a student, I try to waft a sense of guilt towards the specialist doctor from behind the desk like this is somehow his fault. Hes old and white and rich, and Im the sky but I pay him to tell me the report of my own bodys weather.Chronic illnesses are defined by their longevity and likely progressive nature if not managed. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, chronic illnesses account for 9 out of 10 deaths in Australia. Around 50% of men and women in Australia present with one or more chronic illnesses, spanning from progressive diseases like COPD and diabetes mellitus to autoimmune diseases, disabilities and mental illnesses.Some chronic illnesses, like cystic fibrosis are purely inherited whilst others like mental illnesses and autoimmune diseases may be largely a result of genetics, environment and chance. What is worrying is that despite this, nowhere in government guidelines like the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare does health equate to anything outside of the sum of an individuals choices . This idea of health can be helpful in progressive conditions like diabetes, where 45-49 year-olds are at higher risk, but it doesnt necessarily relate to the 20-30% of young people with chronic illness. Diseases can also develop beyond individual control, and otherwise healthy young people likely havent lived long enough for allnighters to drastically affect the bodys physiological mechanisms.Therefore, if health does stray beyond the individuals control, it can feel like the body isnt your own. Being told that I was ill regardless of my individual efforts to be healthy, makes me feel like Im personally fine. But the sick person uber pooling around in my skin isnt.The dominant biomedical model of health focuses on the sick bodys pathology rather than other aspects of personhood. However, integrating sickness and health, rather than purely labelling people as one or the other is particularly important in people with chronic illnesses, who, by being the antithesis of health,face the heavy connotations of mortality. A change in government funded discourse where room is made for the fluctuating states of both sickness and health for chronically ill patients, can surely help mental and physical health far better than the biomedical model alone.I dont remember my friend being ill. Even when we skipped queues because of his disability card at theme parks. The best rollercoaster was vampire themed and painted loud purple, with kitsch gravestones scattered throughout the queue. At the end of the queue you could see segments of the roller-coaster coming in, offloading and picking a new set of people like clockwork. There was a robot playing the organ. We found him terrifying, until the tenth time we clammily went on the ride.Coming back to University, where there is so much emphasis on the future, has made me realise that one of the only certainties in my life, and others going through similar circumstances, is the illness.Life has always been too short. Being ill has just made me recognise it sooner. But, like the roller-coaster accented with death, there is enjoyment to be found in the strangest of places. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article discusses sexual violence and assault.A few months ago, minutes into a conversation about MeToo, I remembered that I, too, had been raped. Much is written about the initial trauma of sexual violence, the ongoing pain, but outside academia, little about what healing looks like. Healing from trauma has changed me in ways that I have only recently begun to understand. Beginning to forget the pain that defined my life for years has offered me some insight into what I think healing looks like.My experience of sexual violence, initially, was radicalising. It was central, in ways I didnt realise at the time, to my emergent feminist politics. It felt constitutive of the person I was: I remember reading and rereading an article in a (now defunct) teen magazine proclaiming I was a survivor, [not a victim,] because youre still here. It provided me with a first-person anger that was uniquely powerful in pushing me towards activism, allowing me to skip over the difficulties of empathising with others or abstracted struggles. And it was consuming. I remember, vaguely, telling a friend a year after my assault that there was not a day that I didnt think about what had happened to me. Its difficult to imagine now, but I assume I was telling the truth.But struggling for change is something you need to do for the good of the community, not because it helps heal you. There is a tension between beginning to heal from trauma to believe that you can be safe, that you are not constantly under attack, and that there is so much in life beyond violence and activism, which calls on you to constantly recognise the massive scale of sexual violence, that you and all other women are constantly, hypothetically, at risk. A feminist theory that views sexual violence, correctly, as supported by a broader rape culture also means that smaller actions are constantly re-traumatising. At one point, no sexist slight was too small to be integrated into that worldview for me. I remember barely anything about spending time with my friends at the parties I went to in my first years at uni. But I remember clearly older men leering at me, or being left with bruises after sex with strangers, or being kissed on the cheek by men rather than having my hand shaken.Activists often celebrate anger and pain moving us to action, but they also eat away at you. I often wonder whether I would have healed at all if I was as deeply involved in feminist activism now as I was in the two years after I was raped. If Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is rooted in over-accessing traumatic memories, as emerging evidence indicates, then the practice of activists speaking about their experiences of sexual violence may be empowering, but it is also, for many, re-traumatising. Healing requires, in some sense, selfishness. It takes time and energy to come to term with those memories, and begin to forget. Perhaps survivors leading these battles sacrifice more than we, or they, realise.I remember too, that sexual violence also became the horizon of my empathy. Seeing myself as a survivor bonded me to others whod experienced similar things. But I remember openly laughing in a conversation at the idea of hikikomori, the phenomenon where young Japanese men live as social recluses, because it was some perverse karma for the abuse of women. I had little time for social causes that didnt involve ending some type of ongoing mass violence.Im embarrassed admitting this. But it reminds me that one of the effects of trauma is selfishness. When your own pain is at the centre of your own universe, it dwarfs everything around it. I found it difficult to empathise with anything in my friends lives that were anything less than traumatic. In a diary entry from year 12, I write that Im not sure if I can support a friend experiencing anxiety. How can I take exam stress seriously when she doesnt know what its like to feel like this? Its a joke. There was something noble about dealing with trauma, as if it gave me an insight to some transcendent truth. I remember feeling frustrated that no one appreciated the meaningful insight into trauma I presented in the conceptual art piece I made about sexual violence for the HSC (a rip off, somehow, of both Emma Sulkowiczs Mattress Performance piece and Tracey Emin). Trauma, no doubt, teaches many things. But the romanticisation of my own pain, the self-involvement with my own identity as a survivor, closed me off to others pain.I remember, too, the constant feeling that no one took sexual violence seriously in the spaces in which I was involved. In the clubs and leftist political groups I was part of, like-minded friends and I engaged in a noble but Sisyphean task: totally supporting and accommodating survivors of trauma. I regarded any person who saw our goals as unrealistic or not helpful as at best, deeply ignorant.But gradually I realised that pain is a bottomless pit. No amount of support or gentle handling is ever enough. When I was assaulted, trigger warnings were at the centre of the culture war debates. Opponents argued that they allowed survivors to avoid exposure and thereby hindered long-term healing. Proponents argued that they granted greater agency to survivors, allowing them to choose when and how to engage with relevant texts. But the evidence that has since emerged is, to the dismay of both sides, that such warnings have negligible effects.Much of my life at uni has revolved around spaces seeking to accommodate and support survivors. But at work, in class, with my family and my partner in short, most of my life these accommodations did not exist. I still believe that some support mechanisms are important, and useful, but their effect shouldnt be overstated. The idea that you are suffering because those around dont understand and support you enough is an alluring mirage: it explains away your pain by reference to others, giving you a narrative you can call on in any situation. Of course there are things that can make you feel a little better or worse, but most of it wont make you any feel different at all. Its its own kind of trauma to realise that there is nothing except time, in the end, that heals you and even time isnt always enough.In the couple of years following my assault, my identity as a survivor was at the core of my self understanding. Feminists for decades have objected to the use of the term victim to describe people whove experienced sexual violence. In her 1988 book, Surviving Sexual Violence, Liz Kelly argues, it draws attention to the strength women display despite their experiences of victimisation through shifting the emphasis from viewing women as passive victims of sexual violence to seeing them as active survivors. A victim is someone something happened to; a survivor is someone who overcomes something.But in my third year of uni a friend whod been sexually assaulted as a child objected to the term. I dont think of myself that way, he said. Why does something that happened to me more than a decade ago make me a different kind of person? In ways, I think, he was right. There is a passivity to the term victim, but it is also fixed in time. A victim is someone something happened to once; a survivor is someone who is still overcoming something. Identifying as a survivor meant I constantly conceived of myself as doing the hardest thing Ive ever done, surviving an act of traumatic sexual violence. It was an enormous source of strength. But it also tied me, unavoidably, to that event.But now, at feminist marches and reading MeToo stories, Ive begun to remove my own pain from the centre of my worldview, empathising with others stories on their own terms rather than their similarities to my own. Im inspired by the survivors whove found strength in speaking about their experiences. But the true healing, I think, comes from a place down the road, when you sometimes forget what happened to you at all. Only then does he lose his hold over you. Only then have you really survived. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dont lie to me! she yelled as she threateningly craned over my head, sharp tweezers poised in hand. The fluorescent strip light above me made my eyes water. I felt like I was on an operating table as my blurry vision focused on the indignant face in front of me covered with a medical mask, green eyes burning. You saw someone else, didnt you? she jabbed. I squirmed. But eventually, I had to admit Id committed a fatal sin.I had, in fact, seen another eyebrow lady.I know what youre thinking. Its wrong, and Im ashamed. But when I couldnt get an appointment for several weeks, I gave into the natural temptation of going somewhere convenient and cheap. I would pay for my misdemeanour as my body was waxed, zapped, tweezed, and prodded in the painful process of hair removal.Her anger was reasonable; expected, even. You cannot cheat on your eyebrow lady. She, who has sculpted your hairs from their prepubescent monobrow days into their present alpha form. Ive been seeing my eyebrow lady exclusively for years; and Im not the only one. But, upon reflection, its clear that this loyalty we have may seem a bit ridiculous for someone on the outside. You see, Mariams salon is 25km from where I now live; yet not even such a great distance can part us.But our particular bond is not unique. It is a primordial bond that has been reproduced across time and space. From the women of Ancient Egypt who had elaborate beauty routines, the Maori women who get moko kauae (face tattooing), to more familial practices like my grandma putting coconut or sesame oil in my hair as Id sit cross-legged between her legs every week. These sacred rituals have endured.Much has been written about the politicisation of womens body hair: patriarchal pressure to remove it, growing it in defiance, its appropriation and assimilation. These beauty rituals fit into a story of navigating the decolonisation of oneself. But within this, I want to give credence to these special relationships and spaces which are formed and often overlooked for their normalcy, or for being almost too odd and taboo to memorialise in writing.Theres a solidarity formed between black and brown women across the world existing in white societies. We often need special treatment for different hair types and textures. Through this process, the racial differences between migrant groups are usually flattened, and unlikely bonds are forged. Because despite the vast differences in our ethnicities and cultures, to whiteness we are the same: darker and different.While lying on her salon bed, Mariam has taught me about Islam and Palestine to Zionism and world politics. In exchange, we share moments of unlikely parallels between our traditions, history, and culture mine Indian and Hindu, hers Lebanese and Muslim. Cultures where traditional paths are often pushed on strong women who overcome them.She has become more than just my eyebrow lady. Shes my second mum, a person who has seen me cry over insolent boys and the pressure of exams, and eventually grow up. She has compared me to an Amazonian woman in my hairier days and then transformed me into someone who can find a jahsh (donkey in Arabic) as she likes to call men. There is a certain pride and ownership over her work. This simple, banal act becomes something greater through rhetoricisation. These beauty rituals forge autonomous, liminal spaces, free from shame or inhibition, where women of colour come together, away from the world, and emerge anew. So heres to the interracial solidarity of hairy womenof wogs and curry muncherstogether in resistance, becoming hot bitches. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Youre trying to say that as a POC you feel genuinely threatened and anxious when you see a policeman in Australia? That is simply BS! Are you just milking the minority card to have something to argue about? This is an excerpt from a long message that I woke up to one morning, from a white woman (who was one of many others in my inbox). It was a response to some anti-cop rhetoric posted to my Instagram story after witnessing the water police at my favourite ocean spot. Reading them transported me back to my feelings of violation as I stood aghast by the water that day. I blocked the sender and shared a post about white people needing to recognise their privilege and lack of ability to define what constitutes experiences of racism. I had a few condescending replies from white men, yet none victimised themselves like the numerous white women did, calling me dismissive and attacking, insistent that I was spreading hate.Ive quickly learned that white guilt is so deep-rooted that white women will dig in their heels and end long-standing friendships to avoid being labelled a racist. Theyll scramble to boast about their study of Indigenous issues (ignoring that the unit is run by a colonial institution which profits off stolen lands) as a feeble attempt at alleviating it. Theyd sooner make your anti-racism work about their feelings rather than acknowledging that they constitute the problem. In fact, theyll claim that youre the real racist for making generalisations about white people. That theyre the victim here, so your posts about white complacency must be targeting them specifically. Theyll tell you off for being too judgemental or angry in your approach, allocating you the responsibility of educating them gently. Theyll be offended when you share the milking the minority card messages, insisting that you consider the feelings of these senders who dont want their opinions broadcasted because then theyll be obligated to condemn them. But God forbid they betray the sisterhood and speak out against another white woman; isnt feminism all about #girlpower and female solidarity?Their tears fall strategically, the flow of a stream that serves the sole purpose of drowning you (and their guilt) out. In their watery eyes, they are excused from the reality that despite being subject to patriarchal injustice, they too are adherents and inflictors of oppression. Their tears pool together, cold and saline, as if to form an ocean on which to carry the police boats they seem to love so much. They adopt their role of policing our behaviour a violent and punishing tactic built on the comfortable complacency enabled by the system of white supremacy they refuse to unlearn.White people: you dont need to pretend you are free of racism (no one is) to be an active anti-racist. The anti-racist work of others should not trigger your guilt in the way it so clearly does. Its not enough to hide behind strong activists, or your friends of colour, and use an association with their efforts to absolve your guilt. Your indignance with racism must be more than your fear of being called a racist. It is your responsibility to be less fragile, less defensive, and less passive your silence is still an act of white supremacy, and your tears wont drown your guilt.And to everyone else: you dont need permission from white people to speak about racism. You dont need to soften your outrage or hand hold to conciliate their needs and feelings. You have the right to expect your white friends to actively listen, support you, and take your side; that they wont ice you out of activist or friendship spaces in an attempt to mitigate conflict and appease others. You do not have to stick around for white people who punish you for demanding a safer space, calling out racism, or sharing your experiences. Why must you protect them from the pull of the moon, the waves and the tides, when they should learn to swim?I cannot hide my anger to spare you guilt, nor hurt feelings, [] Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to ones own actions or lack of action. [] We welcome all women who can meet us, face to face, beyond objectification and beyond guilt.Audre Lorde, 1981 <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Note: this article contains discussion of pedophilia and sexual assault. I was eight years old when my uncle said to me, Come here, sit on my lap. We were alone in my bedroom, white curtains drawn so that I could see the empty night sky from my window. I thought it was weird, briefly, because my mother told me I was too old to do things like sit on her lap and be carried around. But I didnt question it much, and I was sick of all my teachers telling me that third grade was the donkeys bridge where everything starts getting serious, so I sat on his lap.It was then that I felt something hard press against me. I wish I hadnt asked what it was. Maybe if I hadnt, I wouldnt have had to look at it and touch it. Again. And again. And again.Afterwards, everything made me flinch. It didnt matter where I was, or who I was with. I visited my father overseas and jerked every time he tried to hug me. My volleyball coach tried to show me how to execute an upper-hand serve and I snatched my hand away and dropped the ball. My left-handed fifth grade deskmate accidentally touched me and I instinctively elbowed him. I dont know when I realised that the assault affected my everyday life in such a way, but I remember repressing it. I could go weeks or months without thinking about it sometimes. But it always came back.A little while after it stopped, something horrific occured to me: I had gotten too old to be a target. But this did not bring any kind of relief, only a new kind of terror. Who was next? I had younger female cousins, but none of them had any contact with him. He was married to my auntie and they had two sons, but what if they ever had a daughter? He had another niece who was four years younger than me. Would he turn to her? What could I do?Nothing. I could do nothing but write about it in my diary. I would leave it open on my desk hoping someone would read it. And then my grandmother did. She went to my aunt, instead of my mother, and my aunt called me and asked me if it was her husband. She didnt talk to me for months after I told her that it was. It has been eight years, and she has never mentioned it. She had another child with him, a daughter.In the years since, Ive come to realise that I feel a twisted need for male validation despite the horrors of years past. I used to think that if I kissed boys and did other sexual things, I could reclaim my body and finally let go. Move on. I thought that choosing it gave me agency, but all I ever felt afterward was earthworms crawling all over me and dirt in my lungs. Maybe if I try again, I told myself, it will be different. So I got drunk and let the alcohol take over my body and make me do things, hoping that the liquor would take away the memories and make me whole again, like working out an injured muscle. But the memories came back every time.I met my firstand onlyboyfriend when I was sixteen. I was so excited, even though I knew I was using him to rewrite an unchangeable history. But I didnt care as long as it worked. The first time he kissed me, I didnt want to throw up, and for a while, everything was fine. And then one day he came up behind me and put his arms around my waist, and something hard pressed against me. Suddenly, I was eight and nine and ten and eleven years old again; I was in my bedroom, baby pink walls closing around me, I was in a bathroom, pushed up against cold tiles and trying not to cry. I was every moment I had repressed, every moment I had felt powerless in my life.I went to my best friends house after school that day. Its ridiculous they made you go to school on a Saturday, she said through a mouthful of mango ice cream. I want to break up with my boyfriend, I replied.When I was seventeen, I entered into a self-imposed dry spell that has lasted to this day. I realised that choosing a situation did not give me power over it, and didnt necessarily make me safer. The only thing I felt when a man touched me was nausea, like I was choking. So I stayed away from men, from any sort of physical intimacy, stayed in my head where the only people who touched me were respectful, asked for consent, and bore the faces of my favourite fictional men. Ive begun to wonder if I am asexual, because the idea of sexual activity repulses me so thoroughly. Yet, I still yearn for love.I have had a hard time separating my self-worth from my sexuality and physical appearance. If body-hugging red jumpsuits and low-cut pink sweaters were all that anyone ever saw, how could I be liked for anything else? When I gained weight, when I stopped wearing revealing clothing, when I stopped trying to call attention to myself, the compliments stopped. It was a difficult thing to navigate; because I did not want to be looked at or touched, but I did not want to be ignored either.I have spent what feels like many lifetimes just struggling. I have taught myself over and over again that I am worth more and deserve more. I am worth more than this sickening experience. I deserve more than people who cant see past what my bra size is. I deserve more than the fear I am forced to endure at the prospect of physical intimacy. I deserve more than feeling uncomfortable in my own body. And sometimes, I am okay; I go on dates, and hug my father, and rest my head on a male friends shoulder.But I am still hiding. Hiding from him, hiding from my memories, hiding from everything horrible that has stemmed from it and irrevocably changed the way I live my life. I hate that I think I will never trust anyone enough to let them be physically intimate with me. I hate that I will never want to bring a child into this world with so much pain. But most of all, I hate that there are some things that are forever tainted. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My fathers Hajurabub (grandfather) was born in Gulmi District, in the mountains of Nepal. When my Hajurabub was about eight years old, his father moved their young family down to Koilapani, which lies in the terai of Nepal near the Indian border. My family have lived there ever since. At that time, nobody else would live there, because the area was troubled by malaria and cholera, and the thick jungle which covered it was filled with dangerous wildlife like tigers and rhinos. The area of land that my fathers Hajurabub owned at that time was so large that now, over 8 000 families live on it.My Hajurabub eventually married and had four children, my father being the eldest and only boy. My Hajurabub spent about 14 years in the Gurkha Army in India, returning home only every one-two years. When his father died, the land was divided between all the brothers and sisters. Workers came from other rural areas to help farm the land, and he leased it to them.Very much concordant with communist ideology, Maoist thought strongly supports that whoever farms the land owns it. In 2002, a group of Maoist insurgents came to my Hajurabubs house to force him to sign over the land that had been his familys for more than 60 years. 15 men entered with guns and knives. They locked my Hajuram and aunties in other rooms in the house, and they hammered Hajurabubs toes and shins, tortured him, and before leaving, cut off his left arm. He spent two months in hospital in Kathmandu and nearly lost his life. My Hajurabub died four years ago now, but following the attack by the Maoists, he always suffered much pain in his arm, and he never felt safe in his home again.Many families had been living on our familys land for generations. When my Hajurabub died, my father distributed it among them, giving them the paper to confirm that the land was finally, theirs. Now, our family owns a few small areas of land that they use to grow rice and live on.This story strikes something deep within me; its painful to think about. The suffering that occurred is unjust, and it can be argued, for what? But I understand this movement. This ideology, their demands. I understand why huge numbers of people, especially women and Janjati (Indigenous) peoples, joined. Why wouldnt you strike against the higher castes? The landowners, the tax collectors. Of course you would.By 2006, 70% of the Nepalese countryside was under Maoist control and 13 000 people had been killed in connection with the uprising and state efforts to suppress it. Thousands became internal refugees, with people fleeing to the city in order to escape the brutality that had become far too common.This war became known as the peoples war and it flung the country into complete tumult for 10 years. The main objective was to abolish the feudal monarchy and to establish a new democratic republic, but the Maoists also had a strong agenda of emancipation for lower caste, rural and oppressed peoples across Nepal, including women. In Nepal, a womans position is contingent on her male family members her father, her husband, her brothers. The past decade has seen significant shifts in the legal system, and the conceptualisation of what a womans role should be has slowly evolved; however, the inheritance system, patriarchal descent and marital tradition still play an enormous part in informing attitudes and restricting opportunities. Its not surprising then, that when Maoist demands included patriarchal exploitation and discrimination against women should be stopped, girls should be allowed to access paternal property as their brothers, that this ideology spoke to women, who joined the movement in the thousands. When Maoists came to rural villages asking for one child from each family to join the resistance, parents would often choose to send a daughter, rather than a son. Daughters were seen as more expendable, and often werent being educated as their brothers were anyway.However, this war emancipated the women who served in it in a number of ways. Women made up a third of all foot soldiers in Maoist strongholds. They were not only able to perform similar tasks to men, but also occupied positions of leadership, actively participated in village defence groups and many were educated to a higher level than they would have been otherwise.In a country like Nepal, this was totally revolutionary. The importance of womens emancipation, and especially that of rural women, is hard to overstate. There has been much research concerning the high rates of women joining revolutionary movements across the world, but Nepal is a particularly interesting case, because the intersections between development, education and politicisation are not clear cut when you dig into it. There are two main theories for why rural women in Nepal supported and played an active role in the Maoist insurrection, but neither one of them are without faults and inconsistencies.One argumentthe failed development hypothesisasserts that womens willingness to join the Maoist movement came from a discontent with the government, and specifically, a discontent with their failure to successfully provide essential services in rural areas; adequate education and aid being the central, most important ones. What this model fails to take into account is the fact that many of the women who took up arms actually did so because of successful development programs in their areas which empowered them through education, and raised their gender and class consciousnesses.To contrast it then, a conscientisation model acknowledges that girls were politicised through school, and asserts that this method of radicalisation was one of the primary reasons that revolutionary politics gained ground at this period of history, rather than a decade prior, when education, especially for women, was not widespread. Interviews done with female ex-combatants after the peace process was finalised showed the sense of empowerment that these Maoist women felt in being able to escape from the traditional gendered roles which they had come to expect from their lives. Mahila sasahktikaran (womens empowerment), awash uthaunne (where they could raise their voices), mahilako awaj ko pratinidithyo (womens voices were represented) and mahila ko dukka bhujnne (understanding womens grief) were phrases which continually came up in conversations with the interviewees.Many of us are torn between wanting a revolution that evens the playing fieldbetween worker and landowner, men and womenand being opposed to the violence that must inevitably come with it. The Maoist insurgency in Nepal is just one example of how these kinds of wars often take on a ruthless nature. Much like the violence that my Hajurabub suffered, gendered forms of violence, like sexual assault, were common in the revolution perpetrated both by government forces and by the Maoists. Nobody is without responsibility, or accountability in these wars, including the women who fight in them.Rama S. Lohani-Chase writes, the question arises about the limits of empowerment in the transnational biopolitics of human labour and capital and whether womens embodiment of traditional militarism or militancy will change the larger patriarchal military-industrial complex or keep women hostage to it. Although women are still hostage to it in many ways, the benefits which came from joining the insurgency cannot be disregarded. The benefits that these women receivedmore visible and immediate perhaps, than system changingmay well have overpowered the knowledge that they were helping to replace one failed, patriarchal system with another. This does not mean however, that it wasnt powerful, that there were no wins, or that when peace finally came, that all women simply returned to playing the roles they were before. The sense of pride I feel when I think about rural Nepalese women standing up in arms against the feudal patriarchy doesnt take away the pain I feel when I think about what happened to my Hajurabub but it gives me a glimmer of courage that things can be better. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Three and a half years ago, I picked a medical science degree, like many confused seventeen-years-olds before me, because Id always loved biology in high school but couldnt quite close the deal on undergraduate medicine. I quickly found a genuine love for medical science. While it is true that its students are occasionally awkward and often competitive, I have never met a more earnest group of people in my life. One of my first university memories is of a lecture introducing diabetes where a lecturer wore a shirt extolling the virtues of the pancreas. I am also deeply fond of the Anderson Stuart Building, a building that despite Honis postulation that it was haunted in my first week on campus, has since become my second home.In noting these things, I would be remiss to ignore the very public crises of management that have coloured my years here. In the first semester of 2019, on my way to anatomy and histology classes, I would walk through corridors where flyers and posters begged for Anderson Stuart to be saved. The buildings staff were being threatened at the time with eviction, and I tried to show solidarity in whatever small ways were possible.In 2020, against the backdrop of a pandemic that ought to have strengthened the imperative for basic science teaching, staff in my own major of physiology were threatened with losing their jobs. I rallied with them, fought police repression and even participated in a historic occupation of the F23 building to try and protect their jobs. This year I watched as several of my friends who had gone on to start their honours years were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building, once again under the auspices of safety concerns and an allegedly toxic workplace culture. Over the past few weeks, I resolved to speak with staff, unionists and student activists to try to understand exactly why the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH) has generated these yearly crises.Jamie*, a former FMH staff member who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, describes a once drastically different workplace culture and attributes recent changes to the appointment of the inaugural Dean, Professor Robyn Ward, in July 2018. Before that time, they said that while management was not perfect, staff felt that their opinions were valued by Heads of School and that they collaborated freely and extensively.Ward was appointed three years ago to oversee the centralisation of what were once seven separately administered schools Medical Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Sciences into a single mega-faculty. Jamie says that staff in the School of Medical Sciences (SoMS) perceived themselves as particularly targeted, and that their trust in faculty leaders has been most especially eroded by a lack of collegiality or consultation over the last two years.Jamie believes that the targeting of staff in SoMS began in late 2018 when staff who worked in wet laboratories (those that use biological material or liquids) in the Anderson Stuart Building were told that they would be evicted on the grounds that their laboratories did not adhere to safety standards. Initially, Ward argued that the workplace health and safety risks were so intolerably severe that they could not be remedied by usual procedures, and mandated full relocation to other facilities by, at the latest, mid-2019. Staff say they were confused by this sudden development on two accounts. First, many staff reported that immediately before this proposal, their labs were found to meet Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) standards or had received minor, rectifiable recommendations. Additionally, management were extremely reticent to provide any detailed WHS reports on which the claim that the laboratories were unsafe was based.Rob Boncardo, a member of USyds National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch committee, says that these actions on managements behalf led staff to seek NTEU involvement to wage a dispute with the Faculty on their behalf. Boncardo argued that given the lack of WHS evidence, managements initial actions were a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) as they did not engage in a formal change process, in which consultation and discussion would be required to move staff from the Anderson Stuart Building. This motivated the NTEU to challenge the decision with the Provost, the Vice Chancellor and ultimately arbitration by the Fair Work Commission. In October 2019, the Fair Work Commission ruled in favour of staff in the Anderson Stuart Building and declared that the University should have entered into genuine bargaining through a formal change process.Both Jamie and Rob tell me that there was a noticeable shift in the narrative of management during the dispute. After it became clear that FMH had insufficient evidence to support evictions on WHS grounds, they began to prosecute an argument that the staff deserved better facilities and so ought to be moved out of their presently suboptimal spaces in the Anderson Stuart Building.Jamie says that staff were sceptical of this narrative as they had seen management promises of new buildings and facilities fail to materialise in the past and ultimately felt that the move was done to specifically demoralise and separate staff who had previously become accustomed to close collaboration. Campbell Watson, a fourth-year student in the Faculty and long-time activist, tells me that this was the first time that students became aware of what he described as a longer term culture war between management and SoMS staff. Watson also recalls the high levels of staff militancy and the horror of many students when they discovered how their teachers were being treated.In 2020, Watson was a key organiser in the campaign to Defend Medical Science Education, an involvement he says was motivated by his belief that the staff who were to be made redundant were some of the best people who had ever taught him. In late 2020, Professor Sarah Young, the current Head of the School of Medical Sciences, put forward a Draft Change Proposal that made redundant positions in the disciplines of Physiology and Pathology. Jamie was one of the many staff members whose job was ultimately made redundant under the proposal, and notes that several attempts to be genuinely consulted on the proposal were rebuffed and that directly negotiating with management was difficult.The justification for the proposal was argued on two grounds: a) an attempt to further centralise teaching and b) to address what was argued to be overstaffing of the Physiology and Pathology disciplines. Physiology staff reported to management that the data being used to calculate the full time equivalent (FTE) value of their work was incorrect and did not take into account its full scope. In one other incident, management was especially combative, insisting staff were not being paid for a bioengineering class that staff knew they were being paid to teach.Undergraduate and higher degree by research (HDR) student attempts at consultation were also rebuffed. Watson recalls a meeting with Sarah Young after the Revised Change Proposal was released, in which he and other students demanded that they be given the opportunity to make submissions and be consulted in the negotiating process. Watson describes Youngs approach in the meeting as completely retaliatory as she referred to technical descriptions showing that students did not need to be consulted on matters of staff employment.Everyone I spoke to noted that after the Anderson Stuart incident, management appeared to now be weaponising the terms of the enterprise bargaining agreement to their benefit, particularly against concerned students. Jamie notes that while the EBA required the Faculty to demonstrate that it was consulting staff, they were not obliged to make concessions to anyone, and appeared unwilling to do so throughout the process. In one survey conducted by the Defend Medical Science Education campaign in 2020, 69.17% of the 132 SoMS staff they surveyed reported feeling bullied by the actions of senior management.Despite a large-scale campaign of resistance involving two disputes issued by the NTEU and a mobilisation of both staff and students, SoMS ultimately proceeded with the majority of the planned staff redundancies. Kelton Muir de Moore, a casual staff member in Physiology and member of the NTEU, remembers the campaign as a moment of unprecedented staff mobilisation, describing the campaign as the best level of colleagueship Ive seen in my time in Physiology. Although relationships between staff had become tense, Muir de Moore says that the struggle against the brutal management of staff gave staff a commonality that nurtured friendships and desires to fight the mismanagement of the University.This year, in a sequel befitting of a scripted drama, honours students were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building (MFB) and asked to change their supervisors on short notice. The eviction was initially justified on safety grounds by the fact that an unknown white powder and broken glass were found underneath a poster criticising management. Many of the same staff and postgraduate students that were evicted from Anderson Stuart in 2019 were relocated to MFB, and the culture of the building has been described by staff to be particularly sceptical of senior management. Subsequently, the eviction of honours students was justified on the basis of a supposedly toxic workplace culture within the building.Boncardo explains that the NTEU closely engaged with the affected students in the MFB as losing honours students can significantly impact staff workload provisions and make them appear as if they were not performing their job adequately. Initially, Boncardo says, FMH management did not respond to NTEU appeals for mediation and proceeded to contact students informing them of an intent to evict regardless. The NTEU subsequently used a right of entry protocol to audit the evidence for the toxic workplace culture. The evidence, Boncardo says, was found to have been sourced from only six Faculty members, all of whom were members of the senior management team, and only one of whom worked in the building. At this point, Boncardo recalls, staff began to suspect that the phrase toxic workplace culture was managements way of describing the strong union culture in the building.Students, helped by the NTEU and the Students Representative Council (SRC), attempted to bargain with the Faculty and wrote individually and collectively in order to stay in the building and continue their original projects. The Faculty eventually reneged on good faith negotiations with the NTEU and the students were told that they would be moved out of the building at the end of the week. Subsequently, a meeting was held between management and students in which Boncardo attended in his capacity as a representative of the NTEU and the interests of students. Despite the students wish for Boncardo to remain in the meeting, management asked him to leave. Boncardo describes these actions as a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement and a transparent effort at union busting. Eventually, after two weeks of negotiations, the Faculty decided to allow the honours students to remain in their building.An honours student affected by the incident, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, described the personal toll of the two weeks on their education. The student said that they lost weeks of work and what feels like years off my life [and] I really cannot emphasise enough the mental and emotional toll. Several students expressed to me that they were finding it impossible to sleep and eat properly as they were feeling too hyped up by the adrenaline, stress and uncertainty around the decision and our meetings with management.The student further described dealings with management as devoid of empathy. Several honours students affected by the project have reportedly lost their trust in the Faculty and have strongly reconsidered their intentions to undertake further studies.The SRC President, Swapnik Sanagavarapu, who was heavily involved in assisting students as a representative during the incident, confirmed that management were particularly hostile during meetings and did not seem to want a resolution. When asked to speak generally about accusations of a toxic culture in the faculty, Sanagavarapu said that in his experiences advocating for students, he felt that there was no faculty that has had so many instances back to back of people being treated so poorly (by management).The NTEU has since conducted an audit into the workplace culture of the Medical Foundation Building and found that there was no evidence of a toxic or urgently unsafe workplace in the area. Overwhelmingly, respondents to the NTEUs audit said that the space was safe and had a positive culture among colleagues. 69% of respondents, however, felt that the senior management of the Faculty negatively impacted the culture of the building. On 27 May, the NTEU recommended that further consultative processes with staff should be taken by senior management in order to best meet their needs. As Boncardo surmises, while this process began with management cruelly accusing staff of cultivating a toxic workplace culture, it has ended with a rigorous and wide-ranging audit showing that it is in fact management themselves who have a lot of work to do to improve their relations with staff and students.Senior management may well have had an important (even good) idea when they set out to establish this mega-faculty. Change of this scale, however, requires a well articulated vision, clear communication, regular trustworthy consultation and authenticity where actions match a shared vision. The narrative so far seems sadly lacking in all of these attributes. Staff, students and unionists all appear to agree on one thing: FMH management have, for multiple years now, been engaging in a campaign of obfuscation, bullying and managerialism. If a toxic culture exists in the Faculty of Medicine and Health it is surely not one that exists amongst its students and teachers. Instead, it is one created by senior managers who have, thus far, unsuccessfully tried to divide and conquer them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> So, you want to be SRC President. Maybe you crave the power. The validation. The minimum wage stipend. Trouble is, you know you could never win the election. Perhaps youve already lost one. Fortunately for you, the SRC Constitution could be surprisingly conducive to a campus autocrat, if handled with care. With a little finesse, a little amorality, and a little help from some high-placed friends, things might just go your way.Heres your handy guide to launching a hostile takeover of the Student Representative Council in 10 easy-to-follow steps. Individual results may vary.You will need:500 supportersGood relations with the University SenateNerves of steelDisdain for the democratic processNo moral compassA power complexStep 1: Gather your forcesEvery budding dictator needs a power base even the most absolutist autocrats didnt get there alone. Fortunately, you dont need the almost 3,000 votes of the winner of the last contested presidential election, or even the 2,500 of the loser. A mere 500 supporters will prove something of a magic number when it comes to dismissing key figures in your path to absolute power. Even for a B-tier NOC such as yourself, this shouldnt be too high a hurdle to clear. Enlist them quietly, with promises of spoils and a new dawn of Freedom once you walk the SRCs (single) corridor of power.Step 2: Invent your excuseEvery coup needs a pretext. Its important for maintaining a facade of legitimacy and a justification for control. Come up with some kind of grievance, any old thing will do. Ideally, it would be something incontrovertibly unconstitutional, which past councils, presidents and Honi Soit editors alike have overlooked for years. Something blatant, yet sufficiently inconsequential for anyone to care. After all, if it was a legitimate issue, this wouldnt be a brazen power grab now, would it?Your key to victory lies in Part 6, s.4 (d) of the SRC Regulations: The President shall present the editors of Honi Soit with a written report prior to the publication of each issue. The report shall be printed on a facing page within the first nine pages [of] Honi Soit, and shall be a minimum of ten point typesetting. The Presidents Report has not been published within the first nine pages of Honi Soit for over a decade. Even within this very weeks edition, you will find it on page 24.With such an egregious breach of regulations to hand, you can set about astroturfing. Send letters to Honi, publish some USyd Rants. Complain much but resolve little. You must create the impression of a genuine movement as a guise for the sudden emergence of your 500 disciplined loyalists. Avoid at all costs the premature resolution of your chosen grievance youll need it to be in play when you make your move.Step 3: Depose the PresidentTime to get this show on the road now that your justification is well publicised and your supporters are ready to strike. Under s.4 (e) of the SRC Constitution, the President can be summarily dismissed upon the receipt of a petition signed by 500 members of the student body, and a vote at a duly convened General Meeting of the Student Body. With a significant and organised faction of 500 at your back, success should be assured. Timing will be critical here. Dismiss the President in Semester 2, and the Council can simply appoint an Acting President as their replacement under s.4 (f). But act in Semester 1, and a byelection must instead occur. You neednt make plans to participate unbeknownst to the others, this byelection will never take place. You are simply playing for time.Step 4: Activate your foreign backersLike many coups, yours is to be dependent on a meddlesome foreign power. You require an ally outside the world of domestic Stupol one whose interests are so fundamentally opposed to the SRC that they will back you to the bitter end. The University Senate is an ideal co-conspirator. They will be your CIA, the external operator who will recognise your supremacy and enable your despotism in exchange for a pliant SRC that stops interfering with their plans. Conveniently, s.18 (b) of the Constitution provides the Senate with just the reserve powers you need for your very own John Kerr moment.With the SRC now in chaos and the Presidency vacant, place a call to your friend the Vice-Chancellor. Demand an investigation into your Presidents Report grievance. S.18 (b) subsumes the Constitution under Senate Resolution 284/06 (since superseded by the Student Associations Policy 2020), which empowers the VC to investigate governance misfeasance at the SRC. Given that a General Meeting of the Student Body saw fit to dismiss a President over your Part 6, s.4 (d) complaint, the VC should oblige without hesitation. Once the investigation inevitably reveals endemic neglect of Part 6, s.4 (d), the VC will be empowered to appoint an administrator with power to manage the student associations affairs.Step 5: Install yourself as PresidentWith the Administrator secretly in your pocket, put yourself forward as the perfect outsider to take the troubled reins of power and bring Order to campus. Conducting the upcoming presidential byelection will surely result in the election of yet another Part 6, s.4 (d)-ignoring politician, you will explain to the Administrator. Over a decade of neglect is evidence enough of that. Besides, you will have on hand a convenient petition calling for your instatement, signed by 500 members of the student body (your 500 cronies, naturally) to demonstrate a clear mandate to address the rampant mismanagement which has, for years, unconstitutionally demoted the Presidents report to the back pages of Honi Soit. The populace never responds well to an ambitious coup mastermind. But a reluctant leader with a popular mandate? Well thats just the will of the people now, isnt it?Step 6: Shut down Honi SoitEvery dictator worth their jackboots knows that control of information is everything. Muzzling the free press on campus is critical. Honis irreverent reporting is much too dangerous to be left unchecked, and the ten editors will never take your undemocratic putsch quietly. You need people more used to working under a corporate structure. Have the Administrator compel the SRC to provide the Honi Facebook password, take the website offline and draft in former editors of some more pliant off-campus publications to run the show.Step 7: Scupper the CouncilNow for the legislature. Your options here are fairly wide and can be exercised to fit the situation. Under s.3 (h)(i) of the Constitution, you can direct your band of 500 to dismiss individual representatives that cause you trouble, in the same manner as you deposed the President. Or, if you prefer a more top-down approach, the Administrator under the Student Associations Policy 2020 (now your right-hand man) can dismiss any or all office bearers at will. Wielding this Sword of Damocles ought to bring those who would seek to dethrone you in line.Even better, any decision a recalcitrant Council attempts to make against you can be stalled by your 500 loyalists. Under s.15 (a) of the Constitution, a referendum on any Council decision can be forced by a petition signed by 450 students, and shall delay the operation of the decision of the Council until it has been voted upon. By abusing such referenda, you will be able to transform the once-mighty Council into a lame duck, and significantly slow its operation even if the eventual result of each referendum does not ultimately swing your way.Step 8: Announce yourself to your new subjectsNext up, hearts and minds. Make an address to students, to be carried on Facebook Live by a reorganised Honi Soit that is now firmly under your heel. Reassure the populace. Condemn the instability and neglect of the past. Promise new democratic elections in 18 months once voter rolls are audited, the will of the students can be guaranteed, and those who treacherously ignored Part 6, s.4 (d) of the regulations are sidelined. Feel free to promise that you wont stand for reelection you can always change your mind once the people, as reported in your new Honi, call on you to stay.Step 9: Deal with any dissentFrom here on, things are pretty smooth sailing. With the Senate at your back, campus at your feet, and campus security as your iron fist, there is little that can stop you. Swipe card access for any dissenters can be revoked, troublemakers removed from SRC premises and even academic misconduct proceedings raised if you play your cards right with your new friends over at F23. Your 500 core supporters are always on call if more dismissals are required, but be warned youve given them a taste of power, and they might just bite the hand that feeds if you are not wary.Step 10: Sit back, relax, and watch your backThe rest is childs play. Purge the voter rolls, rig electoral regulations, even rewrite the Constitution if you wish. Youre in charge now, go wild! Youre the new SRC Supreme Ruler of Council and nothing can stand in your way. That is, until the next coup. Perhaps you shouldve thought of that before. Thus always to tyrants. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> May 16th, 2019. I flicked my collar up to shield against the pelting rain: umbrella in hand, bag clutched to my chest. I hurried down Science Road, desperately seeking refuge from the deluge. It was then that I saw it: Courtyard Cafe. The warm glow of the Holme Building beckoned me in and the sound of chatter and clinks thrust me over the threshold. Walking up to the register, I spied a muffin in the pastry cabinet.Why not? I thought to myself, because after all, why not.I pointed to the muffin behind the glass screen and spoke those fatal words the words that would define my life at this hallowed university.Can you heat that up for me?And against all odds, they couldnt.Diving muff-inCourtyard Cafe, also known as Courty or The Yard, is a cafe/restaurant located in the Holme Building. Known for their garlic and cheese pizza, this university wateringhole has long enjoyed an era of little to no scrutiny or oversight. That era ends today.Prior to this investigation, very few facts were known for certain about Courtyards heating abilities. When a customer asks to have their item warmed up, the staff give one of two replies.We cant do that or We dont have a microwave.But can that be believed? Can Courtyard staff, who for all we know might simply be agents of this anti-warm-muffin agenda, really be trusted?No, it wasnt enough for me and it shouldnt be enough for the student body. I knew that if I wanted answers, I had to go all the way to the top. I had to go to the University of Sydney Union (USU).Jess Reed, the Director of Commercial Operations at the USU, replied to Honis email inquiry to Courtyard Cafe at 18:08 on the 16th of April, 2021. Where her muffin loyalties lie is unknown to me, but she was my best chance of getting answers.Courtyard does not have any microwaves at all, her email read.As one of our busiest and most complex restaurants, it has no physical space in its front of house or kitchen space to hold a microwave.I sat down with architecture student Kimmi Tonkin to investigate this claim.Marlow Hurst: So, in your opinion do you think Courtyard Cafe has enough space for a microwave in its front of house?Kimmi Tonkin: Almost certainly. A pair of microwaves can actually take up less than 2sqm including standing space, and just from personal observation Courtyard has more than enough room. They have the space, and thats not even considering the perceived space that their premises could have in abundance.MH: Could you expand on this idea of perceived space?KT: Sure. Say if Courtyard was to hang some mirrors, or paint their walls white, while the physical space of Courtyard would remain the same, the perceived space would be greatly increased.MH: And youre saying Courtyard could put their microwave in that additional perceived space?KT: Yes, yes I am.So with the USU already spinning a web of lies to shield its flagship cafe from the penetrating gaze of journalistic scrutiny, what else could they be hiding?The Director of Commercial Operations went on to make a number of other claims regarding Courtyards practices.When capacity allows in the morning, customers are welcome to have their muffin warmed through our pizza oven.A crack team of undercover Honi investigators sought to verify this claim only two weeks ago. At exactly 10:03 am on April 21st, special agents Alice and Shania were dispatched to Courtyard Cafe with one aim in mind: get a muffin, and get it warm.The line was empty. The time was morning. Yet still, Courtyard refused their request. Maybe we were unlucky. Maybe we missed our window of opportunity. Theres a lot of maybes with this case. All I know for sure is that something smells fishy (and it isnt their tuna pasta).One final claim that the USU made in their response to my questioning wasnt about Courtyard, but about the other USU outlets on campus.During our busier periods, customers can purchase and warm up muffins at many USU outlets, including Footbridge, Laneway, Carslaw Kitchen, and Fisher.Honi sought to verify these claims as well. Of the outlets listed, all except Carslaw Kitchen had a microwave. After inquiring with staff, we were informed that Carslaw did not have a microwave and were not in a position to warm muffins up. While Fisher Coffee Cart did have a microwave, they declined to warm up a muffin purchased at Courtyard.At this point, you may be wondering why this is all so important. Its just a muffin, my friends have told me.But theyre wrong. Its not just a muffin. A muffin is more than just fuel for the body, its a cultural touchstone. Everyone can relate to the muffin, and as such, everyone can relate to the disappointment of a cold, hard, tacky muffin.But sometimes, feeling isnt enough. To take this investigation to new heights of credibility, I needed to talk to someone who could conceive of these glutenous, sweet treats as more than just a pastry. I needed to get scientific.The science of muffinsTo better understand muffins, not just as a cultural artifact, but as a scientific construct, I sat down with Associate Professor Thomas Roberts, an academic of food chemistry and biotechnology in the University of Sydneys School of Life and Environmental Sciences.According to A/Prof. Roberts, muffins are ideal for the microwave.A muffin is a good example of a baked good that can be improved by microwaving briefly after its been sitting around for a couple of hours or more.Professor Roberts said this is true for two main reasons: 1) muffins are largely homogenous and 2) they have enough water content to remain moist.Its not the same for pies, he warned, explaining that the liquid filling and solid (dry) crust make for a suboptimal microwave experience (scorching filling and luke-warm crust): a problem that muffins do not fall victim to.This begs the question then: why not just have muffins fresh out of the oven?Professor Roberts addresses this as well. While the term retrogradation may be unfamiliar to many, its something of a rockstar in the world of starch-based food science.The best quality of the baked good is not immediately after you take it out of the (conventional) oven, A/Prof. Roberts explained. This is because the gelatinised starches need to realign themselves during cooling the flavour of the product can change with heating another phenomenon that makes food chemistry compelling.So if muffins arent best right out of the oven, and Courtyard doesnt have the means nor the inclination to warm them up for their loyal customers: what exactly is happening here?Connecting the choc chipsThe simplest explanation for all this is the one Ive been provided with time and time again: they just dont have a microwave. But thats too easy. You know what they say: theres no such thing as a free lunch and thats doubly true for Courtyard. But if there is some grand conspiracy festering beneath the surface, what is it? Why do they hate warm muffins so very much?Ive considered ancient aliens, modern aliens, the reserve bank, the actual banks, the moon landing, the Loch Ness monster, Princess Diana, JFK, Harold Holt, and about fifty other fun yet not horribly racist conspiracy theories, yet none of them seem to fit.So, dear readers, I need your help! Remain vigilant, remain alert. Investigate, snoop, and pry. And when youre done, send your theories to editors@honisoit.com.But thats not the only way you can contribute to this ongoing investigation. Follow this link to sign the petition. Every signature gets us a step closer to muffin warmth.Some final words fellow truth seekers. Trust no one. Believe no one. The only thing you can ever truly be sure of in life is a warm muffin, and the world is short on those these days.May your blueberries be plentiful and your choc chips be gooey. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The UTS Students Association (UTSSA) has been accused of political repression, censorship, and breaking collective autonomy after shutting down the activities of the Education Action Group on Tuesday.The UTSSA is the representative body for students at the UTS; it provides student services and runs campaigns on student issues similar to the University of Sydney SRC.Collectives constrained by bureaucracyOn Monday, President of the UTSSA Aidan ORourke took action against Education Officer Ellie Woodward and the UTS Education Action Group (EAG) after an EAG Facebook post asserted that the Collective would continue postering on campus to promote rallies in defiance of University backlash.The EAGs Facebook post on Monday was a repost of one deleted in the lead-up to the March 24 protest against job and course cuts. ORourke told Honi that that the relevant post was inconsistent with the Universitys rules and would place the Association at risk, hence Woodward was given an option to amend the post to be consistent with the Universitys rules while retaining its message or delete the post. A follow-up post stated that the deletion was not the decision of the EAG, and the UTSSA consequently received backlash in the comments for censorship and attacks on activism.Several sources have informed Honi that until Woodward gives an apology and guarantees she will comply with the directives of Council and the Executive, they have removed her swipe access, and required her to forfeit her keys. They have also given notice that a motion to suspend her honorarium may be presented to council, and disallowed the EAGs access to Association spaces and expenditure.Essentially, Unity at UTS has an almost total monopoly and conducts the place allowing zero defiance of any university rules, Ellie Woodward said in a statement to Honi.EAG member Holly Hayne told Honi that Student collectives have always passed motions and taken political positions independent of student union executives. The Education Action Group voted to refuse to pay any fines levied by security or management because we demand the right to poster. This is a matter of political repression.ORourkes sanctions on Woodward and the EAG were also in response to their withholding of attendance for a meeting held on April 1. Woodward told Honi that this was done in protest of an amendment to the Collective By-Laws, which now require office-bearers to send a confidential list of autonomous Collective members who do not wish to be included in the minutes to the Association Executive Officer (EO).The motion, which originally required the list to be sent to the President, was passed and amended at a Council meeting on March 31. It was met with strong opposition from Collective members who were concerned about queer students being outed and the breaking of collective autonomy. ORourke defended the decision, stating that he was concerned with student safety, verification of decisions and transparency.The postering incident, which is being referred to as #BluTackGate by the Education Action Group, is just one example of a series of decisions made by the UTSSA, that students have said undermines the work of the Collectives at UTS. Collective members have claimed that the bureaucratic running of the UTSSA impedes their ability to elect their own office-bearers, access a budget, book meeting spaces, publicise events through social media, and call snap actions.2020 Queer Officer Melissa Sara told Honi that Activism at UTS is basically dead because we have to go through so many processes to even have a contingent to an event, to hold a banner-paint, to make posts. Every decision has to be approved by them [the Executive].Sara stated that they are constantly passing By-Laws affecting how Collectives operate, while refusing to include Collective perspectives. Labor has the numbers, so even when Collective officer-bearers ask for time to discuss motions that affect and take away collective autonomy, they refuse.The By-Laws of the UTSSA state that the Collectives may only be reimbursed for their expenses if there is a financial funding agreement with the University. For the second year in a row, the UTSSA Executive has failed to negotiate its renewal. ORourke told Honi that they are working hard to secure the agreement and that they received a 19% budget cut from 2019 to 2020 with further cuts flagged by UTS.Consequently, Collectives are without a budget and any spending must be approved through the SRC or the Executive, which is using reserves to run the UTSSA. Office-bearers have to pass all decisions through the President and General Secretary for approval, with some saying they have had to wait weeks for a response.Concerns about democracyStudents have raised concerns about the democracy of the electoral process at UTSSA. During 2020 Convenor elections, members were told mail-in ballots were viable. Yet, the Education Collective Convenor nominations were announced on the day of the election and the requirements to vote were allegedly amended only ten minutes before the meeting to state that all persons must be present physically to cast a vote.Moreover, Collectives at UTS do not have the power to elect their own office-bearers, but they can elect conveners, which are unofficial positions according to the SA By-Laws. Office-bearer positions for the Environment, Education and Womens Collectives were assigned to factions in pre-election deals before voting commenced last year. Eshna Gupta didnt know what NLS (National Labor Students) was when they elected her as Womens Officer under their faction without consulting the Womens Collective.Multiple students feared that the UTSSA would respond with further punishments to the Collectives if they spoke to Honi. It has been alleged that intimidation within the UTSSA affects democratic proceedings, with men speaking over women during meetings, refusing to put them on the speaking list, and passing procedural motions to end discussions.The SRC minutes of the UTSSA from July 2020 to March 2021 were only published on their website after Honi questioned ORourke about their absence. The link to Council meetings is only sent to Collective emails and the SRC, which raises questions about the transparency of the organisation. There are also concerns about the absence of democracy for students in UTS as a whole, with low voter turnout and little active engagement with campaigns.Changes to VertigoHoni has been informed that the President, General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary held a meeting with the editors of UTS student magazine Vertigo before they could discuss budget cuts with Honi in February this year. They were allegedly advised on what they could and could not say, and told to provide a balanced view when speaking about the UTSSA.Vertigo stated that the main change to their content this year is a new quota imposed by the UTSSA wherein 35% of the magazine has to be about student issues, which must be approved by General Secretary Erin Dalton. Vertigo asserted that this would not compromise the journalistic integrity or autonomy of the magazine. Students had grievances about our content being out of touch, they said.A 2020 Vertigo editor told Honi that their experience with the UTSSA was not positive. It was quite a struggle getting a budget approved that didnt entirely undervalue the work we were doing and leave us with no money to make and print a good magazine. It constantly felt that certain members of the SA didnt take Vertigo seriously since it was more of a literary and arts magazine with some cultural commentary and political pieces.In January this year, ORourke made significant cuts to Vertigo. The Vertigo team proposed an ideal budget of $75,043, a compromised one of $65,827 and a minimum of $54,935 for their 2021 expenditure. ORourke approved the minimum budget, allowing for the printing of only two volumes of Vertigo this year. They have since been given additional funding, with volume two being printed and the possibility of more print editions subject to a mid-year review.Disclaimer: Claire Ollivain is a member of USyd Grassroots. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Unpaid internships have become a staple of the Australian media sector, promising professional experience and employment opportunities to young people looking to gain a foothold in a collapsing industry. But this job description belies a sobering reality. In most cases, unpaid internships merely sanction the widespread exploitation of students for free labour. Despite guidelines issued by the Media Alliance and legal restrictions under the Fair Work Act, the extensive use of interns has become essential to some media companies business models. A 2016 Department of Employment report states that almost 6% of people aged 18-29 had completed unpaid work in media or a creative industry. And, in a weakened post-pandemic economy, this practice will only become more prevalent.Offspring Magazine operates with a team of interns all year-round. Owned by Kate Durack, the magazine touts itself as Australias largest gloss and digital parenting magazine with 1.4 million readers annually. Its website claims the magazine is created by real mums and dads for the modern parent.Yet, according to Caitlin*, who completed an internship at Offspring in November 2019, more than half the magazine is produced by its team of eight unpaid interns, all of whom were in their early twenties.Stephanie,* who left after only a short period interning at the magazine, tells Honi that essentially all of the magazine is put together by interns, she says.Offspring relies on unpaid interns for the completion of integral tasks that would typically be undertaken by a paid employee, directly contravening Fair Work guidelines. In fact, in her introductory email to Caitlin, Durack requested that she treat it as [she] would any job.Honi was also able to view screenshots of Durack delegating work via email, confirming that the magazine enlists unpaid interns for distribution, articles, ad creation, marketing, social media posts and Search Engine Optimisation.Though interns are promised the opportunities to develop their writing portfolios, they are often tasked with menial work crucial for the economic prosperity of the magazine. Stephanie began the internship after having to leave her paid journalism role due to COVID-19.I told [Durack] that as long as I was able to keep writing articles, I would be happy. She said that would be fine.But the work Stephanie completed during her time in the program had nothing to do with writing. The largest task she completed was resizing images on the magazines website.Even when interns are given the opportunity to publish their writing, much of their work goes uncredited, meaning they are unable to gain exposure. In the six months that Caitlin worked at Offspring, she was only given credit for one of her pieces. The majority of her articles and reviews were published under the byline of freelancer.In 2020 alone, 30 articles have been published on the Offspring website attributed to an unnamed freelancer. Many appear to have had little or no editorial oversight, with several appearing to be restatements of product press releases and one stating incomprehensibly amar number e call dao.A lack of educational guidance further renders Offsprings use of unpaid interns as unlawful. The Fair Work Act states that observation, learning and skill development are indicative of a role that should be unpaid. Yet, despite promises of industry mentorship, Stephanie says that the program provided negligible educational opportunities for the interns, who worked from home.There was no mentorship and very little oversight. Id be thinking to myself what the hell are we supposed to be doing?Caitlin had a similar experience.I chose to specialise as a writer but never received any constructive feedback on anything that I wrote. I can honestly say there was no effort from [Durack] to help me become a better writer.Durack also regularly allocates assignments that take longer to complete than the agreed-upon hours of work, or are entirely outside of the job description. In the six months she worked at Offspring, Caitlin says that half of all of her weekly tasks exceeded the original commitment of one day per week.[Durack] often would give us work that took way longer than one day to finish. I would spend two to three days some weeks working for free. [Durack] was pushy and I felt pressured.At one point, I spent two weeks of the internship researching resorts and tourism activities in Thailand for [Duracks] upcoming holiday two full days of working as a personal travel agent. While I was there, all eight interns were made to do research for her holiday.On top of this, it appears there were little to no prospects for paid employment upon completion of the internship, with none of the interns in Caitlins program continuing at the magazine on a paid basis. According to Caitlin, Durack alluded at the start of the internship to the possibility of future employment opportunities at the conclusion of the six month unpaid period.[Durack] implied over the phone that there was a chance of getting hired so I pushed myself to excel in the role. I wanted to impress her and I was excited to learn new skills.But Caitlin quickly became disillusioned.It took two months for me to regret the day that I applied. Now that Ive finished Im hesitant to go for another internship and am fairly apprehensive about entering the journalism industry. Its gotten to the point that I am looking at other career paths, Caitlin says.Stephanie says that during her time at the magazine, several interns kept working at Offspring after their program had ended. She understands that they too were unpaid. Under the Fair Work Act, an intern is entitled to payment for the work they perform where they are in an employment relationship with an employer, and the internship is not a vocational placement that is a requirement for a course.While vocational placements are easy to define, it can often be unclear to interns whether they are in an employment relationship. Though unpaid internships are often advertised as work experience, where interns find themselves doing the same work as paid employees with little by way of professional development they have rights to payment.Mass layoffs at NewsCorp, Fairfax and the ABC, as well as the shuttering of BuzzFeed News Australia and eight Bauer Media magazines, have seen hundreds of young journalists lose their jobs in recent months. Desperation amongst young people has made them even more vulnerable to exploitation.Its frustrating because I dont want this to keep happening to other people, Stephanie says. I was lucky that I had enough industry experience to see the internship for what it was, but a lot of younger and less experienced people wont. And they can be taken advantage of.As the consumption of goods and services declines in a post-pandemic economy, businesses like Offspring will look to further cut costs, potentially by appointing unpaid workers. Additionally, COVID-19 is severely limiting the number of jobs available to university graduates, thereby increasing competition and the perceived need to stand apart from ones cohort by having unpaid industry experience. This further allows companies, like Offspring, to hire unpaid interns in perpetuity to undertake work that should be occupied by an employee in a paid role. Now, more than ever, there is a need for legislators to provide stronger work protections for unpaid interns.Ive honestly become quite jaded over the whole experience, Stephanie says.Interning in this industry is something you really need if youre going to get anywhere and you need to be very privileged to be able to take on unpaid work.If were going to keep that norm, we really need to reexamine the relationship we have with unpaid workers. Perhaps if people are getting genuine skills, unpaid internships can be justified. But there is a lot of exploitation. It needs to stop.Kate Durack did not respond to Honis request for comment.*Names have been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Honi can reveal several new allegations of racist, sexist and hazing incidents which have occurred at St Andrews College since the Broderick Review into Cultural Renewal at Residential Colleges report was released in late 2017.Written by former-Sex Discrimination Comissioner Elizabeth Broderick, the review was a million dollar report into sexual violence at the University of Sydneys residential colleges, with the exception of St Pauls, who joined on later. Criticised by anti-sexual assault activists for its superficial approach, the report neglected to include case studies or quotes from survivors, and only conducted a small number of interviews with current and former college students. The review failed to mention the scandal-ridden history of the colleges or include the events in 2016 which led in part to the commissioning of the report, including articles from Pulp Media and Honi Soit on Wesley Colleges Rackweb, St Pauls Bone Room and sexual violence at St Andrews itself.In response to the perceived failings of the Broderick Review, End Rape on Campus Australia published the Red Zone Report in early 2018. The report found that 1 in 12 female St Andrews students had experienced attempted or completed rape or sexual assault since commencing the joint highest rate of all the colleges. Other notable incidents include the words enter the halls of misogyny spray painted at the College in 1993, residents advertising their 2006 formal with the slogan More Moles, More Holes, and the burning of an LGBTQ pride flag in 2016.The Broderick Review laid out a number of recommendations for cultural renewal at residential colleges, including an end to hazing rituals, the development of a harm minimisation alcohol policy and a specific sexual misconduct policy, along with greater gender diversity in student leadership. As a result of the report, St Andrews College committed to a policy of zero tolerance to hazing and sexual misconduct, harmful alcohol, use, harassment and damage to property. St Andrews lists the outcome as being accomplished in their 1-year progress report. St Andrews Principal, Wayne Erickson, tells Honi that he believes that the college has now implemented all of the Reviews recommendations.But concerningly, hazing practices known as walkabout at St Andrews continued after the publication of the Broderick Review. Walkabout a hazing ritual in practice since at least 1997 involves the auctioning of first year students to second year students. First years are made to kneel on hands and knees during the bidding. Popular students are sold for several hundred dollars, and less popular students are sold for as little as $5. The money is donated to charity.First year students are then made to perform different tasks for the buyers. One student told Honi that she was made to steal and break street signs. First year students are then forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol, and afterwards are taken to unknown, often remote, areas and left to find their way back home.Emma* told Honi that in 2018 she was left in rural NSW as part of walkabout. The group was allowed only $50 between them, and had to hitchhike back to Sydney. So it was really demeaning to be auctioned and the event itself was dangerous, she says.Post-Broderick Review, participating students were asked to sign a consent form, doing nothing to remove the significant social pressures on students to participate. Everyone knows that unless you go to Highlanders, unless you drink, unless you participate in group stuff, youre probably gonna have a shit time at college, Emma says.Getting students to sign consent waivers so that institutional responsibility is abnegated is the very opposite of cultural reform and accountability, Red Zone Report lead author Nina Funnell tells Honi. Students should be provided with a safe living environment, not asked to sign waivers accepting that they understand the environment is unsafe. Though the forms were issued by the Student Club, Emma says that staff were aware of walkabout, and that sort of thing could not have happened without the greenlight from staff. Walkabout was cancelled in 2019.St Andrews declined to respond to questions regarding whether hazing rituals still occur within the College, and failed to provide Honi with details as to whether any students had been suspended or expelled from St Andrews in the past year.Other toxic elements of college culture have only become more secretive. Though St Andrews has abandoned the Lolly Buffet where students announced recent hookups over the colleges PA system (including an instance where an alleged sexual assault was broadcast to the college), similar activity is now run online through a Facebook profile Drews Buffet. The page posts about recent hook-ups in a closed college resident Facebook group.For some, a mention by Drews Buffet is a point of pride. I know that for a lot of people being tagged by buffet in these posts is almost a cool thing because it shows that the things youre doing matters and that you matter, Emma says.One post, from May 2019, shows results from a poll of the hottest mums following a Mothers Day event at the college. Another, from September 2019, discusses a resident hitting on a 50 year old woman, with college men in the comment thread referring to each other as tunnel buddies a reference to group sex. A separate post from the same month contains a timeline of a previous evenings events, including the entry [redacted] roots a girl while his dad is passed out on the floor.Its unclear to what extent the college administration actively monitors the page or the student Facebook groups, but a 2012 post promoting the colleges public Facebook page on the Drews Buffet profile from the then-Dean of Students indicates that the administration is at least aware of its existence. St Andrews College failed to respond to a question concerning the extent to which the College monitors any students Facebook groups.This is particularly concerning given a history of unsavoury social media use at Sydney Universitys residential colleges. The Red Zone Report details a St Johns College ritual called the Purge where students were invited to share embarrassing photos of themselves and details of sexual encounters. In 2009, St Pauls College came under fire for a pro-rape Facebook page, and again in 2017 for a Facebook group with sexist posts describing having sex with women as harpooning whale[s].Though the Broderick Review canvasses harmful uses of social media, reporting that approximately 8% of students at St Andrews had witnessed inappropriate commentary/images/film distributed on social media without consent, none of its recommendations specifically pertain to social media use.Honi can also reveal two serious instances of white nationalist sentiment at the College. In one case white power was graffitied on a memorial to a deceased St Andrews College student. Honi understands that the graffiti was done within the past year. When questioned on whether the College knew about the incident and had investigated it, St Andrews Principal Wayne Erickson said, This has previously not been reported to meI would be grateful for any information you might have (time and date) which will allow us to investigate it further.In another instance, a current St Andrews student posted in the college students Facebook group saying that shed lost her guinea pig, and if found it would respond to the name Adolf. Honi understands that the student deleted the post after a period of time, but not before other students had haha and love reacted to it.Students are also known to defecate, urinate and vomit in common areas of St Andrews. This is an expected occurrence after nights at the Highlander and Salisbury (the bars of St Andrews and St Pauls, respectively), and such behaviours occur pretty frequently.A post from May 2019 in a closed college Facebook group shows a video of faeces left in a hallway, with the caption WARNING: Someone has taken a massive shit on the second floor of main. Watch your step. The hallways are a common target of faeces, and urine and vomit are often found in the showers. The clean up is left to college staff.Such behaviour is not isolated to hallways and showers, with students also defecating in the bedrooms of fellow residents. Honi has obtained an image shared in a messenger conversation between two former St Andrews students, showing a man, naked from the waist down, who has defecated in the room of a female student and fallen asleep on her floor after she had left her door open overnight.This behaviour recalls similar instances described in the Red Zone Report, including a 1986 incident where male St Andrews students would break into the Womens College and masturbate in their corridors, to more recent reports of male students ejaculating into the shampoo and body wash bottles of unknowing female residents who would then wash themselves with the semen and product. These most recent events are appalling, but they are by no means isolated incidents at St Andrews, Funnell says. There is a long history of sexism, misogyny and racism within the college; its like asbestos, its in the very walls.Emma says that staff responses have been unsatisfactory. Theres been a lot of complaints from girls to the VP of college regarding the lad behaviour of boys, she says. But ultimately it just turned into an awkward conversation in the Highlander Bar, post-dinner with the students club to discuss what was inappropriate behaviour.These incidents support fears that the Broderick Review would be used as a tick-a-box measure for residential colleges to respond to embarrassing scandals, rather than impetus to engage in the deep structural and cultural reform necessary. Indeed, St Andrews appears to have deleted its own Broderick Review report from its website.Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence, has said that whilst weve made a lot of progress in terms of implementing structural changes to encourage cultural renewalthis doesnt mean our work is done. Racism and any other form of intimidating, abusive or discriminatory behaviour on our campus is completely unacceptable. The University, however, was not aware of any of the incidents detailed above. When contacted, Elizabeth Broderick stated that St Andrews had not been in contact with her since the Review occurred.A college culture resistant to change remains. Emma says that students who spoke out against the college in 2016 remain the focus of hatred even now. Ultimately college is a bubble that exists in its own world, distinct from reality. Drews survives on secrecy, and denial of its issues. Despite the platitudes offered by the University of Sydney and St Andrews College, it seems that very little has changed at all.____________________________________________________If you have any more information on this story, cultural renewal at the colleges more broadly, or anything that you think is in the student interest, please feel free to contact us at editors@honisoit.com. Should you wish to remain anonymous, we will respect that. Alternatively, you can send us an anonymous tip. We only receive your message, and the time and date of submission.If you are a student at the University of Sydney and you wish to report an instance of sexual assault or misconduct to the university, you can do so through the universitys reporting portal, available on their website. The student liaison officers can be contacted for assistance in this process through their email (safer-communities.officer@sydney.edu.au) or by calling 1800 SYD HLP.If this article has caused you any distress you can reach out to the following organisations for assistance:Free counselling through RPA Sexual Assault Clinic , 9515 9040 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am 5:00pm).RDVSA NSW Rape Crisis Hotline, 1800 424 017 (24hrs, 7 days)*Name has been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the New South Wales Government introducing the Public Health Act on 17 March in a bid to curb cases of coronavirus in the state, Honi takes a look at the rates of COVID-19, how the NSW Police Force is punishing breaches of the legislation, and incidents of anti-Asian racism.To date, the majority of confirmed cases in every state in Australia were acquired overseas, with low rates of community transition nationwide. In terms of overseas travel, the considerable majority of COVID-19 cases have been traced back to cruise ships and travelling in Europe and the Americas.This goes some way in explaining somewhat of a correlation between higher income postcodes and rates of the coronavirus. For example, in Sydney the highest rates of virus cases are in the local government areas of Waverley and the City of Sydney.Yet, whilst rates of the virus are comparatively high in Sydneys leafy, beachside suburbs, rates of fines are comparatively low. With 177 cases in Waverley, two fines have been issued. The Northern Beaches report 151 cases but only four fines have been issued. Yet, in Sydneys more working class and ethnically diverse western suburbs, the rates are notably higher. By local government area (LGA), Blacktown (106 cases) has been hit with 12 fines, Canterbury-Bankstown (88 cases) with 13, Liverpool (48 cases) with 9 and Parramatta (45 cases), with 9.Whilst the highest number of fines have been issued in the City of Sydney (with the second highest number of virus cases), the CBD and its surrounds may be considered to be an outlier, bucking the general trend.The table below compares COVID-19 cases with highest and lowest 7 LGAs, in terms of median weekly income (personal).Top 7LGAMedian Weekly Income (personal)COVID-19 CasesFinesMunicipality of Woollahra$1,365921Mosman Council$1,295420North Sydney Council$1,165420Lane Cove Council$1,149370Waverley Council$1,0481772Inner West Council$957704Ku-ring-gai Council$946222TOTALS$1132 (avg)4829Bottom 7LGAMedian Weekly Income (personal)COVID-19 CasesFinesCity of Blacktown$63310612City of Campbelltown$632345Municipality of Burwood$55280City of Canterbury-Bankstown$5028813Cumberland Council$501662City of Liverpool$466489City of Fairfield$439297TOTALS$532 (avg)37948Further, whilst Sydney accounts for close to triple the amount of COVID-19 cases compared to the rest of New South Wales, when it comes to issuing fines, there is a disproportionate split. For fines where a location has been logged, Sydney has been hit by 147, and the rest of New South Wales by 145.Of particular interest are the seven LGAs with no confirmed cases of COVID-19 who have been hit by fines. These include: Balranald Shire (7) in the Riverina region, Bourke Shire (3) in the Orana region, Cobar Shire (10) in the Orana region, Moree Plains (1) in the North West slopes region, Murray River Council (1) in the Riverina region, Murrumbidgee Council (2) in the Riverina region and Walgett Shire (3) in the Orana region.If we take these laws and the enforcement of them by the police to be a) necessary and b) enforced purely for the sake of our public health and safety, the geographical implementation of them seems disproportionate.It is pertinent to mention then that six out of seven of the above LGAs have high Indigenous populations, with Balranald Shire at 13.3%, Bourke Shire at 31.5%, Cobar Shire at 11.8%, Moree Plains at 21.6%, Murrumbidgee Shire at 7.5% and Walgett Shire at 29.4%. As of the 2016 census, the states Indigenous population was 2.9%.In response to Honis questions regarding how the Force is policing the pandemic, a spokesperson said there was no correlation between the number of people with the virus in a specific area and the number of people who have breached the public health order.Click on the top left link beside Mapping COVID-19 to compare COVID-19 cases, fines and racism-incidents in LGAs across Sydney and greater NSW.Yet, the notion that the NSW Police Force are a neutral body and police in such a manner must come into question. Continual instances of oppressive police relationships with Indigenous communities and more general heavy-handedness typifies the problematic allowance of discretion especially in the current health crisis, which has long-term and pervasive impacts.Moreover, the very nature of non-income dependent fines as a punishment mechanism by nature are discriminatory as their role as a deterrent is undermined for wealthier demographics. These effects are pronounced in the current situation, where wealthier LGAs have higher cases of the virus.Instances of anti-Asian racism have also been on the rise throughout the coronavirus crisis. Last week, a 55 year old man was charged by NSW Police after he allegedly threatened people with a whip outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney. In response to increased racism, the Asian Australian Alliance has put out a survey, which is forming a database of incidents. Whilst only launched just over two weeks ago, national convenor of the alliance, Erin Wen Ai Chew told Honi that there have already been 66 complaints via the survey in NSW alone, as of 17 April.Whilst seven of the complainants did not include locations, most did and these have been plotted on the map.This table shows the top 7 LGAs by incidents of racism, courtesy of data provided by the Asian Australian Alliance.LGAIncidents of racismMost common ancestryCity of Sydney10Australian, English, Chinese, IrishBankstown-Canterbury7Lebanese, Australian, English, ChineseNorthern Beaches Council4English, Australian, Irish, ScottishCity of Randwick3English, Australian, Chinese, IrishBurwood Council3Chinese, English, Australian, ItalianCity of Parramatta3Indian, Chinese, English, AustralianCity of Ryde3Chinese, English, Australian, ItalianAs indicated above, six out of the seven LGAs have high Chinese populations.Ultimately, whilst many say that this virus doesnt discriminate, its clear that responses to it do. Whether in the form of policing or anti-Asian racism, this virus, much like other crises continues to exacerbate the structural inequalities in our society.All data as of Friday 17 March.FinesInformation on fines was collected from the NSW Police website and samples 292 fines out of 609.COVID-19 informationVirus information was collected from NSW Health.Demographic informationDemographic information was collected from 2016 Census data.Racism incidentsAnti-Asian racism information was compiled from data provided by the Asian Australian Alliance survey into racist incidents from 2 April. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In recent years, Chinas growing dominance and geopolitical aspirations have sent shockwaves across a world that is still coming to terms with what is perhaps a changing international order. And no where have these shockwaves been felt more keenly than in Australia. This is reflected in our media, a quick skim of which will reveal a fixation on our ties with China ,with numerous articles and segments put out on a daily basis updating the public on what is becoming an increasingly volatile relationship. Of particular interest is a concern about Chinese interference in Australian society. While Chinese interference in Australia seems all-pervasive and ever-present, it is actually a very recent national worry. Searching it up on Factiva, a news database, and localising it to ten major newspapers in Australia show that before 2017, unique articles which mentioned Chinese interference or influence, whether they be news or opinion, averaged around 15 a year, with some years not even breaking into the double digits. However, everything changed in 2017 with the Sam Dastyari donation scandal, which saw him resign from his Senate position after it was exposed that he had informed prominent Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo that he might be under surveillance by Australian intelligence agencies. Huang had previously donated around $44,000 to Dastyari, in a move that was suspected as being on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Later in 2017, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced laws aimed at cracking down on foreign interference, and the number of articles about Chinese interference had soared to 331 from only 40 in 2016. If 2017 was the year when the fuse was lit, 2018 was when concerns about Chinese interference exploded, the media fixation skyrocketing to 747 articles. And with two months of the year left, almost 500 articles about Chinese interference have been published in 2019 by major Australian news outlets.However, as fears about Chinese interference increase in Australian society, so have fears that this anxiety could potentially spiral into something far more sinister. The unavoidable shadow of the increased media scrutiny on Chinese influence is the risk of spreading Sinophobic sentiment across Australian society. The gravity of such a risk cannot be understated. 1.2 million people of Chinese heritage call this country home roughly 5.6% of our total population; Australia has the largest Chinese community percentage wise out of any country outside of Asia. At the locus of both these fears is a subset of the Chinese community in Australia the 150,000 or so international students from Mainland China who are currently studying at an Australian tertiary institute. How these international students have been represented by the media has been a glaring point of public contention. While some argue that criticisms of the scrutiny placed on them seeks to use race as a means of deflecting conversation on Chinese interference, others believe the discussion has taken on an inflammatory nature that will further isolate what is already a vulnerable group of people.Corpus AnalysisTo unearth the hidden ideologies and patterns behind the media discourse surrounding international students from China in Australia, Honi undertook a corpus analysis of the reporting done on this topic. A research tool from linguistics, corpus analysis examines language from the bigger picture, allowing for incisions to be made on a large body of texts a corpora to reveal patterns of language that would not be seen if these texts were read separately, sentence by sentence. More importantly, it allows for a more quantitative evidential basis for phenomena which we intuit from anecdotes or our own gut feeling. Media discourse in particular represents a treasure trove for corpus analysis, for it can tell a great deal about the underlying ideologies and beliefs held by a society in the way it frames certain current affairs issues. In the past, it has been used to illuminate how the medias use of language has reproduced and reinforced societal prejudices against groups such as refugees and transgender people.By using the terms Chinese student and its variations and combining it with the localising term Australia, we built a corpus of 95 news articles and 56 opinion pieces, all published in 2019, sourced from 10 major newspapers in Australia across different Australian states. We then analysed every instance in which the term Chinese student(s) appeared and the context it was framed by, in particular, noting the verbs which followed it. Our analysis found systematic language patterns which seemed to infer three separate categories in which the Australian media represents international students from mainland China as a commodity, as a victim, and as an aggressor.CommoditySitting at the forefront of national thought on China and the Chinese government, international Chinese students in Australia have become an avenue for the media to link foreign interference with Australias dependence on Chinese trade. They are framed as income for Australia, cash cows, whose assumedly wealthy Chinese parents contribute to an ever dependent national economy. In our reading of over 95 news articles, most language associated with depictions of Chinese international students referenced was quantifiable and economically focussed. Many articles focussed on shifting higher cost markets and the boosting of revenue. Out of the 170 times the term Chinese student(s) was mentioned, 82 of them were couched with economic language. In the same way a resource such as iron or coal would be written about, our analysis showed a preoccupation with Chinese students as a fee-paying commodity that must be bolstered in response to a flattening of growth that signals the end of a boom. And while it is clear that their presence on Australian campuses presents a risk (the word and its variations appearing more than 70 times), the majority of media references to risk are not political, but economic, and are often accompanied by terms such as over-reliance and dependence.AggresorWith Chinas growing geopolitical dominance and the advent of the Hong Kong protests, Chinese students have been deemed simultaneously both victims and aggressors. The media conceptualises them as aggressors, towards pro-Hong Kong protestors and Australias democratic institutions, yet they remain devoid of their own agency, shackled to an omnipresent and oppressive Communist government. In the corpus analysis of Chinese students in mainstream media opinion pieces, Chinese international students are linguistically associated with aggression, intimidation, spying and an escalation of tensions.Theyre also recognised as being disproportionately represented, living in Sydneys Chinese bubble and surging into Australian universities enmass while engaging in thuggery. In news pieces, this linguistic association is not as strong, but still visible. International students from China do not win political power in campus elections, but seize it. They do not go to Canberra for a pro-Chinese government rally, but descend upon it.Part of the problem is that, given the increasing commercialisation of news in Australia, there is a tendency to focus reporting on sensational events that can draw clicks and views while leaving out less eye-catching events which are equally important in painting out a complete portrait of the issue. This was noted in a tweet by USyd professor David Brophy, who remarked how pro-Hong Kong protests at USyd which happened without disruption, while attracting a significant physical presence of the main media establishments, generated no actual coverage.If you only cover HK activism when theres conflict, you risk creating an incentive for conflict, his tweet concludes, referring to a past protest which ended in physical confrontations between pro-China and pro-Hong Kong protestors, and was frequently cited by media as an example of Chinese student aggression.VictimYet paradoxically, media representations conceptualise this aggression to hide a deep vulnerability and passivity. Their actions, though seen as violent, are not spurred by carefully cultivated personal belief or rational thinking, but is the result of being mobilised or orchestrated by some larger organisation in the background the CCP. These conflicting traits of aggression and passivity often manifest in the same sentence, and can create an image of Chinese international students as being mindless fanatics. Likewise, more sympathetic media representations of Chinese students occur when they are the ones being spied upon or intimidated. Once again, the organisation behind this is the CCP. Further highlighting how intertwined these three categories are, representations of victimhood in Chinese people,brought about by Australian society as opposed to the CCP, is often coupled with references to negative economic consequences for Australia.Those Chinese people in Australia who sang the praises of local goods such as food, infant formula and healthcare products to their friends back home on WeChat and other social media sites boosting the China sales of many Australian companies are now also telling friends about the anti-China debate in Australia.China Trade Tide slowing, The Australian, 25th September 2019This reveals a wider societal thinking where we must care for Chinese people victimised by the CCP out of our commitment to Western liberal values, but when they are victimised by Australian society, we must care out of economic necessity.While deep-seated yellow-peril fears underlies some of Australias increasing societal paranoia against Chinese international students and the larger Chinese-Australian community, it would be inaccurate to attribute this anxiety solely on racial tensions. This is especially given that a sizeable amount of the concern regarding Chinese influence in Australia comes from the Chinese community itself. However, with it has come a trend of certain outlets airing out more inflammatory comments about Chinese influence through critics of Chinese heritage the seeming rationale being that their Chinese ethnicity both legitimises their opinion, and also shields it from any criticism. For example, in the latest edition of The Quarterly Essay, Feng Chongyi, a Chinese-Australian academic who was detained in China for a week in 2017, is quoted as saying;The majority of Chinese-Australians have been wavering politically They are Australian citizens but they have never shown that to the Australian public. But hundreds of thousands of them will come out to wave the red flag to welcome Chinese government visitors.Red Flag, Peter Harcher, The QuaterlySuch sweeping statements position Chinese-Australians as a potential fifth column in Australian society, characterising them as being more loyal to the Chinese state than to their home country. Putting aside the dangerous implications of the statement, it exposes the tenuous position many Chinese-Australians currently find themselves in a powder keg of legitimate concerns mixed with a growing paranoia about their loyalties.Nothing written in any of the newspapers analysed, even the most inflammatory of opinion pieces, can be said to be overtly Sinophobic. However, the underlying ideology reproduced through the language of the Australian media can be argued as being one where problematic, if not Sinophobic, inferences can be drawn and harmful stereotypes are perpetuated.Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations,The aforementioned incident in particular presents an alarming case study of how inflammatory reporting of Chinese international students can have damaging consequences for Australias Chinese community in general. In the Sydney Morning Herald article Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations, Chinese protestors at the event are reduced to jingoistic slogans and disturbing threats of violent. It states that the protestors were there to support Beijings policies in Hong Kong without explaining what these policies actually are. While it is undeniable that ugly confrontations did occur during the protest, the report prioritises eye-catching outbursts of violence from the protestors over an exploration of the motives behind their protest. Instead of featuring a protestor explaining their reasons for protesting, it outsources this work to official sources, the Chinese ambassador, thus framing the protestors as devoid of any real agency or independent thought. This is in stark contrast to an SBS news report on the same protest, which does not shy away from reporting on the violent actions and words of some protestors, but contextualises this with quotes from more moderate protestors giving reasoned explanations about why they attended the rally. While the SMH article generalises the anti-Hong kong democracy protestors as mainland protestors, the SBS article instead highlights the diversity of the attendees, stating that they were new migrants, international students and second or third generation Chinese-Australians. Finally and most interestingly is the question of translation. At the rally, a Chinese protestor is heard saying into a loudspeaker with regards to Hong Kong protestors; the SBS report translated this into get out while the SMH one translated it into the more inflammatory get the fk out. While an argument can be made for both translations, this example highlights how translation itself can be used as a tool to frame a news story in order to advance a certain narrative. Unsurprisingly, the SMH article elicited an outraged response from the Australian public. On the r/Australia subreddit, a A dusty corner on the internet where you can chew the fat about Australia and Australians with almost 380 thousand members, a post sharing the article amassed numerous comments calling for the mass deportation and surveillance of Chinese Australians. While some commentators were careful to distinguish between the different groups of Chinese-Australians, others used the article as an opportunity to air larger racial grievances against Chinese-Australians seemingly taking over Australia. More disturbingly, many of the top comments in thread seemed to suggest that race riots directed against Chinese-Australians were inevitable should these Pro-China protests continue.Let me know when the race riots are scheduled. Having scumbags on Visas, protest in a foreign land about the benefits of oppression, is something I feel is only resolved with beating. one comment reads.USYD Rants as a microcosmic forumThe mainstream anti-Chinese sentiment that has cascaded about the Australian public sphere of late is alarmingly recognisable in the online spaces in which University students engage. Facebook page USYDRants, the locally iconic hub of student sentiment produces a daily linguistic representation of student opinion. It is here that our original search began, where student thought is unedited and university bureaucracy is removed from the conversation.Whats particularly important to note is that the rise of these online blasts correlate with the rise of international student representation in student politics as much as they interact with the focus of foreign interference in the mainstream media. Since last year, when the University of Sydney Student Representative Council saw its presidency won by Chinese domestic student Jacky He and headkicker of one of the major international student factions on campus, Panda, a wave of foreign interference narratives have made gains in University campuses across the country. This year a government taskforce was released, a Four Corners report brought producers to Eastern Avenue and the university was forced to condemn an unregulated survey that asked students if international students should be restricted from student politics. The pages of USYD Rants reflects these transformations that now appear to be at the forefront of student consciousness.The rise of Sinophobic commentary in USYD Rants peaks in the same way that we have seen an emergence of anti-Chinese sentiment in the headlines of major Australian publications. The last year has seen an exponential rise in this kind of language and phrasing. Though the rants of individual students reflect similar anxieties of the Australian mainstream media landscape, these are more centralised, more individually punitive. The major panics of anonymous university student blasts are associated with either an invasion of what they deem to be their space or a depiction of Chinese international students as dishonest, lazy and deviant.In a study of up to 50 USYD Rants posted sporadically throughout the year of 2019, one can see a pattern of students considering international students positions in Australian universities to be undeserved; a breakdown, if you will, of the power and prestige of this sandstone edifice. Overwhelmingly, the posts either centred or included the use or misuse of language in education spaces. Over 90% of these rants suggested that international students should either be learning more English before they commenced their studies, that English was the only language that should be taught in university settings, that international students should not find it hard to get by with a foreign language and that standards of language and communication at the university were being pulled down by the presence of international students in tutorials. One rant for example reads, I dont understand the arguments that highlight the difficulties of living internationally and having to get by with a foreign language. This is a university, it should require the highest standards of language and communication. Though the rants, amassed together, paint a picture of the othering of international students by domestic students across the board, many of these ranters go to great lengths to separate themselves from the label of racist. One rant reads I dont understand how it is racist to expect a professional level of English ability from your classmates in a university course with English language instruction Ive had issues with people from ALL parts of the world in this respect.Geographically, the descriptions of these rants are often situated in the universitys libraries an environment overcrowded with hundreds of students desperately attempting to find a place to focus. The second most common location is the tutorial room in which group coursework encourages domestic student engagement with international students. In and outside of these spaces, comments on the admission of international students to degrees regardless of intelligence and the universitys reliance on international students are commonly discussed.The danger withinResearch has shown that the ramifications of interactions between Western and Chinese students can more often than not lead to more open hostility. As Henry Chiu Hail has noted in his 2015 research paper Patriotism Abroad: Overseas Chinese Students Encounters With Criticisms of China, assumptions of Chinese life and governance by Western students has more often than not left Chinese international students feeling isolated and disconnected from the country in which theyre studying. Anti-Chinese sentiment is no doubt rising in the West and it can now be found in our very own quadrangle, obfuscated by the language of our media. While Australia must remain vigilant about Chinese interference in our society, we must keep an equally vigilant eye on how the media we consume, whether it be newspapers or Facebook rants, perpetuates harmful ideologies about Chinese people, particularly international students. For if we are not, the greatest threat to our nations democracy is not some foreign actor, but ourselves. The newspapers used in the analysis are; The Advertiser (Adelaide) The Age (Melbourne) The Australian Financial Review The Australian Canberra Times (Canberra) Courier Mail (Brisbane) Daily Telegraph (Sydney) The Herald Sun (Melbourne) The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) The West Australian (Perth) Corpus analysis was carried out using AntConc, developed by Laurence Anthony <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Enter the cubicle of any bathroom on campus, and youll see ads for essay help and ghostwriting services plastered to the door. Advertisements for these services circulate on social media platforms like WeChat, and find their way into student inboxes and message banks. At USyds very own Welcome Week this year, two stalls were shut down after distributing contract cheating materials.The contract cheating industry seems only to be growing but so are efforts to crack down upon it. In April, screensavers on USyd library computers were changed to a digital notice warning that contract cheating puts everyone at risk. USyd licenced Authorship Investigate for trial this year, a machine learning tool developed by Turnitin to learn a students writing style and flag divergences. In July, the federal government drafted legislation making contract cheating a criminal offence, a move that was welcomed by USyd.In August, a new detection method developed by the University of New South Wales recognised that contract cheating practices had risen on campus by 2000%. With deterrence through assignment design being deemed impossible by university faculties, the focus is now on prosecution. Perhaps this aggressive stance is where the problem lies.In a corporatising system that places the onus on the individual, institutions often fail to recognise the complexities behind the issue. The normalisation of contract cheating for students within certain communities, the targeting of students by major organisations, and the financial, cultural and familial pressures that come with completing a university degree far from home are just some relevant factors. In underground networks of ghostwriting communities, one can see an issue far more complex and intricate than can be Unlearnt through C-Sight Forums, writing hubs, mandatory modules and criminal offence legislation.What has clearly been missing in public discussions of contract cheating is a middle ground, as well as a look into the intricacies of what truly forms the contract cheating network.Understanding the Uni responseThe force surrounding the eradication of contract cheating is understandable when one observes its broader effect on a universitys reputation.Even for students who shun any form of cheating (the overwhelming majority), contract cheating poses a risk to the reputation of the degrees they will earn, a University of Sydney spokesperson told Honi. Cheating can undermine the rankings of individual students, as well as the academic integrity of entire units of study.We go to great lengths to protect students and their degrees from this risk.Yet the ways in which universities have cracked down on contract cheating has created a public narrative that fails to consider or investigate the issues nuances. Scare tactics do not seem to have any effect because they do not recognise that if students are either in desperate need of support or consider the networks to be so well concealed that they will not be found out, then they will continue to cheat regardless of university meddling. Surely universities should be informing students of the potential risks that go far beyond just failing a unit.We spoke to Cath Ellis, an Associate Professor at UNSW and a researcher in academic integrity. She elaborated upon some of the considerations that often fail to be explored in university discussions on contract cheating: The emotional and financial costs of getting caught, the risk of blackmail, the risks from the lax data security of people who are providing these services (as the 2014 MyMaster scandal demonstrated), and the risks of receiving poor quality work and failing anyway and therefore the risks of losing money.This month, USyd distributed a series of emails introducing the implementation of a C-Sights forum: an anonymous and confidential academic integrity discussion that asks students to consider the reasons why contract cheating is occurring across campuses, and what it can do to help prevent further misconduct.This investigation is the first time a Sydney university has attempted proper peer review research into the ins and outs of student cheating. Nevertheless, the impact of this survey will likely be minimal. Students are not encouraged to engage beyond this new online space. Theyre also not reminded in classes of the issues significance. Those who do engage in contract cheating out of a genuine disregard for academic integrity will shy away, whilst those who cheat out of desperation will perhaps not consider the forum a priority The university needs to consider the structural change at play and this starts by ensuring that all students are engaged in the conversation.The vulnerable cheaterBut why do students cheat at all? Cath Ellis identified three key factors that had a high correlation with contracting cheating behaviour.Students whose first language is one other than English, students who were feeling dissatisfied with the teaching environment in which they were learning and students who saw an opportunity to cheat, she said.An anonymous survey of international students conducted by Honi demonstrated an overwhelmingly negative perception of contract cheaters. Students who cheat were called rich and lazy, serial procrastinators, indolent, useless. These views conjure the popular stereotype of affluent international students simply too lazy or unbothered to do their own work.However, this stereotype is not necessarily reflective of the reality. Many students appear to cheat out of struggle, necessity, desperation and inadequate support. A 2018 joint paper written by academics Susan Rowland and Christine Slade and students Kai-Sheng Wong and Brooke Whiting coins the notion of the vulnerable cheating student.We propose that the vulnerable student is a person who does not set out to cheat instead, they slide into cheating because they can be persuaded that it is appropriate assessment behaviour for their particular circumstances, the study reads.The term vulnerable does not mean that the student is innocent of blame when they cheat. It does, however, mean that the student is facing extenuating circumstances that make cheating appear to be less distasteful than other outcomes that may eventuate.One of our survey respondents, a computer science student, hired someone to complete their entire assignment through a friends recommendation. They said that they resorted to this method due to an unbearable university workload, and pointed out that the university does not do enough to support students who need writing help. For international students in particular, the price of studying at USyd can cost up to around $5500 a unit. Failing a subject and needing to retake it will add further thousands to the cost. Combined with other pressures, one can see how vulnerable international students might resort to cheating when the consequences of failure are so severe.The agencies hiding behind the sandstoneInterestingly, certain types of students are specifically targeted by contract cheating outlets most notably, students whose first language is not English. With 38% of all international students in Australia coming from China, advertisements for ghostwriting companies are typically written in Chinese. They are also frequently circulated around WeChat and other social media platforms, with many agencies even directly reaching out to students themselves leaving comments on posts, messaging people directly, or sending personalised emails to their inboxes.Furthermore, most contract cheating companies don a guise of legitimacy, masquerading as tutoring centres and essay editing services. EasyGPA, an organisation that USyd has refused to confirm is amongst those targeting its students, has sent thousands of emails to various students across campus, seemingly targeting students with Chinese last names.Researchers at Deakin University also found that some companies were scamming students into believing that working with an organisation would guarantee a high grade. They described the organisations as offering variable quality assignments, late submissions, and slow responses to user queries. When markers graded work, 52% of cheated tasks failed to meet the university pass standard, academic Wendy Sutherland Smith noted in the study.Some websites, mostly written in Chinese languages, also claim to be affiliated with particular universities. This creates an illusion of trustworthiness and accountability, something all too needed for students who are suffering academically. Plustudy is one example, a company that provides essay writing and editing services, that claims to cooperate with university institutions like RMIT, UNSW and UTS.The next stepAs yet, there have been few major student-led perspectives on contract cheating in Australian universities. Students have little opportunity to address this issue publicly, and the task is therefore mostly left to the University which, with its bureaucracy, will never truly understand the student experience. Ultimately, contract cheating, while on the rise at the University of Sydney, remains low across the board. And for those who do cheat, the focus is concentrated on their actions rather than the circumstances that led to them. Our increasingly corporatised universities have focused most of their attention on tackling the symptoms of the root issue, rather than ensuring that all students are adequately supported.But what can the university do to help students? Our survey respondents suggested several possibilities: more workshops for international students, writing workshops focused on Western essay-writing structures and styles, mentorship, and greater flexibility with extensions.While universities continue to push their drastic fear-mongering narratives, the student voice consistently goes unheard. Instead of criminalising contract cheating, an issue that cannot be solved at surface level, USyd needs to engage with the environment that so often leads to these behaviours. To start, the University needs a vast expansion of the Brennan McCallum learning hubs services, and better facilities tailored to working students and students whose first language is not English. Asking for help should not facilitate an environment of embarrassment or anxiety. Existing services should be better advertised and tailored more specifically to individual student needs. In the case of special considerations and extensions, university staff should take a compassionate investigative approach to each individual student and balance fairness with flexibility.Ultimately, the University needs to stop engaging with students in such antagonistic, limited and tokenistic ways. Students cannot thrive in a punitive and alarmist culture. We need a supportive university environment that is responsive to each students individual needs and circumstances. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article was published in the 2019 Semester 2, Week 1 edition of Honi Soit.Australians lose more while gambling than any other country: we lose more than $24 billion each year, approximately the GDP of Nepal. Per capita, we lose $1,200 each year. And gambling technology is only getting better at making us want to lose: the proliferation of randomised electronic race betting has meant that you dont need to wait for more than 2 minutes to place a bet on the next virtual horse or greyhound race; whereas many jurisdictions have banned special prize rounds on pokies, they can be found on every machine in Australia. By comparison, we have laxer gambling regulations than in the US, where pokies are restricted and most forms of online gambling are prohibited.Gambling shapes our lives and our cities. There are 10 different places within a 10 minute walking distance from the University of Sydney where you can play pokies.That fact cannot be separated from the reality that the gambling industry carries outsized importance within Australian politics. A recent proposal for a federal parliamentary inquiry into Crown Casinos was met with bipartisan opposition. In Tasmania, 90% of the Liberal Partys declared funds at its most recent state election came from pro-gambling lobby groups, a response to a promise by Labor to phase out pokie machines. In the ACT, Labor Party operated clubs see a $24 million annual return on pokies.But in no state does gambling dominate the way in which it does in NSW. The most recent state election saw Labor run on a platform to support clubs, whilst the Coalition has signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with Clubs NSW containing key election promises prior to each of the previous three state elections (2010, 2014, 2018). Weve let Racing NSW advertise on our Opera House, excluded Crown Casinos from lock out law zones, and allowed Packer to shape the Barangaroo shore front.Its not only that the political parties are tied to the gambling industry, but also that state governments have a clear incentive to retain gambling as a key tax base. The 2018 MOU between the Coalition and Clubs NSW notes, for example, that clubs are projected to add $3.4 billion to the state economy over the next four years.Gambling is big business, and vested interests have a lot to lose. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that industry bodies have taken particular interest in funding research.Critics of gambling industry funding and its involvement in research argue that even with strict disclosure requirements and codes of ethics, investment shapes research agendas. Specifically, gambling industries and the governments that support them have an incentive to construe gambling that is enjoyed responsibly by most, with a small minority problem gamblers. State government conducted problem gambling prevalence studies use narrow, pathological, definitions of problem gambling. Tellingly, such findings feature prominently in industry publications. The first substantive page of the Clubs NSW Responsible Gambling Strategy 2019-21 states, for example, that the prevalence of problem gamblersidentified in this NSW study (0.4%) is lower than the all of the other jurisdictions.That framing obscures the fact that much of the harm is borne by non-problem gamblers. A 2017 study, for example, finds that 85% of years of life lost due to gambling come from persons at a low or moderate risk of problem gambling. Moreover, it ignores the fact that though a small minority of gamblers are defined as problem gamblers much larger proportions of gamblers experience some form of gambling related problem. A 2014 prevalence study by the ANU Centre for Gambling Research found that, in the ACT, low-risk gamblers are spending five times as much, on average, as gamblers who consider themselves problem-free.As Sean Cowlishaw and Samantha Thomas from the University of Deakin argue, that is analogous to the way in which the alcohol industry has argued that alcohol harms are limited to a minority of problem drinkers, and thus opposed population-wide policies that threaten financial interests.Problematically, gambling research has not always made its industry connections clear. In 2014, Professor Rebecca Cassidy (University of London) criticised the International Journal for Gambling Studies (of which USyds Alex Blaszczynski was and remains the Editor in Chief) for its failure to require disclosures of conflicts of interest in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics. The journals embrace of industry support in its disclosure requirements were criticised, them staring at the time: The Editor(s) accept that such support is often essential to enable research to occur. In her criticism, Cassidy specifically criticised an article co-authored by Sally Gainsbury, the Deputy Director of the Sydney University Gambling Centre and editor of journal, for its failure to disclose conflicts of interest.Blaszczynski and Gainsbury have since tightened the journals disclosure requirements.If gambling industry funding shapes research outcomes, however, its unclear whether government funding is any better. Where governments rely on gambling as key tax bases (not to mention where political parties are wedded to industry), they have a similar incentive to promote a narrative that most gambling is harmless and that problem gambling is limited to a very small minority. Government embrace of this specific responsible gambling framework is obvious.Further difficulties arise with the characteristics gambling research itself. Unlike other much established addiction research such as with cigarette smoking or alcohol one cannot measure the effects of pokies anywhere except in a pub or club. As Blaszczynski puts it, industry-supported research is required if valid conclusions can be drawn from studies involving real gamblers risking their own money in real venues. Particularly when researching new forms of gambling technologies that have not yet made it to market, researchers must rely on industry to access gamblers and gambling technology.These criticisms have not always been met with open arms. A recent piece by James Boyce on the relationship between gambling industry investments and problem gambling research, published in The Monthly, was met with complaints of inaccuracy. (Boyce and The Monthly were unable to comment to Honi as to the identity of the organisation making the complaint or its substance.) Honi has also been told that a similar piece written for a state authority was removed after similar complaints, but has been unable to confirm this at the time of publication.Director of the USyd Research and Treatment Gambling Clinic, Dr Alex Blaszczynski, argues that allegations of industry influence are ad hominem attacks reminiscent of McCarthy-era communist witchhunts. Since 2016 the Centre has received almost $2.5 million in funding from Clubs NSW, the Gaming Technologies Association and Aristocrat Technologies Australia (the company which introduced to Australia poker machines, or as founder Len Ainsworth, termed them, the mouse trap). That is, in addition to funding received from Aristocrat Leisure Industries, Responsible Wagering Australia the peak body representing the Australian online wagering industry and a yet unfulfilled grant of $186,204 from Clubs NSW.Accepting such funding by no means make the University of Sydney an outlier: most respected gambling researchers have received industry funding at some point in their careers. Such researchers argue that there is no impact on research outcomes. In correspondence with Honi, Blaszczynski points to a 2019 meta-study of existing gambling research that he co-authored, which finds there to be no difference in research produced with gambling industry funding. Importantly however, that study does not engage with the key criticism made of industry funding: that it shapes the research agenda, pushing researchers to focus disproportionately on pathological cases of problem gambling. The study compares studies on the basis of research design variables and whether the hypothesis is proven correct.Blaszczynski and a University spokesperson also make clear that all research conducted by the USyd is bound by strict codes of conduct to ensure conflicts of interests do not affect research outcomes. Blaszczynski argues that industry retains a hands-off approach to avoid allegations of influence. Where the Centre undertakes a research agreement with industry for example, it is made clear that the industry does not have any input into the design and methodology of the study, the data is retained by USyd, and there is no requirement to provide manuscripts for approval before submission to peer-reviewed journals, whereas government contracts require such approval.Its difficult to believe, however, that industry groups would continue to fund research if it harmed their bottom line. Strict codes of conduct might mean that the findings of research conducted by the Gambling Clinic are not influenced by industry funding. But the influence of industry may shape what questions are asked and how. In a nascent area of research like gambling studies, that can shape research priorities for decades to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This week, top Australian psychologist pest Bettina Arndt was outraged to find out that Griffith University had released a list of dating tips including you have the right to say no to a date. The Rodent invited Arndt to share her own dating tips for students.Too many students are chasing skinny Timothe Chalamet looking twinks these days! Little wonder theyre unlucky in love. Ladies, find yourself a man you know could easily physically overpower and kill you, then bask in his mercy of choosing not to.Sydney Uni hipsters are obsessed with their incestuous polycules. Shame! Young people need to get back to traditional marriage: a loving bond between a wife, husband and his secret sexy secretary.This ones for the Womens skankz, yo! If you want to nab yourself a Pauls boy try what theyve been doing for years: roofies! Hell be falling (and vomiting) over you in no time.Always remember to clean the sand out of your crusty pussy. I learnt too late :(.Unimpressive person? Are you Not in Education, Employment, or Training? Dont be afraid to make shit up and lie to your root. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Insufferable film nerd Wuyi Chang has rushed to change his Letterboxd review for Parasite from five stars to one after it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.The once glowing review, which commended the movie for its sharp direction and enjoyable performances, now begins with the zinger Parasite? More like Para-shite.I only enjoy kinos, or cinema, Chang told The Rodent, and Parasite is most definitely a movie.The film took home three other awards at last weeks ceremony, making director Bong Joon-ho the first ever to win four Academy Awards for a single movie, and another addition to the long list of directors Chang thinks is just ok.Even Endgame would have been a more deft choice, his review reads. Thanos ball sack chin had more interesting things to say about class than this shlock.Changs review further describes the film, which has been lauded by critics and audiences alike for its unflinching depiction of class oppression in late capitalist society, as a shallower attempt at social commentary than that Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial. At least that had some balls.When asked for his top pick for Best Picture, Change responded: I dont know, Yesterday? Yeah, that was good. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the past several months, revelations of Chinese foreign interference have shocked the nation. Four Corners are proud to have contributed to this much needed vigilance by exposing, amongst other things, that Chinese international students exist. However, despite this valiant public awareness campaign, many remain ignorant to the full extent of this pernicious invasion that has taken hold of the heart of our pure and morally perfect democracy.In an exclusive investigation, Four Corners has uncovered startling evidence that conclusively proves that the level of Chinese interference in Australia has far exceeded what both the public and the political establishment previously thought. Prepare yourself, because the following revelations will rock our country to its core.ABC can reveal that this word China refers to a country, not a fine white vitrified ceramic material. China, also known as East Asia, is beginning to broach our sandy shores, its influence tightening around us like the skin of a dumpling.Bubble teaFour Corners can reveal that hordes of Chinese people lining up outside so-called bubble tea outlets are in fact spies operating in allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. These spies have been hiding in plain sight throughout Sydneys CBD, from the top of George Street, all the way to Circular Quay. Indeed, the decor of these bubble tea outlets is often emblazoned with various characters belonging to the nations infamous language, Chinese.Throughout a lengthy covert investigation, Four Corners observed a pattern of customers leaving outlets with bags containing one or more cylindrical vessels filled with coloured liquids and black, bullet-shaped balls, presumed to be some sort of ammunition for a firearm. Customers then proceeded to violently stab the cylindrical canisters with a sharp object, presumed to be a dagger of some description. Four Corners understands that this depraved ritual is a form of remote training issued by the Chinese Ministry of State Security.In an unprecedentedly dangerous and covert operation, members of the Four Corners production donned surgical masks to conceal our identities, and entered the store in an attempt to obtain some of these cylindrical objects.Disturbingly, we found them impossible to open.It is extremely worrying that China has developed such advanced technology, and that this technology is so readily accessible to the public: all one needs to do is say the words brown sugar cheese foam to wield the same power as a member of the Peoples Liberation Army.Most harrowingly, these so-called bubble tea outlets have even infiltrated University campuses. We ventured to the University of Sydney, where a bubble tea outlet, Cha Li, has pushed out a hallmark campus institution, the Co-Op bookshop.Four Corners spoke to Chinese language and culture expert Veronica Xue about this seemingly innocuous phenomenon. Her insights were bone-chilling.A lot of these so called bubble tea places have names with the word Cha in them, like Chatime or Gongcha.What most Australians dont know is that in the Chinese language, Cha [means investigate and is used in words like censorship. I think thats pretty strong evidence pointing to these places being offices which the Chinese government uses to suppress and harass dissidents living in Australia.When we approached the chief operative at one of these places, they told us that the word Cha actually means tea in Chinese. However, Xue said that this was a calculated attempt by the Chinese government to silence criticism by pulling out the race card.Chinese embassyUnbeknownst to many, there is in fact a place right here on Australian soil where the Chinese Communist Party enjoys unfettered sovereignty, including the unrestrained ability to carry out its morally reprehensible authoritarian agenda. The name of that place? The Chinese Embassy.Hidden in plain sight, the Chinese Embassy is located barely a stones throw from the Federal Parliament in Canberra. Taking into account the fact that the mere presence of Confucius Centres on university campuses has already spread communism like the vile disease that it is, Four Corners can only assume that Canberras Chinese Embassy has been influencing the national legislative agenda for years now, and is likely responsible for radical socialist innovations like Australias excessively redistributive welfare system.Using trademark investigative journalism skills, Four Corners not only detected the presence of this edifice of international espionage, but was able to contact those operating it. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy responded to allegations of communist spying by arguing that embassies are standard diplomatic practice and that almost 80 countries have embassies in Canberra. While this may be true, there is simply no evidence that any of those 80 countries are responsible for any interference in Australian democracy whatsoever.China TownsChinese noodle restaurant. Chinese noodle house. Chinese dumpling restaurant. Chinese dumpling house. Take one look at practically any street in the country and youll see these words emblazoned on just about every building.The prevalence of Chinese restaurants in Australia is nothing new. Most Australians are aware of this much. But what has gone relatively unnoticed is the rapid spread of so-called China Towns. Whats next, China City? Chinaustralia?After sending one of our journalists to every major city in the country, Four Corners can confirm that there are in fact NO Australia Towns in Australia. This is in stark contrast with the more than a dozen China Towns littered throughout our land.Furthermore, based off our interactions with the so-called Chinese Embassy, we can only conclude that these China Towns function in much the same way as the communist espionage base in Canberra.Speaking to Four Corners, Alexander Poske from the Sino Hegemony Inquiry into Terror (SHIT) warned that Australia is already on the verge of being overwhelmed.Sun Tzu said that the key to victory is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Through the establishment of these China Towns, thats exactly what the CCP is doing. By visiting these settlements for lunch, dinner, and so on, what were actually doing is funnelling money back to the CCP so that they can continue with their expansionist goals.Chilling.Ceramic chinaSun Tzu said that all warfare is based on deception. 1500 years may have passed since Tzu was the preeminent military strategist in China, but clearly the CCP has not neglected its strategic forebears. Deception remains the name of the game in the Neo-Cold War with China, and the CCP has mastered it to a horrifying extent.Without even realising it, millions of Australians have unwittingly become agents of the CCP themselves. Check your kitchen cupboards. Chances are, youve invited China into your home. Literally.After thoroughly consulting an array of ceramics experts as well as historical archives, Four Corners can announce the shocking revelation that millions of household dishes, plates, cups, and bowls in Australia are in fact not only made in China, but made of china.Also known as porcelain, china is a ceramic material so infused with Chinese characteristics that its name is literally teeming with nationalist fervour. It is believed that the Chinese intentionally named this material after their own country centuries ago as part of an extremely drawn-out plan to exert soft power in kitchens around the globe and make their country literally a household name, thus normalising the prospect of the countrys global hegemony.Speaking to Four Corners, the author of Silent Invasion, Clive Hamilton, warned Australians that each piece of china is likely concealing covert surveillance devices.China has been cooking up a storm of surveillance with their nefarious exporting of china, Hamilton said. The only thing I can advise Australians to do is to immediately grind all your items of China into a fine powder, thus destroying the concealed mind-control devices. Once that is done, complete the ritual of nationalist exorcism by scattering the powder in your backyard in the shape of the Southern Cross.HopeWhile we have uncovered a grim portrait of Chinese interference in Australia, not all hope is lost. Recently the City of Sydney announced the cancelling of the Night Noodle Markets. Four Corners can reveal that noodles are a dish originally from China. Based off this, it is safe to say that the event had become a brazen attempt by the Chinese government to extend its soft-power on our shores. Like an octopus, the Chinese government is using its noodly tendrils to slowly suffocate Australian society of our democracy, which is why we as a society must act swiftly and purge our society of any agents of Chinese influence. The recent attempt at Monash University to deny Chinese international students the right to vote is a welcome step in the right direction, and a powerful reminder of what needs to be done to defend the democratic values which underpin our society. While they were unsuccessful, the hope for a better future grows, week by week, one Four Corners expose at a time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In response to the University of Sydney announcing recently that it is re-engaging with the controversial Ramsay Centres Bachelor of Western Civilisation, an unlikely critic has stood up to voice their opposition.Speaking from his villa on the outskirts of Rome, senator Marcus Felix Sextius expressed his bewilderment that the descendants of backwards Germanic barbarians were claiming to be the cultural heirs of Western civilisation a legacy he says they have actively tried to destroy.If these fuckwit savages actually gave a shit about Western civilisation they wouldnt be trying to sack Rome at every opportunity.Last time I checked, Britain was a cultural backwater filled with fanatics who, I kid you not, get off from human sacrifice. And now youre telling me these freaks are harping on about how theyre in charge of Western civilisation?When confronted with the traumatic legacy of his empires conquests across Europe, including in Britain, the senator did offer a more conciliatory note.Now that you mention it, maybe the obsession with Rome from these Germanic barbarians represents the complex post-colonial legacy of how the subaltern reinterprets their oppression by an imperial power. Perhaps what they need to do is to decolonise their minds.Nonetheless, the senator ended the interview by telling the Anglo-saxons to shut up until they spoke a language with case declensions. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The classes are held at 4 am in the foyer on Sunday mornings. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At exactly 1:15pm on Saturday 26th March 2018, Australia came to a standstill. As a fellow Australian with full Australian citizenship and voting rights, I stood with my fellow countrymen and shed a tear as allegations of downright ball-tampering were downright proved against Steve Smith.What a true cunt of a day in Australian history, and one we look back at with downright shame.Nonetheless, I never turn my back on my self-adopted Australian heritage. I mean, how could you, with such legends such as Dave Warner and Mike Hussey representing our great country in the sport. Well, thats a question for my deadshit Indian migrant family, who for some godforsaken reason support India, and at their lowest points, even Bangladesh, in cricket.Like, what the heck, you know? You come to this nation with nothing but a suitcase, and what do you give it? A slap in the face.I am lucky enough to wear my 100% pure nylon-cotton blend official Australia jersey from JD Sports, whereas my father sweats porously through his shitty India shirt (Made In India) because its polyester. Fucking disgusting. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I moved into Surry Hills to escape the asians, immerse myself in the fine culture of the suburb. Wonderful bistros and a brand new espresso bar each week! And yet the hot new trend of this summer is apparently this wild thing called bubble tea. Its so fun and silly step aside T2!Theres numerous totally random flavours to play around with: mango crush, tarrow milk tea and hazelnut. It seems like everyone has hopped on this wild new trend for the upcoming season. For most of you readers the closest bubble tea will be in Broadway Shopping Centre (totally crowded but totally worth it!).However, if youre feeling really adventurous you can make your way down the T9 Northern line and get off at this cute little suburb called eastwoods to get the real authentic flavour.With all this to look forward to and more, you can imagine my dismay when I realised that theres absolutely no soy or almond mylk options. I mean seriously whats the point. When you come to this country leave your lactose at the door okay? thanks.sponsoredWhen I finally found a place that could get me a soy bubble tea, they put this weird plastic thing on the cup that I couldnt even peel off. Am I meant to just rip apart the cup? When I finally got this plastic off all these Asians started giggling at me. I mean the disrespectisjustbeyond.All in all, Id say that bubble tea promises a lot but delivers very little. While the flavours are exciting, its hard to see why everyones getting around such an exclusionary trend. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After a knife-edge fight for the Western Sydney electorate of Bogarah, Chris Binns could not be grinning any wider. Not just because he won the vote, but also because he will not have to visit the ethnic enclave until the next election.Four years is almost enough time to get this place out of my system Binns told journalists from his four bedroom house in Coogee.It was a tough campaign. Really pushed me to my limits. They even made me record something in ChineseWhile Binns was tipped to be the next leader of the NSW Labor party, commentators are unsure whether someone with his views could possibly ascend to be the leading Progressive voice in the state.However, Binns fancies his chances.Mate, look at Michael Daley! Do you remember Luke Foley? Racist dogwhistling is practically in the party constitution!Binns comments were subsequently caught on camera, and will be scheduled to reappear a week before the 2023 state election, just in time for his next visit to Bogorah.Blessed with the knowledge that they can whip this out at the next election, the Liberal Party is reportedly looking forward to another four years of doing absolutely nothing about the light rail, the Murray Darling, forced adoptions, deaths in custody, public school funding, protecting the environment and still winning the election. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Jagose (who has no first name), today spoke out about the gendered impacts of being accused of wage theft.The clear-eyed, all-knowing ideologists with their hermeneutically suspicious motives have demystified and interpellated me to no end, Jagose told The Boot over a cheese platter and prosecco at her ideologically activatable managerial brunch at Forum this morning.Im not the first person to note that, while the authority of the public man is augmented by praises of fiscal prudence, the public woman is undermined by the claim of wage theft.In light of these paranoid readings, I am proposing the obliteration of the Political Economy department and every casual staff member, Jagose continued, her grip on a dog-eared copy of Judith Butlers Gender Trouble tightening under the table.Jagose informed her colleague Stephen that she would be appearing in a feminist panel on Q+A next week to discuss the impacts of false wage theft accusations on gender pay inequities in upper management, the mental health of university #girlbosses, and their pet dogs who are having to take antidepressants.The effort to identify the enemy as singular in form is a reverse-discourse that uncritically mimics the strategy of the oppressor instead of offering a different set of terms, Jagose was heard muttering to herself as she used the stolen wages of casuals to purchase a $33 plant-based burger. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Boot has acquired shocking files under the Freedom of Information Act revealing ASIOs detailed plans to halt protests in Sydney by creating unprecedented fractures in the left.The files show that ASIO scrapped its plans soon after the project commenced, with one spy complaining of having spent three hours listening to an argument about whether the left should run for USU board.Another ASIO spy reported that two socialist groups they struggled to tell apart were postering over each other on campus for upcoming talks on the same topic.Furthermore, emails reveal that the ASIO spies, who had committed to wearing platform Doc Martens for the project, planned to stay long enough in the groups in order to gain enough credibility to cancel someone.I think we at ASIO can make better use of our resources than on these inner-west queers, one spy said. I have been observing their activity closely and it appears that this particular group is about to crumble over a split between post-anarchism and post-left anarchy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Greens MP David Shoebridge was left shocked after no one attended a cross-collective speakout, where he had planned to deliver a speech this morning.The Boot understands that organisers forgot to invite people as they were making a social media graphic in the OB room.Honestly its just been such a busy month, said organiser Milly Power.Last week, we made some staunch pastel infographics on abolishing the police. We also had a working bee to make a cover photo for a Facebook event. And to top things off, we made a cute weekly meeting calendar.Power told The Boot that she is hoping to become a graphic designer after she finishes her term. Ive gained so much experience through this and I hope to take the skills Ive learnt through activism and producing autonomous Honi editions into the industry. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At yesterday afternoons Figure Skating Society AGM, President Abigail Winters was ousted after a pack of 25 factional hacks showed up to the meeting with a mean glint in their eyes.Winters considered it an honour though.This is a dream come true. She told Honi. Its just like when Timothy Goebel landed three quad jumps in his 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics program: it was beautiful beautiful yet deadly.Longest serving Figure Skating Society president and all-round C&S heavyweight Leon Donor-Hugh thought it was anything but an honour.They stacked us about as much as Gillis Grafstrm stacked his Olympic medal shelf. And not only is stacking at odds with the spirit of C&S, it is at odds with the very principles of figure skating: fairness, justice, and above all, a respect for your fellow ice dancer.Walter Sturges, the newly elected President, fiercely rejected this claim in his USU campaign launch speech.I love ice and I love the thrill of a triple salchow. The blood of skating runs through my veins. And so what if me and exactly the right amount of my buddies showed up to the Figure Skating Society AGM to express that love by nominating for executive positions.This saga is far from over thougb. Following the AGM, the society has suffered a schism, with a group of separatists called the True Skaters declaring the society compromised and pledging to register a rival club.A university spokesperson warned students not to attend any ice skating adjacent campus events until the unrest had been quelled.All it takes is one poisoned snow cone machine, and BAM, things could get a whole lot worse. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After receiving a Dataminr alert late last night, NSW Police were informed that NTEU activists planned to use the large mobile boba statue outside of Manning House as a battering ram.While information is scarce, sources have told The Boot that the NTEU intended to breach the F23 building using the oversized bubble tea on wheels.Upon police approach, activists were tipped off about their imminent arrival, at which point, NTEU Headkicker David Brophy mounted the novelty beverage and sped off down Physics Road.Police remain in pursuit, with Brophy last seen being towed down Eastern Avenue. Experts warn that the statues straw is particularly dangerous. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> USU Board candidate Joe Fidler has survived an assassination attempt by a Nerf-wielding top-hatted assailant in the Holme Building.Harrowing footage shows Fidler addressing the audience of the USU Election Soapbox yesterday, before a top-hatted figure interrupted Fidlers response to a panel question. The man, known to Fidler as Mr Pennyworth, lambasted him as not worthy and undecent, before drawing a Nerf blaster and shooting Fidler at close-range.Despite taking a foam dart to the chest, Fidler was able to return fire with a Nerf weapon of his own, wounding the assailant, who fled the scene.Decency doesnt die that easily, Fidler told the audience, to applause.Video: USUSources close to Fidler praised his steely resolve and deadeye shooting.Hes the fastest man on Eastern Avenue, said one admirer.In a statement to Honi, Fidler said he had many enemies in this sewer of a campus, but that the dart hit my copy of The Barefoot Investor, which I carry everywhere in my suit jacket pocket [] Im mainly concerned how this will look on my Linkedin.If the USU give me a plaque next to Gilgamesh, we can call it even due to their subpar security.The attackers condition and current whereabouts are unknown. Eyewitness testimony suggests Mr Pennyworth, who Fidler described as my campaign patron, an oil baron from Alabama, bore a strong resemblance to Fidler campaign manager James Wily. Honi makes no allegations of wrongdoing against Wily.Fidler has promised a return of decency to campus, with policies including the fracking of the Quadrangle and the introduction of a USyd uniform. He has strongly denied claims he is a joke candidate, telling the Soapbox he would not let these baseless allegations burn me down.Little else occurred at an otherwise uneventful USU Election Soapbox.Voting for the USU Board elections opens 17 May. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After the F23 Administration Building was blown up by the Education Action Group, insurance company Allianz has committed to covering activists legal fees.Here at Allianz, we care about our socialist customers, recently-appointed Allianz CEO Karla Marcs said.If you have been fined, we urge you to get a quote on one of our premium mutual aid insurance packages. We cover loss or damage caused from attending speakouts, being trampled by police horses, or having your phone screen smashed by pigs.The announcement comes after Marcs announced a radical redistribution of wealth in Allianzs latest financial statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.No cuts, no fees, no corporate insurance companies! she chanted as she leafleted Barangaroo for the companys upcoming AGM.The Boot can confirm that Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Rhonda and Interim Vice-Chancellor Ketut were unharmed in the F23 incident, as they were busy sucking each others toes in the Fisher sound booths. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a major restructure, the University of Sydney has announced that Studies in Religion will be replaced by a new major designed by the Catholic Society.Here at the University, we value this higher-order skill called critical thinking, a spokesperson told The Boot. Were confident the Catholic Society will pose thought-provoking questions to spark productive and constructive dialogue.The new major will include subjects such as Fetal Feminism and Childrens Anatomy.When asked for comment, the Dean of Arts now Artsbishop Annamarie Jagose after being baptised in Victoria Park Pond said she was excited to see her students experience a world-class prayerful education.Keep an eye out for Theology Thursdays, fish and chips catered lunches and political football games! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Australian Federal Police raided several campus cafes over the weekend, after they declined to bake ANZAC biscuits.We received intel that unpatriotic elements had seized control of the the University of Sydneys campus cafes and acted swiftly to prevent further damage to national unity, Temporary Deputy Vice Under Chief Assistant Commissioner Jeremiah Pastizi told Honi through a hedge.A special taskforce dedicated to investigating and disrupting anti-Australian sentiment breached the kitchen of Courtyard Cafe at 05:00 on Sunday morning. A group of 25 elite AFP officers (accompanied by 4 heavy armoured vehicles and 10 mounted divison members) used thermal charges to detonate the reinforced doors.A number of Courtyard staff fled the scene holding bags of oats and flour, as well as multiple bottles of golden syrup.Honi spoke to a member of campus cafe staff on the condition of anonymity.Its not a political thing, we just really hate making ANZAC biscuits theyre a war time desperation bake they arent supposed to taste good.The AFP are currently tracking the fugitive Courtyard staff through the local bushland.Every ANZAC biscuit that goes unbaked is a grave threat to national security. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Federal Government announced earlier last week that they would scrap the vaccination timeline entirely. Buoyed by their courage, 7th year undergraduate Leon Donor-Hugh announced that he would stop promising to graduate any time now.I dont really think that learning, as a philosophical progression of knowledge, really ever ends and my time at USyd is no different.The 27 year old has deferred three times now so that he can juggle his many extracurricular commitments.Being the President of the Figure Skating Society isnt easy ya know. And when im not organising rink meets, im busy being Treasurer of the Jazz Club or General Secretary of the SRC.When Honi asked for comment, SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu said it was time for Donor-Hugh to move on.Hes had his time he started 15 socieites, was president of 23, treasurer of 18, and secretary of 47. Maybes its time that Leon stops doing electives and starts doing core units again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> . -Will the children forgive the generationthats trampled by horses of war,by exile and preparation for departure? Ghassan ZaqtanMuch like the grand Arab poetry that is born in the midst of war and despair, Ghassan Zaqtans opening stanza of Will They Believe ( ) incorporates an amalgamation of immensely powerful emotions. There is the trauma of war and death, the pain of exile and departure and as with all rhetorical questions, an optimism that the answer is one that does not differ to that the questioner expects. Poetry is a remarkably appropriate impression of the experiences of the Lebanese and Arab diaspora. The tragic Beirut Blast drew my attention to Ghassan Zaqtans poem, who like myself, is a Levantine a son of Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Amman. Why? Trauma, pain and optimism is an all too familiar triune.A destroyed Port of Beirut after the ammonium nitrate explosion. Photographer:Mahdi Shojaeian.On 4 August 2020, a nonchalant father, covered with sweat, is fixated on a laptop screen powered by Beiruts intermittent power supply. To his left, his tired son rests on the living room sofa. The first explosion, induced by a fire in Warehouse 12 of Beiruts port, ignites a dazzling pillar of smoke harbouring radiant sparks of fireworks. The abnormal spectacle and roaring blaze alarm the young boy, who immediately seeks refuge in his fathers arms. Intuitively, the father, despite being troubled by the explosion of cheap firecrackers, assures his son that the blaze is a passable affair.Forty seconds later, at 3:08 pm, a second blast fractures the windows and a wave of grit and dirt consumes the room. The father, turning to God, prays and protects his son. In a moment of admirable rationality among the chaos, the father ushers the son under the dining room table upon which the laptop, now covered in dry grime, sits. Nothing but trauma has ensued.Damage caused by the Beirut Explosion. Photographer: Mahdi ShojaeianMuch like the father, the citizens of the city are aghast and 300,000 are now left homeless. They, like the father, return to the vestiges of purity left in the midst of all this corruption: their prayers and their faith. In the span of a minute, Beiruts physical appearance mirrored the corruption which has crippled it. The citys beautiful features could no longer hide the dystopia its people have protested against in the past year. With an unemployment rate of 25%, a third of its population living below the poverty line, a sectarian kleptocracy and a health care system ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, one would think it would be impossible for Lebanon to suffer more than it has. The blasts were a further dagger of trauma and the tears, cries and lamenting of a populace who epitomise hospitality and resilience rocked the globe.The tsunami of videos, breaking news headlines and bloodied videos reach the Australian diaspora. Their collective voice cracks, tears swell in their eyes and they are once again, by virtue of their incredible empathy and compassion, in pain. As a child of that diaspora, anguish was an experience I grew up with as I witnessed the devastation brought about by civil wars, foreign invasions and military occupation.The Lebanese are a beautiful, resilient constituency within the Australian Arab diaspora who suffered the pain of colonialism, corruption and geopolitical tug of wars. The grievances that inspired the revolution of 2019, which brought about short-lasting hope, were thought to exemplify a state that could not get any worse. The blasts, however, dragged the country from a dystopia to a living hell, a hell tinged with an orange smoke caused by the nitrogen dioxide of the ammonium nitrate explosion. The externality which thrust the country from rock bottom to six feet under the ground was so traumatic that my aunties, with their immense strength, could not contain their tears.In their tears lies the guilt and pain I so often feel when I witness a Middle Eastern nation on fire. Here I am, 15,000 kilometres away from people alike in every way except owning the capital to do what our parents did: leave. There is a sense of betrayal in not being able to suffer side by side with them. Perhaps, with our relatively greater luxury and wealth, we could have done more. By ignoring the plagued political class, the manner in which the capital we sent home facilitated the countrys deficit, the Palestinian and Syrian refugees who go hungry tonight and the exploitative practise of the kfala system, perhaps we failed those who needed the support of the diaspora more than ever.It is not only that guilt that increasingly pressurises the diaspora, it is also the discourse that ensues after a Middle Eastern tragedy that contributes to the narratives which perpetuate orientalist, colonial attitudes. It is a common language many inside and outside the diaspora adopt in flawed oversimplification. Consider the petition that advocated Lebanon being put under French Control. The narrative is: if corruption was so ingrained in the Lebanese social fabric, perhaps a foreign nation, a leader like Macron, would be Lebanons only hope given the flawed albeit common assumption that it cannot govern itself on its own terms. When such narratives stem from the diaspora, it is rooted in helplessness and shock. When they come from those who see the Middle East as a hub of barbarous, chaotic social groups, it suggests the Lebanese are innately inferior to the Wests institutions, which we all know are just as susceptible to the collapse the Lebanese government epitomizes. Coupled with the common racist rhetoric towards Arabs and other minorities, the diaspora struggles on two fronts. The manner in which the West praised the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron unknowingly forwards the all too common narrative. To paint Macron as a saviour of the French colony suggests the Lebanese cannot govern themselves, that their political system needs a foreign force of stability and that they are incapable of taking their country in a new direction.The Western diaspora rejects such assumptions.Corruption is not inherent to the Lebanese identity, it is a product of a political oligarchy that represents a massive disjuncture between the Lebanese people and the ruling class. An externality like Macron would only further such disjuncture and disrespect the Lebanese struggle, and the diaspora in the West would never disrespect the Lebanese intentionally.Now, I do not doubt the truth that Macrons presence may be comforting in a country where the political class has completely failed them, especially to the French citizens residing in the city. However, the mainstream focus, praise and attention afforded to Macron incorporates very little of the detail, the passion of political life and the diversity of intellect the Lebanese truly possess to better their condition. The irony that it was France, just after World War I, that decided that sectarianism would be a defining feature of the countrys leadership cannot be overlooked. As a result, the children of the diaspora face the pressure of developing a vernacular that condemns corruption but does not prime the imperialist ambitions and the saviour complex of states like France. As citizens of the West, and children of the Middle East, we know far too well where that leads.Developing such a vernacular is difficult; but the Lebanese are extraordinary, vibrant and possess remarkable intellect. Beirut was a space filled with peaked visor wearing, tobacco smoking individuals debating and discussing Marxism, socialism, capitalism and complex socio-political issues pertaining to the political development of a region battling imperialism and a lack of unity. It welcomed Arabs of all nationalities and religions, each driven to understand how to better a Middle East that was set on fire by colonialism, rapid industrialization and a lack of political capital on the world stage. Our language should reflect such immense capability, not a lack of it.In such amazing heritage and modern struggle, lies an optimism. As Khalil Girban, the legendary Lebanese poet and one of the architects of the Arabic Renaissance, opined: braving obstacles and hardships is nobler than retreat to tranquility. The butterfly that hovers around the lamp until it dies is more admirable than the mole that lives in the dark tunnel. The English translation will never do justice to Arabics beautiful form. But there is an optimism that Beirut will reclaim its place as a prosperous hub, paying homage to the vitality, colour and faith of its people. Perhaps Lebanon may have the chance to truly redeem itself. The nation never truly lived up to the beauty of its inhabitants after 1990. However, a nation that produces a people as bright, cultured, hospitable and resilient as the Lebanese has more than enough capability to combat all that is inhibitive, corrupt and vulgar. Perhaps, in our hope and solidarity, the children Zaqtan refers to may in fact forgive us.Photographer: Noor IbrahimOr maybe they will choose not to. However, the fact that we weep with them, we feel their trauma and their pain, and we fight to reclaim a language of protest that honours them signals an optimistic desire to win not only their forgiveness, but to ensure in our wealth and luxury that we do not forget them. In return, we hope they do not forget our solidarity. As Gibran surmises, You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Art by Claire Ollivain.Insomnia, to me, tastes like a deep-fried Mars Bar. Sickly sweet and coating my tongue with an impenetrable fat that numbs my taste buds. I tried this gluttonous treat for the first time following a sleep-devoid night. It had been at a sleepover with my friends, one that was pretty high stakes as I had just moved to a new school.Bleary eyed, I watched as the morning light leaked into the room and I realised that I wouldnt be getting any sleep. It was a familiar feeling of failure; sleeping was never something that came easy to me.During isolation, after reading article upon article about wild dreams and sleep disruptions, I came to the realisation that there was never much discussion about sleep illnesses before COVID-19 .I asked Dr Sarah Blunden, who is the founder and director of the Australian Centre for Education in Sleep, why insomnia was not as widely talked about as other health issues. She told me that overall many GPs and other health practitioners werent attuned to the fact that sleep loss has such a significant effect on physiological and psychological outcomes.Dr Blunden remarked, sleep was something that we could always give up doing for something that we deemed [more] importantnow, the importance of sleep has started to creep into [the] conversation a lot more.As I struggled with my own sleep difficulties around ten years ago, the lack of social conversations surrounding insomnia led me to feel isolated. Unable to fall asleep, I would feel like the only person at night awake in the world.These feelings are something many of us are currently experiencing in 2020. Validated by a noteworthy trend in Australia, there has been a spike in the popularity of the search term insomnia on Google from 50% to 92% between March and April, 2020.During my discussions with a slew of sleep experts, I began to recognise how such a sudden shift in the sleep paradigm had come about (caused by COVID-19 related disruptions).Throughout it all, I couldnt help thinking to myself, join the club.I have often attempted to explain what I experienced growing up, but I didnt possess the vocabulary to describe it. Associate Professor Bartlett defines insomnia as being a difficulty going to sleep, staying asleep, waking too early. Importantly, to qualify as insomnia these dysfunctional behaviours occur repeatedly at least three times a week, and its been present for at least three months.For me, it was the associated social impacts that highlighted that my sleeping was abnormal. Camps, sleepovers and any overnight activities would fill me with irrational dread.I often did try my best to stay put the whole night. Usually, it would end up with me small and self-conscious, knocking on my friends parents bedroom door, often crying and asking to go home. Sometimes the parents were sympathetic, other times they would tell me to go back to bed and try again, but that made me long to be at home even more.I resorted to assembling a sleeping toolkit. Armed with my yellow bear Wattle, and my extra soft pillow drenched with lavender oil (so enthusiastically done by my mother that one time she accidentally poured some in my eye!) I felt prepared, or so I thought.Rosie, my best friend since childhood, laughs when lavender oil is mentioned. When I smelled lavender, I would think of you struggling to sleep and that was kind of hard just because you were usually [di]stressedThe more things I sniffed, sprayed and clutched in an attempt to alleviate my over whirling mind, the worse it became. Rosemary Clancy terms what I experienced as performance anxiety. It sounds lewd but she had nailed in two words what had tormented me for so long.Clancy believes that sleep hygiene rules have good science behind them; things like getting up at the same time every morning, getting sunlight and going to bed when you feel sleepy, are all sleep conducive.Yet, she highlights that if you try to follow the sleep rules perfectly you will actually create insomnia you start to distrust your brains capacity to sleep. And thats when you start waking up during the night getting frustrated or scared, especially about next-day functioning.Paradoxically, the culmination of tools I tried scared off my sleep even more.By age thirteen, my sleeping was so disruptive to my health and wellbeing that my mother took me to see a sleep counsellor. I recall being very open-minded, trusting that maybe this would be the solution. But it didnt go quite as planned. The counsellor ended up hardly talking about sleep, and instead psychoanalysed the relationship I had with my parents.At the end of the session, as an afterthought, she pushed a rainbow covered tape in my hands. I was meant to listen to it before bed and envision that I was a dolphin. When I discussed it with my mother, she raised her eyebrows and conceded that maybe it was not one of her best ideas.On our recent walk with my dog, I asked her if she could pin down why my sleeping issues began. She described how her and my dad struggled at settling me as a baby.As parents of an only child, we were perhaps more anxious and more cautious, making sure to keep quiet, keeping the room dark and things like that, my mother reflects.I became so used to an environment of quiet and calm that even today I cannot sleep without an eye mask and earplugs. I questioned Dr Blunden almost sheepishly, but she reassured me, we have triggers that make us sleep, we go into a bedroom, we brush our teeth thats fine.Nonetheless, she flagged the issue of becoming dependent on sleep aids (which to be plainly honest, I definitely am). Dr Blunden expresses that if you go to sleep and are worried that you need a mask, a mask in itself is not the worry. Its the importance youve placed on it thats the worry.I view this sequence of little actions that I do before slumber almost like a placebo for me to rest. Regrettably, Professor Bartlett states that anything ritualistic surrounding sleep can be dangerous, if you get into a pattern where [you think] if I dont do this, I cant sleep you create pressure again.On the whole, my sleeping issues have now dissolved. It came with the awareness that I will eventually fall asleep even if it takes a while longer.Professor Bartlett tells me its normal to have intermittent nights of bad sleep. It makes sense as its a direct response to something thats happened in terms of work-related, family related [or] mental health.Whilst talking to the differing sleep professionals, I was presented with an opportunity to reflect on my own sleep behaviours.However, over the days that I conducted the interviews, my mood dropped, I was tearing up throughout the day and was second guessing my ability to sleep. Ultimately, it was clear that my suffering was not buried as deep as I thought.I even felt guilty conducting my interview with Rosemary Clancy on my bed as she talked me through the effects of using our laptops and devices in our bedrooms; creating sinful associations, especially of bed with wakefulness.It gave me a bit of a jolt to change my practices, with Professor Bartlett stressing to me that the person who sleeps well doesnt know what they do theyre able to put thoughts to the side.For some, like me, this may not be a realistic possibility. Thinking before falling asleep can also be a positive thing.Often, we need time to process everything that is going on around us, whether thats what has happened in our day, or what would have been a better argument in a heated discussion we were having with someone.I have learnt not to hate those nights where my mind cant seem to slow down, as they have given me some of my best ideas. Sleep is a more complex thing for some, and thats okay, because its important to remember that sometimes our bodies have a mind of their own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I believe that one of the most fulfilling activities we can engage in is hiking. To go off, on your own accord, on your own two feet, is truly a blessing. I also believe that there is no better place for this than in nature. Whether it be a 30 minute walk in your neighbourhood or a multi-day hike in rugged landscapes, walking through nature feels right. And in many ways, it has the power to improve our well-being. Perhaps this is why it feels so right? For me, hiking is about changing my environment, replacing the monotony of suburbia with the joys of nature. Being out on the trail forces you to engage with your surroundings, because, to be honest, it can be a little boring at times in the best possible way! Once youve gotten away from the overwhelming hum of society you can truly appreciate your place in the world, and specifically in the natural environment. We are meant to engage with nature, the smells of the trees, the sounds of the birds, the rhythm of your walkingthe pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly. Hiking doesnt just provide an emotive response, theres an endless list of well-documented benefits to your physical and mental wellbeing. Your cardiovascular fitness will improve tremendously, as making your way through a natural landscape engages all kinds of muscles and forces your heart to work harder. The mental benefits of hiking are the most important ones, and are what distinguishes it from other forms of exercise. Getting out into nature can do so much for your mind; providing incredible stress relief and helping to ease symptoms of anxiety and depression. But it goes both ways: you have to be kind to the environment as well. The golden rule of the great outdoors is Leave No Trace which means, quite simply, leave nature exactly as you found it. Whatever you bring into nature with you, bring it out too. You could even take it further, and take any rubbish that you might find. Leave No Trace is an important thought when engaging with the environment; its an all-encompassing set of principles that ensures the best outcomes for not only nature, but for the safety and enjoyment of other hikers as well. Practicing this set of ethics on a local scale can also allow you to apply them on a global scale. By protecting our local habitats in the ways that we engage with them while hiking, we can help contribute to overall wildlife conservation alongside challenging the systems that have threatened the environment. I could go on forever about how much I love hiking. I truly believe that it is the best way to understand nature. And how can we save nature without understanding it? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There is a difference between inconvenience and injustice dont confuse one with the other.These words by Wetsuweten Hereditary Chief Woos represent the ongoing fight of First Nations against colonialism. The Wetsuweten resistance is a blockade protesting Coastal GasLink a pipeline project by big energy corporation TC Energy which would run 670 kilometres across the province of British Columbia, Canada. The pipeline will cut through a significant part of the sacred, unceded territory of the Wetsuweten people. Indigenous communities were never adequately consulted in regards to the project. Coastal GasLink considers the blockade an inconvenience. Such rhetoric is characteristic of the global injustices faced by indigenous peoples. In Victoria, Australia, the extension of a highway into Indigenous land forced the fight of Djab Wurrung people against the destruction of sacred birthing trees. In an interview by the SBS, an opposer of the resistance stated its gonna happen regardlesslet it happen so that it makes it easier for everybody. This is another key example of the trivialisation of the Indigenous fight for land rights in western culture today. The greed of corporations who thirst for profit extracted from Indigenous land deepens violence and racism experienced by Indigenous communities globally.VIOLENCE AND RACISM TOWARDS FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITIESFor generations, First Nations communities have fought the devastation caused by colonialism; from innumerable massacres during early colonial invasion to the current disproportionately high levels of incarceration, deaths in custody, child removal and overall lack of financial, educational and mental health support. The Wetsuweten resistance is not a unique or isolated event, but rather a reminder of how colonialism manifests in modern society. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are at the forefront of violence and corporate protection against Wetsuweten resistance. Ironically, the police have labelled land defenders as extremists who are violent in nature. The United Nations Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) are against the forced removal of the Wetsuweten people from their land, advising the RCMP to stand down. Despite this, the conflicting interests of the corporation and state to continue the project have suggested moving RCMP stationing from the current camps to Houston, British Columbia, even though it is also Wetsuweten territory. The RCMP has exercised their state-given power by removing 80 land defenders from Wetsuweten camps along roads and during solidarity demonstrations. In February, the RCMP dismantled a demonstration of land defenders by forcefully arresting 43 peaceful and unarmed protesters. Some were carried away despite not displaying aggressive behaviour. The words of Kalamaokaaina Niheu, a woman born into the frontlines of the Hawaii independence resistance, particularly resonate:Violence is embedded into the fabric of societyThe unjust acts towards the Wetsuweten resistance have resulted in an increase in anti-Indigenous behaviour and hate crimes in Canada. A visibly Indigenous person buying groceries was assaulted from behind with a weapon, and a 14-year-old boy was subject to death threats and racial slurs on the way to school; both attacks linked to the pipeline developments. No charges have been laid.CORPORATE GREEDFirst Nations people comprise 5% of the worlds population but protect 80% of global biodiversity. They are not standing down their ancestral land for the greed of corporations. The $6.6 billion energy corporation project could potentially result in devastating impacts on the environment where the burning of 140 billion litres of gas transported via the pipeline would contribute to 13% of the greenhouse emissions produced by Canada daily. Coastal GasLink argues the blockade is ruining the livelihood of 1,600 rail workers since they will be laid off, preventing future economic development. It is not uncommon for workers interests to be pitted against Indigenous justice and environmental actions. We must acknowledge the intersectionality of struggle, and that no struggle is genuinely separate. The states system of colonialism and corporate greed is the real enemy. Fortunately, groups such as the National Farmers Union negatively affected by the blockage have recognised its importance. They are standing in solidarity with the Wetsuweten land defenders. When it comes to climate-hazardous corporations, their bond with the state makes it easy for them to violate fundamental land rights. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the importance of unity across all people in the state with empty promises. In signing off on the pipeline, he participates in the violent mistreatment of Indigenous people and their land. This allows for the ongoing attacks on the Wetsuweten nation and in turn, setting the standard for persecution of Indigenous communities globally. If the gas leaks out from the pipeline, it will destroy the sacred land which generously offers food for energy. Water for life. Natural medicine for healing. Humans need all, but most importantly, the Wetsuweten people need it for survival their livelihood and cultural practices depend on it. It may destroy everything that they fight for and believe.THE RESISTANCE CONTINUESWith distressing responses to the Wetsuweten resistance by those in power, made worse by the current pandemic, it is difficult to determine the outcome of the construction in favour of land defenders. However, the fight not only against the pipeline but against corporate greed and violence towards Indigenous communities globally has been paused but not stopped by a global pandemic. Going forward, we must stand in solidarity with the fight for Wetsuweten and First Nations rights to end all ongoing colonialism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a letter to a friend, I wrote about a wall I encountered in Darlington. It wasnt anything particularly special; just the back of a terrace house I found while wandering in the suburb one evening. There was a bit of graffiti carved into it, the words growing fainter with every letter as if inscribed in desperation by the nib of a pen whose ink had run dry long ago.I cant get through the wall.It was the first time that Id thought about walls as more than pillars that hold ceilings up. Its strange, because the more thought I give it, the more I see how significant they are, both physically and symbolically. Now, I am reminded of the Wailing Wall, the Walls of Jericho, Zechariahs wall of fire. In Letters from the Underworld (1864) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the narrators adversaries attempt to convince him of natures unyieldingness by explaining: A wall, you see, is a wall . . . and so on, and so on. There are common phrases and sayings: talking to walls, hitting a wall, building too many walls and not enough bridges, getting stuck with your back to a wall, and going over a wall. In all these situations, walls are portrayed as strong and tangible. Iron-willed. But there are also wallflowers, stonewalling, walls of silence and separation. American academic and author Michael Moore believed that walls possess an immense measure of signification, and can often act as a nexus point between the concrete and the symbolic.Since their creation, walls have longed to be adorned by the world around them. They have given form to many materialisations of artistic expression: from cave drawings, frescoes, murals, and graffiti, to picture frames, tapestries, wall hangings, and posters. Over the ages, people have had different motivations to imprint themselves on walls. There are descriptions of homoeopathic magic in the Spanish Altamira caves, religious murals in Anatolia, and decorative tapestries of the Gothic era. Walls have been essential for visual arts, from the ones in prehistoric caves acting as the very first canvases upon which people could create, to modern-day manifestations of graffiti tunnels.Since then, walls have been employed in literature as metaphors and symbols in a myriad of ways. In Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), Gilman condemns male control of the 19th-century medical profession, using the wallpaper as a metaphor to explore the narrators oppression and descent into insanity. H. P. Lovecraft uses the walls of an ancestral home to obscure horrors in The Rats in the Walls (1924). The House of Asterion (1947) by Jorge Luis Borges describes a giant house with endless corridors. There are no exits, only endless walled passages with open doors and countless rooms for Asterion to wander through. As writer Tom Mitchell noted, his world is walls.Asterions story, which was later revealed to be that of the Cretan Minotaur, shows that a wall is also a dividing force separating space both physically and psychologically, an attempt to categorise the chaos of our world and universe into affectable pockets of existence. Commonly, a wall is defensive. I think about Hadrians Wall, imposed on the Roman Empire not only to protect but because of divine instruction; the walls of Jericho that protected the neolithic people against invasion; the impenetrable walls of Troy built by the gods themselves. And, as the story of Asterion tells us, walls imprison; I think also of Antigone walled up in a tomb and condemned to die for rebelling against Creon, her numbered days spent in agony. In Herman Melvilles Bartleby the Scrivener (1853), the protagonist spends countless hours staring at the dead brick wall outside his window, foreshadowing his later incarceration; Melville uses walls as symbols of urban separation in capitalistic societys forced individualism.Weeks after that overcast afternoon in Darlington, I encountered the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, and have since found myself going back to it time and again. Their story is a myth from Ovids Latin narrative poem, Metamorphoses, telling the story of two neighbours whose houses shared a wall. They were in love but their union was forbidden because of an old family rivalry, so they would whisper their love through a crack in the wall, a physical barrier as well as a symbol for the circumstance that kept them apart. In some translations, Pyramus writes Thisbe a letter:Dear Thisbe,I wish there werent a wall.Love,PyramusThroughout the ages, walls have bore witness to the lives of many queer people, who desperately inscribed their feelings and identities into history. Many walls still stand vigil over ancient romances and love letters that are addressed not always to a corporeal person, but sometimes to someone in the future who would understand, who would be free. Often, queer folk have been torn between their religion and their identity, who have written on the walls of churches and temples for eternity, their yearning immortalised in stone. There exist records of graffiti from Pompeii, where people wrote on city walls: Often as I have been awake, love, at midnight, I think of you, and Sabinus, my beauty, Hermeros loves you, and Hecticus, my pet, Mercator says hello to you.Some days, I think about that wall in Darlington. I wish I had taken a picture, but it felt wrong to document a strangers desperate wish. There is something very personal about writing on walls, and I am reminded of a scene from the movie All The Bright Places (2020); in it, Theodore Finch goes up to a public wall and writes, Before I die, I want to feel awake. This wall, in the book, is called the before I die wall, because it is filled with peoples hopes and last wishes. Their dreams have echoed across time. Finch had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and began to distinguish his manic and depressive days by documenting the time he has spent awake. His bedroom walls are also covered in Post-It notes, iterating quotes, memories, and lyrics he wants to keep at the front of his mind. That wall, like many other walls in real life, acted as a public declaration of his joy, misery, desire, grief, and yearning. Walls become a site of possibility, for the expression of ones innermost feelings; vulnerable and exposed, yet anonymous and safe, like a diary that has invited the world into it.To many of us, walls are understood as a force of division or imprisonment. But they are also a protection. They tell a story of survival through the millenia. We document history on them, willing our impossible yearning into being. A billion desperate wishes have been written into walls; and undoubtedly, a billion more will be after we are nothing but dust and shadows. Yet, sometimes I think about Pyramus and Thisbe, about the barriers that divided them, about the barriers that still divide people today. And I too wish there werent a wall. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Community is radical under a neoliberal state of individualism. It is radical to care for those whom the state ignores, and more so to facilitate this care between ourselves. To choose community is to reject self-interest, and to enact communal mutual aid is to resist an intangible meritocracy. Essential to the brutal colonisation of so-called Australia was the destruction of Indigenous communal living, continuing today through racially targeted child removals and incarceration. In its place is the nuclear family. The nuclear family is central to the colonial state and its function, wherein heteronormative family values and gender norms are formalised through infrastructure and policy.As well as being the central labour force for capitalist production, the nuclear family absolves the state of welfare responsibility and shifts it onto the individual household. Women are appointed this care work, and queer people are ostracised from these care units. Both women and queer people are criticised according to heteronormative reproductive value, and the ability to recreate a productive unit of labour by means of the household. The household reflects divisive state power, not communal care. An alternative is necessary.By this, we do not mean queer marriage or adoption. A white picket fenced home for two dads with a rainbow atop is meaningless when queer people are twice as likely to experience homelessness. It is not enough to infiltrate systems of oppression for the few, but to redefine care under community for the many. Similarly, the notion of chosen family is limited by individualised identity politics, still rooted in the hierarchy of the nuclear family and its function. Assimilation is, therefore, inadequate. Community care in place of individualised care is to centralise kinship in belonging, and inter-dependence without the focus of reproduction or productivity. To sever community from heteronormativity and capitalism is to centralise kinship and care as fundamental roles. This looks like forming and prioritising friendships, connecting across lines of normative kinship, centreing intimacy over individuality, and communal support over self-interest. Queering care is in a constant state of construction, adapted for different folks; fluid.Community building is not frivolous, but central to political activism. Tangible political action may be possible between strangers, as seen when we march on the street, side by side with unfamiliar faces. However, political activism is not void of intimacy, nor community. What do we fight for if not community? To keep the two separate is to internalise the capitalist divide between public and private, or the bourgeois notion of a depoliticised personal life. As many authors have argued, the revolution starts at home, meaning that political values must be enacted in our everyday. This includes within relationships and personal spaces, as well as in public and intellectually. Community is what binds a movement together and creates practical alternatives to harmful state institutions such as the nuclear household. Solidarity starts on the couch and at the pub, in conversations and texts, between friends and neighbours. Through community, comrades become kin. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> First DateI get closer, I feel you, your skin is even softer than it looks, you move delicately but walk with strength. Youre shorter than me but I hold tightly onto your arm and feel small, I smile warmly, head tilted up into the cold rain.I get closer, I feel you, your hands are soft and strong, I feel cold metal when I kiss your warm lips and taste cigarettes in your sweetness.Your contradictions make you, I cant place you, Id never want to.Intimacy and IdentityHave you ever woken up beside a beautiful girl? Have you kissed her and felt her patchy stubble, her legs tangled in yours, her dick pressed against your thigh? Have you smiled, groggy with love at the intimacy of it all? In this closeness I have known a person better than I ever thought possible I have loved someone in their wholeness, and through them I have loved myself in my incompleteness.Since transitioning I have, by no intention of my own, only been with other trans people. I could dismiss this by saying we just have something in common, but it is so much more than that. The simple existence of a trans person presupposes a beautiful strength and a sadness. An overcoming of seemingly insurmountable pressures, the sadness of surviving an unnameable incongruence and strength in the righteous anger at what was taken, hidden, or marked with shame.I spent two decades feeling ashamed of who I was and who I dreamed of being. In the arms of another trans person, in their lustful or affectionate gaze, in exploring their body with nothing but adoration, in seeing the scars of testosterone and finding beauty in them, I love them and I find nothing lacking. Maybe that means I can love myself, and can accept what I feel I lack.In that same intimacy I came to find the fragility of gender and sexuality, the frayed edges. Beyond times when Ive neatly packaged my transition for friends and family, I havent identified as a woman. I thought that maybe one day Id wake up and have grown into an essential womanhood, into a confidence of self. That day still hasnt come, and I still have no stable sense of my own gender identity. Out of a fear of this state I found myself searching for a rock-solid core, a gendered essence, something I could hold up as the root of my gender identity, the cause of my behaviours and my gendered presentation. But there is no core to find you cannot find the essential woman, and you cannot be the essential woman. There is nothing but a facade, a decorative covering pulled back to reveal an empty pedestal. But where does this leave me, in what direction do I move now? If my gender is not within me, then where is it?For me, this confusion left me wandering until I met Sam. We started talking Christmas morning, and met up just after New Years. She picked me up from the station and I kissed her like Id promised to. I had been medically transitioning for two months really, Id only been alive for two months. We stared out at the sea and I felt her body. Both of us out in public wishing we could be invisible to everyone if not for the gaze of the other. She took me home, we put on a movie and didnt watch it, and I felt a body like mine for the first time.In the way she walked, the way she shyly asked to hold my hand, in the way she spoke and the way she held herself, in the ways she was strong and the ways she was vulnerable, I saw womanhood. An impossible womanhood, fought for and won. Self-defined and strong I saw not an essential womanhood but a personal and proud one. A womanhood that made perfect sense and was perfectly unique. Her gender was her own because she lived it, and I felt it through all of her.A common drive, distinct but inseparable from gender, is to find a pure sexuality, to know who youre attracted to and to draw clean lines. But again this effort begins to fracture. In contrast to finding a clearer picture of gender in closeness, my understanding of my sexuality began to bend when I met my Ax. Standing at the intersecting edges of gender and sexuality I had to ask; Who is a lesbian without an essential gender to drive essentially gendered attraction?Ax is agender. We met in Melbourne on a beautiful date to see improvised experimental music, where I was tall and fem and it was an androgyne in camos. We spent the rest of my week there with each other constantly. Id only once before fallen so hard and so fast. We are both ambiguously gendered lesbians. Neither identity negated the other, and instead they grew together, one into the other in twisted vines of attraction and presentation. And twisted together, Ax and I made perfect sense of it all in ways no academic text can explain.Theres no essentially sexed or sexual core, theres just us, theres who we are, and theres who we commune with. Identities mark the ground on which we gather and show solidarity, but they ultimately are an undoing of individuality in the interest of some greater communal doing. This tension is the defining one of queer politics and can be felt most acutely by those living and loving in these boundaries of gender and sexuality. I have been made and unmade by my identities, I have learnt who I was and forgotten who I was in the arms of lovers, and I have appreciated every second of this instability. I only hope that more people, especially more cisgendered and heterosexual people, can learn to embrace the rough edges and unsafe territories that mark the places where we grow and learn. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> People often claim that Australia is a nation with an outdoorsy ethos. Liking the outdoors is up there with enjoying vegemite and playing cricket cheerfully exploited in advertisements and lazily employed as a rhetorical tool. When many people picture Australian life, they imagine camping, four-wheel-driving, days at the beach. All the same, in the Australian imagination, the bush is wild, waiting to be overcome. Its routine for people to boast fearfully about our dangerous wildlife, constantly framing Australian nature as a hostile place. Its rhetoric passed down from our colonial ancestors; nature is there to be conquered, to be tamed. Who, in this imagination, interacts with nature? Straight men.The outdoors is framed as a traditionally masculine pursuit, from the stockmen in bush poetry to the stereotype of the camping-fishing-jetskiing bloke. In this framing, the environment exists as a tool with which to confirm ones masculinity and a source of free adrenaline. The outdoors is there to be rough, to be in danger, and to be solitary. It is there to be overcome, by withstanding the elements and beating the terrain.By contrast, queerness and femininity are relegated to the urban and suburban. The traditional image of a woman is, of course, domestic. But even the cultural image of an empowered woman is city-based found in corporate headquarters or on building sites. Queerness is still more localised the collective mind packages it into rapidly gentrifying inner-city gaybourhoods and cultural scenes.This framing has two effects: it prevents our society from having a productive relationship with the environment, and it harms the people who are excluded from interacting with nature.The view of nature as a site for masculinity produces destructive attitudes towards it. Because the narratives about nature hyperbolise how it can be threatening and brutal, the way society responds to it reflects that. Australians, rather than being outdoorsy, have a pervasive and pathological fear of nature. Thats why its more common for people to take fearful pride in funnel web spiders and taipans than to direct joy and affection towards potoroos, numbats and pademelons marsupials that many Australians would probably not recognise. Thats why, when many people speak about Australian ecosystems they emphasise droughts and flooding rains, not jewel beetles and hanging swamps and lagoons and bilbies. Perhaps its why people are so willing to cut down suburban trees and to cull sharks.Ive heard people complain that the Australian landscape is brown, not lush and verdant and neatly European. It makes me sad. Theyre missing the shimmer of heat on the horizon, the elegant amber trunks of angophoras, the vivid incandescent columns of banksia spinulosa, the glowing silhouettes of sunlit boulders, the glistening spine of a diamond python. We have internalised a vision of nature designed to be conquered and suppressed. A landscape which has been drained of colour, softness and variation is one which can be plundered by capitalism and colonialism.On an individual level, too, this framing of nature is dangerous. I remember enduring my commute listening to a guy talk in the quiet carriage he was moving to a leafy new housing development and he was worried about snakes. He talked about buying a gun. I thought about how horrible it was that this man was brave enough to shoot a snake but not brave enough to let one live. His automatic assumption was to subdue and destroy intrusions of nature into his living space, not to attempt to coexist. The anger at laws restricting fishing or beach driving reveal a similar entitlement. The nests of endangered seabirds dont stand a chance against vehicular thrill seeking. The monumental curves of sand dunes and the quivering of their plant life in the sea breeze become like enemies, to be subjected to roaring engines and thick tyres. Vivid marine biodiversity becomes just red tape to be torn away.This is not to suggest that these attitudes are inherently masculine nor that nature ought to be viewed as feminine. What I am arguing is that nature in Australia has been defined in reference to a colonial masculinity which justifies conquest and destruction and legitimises settling stolen land. The untameable and unrestrained characterisation of the bush and its sharp contrast to European countryside (which, by the way, is ahistorical and ignores primary evidence suggesting that the Australian landscape pre-1788 was carefully managed) is used to create a sense of nationhood hinged on terra nullius. In turn, Australian conceptions of masculinity have been shaped by a shared ethos constructed through cultural myths and rights of passage of extractive and destructive interactions with nature. This is partly why, I think, images of the bush and rural areas have been reserved as a space for whiteness.While obviously not preventing queer people and women from enjoying the environment, these narratives certainly make outdoors spaces less welcoming to us. Where outdoors pursuits are filled with heteronormative masculinity, it can be intimidating and make these experiences less accessible. If I hadnt grown up being encouraged to explore nature, Im not sure Id know where to start: the cultural image of these adventures preserves them, by and large, for a particular set of people.All this means that its time to start reframing the way we think about the environment. Claiming the environment as a queer space is important: we should feel empowered to experience joy from nature. As a community, we can create opportunities to do that hiking or camping or adventuring together. But on a broader level, we should attempt to reframe Australian conceptions of nature. We can do this by challenging destructive and exclusionary depictions of nature and by platforming more productive ones.I really admire the Instagram page @indigenouswomenhike, which explores the relationship of Indigenous women with the land (in this case the US) through hiking. The founder, Jolie, uses the page to reveal the Indigenous history of popular hiking trails and to unpack the ways in which nature can facilitate healing. Telling these stories is important they add a dimension to the way people imagine the environment, evoking the rich histories and emotions of the landscape. Where we have previously imagined Australian nature to be hostile and unforgiving, we can see an intricate and beautiful ecosphere. And this can change our instincts about how to treat the environment: it is not there to be overcome or exploited a one-sided relation of dominance but to be lived with.We have been trained not to appreciate colonised nature. Its bad for us as well as the environment. Cultural stereotypes about the environment are used to preserve restrictive and outdated views of gender, while perpetuating harmful attitudes towards nature. The pursuit to push back against these reductive narratives is an important one, which has the potential to revolutionise our relationship to our physical surroundings, culturally binding us to the land and driving us to refuse to accept its exploitation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Earlier this year, ContraPoints uploaded a YouTube video entitled Shame. In it, she comes out as a lesbian, pointing out part of why it took so long for her to accept this label was because of compulsory heterosexuality, aka comphet. As she explains, her experience of comphet made her feel as though it were shameful for herespecially as a trans womanto embrace being a lesbian.As defined by Adrienne Rich in 1980, compulsory heterosexuality describes a socially-ingrained institution that reinforces the performance of cisgender and heterosexual norms by oppressing deviation from it. Heterosexuality is compulsory by virtue of being the unquestioned, default status quo. On an individual level, comphet particularly erases lesbian experience because the patriarchal bent of our social institutions defines femininity in relation to men. While compulsory heterosexuality is an organising structure of our society, which includes an embedded financial, reproductive, and creative control of women, it can also be experienced as pressure for women to perform desire for men as part of their womanhood, as ContraPoints did.ContraPointss video couldnt have come at a more confusing time for me. I had been entertaining the idea that I was bisexual and downloaded a dating app, expressing interest in any gender. Funnily enough, I hadnt identified as straight beforeI had been a lesbian. In fact, part of why I originally identified as such was because I had read through online discussions about comphet.Over the past few years, lesbian activists have shared resources via social media with checklists for any wavering lesbians thinking they might be experiencing the social aspects of comphet. Some of the points look at early indications of crushes on girls that hadnt been parsed as attraction yet: admiration, wanting to kiss, or a strong desire to become best friends. Others put attraction towards men under the microscope. Lesbians experiencing comphet may say they could date a man, but only if he meets certain high standards that are engineered to be impossible for anyone to reach. Another point states that they may only crush on men who cannot reciprocate interest, such as celebrities or authority figures. They can also be anxious about interacting with men who could be interested in them, or generally repulsed by heterosexual relationships. Another point is they may date a man without feeling romantic or sexual interest towards him, just so they can perform heterosexuality by letting other people know they have a boyfriend.Some of these points had resonated with me. The only men to whom I had been attracted were celebrities and I tended to roll my eyes at cishets in general. Sometime last year, I had an uncomfortable encounter with a man who was a bit too obviously interested in mealthough I could easily put my discomfort down to his unpleasantness rather than gender. On the other hand, my interest in women had been an established fact since that first heart-wrenchingly unrequited high school crush; plus, Id just ended a two-year relationship with a woman.As for menwell, I hadnt quite worked it out yet. I sometimes found men physically attractive, and there were one or two boys I knew who I thought could be alright people to date; I even felt that I could have sex with a man. But heres the catch: I didnt know whether Id be romantically attracted to one.In the end, I sorted out the matter pretty easily. Trying to match with women on a dating app was difficult; most people who responded were male. So after one uneventful date with a girl, I ended up going out with a boy. Then I saw him again. And again. And again. And again.Long story short, thats how I discovered I was bi.As queer people, we can often switch in and out of labels. Gender and sexuality are nebulous categories; sometimes, we use labels to help ourselves define our own experience, sometimes we use them to help others understand our identities. Our homophobic, patriarchal societies dont make the task of choosing the correct label any easier. Reading theory that helps you understand the way society structures sexuality is definitely important, and can expand and clarify your view of the world around you. But in the end, you just have to trust your gut. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I dont know about you, but Im a sucker for fantasy. I love it all, from the fictional worlds that are endless rip-offs of imagined medieval times, to the ones where magic exists in the world we know, to those where there are three suns in the sky and a dozen new type of animals. There is so much scope for difference, for originality, for exploring stories and ideas that wont fit into the dull, predictable landscape of reality. Considering how much freedom and flexibility fantasy authors have, though, theres something distinctly missing. The queers.Of course, not all fantasy is guilty of this. There are in fact a lot of great fantasy stories that are jam-packed with representation. A quick google search will throw up dozens of books featuring protagonists who are gay, who are trans, who are living in futuristic worlds where social taboos around queerness are literally unheard of. These books are wonderful, but Im talking about books that are not written for queer people, books which anyone can stumble upon without having to consult an online list.There are two prevalent phenomena of queer representation in fantasy books. The first is the infamous queerbaiting, perfectly exemplified by beloved childrens writer and shameless transphobe J. K. Rowling. Her characters may be interpreted as queer, but are not canonically stated to be so unless Rowling thinks her revisionism of the Harry Potter characters will earn her brownie points for progressiveness. But writing queer characters isnt just writing a character and slapping a label on them afterwards. Writing queer characters means giving them nuance and individuality, in the same way that writing a disabled character, or an Asian character, is distinctly different from writing an abled or white character. This is where the second excuse pops up the vaguely described gay, whose sexuality is only ever nebulously alluded to. Ive stumbled upon countless variations of the line and the prince wasnt concerned with who he bedded, man or woman, that I cant help but roll my eyes every time I see it. Minor characters who are loosely described as homosexual, bisexual, or perhaps pansexual, often in a throwaway line that is rarely further elaborated upon, is just plain lazy. It is nothing more than paying lip service to the idea of that queer people might exist in fantasy worlds, and lets authors get away with seeming queer-friendly without actually having to make an effort to write authentic queer characters.What really irks me about the lack of queers in fantasy is all the lost potential. By confining yourself to a heteronormative, patriarchal world, you immediately cut off so many alternate storylines and experiences that you could have explored otherwise. Very broadly speaking, there are two different ways to go about writing queer characters into your fantasy. You can write gay utopias, where queer people are totally normal and acceptable, or you can write fantasy parallels of the real-world experience of queers. Obviously, there can be overlap you might write a world where homosexuality is fine but transphobia remains an issue but regardless, writing queer characters brings so much more variation, individuality, and depth to a story.Its been covered many times before that queer protagonists should have storylines that go beyond examining their sexuality, and nowhere is this more possible than within fantasy. You can explore wholly different worlds, where queerphobia, or even gender, are unheard of concepts, in which case a gay protagonist has no need to come to terms with their sexuality. Alternatively, you can write contemporary fantasy where characters might have magical powers but still get mocked publicly for their sexuality. Maybe their response to this is part of their character development, but it could also be a scene that explores their self-control, or their experimentation with their powers, or something else entirely. With fantasy, the options are genuinely endless, because you dont have to be constrained by writing queer characters and stories that dont stretch the suspension of disbelief.Fantasy is the perfect genre for authors to branch out and explore queer characters. These characters dont necessarily have to be the protagonist, or even central to the storyline, but the inclusion of queer characters allows authors to explore different narratives far beyond the typical coming-out stories that still dominate gay fiction today. These various, often unexplored narratives bring complexity to fantasy worlds that might otherwise seem indistinguishable from each other with their pseudo-feudal societies and tedious reliance on cis-heteronormativity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At times, life at the University of Sydney (USyd) can feel like an endless cycle of fiercely contested elections. Organisations like the University of Sydney Union and the Students Representative Council play an important role in students lives. Despite that, there often seems to be an atmosphere of apathy associated with student electoral processes, reflected in shockingly low voter turnout rates which regularly hover around 10%. Whether this is down to a perception that student elections have no real impact is debatable. That perception, however, would be radically different in the imagined world where the University of Sydney became an electoral division again.The University of Sydneys status as an electoral district in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales is a gem buried within the annals of history. Its electoral lifespan was brief, spanning just four years from 1876 to 1880.The specifications of the electoral district were set out in the 1858 Electoral Act. The Act stipulated that upon enrolment figures at USyd passing 100 students, a special seat would be created. Voting rights would be extended to senate fellows, various staff members and students studying a Master of Arts, Doctors of Laws and Doctors of Medicine. The elections themselves were administered by the Provost or Vice Provost who would act as a returning officer.The first campus election was a by-election held in 1876, in which William Charles Windeyer defeated Edmund Barton by 6 votes. At the next election Barton, who as Prime Minister oversaw the implementation of the White Australia Policy, claimed victory.In 1880, when electoral boundaries in New South Wales were redrawn, the seat of the University of Sydney was abolished. Since then, no other special university seats have been created in any state, leaving the question of what USyd electoral divisions would look like. That question remains restricted only to our imagination.There were certainly significant electoral benefits for students voting in the USyd electoral district in 1876. Firstly, the population of their electoral division would have been around 100 students, compared to approximately 4,000 voters in other electorates (assuming a roughly equal electoral division). This would have granted each student a significantly larger share of voting power and influence over the outcome of elections than other students nationwide. Today, the size of USyds electoral division would have grown to approximately 54,000 students. Although nowhere near the disproportions of the 19th century, this would still be significantly smaller than almost all electoral divisions in New South Wales today.In light of USyds strong activist tradition, an electoral district may also have increased the efficacy of activist campaigns. With a clear path to Parliament, movements benefit from having a more tangible and proximate end-goal, energising student activists and galvanising greater support. Additionally, although a little idealistically, there would have been an opportunity for genuinely left-wing candidates to hold a seat in Parliament and champion the demands of grassroots campaigns.Compulsory voting may also have had the impact of cultivating a stronger voting culture on campus with flow-on effects in other student elections. With political participation becoming more closely linked to campus culture, it is feasible that the preservation of an electoral district would have lead to higher turnouts in SRC and USU Board elections. This would have also assisted in mitigating some of the electoral impacts of voluntary student unionism.To extend the thought experiment a little further, its possible that other universities would also have been granted their own electoral divisions. Such special seats, significantly smaller than other electoral divisions, would be problematic in terms of compromising equality in the value of votes. At risk of becoming elitist in its extension of a special voting status exclusive to university students who disproportionately come from class privileged backgrounds.Ultimately though, there doesnt seem to be any real possibility of university electoral districts being revived, and perhaps for the better. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> BUSS2000 is undoubtedly the most collectively hated unit in the Universitys Business School. Its uselessness and vague marking, are common complaints in the halls of the Abercrombie Building. A scroll down Facebook page, USYD Rants, reveals an endless sea of roasts:BUSS2000: a 13 week social experiment to determine how sycophantic business students can be and BUSS2000 is quite literally the most worthless unit that Usyd business school has to offer. I held the same mindset myself while I was doing the unit and bonded with my classmates by ridiculing it.BUSS2000, also known as, Leading and Influencing in Business, is split into three themes: 1. Understanding Yourself, 2. Understanding Others, and 3. Leading and Influencing Others. At first glance, the unit supports an increasingly corporatised business student stereotype denoted by personal branding and LinkedIn networking. The very title of the course is puzzling leading and influencing in business are not skills easily picked up in the classroom.While BUSS2000 attempts to be interactive, with face-to-face meetings and online modules replacing weekly lectures, this is offset by the confusion and frustration students often feel in response to the units vague marking criteria.An explanation of this student reaction can be understood through blogger Andrea Donderis theory of Ask Culture vs. Guess Culture. Donderi says: Askers ask for favours half-expecting a no in response while Guessers only ask for favours when they are certain they will be met with a yes, and believe there is a huge expectation for them to comply to favours, and comply perfectly.The New South Wales High School curriculum conditions students to be Guessers strict, syllabus-driven teaching and hyper competitiveness lead us to believe that answers must be reached by reasoning with ourselves to come to a conclusion. The standardised testing of NAPLAN and the HSC promote rote-based study techniques and push us inwards in our study habits, cut off from academic support. In effect, high school teaches us to run our own race.Trained into this mindset, when we reach university, with its focus on discussion-fuelled lessons and student initiative, we find ourselves at a roadblock. For years, weve been taught to be Guessers and the new reality is jarring.Thats where BUSS2000 and its younger sibling BUSS1000 Future of Business supposedly come in. Both aim to retrain students to become askers, to ask without expectation of a reward or return a skill which looks and sounds like confidence an increasingly valuable trait in the Business Schools eyes. Students, more than ever, are being prepared for a job early in university and BUSS2000 and BUSS1000, seen in the broader context of interdisciplinary project units, are part of the Universitys attempt to make students into askers in the hope of cultivating entrepreneurial skills and commerciality.Students, adjusted to the individualistic curriculum of high school, react badly to all that being an asker entails working with others, considering each group members opinions, managing skills and work ethic and reconciling individual with group agendas. The pursuit of finding yourself and what learning style works for you, and how that works in a team dynamic, ultimately leave students catching up, rewiring their guesser mentalities into asker personalities, consistently left one step behind.These subjects offered an opportunity for students to self-reflect, tarnished by the fact that flaws in course design went unacknowledged, Its easy for the Business School to dismiss students rants as immature and us not knowing better. Realistically, these units could be structured better to suit the students in its classes. BUSS2000 is adisruptive subject cloaked in the Universitys wider employability agenda. It deserves to be scrutinised.Despite trying to teach students to compromise, it seems that the staff at the Business School have yet to properly achieve this themselves. The vague course objectives in BUSS1000 and BUSS2000 cause extreme frustration, and the deeply subjective nature of the unit translates poorly into quantitative marking.At least for now, the employability USyd advertises is not gained from courses like BUSS2000. Instead, it is gained outside the classroom where students take matters into their own hands, dealing with the frustrating hurdles of University admin and a mix of poorly structured units. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Both operate in oligopolistic environments shaped by the ruthless dynamics of supply and demand, hungry for profits or market share when trying to out-do their competitors in a capitalistic arena. Both offer a suite of cookie-cutter products, which often fail to adequately meet individual needs. Consuming one of these products requires committing to a fixed-term contract, made difficult to escape due to legions of terms and conditions. Top executives are compensated generously for their often questionable management, with salaries beginning well-above the million-dollar mark.They both also offer the promise of superior service one which has been continually broken. Whilst I can handle a routine blackout between Stanmore and Newtown, one shouldnt expect consistent failures when it comes to their education, and their future. The highly debatable quality in the recent overhauls of USyds academic offerings, such as OLEs, cheapen the value of a world-class degree.Meanwhile, the teaching quality varies enormously. One only needs to look at new administration building: intermittent Internet, fossilised classrooms and poor recording facilities that make it difficult for those who cant physically attend lectures.But what happens when the student experience breaks down?With your only respite being the now centralised USyd Student Centre the equivalent of a telecom phone centre students become helpless consumers facing a bureaucratic abyss when crucial issues, such as academic progression, exchange credits or degree administration, arise.Many of us are no strangers to the dehumanised processes of USyds handling of student queries an effective cost-cutting strategy to boost the universitys profits, which reached almost $170 million last year. The system delivers anxiety and frustration. It is not unusual to wait weeks, even months for a reply.It took Candice* three years to be properly enrolled in a Bachelors of Science (Advanced) with majors that would best reflect her changing interests. She was initially rejected from an internal transfer despite satisfying the ATAR requirements. Delays between email correspondence, forgotten promises of call-backs and a lack of familiarity with the degree requirements culminated in the change taking place many months after the initial request. The bureaucratic torture persisted when Candice tried to change majors where the only consistency was, ironically, the irregular information retrieved from multiple in-person consultations at the Student Centre.Simon* was in his last year when he too decided to change degrees. During this process, he waited six months for a response despite opening numerous tickets on USyds contactless Service Portal. Its sterile interface is the equivalent of talking to someone at automated call centre.Such delays, devoid of human touch, resulted in Simon delaying graduation for a semester and thwarted any aspirations of further study. [I] once had aspirations of doing further academic work at USyd, but not anymore. The whole ordeal left such a bitter taste in my mouth Id rather just work.Michaels* graduation date was also pushed back a semester due to administrative errors on USyds part. They incorrectly marked one of his subjects as incomplete from first year, almost three years ago, despite displaying as complete on his Sydney Student. Email replies were staggered at 1-2 weeks between him and administrative staff, which prevented him from enrolling in Winter School to promptly complete his degree. He only received a reply at the start of Semester 2. By then he had already enrolled because he had no other choice. [They] basically blamed me for their blunder and was not helpful at all.At no point was a phone number or contact details to a real person made available in any of these cases. One cant help but wonder if these delays are intentional, keeping students in the system for longer, while universities profit off prolonged degrees.Simon and Candice were only able to switch successfully after escalating their cases to the Associate Deans of their respective faculties. It seems as if only when executive power is on your side does the university start taking you seriously. But this process also lacks transparency, as many emails of relevant staff members or academics are deliberately obfuscated on the USyd website, forcing students to navigate another bureaucratic labyrinth.Its easy to blame the inefficacy of administrative staff for these gross injustices. But it appears that a greedy university is ultimately at fault. How is a decentralised team supposed to support over 60,000 students?Short-staffing and poor training of administrative centres come at the expense of adequate academic guidance and mentorship which is crucial for nurturing the educational experience students deserve.The increasing levels of disenfranchisement between students and staff, general complacency, lack of compassion and treating students like hapless cash generators is despicable.If customer service was a key performance indicator, USyd would have an appalling rating.*Names have been changed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Studying at an international institution is the opportunity of a lifetime for some. For others, it can open up a complicated world of health issues, insurance claims and exploitation.Laura* is 20 years old. Shes an international student studying a Bachelor of Commerce in Australia, and has been here since she was 18. Her hometown is New Delhi, and for her, studying at an overseas institution was an imperative opportunity until she needed emergency gallbladder removal in October 2018.In a country where the language wasnt native to her, with medical jargon she couldnt understand, very little time to properly process the surgery she was undergoing and costs associated with it, the situation was challenging.Fortunately, she was eligible for insurance cover for the major surgery. But other treatments like specialist appointments, anaesthetic for surgery and follow up meetings with doctors were not covered, costing in excess of thousands of dollars.She is still owing nearly two thousand dollars in medical expenses.Her story is not unusual.As an international student moving to another country, some at the age of 17 or 18, pregnancy and mental health may not be the first things on your list when choosing insurance. But, statistically speaking, over a third of health insurance claims among international students are pregnancy related.The basic international student insurance cover is called Overseas Student Health Cover and it insures students for some out-of-hospital medical services (as listed in the Medicare benefits schedule), in-hospital medical services, public hospital treatments and ambulance services.Excluded from the cover is treatment for pregnancy related conditions in the first twelve months of arrival, alongside treatment for secondary conditions or disabilities that arise, and other conditions.Sean Stimson, the head of Redfern Legal Centres International Student Service, told Honi that a lack of clear knowledge and understanding of the services available to students makes it complicated for them to seek help.We found that there was very little information to assist international students. There was lots of information, but it was through different sources and also very rarely, was it presented in a community language.Research conducted by the Centre found that many international students are not utilising their health insurance as they should be due to gap payments that cost large sums of money. These payments can be a significant portion of a students fortnightly income, and on top of expensive rent costs, are not a priority for students to pay off. Consequently, many refrain from seeking treatment, to avoid expenses.Mr Stimson highlights that for many students, the choice comes down to basic human needs like eating, versus expensive medical treatments.For you and I, perhaps having to pay 20,30,40,50 dollars to use it to get a treatment would be an obvious choice. But if the $50 was do I want to eat this week or do I want to go and see a doctor, I think, well most of us are going to say well we want to eat this week.One of the key reasons the gap payment becomes so unaffordable for students is due to restrictions imposed on international students through the 40 hour working fortnight. As a part of condition 8105 of the student visa, students are limited to working a maximum of twenty hours a week, and forty hours a fortnight.On minimum wage, this amounts to approximately $757.20 a fortnight. For international students with various bills and costs to pay; including rent, food, amenities and costs of living, this income is unsustainable. Instead, working more hours at below-minimum wage becomes a more valid option, or even doing jobs where payment is withheld until a certain number of extra hours are completed.The Migrant Workers Taskforce report, released by the Government in March of this year, outlined the potential for student visa holders to be exploited by employers.As a part of the recommendations of the report, the Taskforce is calling on education providers to provide international students with more information about their rights in the workforce. Mr Stimson says students often felt they were in the wrong, when they were exploited.This often leads to mental health issues among the community.When students then cannot access counsellors or support services, staying at University in a foreign country becomes almost impossible and health issues develop into severe and often debilitating illnesses.Manfred Mletsin, an international student himself, who now works for the Council of International Students Australia says that cultural differences between Australia and the home countries of some international students is problematic, as culturally some international students are less informed on important information, like sex education, than others.A lot of international students come from south-east Asian countries and their sex-education probably isnt as strong as it is in Australia or some European countriesSo that might put them into a situation where talking about sex, or talking about sexually transmitted diseases or even talking about pregnancy is just out of question.For international students under the age of 25, organisations like beyondblue provide free counselling and mental health services for anyone, including international students. However, many international students do not know that these services exist, nor how to access them.Universities provide mental health treatment, and counsellors in many languages. But the demand for these services from international students in some universities outweighs the supply. Resources can be minimal and waiting periods can go on for months.Mr Mletsin found himself going to a general practitioner for mental health treatment, after being told that wait times at his university were in excess of two months.Other findings of the research conducted by the Migrant Workers Taskforce show that nearly a quarter of international students are earning less than $12 an hour in wages, and 43 per cent are earning $15 an hour or less. This falls well below the minimum wage in Australia. A survey has been commissioned by the University of Technology Sydney and the University of New South Wales following these results, asking international students what they dont know, and what they need to know to be able to avoid exploitation by employers and potential landlords.Losing their visa is one of the major issues that is causing students to stay silent on some of the issues theyre experiencing. Such a loss would result in a student having to return to their country of origin. It can be brought on by failing subjects at University, or by working over the maximum hours permitted each week. Students become concerned about losing their visas, so often develop a reluctance to report issues to the police, or to officials, for fear of ramifications.Though the lives of international students are often perceived as extravagant and luxurious, many are exempt from a most basic necessity: healthcare. Until that changes, these perceptions remain ill-founded.*Names have been changed <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Patronising. Degrading. A free-pass. When the University of Technology Sydney first announced their decision to allow 10 adjustment points for female students applying for undergraduate degrees in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology it was met with outrage from the public. We are not a quota, we are not a numbers boost and we need a culture change, not a hand out, read a petition calling for the initiative to be removed. More than 1000 people signed within the first two days. In its attempt to encourage more women to enrol in engineering, UTSs move for equity instead became a bone of contention, accused of perpetuating the narrative of sexism.With only 27% of the STEM workforce being represented by women, the problematic gender imbalance within STEM has long been subject to critical discourse. According to Engineers Australia, an average of only 14.1% of engineering graduates are female and despite the number of mentoring programs, scholarships and schemes introduced in the last two decades, progress towards equity remains frustratingly slow. We need to be disruptive what we have been doing is not working, Justine Romanics, National Manager for Professional Diversity and STEM at Engineers Australia, said.Under UTSs initiative, domestic female students who have achieved a minimum of 69.00 ATAR points will be eligible to receive 10 adjustment points exclusive to UTS, effectively increasing their selection rank and their chance of acceptance into applicable STEM courses. It has already been approved by the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and is set to be in effect for high school students applying for 2020 university admission. While it is true that the inherently vested interests of university holds great influence over the implementation of initiatives, the governments move towards performance-based funding in 2020 suggests it is unlikely that UTSs proposal is purely a means to boost enrolments for financial gain.At first glance, UTSs drastic approach may seem to be wilfully misguided in its headline to lower the entry bar for women despite proponents of the scheme claiming that it will increase opportunity for female enrolment within relevant STEM courses. In an email sent to members of the Faculty of Engineering IT at UTS, the university stated that the number of offers to female students would have increased from 19% to 27% across all Engineering and IT undergraduate degrees based on their 2018 admissions data.Thus, adjustment points are legitimised by the assumption that it will increase enrolments and consequently female representation, encouraging cultural and social change. Indeed, the glaring gender gap fosters a culture whereby strength in numbers favours male dominance and sexism is subconsciously entrenched within the mindset of the cohort. A 2016 report by the Office of the Chief Scientist stated that Australia loses female talent at every stage of the STEM pipeline despite no innate cognitive gender differences. Instead, engagement, confidence and bias were said to be the issues contributing to the level of achievement and retention of women in STEM.Sabrina Emanouel, a fifth year Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering student and Team Leader of UTS Motorsports Electric, believes that an increase in female representation within the cohort will empower female voices and reduce stereotypical biases, challenging the power dynamics that exist within toxic masculinity.Its a strange dynamic, Emanouel who oversees a team of more than 20 students within UTS Motorsports, said. Ive got a team of 84% men and some of these guys are older than me, some of them are further into their degree than me and here I am leading the team. Sometimes I have to be firm or assertive and they can take it as aggression or bitch.Although sexism may no longer be blatant, the subconscious entitlement ingrained within the male-dominated sphere continues to haunt women in subtle ways. As the minority, women often feel the pressure to prove that they deserve their place. Theres almost this bro-culture or man-culture, said Yatha Jain, 2018 Vice President of Sydney University Women in Engineering. Itll sometimes be things like a guy not shaking your hand and shaking everyone elses hand, or even more subtle than that, when youre one of only a few women, they dont talk to you. Things like eye contact, theyll look at everyone else more than you.Admittedly, there is merit in the contention that it is not ATAR requirements alone which curtails female interest in engineering and IT subjects. Indeed, the issue equally stems from the systemic failure to educate women in STEM within earlier stages of teaching. However, the adjustment points do not seek to eliminate the necessity of strengthening our education system, but rather enhance its effects by enabling more opportunities for women in tertiary education. It is a hard pill to swallow when the educational system must stoop to gender points as a means of increasing female participation but perhaps a reality we currently bear.Fears that the preferential treatment of women devalues their intellect, subjecting them to further scrutiny and discrimination, reveals societys willingness to define an individuals potential by a statistical rank. The notion that a students academic success at university can be surmised by a numerical measure perpetuates a detrimental mentality that distorts the importance of ATARs whilst undermining the self-value of students. On the contrary, universities are increasingly looking towards alternative means as a basis of undergraduate admission only 26% of secondary education students were admitted based on their ATAR in 2016, according to the Mitchell Institute.Furthermore, accusations that UTSs adjustment points undermines the validity of a womans degree, though well-intentioned, risk legitimising severe misconceptions. It is ridiculous to consider that an individuals qualification could somehow be undermined by an easier admission into their course, disregarding their academic performance subsequent entry entirely. It therefore becomes crucial that the narrative that dominates is one that fosters a network of support; one that focuses on an individuals achievement, not on what they may have once lacked numerically. Access to professional resources such as first-year buddy support, mentoring programs, and networks to female industry role models are an essential partnership to this scheme.Right now what we have to do is take active steps to make sure these women arent treated differently next year, said Emanouel. Next year is the year that we have to make sure that that fear of being treated differently, of being treated poorly, doesnt happen.UTS will be the first university in Australia to offer adjustment points based solely on gender. A University of Sydney spokesperson told Honi that it had no plans to reduce the ATAR requirement for women in any of its degree options.While we applaud any efforts to decrease the gender imbalance in STEM, we are not considering such an approach in any of our degree options at this time.While UTSs initiative is undeniably imperfect and cannot exist as a permanent solution, it holds the potential to enact real change given the right rhetoric. In a system that has long favoured men, its time women are given a hand. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The final results of the 2019 presidential and Honi Soit elections are in, subject to review by the Electoral Officer and appeal by any dissatisfied parties. Liam Donohoe and FIT for Honi have won by impressive margins. Here are the stats.PresidentThis year saw a huge turnout by far the largest in recent memory, and perhaps the largest ever. 5,362 formal ballots were cast for president, compared to 4,085 last year, and 3,576 in 2017. The last time two candidates contested the presidential race (Isabella Brook and Georgia Mantle in 2016), 3,798 votes were cast.This years election saw a turnout of approximately 16% of undergraduate students for the presidential ballot. This is particularly surprising given that there were in fact fewer presidential candidates this year than in 2018 and 2017, which had four and three candidates respectively.The actual booth-by-booth results tell an interesting story. Donohoe, despite finishing with a healthy 54.5% of the vote, suffered a dramatic defeat during pre-polling. Honis exit poll had Jakovac at 56.4% at the end of Tuesday, when in reality this number was over 60%.Wednesday and Thursday saw Donohoe surge almost instantly. By Wednesday mid-afternoon, Donohoe had gained more than 10% in our exit polls and began to lead the race a lead which he would not lose for the rest of the election.Booth data illustrates that JFR was virtually tied across Wednesday and Thursday. Its likely that Donohoes come back is largely attributable to Fisher, Manning, and the Conservatorium vote, all of which went Donohoes way in a landslide. Amateur demographers, make of that what you will.HoniThe Honi race was a landslide in every sense of the word. Unlike the presidential race, there was never any doubt at all what the outcome would be. FIT won every single booth by a resounding margin.FITs worst showing was, like Donohoe, during pre-poll. Even then however, they still came out convincingly on top with 56.6% of the vote. From then onwards, FIT won every booth by a margin of 61% or more.CREAMs total only narrowly beat informal votes by a margin of 184.Honis exit poll offers an interesting insight into the relationship between voters president and Honi preferences. Almost 60% of Jakovac voters opted to vote for CREAM as well; over 77% of Donohoe voters also voted for FIT. Despite being a politically independent ticket, CREAM had an undeniable appeal with the right. This reinforces the notion that Thursday night was a loss in more ways than one for conservatives.CouncilBelow are the councillors of the 92nd Council.National Union of StudentsBelow are the NUS delegates for NatCon 2019. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content warning: violence, murder, rapeThe morning after I told my father I was writing this article, he stood in our kitchen, anxiously toying with his coffee cup, and warned me against writing it. His was an act of love a general paternal worry for the safety of his only child. In the 1960s, an uncle of his disappeared from their village in Bali forever. It was quietly assumed that hed been a victim in the mass anti-communist killings that took place throughout Indonesia between 1965 and 1966. Anti-communist army personnel, and those in the general public who feared communism, conspired against and murdered members and sympatheisers of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI). Were coming up to the 54th anniversary of the September 30 coup dtat that effectively justified this nation-wide purge induced by fears that the PKI had gained too much power and reach under the leadership of President Sukarno, an Independence leader and Indonesias first President. This is the narrative that was promoted by The New Order, the regime led by Sukarnos successor and former-general, Suharto, who rose to power following the September 30 events.Indonesias official motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), was adopted from an Old Javanese poem and is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution drawn up in 1945. With the incredible array of ethnicities, languages and forms of religions that make up the Indonesian archipelago, a national motto that promotes tolerance and peaceful multiculturalism makes a lot of sense. The reality of the imagined community of Indonesia is much harder to grapple with. Diversity is not synonymous with equality.The New Order was a brutal, nationalist project that ran on depoliticising the masses, suppressing the working classes, and opening the country to the kind of foreign investments that anti-imperialist Sukarno had attempted to avoid. To police borders is to police belonging; sometimes it is not a matter of refusing a groups belonging but forcing it. At the eastern margins of the map, West Papua, otherwise referred to by Indonesians as Irian Jaya, was always part of the pro-independence vision for the nation that would eventually wrest itself from 350 years of Dutch colonial occupation in 1945 an island collected as a piece for an archipelagic puzzle. There has always been a movement for West Papuan independence from Indonesia, too. Their ongoing erasure and genocide by the Indonesian military, green-lit by governments and corporations, is a human rights and ecological emergency.In 1967 US-based company Freeport-McMoRan began mining in the middle of the Sudirman Range of West Papuas western central highlands, seizing the new potential of Indonesias opening markets under The New Order. Freeport-McMoRans Grasberg mine is the worlds largest gold mine; it is the second largest copper-mine. At the turn of the century, after Suhartos resignation in 1998, Benedict Anderson labelled the New Order the banalisation of brutality, reminiscent of Rob Nixons idea of slow violence the normalisation of incremental forms of violence and trauma, the absence of immediate horror and critical shock value that Western society uses to compel sympathy. Within the contemporary climate action movement, resisting expressions of slow violence is vital.Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonne describe a spreading soot-coloured bruise of mine waste into the Sudirman valleys rivers including ground ore residue and unprocessed rock. Imagine a bruise a hurt beneath skin being slowly pressed and pressed, over and over again.Two Indigenous tribes have been particularly heavily affected by the Grasberg mine: the Amungme highlanders, carved out alongside their land by mining and the Kamoro, lowlanders who struggle to find fish, as they have done for thousands of years, in the rivers. And so the mine has made resource, unmade refugia.Across the rest of the island, thousands of West Papuans, including children, have been killed in their struggle for complete independence from the nation-state machine, and freedom from the myth of Indonesian national belonging. Many more rebels and civilians have been tortured, raped, beaten, kidnapped, and forced to resettle for those migrants from other islands to settle-in. Voices are silenced on demand; recently the internet and telecoms were temporarily blocked on the island.Last week on Twitter, Veronica Koman, an Indonesian Human Rights lawyer currently being pursued by Indonesian authorities, reported the death of Sam Lokon, a member of the West Papua National Committee, who was filmed being terrorised by a snake whilst held in a cell by Indonesian police. My client, pro-independence activist Sam Lokon (26) passed away this morning after serving 6-month sentence on a fabricated charge with many procedural flaws. His health deteriorated in custody. He was kicked, beaten with a length of wood, put in a cell with snakes when arrested, tweeted Koman.In August, reports say six West Papuan protestors were killed on the island during demonstrations in retaliation to a video showing Papuan students, studying in Surabaya (East Java), being called monkeys, pigs and dogs by the military who allege that over forty students had disrespected the Indonesian flag during independence-day celebrations. Flying the West Papuans sovereign Morning Star flag is a punishable offence.The Indonesian military, and Dutch colonisers before them, have used the politics of time to envelope West Papua in a kind of frontier imaginary, perpetuating a language and strategy of violent anti-Blackness that classifies First Nations people as uncivilised, savage, and disposable. It is hypocritical for Indonesia to refuse to fulfill the same desires for Merdeka! (Freedom!) that it drew up in its own the 1945 Constitution.I balked at the recent announcement by current President, Joko Widodo, that the nations capital would be moving from sinking Jakarta to a province in East Kalimantan, Indonesias portion of the island Borneo. This may, at least, change the Java-centric focus of politics but the announcement felt like a sleight-of-hand, diverting attention away from the conditions in West Papua. Furthermore, the move is just transplanting the problem of pollution and overcrowding onto a region already in the business of displacing Indigenous tribes and destroying orangutan habitats for open-pit coal-mines and palm oil plantations.Im only one of many people from the Indonesian diaspora who stand in solidarity with West Papuan independence, watching the homeland with alarmed and alert eyes and ears. Resisting racism and anti-Blackness, and supporting the continued self-determination of First Nations communities, is of course something we must stridently practice here in Australia too. So Dad, if youre reading this, its too late. No man is an island, no island is a paradise. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres a recurring line in the song Michelle Pfeiffer by Mahawam that the artist hurls out of their mouth, a bullet speeding towards skin: but imminent death / but imminent death / but imminent death / but imminent death. I first heard the song walking home one night in late June. As I listened to it, I thought of the way death hangs over people of colour, real yet abstract; always potential.Months later, I discovered that the song was written in response to the artists HIV diagnosis. As a nonbinary Black person, Mahawam born Malik Mays seeks to explore the proximity to death experienced by queer black people. For me, this clarified a truth internally known, of the inextricable link between being a person of colour and being a queer person in a world hostile towards both.Both bodies of colour and queer bodies fundamentally disrupt the fantasy of white national space. Anthropologist Ghassan Hage argues in White Nation that in Australia, whiteness as a project seeks to maintain control over imaginary borders, under the guise of multiculturalism and the discourse of tolerance. In challenging the reproduction of this fantasy, queerness and ethnic otherness exist as threat, and come under danger. First Nations feminist academic and activist Aileen Moreton-Robinson conceptualises this danger as the over-definition of the racial others body, against a disembodied, invisible whiteness.This violent foregrounding of physicality extends to queer bodies; like bodies of colour, they function as depositories of death within a cultural imaginary always ready to dispose of them. The bodies of queer people and people of colour are never promised. In a liminal space ever-heavy with the potential of physical bodies ending, can selves be created beyond physicality?The concept of queer futurity as explored by Jos Esteban Muoz becomes radical here, reflecting the hybridity and synergy of queer people of colour. In Cruising Utopia, Muoz suggests that queer space is one of utopic promise, existing beyond the physicality of the present: queerness exists for us as an ideality [ it is] the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality or concrete possibility for another world.Muozs vision of futurity is embodied by Sydney and Adelaide-based band Collarbones in their album of the same name, taken from Muozs work. In an interview with the music site Pilerats, vocalist Marcus Whale reflected on futurity as this imaginary space to which I return when I try to unpack my romantic instincts. The album explores what Whale terms that most future-oriented form of longing the crush. Queer futurity as presented by Collarbones is never removed from bodies. Rather, theoretical concepts and experiences co-exist as limbs tangled in the dark.This is apparent in the albums structure. The interlude Futurity is a 15-second track of pulsing machinery noises, framed on either side by Deep and Heavy, pop-leaning dance tracks that distil fears and anticipations about relationships. This linkage between futurities and (potential) queer, bodily intimacy shifts the contradictory nature of desire and uncertainty into a space of momentary meaning-making. Futurity opens a space in which bodies transcend physical boundaries through virtual existences. This is intimately tied to the digital age; the queer crush becomes refracted by the specificity of desire and intimacy in the online. In creating a blurry space between reality and fantasy, digital space provides for world-making.Though radical in disrupting embedded imaginaries, digital potentiality is not without limitations. The work of Essex Hemphill, an African-American poet and activist, complicates digital space as often unsafe. His poem On the Shores of Cyberspace weaves the impending destruction of his physical body as an HIV-positive gay man into a questioning of the internet to provide harbour for queer bodies of colour:Im counting T-cells on the shores of cyberspace andFeeling some despair[]I stand at the threshold of cyberspace and wonder:Is it possible that I am unwelcome here, too?Will I be allowed to construct a virtual reality that empowers me?Hemphill reminds us that the internet is far from a neutral and apolitical site of utopian creation. Simultaneously, rather than providing a space that surpasses bodies, bodies flow into digital sites. Hemphills poem is never divorced from queer bodily intimacy:I occupy my lovers long-fingered hands at the threshold of cyberspace.Perhaps, then, digital space allows for contingent world-making; for relief for bodies-under-threat but not for the doing-away-with of physicality. Perhaps an elimination of physical bodies is not desirable; Hemphill and Collarbones chart the joys, along with the pain, of bodies existing together in unsafe spaces.Digital space remains, for me, a fraught fantasy, one that embodies Muozs vision of a horizon imbued with potentiality. Given that all structures are operationalised fantasies, digital space could provide for creating kinder fantasies for marginalised identities.In Michelle Pfeiffer Mays remarks offhandedly, golds been leaking from my lesions lately, its crazy. Maybe this presents the most productive digital potentiality: the gold doesnt cancel out the lesions, but presents a space of beauty and alternative meaning on the edge of destruction. It was never about going beyond bodies, then. It was about finding and creating those spaces where bodies under threat are able to glow. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I turn 21 soon and Im terrified. Since birth, my family has reminded me that all my little kernels of embarrassment will surely appear in my fathers PowerPoint-guided 21st speech. Now, crippled by an adolescence of CamWow selfies and one horribly misguided instance of fake tanning only my face, I have quite a visceral repulsion to the idea of 21.Perhaps I should be less anxious. Afterall, public embarrassment is a defining feature of Australian politics. There was the time Turnbull was compelled to introduce a bonk ban, the time Gillard fell on her face in India, and that time Abbott ate the onion. Recently, Australia has been embarrassed again, but this wasnt as quick and painless as the aforementioned. This was more than just a gaffe.Last month, Australia attended the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) and the amount of embarrassing blows was about as exhilarating as it was stifling. There were tears, broken friendships and pale pink polos. Lets break it down.The members of the PIF meet annually to enhance cooperation between states and improve the wellbeing of Pacific citizens. This usually involves negotiating the contents of the communique, a document used to outline the concerns of the region and formalise members commitments to future steps. As per the trend of the past few years, climate change and emissions reductions were hot on the agenda. Seeing as our Prime Minister once held up a lump of coal in parliament and told us not to be scared, we knew this was going to be a testing time.Morrison was quick to call the PIF a family gathering. I must agree it had all the makings of a good family gathering: an island paradise, matching shirts and (initially) smiling faces. But, it did not take long for this family gathering to breakdown. This was one of those occasions where the collapse was less due to Aunt Judy guzzling one too many Chardonnays, and more because estranged brother Scott got a bit too flashy with his dollars and told all his cousins to get a real problem.Infact, most family members freely admitted that Ol ScoMo ruffled a few feathers with his insistence to water down the language of the communique, even convincing the family to scratch out the word coal from the document. Heated words were had with Fijian Prime Minister literally disowning Morrison as a good friend, and the Tongan Prime Minister was reduced to tears over Australias inactive response to the smaller islands pleas for action. Worst of all, ScoMo was unphased by these emotional indictments, heralding the summit as a success on his Facebook page and proudly spruiking our generous 500 million dollar aid package as a great solution to issues of the region.This all sounds pretty cringey, but it gets even worse when you consider where we were when Australia threw money at the rising seas. This years PIF was held in Tuvalu, one of the smallest, least-visited nations on earth.At only 4.5 meters above sea-level, Tuvalu is one of four nations most vulnerable to rising seas, and climate change is the number one cause of its continued rise. Tuvalu has already suffered a fair share of climate shocks, experiencing more frequent king tides, droughts, food shortages and major disruptions to its fishing industry.Coal kills small island nations like Tuvalu and Australias removal of the c word from the communique truly embodies an unwillingness to meaningfully change. According to the Climate Action Tracker, Australias current emissions reductions targets arent enough to keep global warming below 1.5C. If all government targets were in this range, the world would warm by 3C. At 3C warming, Tuvalu will likely become uninhabitable, and there is no international precedent or law to prevent Tuvalu, its statehood, international status, and national identity, from disappearing completely.Australias emissions are eight times the total emissions of the Pacific region and with our trusty reliance on Kyoto loopholes, it doesnt look like theyll be reduced any time soon. So, say the worst-case scenario eventuates, the seas rise and Tuvalu becomes unlivable (which has already forced migration from its outer islands) Does anyone have a plan for that? you ask. Yes, Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack calmly said that the Pacific Island will continue to survive because many of their workers [are welcome to] come here to pick our fruit. Oh, Uncle Michael why do you always embarrass us like this?Australias conduct at the PIF was truly shameful. Sure, weve all been there unnervingly asserted our own needs before others, underestimated someones real sense of existentialism, been so badly behaved it puts some friendships on the line. If theres anything Ive learnt from my chronicle of embarrassments its that there is a time to pull your socks up and do better. And that time is now. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Pranay JhaLiam Thorne2019Honi SoitNUSSRCThis article was originally written in English, and can be read here.: 52%Josie Jakovac (Libdependence)USU JakovacJakovac Jakovac - JakovacJakovacJakovacHoni SoitEvangelical Union)JakovacHoni SoitGeorge Pell (: George Pell )JakovacSRC42000JakovacSRC-Jakovac/Jakovac()Jakovac20187JakovacJakovac2018 HoniJakovacJakovac JakovacSRCDonohoeJakovac(Open Learning Environment)JakovacView the questions from this years quizzeshere.Honi is hosting theannual Presidential Debate on Wednesday 18 September from 1pm at Hermanns.Submit a question to your candidateshere.Got feedback or goss? Send us atip. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The 28th of June this year will mark 50 years since the Stonewall riots, an event which represented a tipping point in the struggle for LGBTQI equality. The riots radically accelerated the gay liberation movement in America and internationally, and shaped the politics of a new generation of activists. There are many lessons we can learn from these radical struggles.Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn was popular among LGBTQI youth because it allowed same-sex dancing, something that was usually considered disorderly and so grounds for arrest. The Stonewall Inn was described as a bar for people who were too young, too poor or too much to get in anywhere else.There have been many theories advanced attempting to explain why a routine police raid sparked riots outside the Stonewall on June 28th, but none have been agreed upon. Whatever the impetus, the crowd on that night began to resist when police started arresting patrons. One journalist at the scene described how the mood of the crowd, initially festive, suddenly became furious. Onlookers began throwing bottles and beer cans, eventually forcing the police to barricade themselves inside the bar. The police deputy on the scene recalled, There was never any time that I felt more scared than I felt on that night.The initial riot lasted 45 minutes, but for the next few hours the LGBTQI community taunted the police in the streets around the bar with chants and violence. This pattern continued nightly until the 2nd of July, when police finally gave up trying to regain control of the area. All told, around 2,000 people were involved.The victory of one of the most oppressed groups in American society over the cops had a profound effect. After the riots, gay beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg wrote: You know, the guys there were so beautiful theyve lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.The LGBTQI community could not have been unaffected by the momentous political upheavals that had rocked the world in the years leading up to the riots. Throughout the 60s the world had seen decisive struggles for womens rights and racial equality, and anti-capitalist movements accompanied by the biggest general strikes in history until that point. The importance of these struggles in cementing the militant mood of the activists cannot be understated.The progress that had been made on other fronts undoubtedly emboldened the LGBTQI community to fight for their rights. Life for LGBTQI people in American society remained viciously repressive. People could be arrested if they were not wearing three items of clothing appropriate to their gender. Homosexual acts were considered grounds for firing, and sex between consenting adults of the same gender was punishable by life in prison. Illinois was the only state in America where homosexuality was not explicitly outlawed. As one legal expert put it, in the 60s the homosexual wassmothered by law.Prior to Stonewall, the gay liberation movement had been characterized by its emphasis on fitting into broader society. In 1969, the first lesbian rights group in America, the Daughters of Bilitis, was still urging its members to stop the breeding of defiance toward society and to exhibit outward conformity in its newspaper. The riots changed this. The rage that had been suppressed for so long finally exploded.As socialist Sherry Wolf writes: What separates the Stonewall Riots from all previous gay activism was not merely the unexpected nights-long defiance in the streets, but the conscious mobilization of new and seasoned activists in the riots wake who gave expression to this more militant mood. Stonewall would not feature so prominently in the history of gay liberation if it werent for the radical activist groups that came out of it.Stonewall marked a turning point in the fight against LGBTQI discrimination.Oppression had to be fought, and the fight had to be coordinated. The need to get organised was evident to the new generation of activists.An organizing meeting was called by local activists in the days after the riots, and from this meeting emerged the Gay Liberation Front. The GLF took its name from theNorth Vietnamese Liberation Front, then fighting the US government in Vietnam. From its inception, the GLF was far ahead of the old gay liberation organisations. The activists wanted to confront not only homophobia, but also the whole oppressive, imperialist system. Activist Jim Fouratt compared the attitude of the older LGBTQI activists to that of the younger generation, stating: We were a nightmare to them. They were committed to being nice, acceptable status quo Americans, and we were not; we had no interest at all in being acceptable.After some debate, the GLF took the position that it should be involved in struggles around a wide range of issues. The activists saw that the struggles for gender and racial equality, for workers rights and against capitalism, were intrinsically linked to the fight for LGBTQI liberation. In an interview for an underground magazine, The Rat, GLF activists stated: We identify ourselves with all the oppressed: the Vietnamese struggle, the third world, the blacks, the workersall those oppressed by this rotten, dirty, vile, fucked-up capitalist conspiracy.Today, there are many lessons that we who want to fight discrimination can learn from the radical struggles of those who came before us.We must be anti-capitalist. Capitalism is not merely an economic system it is a social and political system that rests on the twin pillars of exploitation and oppression. Capitalism saw the emergence of LGBTQI discrimination alongside the establishment of the nuclear family. In 1970, the Chicago chapter of the GLF wrote in their newspaper: Many of us have understood that our struggle cannot succeed without a fundamental change in society which will put the source of power (means of production) in the hands of the people who at present have nothing A struggle for true liberation must take on capitalism. Anything less is not enough.Secondly, the way to win demands is not through voting or lobbying. History has shown again and again that attempts to win demands via these methods alone are bound to fail. The campaign for marriage equality in Australia confirmed the way to win is through mass mobilisation. Activists took on the fighting attitude of radicals that had come before us rather than asking nicely, we hit the streets in our thousands and made our demand impossible to refuse.Finally, the generation after Stonewall saw the need to be involved in activism. The fury of the spontaneous riots would have fizzled into nothing had it not been for the militant mood that the activists took on coming out of the experience.Today the far right is growing all over the world, and homophobia and transphobia are key tenets of their ideology. In Australia, they have continued to grow and gain confidence because of consistent accommodation to their views by both Labor and the Liberals. Since our insipid politicians have shown they have no interest in standing up to the bigotry of the right, it is up to us to confront it through protest.Though we have made much progress since the Stonewall riots, our rights are once again under attack. We face different challenges, but we can look to the radical activists of the past to guide us in our fight today. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Tale IIts an unnaturally hot day for the middle of September, reaching a high of almost 30 degrees. The sky is a picturesque azure, proof that Spring has finally arrived. Dust swirls through the crowd and clings to sweaty bodies. A boy waits in line, a small clear packet tucked in the waistband of his underwear. A policeman and his sniffer dog eye him as they patrol the area, but the dog doesnt sit and they walk on. Of the 30,000 attendees, 355 will be searched for drugs, 69 would be found to be in possession and 10 charged with supply offences.The main stage lights up the island as twilight settles over the scene, streaking the indigo sky with hues of soft pinks, purples and blues. The excitement of the crowd is palpable; it seeps through the pores of their skin and rises above them, settling in a dome of euphoria. Electronic beats pound through the speakers, resounding through chests and bones, as if the music was emanating from the bodies themselves. The atmosphere is a frenzy of lights, smoke, bodies and sweat, and the air is aglow with the sense of camaraderie that seems to come hand-in-hand with inebriation. Rarely does humankind experience this kind of feeling, when all inhibitions are tossed aside and the extremes of the emotional spectrum allowed a public platform for expression.The End Show commences and the crowd is at its peak once again with the final moments of the night. Laser beams pierce through the block of midnight blue sky in a feverish blur as fireworks erupt the roof of the euphoric dome. The seductive voiceover replays in the souls of the crowd like a mantra. We stand on the edge of a new decade of dedication. Together, as one tribe. United by the same passion. Screams are drowned out by the pulse of the music, and the crowd pushes and pulls against each other in a giant embrace.By the end of the night, two people will have died from suspected drug overdose. Defqon.1 is clearly more than just a music festival; it is an unforgettable experience. *** On 16 September, 2018, the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian stood in front of cameras and vowed to permanently shut down the dance music festival that claimed the lives of 23-year-old Joseph Pham and 21-year-old Diana Nguyen. The backlash was considerable, and Berejiklian was forced to retract her initial promise, claiming that she had only meant she never wanted to see that event in its [current] form come back. A panel of experts comprising of NSWs Police Commissioner, Chief Medical Officer and Chair of the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority was consulted and in late October 2018, the state government proposed three key areas of drug-related activities to target. It involved the introduction of a new consistent licensing regime for music festivals, strengthening drug and alcohol education, and a new category of crime that would hold drug dealers responsible for the deaths they may have inadvertently caused. Pill testing was ruled out from the start with Berejiklian stating, Anyone who advocates pill testing is giving the green light to drugs.If there was a way in which we could ensure lives were saved through pill testing we would consider it but there is no evidence provided to the government on that, Berejiklian said, despite the plethora of research that supports this initiative as an effective harm reduction tool. Her statement came in response to another suspected drug-related death of a 20-year-old man at the Beyond the Valley Festival earlier this year.In Australias first ever pill testing trial at Groovin the Moo in Canberra last year, two potentially lethal substances were identified within capsules and were consequently disposed of. A report published by Harm Reduction Australia also found that of the people who had had their drugs tested, 42% had stated that they would change their drug consumption behaviour as a result. Almost two-thirds knew of others using the same drugs, of which 90% reported that they would share the results of the test. The trial was deemed a success and has been approved to be conducted again at this years Groovin the Moo.Meanwhile, the NSW government continues to rely on draconian regulations embedded with the War on Drugs mentality that has been widely criticised and proven ineffective. Will* worked as a staff member for Defqon.1 from 2014 and 2017. He watched as the austerity of officials and increases in police presence matched the creative ludicrousness of the rumours spreading about the ways attendees were attempting to smuggle in drugs. In 2014, reports that people had been sneaking onto the island a month and a half in advance to bury drugs in the grounds forced police to secure the location earlier. The next year, people were allegedly swimming across to the island and the police employed speedboats to patrol the perimeter. The year after that, rumours that people were now using drones to drop drugs onto the grounds circulated. Regardless of whether any of those theories were substantiated, police presence almost doubled in 2018.Tale IIYou can almost always tell when someone is on something. Dilated pupils, involuntary jaw clenching, uncontrollable body and eye movements, sweating, slurred speech.Hes fine, one of his friends says. They all watch as he thumps his head violently to the beat of music only he can hear. His hands hold the sides of the table in case his enthusiasm sends him falling head-first on the concrete ground, which seemed a possibility. Every so often he leans back, head lolling, mouth agape, eyes a frenzy.An hour ago, in the privacy of his own bedroom, he had taken two caps and snorted a line of coke. Afterwards, he walked downstairs back to his own 21st birthday party, a grin across his face as the drugs began to make their way through his circulatory system. He had waved off his sixteen-year-old sisters accusing gaze as the E dissolved in his stomach and small intestine, its molecules absorbing into his bloodstream. From there, they would travel up to his liver and then to his heart, where each beat would send the molecules in and out of the lungs for oxygenation. Finally, it would arrive at the brain.Hes fine.He is now in the peak of his high. Serotonin is bouncing within his synaptic spaces, blocked from returning to its terminals as the drug lures more of its colleagues to come join the party. Intense happiness is reigning his brain and an inexplicable feeling of love for every single person at the party is encouraging him to sporadically shout out, Fuuuck. When they bring out the cake, he blows out the candles and then proceeds to smash his entire face into it.They all laugh.Blue icing drips from his hair onto the glass table. The destroyed cake sits next to him, a few bite marks taken out of its sides. The party is beginning to settle down and a group gathers around the birthday boy as the side effects of their own inebriations begin to calm. Four hours in and he is still exhibiting the signs of someone having the time of his life. A piece of worn-out gum he should have spat out a long time ago continues to make its way around his mouth, not doing much to alleviate his teeth grinding. A friend passes him a fresh piece and he shoves it into his mouth without removing the first.A designated driver arrives at the party. Holy shit, she says as she walks into the scene. Aside from the star of the show, theres vomit patches over the grass from others who couldnt handle their drink. She sits down with the group and they all continue to watch as he vigorously tests the limits of the range of motion in his neck. It is incredible, the dexterity and flexibility the human body is capable of when chemically enhanced. The audience collectively winces, trying not to think about the pain he can not feel yet.Hes fine. His friends dont want to give him too much water in case of water intoxication. They keep a close eye on him, as other guests begin to filter out, thanking the birthday boy who would not remember a single thing the next day. The designated driver stays longer than she originally intends to, just in case they need someone sober to sit with him in the ride to the hospital. When it hits 2 am, she and the friends she came to pick up leaves him with the others, who all assure them that this is not the first time this has happened, nor would it be his last.The next morning, the newly minted 21-year-old will say he was fine, besides the fact that his neck and jaw are now in serious pain. He will spend the rest of the day recovering in bed, reminiscing the events of the previous night, many of which he has no recollection of. For the rest of the week he will feel depressed, which he will attribute to post-party blues rather than the fact that his serotonin levels are now lower than normal.***You know, I think we should start taking ecstasy instead of drinking alcohol on nights out. Its a typical Saturday night and Im with Michael* at Cargo Bar, both of us four to five drinks into the night. I laugh. No seriously. It cant be any worse for us.You dont seriously believe that, I say, sipping on my double vodka with lemon lime and bitters. Why not?Well for one thing, its illegal.Alcohols legal and that shits fucking toxic.I know. I continue to sip on my drink. How often do people overdose on alcohol though?More than you probably hear about. He pauses. Anyway, if ecstasy was also legal you wouldnt have so much dirty shit out there and you wouldnt have so many overdoses, he says. MDMAs not the problem, its the fucked up gear they cut it with.Im silent.Right now, people going into say, Defqon.1, sometimes take too much without even knowing whats inside because they want to take it before they see the cops. If it was legal that wouldnt be a problem, they would pace themselves, he continues.You could always not take anything, I say.He shrugs.You could. Australias zero-tolerance drug stance has polarised opinion, with little legal or social progress in policy. Harm reduction activists arguing for policy reforms such as pill testing are accused of legitimising drug use, whilst those who support the war on drugs are fighting a losing battle. However, what the debate regarding legislation ignores is the fundamental individual, cultural and social values that drive drug use. Users report that ecstasy reduces inhibitions, and dramatically enhances mood and the perceived quality of social relationships.Its an indescribable feeling, Eva* says. Its like I never knew that kind of happiness was possible and Im scared Ill never be able to feel that happy again.Evas first time was on a road-trip up the coast, surrounded by a small group of friends who all knew she would be taking it. She recalls the way physical touch was its own form of ecstasy, and the way she felt a connection towards everyone, an intensity she had never experienced before.Its like getting absolutely pissed, but 1000 times better, Michael had once said to me. No mess, no hangover, and its cheaper.Whilst pure ecstasy in small, infrequent doses is said to be one of the least harmful drugs available (and thats including alcohol and tobacco), the misuse and abuse of MDMA can have significant effects. Depe nding on the cut, contaminates, and quantity consumed, it can lead to dehydration, hyperthermia, an increased or irregular heart rate, and seizures. The stigmatisation of illicit drug use in public discourse fosters a culture of ignorance and misinformation, leading to dangerous consumption habits where people lack knowledge of the detrimental and potentially lethal consequences. Its easy to have a blas attitude towards a truth no one is really willing to talk about without severe judgment.Once people get more educated about the harms of MDMA, theyll start to take it less, and less frequently and when they do, far more responsibly, Will says to me. You dont get that here in Australia. There seems to be a race to the bottom, between who can get the most fucked up as fast as possible. Theres an element of heroism that seems to be a response to the prohibitive regulations in Australia.The unregulated and diverse nature of Australias drug market also means that new substances and drugs are always emerging into the scene. While the Australian Drug Trends 2018 report conducted by National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre found that there was a shift towards greater use of capsules and crystal forms of ecstasy, both of which are generally perceived to be of higher purity, there is still no way for the naked eye to be certain of what other substances they contain without tests. Capsule use increased from 19% in 2008 to 72% in 2018, while crystals almost doubled from 2015. Pills remained the primary form of use, with three quarters of Australians reporting use within the last six months. Of the quarter of participants that reported non-fatal overdoses, almost two-thirds nominated ecstasy as the main drug of cause.In 2017, Dr David Pennington from The University of Melbourne proposed a new reform to drug policy that advocated for regulating access and supply to cannabis and ecstasy. Under the system, Australians over the age of 16 would be able to purchase limited quantities of ecstasy sourced from government-approved pharmacy suppliers. It was designed to dissuade users from turning to questionable and unknown sources, as well as connect users to appropriate forms of counselling and treatment. In an article for The Conversation, Pennington wrote, Low levels of [ecstasy] use do not present a risk to health any more than modern and responsible use of alcohol.Earlier this year, Greens candidate Lilith Zaharias went to the extent to state, If you could go to Woolworths and buy a pack of MDMA it would be much safer. Zaharias has faced significant backlash since. But users like Will seem apprehensive about such reforms. Im more hesitant when it comes to legalising ecstasy as opposed to decriminalising it, says Will. In terms of legalising it for commercial like you would with, say, alcohol, Im far more sceptical with how that would play out.Indeed, it is downright disturbing to consider the consequences of normalising ecstasy in the same way excessive alcohol consumption has been in society today. Tale IIIThe night is young and so is she. A 17-year-old on her first big night out. She waves goodbye to the rest of her underage friends as they decide to call it a night. As she sits in the entrance of the restaurant-bar, exhilaration washes over her. She will be turning 18 in a little over a month, but the knowledge that she doesnt quite belong here just yet incites a rare feeling of rebelliousness. The restaurant-bar she is in looks more like a club; it blasts dance music whilst patrons eat and drink under flashing lights and lasers. Alcohol of all kinds are served by the bottle.Without checking her ID, the waitress leads the girl to a table where her legal-age friends are waiting for her.I told you youd get in. A boy grins, holding up a bottle of original flavoured soju and a couple of shot glasses. Another boy begins to pour the contents of an already open bottle into the glasses. Cheers.The next few hours pass by in a blur of alcohol-infused memories, some of which will later take her a while to distinguish between reality or dream. She taps out after eight shots, but will only remember the taste of the first three.The following day in her hangover, the girl will only remember brief snapshots of the walk from the bar to the train station the way she is entranced by the flashing neon blue elevator button, unable to keep herself from continuously pressing it; the feeling of security and comfortable helplessness as someone carries her through the streets of Town Hall, too drunk to stand on her own two feet, let alone walk; the pain that was absent but should have been there when her head bangs against the tiles of the station floor; and the brief moments of painful certainty that she is going to die.***When the United States introduced the National Prohibition Act in 1920, making the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal, organised crime increased dramatically as people were forced to smuggle for access. The laws had been founded on Protestant values that deemed alcohol consumption a sin and a destructive force on the functioning of society. The Prohibition was repealed in 1933.Today, alcohol is ingrained in our social and cultural identity. A social lubricant, access to alcohol is almost a given in most social situations. According to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016, 26% of Australians consume 5 or more standard drinks on a single occasion at least once a month, a habit that will increase their lifetime risk of alcohol-related harm according to National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines. For both men and women, the NHMRC recommends no more than four standard drinks in one occasion. The normalisation of alcohol softens the problematic reality of alcohol abuse, acknowledging its existence whilst holding normal social drinking habits to a different standard.Yet it is interesting to note that the number of young adults consuming more than five standards at least once a month dropped from 57% in 2001 to 42% in 2016. While further research is needed regarding the factors motivating this decline, it presents the possibility that shifts in attitudes towards alcohol, as mediated by education and changing cultural perspectives, have a correlational relationship. These statistics align with statistics from the 2017 Australian Secondary Students Alcohol and Drug survey which showed an overall decline in current drinking behaviour among high school students. Conversely, ecstasy use among 12 to 17-year-olds has doubled from 2% in 2011 to 5% in 2017. Though general prevalence remains low, the dramatic increase in proportion suggests the beginnings of a detrimental normalisation of ecstasy amongst high school students, fuelled by a disregard for health risks and ignorant consumption attitudes that amass public stigma.When it comes to drugs, government policies and guidelines are influenced by interpretations of societal morality, rather than what objective evidence may dictate. To centre an argument exclusively on the reductive dichotomies of being either for or against drug use reflects a deep-rooted misunderstanding of what motivates and sustains youth behaviour. Rather, we need to consider destigmatisation through open discourse and decriminalisation as a viable alternative to reducing the senseless deaths that continue to haunt our headlines.*Names have been changed <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Magicians make the impossible possible. They have the ability to mesmerise audiences all around the world. They skirt certain demise. They play with fate in ways no ordinary human would dare. They fall into the abyss, only to perform miracles seconds later; clinching themselves from the jaws of impending death. They rip apart their assistants and seamlessly bring them back to life moments later. In short, they test the boundaries of what we think we know, through the spectacle of grand illusion. Exploiting this spectacle, magicians like Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston were able to draw in an enormous fan base, turning themselves into household names. Unfortunately, their entranced fans seemed to forget the thousands of humble Indians who invented the very tricks for which their Western counterparts were enjoying fame.The cultural roots of magic in India span across millennia. The origin of the word for a magician in Sanskrit Indrajala stems from the Hindu God Indra, who was known for their magical talents. Magic in India, like all magic, was in part of a spectacle for the non-magical society to enjoy.However, in Indias case, magic also played a critical role in the evolution of religion and, by extension, culture. In many instances, street magicians positioned themselves not as mere entertainers, but a human vessel for the powers of God. This meant that the practice of magic was closely integrated into ancient religious traditions, such as Tantra.The importance of magic in India is perhaps best illuminated by its ubiquity. In a country otherwise divided on lines of caste, class, religion and region, magic appears to be transcendent. Amongst various Indigenous groups known as Adivasis, elements of magic make their way into spiritually important artistic representations.Others, for whom the Hinduism involves conquering the transcendent powers to achieve an elevated level of spirituality, consider magic to be a critical element of this process. This is portrayed in the courts of the ancient royalty of India, where the act of magic was deeply ingrained within society. Performers in that era were showered with gifts and praise by commoners and royalty alike.In the royal courts, magicians were sometimes kept as religious advisors to the king as a result of to the talents they possessed. This practice continued into the Mughal era, where Islamic prophets and magicians were also added to the folds of the royal courts. It is during this era that prominent magic tricks (such as the so-called Indian Rope Trick and Indian Basket Trick) were first pioneered and displayed in the courts of the Kings of the time.One of the great patrons of Indian magic the Mughal emperor Jahangir, who ruled when the empire was at its peak, made detailed memoirs of the performers he saw. He extolled the abilities of the Carnatic jugglers and sleight of hand artists from Bengal as they performed wondrous feats that stunned the emperor.He recounts a story where a troupe of seven performers came to him exclaiming that they could perform wonders in exchange for a large monetary reward. True to their word, they performed a vast array of tricks and illusions in front of the Emperor.Even as British colonialism swept India, the cultural relevance of Indian magic persisted. Families passed down age-old tricks to younger generations as street performers continued to entertain passers-by at busy train stations or local fairs. Indian street performers, however, did not merely settle for their existing illusions. Innovatively, they developed their own acts, tailored for local audiences. For example, performers like Mohammed Chhel became prominent in the Indian magical community not only for their magical talents, but also their engaging personas.These magicians did not charge exorbitant prices to ordinary people to witness their magic, nor did they have any grand sets or props to work with. Their aim was to entertain those around them and provide an elusive relief from the pressures of day-to-day life for their community.Unfortunately, like many of the beautiful cultural elements of colonised nations, Indian magic attracted the unwanted attention of prying figures from the West. Various Western magicians, including the likes of Houdini and Bertram, travelled to India in search of illusions not yet seen by the Western world. Fascinated by acts like the Hindu Rope Trick and Aerial Suspension, Western magicians spent years documenting Indian magic. In many instances, these attempts at documentation were inspired by a sense of insecurity, with the aim of undermining Indian magicians by exposing their methods. In other cases, Westerners would actively steal tricks, claiming them as their own.Broadly speaking, Western interest in Indian magic caused a paradigm shift in the perception of India from a primitive society of savages to a land of mystery and magic. This appears quite apparent in both descriptions of Indian magic tricks as well as the advertising around Western shows containing plagarised Indian acts. Such depictions exotified Indian culture, and the impact of this persists in contemporary Western attitudes towards the country. However, Western magicians were also incredibly reductive of the diverse and nuanced practices of Indian magic.Exploiting exoticised perceptions of India in the West, various Western magicians appropriated elements of Indian culture to emphasise the sub-continental mysticism of their acts. For example, in his book Jadoowallahs, Jugglers and Jinns, John Zubrzycki chronicles Harry Houdinis performances as a Hindu Fakir. In these performances, Houdini would apply brown-face and dress in traditional Indian clothes to form an element of intrigue and fascination in his audience. Although Houdini appears to be the most prominent case of appropriation, Western magicians referred to themselves as Fakirs well before him.Insofar as fakir refers to a Sufi Muslim ascetic who has taken vows of poverty and worship, names like the Hindu Fakir and The Fakir of Shiva make no sense. The flippant appropriation of the term also annunciates the broader differences between Indian magicians and their Western counterparts. For Indian magicians, magic held deep spiritual and familial roots. Their commitment to practice transcended pursuits of wealth or any other material possession. This meant that they were willing to perform in public spaces and allow their magic to be accessed by anyone sufficiently curious. By contrast, their Western counterparts were attracted to the business of commercialising their talents, investing in grand props and monetising their performances for exclusive crowds. This seems to explain the fact that while Western magicians travelled across the globe in search of acts to steal, Indian magicians were constantly innovating and experimenting.Beyond the overarching exotification and appropriation of Indian culture, Indian magicians were also directly exploited. In some instances, facing struggles of poverty, they were coerced into selling long-held secrets to Western magicians for a pittance. Those Western magicians would subsequently return home and market these tricks as never before seen, receiving widespread acclaim, recognition and wealth. Alternatively, Indian magicians were taken overseas and forced to live in poor circumstances while performing for Western audiences. However, there were also numerous instances of direct theft with no compensation whatsoever. There have been various recorded instances of Westerners, including Houdini, performing Indian street tricks such as the live burial or aerial suspension, and passing them off as their own. It appears then that not only were Indian magicians exploited intellectually and economically, but also almost completely erased from the history of magic around the world.The legacy of the theft and appropriation of Indian street magic is felt by contemporary street performers in India. While various magicians in the West have continued to enjoy sold-out shows, appearances on late-night talk shows or their own television shows, Indian street magicians have continued to endure class struggles.In 2014, the largest community of street performers in the world, magicians and puppet masters living in Delhis slums commonly known as Kathputli were given an order to leave their homes, a place where generations of these families lived practising their art. As gentrification and urbanisation of the city slowly crept into the area, building contractors sought to destroy these slums and ruin the Kathputli communitys livelihood, with no prospect of rehousing.This was also not the first time that the Delhi local municipality tried to get rid of the group. In the 1970s the entire suburb was bulldozed, only for it to reappear a few months later in a more gentrified form. In more recent times, the protests against the destruction of the colony have become more violent, further escalating tensions between officials and residents. Additionally, new laws abolishing beggary have allowed state authorities to attack street performers attempting to carry on the legacy of their ancestors.Many prominent cultural ambassadors for the art such as Puran Bhat (a famed puppet master, who has received Indias National Award for the Traditional Arts) and Ishamuddin Khan (once a busker, but now a famed magician performing in Europe and Japan), cite that the destruction of the suburb will scar the tradition and culture that has been practised there for years. Despite many of these performers being under the auspices of politicians representing India and its culture on the global stage in recent years, pleas to save the area have fallen on deaf ears. To this day, the Asian Heritage Foundation is keeping the livelihoods of the performers afloat as finding them gigs to further their careers and the art.Where the state has allowed street magic to exist, it has been reserved for tourist hotspots and showcases for Western travellers, crystallising the artificial notion of a spiritual journey to India. This forces magicians to adhere to the aforementioned exoticised Western expectations, and prevents Indians from enjoying the spectacle of magic in ways they were once able to.Unlike groups who traditionally agitate against cultural theft and appropriation, such as class privileged diaspora communities, in the modern global context, Indian street magicians seem relatively powerless. There seems to be little interest in agitating for their recognition or providing them with a larger platform through which they may gain prominence. Given this, Indian magic may well become yet another aspect of traditional Indian culture lost to imperialism. The West has always profited off the exploitation of the cultural and material wealth of the subcontinent. On this occasion, they simply chose to steal what made us magical. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On October 6, 2001, a highly charged friendly football match between Algeria and France was brought to an end after pitch invaders stormed the Stade de France, the stadium that had been built precisely for the triumphant France 98 World Cup. It was the first football match and to this date the only match played between the two countries since Algeria gained its independence from France after a riotous civil war in 1962. La Marseillaise was booed. French flags were burned outside the stadium. The French media described it as an act of savagery and barbarism.It was a clear indication that a dark colonial past weighed too heavily on Algerians to permit normal sporting relations between their oppressors. For many victims of colonialism, the pitch invasion carried particular significance as an act of bravery and nobility; a poignant rejection of the Wests, and indeed, the Fdration Internationale de Football Association (FIFAs) values.The globalisation of football as a rule-bound entity has been one of the most successful projects in world history. It is a profound manifestation of the development of universal communities: ways to locate and position yourself, and your nation or community, on a global scale. The sense of shared sentiments that watching football stimulates is one place where you identify yourself in the world of others. The ability of football to help instill the local population of former colonial subjects with a sense of nationhood and revenge that transcends community loyalties and bind minorities to common social, economic and political objectives is significant. Football matches between former colonial powers and their subjects are about more than just football: theyre opportunities for former colonial subjects to defeat the nations that sought to defeat them. But despite FIFAs long-standing ethos of bringing the game of football to the world, its parochial and insular history suggests otherwise. The ostensible aim of FIFA as a federation is encompassing and guiding the world football community, which is held together by social and political ties, under the principles of fair play. FIFA demonstrates their worth and dominance through the social, institutional, and the political. But all of that is predicated on its ideological foundations in colonialism, set against the absence of uniformity and egalitarianism. The neo-colonial ceilings imposed by FIFA effectively solidifies it as an ersatz nation: European colonial powers sought to control global football and also block out rival countries from other regions from gaining admission.In 2014, former Brazilian football legend Romrio complained that FIFA did not respect Brazils autonomy during the World Cup that year: FIFA is the real president of our country. FIFA comes to our country and imposes a state within a state. FIFA devotees have been convinced and have convinced themselves that FIFA is a source of legitimacy, continuity and guidance in a fundamentally hostile world and that has rendered them susceptible to the partisanship, narrow-mindedness, subservience, and personal stultification that FIFA inflicts on non-European countries.The intellectual, social and developmental framework established by FIFA the manufacture of years of parochial, insular, and colonial mandates and regulations became the guiding principle of FIFAs social control. FIFA was established in 1904 in Zurich, Switzerland, to administer football competitions between eight founding countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. With the exception of Switzerland, all of the founding nations were colonial powers. From the outset of its establishment, the European nations swiftly set about strengthening FIFAs Eurocentric foundations. The founding nations had woven FIFAs ethos around their perceived superiority over their colonised victims; they exhibited callous disdain for non-European nations, particularly those from Africa and Asia, by actively thwarting their attempts to gain admission to the federation. FIFA continuously engaged in Eurocentrism, racism and the denial of a World Cup berth to non-European nations. It was only until 1970 that Africa grew its first World Cup berth. Asia merely received its first World Cup berth in 1962. Eurocentrism indelibly became the principal ideal of FIFA governance.FIFAs self-professed commitment to fair play is evidently not applied to the World Cup. The mandates that set the framework for the tournaments are based on Eurocentric ideologies. In theory, these mandates pertain to favour European nations: the cultural and ethical unity of Europe is reinforced as European nations continue to receive the most amount of World Cup slots. Few non-Western Europeans or non-South Americans can qualify for World Cups, or have a chance to be successful in World Cup competitions.For the 2018 World Cup, the FIFA Executive Committee decided to allocate fourteen slots for European nations (including the host nation Russia); five for Africa; four for Asia and South America respectively; three for North, Central America, Caribbean; and none for Oceania. It is probably not surprising then that, with the exception of Argentina and Uruguay, all World Cup winners have been former colonial powers: Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, England and Spain. No national team from Africa, Asia, North and Central America and the Caribbean or Oceania has ever reached a World Cup final.What serves to unite the world through the poignancy of football becomes a device for reinforcing Europes colonial hegemony; as Europeans continue to receive the majority of World Cup slots, it is more than likely that European nations will continue to dominate future World Cup tournaments. These colonial characteristics become even more problematic when the hosting rights of World Cup tournaments is taken into consideration. In recent years, FIFA administrators have exercised their influence to host the World Cups in the USA (1994), South Korea/Japan (2002), South Africa (2010), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022). It was only 98 years after FIFAs establishment that Asia was able to host its first World Cup, 106 years for Africa, and 118 years for the Middle East.Was FIFA established to cover Europes colonial crimes? Throughout World War I, FIFAs administrators continued to engage in decidedly colonial behaviours. Membership steadily expanded beyond European nations with the acceptance of South American nations, including Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. But FIFAs Eurocentric ideologues were less enthusiastic about South American integration into their federation. Exponents of this view, including then General Secretary of FIFA Carl Anton Wilhelm Hirschman, invoked themes of unity and Christendom, to affirm FIFAs position as a federation of European states. When Jules Rimet became the third FIFA president in 1921, he sought to spread the game of football beyond the European nationalist framework. Rimet, who subscribed to the ethos of nineteenth-century colonialism and Christendom, had a vision of the federation which followed an orientalist and colonial view of global development. In this, social and cultural hegemony was bestowed by a modern, European centre to a pre-modern, third world periphery.Under Rimets leadership, FIFA adopted a missionary, orientalist approach to the development of football and thus, FIFAs relationship with non-European constituencies was marked by an orientalist, Eurocentric and neo-imperialist style. From a more significant perspective, Rimet framed his goal to develop FIFA in such a manner that colonial subjects would not be entitled to equal rights as they were not considered to belong to the community of European nations. Moreover, the federation placed mandates on these nations so that they could not challenge the legitimacy of the federation itself. Upon Rimets departure, continental confederations were established to represent and contest in football: UEFA for Europe in 1954; AFC for Asia in 1954; CAF for Africa in 1957. The Central and North American and Caribbean confederation (CONCACAF) was created in 1961, followed by the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) in 1966. FIFA operated on colonialist terms, maintaining the dichotomy between imperial powers and their colonial territories.End of the colonial era: a new beginning for FIFA?The end of the colonial era marked the beginning of new complications for colonial subjects: of families separated and lives violently transformed in despondent conditions. Despite the end of the colonial era, FIFA premises its neo-colonialism on more normalised forms of rule legislations, mandates, and elections. The FIFA governance has extraordinary organisational and operational problems poor ethical guidelines, dilapidated structures, and inherent corruption that threatens the integrity of the beautiful game. But its heavily politicized nature, as well as the opportunistic presence of largely European administrators who promote a neo-colonial agenda, is one deep problem that permeates throughout FIFAs governance. With its inherently flawed structure, FIFA is a plutocratic puppet-master that reigns over the autonomy of non-European nations by effectively controlling their decisions: it doesnt represent the world, it represents the 1% of the global 1%. Its method is to install a state within a state, gain revenue from corporate sponsors and broadcasters, enjoy its tax-free status, and repeat the same process in another country. Today, there are 195 independent sovereign states and 211 FIFA members. Many of those FIFA members, including Algeria and Senegal, use FIFA in order to escape their colonial past. These nations acquire FIFA membership, but FIFA typically grants them little sovereignty due to the federations hierarchical structure. Jockeying for a piece of influence is a mainstay for non-European nations under FIFA governance. FIFA seldom cares about Gibraltar, Palestine, Northern Cyprus or any politically disputed territories, but will use its capitalist marketing strategy to structure football matches along problematic nationalistic lines, provoking nationalist sentiments and adding historical drama, largely in the interests of profits for the clubs, and ultimately, FIFA. Since its inception, all eight of FIFAs presidents have been Europeans, with the exception of the Brazilian Joo Havelange and interim President Issa Hayatou (2015-2016) from Cameroon. Eurocentrism indelibly became the principal ideal of FIFA governance. This construction of white identity reinforces colonial epoch; the racial fantasy celebrating and unifying whiteness that FIFA promotes is damaging to the game that works to make sure every group is fairly represented.Racism in football: a profound reflection of FIFAs dark historyToday, football fans foment vicious racism and alienation in stadiums and online forums, directing the same pro-European and colonialist rhetoric espoused by the early administrators of FIFA. There are several examples depicting this narrative, but the most important ones reflect FIFAs failure to address its ideological flaws. Many players of immigrant backgrounds in Europe describe racist abuse as being part of the game and something that one needs to adapt to. Athletes from minority groups continue to suffer both individual and institutional forms of racism. Even countries, which display some of the most ethnically mixed national teams in Europe, face controversies when it comes to the social inclusion of ethnic minorities and to race relations. The modern, casual deployment of racism and vilification from fans by which FIFA refuses to address, and in fact, inadvertently promotes speaks to FIFAs ongoing legacy of treating minorities as racially inferior. Recent examples include Manchester Citys Raheem Sterling being racially vilified by Chelsea fans in London, or Kalidou Koulibaly of Napoli FC subject to racial chants and having a banana peel hurled at him during a match against Inter Milan. The problem is even more pronounced within the governance of FIFA. Whenever a racist incident occurs, FIFA investigates, doles out fines and gives the fans (or teams) a derisory slap on the wrist. But as history suggests, simply fining clubs doesnt work. But racism runs deep in football and is in fact common practice in European leagues such as the Premier League in England or Bundesliga in Germany. But the problem is more prevalent in other countries such as Italy and France, where incidents of racism arent merely acts of individual folly, but of widespread group planning: those who align with an extreme form of fandom. These ultra fandoms usually dressed in paramilitary uniforms and invoking fascist symbolism yearn for a footballing world where words like equality and multi-racial are simply non-existent. In a country like Italy, where the far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini dismisses attempts to block out racism in football as an act of cowardice, and where fascism is terrifyingly on the rise, these problems will only continue to persist.The problem is even more entrenched within FIFA. In 2011, then FIFA President Sepp Blatter notoriously remarked that racism on the pitch can be solved with a handshake. This is not to claim that FIFA does not address issues of racism, but rather, FIFAs underlying response to racism is very much immiserated in its colonial foundations; the football field becomes a place where whiteness is redeemed as a saviour of ethnic minorities.While FIFA superficially plays a central role in global football governance, this only exposes the urgent need for robust reformation and restructuring to fundamentally dismantle its colonial philosophical and ideological foundations. The dream of an ethnically plural FIFA administration is now an even more remote prospect. Considering the current racial makeup of football clubs around the world, having an ethnically plural FIFA administration is not only necessary to strengthen the federation, but necessary to make meaningful contributions to football itself. Football has long served as a weapon for resistance against external cultural and political exploitation, and minority groups have displayed a skillful capacity to adapt football and redefine its institutional hierarchies. Its time FIFA dismantled its European hegemony and adapted to footballs current climate.FIFA is not a state nor an army, but its significance lies in its geopolitical influence and ability to control billions of followers through the decisions they make on a constant basis: the hosting rights for World Cup tournaments; the allocation of World Cup slots for different regions; and the awarding of awards and medals to football players. It is almost inconceivable that the FIFA administration riven across all times and utterly beset by greed, partisanship, corruption and flawed governance can continue to speak for the football community. If FIFA is to move beyond its disconcerting past, FIFAs ideologues must eradicate its heavily politicised nature and think of football governance beyond the dominant Eurocentric framework it was founded upon. Only then can FIFA become a voice for all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At university, it is quite easy for us to think our politics developed and, in some cases, began in the halls of the Camperdown campus. After all, for most of us, high school was a fundamentally apolitical space. There were no political parties recruiting, no autonomous collectives, and the SRC was for over-achievers looking to organise a fundraiser rather than a vicious fighting ground for zealous students. When compared to university, then, high school really does seem like a simpler time of yesteryear, unsullied by the political battles we face today. However, a closer inspection of high school classrooms across the country suggests our rose-tinted glasses may, in fact, have misled us.There are quite a few obstacles that come in the path of analysing secondary education in Australia. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, the exact content being taught varies depending not only on which state one is in, but the type of school (religious, private, comprehensive etc.). Secondly, past curriculums are often quite inaccessible, making it difficult to track the ways in which secondary education has changed over time. Finally, although there is a significant degree of academia on certain subject areas, on the whole, histories of education in Australia are missing. However, despite these limitations, an examination of three particular subjects expose how a seemingly apolitical high school curriculum politicises students to influence their understanding of the world around them.HSC Economics: the freer the market the freer the studentsOn the inside cover of the 2010 edition of Tim Rileys preliminary economics textbook sit two side-by-side profiles of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman. The profiles are decontextualised and make no critical claims of either figure, opting instead for a descriptive account of their major works. They begin with a brief biography, followed by a summary of works like the Wealth of Nations before finally telling us how these works are applied in society today. Yet somewhere in the seemingly neutral representation of Smith and Friedmans theories, the unassuming reader is nudged ever-so-slightly towards recognising their works less as theories and more as laws. And so, before even reading the first words of their two-year course, students are exposed to the critical flaw of the HSC economics syllabus its conflation of the descriptive with the normative.At a glance, HSC economics appears to be quite an appealing subject despite its falling enrolment numbers. Its purpose, as stated in the Economics Stage 6 Syllabus, is to give students an understanding of contemporary economic problems and issues facing individuals, firms and governments. Broadly speaking, the course is divided into economic issues and responses to those issues, while also positioning Australia in the global economy.The economics syllabus, however, does not limit itself to a mere historical account of the Australian economys functioning. Rather, it quite clearly sets itself the aim of equipping its students with the capacity to identify problem areas in the economy and evaluating the policy responses to it. It is on the path to achieving this aim that HSC economics seems to lose its way.A major flaw in the treatment of economic issues by the HSC economics course is that it decontextualises the problems it is dealing with. Taking unemployment as an example, the course covers definitions of the types of unemployment which exist, statistical trends which relate to unemployment and seemingly rational explanations for why unemployment may occur. What it largely fails to consider or raise are the socio-political realities associated with these theoretical issues. Subsequently, two problems emerge. Firstly, not only do students have little engagement with political influences on the economy but also consider such socio-political factors to be entirely separate from the economy. This leads students into an incredibly superficial account of the reasons behind social problems like high unemployment rates amongst First Nations peoples or ethnic migrant communities.Secondly, in their lack of exposure to the tangible impacts of unemployment on peoples lives, students dont have access to an appropriate metric through which they can evaluate economic concerns. For example, in discussing microeconomic reform in Australia, students are encouraged to evaluate government policies over the last decade or so. In this evaluation, which usually tends to fetishise the deregulation, a student who is given little to no background about the real impacts of policy may consider long-term GDP growth to be a fair and reasonable trade-off for short term structural unemployment. In making that assessment, it is likely that no consideration is given to what that GDP growth really means (i.e. who benefits from that growth) or the disastrous impacts which structural unemployment may have on peoples lives.Beyond its inability to equip students with necessary evaluative skills, the economics curriculum also provides little in the way of alternatives to the dominant free market ideology of the status quo. This means that students are exposed to a limited range of economic ideas and thinking. In terms of microeconomic reform, there is a strong adherence to neo-classical economic theory which promotes the deregulation of markets in its fetishisation of efficiency. On a macroeconomic scale, it involves the application of Keynesian principles, which suggests government spending is a tool to stabilise growth in the economy.The consequences of this limited exposure to diverse economic ideas are twofold. Firstly, they tend to produce a sort of is/ought fallacy in the minds of students. By analysing solutions through a singular framework, the course limits the imagination of students in addressing economic issues in society and leads them to the conclusion that neo-classical economics is inherently the most rational option.Defenders of HSC economics may respond by arguing that the course merely informs students of how the economy currently operates rather than prescribing methods of dealing with economic issues. This claim seems questionable, given the syllabus express desire to equip students with the ability to evaluate and discuss. Moreover, the ways in which the economics course describes the status quo appear to have a legitimising effect on neo-classical economics. Often, abstract benefits like growth and efficiency (enjoyed mostly by a select few within the economy) are overstated at the expense of discussing legitimate negative outcomes brought about by policies like labour market deregulation. The upshot of this is that students, albeit implicitly, are encouraged to consider neoliberalism as the most rational option.Secondly, by constructing economics in the status quo as inherently rational, students also begin to perceive neo-classical economics as trans-historical. This is particularly emphasised in the global economy section of the curriculum, where liberalisation and, by extension, globalisation are treated as inherently beneficial. Essentially, the disparities in economic advancement between the developed and developing world are attributed to overbearing governments whose markets are closed off. A corollary of this claim is that developing countries are always benefitted by free trade agreements, causing students to often consider more trade valuable in and of itself. Almost no attention is given to factors like colonialism that affect the modern distribution of wealth and the power relations that underlie most trade agreements. Additionally, global organisations like the International Monetary Fund who have frequently pushed agendas of neo-liberalism are granted a position of deference with little incentive to consider the real contextual factors that determine the appropriate path for a nations economy.The consequences of these gaps in the HSC Economics Syllabus dont merely stop at students being misinformed about the economy or ill-equipped to properly evaluate historic policies. They also bear a normative influence on the ways students consider the economy and society more broadly, as they move into later life. Perhaps our own university campus is quite a good example of this. It is common to hear claims by students that they are economically conservative but socially progressive. It is uncommon to question the system of education that made it possible to abstract the economy from society.I am, You are, We must be AustralianHistory is neither a small and easily digestible subject nor a mere list of facts to be memorised. Decisions about what parts of our global and national history students learn are inherently political they will shape how a young person comes to understand the legacy behind their home, and the historical forces that have culminated in their present-day privileges and disadvantages. The Australian curriculum is not excused from this reality.In a context of ongoing settler-colonial structures, inherited from two centuries of dispossession and subsequent collective amnesia, it is unsurprising that governments would want control over how kids understand their history of place. Where politicians have control over the history curriculum, we should expect them to act in the hope of creating a national identity advantageous to their own ideology. This is particularly the case with conservative politics, which relies on viewing the past as something to be preserved, and thus requires social consensus on the enduring moral character of a nation.Of course, for university students, this reality should be unsurprising. Ongoing disagreement over the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation comes from an aversion towards allowing explicitly conservative ideologues to infiltrate otherwise autonomous academic spaces the stakes being the sensibilities of young, future community leaders.This thinking also explained the Australian history wars spanning back to the 1990s. Like efforts in Britain during the 1980s, Liberal Prime Minister John Howard sought to challenge what he perceived as a black arm-band view of Australian history. According to him, emphasis on Australias violent colonial past was unnecessary, out-of-proportion and unhelpful for the modern settler-project. In addition to endorsing revisionist historians like former Honi Soit editor Keith Windschuttle (famous for The Fabrication of Aboriginal History), John Howard encouraged Australians to celebrate a constructed agglomerate of Australian history. This meant celebrating Australia on 26 January and those conscripted to fight in imperial conflicts on 25 April.Howards project eventually reached into what Australian school children learnt between 9am and 3pm. Although not an especially well documented period of our nations past, scholarship has begun to catch-up on this matter. Zeb Woodwards 2013 history honours thesis marks the swings in Australias history curriculums have undertaken as a result of its politicisation between 2006 and 2013.As Labor governments would come to do in their own ways, and in the same vein as politicians before him that pushed a neo-classical understanding of economics, Howard sought to shape the civic sensibilities of future voters. On 25 January 2006, Howard stood before the National Press Club and announced his intentions for a revolution to how history was taught, seeking to reflect Australias crowning achievement, borne of its egalitarian tradition its social cohesion.The social context underpinning Howards announcement should not be forgotten. It came on the back of a month of race-fuelled violence in Cronulla, years of villainising refugees and pre-empted his paternalistic occupation of Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. In Howards view, young people [were] at risk of being disinherited from their community if that community lacks the courage and confidence to teach its history.Although no national curriculum would come from the 2006 History Summit following Howards speech, his initiative would come to formalise his position from the History Wars. Robyn Moore, a Graduate research assistant at the University of Tasmania, describes how history textbooks continue to espouse a white vision of Australia into the 21st century, meaning that Aboriginal history is often relegated only to the first chapter of the history, and then forgotten, as if erased in the strong march to a better future.[1]When Howard was eventually voted out and replaced by Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, this politicisation felt a marked shift. A conspicuous effort was made to shape Australias curriculums with the aim of helping close the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous communities. This meant giving more time to studying frontier-violence, analysing Australias racist past as embodied in the White Australia Policy, and acknowledging broader narratives of intergenerational colonisation. Compared with the active involvement of conservative politicians in Howards curriculums, the introduction of a national curriculum under the supervision of the independent Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) reflected some attempt to separate educators from politicians.And yet, even without the active infiltration of conservative propaganda, Australias history curriculum continues to be shaped towards something which trains young Australians to be largely proud of their past, and to therefore, accept a modern settler-government as legitimate.Oddly-enough, this was made clear by the conservative response to changes in the curriculum.[2] In 2013, Prime Minister Tony Abbott decried the curriculums emphasis on Labor Prime Ministers like Gough Whitlam and the victories of labour unions (clearly advantageous topics for a Labor hegemony), whilst calling for a heavier focus on Australias history of business strength, and the inclusion of prime ministers like Robert Menzies.ACARA curriculums are themselves not innocent. This is evidenced, for example, in the narrative underlying Australias colonising past. Students are still taught that Australia has gone through the development of policy-stages: from protection, to assimilation, before finally arriving at reconciliation, despite the settler-colonial reality of our present. Where our violent history is taught, it is often not explained to its full extent, and even further, is not complemented by a genuine pre-contact history of Aboriginal societies. In this context, First Nations cultures and communities exist in the Australian psyche merely in reference to colonialism, thus struggling to maintain relevance in a purportedly post-colonial present-day Australia.It is vital to acknowledge that Australias history curriculum is far from apolitical. It is worrying that these undercurrents go under-examined, especially given the lack of critical-thinking modules in the history curriculum. Only through a subject like Extension History in New South Wales can you be trained in historiography the craft of analysing the making of history, such that young adults may reconcile contradicting historical narratives sold to them by politicians.(Political)Development and Physical HealthFrom its earliest stages, the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) syllabus seeks to teach students to identify who they are and how people grow and change. A natural feature of this aim is standardising the ways in which people treat and understand not only their own bodies, but those of others. Although this outcome appears to be a noble one, in reality, it bears a significant socialising impact on students. And when politicians begin to interfere with the structure of courses in the aforementioned ways, a subject mostly treated as a fun sports break begins to have a far more pernicious impact on students later lives.A telling example of the constraints of the current PDHPE syllabus has been the contemporary dispute over social and personal issues relevant to LGBTQI+ students. For a course intended to prepare students for their personal development, it seems quite uncontroversial to provide teachers with content on gender identities, sexualities and their place in a school environment. However, when The Australian characterised Safe Schools Coalition Australia as a tax-payer funded gay manual in schools, the ideological battle over controlling students social education becomes unfortunately crystallised.Ultimately, Australias PDHPE curriculum has long been gatekept by conservative ideologies, such that the information which reaches young children about their own bodies is contested and to their own immense disadvantage.A significant problem in the PDHPE syllabus is its isolation of physical health from social forces. For example, in discussing sexually transmitted infections, little acknowledgement is given to the politicisation of sexual health, particularly during the AIDS epidemic, where politicians weaponised public health concerns to oppress queer communities. The consequence of this is that students consider issues of their physical and sexual health to be inherently personal in nature, leaving them lacking in the critical skills to evaluate and properly understand the factors that influence health policy in the real world.The extent to which the young body and its welfare are politicised extends far beyond LGBTQI+ issues. In 2014, The Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education was updated to its sixth version, including more progressive and inclusive approaches to defining sexual health (including reference to pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, and sexuality (including reference to gender roles and identities, sexual orientation, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction in its definition).Despite these changes, which were themselves the product of significant lobbying and a far-cry from curriculums 30-years prior, students are still left wanting in many parts of Australia. Family Planning Victoria released a response to the new curriculum, acknowledging its advancements, but concluding that it introduced this information too late in childrens development. Moreover, they did not incorporate sufficient exploration of topics in relation to sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing exposing the risk of teachers not covering important components. This is especially true should ones individual teacher not be well versed in the topics, feel uncomfortable discussing it, or feel some ideological opposition to the material.In failing to sufficiently guide teachers in how to promote knowledge about positive consent, how to use contraception or what the gender spectrum is, governments are complicit in endangering the futures of their youth population. In much the same way that the NSW Liberal government politicises the bodies of people with uteruses by denying them free access to abortion, the gate-keeping of crucial information via-insufficient curriculums curbs children from living agency-filled lives.The conservative calculus which determines how the PDHPE syllabus is set is quite clearly enunciated in the comparative ease with which Judeo-Christian reforms entered high schools. Whilst the Safe Schools program, costing the public $8 million over 3 years, was met with furious outrage, the School Chaplaincy Program (costing 30 times more and rejected by the Australian Education Union) found easy passage into federal policy. This hypocrisy is equally visible in the announcement of an extra $1.2 million to support the Bachar Bouli program, which seeks to better integrate (read: assimilate) Muslim children into Australia by teaching them Aussie Rules football.It seems, then, that what is deemed acceptable to include in our education systems student welfare program depends upon whether it fits the states project of socialisation. Unfortunately, this means that programs which confront issues of sexuality and gender head-on fall to the wayside.From little tories big tories growThere are very obvious and serious immediate harms to the faults in our syllabuses. Queer students are left to fend for themselves, students of colour are exposed first-hand to the states nationalist project and the realities of class are kept out of our minds. Importantly though, the effects of conservative influences on the education system outlive six years of secondary education. Lines of argumentation in debates on abortion, invasion day or welfare reform are not too far removed from the ideology that subtly finds it way into Australian textbooks. Ultimately, to bring change in public discourse, we must first question the ways our own education has set the boundaries of what that discourse should include. That questioning relies on an acknowledgement of the politicisation of Australias curriculums. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its February 2018 and Im lying on a hospital bed. The anxiety-induced sweat underneath me is soaking the hospital bed linen. An anaesthetist is returning in five minutes to put me under, but at this point Im having trouble lying still. I pick at my fingernails in an attempt to avoid clenching my jaw. I can hear the clock ticking over. Outside my curtained room, I can also hear a series of murmured voices. Ive read about it in the media I think, says one nurse to another. Yeah, I always forget the name, but they say its a pretty common chronic condition.Should be an interesting surgery.My cheeks are now crimson as I lie there, suddenly feeling like an animal up for auction at the county fair or maybe just a woman with endometriosis.My surgery, a laparoscopy, will give me a definite diagnosis on a condition that even nurses forget the name of. The chronic pain Ive experienced since the age of 12 will be recognised as legitimate, with a legitimate cause. Perhaps it really is not just occurring in my head. Even so, I have to recognise that this surgery may not cure me of any of my symptoms, and the endometriosis could grow back.Endometriosis is a disease where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows in other parts of the body, usually around the pelvis and sometimes in organs and tissues outside the pelvic region. The condition is common, experienced by 1 in every 10 wom*n. It causes chronic pain, affecting basically every aspect of daily life. It has significant social and mental impacts on sufferers, yet it is invisible in most social contexts. People who have experienced this overwhelming pain from their very first menstrual cycle wait on average 7 to 12 years for their diagnosis.176 million people worldwide are affected by endometriosis. Its been named as one of the top 20 most debilitating and painful conditions by the UK National Health Service. In Australia, 1 in 10 young wom*n suffer from endometriosis, and the research has shown that symptoms can be so severe that schooling, career and social participation is significantly compromised. Donna Ciccia, the Director and Co-founder of Endometriosis Australia, claims that the condition adds a debilitating layer to already present societal prejudice that prevents wom*n from reaching their potential.Wom*n have been taught from a young age to think that painful periods are normal. That having to miss school or work because of overwhelming pain is just part of a normal cycle. The healthcare industry has been incredibly reluctant to explore our symptoms or even give our condition a name thus many medical professionals are unable to help us. In these circumstances, we are taught from a young age to ignore our menstrual cycles.The Cell and Reproductive Biology Laboratory run by Dr Laura Lindsay and Professor Chris Murphy in the Anderson Stuart Building works specifically on female reproductive biology. One of the clinical diseases that theyre particularly interested in is endometriosis. Dr Lindsay describes the condition as, years and years of pain, bleeding and infertility.The pain is often debilitating, adds Professor Murphy, but often not debilitating enough that the patient will actually go to see a doctor. Theyll go when the pain is essentially unbearable.Still Waiting for DiagnosisThere are different kinds of pain, says Isabelle Hans Rosenbaum, a 21-year-old fashion student. I think the worst one is this electrifying, shocking feeling. It feels like youre being zapped in your lower abdomen. She pushes her finger into her stomach, mimicking the jolt. The other feeling is a bit more dull. The best way to describe it is probably like someone getting a blunt knife and dragging it very deep into your stomach.Isabelle has suffered pain from the age of 16. She was originally told by doctors that the sensations were caused by cysts inside her abdomen. Theres not much we can do, they had said. Lots of people have them. She had recurring episodes during which her cysts were just playing up.When she turned 18 and her periods became more regular, the pain grew much worse. I was encouraged to see a specialist, she says. The waiting list for this specialist was over four months, and once I did see her, it took another three months to get on a waiting list for surgery. Isabelle has been on this surgery waiting list for a year and a half. I get my surgery next month, hopefully.Societal ignorance of endometriosis amongst young people has a massive psychological effect on those coming to terms with their condition. On student campuses, this invisibility is further heightened. Students are rushed from class to class, and theres little connection with individual lecturers or tutors, and therefore a detachment from any understanding of the help that students need. Many students avoid listing endometriosis as a reason for special considerations out of fear of being rejected a few days before the due date. The condition is particularly undiagnosed in young people because the most common way it is found is through infertility, said Professor Chris Murphy. If someone isnt trying to get pregnant then they just think they feel sick. They dont consider it to be any more serious than that.Lack of knowledge about the condition also makes it difficult to explain ones emotional, physical and mental state to peers and relatives. This makes young people feel socially isolated. Its all hidden pain that cant be seen most of the time, so you kind of live with most of it alone, says Lucy Ferris, a textiles student at the University of Technology. Because its an invisible pain, I also find myself thinking that people dont believe me. Throughout the years of diagnosis, I kept thinking that they would find nothing, and that I was making it up.The Social NetworkTheres often more community support for endometriosis sufferers online than can be found in a medical centre. The Facebook group Endometriosis support group has over 20,000 members, and thats only within Australia. For young people still looking for a break from the taboo associated with wom*ns health, this platform is crucial. Posts are frequent, with about 20 to 30 being made per day. There are requests for support, questions about pain relief, diet, mental health, and more. Even patients that suffer from similar invisible conditions such as adenomyosis are willing to join endometriosis support groups just to feel connected to those with a similar kind of pain.People can just offload some of their pain, or ask for help or guidance. Ive actually found most of my solutions through the incredible wom*n in that group. I even DM some for help, says Lucy Ferris.The positive mental impact that the group brings for sufferers is immense. Its a confirmation that theyre not alone, and that extreme period pain is not normal, no matter how many people brush it off as such. I feel like these support groups where I can get advice and talk to people with the condition have helped me more than doctors have. Ive spoken to so many people about this and theyve said the same thing, says Isabelle Hans Rosenbaum.These online platforms are particularly valuable for Australian endometriosis sufferers who live in rural or remote communities, where wom*ns healthcare in general is lax. In addition, the sites are open to the families of sufferers as well, allowing them to increase their understanding of the illness.Genes of Infertility It took Nells mother up to ten years to fall pregnant with her. Years of trying, an unimaginable series of tests, appointments, IVF treatments and miscarriages led to a particularly late but not abnormal diagnosis of endometriosis at the age of 35. There was a very slim chance of having children. But when she was well into the process of adopting a child, she discovered that she was having Nell.Theres so little known about the cause and symptoms of the disease that when one is finally recognised as a sufferer of endo, there can be very little time to decide whether they want children, especially as 1 in 3 people with endometriosis have problems with fertility. The only way to confirm if someone has endometriosis is through invasive surgery. Because of this, early diagnosis is almost impossible. Although not confirmed, it appears very likely that endometriosis has a genetic component. As a result, sufferers experience recurrent anxiety about passing the disease onto their children. Further research into the disease will give wom*n the opportunity to prepare for their future. As a wom*n, if you knew you had an illness that may affect your fertility, you may weigh up the choices differently, says Dr Laura Lindsay. If you knew you had endometriosis, you might prepare. We know from studies that if you get into the IVF clinic before the age of 35 you have a better chance of pregnancy and successful birth.Money where the uterus is Although endometriosis is as common as asthma and diabetes in Australia, it receives less than 1 per cent of research funding. When looking at how wom*ns health has been ignored throughout history, it becomes clear that the disparity in the distribution of financial resources occurs on a gendered basis.If men had painful sex, painful defecation and painful urination, the entire US defence budget would be spent on finding a cure, Ciccia says, quoting Nancy Peterson a Endometriosis Advocate USA.Change could be in the air. In 2018, Australia brought about its first National Action Plan for endometriosis, which provided upwards of $2.5 million to the cause. The Plan directly apologised for ignoring the health of young people with endometriosis, and promised to improve awareness as well as clinical management and care in Australia. The Plan also has a particular focus on increasing education for young people about endometriosis through updating school curriculums, and teaching students and staff about the signs of irregular menstrual health and their options for support. Donna knows that change will come from heightened awareness. I can get in a cab with a 70-year-old taxi driver and make sure he knows all about endometriosis by the time I get out, she said. Its about recognising the conversation as not only normal, but also crucial.BREAKING: Yet another study done on how wom*ns health issues affect men In 2017, a philosophy research student at the University of Sydney began a study on the sexual impact of endometriosis on men who have partners with the disease. I raised this study with Chris and Laura.I dont think that study would show up on my basic science flag, says Dr Lindsay.I can imagine that a study saying that endometriosis has affected the sex life of men could have been a bit controversial and perhaps in poor taste, Dr Murphy adds.This study, both sexist and under-researched, was also majorly premature. Endometriosis does not have a known cause, identification or treatment, and would benefit from further research into its own genetic links and related conditions not a major study focusing on how the condition affects other people. Wom*n are often conditioned to accept pain quietly. When offered treatment, regardless of its severity, they tend to accept these treatments on the basis of pure desperation. Women will accept a hysterectomy for the vague chance that there may be a reduction in symptoms, and we know it is definitely not a cure said Donna Ciccia. The Inconvenient PainDating in your late teens and early twenties is difficult enough as it is. In a social landscape that from an early age de-legitimises the pleasures and needs of wom*n and non-binary people during sex, it is already difficult to find understanding and support from partners. Casual dating sites and applications obscure and misinterpret the needs of young people suffering endometriosis because of their focus on physical and snappy connections. In casual relationships, sex is treated as a quick fix. So when conversations arise about pain and discomfort during sex as a result of endometriosis, young people can be left feeling embarrassed, misinterpreted or ignored.With dating, I find it can be a nightmare sometimes. Im currently single, and just find myself giving up sometimes on meeting new people, says Lucy. Because the pain is pretty much always there to some degree, its hard to go on a date and be like hey, so I feel like absolute shit but I gotta just smile through this and just wait for it to be over.Social and physical discomfort is only part of the problem for young people balancing endometriosis and their personal relationships. I get really down on my body because of all the bloating and stuff, so going on a date and feeling confident is just so rare, says Lucy. I end relationships pretty quickly because I just dont want to deal with all the physical and emotional pain that is tied to my endo.Ive had sexual partners who have told me that its completely normal for wom*n to experience painful sex and I was basically expected to lie back and think of England. Before my surgery especially, endometriosis had a massive negative impact on my sexuality. I started to blame myself and told myself I was making a big deal of nothing, even though I couldnt walk for days after sex due to the pain.Theres so much thats not known, says Dr Lindsay. I think we need to push that yes, we need clinical research, but we need basic scientific research first to understand how the disease develops, and then a diagnostic test. Researchers need to figure out how we can get a diagnosis and how we can give wom*n information so that when theyre in their early 20s, they can understand and decide what to do?With endometriosis, it is difficult to find a partner and a social network with compassion and understanding for your symptoms. Theres a pressure to constantly stand up for yourself, or to be the explainer or advocate for the disease to others who dont understand. That pressure can be exhausting, especially when research into the disease is speculative and ongoing.Developed research in endometriosis causation and treatment is sluggish and frustrating for its sufferers. For a disease that simultaneously pushes you into the spotlight as advocate and confines you in an often invisible bubble as sufferer, its enough to make young people feel trapped under a microscope. For now, endometriosis sufferers find support in each other. Perhaps soon, this fairly common condition may be given the wider attention it deserves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A predictable fog rolled over warring planes of discourse after Trump recognised Juan Guaid, a Venezuelan opposition leader presiding over their Asamblea Nacional, as their Presidente. Like other narcissistic leftist netbros, we quickly found ourselves encircled by this tempest of states, standpoints, and structures, becoming as much the gust as the trees swayed by it. Amidst gathering storms we dug our trench. We were opposed to #AmericanImperialism, considered opposition supporters the minority, and believed our opponents perpetrated not only intellectual mistakes but moral ones too. Although not bearing the uniform of any overarching ideology, our foes, in turn, wielded the weapons of centrist liberalism. They claimed Maduro is a #cronyistauthoritarian, believed he ought to resign, and hinted that #AmericanImperialism might be the best of bad options.And yet, despite the appearance of intractability, our views were not so different.We agree more democracy is always better, despise wanton violence, and support initiatives undertaken in the name of ending oppression. We regret instances where Maduro, or any other least evil leader, falls short of ideal standards, and we criticise incumbents where they do. As such, we are only prepared to support select states on a case-by-case basis. But in the foggy war of late capitalist geopolitics, the facts we proceed from, the way we frame our opinions, and the political acts we prioritise or omit affect the success of each belligerent. In the battlefield of ideas, it pays to fire from the right trench.Uncle Rupert Wants You!These foes were mere raindrops in the stormcloud of liberal moralism and conservative red-baiting that thundered above the front, the complexity and variety of the mass recalling the hot air blown outward by the Syrian Civil War since 2011. While instructive to other discussion, our analysis therefore primarily reacts to these storm fronts, drawing from and contributing to the discourse surrounding those states.In both cases, no discursive participant, bar maybe the clandestine lizards embedded in the ruling class, has come to support dubious actors like Guaido or the Free Syrian Army out of moral insensitivity. In fact, many well-intentioned people have responded to particular presentations of facts with appropriate outrage. And yet, by being lead to positions that undermine the least evil option, they ultimately bring more harm to those for whom their hearts bleed.The corporate media accounts for a great deal of this irony. As historically profitable and well-endowed institutions, corporate and independent government media have a strong material and cultural foothold in liberal democracies. Because of this, they remain the most common way citizens of liberal democracy access information. While competition ensures some ideological differentiation among them, foreign policy positions appear to converge in a way otherwise unseen in the industry, their analysis bound by similar incentives, agendas, and information channels. As these media sources command large cultural capital and attention, especially among the generations where power rests, their editorial decisions and content determines which topics are discussed in mainstream discourse, while also mediating the information available for citizen decision-making. But because citizens notionally shape the direction of liberal democracies, the media doesnt just host discourse but effectuate outcomes too. When engaged with uncritically, the information they convey can lead astray instead of ahead. Media can do this by manufacturing consent for political outcomes citizens would not otherwise support.This concept, first coined by Noam Chomsky, captures how the interests of media corporations align with the imperial ambitions of states to shape the content presented to audiences. Rather than limiting rights to franchise or speech, powerful actors influence the way citizens view their reality, increasing the chance citizens serve the status quo when exercising their democratic rights. Efforts are made to limit the role foreign interventions play in decision-making, often by painting targets of them in ways that balance the moral cost of the intervention. Thus, unfavoured dictatorial regimes are subject to exaggerated mischaracterisation, marked by connotative descriptors and the neglect of successful programs, while pro-regime voices are framed as fringe or otherwise excluded. Inconvenient facts and events dont cross paths with even the most astute news follower.Dr Alan MacLeod applies Chomskian methodology to media coverage of Venezuela in his book, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting. He found that Americas State Department directly paid journalists (or disinformation agents) to report propaganda as news in both Latin America and the US. In Venezuela itself there is just one full-time correspondent from the mainstream English-language press, and local media are frequently propaganda outlets for opposition groups, themselves funded by American organisations such as USAID, or the National Endowment for Democracy. Journalists in these organisations see themselves as leading the resistance against the government, and therefore have no qualms about publishing fake news to serve that goal, for instance when they erroneously claimed that condoms now cost US$750 in Venezuela.However, one need not believe there is a conspiracy afoot to see how this process could play out. In a capitalist machine each cog seeks to maximise profit. Thus, it is rational for corporate media firms to support initiatives likely to do that like America trying to bring new states into their trade hegemony even if they dont explicitly collude with initiators. And this is to say little of the further role that nationalism and conformity play in determining how each cog behaves, whether that be the intern converting Reuters wires into articles or the executive deciding the careful framing of each fact.But while material factors explain how the media presents the news to people, ideological factors explain why people choose to believe it. Recent condemnation of Venezuela, especially in liberal circles, owes a lot to the preponderance of identity politics and its corollary standpoint theory in contemporary progressive discourse. So successfully have they advanced through the planes of discourse that these days their central insightthat an opinion derived from lived experience cannot be challengedis a starting, and, frequently, final point of analysis. From Standpoint to StandstillStandpoint theory contends that those who are most excluded from power are best placed to understand oppression, having lived experienced of marginalisation which is invisible to others. By amplifying the voices of the most downtrodden, beginning with African American women in the 1980s, standpoints insights command reverence in progressive and even mainstream circles. This should be expected: once we concede that lived experience is an immutable source of knowledge it seems insensitive to challenge conclusions drawn from such experiences.With this norm entrenched, it is unsurprising that people react with outrage when one particular person in Venezuela, or a family member, details their plight. After all, who are we detached theory bros to question an anti-Maduro opinion forged in the fires of experience?To meet the question head-on, we are theory bros who have forged opinions by taking stock of many lived experiences. And herein lies two big problems with uncritical deference to standpoints: firstly, that standpoints about experience are conflated with questions of fact, and secondly that some standpoints are simply more common and well-justified than others.In this particular case, the pro-opposition stance is not even close to the majorityone poll suggested 80 per cent of the population had never even heard of Guaidoand the Chavista stance is more popular than the alternatives, particularly among oppressed groups. For every unprofitable small business owner there are twenty children who would have starved had it not been for free meals in school; for every exiled gusano plutocrat there are a hundred campesinos able to own the land they farm for the first time; for every 30 per cent who voted for opposition parties in the internationally monitored but imperfect 2018 Presidential elections, there were 68 per cent who voted for Maduro.None of this suggests that one standpoint is more important than another. It also doesnt suggest that we should abandon its insights altogether. In fact, the opposite is true: simply possessing or referring to a particular standpoint cannot be grounds for resolving a debate in favour of that particular standpoint, not least when there are conflicting standpoints that deserve our deference just as much. A norm of uncritical deference to standpoints creates a related problem: empowered actors can use convenient lived experiences to dismiss or obfuscate inconvenient ones. This is especially problematic when our deference cannot distinguish between standpoints undergirded by well-reasoned structural explanations and standpoints motivated by self-interest. This costly theoretical insensitivity ignores an important fact: that though each person might have their own unique experience of reality, what they are experiencing is the same structurally oppressive reality.When combined with the medias reach, the deification of lived experience can lead well-meaning people to bad-ending positions. Thus, we see in Venezuela, as in Syria, that the minority anti-government protesters disproportionately drawn from empowered groups are erroneously seen as a manifestation of the peoples will. Their tales of hardship, at worst the result of mechanisms of redistribution and most likely the consequence of economic warfare waged by the West, motivate the reluctant war cry of the guilty hawk. Consent is manufactured.The ballot or the breadBut a hawk that put its hunger for justice ahead of its hunger for contrition would spot, from afar, the cues that separate predator from prey. In particular, they would observe that America has used its time as a global superpower to maintain and impose a global economic system that forces countries, firms, and people to accumulate or else face death. They would see that people long-victimised by America and its global economic system invest significant support in leaders who claim to defy this world order, especially when they demonstrate that defiance by giving to the poor that which would otherwise have been accumulated by the rich. They would, finally, recognise that these same people rationally consent to comparatively absolute leadership as an imperfect improvement on the alternatives: barbarism and/or invasion.These structural dynamics, long-understood by the Global South, explain why incumbents are often preferred to other options when citizens take advantage of whatever democratic rights the state grants. While there are no doubt improprieties in the way these elections are conducted, they are nonetheless often deemed legitimate by international monitors, and independent surveys regularly corroborate election results. And even where incumbents do not enjoy overwhelming support, anti-regime protestersthe kindwhosupport the Free Syrian Army, Guaidos Voluntad Popular, or any intervention to establish liberal democracyare an overwhelming minority.The reason for this is simple. They seem interested in a different social contract to people in the developed West, supporting the authority they judge as the least evil. Without the luxury of being able to wait around for a revolutionary groundswell, or even to fantasise about a benevolent liberal saviour, citizens of these states ordinarily have no choice but to hedge bets on the options at hand. And, in many cases, even those who recognise the value of democracy favour comparatively authoritarian options, especially when the authoritarian uniquely guarantees their most pressing needs: protection from violence and the stability necessary for material prosperity.In regions of the world where want and deprivation are a daily part of life, liberal democracy is a luxury rarely desired. Tunisian intellectual Larbi Sadiki calls this the democracy of bread, where citizens of the Global South accept a level of authoritarianism incompatible with liberal democratic norms as a compromise to guard against invasion from without and barbarism from within. Like Syrians who saw what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan, Venezuelans know how external involvement has undermined quality of life, especially in neighbouring countries like Guatemala, Chile and Nicaragua, and have therefore put their democratic ambitions aside in order to better fend off that possibility.This position not only reacts to external military fears but external economic suspicions too. Believing the Western economic sphere replicates humiliating colonial dynamics, many in the Global South interact in a distinct network of economies neither socialist nor neoliberal. This has, at the very least, altered the way they behave as global economic actors. Many of these states, for instance, refuse trade that requires conversion to US currency, entering alternative trade alliances when Western ones exclude them for pursuing a model that empowers the state more than corporations. A model of this kind at least nominally strives to achieve material improvements for its peopleand has done so for many in impressive ways Western media neglects to mention. Many citizens, particularly those who know how Western economies treat the powerless in their own backyards, recall the sting of colonialism as they hedge their bets on this model.The economic exclusion inherent to this deviation makes it harder for these states to reach the threshold of material development, stability, and peace ordinarily needed before extended democratic rights are even thought about. New South Wales, as one example, didnt establish an elected parliament until 1843. The French bourgeoisie, for another, didnt foist democracy onto the aristocracy until their proto-capitalist system generated enough surplus for them to become an empowered, critical mass. Sanctions and economic warfare actively hurts ambitions to expand democratic instruments, while also obscuring the way nationalisation can give citizen more ownership over the lives.You dont need a strongman to know which way the bomb blows Contrary to assumptions of a brainwashed and repressed citizenry whose thoughts are bound by propaganda, citizens of Venezuela and Syria are comparatively free from many of the issues that plague the Global South: they have protected the rights of Indigenous peoples and minorities, their governments are secular, and they have committed themselves at least nominally to womens liberation. While propaganda and fear play into their citizens decision-making to some extent, their consciousness is no more false than Westerners.In fact, the extensive social and economic progress directly encountered by citizens is not something governments or media could lie about, and has mobilised pro-government protests far larger than anti-government ones. That an impressive number of citizens credit incumbents with improvements in their own lives contrasts with Western voters, who dont so much as vote new parties in as vote the current one out, only feeling their lives have improved when the spin machine positions them to. This explains why a sizable portion of citizens maintain zealous support even when they know of regime atrocities, be that Bashar al-Assads violent suppression of protests in 2011, his fathers murderous campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982, or Maduros imprisonment of high-profile opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez in 2015.What gives Westerners the right to patronisingly question their judgement while accepting our own system as legitimate? Who are we to demand they facilitate greater evils to preserve ideological purity? On what basis can we possibly conclude that the standpoints of those in the minority trump the standpoints of the majority?In many cases, these reactions to citizens preferences stem from hubristic assumptions, rather than intellectual considerations, where observers assume citizens in favour of incumbents dont appropriately value democracy. They assume that these people are, at best, experiencing false consciousness, and, at worst, are rationally deficient.Do not be mistaken: those against the opposition or Western involvement in these countries understand liberal democracy just as well as people in the West. They no doubt have the same emotional responses to repression, injustice, and wanton violence as people in the developed world, and, equally, appreciate what democracy offers as well as any anarcho-syndicalist or Daily Telegraph columnist. To think otherwise is baseless arrogance.That these people reason to support incumbents, even despite their full and rich connection with the ideals of democracy, goes to show just how evil the alternatives are. Their decision-making no doubt weighs democracy as much as anyone here might, but that particular input is overridden by other inputs us in the West do not have to contend with. A similar thought process ought to play out amongst defenders of incumbents if it doesnt already. These defenders should empathise with the plight of those affected by the evil inherent to lesser evilism, supporting those attempting to further reduce that evil. They ought to be troubled by the suffering these regimes subject people to, regretting avoidable instances and hoping for a future where ideal options exist and are realistic. And they ought to bite the bullet, reluctantly, in the interests of the greater good, even where they have the very same phenomenological reaction to victims of imperfect incumbents as those who outwardly signal their disgust. All strategic on the discursive frontHowever, bullets of sympathy and conciliation ultimately injure the very people and standpoints they were meant to protect, especially when fired from the wrong trench. In the first instance, ignoring citizens preferences is inherently disrespectful, and should be avoided in principle unless we better understand the structures that shape their oppression and bind their decision-making.Beyond principled costs, these bullets can also cause issues in the realm of consequences. Though one persons opinion makes no difference on its own, bad thought processes can aggregate, affecting the possibility and nature of collective action. In a context where one bloc enjoys a default hegemony, and that hegemony accounts for the bulk of suffering people face, weakening countervailing forces necessarily creates space for hegemons to grow. When taken together these two facts suggest not only that observers oughtto take a side even when no options meets their ideal standards, but also that they should manage their political activity to ensure it doesnt indirectly lead to outcomes they dont want.Thus, condemnations of Western interventions should avoid deference to exaggerated despotism, on pain of encouraging the most evil belligerents to repeat that imperialist mechanism. Critiques of incumbents should clearly commit to their preservation, eliminating the risk that crucial marginal actors, like undecided observers, get dissuaded from investing in projects like ending sanctions. Belief in revolutionary socialism or liberal democracy should motivate organising practices and activism that doesnt undermine the good features of least evil incumbents.By accepting the preservation of incumbents as a first premise and avoiding activity that indirectly leads to more evil options, defenders reach the same normative territory as others while enjoying the unique benefit of having started their offensive from the right trench.That trench is the one we attempted to dig on Twitter: the trench of standpoint-sensitive anti-imperialism. It is one that commits to the battalion even while debate and critique rages in the dugout. It is one that is reluctant to embolden oppositional sentiment, prioritising critiques of the external forces responsible for poor conditions over narratives that already dominate. And it is one that assesses which realistic option is the least evil regardless of the standpoints emphasised, accepting that option as the one worth fighting for until circumstances change.After all, when the battlefields grow heavy with fog the only way for belligerents to ensure they dont hit the people they set out to protect is to fire from the right trench. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Sydney Conservatorium of Music was established in 1915 by Henri Verbrugghen, a Belgian conductor and violinist. It was opened with the aim of providing tuition of a standard at least equal to that of European Conservatoriums. In what was formerly the Government House stables, the Con attracted musical talent from across Australia with its first intake of 320 students in 1916. It was a purely classical place, said my former piano teacher, Gerard Willems, who studied there in its earlier years and continued as a teacher for a total of thirty-seven years. Jazz wasnt around.Australia first became acquainted with jazz after the international sensation caused by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918. Already since the 1890s, Australia had been exposed to African American music, such as spirituals and ragtime, but it was in 1918 when the first known jazz group appeared, a comic vaudeville act formed by Billy Romaine with Belle Sylvia as the singer. It was also at this time that references to jazz began appearing in Australian entertainment journals as the new American craze. Lacking its own roots in Australian culture, the popularity of jazz music grew alongside the rise of social dancing, despite vehement opposition from the conservative thinkerseven though jazz was the blanket name for popular music at the time, the very term seemed to evoke a sense of exoticism, and musical and social transgression, which conservatives considered to be morally crude and socially undesirable. But less diluted styles of jazz began to appear, largely supported by emerging jazz clubs and societies.With the emergence of the record industry in the 1920s the so-called Jazz Age Australians began to have access to American records, from both white and black groups. However, it wasnt until the 1930s that Australians began to absorb the work of leading African-American jazz musicians. Having access to the music of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and later Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, exerted great influence over Australian jazz musicians the Australian Jazz Quartet was formed in 1953 with American saxophonist and bassist Dick Healey, and together they recorded ten albums and appeared alongside Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, backed Billie Holiday, and performed at Carnegie Hall. Going into the 1960s, rock n roll was gaining popularity amongst youth, and the public seemed to lose interest in jazz. But the 1970s saw a resurgence of jazz music.There was one thing that had a lot to do with itthe inception of the jazz course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1973. If not to further legitimise jazz as music worth studying at tertiary level, and pursue as a career, the course at the Conservatorium would help to streamline the sound heard throughout Sydney, which would later emerge as a distinctive Australian voice.The Conservatorium continued to expand, offering musicology, music education, and composition as well as classical and jazz performance. This was realised by Rex Hobcroft, director of the Conservatorium between 1972-82, as a complete Music University in which various musical disciplines enriched each other. Since then, the teaching methods private lessons la master and apprentice and traditional class structures have continued, but an expanded curriculum requires a broader style of teaching. For example, the gamelan performance elective relies only on listening and imitating to learn the instrument; and jazz students are able to explore their own forms and styles during class performances. The Eurocentric focus of the Conservatorium, ingrained in its very conception, began to give way to other traditions. Reflecting this change, the jazz course, introduced as an Associate Diploma, was changed into a two-year diploma when the Conservatorium was remodelled in the early 1990s, and finally became a Bachelors degree around 1998, at which point further postgraduate options also became available. At the core of any musical practice is tradition and improvisation. While classical music pedagogy has mostly weeded out improvisation, focusing instead on tradition and leaving stylised improvisation to the historically informed practitioners, the Conservatorium has again broadened to introduce the Creative Music and Improvised Music degrees. I was particularly interested in the latter, which, according to the course description, gives students with a high level of musical performance experience and come from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to direct high-level technical and musical frameworks and contribute to collaborative music-making. The necessity of the course perhaps lie in the growing divide between free and traditional jazz. Craig Scott, Senior Lecturer of Jazz Studies and double bassist, says that in in spite of the changing jazz landscape, the jazz course remains ever relevant, saying its about developing a unique professional and artistic voice that is later retained or discarded, according to the individual.But more than traditional jazz, non-Western musical traditions are taking an increasingly important role in free improvisation. Speaking on the ethno-musical influences on the jazz course, Craig says theyre especially prominent in the postgraduate level, recalling back a students thesis exploring how Arabic music modes could be applied to jazz. There is nothing formally studied in the way of improvisation from other cultures in the jazz degree, but we encourage familiarity and it is about developing a unique voice.But maybe it is where the jazz course lacks formal study does the improvisation course find its relevance. Reflecting on the new course, Craig says:It was developed, as far as I know, to give people an opportunity to look at a cross-section of improvisation across different cultures. There isnt the same emphasis on jazz improvisation, of course, as there is in the jazz course, and there are different approaches to improvisationIf you were learning to play Indian music, for example, you would probably spend about five years learning mantras before even touching an instrument, and youll sound like you are playing that music. The significance is giving people the tools and knowledge to bring something unique to the table. To find out more about how traditional study can lend to students the ability to self-actualise their own interests, I spoke to Jack Stoneham, a graduate of the Jazz Performance Honours degree who focuses on free improvisation. I know him as someone who methodically isolates the elements of music, whether specific rhythmic patterns or harmonic possibilities, and practices them as tools for improvisation. Talking about practice with him, you cannot help but begin to question the common perception of jazz being a totally mysterious performance of frantic romance. Rather, you learn that the illusion of improvisation is conjured by structure and a continuous process of conscious decision-making, based on years of learning and practice. I learnt that improvisation is not necessarily random and only heard from musical geniuses, but that it is learned and fundamentally requires a deep understanding of harmony and solidity of rhythmic feel. Speaking about the Improvised Music degree and about moving away from strict traditional forms of improvisation, Jack admits:It is difficult to say but maybe the thing about playing either of these two languages [traditional and free jazz] in Australia is that both have their origins in a time period and historical context that is quite removed from living in Australia. As an Australian playing jazz I dont think I can ever have the same connection to jazz as someone from its origin who has experienced the context that gave rise to it.He mentions how many Australian classical musicians seem totally invested in recreating the European sound and influence as much as possible. I have found this to be true. While a student has some autonomy in their choice of repertoire, the process of learning the music is more about exploring the composers experiences and intentions rather than ones own.I think it is not possible to do in the same way that the people did at the time it was created in their own context. Perhaps the benefit of a degree that does not seem to focus on a genre, rather the act of improvising, is that rather than try to teach students to position themselves in a language that they may or may not be connected to, geographically and contextually, it may instead encourage students to create their own shared language which is perhaps more directly related to their current experience and context. In the walls of the Conservatorium, one often forgets ones own context. It is, of course, a place of tradition. But it is not quite Australian tradition, but rather an adoption of others. In the style of European institutions, the classical stream of the Conservatorium preserves the music of past geniuses, carried on by generations of new performers, who learn to communicate the composers voice and intentions, seemingly forgetting that the composers themselves were formidable improvisers and studied composition as well as performance. You need only listen to a Chopin mazurka or certain Beethoven sonatas to feel the strong presence of improvisation within the composition. Even the stream of continuous development in Bachs works can be understood simply as an improvisatory exercise. It is perhaps presumptuous, but certainly not unreasonable, to hope that the classical students of today could also learn to be composers and improvisers and performers, or anything they would like to be in music, much in the way the great composers were taught the only difference being that they would be developing and functioning in an Australian context and experience. The Conservatorium may be a complete music university, but does it provide a complete music education? In choosing a particular discipline of music, one largely misses out on other aspects of music, or at least, they exist only to serve and aid the main course of study. In a classical-stream performance degree, the most compositional study a typical student encounters is the weekly harmony homework. Perhaps, then, the value of the Improvised Music degree is that it opens up possibilities of developing Australian jazz and improvised music as a whole in a way not previously entertained by the established pedagogy.I spoke to Kevin Hunt, Director of the Improvised Music degree. He tells me about the popular Australian band The Necks, formed in 1987. Their set up is deceptively traditional piano, double bass and a drum kit. But they are an experimental improvisation band that is primarily interested in developmental stasis. In concert they often stay on a single phrase for an hour. The pianist, Chris Abrahams, went to the Con, Kevin says. He lasted about six weeks.Kevin goes on to tell me that Chris couldnt contemplate playing just bebop or any strict form of improvisation. He did everything for a whilerock n roll, classicalbut eventually found his own style of improvisation. He wanted to explore the harmonics in the piano with the pedal down, and how he could manipulate those sounds vertically. In performances, he would stay on a single note for a long time, but it would all eventually develop, with the trance eventually deepening.Hes really the model for this course, Kevin tells me. We can no longer expect musicians to have a career in a single form of improvisation. Big bands are no longer importanteven though theyre wonderfuland bebop is a bit of a novelty. Were focused on the individual having a career. But its early days.What the course does is give an opportunity to develop the students individuality because the degree is not centred on a specific musical style or pedagogy. Students in the jazz course are often overloaded and in exams, he says they tend to overplay. The jazz degree emphasises scales and arpeggios but the common result is flash scalic patterns but without the rhythm being in line. Instead, the improvisation course teaches or works with the individuals strengths.In the first year, students are involved mainly with free playing and clave rhythms South American rhythms with African influence that form the basis of many musical traditions, from swing, to bossa nova, to salsa. There is a focus on folk melodies and simple songs, using a maximum of three chords in a year, sometimes in a minor key. Typical jazz pedagogy would involve deliberate inundation of harmonic possibilities and their customary usage, but Craig instead seeks to encourage students to play what they hear. In terms of free playing, the main focus is on the concept of development. There are six students in each class, and whatever is played is reciprocated or responded to. In a way its like visual art, where you have a colour scheme, you have the essential character but theres a main design.In the second year, students begin to look at specific styles. In the early weeks, for example, they focus on early jazz. The course avoids the predominance of scales in the bebop style students will grab a scale and forget what theyre hearing. Input is purposefully kept to a minimum, unlike the jazz course, so students can focus on what they are doing.And the third year? We dont know what the third year will be. We havent written it yet, he laughed. But itll be steered by the students.The students are developing their own stream of music. Its about creating phrases that you like, practising those phrases, and listening to how they sound in different areas on your instrument. You have a group of sounds you know before you play.Now, some people may ask, is that improvisation? The answer is yes. You have a platform that is developed through improvisation. Its like Bach extemporising from just six notes. It can be very clear and methodical.Essentially, what the degree tries to do, Kevin concludes, is develop the individuals musical approach what their own strengths and interests are. Its not for everyone, but its an opportunity for a certain type of student to develop their individuality, because the degree is not centred on a specific musical style or pedagogy. Thats where were goingits self-motivated, rather than style-motivated. Certainly a product of moving times in the Australian jazz scene, the new degree is not just a study of stylistic tropes, but also of self. The concept of education being structured according to an individuals own strengths and desires is unbeknownst to me, a classical piano student at the Conservatorium, who has been taught with a strict pedagogy her whole life. I, and most likely many others, grew up with the notion that individual thinking must be earned. You are granted that privilege. The problem is, however, how much of your mind has been conditioned and, in some cases, indoctrinated by preconceived structures. Pedagogical structure is necessary, certainly, to develop the skills necessary to perform your individual ideas, but so often this overpowers the individual. Tradition is a beautiful thing. All musical forms seek to preserve their tradition. But to preserve tradition is not to impose singular mindsets upon individuals, but rather to encourage a mentality of exploration within their context. Tradition itself is formed on such a spirit. If the Conservatorium is to keep such a spirit alive, in any discipline, the Improvised Music degree is certainly a giant step in the right direction. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its the beginning of summer and were handing out flyers on Eastern Ave on campus to convince everyone (including ourselves) that we love student politics. Ive been standing near Honi Soits stall, for the past two hours and countless feet have passed me, trudging to their next class. One thing simultaneously sets each student apart and connects them all together their choice of clothing. Every few minutes, a pair of Gucci sneakers, a Louis Vuitton bag, an ACNE t-shirt or pair of Golden Goose sneakers pass me by, draped not only over international students but an increasing amount of domestic students as well.A few hours later, Im crossing City Road, only to find a group of men branded with their own distinctive style. One is dressed in a long trench coat, and surprisingly, a class ring on their 4th finger. Theyre carrying the newest collection of an Off-White tote by Virgil Abloh. Later, as I cross through the Business School, I see multiple students with variations of accessories mainly Guccis Marmont widely known as the Double GG, vintage motif.Every day I see brands on people in real life and reinforced by Instagram influencers. Hints of luxury abound, to the extent that I feel oddly insecure and materialistic. All I wear are worn out mom jeans the 21st centurys code for high waisted comfortable jeans along with a loose t-shirt, worn out Adidas Stan Smiths, and a raggedy faux leather tote.Little did I know, this trend has emerged from a massive marketing push to capture the young, aspirational luxury consumer. All I seemed to notice was high fashion lurking all around our campus, in the fruits of the gig economy, and in the elite nooks and crannies belonging to the heavily pocketed few.The Rich collective:Hailing from different parts of the world, the University of Sydney (USyd) hosts over 60,000 students, and each person brings a unique narrative to life on campus. The lived experience of being on campus strings these differences together, ranging from belonging to a club or to a subculture subtly formed by the way people carry themselves as USyd students.While individuality makes us all unique, the increasing influx of international students on our campus, and their associated wealth, brings with it a fair bit of baggage. Expensive, branded baggage, which is packed with anxiety for students on campus about the increasingly luxurious lifestyles and outfits that surround them.Thanks to social media and pop culture, visual connections between unique personalities and equally unique presentation styles are more striking than what they were before. As a result, the campus has transformed into a showroom for aesthetic identity, often corresponding with typified degrees, classes and student backgrounds.To further explore perceptions of on-campus luxury consumption,Honi conducted a survey of 111 students, finding that 80 per cent of students associated luxury clothing on campus to international students. Dr Jolynna Sinanan, a research fellow in Digital Media and Ethnography at the University of Sydney, told Honi If one is an international student or a migrant and attending an institution with the prestige of The University of Sydney, you wouldnt want to be looking shabby. Youre paying for the cultural capital and the prestige of the University of Sydney, so you want to look like you belong there. Dr. Sinanans view seems to support the wide-ranging perception that corner international students, like those from China, as having expensive tastes. But such economic typification can often leave international students extremely conscious of the impact their fashion choices have on students across campus. Lin*, an international student from China,worries that by wearing high-end clothing she will be judged by domestic students. I do feel ashamed when local friends ask me about what brands I wear, because those brands are quite expensive.Perhaps, then, the anxiety stems from local students questioning where their international counterparts get the funding to buy luxury clothing brands. Without any dialogue between the two groups, the perception that rich international students make the campus their runway continues to dwell in the minds of local students.The South China Daily reported that, according to industry insiders, Chinese shoppers, ranging from tourists to Australian born and based contribute towards two-thirds of luxury sales in Australia. This could potentially be linked to the of elite fashion adorned by international students on similarly elite campuses like USyd.Some respondents told Honi that they have tried to hide branded logos so that people would not hold negative impressions of them, further proving that the judgement arising from wearing luxury fashion influences students across campus. In fact, 72% of respondents told Honi that they perceived an increase in certain elite brand representation on campus in the past year, such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Balenciaga, Coach and Versace. But, at the same time,the blurred line where distaste turns into aspiration for domestic students can be increasingly seenOne respondent told Honi, There have been times when I have been ashamed of my external appearance not matching beauty standards but this wasnt entirely due to clothing. But it is a fact that seeing so much fashionable clothing does increase the pressure of a need to look goodLuxury Alienation:The widespread perception that international students are constantly clad in luxury brands is however, masking an important trend in the Australian luxury industry. A recent report has revealed that domestic households are increasingly willing to pay premiums for luxury, branded products due to their perceived superior quality. Also, their potential for resale, especially with the rise of luxury e-retailers that are increasing price transparency for the younger consumer, is also causing a boom in the luxury industry. But how far this reflects demographics on our campus is limited in nature. Domestic students often feel strongly about those who wear expensive products, often judging them because of the alienation that wearing luxury brands creates.Respondents who shun the luxury fashion world told Honi that they find it really difficult to relate to people with high fashion and lux streetwear clothing as its not something [they] could ever afford.Another student told Honi that sometimes feel out of place when people around me wear branded clothing. At other times it reminds me of the overwhelming materialistic culture society has.The presence of luxury clothing in learning environments can often be toxic in the reactions students mete out to fellow students, as the highly visual campus environment obviously spells out the economic differences between students. One respondent stated, One time I was in basically pajamas and the girl next to me in the lecture theatre was in head to toe Gucci that felt kind of shitty, purely because I wanted to have clothes like that, This can be a particularly difficult social environment to navigate, especially for first years.The Easily Influenced: The on-campus intimidation that luxury products breed are in no way simply related to just the exponential rise of international students on campus. Thanks to the pervasiveness of social media in our lives we have become sponges for information, branding and advertising.In an attempt to capture the young customer, luxury brands are employing Instagram influencers to subliminally market luxurious products, from lucrative invites to exclusive launch parties to posing with their products as simple accessories or outrightly tagging branded products we are constantly targeted on social media. Such direct targeting, while meant to show an individualistic take on fashion, can result in extremely repetitive fashion choices where everyone who is inspired by the brand aspires to own it.A 2019 Luxury industry report by IBIS stated that over the next five years brands are targeting young and cash-rich Australian consumers. In essence, brands are attempting to occupy a wider youth orientation regardless of whether they are domestic or international. This is can be seen in not only through the increasing use of social media influencers to market the same products but also in the products themselves, which are comparatively cheaper and more accessible than before an example being Guccis post-2017 line of releases. Often, it can even be seen that people spend a significant amount of their hard earned money to respond to the growing pressures of style on campus.As much as there is a relationship between increased brand-ness, increased presence of luxury items and increased visibility of consumer lifestyle orientations, there are also many micro-cultures and countercultures within student groups to counter what seems like normal pressures to have consumer lifestyle orientation, Dr Sinanan said. But, the emotional and socio-cultural impacts of clothing and accessory choices on the young and easily-influenced can be especially prominent in an insular campus environment. Systems of critique have also emerged on campus as well in the form of Facebook pages the satirically sartorial USyd Fashion Police being a prime example of how campus fashion can illicit judgement and mockery on social media platforms. Social capital the currency of social media seen in likes, reactions and comments begins online. Social media platforms like Instagram now reign supreme as the global fashion catalogue. Their design malleability, immeasurable number of hourly observers they attract, and inherent widespread connections they propagate make them the perfect incubus for the dissemination of high fashion. The presentation of luxury items on Instagram visually rugged and everyday suggests an authentic link between individual style and social identity, which is often a useful facade for the money-making brands. Magazines used to be the go-to for inspiration and brands paid thousands of dollars for spaces of advertising emerging stylist Isabella Mamas said. Now you send a couple of thousand dollars to an influencer and its instant sell for those companies.Influencer marketing directly to online subcultural groups of youth and personal accounts allow brands to depict a personal narrative for the consumer, particularly amongst young people. It is as if they are saying this piece was designed specifically for you, even though each piece is mass produced. These kinds of interactive and personalised engagements through social media fashion groupings allow clothing choices to also represent a sense of belonging.I dont think they (high-end brands) sell it for the individual. They sell it for the masses. At the end of the day, brands will say they represent individual identity but their main goal is to sell as many pieces as possible Mamas said.The ironic mass production of unique, handmade designer items, also sees individuals pulling away from recognisable branding and moving towards a less public, more disguised version of high end fashion. These trends are visible amongst domestic students of the Marketing or Media and Communications, or even elite clubs on campus, rather than engineering or other faculties, and what Dr. Sinanan says stands true for certain domestic students.For disciplines like marketing and commerce, getting social visibility correct through consumption, branding and dress has always been important. The phenomena of influencer trend setting, the perceived sense of belonging by following such influencers has made online shopping an extremely lucrative medium for brands. Research shows that by 2025, online platforms and luxury shopping will claim 25 per cent of total sales globally, marking a significant positive growth area for the Australian market. So, if social media platforms are the 21st centurys catalyst for fashion trend setting, then campus where we all are constantly swiping through social media is its thriving hub. *some names are changed for anonymity reasons <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Michaela Coels authentically crafted I May Destroy You follows a womans journey to uncover what happened on the night she was sexually assaulted, raising the question for survivors of sexual assault: how does one carry such trauma? Receiving glowing recommendations across the world from esteemed writers, its easy to see why from the moment the first episode plays, this story needs to be told.I May Destroy You follows the story of Arabella, a young writer. One morning, she wakes up with a hazy memory of being sexually assaulted. Unable to place where it happened or who the perpetrator was, Arabella sets out to piece together the events leading up to the assault. What makes this story authentic is its nuanced depiction of the experience, thoughts, and emotions of sexual assault survivors. Often, survivors are placed in one of two boxes: the vigilante who seeks justice at whatever cost, or the reserved, hopeless survivor two stigmas rooted in the toxicity of patriarchal perspectives. However, Coel challenges these depictions through the non-linear aspect of Arabellas journey to healing. Arabellas characterisation is complex, unable to be placed neatly into either of those cliches. From Arabellas denial and self-destructive spiral, to her use of the power of writing to speak out against the injustice she faced, Coel demonstrates why we need more stories that draw from reality.I May Destroy You is handled with care and grace. Coel uses her writing to represent sexual assault survivors and raise how forms of bigotry affect the way survivors are seen and heard. The story of the character Kwame reveals how male sexual assault survivors are often silenced by toxic masculinity. Kwame, a gay, black man, is assaulted by another man, but homophobia and toxic masculinity informs how Kwame isnt believed by the police or his friends. Kwame and Arabella have vastly different experiences. Arabella finds comfort in sisterhood, attending support groups and finding solidarity within the arms of her friends. On the other hand, Kwame suffers in silence, being told by the police that his experience is invalid. The audience watches Kwame as he suffers in isolation and recoils into denial, an unfortunate reality of many survivors.As we watch Arabella respond to her friends disclosures of their experiences with assault, we see reactions borne out of internalised misogyny, making her character unlikeable at times. Through flashbacks, we see that Arabella, as a teenager, resorted to schoolyard bullying tactics to victim blame a classmate, after she accused one of Arabellas friends of sexual assault. It is this imperfect aspect of Arabellas character that the true effect of internalised misogyny is revealed. While watching this problematic aspect of Arabellas character is unsettling for viewers, it further reiterates the complexities of internalized misogyny, and the inherent biases that exist within us. This further echoes the raw honesty within Coels writing, that makes I May Destroy You more than just a television series, but a tool of education.Despite this shows groundbreaking artistic representation of toxic masculinity, misogyny, and racism to explore the nuances of sexual assault, I May Destroy You has yet to receive the accolades it deserves. This years Golden Globes was nothing but disappointing for the show, receiving zero nominations for the powerful story telling of Coel, or the stellar acting of the cast. Yet, Emily in Paris, a mediocre series set around a young marketing executive with a predominantly white cast, gained Golden Globe nominations for Best TV Series and Best Actress in a TV series. This reflects the tone-deafness of society that Coel raises through her series, and the need for an intersectional approach to social justice issues, to understand how various systems of oppression interact with one another. Furthermore, it emphasises why we need to engage with writers such as Coel, as a means for understanding the personal biases we inherently hold.I May Destroy You is a necessity to watch in order to understand the weight sexual assault survivors carry, and the need for us all to deconstruct how our internal biases have affected the way we see and believe survivors. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Curled up on the couch with my parents and two dogs after a Sunday roast, we settle in for our weekly viewing of Upper Middle Bogan.As the title track (Comin Home Baby by Mel Torm) accompanies Bess transformation when she visits her newly discovered extended family, I ponder why exactly the drive from one home to another necessitates such a change.My family home, where Ill probably spend a large part of my twenties, clearly delineates between each of its members. My room, distinct from shared areas, is a source of respite when exam season rears its ugly head. There is the lounge room where my mother indulges in her overdramatic medical shows, and tucked away at the back is my fathers gaming room. Not so communal after all.Theres certainly no room for my extended family, who visit for an afternoon but travel back to their homes by nightfall. While Im grateful for the calm that allows me to type an essay at the kitchen table, I recall the gentle rumble of my mothers childhood home, with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles breezing through at any moment. The plates clanging loudly as they pass from one hand to another, spoons rattling in coffee mugs on Saturday afternoons.England, I suppose, is to blame. As always.Colonial roots of our family treeIn pre-industrial England, extended families would toil together on large plots of land, the many children running underfoot while older generations taught the younger how to till the soil and sow seeds. Its no surprise that the Industrial Revolution, alongside all its other disruptions, saw the extended family fragment into much smaller parts.Younger generations no longer worked in their ancestral homes, instead travelling to work in factories. They would marry in their late twenties, raise only as many children as they could afford to feed, and lived in small homes. Their children were raised not to join any community but to continue the cycle of labour, with education given for the sole purpose of a continued return on investment.Thus, the nuclear family was born: a core unit of two parents and their children. This family was young and mobile, trading long-standing local roots for the ability to relocate to wherever their labour was needed most.Homemaking and moneymakingBut theres always a price to pay. Nuclear families are far less resilient against disruptions, on macro and micro levels. If a child gets sick, suddenly someones entire day (usually the mothers) is derailed to take care of them. If a relationship breaks down, extended family members find it hard to fill any cracks.Caring for sick family members is just the beginning of the immense burden this family structure places on women. Created when a womans sole role was reproductive labour, the nuclear family model, and the societies built upon it, has struggled to adapt to a world where both parents work. Women were simply expected to do more to perform their traditional duties at home as well as playing a role (full- or part-time) in the workforce. This model has proven to be unsustainable, as most Western governments struggle to find equitable models for childcare, parental leave and the necessary rigours of childbirth and child rearing show.Throughout history women in extended families tended to take on the bulk of the domestic labour. Perhaps in an age of relaxed gender roles, a less restrictive family structure could lighten the load.What were missingThis all goes without mentioning the classism and colonialism embedded in the nuclear family. Even in the Victorian Era, the bourgeoisie, who reaped the rewards of extended family fragmentation, were shocked by the breakdown of traditional morals. The call to protect hearth and home only grew as the working class fragmented itself to sustain the capitalist system.In Australian history in particular, this originally descriptive term has become prescriptive a way of ensuring immigrants and First Nations people assimilate. In my own family, I mourn the loss of my Greek heritage, which was never taught to me by my grandparents who lived hours away. Within Indigenous communities, children are still stolen from their complex and fulfilling kinship networks, and forced into unfamiliar and unsatisfying nuclear families. Another method of colonial control, the nuclear family looms large and foreboding in our social structure.The working class has had its greatest gains when organising transcends the constructed barriers of the nuclear family. Striking workers support each other in clear rejection of the wests radical individualism, exacerbated by the atomisation of traditional family structures. Its clear that nuclear families serve the bourgeoisie in ensuring a fragmented and disjointed workforce, reducing an individual parents ability to organise and denying individuals the comfort and support of their extended family.There are as many ways to configure a family as there are families. Being raised in a cross-cultural family has exposed me to both nuclear and extended models. Most families have the potential to be a part of a larger group. So why deny ourselves the closeness and support they offer? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With Matt Reeves Batman releasing next year and the Snyder cut of Justice League renewing interest among fans for his version of the DC Cinematic Universe, it seems that Batman fans are spoilt for choice nowadays.This isnt even mentioning other on-screen representations of the superhero, with The Lego Batman Movie, Christopher Nolans Dark Knight trilogy, an Oscar nominated spin-off in Joker, and various animated straight to DVD flicks.However, in almost all of these films, we see a rotation of the same few Batman villains Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, and all the rest. While these characters are fun, inventive, well adapted, and cool in their design, the average comic book fan is reeling at the number of opportunities and story potential that the filmmakers are missing by not plumbing the depths of Batmans pantheon of rogues and ruffians. More than this, regular movie-going audiences are getting tired of seeing the Joker on screen for the four billionth time, and will begin to wonder if this is all that the source material can offer.For those curious, let me introduce you to some of the best unadapted villains that DC Comics has to offer our caped crusader.Calendar Man: A silly name, sure, but what this character lacks in title, he makes up for in gimmick. Committing holiday themed crimes, this villain would be perfect for the worlds greatest detective. Imagine a Zodiac or Memories of Murder inspired thriller, set over the course of several months, or even years, with an aging hero disillusioned at the hope of catching a killer who only rears their ugly head but once a month.Clayface: Unthinkable in the mid-nineties when CGI was in its infancy, nowadays the idea of a giant shape shifting monster doesnt sound so crazy. An identity thriller, perhaps? Murder mystery with a killer constantly changing what they look like, making identifying them impossible. Hollywood, I am awaiting your call.Poison Ivy: While this femme fatale has already made her big screen debut, with international fears of climate change, and distrust in corporations and billionaires, it seems all the more relevant to adapt the character once again. Perhaps a moral battle, as Batman must confront his own influences on the planet as a billionaire tech bro himself. Will our Dark Knight become an eco-fascist or is it too hard to teach an old bat new tricks?Firefly: Fire is cool and epic, and he has a jetpack AND a flamethrower! Those are two instances of fire in just one character, what a steal!These, my friend, are just a small handful of what the comics have to offer. But why, you may be asking, have these characters never been featured in any of the millions of Batman related media properties from recent years? My theory: the grime and realism of superhero movies of the past two decades have meant that these filmmakers and producers do not want to embrace some of the more bombastic, outlandish and zany aspects of comic books, out of fear of alienating audiences. This is especially prescient in the films of DC.However, if these studios want to break from their stagnant pool of edgy Mark Millar stans they need to embrace the comics roots. Audiences have already grown tired of the drab, depressing greyness of superhero flicks, and are starting to embrace the more goofy ideas to come out of comics. Just look at the recent output of Marvel Studios with weird departures from the norm like Guardians of the Galaxy, Wandavision or Shazam!. But if the success of Todd Philips Joker or Zack Snyders Justice League is anything to go by, it seems audiences arent done just yet.All I want is Egghead to be the main villain of a film. Is it too much to ask? It doesnt take a hard boiled detective to crack the case as to why hes the most eggcellent rogue out of dozens of villains. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Since my girlfriend moved to Chatswood in early 2020, Ive spent a lot of time driving on the Pacific Highway. After about a month of visits, I spotted it for the first time, on the service station somewhere between Gore Hill Cemetery and the Mowbray Road intersection. Alongside BPs literally greenwashed liveries, and the somehow perpetually faded Wild Bean Cafe sign, it sits almost innocuously. White text on a black field: DAVID JONES FOOD. Since then, I have not gone more than a day without thinking about it. The serif font shines like a beacon, attempting to eke any modicum of prestige out of an establishment which is anything but.The Pacific Highway is very much in the second-class of Sydneys traffic arteries, too narrow to attract the excellent vibes and iconic bead shops of the big dogs like Parramatta Road. But this break in the monotony of the car dealerships immediately raises its status in my mind. As someone raised on the Lower North Shore, Ive had a first-hand view of the areas pathological desire to make everything as vainly bourgeois as humanly possible, but come on! Its literally a David Jones servo! This absurd extension of every North Shore stereotype is beautiful and hilarious to behold.What this place has on other giants of the North Shore Kitsch genre (personal favourites include a Cremorne dog supplies shop earnestly called Dogue, and the completely inexplicable brokerage storefront in McMahons Point), is that it occupies a liminal space of Sydney. While it is officially called BP Artarmon, its side of the highway is actually in Lane Cove North. Its existence is so reality-breakingly strange that it cannot be contained by the authority of the local government. The servo is essentially on an island, where the Pacific Highway becomes an overpass for a few hundred meters. The only other shop there is a KFC. If it wasnt in the middle of Sydney the location would scream truckstop. Yet even this concrete slab seems to have somehow absorbed the culture, environment, and general aura of the surrounding area. In the same way that Darwins finches changed their beaks to better suit the environment of each Galpagos island, so too did this BP grow a David Jones sign to survive in its environment north of the harbour.In reality, of course, the David Jones servo did not spring from the font of nature only the folly of mankind could have wrought such a sick creation into being. This is why BP Artarmon haunts my every waking moment. Someone, somewhere, thought of this. Presumably, David Jones, or their South African parent company, were concerned that their Food division was performing sub-optimally. To rectify this underperformance, there was a meeting where I can only assume that a cocaine-addled wannabe-Don Draper gave some speech about how modern people are always on the go, and how in the year 2020, the outmoded department store has to come to them. They turned a placard around which just said: David Jones Servo. The boardroom broke into rapturous applause, before calling an executive assistant to bring in a bottle of Mot and leaving for an early lunch because by God was that idea a winner.I cannot speak to whether David Jones Food runs this kind of scheme in-house or through a marketing company. What I do know is the person who gave that speech is probably an executive paid north of $150k per year. This completely sickens me. Why the fuck is no one paying me six-figures to have bullshit ideas like that on a five year contract? I could pull random combinations of brands and services out of my ass all damn day, and if David Jones Servo is the standard for what gets greenlit in corporate Australia, then what the fuck am I doing at uni right now?My girlfriend is moving out of Chatswood next week, so I figured Id finally go inside and see what there is to see. Half the store has the usual road stop fare snacks, soft drinks, and a counter for mediocre sausage rolls and coffee. The other half, however, has pre-packaged meals garnished with quinoa and daikon radish, jars of chilli jam and compotes, and at the counter where youd expect breath mints there are 50-gram packets of dried mango sold for $4 a pop. There is no marked divide in the interior design, as the walls have a minimalist white panelling with a black trim, with little signage. The bread rack serves as a kind of border zone four ersatz-wooden shelves on a metal frame, the top two occupied by Sonoma artisanal fare like rye spelt sourdough, the bottom two by Tip Top white loaves. I buy a carton of chocolate milk (I pick Oak over the premium Coach House Dairy) just to feel like I took some kind of souvenir. As I pull onto the highway, I immediately regret not seeing what the toilets looked like. I suppose I could go back, but Im afraid that will only yield further unanswerable questions. Id like to think that Im ready to move on. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> May 24 heralded the 80th birthday of musician Bob Dylan. His eclectic incorporation of references and the constant stylistic shift of his music since his first self-titled album in 1962, has created an expansive oeuvre; one that leaves his latest album almost unrecognisable from his first. Dylans debut (and critically unrecognised) album featured covers of traditional folk songs, his quivering howls and rich raspy voice pulsated by characteristic thick and heavy strumming, an idiosyncrasy which Dylan himself proclaimed as his primary originality during the early stages of his career. The feature lacking in the album was any evidence of a consistent song-writing talent, with only two of thirteen songs written by Dylan. This was quickly proven and has continued to be so for the indefinitely conclusive 58 years of his career.The Freewheelin Bob Dylan became his first widely critically acclaimed album and marked the transition to complete songwriting. With this and his following album (The Times They Are a-Changin) Dylan earned the title as the voice of a generation, a categorisation vehemently admonished by Dylan. Within the next several years, Dylans success and popularity snowballed. Like all of those achieving excellence beyond the scope of comprehension, any stylistic transition becomes immediately inadmissible to a certain audience, a slanderous act. No longer is this same originality gratified, but rather their degrading experimentation is labelled as arrogantly adulterous. This is especially the case when Dylans shift from acoustic to electric abruptly occurred in 1965 with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.This was a monumental transition not just for Dylan, but also for the music industry. It brought the declination (or rather the resubmerging) of folk music ideals, particularly the method of the communal melody, allowing for a mimicry of tune but subjectively expressive lyrics. There was no need for this method of creation now that melodies were individualistic, and lyrics could be implemented that were just as poetically potent, the poignancy of the words seeming to brighten the harmonious melodies. Lyrics were a focus of interest for audiences, particularly those discontented with their leaders, parents, and the mundanity of war, who heard Dylans lyrics as a brass trumpet cynically critiquing and redefining the world for a truth that seemed obvious, yet undefinable. Yet these lyrics were brutally honest and sought no popular faction with which they could be categorised; they were not lyrics written for popularity but an unbiased reflection on the society he saw. The only justifiable conclusion would be to say he opposed pointless death not exactly a political stance. In the San Francisco Press Conference of 1965, Dylan stated that if drafted to war, he would act with what needed to be done. The ambiguity of this statement certainly does not constitute an entire labelling of his political motivations and obligations. Regardless, these assumptions have nevertheless continued.Dylans career was consistently successful, with further albums that resulted in a menagerie of references absorbed unrestrainedly and without exclusion (which would prove a less-than-helpful attribute in the late 70s and early 80s). This culmination eventually resulted in his latest album Rough and Rowdy Ways, backed by Dylans self-reflections and the pensive melancholic observation which epitomises the tone of these works. It would be impossible to guarantee this album will be liked, the corroded rust of his voice possibly not preferable for a generation deprived of vocal inadequacies. It is not the continued success or acclaims won by Dylan (such as the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016) but rather his ability to constantly perform, tour or even falter so that we may appreciate his talent all the more. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When one traces cinemas history, they can come to understand it as a history made up of repetitions, recurrences and cycles. There are the obvious cycles such as genre cycles, or star cycles the waves of Western films that occurred in the 30s and then were reinvigorated in the 70s, or everyone gushing at the big return of a star after years in obscurity. On another level, there is just the pure repetition of films themselves, with remakes and reboots occurring since the dawn of the medium. Yes, in some ways, the movement of cinema is much like the film reel itself, going round and round and roundIn What is Digital Cinema?, Lev Manovich points out that there are other cycles not as easy to define as those interested in genres or stars, ones in which technology is bound up in the theoretical, and cinema moves backwards and forwards through no conscious decision of its own. Usually, it is brought about by some innovation in the medium of film, and it is through this very innovation, that we find ourselves ironically right back where we started.The most eloquent of these well call looping cinema, where cinemas origins in the zoetrope meant it began as a cyclical form of storytelling. These depicted short little scenes of repeating actions a couple kissing, an athlete walking, a ball bouncing operated by the user, via a crank. Beginning with the small scale zoetrope, Edisons kinetoscope operated in a similar fashion. When technology advanced and greater narrative opportunities were available, film reels eventually had a definitive beginning and end, the film was no longer about the pure attraction of seeing motion, and actually told compelling stories. Through an even greater technological advancement over a century later, the mobile phone and the proliferation of social media facilitated applications like Vine and TikTok. As a result, looping cinema has made a comeback. One might be led to wonder if this series of innovations, which only lead right back to where they started, is an evolution, or devolution.Where my interests lie, however, is not in the zoetrope and its history of cyclical cinema, but in the magic lantern, a device which highlights the cinema as one not based in spectacle, but in privacy. When one thinks of cinema, they often think of it as a communal activity, with a fixed spatial location, such as the cinema, becoming the converging point in which the movie-going public huddles together to watch a film. Filmmakers and media figures were decrying the closure of cinemas in 2020 as a result of COVID, claiming that movies must be viewed on the big screen. On the contrary, cinemas origins are much more humble, interpersonal and isolated.The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name lanterna magica, is a 17th century invention by Christiaan Huygens that uses candlelight to project images painted on glass. These images depicted various scenes, and through the use of handcranks or motors, could be slightly animated looping like those early forms of cinema. Due to the fact that electricity hadnt been invented yet, the projection power of the magic lantern was limited, only able to depict what was on the glass within a small confined space. From this, the audience for these magic lantern shows were too confined, and would often be limited to the members of a household. Here we see cinemas origins as a domestic medium, housebound and limited, or perhaps even savoured, by the people with the most personal connections.As technology improved and inventors were able to harness the power of electricity, the projecting potential of the magic lantern grew exponentially. From this, the spaces where the magic lantern could be used grew as well, and so did the audiences. They began to be used in a variety of ways, from aiding in theatrical shows and phantasmagorias as special effects, to even telling stories on their own, like when Charles Dickens had his works adapted to this burgeoning medium. The magic lantern, and the seeds of cinema, were now being associated with large crowds and big projection spaces.Fast forward to now, where television sets are in almost every household, and streaming services have confined film viewing to the home. Cinemas around the world are closing due to their inability to compete with the mediums return to domesticity. One can see this as a sign of the times, of the failings of film and the monopoly these services have on our entertainment. But it can also be viewed as a natural extension of cinemas constantly cyclical history. Much like how two people might have huddled around the glowing zoetrope centuries ago, or people sitting close to one another in a living room marvelling at the wonders of the magic lantern, so too do my partner and I curl up together on the couch to watch a movie on our laptop. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ponds White beauty pale white or pinkish white, you choose.Those are the closing words of Ponds 2007 advertising campaign for its White Beauty line, featuring household Bollywood names such as Priyanka Chopra, Neha Dhupia, and Saif Ali Khan.The campaign incurred significant backlash on social media, sparked by the death of George Floyd and global protests against racism, and , forcing the conglomerate to rebrand its Fair and Lovely moisturiser to Glow and Lovely. In the same month, Johnson & Johnson similarly released a statement regarding its Neutrogena and Clean & Clear offerings across Asia.[S]ome product names or claims on our Neutrogena and Clean & Clear dark-spot reducer products represent fairness or white as better than your own unique skin tone, Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to BBC News at the time. This was never our intention healthy skin is beautiful skin.Subsequently, Indias Ministry of Health and Family Welfare made amendments to advertising regulations to prohibit promotions of fairness or skin tone alterations in Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Amendment Bill 2020.Such systemic racism, however, is by no means limited to Ponds or Neutrogena but is especially prevalent in the cosmetics industry more broadly. Foundation shades consistently fail to account for darker shades for instance, Diors Forever Skin Glow foundation stops at shade no. 3.5N in Hong Kong, a light medium-tan shade, whereas in Australia, the brand caters up to 9N a beautifully deep mahogany colour.Indeed, in 2018, an informal survey by Glamour Magazine found that 80% of women struggled to find their colour match. Similarly, Nielsens annual reports noted that African-American consumers spent $7.5 billion on beauty products of which 80% were invested in brands that specifically sell products targeting darker women.Thus, the words on Unilevers Fair & Lovely are a tragically modern representation of the pervasiveness of a Eurocentric beauty standard across Asia. The incentives behind such representations are both social and practical. Indeed, a paper titled Beautiful White: an illumination of Asian skin-whitening culture, Elysia Pan writes about the connection between a porcelain complexion and class concerns: The ruling class stayed indoors conducting business and enjoying leisure, and thus was less exposed to the suns darkening rays.This Chinese projection onto the pale-skinned outsiders who came to visit their country is a type of curious Occidentalism where Western bodies were fetishized.Such attitudes, however, were not limited to the 20th century advent of an industrialised beauty industry. In the 15th century, a poem called Khc ht hi sen (Lotus-gathering song) by Ngo Chi Lan, a noted Vietnamese feudal court poet, captured the popular fervour for fairness:Lotus perfume wafts near and far,How bucolic the girl among the abundant flowers,Her hair beautiful in the breeze,Her snowy skin emitting its own alluring fragrance.Evoking serene imagery, Ngo mythologises the white, fair to conjure an ideal Vietnamese female body. Ngos poem encapsulates the elite idealism of countless generations of not only Vietnamese but Asian women. A customary saying in Chinese , which translates to one white can cover up a hundred kinds of ugliness associates fairness with moral rectitude and consolidates the disdain for darker complexions. All of this necessitates a concerted shift away from Eurocentric beauty standards across Asia and globally.But Eurocentrism, in this context, refers equally to mythologisation of both the white as well as the bronze. In 1923, Coco Chanel took ownership of the accidental sunburn. Then, across the West, sunbathing became the norm, commonly associated with wealth. Physical exercise and the outdoors inextricably linked to a lack of financial worries from the 1950s onwards think Cannes or Love Island.Hence, these white and bronze mythologies paradoxically comprise two opposing, yet fundamentally flawed ideals. Both are rooted in a casualised condescension towards working women, both promising an assurance of exclusivity, elitism and superiority above all others.Fairness, however, represents a particularly racist detachment from ones reality because it offers an illusory promise of change to ones complexion. The promises of products such as Ponds Fair & Lovely cream induces a hopeless pursuit of status. At worst, fair mythology has been responsible for lasting damages such as Kanebos use of Rhododenol in 2013 a quasi-drug ingredient in the companys whitening skincare range, causing users to suffer leukoderma. Furthermore, in the context of Asia, fair condescension disproportionately affects those working in rural settings across Southeast Asia, being exposed more routinely to the outdoors than others. This sentiment is perhaps best encapsulated in Madeleine Marshs narration on the history of beauty:If youve got a touch of sunburn or heaven forfend, a freckle you were a member of the working class.Although the past two decades has witnessed the emergence of makeup owned and curated by black women such as Pat McGrath Labs or blackIUp leading a transformation away from the pale facade of beauty, these names are prohibitively expensive. McGraths Skin Fetish foundation alone costing $100 for one bottle. Without systemic pressure against the beauty worlds implicit disdain for working-class women and men, deeper shades will remain subjected to a racialised market that determines the availability of foundation shades according to demographics and an illusory fair mythology. Tan, mahogany, and black skin must be respected for the humanity that these colours embody, rather than taken as to elevate one all others. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Beans? Citrus Peel? Seaweed? In a dessert? Let me introduce you to the mung bean soup. Directly translated from Mandarin or Cantonese, the dish is actually called green bean sand, pronounced l du sh. A sweet soup is called tng shu in Mandarin, and directly translates to mean sugar water. They are of Cantonese speciality/origin, but are now widely enjoyed around all places in Asia. Usually traditional dessert soups will feature ingredients with medicinal properties or principles that are beneficial for health, skin, elements, etc.In Chinese medicine, there is hot and coolness; which are properties that can be attributed to every food and drink. For example, mandarins, mangoes, lychees and fried food are all considered hot, whereas coolness is found in herbal jelly, green leafy vegetables, cucumbers and watermelon. They have an affect the balance of our internal heal and energy (qi). Thus, this principle is often applied to reduce the risk of changing seasons, extreme temperature environments or illnesses. This is a very basic and vague version of a complex principle- all information has been gathered from different family members and some brief readings.Back to the mung bean soup- it is considered to have cooling properties like reducing heat rashes, clearing toxins and reducing other ailments that occur when you body is too hot. This could be a result of extremely hot weather, or just consuming too many foods with hot properties. The soup is usually served cold during the summer, but one should be wary that a body should not be subject to too many cold liquids or foods. Therefore, it is still enjoyed hot. I recommend trying it freshly-made, hot and then decide what youd like to do with the rest.There are so many East-Asian desserts that are based around this magnificent mung bean! This is a really special recipe of a beloved food I have been eating since my childhood. Usually, a big pot would be cooked and stored in the fridge to be reheated throughout the course of one or two days. The basic recipe structure has been verbally passed down from my paternal grandma, but edited, modified and written by me.Recipe makes a large pot, enough to share between 6-8 people.EquipmentA large pot (Minimum 5L capacity. We use a ceramic stockpot)A ceramic spoon (to place in pot while soup is boiling away- said to prevent sticking to bottom/burning as well as preventing the soup to boil over)Knife, ladle, etc.Ingredients200g dried mung beans (these are most commonly found in the dried food section of asian grocery stores)25g dried red beans (not kidney, but adzuki- approximately three handfuls to add hot-ness and balance the cooling properties of the mung bean)50g white or brown rice (approximately three sparse handfuls, for a smoother soup)2L of waterOptional:30- 60g of cane sugar (in block-form, depending on sweetness preference. Can be substituted with ~ cup or 100g of brown/raw sugar.)2 pieces dried tangerine peel (if available)2 sheets of dried kombu, soaked in water, then sliced into thinner stripsA few stalks (with leaves) of common rue, commonly known as herb-of-grace. (If available, it is hard to find but we have them growing in the backyard. It is a medicinal herb which provides a special fragrance to this soup)You can add pandan leaves, coconut milk, or sago if preferred.These ingredients are more popular in South-East Asian areas like Malaysia and Vietnam. However, this recipe has more traditional Guangdong/Canton region flavours.Cooking InstructionsWash beans, rice and seaweed. Set the rice aside.Soak beans and seaweed for 1-2 hours (Optional step! Only do if you have the time).Measure out and put water in the pot. Allow it to come to a boil on high heat.Meanwhile, slice seaweed into 2-5 cm strips.When the water has come to a boil, place the beans, rice, seaweed and dried tangerine peel with the ceramic spoon into the pot.Let it boil on high heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.Turn off and let it rest in the pot, lid closed, for half an hour. (Optional, go straight to Step 9 if in a rush)Bring it to a boil on high-heat again.Then allow the soup to simmer on low-medium heat for half an hour. Stir occasionally. The beans are ready when they have bloomed, or have opened up/broken down. The longer you cook, the thicker of a soup it becomes.Before turning off the heat, place the sugar and common rue. Stir till sugar has dissolved.Leave the lid on and allow the soup to rest for a further half an hour.Please serve and enjoy!If you are in a rush and feeling lazy, just wash the ingredients and throw it all in the pot, and let it cook on low-medium heat for 40 minutes! A must-try dish! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Growing up as a first-generation Chinese-Australian, one of the ways that I connected with my elderly Chinese-speaking grandparents was through stories. My grandfather, who was gruff and said very little, would often sit me on his knee and put Journey to the West on the dusty, old box-TV, which followed the adventures of the mischievous monkey king Sun Wukong and his companions. At bedtime, my grandmother, a warm woman with golden laughter and eyes that crinkled with mirth, would regale me with Chinese childrens stories filled with talking rabbits, monkeys and turtles. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, she would hold me and tell me to look at the moon. Look, she would say. Do you see the rabbit in the moon? It was through these stories, that I began to dream about the world.Like many other Chinese-Australians, I find myself in my adult years to be estranged from my heritage and family history. In an attempt to remedy this, I have recently taken an interest in Chinese mythology. I have always been fascinated by the way that humanity makes sense of a nonsensical world through stories, and these ancient Chinese stories have become an enchanting lens through which I have come to understand queerness as something that has always existed; something that is intrinsic to our world as the air we breathe. Despite centuries of colonialism serving to reinforce an atmosphere of queerphobia; be that through the imposition of gender binaries or attempts to maintain ethical standards of regulating sexual behaviour, queer people persevere, just as we have for millennia.In my late teenage years, I realised that I wasnt straight. From my first growing pains of curiosity and questioning, stories have laid themselves down as stepping stones on my journey towards self-acceptance of my queer identity. I have found refuge in many fictions I empathised with Nico Di Angelos unrequited crush on Percy Jackson, cried with The Perks of Being A Wallflowers Patrick and chose to believe that Liana and Alexa were actually cottagecore lesbians in Barbie and the Diamond Castle. Their love and struggles have whispered to me, telling me that Im not alone. But in a recent rude awakening, Ive realised that many of the stories that Ive loved have been very white; a direct result of European imperialism, in which only whiteness (and that which whiteness desires) is considered valuable. As a queer Chinese woman, I grapple with unique dimensions of patriarchy and queerphobia that are coloured by race.In an attempt to remedy the internalised Western exceptionalism that has saturated every atom of my existence, I have sought out Chinese mythology and old stories; lush, incandescent islands of possibility in a sea of quiet despair.In contemporary China, patriarchy, queerphobia, and Western imperialism etch themselves onto queer lives in new and painful ways. But despite its prevalence, intolerance towards queerness does not have roots in ancient Chinese traditions. Rather, homophobia arrived with the Christian values of colonial missionaries from the West. To paint a brief history: academics such as Bret Hinsch find that homophobia became established in China during the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China as a result of Westernisation efforts, shaping contemporary Chinese attitudes and social values that are intolerant toward queerness. Thus emerged a 20th century in which homophobia was enshrined in law, with homosexuality being banned in China until 1997. Up until 2001, homosexuality was also considered an official mental illness.Though the iron fist of institutional homophobia has been loosened to an extent, the stigmas around queerness remain in contemporary Chinese social values. But much to the horror of conservatives today, male homosexuality was widely practiced by the nobility and normalised in Ancient China; a fact that is well documented in ancient stories, folklore and mythology. Before Timothee Chalamet, there was the Zhou dynasty-era story of the Bitten Peach; a romance between Duke Ling of Wey and a beautiful man named Mizi Xia. In the Chinese pantheon of deities, the rabbit god Tu Er Shen oversaw the romantic and sexual relationships between men, and the celestial Xian were known to choose young men as lovers.But China, from ancient dynasties to today, has always been patriarchal. The consequence of it manifests in a clear absence of sapphic tales and stories of women loving women. This is not to say that there are no recounts of lesbianism and sapphic love in Ancient China and its mythology. One afternoon, I stumbled across a legend that tells of a mystical island known as Womens Kingdom inhabited only by women. This island cannot be reached by ship, but travellers have occasionally found themselves whisked away by whirlwinds and stranded on this island. This wondrous account of a microcosm in which women are free to pursue their sapphic dreams and yearnings, has lingered wistfully in my mind.The stories of sapphic relationships in Ancient China sing to me like swan songs; in The Fragrant Companion, the lovers Cui Jianyun and Cao Yuhua are forced to marry the same man, or else be forced apart. In assurance to her lover, Cui Jianyun utters a despairing wish: Let you and I be husband and wife in the next life. In Chinese folklore, heterosexual polygamy emerges as a common theme; women who are kept apart by patriarchal society have no choice but to marry men. Rarely have sapphic lovers been allowed to exist outside of the shadow of a man. Yet, their romances have often been described as being deeper than the connection between husband and wife. A love that burns so brightly, I wonder how they dont feel that the very air has been sucked out of their lungs.Riven by time and oceans, my experiences as a queer Chinese woman are worlds apart from these women whose yearnings are immortalised in folklore. Unlike Cui Jianyun and her lover, many of the complications I face are the legacy of Western imperialism, especially when it comes to coming out. For my Chinese family, tradition has been a constant in their lives for decades; a precious heirloom that they have guarded fiercely and proudly. Change is not something that they bow easily or comfortably to. Though coming out is often viewed as a singularly important moment of self-liberation, for queer people of colour, coming out to your family isnt always an option.Entering university, away from the prying eyes of old school mates who had known me since I was eleven years old, was my first step towards self-liberation. In my second year, Id decided to take a Gender and Cultural Studies class as an elective. In one lecture, the lecturer talked about queerness in modern Asia, addressing the legal recognition of same-sex relationships in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Of the three, only Taiwan had legalised gay marriage, but the binding act of marriage was not so important as what it represented; a commitment of kinship.The overarching conclusion of that week was that marriage wasnt necessarily the final destination of queer liberation. Weddings, like an act of coming out, are symbolic performances and public rituals for family and friends. The lecturer called this performance, in front of family and friends, coming home as opposed to coming out.When I talk about coming out, a memory of my dad driving me home from a protest for gay marriage always pops into my head. The conversation, like many of our conversations of late, grows tense and frustrating; my Cantonese is limited and queerness is not an easy topic for my conservative Dad to talk about.Women should marry men, and men should marry women. But I dont care about what all those people do, as long as its not my children.In the heat of the moment, I almost come out to him. I almost blurt out: But I like women. So how far are you willing to stand by your words?I didnt say it though. Because if I did, Dads threat would no longer live in the realm of the hypothetical. And despite everything, I want to cling to this limbo just a little longer.That memory lingers years later, when I am openly queer to my friends and to most people that know me. On sleepless nights, I sometimes lament what my life might have been if homophobia had never arrived on Chinese shores, if my family didnt clutch their homophobia so tightly. Dad is so proud of the millennia-long history of the Middle Kingdom I think it would shock him to learn just how queer that history is.On those nights, my thoughts often drift to Cui Jianyuns desperate wish: Let you and I be husband and wife in the next life. But I dont want to wait until my next life to be able to love. I want to be able to love in this one. In many ways, I am estranged from my family, as both a queer person and someone who grew up with little interest in my Chinese heritage. But rediscovering mythologies and stories from Ancient China has been a step towards making peace with myself in my entirety, and rediscovering something that I hadnt even realised had been stolen from me. And while Im not out to my family yet, I hope that one day I will be. I hope that one day, Ill be able to come home.A version of this article was originally published in 1978 The Sydney Arts Student Society Diverse Sex and Genders Journal (2020). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Praise flooded the internet as Brooke Blurton was announced as Australias next Bachelorette. She will be debuting later this year as the first Indigenous and openly bisexual Bachelorette, which means that, for the first time in any global Bachelor or Bachelorette franchise, it wont just be the opposite sex competing for her love.The Bachelor has long faced criticism for its misogynist portrayal of women competing for the attention of a man (this is, of course, with the marvellous exception of Megan Marx and Tiffany Scanlon ditching Richie to be with each other in 2016). The shows producers are notorious for undermining female friendship by plying women with alcohol and encouraging them to engage in petty fights. Group dates fuel competitiveness and unnecessary nastiness between female contestants, but are considered a winner for the ratings.Unsurprising reports suggest that producers purposefully endorse the jealousy-induced rants and trash talking of whomever wins the bachelors favour.The Bachelor franchise has failed time and time again when it comes to representing the LGBTQI+ community. In 2018, when Blurton debuted on Nick Cummins season of the show, her sexuality was exploited mercilessly for ratings. Trailers teased a big secret, and urgent revelation, only for the contestant to reveal her previous relationships with women. Blurton has since criticised how the producers edited this conversation, minimising her discussion on sexuality. Discourse around Blurtons sexuality wasnt that different between the women in the house. On an episode of Bachelor alumnus Abbie Chatfields podcast Its A Lot, Blurton stated that fellow contestants had coerced her into telling The Bachelor that she had dated women in the past. The season of Bachelor in Paradise that same year saw the show criticised for queer-baiting.As a Noongar Yamatji woman, Blurton will be the first Indigenous Bachelorette. Globally, The Bachelor series has lacked representation of people of colour. Across 41 seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in the US, only three seasons have featured POC stars. You may remember the 2018 meme of the American cast, in which every contestant featured the same blonde, ombre hair style. The show has faced its fair share of criticism for its lack of diversity amongst contestants. When people of colour are cast, theyre largely given little screen-time. 2020 Bachelor in Paradise star Niranga Amarasinghe was given comparatively little attention and spoke out about the racism he faced on set. In both of Blurtons previous appearances, she was the only Indigenous representation, and the show faced criticism for tokenism.Nevertheless, Blurtons casting is an important shift in the right direction for reality TV. The audience can only hope that the producers will represent Brooke without the homophobia and racism that have infiltrated previous seasons.In a statement to the press, Blurton said: If it makes people feel uncomfortable in any way, I really challenge them to think about why it does. Authentic representation of the LGBTIQ+ community is often lacking. Whilst entirely queer shows are critical, the reach of a primetime mainstream show like The Bachelor dramatically increases visibility.By removing the script, reality TV in particular has the potential to normalise non-heterosexual expressions of love. While it is often highly edited, and at times scripted, audiences still find themselves rooting for the authentic experiences that leak through the cracks. If were going to have to endure reality TV, then it should at least represent our lived experiences.It might seem a bit extreme to hail the upcoming Bachelorette season as a cultural breakthrough in queer inclusivity, but Blurtons debut is an indisputable win for LGBTQI+ representation in Australian mainstream media. With their questionable track record, only time will tell if the producers will positively represent queer experiences, or fall into their old habits. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On 12 February, Optus and Cisco published a report titled The Tipping Point for Digitisation of Education Campuses, detailing the Australian tertiary sectors vision for post-COVID-19 tertiary education. Although its proposals are certainly bold, they also reveal a sector gripped in austerity.Amongst the reports signature findings is a consensus between Vice-Chancellors that digital spending will increase by 11 per cent, and 46 per cent of institutions will consider liquidating buildings to free up resources.Richard Leonard, Director of architecture firm Hayball, said in the report that education is embodying Instagram its about celebrating and creating social moments with peers. There will still be bricks and mortar, but its going to look very different. Universities new normal is imagined as an Instagram-worthy experience, where students navigate campus opportunities and life primarily through digital landscapes from student-led activities, to campus facilities, to health and safety.These plans towards the digital may seem innocuous given that some of its main goals include promoting work-integrated learning where students work with industry as part of their studies health and wellbeing, and efficiency. Yet a closer examination of the Optus Report reveals that it is grounded in cost reduction measures.For instance, 94 per cent of surveyed universities wanted to move classes online permanently. Students may come on site for an intensive two days a week and do the rest of their learning wherever suits them, said Rob McGauran, Director of MGS Architects. It is revealing that the report quotes extensively from Curtin University executives, given Curtins plan to permanently replace traditional lectures with 10-15 minutes CurtinTalk videos.Perhaps the most alarming of Optus analysis is a prediction that to pursue post-COVID digitisation, universities should resort to rationalising courses. This primarily means diverting resources away from small arts and humanities subjects, which dont require practical components and thereby arent perceived as job-ready.While the move to digital is sold to us as the future of education, the true goal is unambiguous. Universities want to reduce operational costs and offset a $3 billion fall in international student revenue in 2020. Alongside course and staff redundancies, the austerity underlying Optus survey marks another step towards the hollowing of education, a vision for a more impersonal, gig economy university.Whats even more laughable about the report is its mental health strategy. Key targets include smart lighting to make environments more calming, hygiene stations to help people get outside more, and most disturbingly, networked surveillance and public incident detection in order to improve COVID contact tracing and suicide prevention. Given well-documented evidence of collusion between university management and the police in repressing student protests, enhanced surveillance capabilities represents a dangerous development for student democracy and rights.This strategy entirely misses the fundamentals of education such as staff to student ratios and student satisfaction. Of Australias 40 universities, only one ANU has a staff to student ratio below 20. As universities become more vocational and corporatised, no amount of technological tinkering will substantively address hyper-competitive loneliness at metropolitan campuses.There does exist a case for post-COVID digitisation it must be temporary and meaningfully include international students. As an international student myself, I wanted to see universities compelling all student-led societies, Australian businesses, and local authorities to host online meetings and offer leadership opportunities for offshore students whenever possible.But other than a call for investing in access to remote live classes, Optus report includes barely any recommendations targeting offshore and onshore international students. In its 20 odd pages, the reports only references to international students involve reporting its revenue loss and deducing that an immersive Australian experience jargon borrowed from tourism was the most important demand of the group.International students fees are not unconditional, and unless we stop these misguided caricatures, students will go elsewhere.Vice Chancellors would be wise to take a leaf from Professor Ronald Barnett, who emphasised that democratic, self-critical institutions, rather than managerialism were crucial to producing self-sufficient graduates. Universities need to understand why face-to-face knowledge exchange worked so well for centuries.Mutual exchange of knowledge in in-person lectures between academics and students facilitates a bond over knowledge that is hard to replicate over a screen. The traditional post-lecture camaraderie between students will also be lost.Optus blueprint for digital austerity in higher education, thus, must be firmly rejected. By unions, staff, and most of all, students. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My friends and I, fresh from a lecture on the importance of public education, are breaking out the USUs hottest new item of merchandise over lunch. I gaze upon it, bemused but intrigued. Apparently uninterested in funding clubs, the USU has instead moved into real estate, producing a University of Sydney-themed edition of Monopoly. Get in quick! Only $99.95!The box advises the player to stay sharp, because there is only room at the top for one. Opening it reveals six tokens a gargoyle, microscope, coffee cup, laptop, backpack and graduate cap.I choose the gargoyle and we begin to play.The first few rounds are normal enough. One friend picks up Carslaw, while another nabs the Charles Perkins Centre. I buy up the Chemistry Building and the Quadrangle so that my gargoyle feels at home.Some of the Chance cards rebranded as Campus Life cards are too real, some not real enough: You have failed statistics for the last three semesters and are now on Stage 3 academic progression. Pay $50. Happens to everyone. Honi Soit publishes your article. Collect $100. I wish.It is after my third stint in jail that I begin to wonder whether academic misconduct proceedings really justify the Supermax that Faculty Services has set up between PNR and the FASS Building.I am amazed to discover what must be campus only Free Parking spot and trade off Chemistry to complete the Green set. The title deeds are piling up. Cash is flowing thick and fast over my lecture notes, which now lie forgotten at my feet. Passing Go is the only pass that I now care for.Eastern Avenue quickly becomes a battleground of cutthroat auctions and corporate espionage. Students add $25 to their HECS debt every time they use the Redfern Run to get to class. Hapless residents run for cover as my bulldozers demolish International House, cheered on by senior management from the balconies of F23.Disaster strikes! Ive landed on the Great Hall USyds own Park Lane and the rent is $1,500. Lucky Im not the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra, or Id be forking out $6,490 to use our own facilities.One by one, the weak, the poor and the paper-handed are eliminated from the game, falling victim to the unstoppable march of progress and development. Soon, the once-free market has become a deadlocked duopoly. Ive forced my remaining opponent off the premium real estate of main campus and into the wastelands south of City Road, but I seem condemned to stop at his newly refurbished Wentworth Building on every lap of campus.The situation is dire. Im down to my last $500 and am forced to mortgage Fisher to survive. I consider transferring to a Commerce degree in the Abercrombie Building: at least the rent there could put food on the table.But then my friend-cum-nemesis walks, foolishly, into the Quadrangle, newly adorned with a five-star lecture theatre rent: $2,000. He cant afford it. The Student Centre doesnt respond to his panicked emails begging for help. The SRC refuses him an emergency loan. He looks up at me, tears welling in his bloodshot eyes as he searches for mercy in my ice-cold gaze. He finds none. Its over.I have become Mr Monopoly, bankrupter of students.I think, briefly, of the friendships Ive burnt in the last two hours. Of the price Ive paid for the gleaming hotel now towering above the ruins of the Anderson Stuart Building. Of the cynicism of the USU producing a game in which your goal is to sell off university assets, after a year of cost-cutting and job losses.But I banish such loser talk from my mind. The smell of money is in the air. And after all, there is only room at the top for one. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In September 2019, amid former President Donald Trumps then-escalating scandal with Ukraine, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a highly publicised trip to the United States. The visit would include a rare state dinner at the White House, with Morrison as the guest of honour. During the same visit, Morrison would also be granted another elusive honour: an invitation to accompany Trump to a cardboard factory opening in Ohio effectively a Trump rally before a crowd of thousands. For a self-respecting Australian leader, this was beyond awkward, commentator Michelle Grattan said of the rally.After the event, when asked whether he would endorse Trumps 2020 presidential bid, Morrison smiled and reflected on how he and Trump share a lot of the same views. Instead of the usual grimaces and stiff conduct displayed from other world leaders when asked about Trump, it seemed that Morrison had approached the week-long state visit with curiously high spirits.Morrisons penchant for cosying up to the Trump administration has often been justified as a strategic act of diplomacy; Australia has long been a close, uncritical, and unwaveringly loyal ally to the US, and a subsequent beneficiary of post-war American primacy. Cultivating close ties with the sitting US President whoever they may be was invariably believed to be in Australias best interests.But after unprecedented scenes of pro-Trump insurrectionists, including QAnon and Proud Boys members, storming the US Capitol reverberated around the world, Morrisons support for Trump is no longer justifiable.World leaders have immediately issued harsh, unambiguous condemnations of Trumps actions. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, one of the staunchest allies of the US, notably stated that [Trump] stoked uncertainties about the election outcome, and that created an atmosphere that made the [storming] possible. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, despite being a personal friend of the former President, also admonished Trumps inflammatory rhetoric. What President Trump has been sayinghas been completely wrong and I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol, he said.Even Trumps most like-minded supporters, including populist and far-right leaders, managed to rebuke the riot in which five people died. French politician Marine Le Pen urged Trump to condemn any violent act that aims to disrupt the democratic process, and Trump cheerleader Nigel Farage tweeted: Storming Capitol Hill is wrong. The protesters must leave.In Canberra, Morrison struck a markedly different tone. In the direct aftermath of the storming, he merely described the scenes as very distressing, and condemned only these acts of violence, stopping short of holding Trump personally responsible. On Monday, after being urged to go further in his critique, Morrison continued to withhold Trumps name, only calling his actions incredibly disappointing and leading to a terrible outcome. Indeed, it seems that Trumps grand gestures the high-profile trips, lavish dinners, awards and flattery, describing Morrison as a man of titanium with whom he shares a very special relationship worked.Trumps unfounded claims of voter fraud, lies about the election being stolen and needing to be reclaimed, and support for Capitol rioters (Be there, will be wild!) were a deliberate effort to compromise the democratic process. Yet Morrisons tepid, generalised remarks expressing distress or disappointment, while failing to repudiate Trump as the direct instigator, undermines Australias reputation as a supporter of democratic principles, against national interests.More concerningly, Morrisons unwillingness to admonish Trump raises concerns over the extent to which Australian conservatives will support Trumpian rhetoric and alt-right conspiracy theories. In a major foreign policy speech last night, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese noted that Morrison and Trumps affinity comes partly from a political constituency they share, and that Australias alliance with the US had in fact suffered as a consequence. In December, The Guardian revealed Morrisons close ties to Tim Stewart, a leading Australian QAnon member. In the days following the insurrection, Liberal MP Craig Kelly spread pro-Trump disinformation while Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack ludicrously compared the events to Black Lives Matter protests. Morrison has also made his disdain for certain democratic norms clear in the past. When faced with peaceful protesters last year, Morrison attempted to outlaw their indulgent and selfish practices.That the ease with which Morrison had interacted with Trump and his supporters during the Ohio rally was simply due to sharing same views was an understatement. After the events on the Capitol, the Australian public is left to wonder whether their leaders reticence is a tacit endorsement of the events of January 6, and the beliefs held by the seditious criminals who participated in it.As Australias leader, Morrison is obligated to make his position clear. If he truly wanted to be seen as a bona fide ally to America, and not another Trump lackey, finding the resolve to speak up during one of the darkest moments for American democracy would have been a good start. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Do you like attending galleries, but are sick of all the art? Bored of exhibition rooms that you cant use for Instagram backdrops? Tired of having to look at artworks rather than through the viewfinder of your iPhone? Well, a new breed of installation art is emerging just for you. Faux-art exhibitions involve large-scale visual spectacles that capitalise on the growing synergy of social media and installation art. But instead of combining genuine artistic endeavour with incidental social media suitability, faux-art exhibitions go one step further by excluding the art altogether.Take Van Gogh Alive Sydneys newest and glossiest multi-sensory exhibition. Observant attendees may notice that no artist is credited with its production. This is simply because there is no art involved. Instead, the exhibition is a glorified slideshow hastily assembled by an international corporation exploiting Van Goghs name for maximum profits.Hosted by Grande Exhibitions, a subsidiary of Grande Experiences, Van Gogh Alive projects high-quality images of Van Goghs paintings on gigantic floor to ceiling screens in a continuous, looping reel of about 45 minutes. The screens are assembled in a rectangular room-like format that is completely devoid of creativity and fails to invite interaction or exploration like installations such as Tokyos TeamLab Planets. The slideshow vaguely chronicles Van Goghs life and is accompanied by enlarged images of his most notable quotes that the creators probably got from Goodreads. All this occurs in a darkened warehouse space with classical music playing over loudspeakers. In the absence of original works, Grande Experiences only artistic input consists of minor digital alterations in the projected paintings. This manifests in wave-like animations in the sky, water and wheat of Starry Night, Starry Night Over the Rhne and Wheatfield With Crows respectively animations that could be made in a couple of hours by an 11-year-old with access to YouTube and a free trial of Adobe Creative Cloud.But the nail in the coffin has to be the ending credits. Seconds after Van Goghs suicide is tactfully portrayed by a gunshot sound effect, your eyes are assaulted by a GRANDE EXHIBITIONS logo on a white screen. This is followed by an obnoxious television advertisement for its other worldwide installations including PLANET SHARK: PREDATOR OR PREY and ALICE A WONDERLAND ADVENTURE, firmly placing the exhibition in the same artistic category as a tacky cinema experience at a theme park.Despite an absence of creativity and taste, Grande Experiences will make far more from Van Goghs work than Van Gogh ever did himself. Indeed, Grande Experiences website boasts more than 17 million visitors in 145 cities a gross contrast to Van Goghs lifelong struggle to sell paintings to anyone other than his own brother. So, instead of lining the pockets of corporate parasites, save yourself $30 by setting up your own DIY Grande Experience in five easy steps. First, set Spotifys Classical Essentials Playlist to shuffle on your laptop. Second, turn off the lights and close the blinds in your chosen room. Third, open up a web browser so you can see two windows at once. Fourth, load up Van Gogh Art on Google Images in one window and Van Gogh Quotes on Goodreads in the other. Finally, invite strangers over to pose in front of the laptop and block your view of the artworks. Muy Grande! Enjoy!Crucial to its economic viability, Van Gogh Alive is perfect for individuals who cant view art without telling their Instagram followers that they have, in fact, viewed art. Attendees pose for photos in front of projected works that, by the time the photo is taken, they wont be able to observe due to the progression of the slideshow. But at least they can chuck it on their story, right?Undoubtedly, Grande Experiences are exploiting the rising popularity of Instagram-friendly exhibitions. But it is important to note that Van Gogh Alive is a distinctly shit one. Artists such as Yayoi Kusama, James Turrell, Ai Wei Wei and Olafur Eliasson produce original, groundbreaking art that also happens to look good on your feed. Hence, it is vital that we are able to differentiate between genuine installation art and faceless corporate money-grabs. If not, there may be significant ramifications for installation art itself. For if international conglomerates like Grande Experiences become the norm, could they displace independent artists and potentially inhibit the rise of future creators? Could installation art become another victim of social media vanity, ruthless capitalist industry and undiscerning consumers?In fairness, Van Gogh Alive is actually an okay experience. Its potential to instil an appreciation of art in youth and the broader public holds value. And theres something quietly beautiful about watching giant, moving masterpieces alongside strangers, wordlessly connecting in your shared admiration. Yet the reality that this belies is ugly. Van Goghs art wasnt made to be projected on a screen, or to boost the profit margins of an international company. While Im hesitant to declare parameters constraining the definition of art, a clear line must be drawn between independent artistic projects and soulless events like Van Gogh Alive. These corporate exhibitions threaten the very essence of installation art, and its up to us to know the difference.Perhaps ironically, one of the quotes projected in Van Gogh Alive reads as follows: In the end, we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically. In this case, however, I think its possible that Van Gogh would agree with me. There is nothing musical about a rich corporation getting richer by exploiting art that is not their own. In this case for the sake of art cynicism, skepticism and humbug might just be warranted. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Two weeks ago, Vice Chancellor Michael Spence received a complaint alleging that a recent Honi Soit article had dismissed, trivialised and othered Hindus and Hinduism. The complaint did not quote any particular parts of the article to support these allegations, which is unsurprising, given the article does none of these things.The article in question, published in the week 9 edition of Honi Soit, investigated the complex question of how spiritual practices come to be defined by religion. Written by a reporter who was himself raised Hindu, the article concludes that it is inaccurate to label the widely varying spiritual practices that have been practiced throughout South Asia for centuries as a singular religion. The author argues that the idea of a unified religion of Hinduism emerged in British colonialism, through colonists attempts to describe indigenous spiritual practices by forcing them into the mould of a unified religion.If Spence had ever bothered to spend the minutes required to read the article, I doubt he would have flattered the complaint with his response. Instead, his generic response to the complaint states that any form of religious vilification or discrimination is unacceptable on our campuses and a promises that the University will consider this matter seriously.It is the latter remark that has now made headlines in several national-level Indian and American Hindu newspapers, which restate in almost exact terms a press release from the complainant. That is how the outrage machine works: send a strongly worded complaint about a vaguely described misconduct to the University, use the vice chancellors promise of seriously considering the matter in a press-release to sympathetic publications, wait for outrage to spread, rinse and repeat. For the editor of Honi, it was through one such article we first learnt we had been referred to the Student Affairs Unit for assessment of the complaint.In this case, it appears the complainant, an American Hindu statesman (an apparently made up term) spends some significant portion of his life doing this. A brief perusal of the media releases on his website indicate that he has led important crusades against Etsy for selling Ganesh underwear, Japanese manga for trivialising Lord Shiva, and the Paris Opera for hosting culturally insensitive ballet La Bayadre. Though the complainants name features prominently in all the releases I read (what good luck for his public profile), the releases also consistently frame outrage on behalf of all 1.4 billion Hindus, rather than the complainant himself. Little wonder Etsy pulled their underwear.The article published in Honi was exactly the kind of critical, good faith public debate on the part of a student that the University appears to encourage in its newly-enacted Free Speech Charter. But only the deeply naive would think that is something the University is actually committed to. When push comes to shove, when the interests of students come up against even the vaguest threat to the Universitys image, as it will constantly do due to opportunistic, outraged entrepreneurs, it is always clear the path which the University cares about more. That Spence could not even be bothered to read a short, well-written article before fanning the flames of outrage with a careless response says it all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The funding cuts protest on 14 October was yet another demonstration of passionate, peaceful students action. Except that this one received media coverage for all the wrong reasons.The real news story staff and student anger at the federal governments crude working over of tertiary education is not getting media attention. The focus instead is on the protests themselves, and on police conduct.NSW Police officers violent conduct on 14 October evidenced in part by the Honi Soit video has been reported around the world. NSW is seen to be coming down hard on protest activity, whether about indigenous justice, environmental and climate concerns, animal cruelty, or tertiary education.Perhaps that is why, on 23 October the Public Health Restrictions on Gathering and Movement Order was amended to add an exception for protest or demonstration about a governmental or political matter. This is the language of the implied constitutional right to free political communication.While protest is now possible, the right is conditional: max 500 people, according to a Covid health plan, and on a governmental or political matter. So it remains important to watch how it is policed. Police maintain their move on powers and summary offence powers (such as offensive language and obstructing traffic). These are powers that the police can use to constrain the way in which the right to protest is exercised.That brings us to the issue of how the police behave. It is not only at protests that police are behaving badly. One example is when a court recently dismissed charges against a man sleeping in a park who was handcuffed, pepper sprayed and tasered by police.NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said he feels sympathetic for officers that deal with drunken idiots every night. Missing from the Police Commissioners opinion is what is missing from the conduct of police on the frontline: any sense of proportionality.Dealing with drunken idiots every night does not justify handcuffs, pepper spray and tasers. Supervising a peaceful protest does not justify force, arrest and the intentional inflicting of harm.This is not modern policing. This is not policing that serves the community. Yes, the police have a tough job; thats what they are trained for. Yes, the police face difficult situations; thats what they are trained for. What they do not seem to be trained for or given leadership by example is decision-making.Unwarranted use of force is frightening, not reassuring. It undermines trust. What happened on 14 October made a lot of people realise that they too are vulnerable to the risk of arbitrary use of force. Just because a protest is Covid-permitted does not change the risk of police misuse of power.What is to be done? Consistent news coverage and commentary is important. The NSW government and police need to know that their reputation and credibility are under scrutiny, and that they will be judged by their treatment of protesters.Accountability measures are important, if hard to pursue. Depending on the circumstances, fines can be contested (protesters who are fined should contact Redfern Legal Centre for expert advice and assistance). Police conduct can be complained about, and it will be important, quite quickly, to make a GIPA application to the police to obtain their body-worn camera video footage.The police complaint system in NSW is inadequate; a complaint can be made to the Commissioner of Police (Mr Fuller; see above), or to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission. But the Commission has a high threshold, such as corruption, meaning that there is no independent body to receive complaints about police misconduct.A third avenue is to sue. Again depending on the circumstances, police officers can be sued for, for example, unlawful arrest and assault. Private solicitors represent people in these civil claims, usually on a no win no fee basis; protesters who want to pursue this should get independent legal advice on the fee arrangements (the retainer) that the private solicitor proposes.A common form of police accountability in the UK is the courts administrative oversight of police power and discretion. Going to the courts for that purpose has not been happening much in Australia, but that should change. And the end of the accountability line is to go to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, as Christina Horvath did, successfully, against Victoria Police.And finally on what is to be done, the politicians need to know. Every protesters local NSW parliamentarian (MLA) needs to hear firsthand about the treatment of their constituents. They need to respond, and to take responsibility.In the meantime, whether excepted from the Public Health Restrictions or not, protests will continue and people will peacefully exercise their rights to free speech and movement. The world is watching. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As an arts student who majors in politics and spends a lot of her time around circles who vocally claim to be progressive and anti-racist, I have experienced a lot of racism. If there were a map of the university and a red x to mark the spots where I have received unsolicited comments about my racial identity and English-speaking ability, the ink would bleed from Courtyard on Science Road all the way past Carslaw Lecture Theatre 157 to Victoria Park, right opposite the SRC offices.I was provisionally elected as an editor for Honi Soit two weeks ago. The pre-election negotiation processes were characterised by tense back and forth discussions that circulated around the same issue: the ticket needs an international student, people would say repeatedly. Its a very important base to cover.I am an international student, I responded every time. And every time, I got the same response: oh, you know what I mean, or oh, I meant a popular Chinese international student, or oh, its just how elections work.It never seems to matter who these students are, how much experience they have under their belt, or if they even want to edit. Student politics maintains its obsession with the tokenistic and superficial, all in the name of electoral image and voting potential. And this reductive attitude is blatantly racist.The international student experience at this university has been homogenised. Representations of it have been limited to a very specific kind of Chinese international student: rolling in money, closets so full of designer clothes and bags the doors barely close, a nonchalance that only comes with affluence. This stereotype is extremely harmful, ignoring that a more realistic portrayal would be a combination of hardworking parents who have saved for decades and the exploitation of international students in the workplace because of strict visa conditions. Not only do international students have to take a 24-credit course load every semester, but their working hours are capped at 40 per fortnight.Earlier in the year, SUDS put on a one-woman production. I was asked, twice, by people I considered closer than acquaintances, how I found being in a solo play. No, I wasnt in it, I had to say, that was a different Indian girl.Oh, are you sure thats what they meant? people ask me when I recount [an experience of racism]. But, theyre such a nice person!You dont really look like an international student, someone once told me in a politics lecture. Its because youre not Chinese. Wait, are you? You said you were Asian, right?That exchange was ignorant and offensive, but I am also tired of white Australians thinking every East or Southeast Asian person is from China. Every Asian country has a unique cultural heritage and distinct physical features, and Chinese cannot be used as a blanket term.On another, separate occasion: I thought you were a domestic student because you speak English so well. Its a compliment! Sometimes, I wish I had been brave enough to ask why the alternate was meant to be an insult, but the incredulous look I gave them instead seemed to suffice at that moment.In my experience, international students are subject to a process of othering that serves to alienate them from the domestic university community. The international student character is built on a series of empty assumptions and ignorant questions like did you learn English before you came here? and how much money do you have in your bank account, then? Why are we not granted the nuance that domestic students are? But more importantly, why do these things matter?No matter how progressive one claims to be, racism is still racism even if it is latent. And it is the most insidious form of the beast, as it goes unchecked at every utterance. I am tired of having to explain to people how I did not go to high school in Australia, and am regularly appalled by how being told that I could pass as a domestic student is considered complimentary. International students deserve the dignity and humanity that is so easily ascertained by domestic students; they are more than ticks on an election ballot, more than what country they are from, and definitely more than the credit they are given. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 2010, when the Federal Government of the time proposed a scheme to tax the super-profits of mining royalties, there wasnt a corridor in Canberra that wasnt filled with the professional persuaders of the mining lobby. These industry lobbyists targeted public opinion too, launching an advertising campaign across the country that ultimately resulted in concessions and backflip by the government of the day.Across every sector, you can find examples of that kind of professional resolve for the interests of that particular industry. The Australian Banking Association blocked the Royal Commission for years and Catholic Schools Australia won a revamp of Gonski after being initially unsatisfied.Yet when it comes to tertiary education, Australias universities and the 100,000 staff that make up this sector are continuously left without any effective industry lobby group who are in any way standing up for their interests.The two respective bodies Universities Australia and the Group of Eight (Go8) have failed students and staff over the last few months.It is natural to expect that COVID-19 and international border closures would cause detriment to the tertiary education industry. It is unnatural to expect that the industry is so ambivalent about demanding assistance in a time of need. The sector was intentionally omitted from JobKeeper, resulting in hundreds of job losses so far, with thousands more likely. The industry in response summoned all their grand forces of persuasion, issuing a statement that they were disappointed. Since then, its been acquiescence and silence, with the bodies not giving any response to the revelation that an American university had been given access to the JobKeeper program.Even more disappointingly, these two industry groups have conceded to the government on the proposed changes to degrees and HECS, which will be a fee hike for thousands of future students. After initially being, you guessed it, disappointed, the industry has now just given an ok to the decimation of the Arts faculties in Australian universities. You wouldnt find many principals whod support government cuts to their schools budget, or whod support policies that would disadvantage their kids, said Shadow Education Minister Tanya Plibersek in response to the concessions.One may try to defend these industry bodies of operating tactically with a conservative government. When the Coalition is engaged in an ideological battle to undermine the position of higher education, it is better to play your cards right, apparently. Under this hypothesis, the shots from the industry are fired less frequently, being reserved only for the most serious of changes. Unfortunately, this doesnt make sense on two bases.First, the other industry groups mentioned earlier show that there is no tacit warfare when it comes to these changes. The best response of a well-paid industry lobby group is to continually be on the attack, aim to destroy detrimental changes and never take the finger off the trigger.Second, the saving your bullet metaphor makes no sense when Universities Australia came out in favour of the most disastrous proposed change to the sector that students and staff have ever seen fee deregulation in 2014. The plan, which risked the livelihoods of students and the jobs of staff, was supported by the sector. Latest approval of further ideas for decimation of the industry should come at no surprise.Ultimately, recent history informs us that these lobby groups cannot be effective allies of students and staff in the fight for their own industry. These bodies are unrepresentative, undemocratic and unwilling to pursue the interests of those that they claim to represent.It is nice to dream of an industrial lobby group that was run in parallel to the students and staff it should serve. Picture the President of the National Union of Students (NUS), and the Chair of Universities Australia standing side-by-side with a plea to the government, and people of Australia, for the care and salvation the industry needs. Combined with effective lobbying, protest action, and community support, the direction of higher education in Australia could be turned around.Regrettably, that is unlikely to come true. Instead, students and staff are left to fight for themselves. And they may win the battles yet to come, as they did in 2014. Its just a pity that theyll have to do it without the assistance of bodies that purport to represent them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ah, how we have suffered this year. Rona really put a dampener on things didnt it? The social aspect of university was totally lost. Im so glad were going back to in person classes, at least for tutes, its better than nothing. Its going to be so good to be around other people again!But wait a minute, I had fuck all social life at uni before the virus. Now, its coming back to me. Avoiding eye contact when entering lectures and tutorials. Sitting looking straight ahead, a mandatory two seats between myself and anyone else in the class; and that was well before social distancing entered my lexicon. Getting to about week four and thinking its too awkward to introduce myself now. A silence at the obligatory end of class any questions? before a line forms to ask the prof one on one, god forbid having to speak in front of the whole class.University is great, it was the best time of my life, I made so many great friends is a notion only peddled by boomers, college kids and people who studied weirdly specific degrees. Why, you ask? I have a theory. For these people, the university experience involved a cohort. This is a group of students, who (for better or worse) were grouped together in a variety of contexts. In the heyday of my parents generation, they would start out as a larger group of around 100 students enrolled in a course in the first year, with about half of them successfully making it as a group to the second year. Indeed, in this context, and in more specialised degrees today, these social groups came about through a smaller number of students studying any degree and with less choice of subjects. Before someone in the admin building starts frothing, thats not to say there should be less subject choice. Putting more students into fewer courses will, in my experience, only exacerbate the feeling of isolation, which is already an issue in some 101 courses that have more than a thousand students.Of course, none of this is helped by the skyrocketing cost of housing which has priced most students out of accommodation near University. Increasingly, it seems that the student experience is one of working part-time, punctuated by longer commutes to university from family homes further afield. Its unsurprising that the prevailing attitude towards university is to stack the most classes onto the fewest days and spend the least amount of time possible on campus. This does not mean, however, that the prospect of a social life at university should be relegated to the past. If anything, the greater effort many students today put in, to support themselves, and in travelling greater distances to campus means that we deserve now, more than ever, to have a socially fulfilling university life.The transactional nature of todays corporatised university experience perpetuates a cycle of disengagement which deteriorates the entire process of teaching and learning. There is a dire need to foster genuine engagement in the courses that we came here to study. In the best tutorial I have had to date; when it became patently clear that, as it does in most classes, that hardly anyone had done the required readings, let alone had the slightest interest in the topic at hand, the tutor snapped. To paraphrase, If you havent done the readings, get the fuck out of my class! I dont mark attendance so youre not only wasting my time, youre wasting your own! He forced half the class to stand up and leave, and most of them never returned.This is the only seminar where I met anyone who I would speak to if I saw them on campus today. Our genuine engagement with the subject, and thus in discussions with one another, came about not through the management prescribed attendance requirements and other pointless check boxes, but through one tutors desire for their students to take a real interest in the course content. I presume if other tutors were to take a similar line with attendance and participation, it would inspire similar results. However, this change must start with properly paying seminar tutors, as well as making it part of their job to help students engage with the subject in and out of the classroom; which would mean proper remuneration for work many casual academics already do, like replying to emails or making time for students out of class.Coming out of the pandemic is the perfect time for a rethink of university social life. Our student body, more socially isolated than ever before, deserves more attention than some periodically announced, cringe-inducing coffee and chat sessions in Fisher or on Zoom cooked up by some low-rate HR professional. So, what can be done? Perhaps the organic cohorts of times past are lost. Indeed, it seems that contemporary equivalents are only accessible to those who can afford to pay for them through residential colleges or expensive weekend camps run by societies. Surely, however, it is not beyond the middle-managers of the university, if they put their minds together, to engineer similar social circles that are accessible to all.Why not start with putting more students who study the same subjects into more of the same tutorial classes? This would go some way to dividing first year students into informal cohorts. Why stop there? Split all first-year students into explicit groupings of around 100, based on their subject choices. Hell, organise a social event to get them started! While youre at it, rationalise the location of courses and academics on campus. Shock! Horror! Could you imagine actually having classes in the building of your faculty? Co-locating classes based on related subjects and departments might well lead to the common areas of those buildings serving as informal or unorganised meeting places for students and teachers. If ever there was an opportunity to reimagine how university might be a less isolating experience, now is the time to transform it back into an engaging, social environment for the pursuit of knowledge. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Cancel culture is an evangelical head-hunting mission centred on public humiliation, ostracism and guilt by association.Critics of cancel culture tend to be flag-waving patriots, such as Peter Kurti, a director at the conservative think-tank the Centre for Independent Studies, who recently exploited Coons rebranding to rant about freedom of speech in The Australian. But the idea that we cannot critique cancel culture because it is a term weaponised disdainfully by the right is utterly regressive.It was refreshing therefore to tune into the podcast Dirtbag a few days ago and hear the hosts two socialist activists launch an offensive against cancel culture. Like water boiling over in a pot, the podcast (well worth a listen) overflows with scalding criticism. Nasal-infused Kiwi curse words scythe through the air, speaking to a bubbling frustration among leftist organisers who recognise that cancel culture is antithetical to so much of what we fight and protest for.Indeed, how do we account for the diversity of signatories to the Harpers letter? Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders supporter Zephyr Teachout and Jamaican-born sociologist Orlando Patterson, a frequent contributor to The New York Times and New Left Review, usually on issues of race, are just some of those signatories. We cannot simply dismiss Chomsky, for instance, as a self-absorbed nonagenarian shielded from the biting gale of critique with a coat distinguished by its sewn-on badge reading freedom of speech. This is a man who has advocated for Palestinian independence for over fifty years. In his own words: I used to have police protection even at my own university. The meetings were broken up violently. Chomsky is undeniably accustomed to vitriolic dissent.Certainly, cancel culture is practical and necessary when it removes an abuser or predator from a circle of people. Their presence can trigger volatile responses from victims denied the space and time to work through their trauma. Holding public figures accountable is positive. I take no issue with ostracising people for extreme, toxic behaviour.But when I think of cancel culture in its current form, I think of micro-transgressions and microaggressions. Rumours. Fight versus flight. Tears on bedroom carpets, downward glances in corridors and Twitter warriors emboldened by the poisonous sting of a keyboard.In 2018, the Herald Sun published on its front page comments jokingly posted years before by Victorian Greens candidate and punk rocker Joanna Nilson. In a private Facebook group, these posts mentioned shoplifting and recreational drug use. Under pressure, Nilson stepped down from running for state parliament. In an apology letter published in The Guardian, Nilson wrote that she became interested in politics because politicians didnt look like me. They certainly didnt sound like me or anyone I knew. God forbid if anyone looks at my social media history.This encampment this safe space has transformed into a towering fortress. It is built upon the smeared reputations and social corpses of the most vulnerable in society young activists, people of colour and non-university educated workers, for instance. As Masrur Joarder recently wrote for Junkee, those with racial privilege particularly whiteness tend to be immune from being cancelled in Australia, meaning that cancel culture usually fails in its intended goal of bringing down public figures and elites via grassroots justice.As an anarchist, I am distrustful of a technocratic elite replicating the behaviour of ruling classes. Academic writing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Forcing readers to continually decode the meaning of research and jargon ensures an intellectual elite remain in control of society and dominate public discourse albeit an intellectual elite often with their hearts in the right place. This is nonetheless a form of power and hierarchy. Similarly, punishing and cancelling someone who may not have taken gender studies units or even attended university for not championing the latest and most respectful terminology is not conducive to alliance-building or solidarity. Dont get me wrong, I recognise the wrongdoing. But I do not condone the response.As an anarchist, I support prison abolitionism. Cancel culture, however, jars against everything prison abolitionists fight for rehabilitation, transformative justice, the cessation of solitary confinement and more. Prison abolitionists highlight the root, intersectional causes of societal ills. Cancel culture, meanwhile, breeds a mentality of guilty until proven innocent, recreates carceral conditions and entrenches in the left norms surrounding punitive punishment and retribution.Fuelled by identity politics, the left has adopted in recent times a binary tribal mentality of us/them and good/evil. When we cling to our black and white worldviews, clothed in confirmation bias, we reduce complex human beings and constructs to shopfront mannequins. We depersonalise, conflate and lose the ability to think critically. The other becomes interchangeable with a broad cross-section of society. Even centrists become white supremacists and literal Nazis. The goal thereby becomes social annihilation. As an anarchist, I am inclined to distrust hegemonic leftist arguments and mob rule. Social capital is integral to the persistence of cancel culture. Too often cancelling someone in political spaces is about clout that is, furthering ones own credentials as an activist by highlighting the comparatively poor behaviour of those around you.Cancel culture enforces a homogenisation of views in a world increasingly defined by what political scientists term affective partisan polarisation. That is, animosity between people who do not share political views has increased in recent decades. While political tribalism may be slightly less pronounced in Australia than the US the jury is still out fear of expressing non-conformist thoughts will only stifle intercultural relations and debate.Virtue signalling, blind ideological dogma and disengagement are quickly replacing humility, compassion and inclusivity as foundational elements in leftist organising. So while were abolishing police and prison, heck lets abolish cancel culture too, lest we fail our comrades. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last week, a slew of prominent Bollywood personalities met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at an event commemorating Mahatma Gandhis 150th birthday. At this meeting, Modi encouraged the actors to participate in and create films which popularise and propagate Gandhis ideology despite Gandhis lifelong pursuit of secularism being at odds with Modis fervent brand of Hindu nationalism.The pictures that emerged from this meeting are akin to the infamous Ellen selfie from the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony. Snaps of a pastiche of famous faces posing both with each other and with the prime minister aroused a sort of decidedly apolitical excitement among fans, and the images were widely shared on social media.A picture of Modi sandwiched between Muslim actors Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan, however, did cause one Twitter user to raise his eyebrow. It seems like there is a gun pointing their way. They dont seem too keen!! he commented.For those with a particular investment in Aamir Khans political musings, it would indeed come as a surprise that he has even placed himself in the physical presence of Modi. His 2006 film Fanaa, in which he plays a Kashmiri insurgent, was informally banned in Gujarat due to him criticising Modi then the chief minister of Gujarat for displacing villagers while constructing the Narmada dam. The ensuing protests headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forced theatre owners in Gujarat to not screen the movie, out of fears for their safety.The BJPs disdain for Muslims is not up for debate. Its undeniable that Aamirs comments were so ardently scrutinised as a result of his religious persuasion, and perhaps because of the soft pro-Kashmir bent of Fanaas storyline. In light of this, the motivations behind his nascent public alliance with Modi appear unclear at best, and unprincipled at worst. Is it necessary for figures like him to alter their public personas, and align with the BJPs Hindu nationalist narrative in order to succeed in Bollywood?The apparent shift in Aamir Khans attitude is reflective of the duality of Islam in Bollywood. Over the past two decades, the Khans (Salmaan, Saif Ali, Shah Rukh and Aamir) have dominated the box office. Their fan base is spread throughout India and globally, encompassing people from a range of cultural and religious backgrounds. One should not, however, mistake the commercial success of the Khans with some broader cultural acceptance of Islam in India or even Bollywood.For the most part, the popularity of the Khans (and many other Muslim actors) in Bollywood has been facilitated by a process of Hindufication. The overwhelming majority of characters they portray are Hindus living in a world with little to no engagement with Muslim communities. In the rare instances that they do play Muslim characters, those characters tend to be exoticised and stereotyped: a Mughal Emporer or an underworld boss.For most fans of Bollywood, it is difficult to abstract the actors from the characters they play. Shah Rukh Khan is Rahul, Aman, or most obviously, Om. The consequence is that for religious zealots, actors like the Khans are Hindu figures in Muslim bodies. Their Muslim identity is de-emphasised to the extent that it falls out of mind. In that context, the decision to make political statements about religious persecution in India poses a predicament for prominent Muslim actors. To do so would shatter the grand illusion and alienate their increasingly radicalised Hindu fan base.The circumstances are no doubt complex the anguish of chameleonically adapting ones religious identity to succeed in a chosen career path is amplified when existing in such a public, global sphere. However, the particular circumstances of the Khans are not as pitiable as they seem.Neither have any pressing monetary need to even appear to be sympathising with the BJP. Shah Rukh, for example, carries a net worth of 600 million US-dollars. The social capital and influence he has amassed in South Asia and beyond is much too pervasive to be limited by what Indias political elite think of him. In fact, its arguable that any Muslim actor with so inalienable a rank in Indias cultural and economic domain should instead be actively agitating against Modi and the BJP.Its naturally important to acknowledge that, despite their class privilege, the challenges faced by Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan are not ones their Hindu counterparts need even consider. Additionally, both actors have portrayed subversive Muslim characters for Shah Rukh Khan most notably in Chak De India! and My Name is Khan. Perhaps then it is the openly radicalised and Islamophobic contemporary zeitgeist that is silencing their voices. However, in a context where Muslims are lynched, Kashmir is occupied and Hindu nationalism is creeping into every facet of Indian society, its hard not to feel a little disappointed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The US Open tennis tournament has become a breeding ground for controversy over recent years.One of the most well-publicised tennis controversies in recent memory involved the 2018 Womens Final where Serena Williams was widely criticised by worldwide press for labelling umpire Carlos Ramos as a thief.Incidents like this have prompted crowds to make a habit of booing players. Before the thief incident, it was Nick Kyrgios. Then it hit the 2018 womens final featuring Williams and Japans Naomi Osaka. This year saw Serbian Novak Djokovic retire injured to a chorus of booing as well as the well-publicised booing of rising star Daniil Medvedev after most of his matches.Most players ignored it, a few of them criticised it. Medvedevs reaction was by far the most antagonistic: the 23-year-old gave the finger to the crowd, gestured to them on every occasion imaginable and provided fans and detractors alike with the quote of the tournament:Thank you all, guys, because your energy tonight gave me the win. If you werent here, I probably would lose the match I want all of you to know, when you sleep tonight, I won because of you.The extent to which crowds scorn is the fault of the player in question is widely discussed by the worldwide sporting commentaria. Opinions differ and are often controversial.One incident that was given significantly less attention was the gesture of American doubles tennis icon Mike Bryan, who turned his racquet towards the umpire and mimicked a gunshot after a dodgy line call in September this year.I think it is beyond question that this gesture is extremely problematic. However, there was no booing. The press barely took notice. The fine was minimal. The video of the gesture garnered very minimal attention on Twitter. And this is for one half of the most successful doubles team of all time. What does this say?Mike Bryan (@Eurosport_RU ) pic.twitter.com/vPwOiZfVqf doublefault28 (@doublefault28) September 1, 2019Even if, for the sake of argument, the actions of Kyrgios, Medvedev, Williams, and Bryan are assumed to be equally serious, how can their actions warrant such differing reactions? The simple answer is that they shouldnt. But they do. A binary response is often perpetuated on social media with phrases such as theyre flogs or its un-Australian being thrown all over the place. When considering these questions, it is important to give them the attention and nuance they deserve otherwise we run the risk of affirming what is often textbook discrimination.Stereotypes are fundamental in this consideration. Stereotypes often signify something much greater than what may be seen at first glance and, when exposed by media, perpetuate discriminatory discourse in mainstream discussion.A prime example of this was a cartoon of Serena Williams published in The Herald by Mark Knight after the US Open final. The cartoon deliberately invoked the trope of the angry Black woman through its depiction of Williams throwing a tantrum with Osaka portrayed as insignificant, bordering on subservient in the background. Knight denied that this cartoon was racially motivated and claimed he drew her as she was. Accepting these exaggerated stereotypes as the norm only reinforces the cartoonists view that her behaviour was so abnormal or deviant.The notion of deviance is an interesting one. If we consider the example of Nick Kyrgios, one of his oft-posed criticisms is that his behaviour is un-Australian. If we consider this from the perspective of his deviance away from the norm, this is an interesting concept.Kyrgios is unashamedly brash, but there are plenty of other sports stars known for being brash, such as former grand-slam champion, Lleyton Hewitt. Strong parallels have been drawn between Hewitt and Kyrgios personas as young tennis players. Hewitt was known for frequently swearing at competitors and umpires, having also received heavy backlash for apparent racial slurs towards opponent James Blake. However, the obvious difference is Hewitt is white whereas Kyrgios is of Greek-Malaysian descent.But how does this relate to deviance? Taking the archetype of the straight white male as the norm, it seems that only one level of deviance can be tolerated before controversy and discriminatory discourse ensues. This explains a few things. Not only does it explain why Kyrgios (with his two levels of clear deviance being his unashamed boldness and his ethnicity) and Serena Williams (with her two levels of deviance being her race and gender) have been othered in stadiums and media worldwide, it also explains the depiction of Osaka as submissive. In order to realign Osaka as the hero in the publics eyes, the cartoonist needed to subvert the perceived deviance of her race and gender with a defined timidness to render her more palatable. This shows that this is not only problematic when considering your traditional villains such as Kyrgios and Williams but also in the stereotypes used to portray the hero which can be equally problematic for conceptions of race and gender in society.Medvedev is an example of how this can manifest in real life where nationality can also act as an axis of deviance. As an Eastern-European who was also unashamedly brash and antagonistic in his views, he was booed by the crowd for his disregard for their authority (his deviance). But Mike Bryan was not the deviant villain for the crowd because he embodied the norm for them. He was not The Other. The perceived level of deviance was not strong enough to manifest. Of course, talking about deviance in these levels is also simplistic. At a fundamental level, it is based on perception.But as Waleed Aly noted during the Adam Goodes saga, the world of sport is generally very tolerant of minorities until they demonstrate that they do not know their place. The question we need to ask is whether deviance from the norm is truly villainous or is there something more insidious under the surface?Note: an abridged version of this article appeared in print. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the twilight days of August this year, Hong Kong students took to Eastern Avenue. If mainstream media is to be believed and go unquestioned, that protest triggered an explosion of nationalistic sentiments amongst Chinese students, driving them to patriotic behavior both on and off-campus.Journalists in wider Australian society have leaned to one side in attempting to portray Chinese students at Australian universities as the brainwashed puppets of the Chinese government, without independent thinking, hopelessly victimised by propaganda and made into passive instruments of a national agenda.But employing a reductive brainwashed label as the only basis for understanding the nationalistic behaviors of Chinese students is hardly new for western media. However, sadly, it reflects the ignorance of some Western journalists (if not most). Most have willingly enlisted to one side of the story with little literacy of counter narratives.It is certainly true that China turned to nationalism and launched an extensive patriotic education campaign from the early 1990s. During this period, Beijing emphasised Chinas miserable past owing to its encounter with Western colonialism and then imperial Japanese militarism. The state propagated this sense of victimisation, and, in turn, emphasised the vital role of the CCP in liberating the nation from foreign hands and achieving the great rejuvenation of it. Simply put, Chinese nationalism is a product of the political use of history.However, the minds of these journalists are constrained by pre-existing political givens. They adhere to the political parameters of traditions entrenched in western society, politicising Chinese students, and reinterpreting those political traditions as deep cultural resources for apolitical struggle for the so-called universal value. Current scholarship indicates that the expression of nationalism amongst overseas Chinese students is authentically based on independent thinking. Nationalism emerged in a bottom-up way, often in direct response to real-world events. This process, more organic than that portrayed in current media, was not a feature of a public relations campaign orchestrated by the central government.Alongside the above point, the expression of nationalism by Chinese students is more complicated than western journalists have assumed. It includes very different or even contradictory aspects which are contingent on who is stimulating that expression in a specific case and the political purposes of that source. The role of Chinese political elites in instrumentalising student nationalism only explains part of the overall picture.Nationalism takes a far more liberal form amongst overseas Chinese students. Chinese students feel they have a moral duty to support and defend the rights of their state in the world of nation-states, whilst concurrently pursuing liberal values. For example, when Beijing banned public discussion of hot-button social issues from the internet, like the kindergarten abuse scandal where Chinese students openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the governments decision.The social origins of nationalism are also related to a much more recent trend: the spontaneous eruption of Chinese students living and studying overseas. In high-pressure campus environments which are hardly short of racism, academic pressures, high-cost living and unfairness on campus, stronger incentives are generated for students to voice their opinions unscrupulously in the name of patriotism and national identity.When Australian journalists blame Chinese nationalism, an important but typically neglected question is whether the Australian government, media and society have had a role in fueling Chinese nationalism. Australian society should not oversimplify the origin of nationalism in Chinese students, but see these expressions as a process in which Chinese students learn their self-identity, emotional and social needs and confront difficulties on campus or wider society. In shifting the dialogue around the nationalism of overseas Chinese students, the Australian Government can avoid mistakes that might provoke a confrontation by misperceiving students as agents of the Chinese Government or violators of campus freedom and democracy.The current pre-assumed understanding of Chinese students only fuels Chinese nationalism and student suspicions of Australia. It justifies nationalistic behavior and sentiment.The current understanding of Chinese students nationalism held by Australian journalists misreads its origins by simply attributing it to Beijings political use of history.As Hong Kong political scientist Simon Shen noticed, Attention should be given here to the fact that most discussion on Chinese nationalism made little attempts to distinguish its different intrinsic meanings.For now, however, if Chinese students truly want respect from Australian society, they must chain or at least contain their nationalistic sentiment to less violative forms.Ye Xue is currently studying towards a PhD in International Relations. His research focuses on self-esteem in world politics and Chinas foreign policy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In his 1968 biography, Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey remarked, that growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. In his lifetime, the very quotable anarchist, national parksman and alleged eco-terrorist watched as the cities of America marched tirelessly in every direction, goose-stepping over the Continents forests and mountains behind a vanguard of suburbs. The years came and went, taking Abbeys generation of anti-Urbanists with them, but the urban sprawl shambled on in all parts of the world.Half a century later, the dissident youth have once again arrived at the interchange between Urbanism and politics. The generation reared on SimCity has learned a lesson the city-building genre of video games would not teach them. The outward spread of a city signals dysfunction as much as prosperity. The growths revenue is not reinvested by an omniscient central planner, but is returned to free agents who would prefer to build more houses than the roads, rails and waterways their occupants need to comfortably live in them.New Urbanist Memes for Transport-Oriented Teens (NUMTOTs) is a Facebook group at the forefront of this rediscovery. Its 165 000 members (most of which are young adults) discuss and share memes about all things relating to the urban experience. Naturally, common topics are public transport and urban planning. The groups description describes itself as not explicitly Leftbook (a neologism describing left-wing fora on FaceBook) but certainly left-leaning. [The moderators] wont ban you for being a capitalist, but dont expect [them] to defend you either.Certainly, the group boasts a much larger membership than most Leftbook spaces. While many of its members and posts are politically agnostic, the humble meme group has achieved the Herculean task of bringing together the left in one place. Perhaps this is because experiencing defective public transport and being priced out of the housing market is a universal experience for young adults. More likely, it is because the groups innocuous subject matter invites the projection of ones beliefs. Most people would find a post criticising car-centric urban planning politically ambiguous. A democratic socialist might find the subject disagreeable because it represents the individualisation of the factors of production in a way that is disproportionately burdensome on workers. A green leftist might find it disagreeable because it creates the highest emissions per user of any mode of transport. A state socialist might dislike it because private toll-roads obstruct the nationalisation of productive property, and a libertarian socialist might dislike it because it promotes coercive commercial relationships that predate on the workers need to commute.The underlying thread is that the urban experience is mediated by demographic factors. It is therefore unsurprising that young adults are more apt to see the politics of urban planning policy when they are most likely to feel the sting of its failures. Sometimes these demographic factors may be positive, like the emergence of cultural enclaves that have facilitated the settlement of immigrants, and gayborhoods that have protected queer communities. However, these positives reflect decades of segregation. This is a story that has played out in countless suburbs in Sydney at different points in time. Early in the twentieth century, it was the Irish in Surry Hills and First Nations families in Redfern. When the dismantling of the White Australia Policy opened the country to people of colour, this story played out in the new outer suburbs: Lebanese families in Bankstown, Vietnamese families in Cabramatta.The experience of First Nations people in the area around Redfern is a harrowing case study in the marginalisation of communities through urban planning policy. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, de facto segregation across Sydney pushed First Nations people into Redfern. It was only after projects like the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) and Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) were created in the 1970s to put control of the suburb in its residents own hands that policy-makers became interested in the suburb in order to curtail its growing autonomy. To prevent more land being bought by the AHC, redevelopment proposals were approved so major construction companies would buy the land instead. In 2004, the year the Redfern riot occurred following the death of young Kamilaroi boy TJ Hickey, the Redfern-Waterloo Authority Act was instituted. The new authority (replacing the failed Redfern-Eveleigh-Darlington Program) was tasked, inter alia, with the development of Redfern-Waterloo into an active, vibrant and sustainable community. The area was given its own minister from that year until 2011, when the Keneally Ministry ended. That same year, the NSW Government finally succeeded in demolishing the Block, the AHCs housing project which is now familiar to students at the University of Sydney as the empty, fenced-off area along Eveleigh street visible from Redfern station. In March this year, it was reported that a 24-storey student accommodation tower and commercial centre would replace it. Proponents at the AHC claim this is necessary to bankroll its efforts to provide 62 housing units to Indigenous residents in the same project. But some may observe that the AHC has taken on the appearance of the gentrifying developers that it once opposed.For the uninitiated, it may help to note that urban renewal is a euphemism originating in the USA that provides the most immediate mechanism for this kind of gentrification. Large-scale development companies acquire low-value housing in disadvantaged areas (often with the States assistance) and turn them into higher-price (and higher-density) homes; not so much value-adding but starting from scratch. Having played their part, they step back and wait for the State to reroute public transport in the area to accommodate the areas demanding new residents. Bus stops sprout like clovers after rain, and train stations like toadstools.Green Square is one such train station. Like Macdonaldtown, it is one of the few stations that neither belongs to, nor is named for, any one suburb. Its namesake is the brainchild of the descriptively if not dystopianly named UrbanGrowth NSW Development Corporation, now part of Infrastructure NSW. Stretched over 278 hectares and $13 billion dollars, Green Square annexes parts of Beaconsfield, Zetland, Alexandria, Rosebery and Waterloo. The City of Sydney webpage describes it as an urban renewal project in which Sydneys oldest industrial heartland is transforming into a vibrant, sustainable and connected community. An astute observer might notice that urban renewal projects like Green Square and the Redfern-Waterloo Authority frequently describe themselves as vibrant as if the communities that preceded them were raw concrete hellscapes plucked out of the Soviet Union. Cast in that role, few would question the need to renew those localities.But this tired cliche is becoming increasingly doubtful in the eyes of todays young adults. The popularity of groups like NUMTOTs should alarm those in Australias governments who have turned the housing market into a cash-cow. This is a process from which the youth are unlikely to derive direct benefits while the same governments refuse to reinvest the gains appropriately and fight constantly for cuts to tertiary-education and community services. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the Israel Folau case and the stalled abortion decriminalisation bill dominating headlines, the debate over religious freedom in Australia is reaching a crescendo. Civil society continues to ask what protections should be given for religious belief, especially when it interacts with the freedom of other people.But that question has obscured a deeper fundamental fact: that proponents of religious freedom have overlooked the importance of diversity in religious expression. If religious freedom is important, lets start from within religious institutions, some of which must also be held accountable for inhibiting and attacking the very freedom they clamour to protect.Many conservative churches and Christians want not only the right to express their beliefs but to discriminate against others within their institutions. This much is gained from submissions to the Ruddock review, with many written by Christians opposed to same-gender marriage.Most church denominations excluding those with a congregational polity, where each congregation is autonomous, can prevent local congregations from making important decisions that affect their church.This can constrain what they teach, the type of people they ordain, and who they marry or bless. Commonly this involves influencing decisions on whether to ordain women or queer people and whether to perform same-gender marriages.The Catholic Church is an apposite example of this although this is attributable to its strong hierarchical nature. It does not currently ordain women, nor does it allow the officiation of same-gender marriages. There are other churches which could allow greater diversity of religious expression in their structures but currently do not.Most notably, the Anglican Church of Australia and other Anglicans churches around the world generally have more autonomy to allow individual churches and dioceses to manage their own affairs. While the worldwide Anglican Communion sets standards on Anglican belief, it does not have the power to force any national church to subscribe to it because each national church is autonomous.Resultantly, many Anglican churches, including in Australia, have the ability to and not to ordain women. Anglican churches in Scotland, the United States and Canada also perform same-gender marriages, while the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia permits blessings of same-gender couples. However, this does not necessarily come with tolerance from above.Both the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church faced sanctions from the Anglican Communion over their decision to allow same-gender marriages, especially in making decisions on doctrine. And the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) was created to defend their more conservative version of Christianity.Even when church law gives increased freedom to individual dioceses and congregations, this does not stop other religious groups attacking their autonomy and freedom of beliefs. Religious diversity is a byproduct of religious freedom. Yet, when right-leaning religious groups demand increased religious liberties, they have rejected the freedoms of other religious groups in Australia.To take one example, the Anglican Diocese of Wangaratta recently decided to allow blessings of same-gender marriages, but was condemned by the Sydney Diocese. While the decision by the Diocese of Wangaratta is being legally challenged in the Appellate Tribunal of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Sydney previously accused the faithful mass and clergy of following their specific Bishop rather than what he claimed to be correct biblical view on sexuality.The Uniting Church in Australia has also faced opposition on its decision to allow same-gender marriages narrowly avoiding a challenge which would have forced the issues reconsideration. The decision permitted each congregation to choose their definition of marriage. Decisions by the Uniting Churchs National Assembly can, however, be halted and reconsidered if enough synods and presbyteries agree to it.It is blatantly clear that religious intolerance begins from within, sprouted by religious institutions against those who disagree with them under the same banner of faith. Whether or not actual freedom is given, denominations which allow some freedom within individual dioceses and congregations are attacked for their theological differences.Yet, those attackers are the same people who largely claim that they care about religious freedoms and want to increase them. Why should the state consider their demands if they cant even accept religious diversity within their own ranks? If they really do care about religious freedoms than that right should extend to their own communities first. To do otherwise is morally bankrupt.Wilson is a part-time theological student at Trinity College of the University of Divinity. He identifies as an agnostic Unitarian and has been involved with Uniting Church and Jesuit groups. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Im not sure if my peers in the Faculty of Science can relate, but I often feel that hours of soul-draining mathematics causes me to need to release my inner artist. I often do so through writing usually poetry or slice-of-life pieces.However, only a year ago, I sought to write a fantasy text, which required considerably more stimulus than what I could muster from the real world. I wasnt sure where to get the inspiration for a world of my own, since fantasy TV, film, and novels are fairly uninteractive. I needed something I could delve into and investigate first-hand. It was then that I realised that an oft-overlooked form of interactive entertainment tabletop gaming was precisely what I was looking for.In other words, I decided to go vampire hunting in my spare time.Dungeons and Dragons, the game I played, was developed in the 1970s by an aspiring worldbuilder, Gary Gygax. An instant bestseller, D&D entered an entertainment industry dominated by rising digital mediums like film and video games. Fantasy films were ascendant following the release of the Star Wars trilogy, and high fantasy novels were continually being pushed into the mainstream hands of enthralled readers. While these mediums allowed for rich stories to be told, they were restricted by non-interactivity, and the alternative video games were restricted considerably by technical limitations that overshadowed any potential for storytelling aside from text adventures.Amidst the proliferation of all these mediums, one question remained how could an author tell both a descriptively compelling narrative while also giving the reader an opportunity to participate? This is what many viewers, and even Gygax himself, sought to resolve with role-playing games. D&D not only allows for an author to provide both a narrative and participation to a viewer, but is also the only medium which allows for this experience. The trick? Its simple the author takes an active role, rather than a passive one.Even the most technologically stunning video games of the 21st century, from The Elder Scrolls to Mass Effect, are restricted by one key problem that I call choice oversight in other words, theres only so much that an author can predict that a player will want to do. In many games, this can often lead to uneventful conclusions for example, killing the essential NPCs in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind causes the thread of prophecy to be severed effectively ending the main questline. Worse still, this can even lead to results that run contrary to the developers vision of the game for example, in Minecraft, due to the limitations of the AI of the villagers, the most efficient way to manage villager trades is to abduct them in boats back to your base, and then repeatedly breed and kill them to gain desirable trades. This paints a dark narrative on an otherwise innocent story of a person trying to survive in an unknown world.The power of bringing the storyteller into an active role is that it allows for dynamic storytelling. Texts are published at a static point in time, and as such, questions that arise after the date of publication cannot be answered unless you follow it up. With D&D, questions arise during the process of storytelling. The author can improvise and adapt to the choices made by the protagonists of the story and ultimately curate an experience for the player.After having slain a great number of vampires, as well as putting on the shoes of a Dungeon Master myself, I have come to find that my writing has improved when attempting to understand the gaze of the reader. More valuable and relevant information finds its way to the spotlight of my pages compared to before, as I have come to learn what my players my readers find more interesting. No longer are there bland descriptions of the paintings on the wall . Rather, the odd depiction of Boblin, a tiny (and adorable) goblin, who sips his milkshake in the middle of a dwarven tavern, makes it into print.Whether you want to be Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist, or simply wonder how long you would survive in a zombie apocalypse, D&D is a great way to explore that, and it doesnt only fulfill your own fantasies it also helps the aspiring authors out there who need to playtest their novels. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> From his new office on the very top floor of the new F23 Administration Building, Michael Spence enjoys expansive views over the city, its phallic structures providing an inspiring paean to corporate success. Its a far cry from the Vice-Chancellors old digs on the ground floor of the quadrangle quiet, academic, conservative. While it can be easy to read too much into such things, it is nevertheless worth examining the messages which the new Admin Building projects. After all, it is, in the words of its architects, the universitys new visible presence to the world.Dr. Spence himself provides some useful insights: F23supports in a visual way the university values openness and engagement; diversity and inclusion; respect and integrity; courage and creativity. One must pause and wonder whether this former Oxford don has surrendered his mind to the corporate-speak which so unfortunately pervades the universitys public discourse, or whether he is merely speaking out of his arse. Nevertheless, some of these outwardly inane statements may tell us something about the universitys glowing new edifice.Openness and EngagementIf engagement was to be a core precept of the buildings design, then its architects have failed miserably. Good architecture is supposed to speak to the viewer, but the Admin Building is a hermit content to remain mute and unnoticed. In spite of its location on the universitys most prominent corner, F23 somehow manages to hide itself from the casual gaze. Given the design of the building, which is remarkable only in its unremarkableness, this should not be a surprise. It is stout and blockish, with a peculiar resemblance to a hydraulically-pressed pagoda. It pays its dues to modernity with a glass facade, while grumpily acquiescing to sandstone over flammable cladding in an obligatory, but utterly meaningless nod to the universitys sandstone heritage. This leaves a bland, forgettable character as F23s primary point of engagement. As to openness, a security desk takes pride of place in the polished concrete foyer, its guards zealously prohibiting access to the upper floors.Diversity and InclusionIt is the utter meaninglessness of these words which is so dispiriting. The extent to which diversity and inclusion those nebulous words adored by corporate PR teams can be manifested in a piece of administrative architecture is highly questionable, let alone one with all the character and joy of any corporate office anywhere in the world.Respect and IntegrityIn light of the myriad Sydney apartment buildings ridden with cracks and defects, structural integrity is indeed an achievement to be lauded. And it is true that the building remains standing. Such low aims, however, do not send a message of excellence to the engineering faculty. As to respect, the waiter at the posh new cafe on the ground floor was unfailingly polite as he served me my $24 cheese selection entree.Courage and CreativityCourage is a lofty aim for any design, let alone that of a home of bureaucracy. Inevitably, we reach the same conclusion as we have with all the other overstated values in Dr. Spences ode to the Admin Building. They mean nothing. It is this apathy to meaning which best describes this new building. It aspires to nothing beyond functionality, and achieves very little in adding to the campus. The apathetic tenor of Dr. Spences remarks are reflected in the new building: despite its position as the new home of the VC, it projects no meaning, and is both sterile and unavoidably corporate. Whether or not this is an issue is a different question, but certain things can be read into Dr. Spences move from the quadrangle to the top floor of a corporate office building. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Great Barrier Reef. The old Sydney tram network. The 610x to Rouse Hill. Three seemingly strange bedfellows united by one transcendental quality of solidarity: being decimated and reduced by human activity to shells of their former selves.To the uninitiated observer, it may seem strange to be sentimental over a bus and bus route. Yet in the same way that people grow attached to their cars, a bus route can develop into a major feature of ones life. The bus itself takes on all the hallmarks of an automotive symbol. It becomes a finished portrait of past memories, and a sketch of future adventures. The silent third through sixth wheels throughout many of lifes iconic moments.Your bus was there when you were unable to drive home having had a drink or two (or twenty). It was present when you were feeling elated, or disappointed, after a first date. There is, of course, that time you admittedly cant quite remember getting on the bus, but you remember just enough missing your stop and waking up somewhere slightly familiar, before frantically pushing the stop button. Your bus was there throughout all the laughs, the sadness, the angsty staring out the back window, and the jovial fighting over your favourite seat with your favourite people. Throughout it all, there was always one constant. Your bus was there.The spectre of change haunts public transport. It always has. Yet the qualms with Transport NSWs new arrangements run deeper than mere sentimentality over the death of familiar transport. We must ask whether, amid the major upheaval inherent in the supposed progress of the metro, if what we are losing are merely memories, or more perniciously, convenient and accessible transport options.The noble Rouse Hill variant of the 610x was brutally cut down in the middle of its prime, but the metro as it stands now is a youth on the precipice of its peak, a mere portion of its possible glory, reaching only from Tallawong to Chatswood. The changes did not wait until the city link was finished to connect the west to the city without transferring to train lines. Transport NSW is not merely encouraging people to use the new (unfinished) metro, but in many cases actively forcing them by dramatically reducing the reach and frequency of certain services. Surely the benefits of new, convenient, and most notably additional modes of transport are lost if they fail to add flexibility as an alternative, and instead become a necessity denigrating the quality of the trip for travellers.Buses to certain areas, especially between the city and the Hills, now inexplicably start later and finish earlier, harming the potential for those relying on them to enjoy Sydneys nightlife. This is compounded by the fact the Metro services currently finish earlier than buses previously did. Even when the Metro is an option, it again relies on numerous changes. Commuters previously blessed with a direct line to the city now face having to change modes of transport multiple times, worsened by often late or sometimes mysteriously missing buses or trains, resulting in missed connections and further delays. For example, one of the Transport NSW TripPlanner websites suggested means of travelling from QVB to Kellyville in the very early hours of Sunday morning after a Saturday night in the city previously a single trip on the blessed 610x now involves waiting for close to an hour to transfer to a different bus. Even if nominal transit time is reduced, recent changes pose numerous safety issues for vulnerable people, especially people travelling alone, young people, or those somewhat intoxicated. Those safety issues can only really be circumvented by those who can afford an expensive Uber.The reduction in peak time direct bus services the only slot where buses like the 610x are temporarily restored to their former glory also guarantee crowding on certain services, dictating access to the bus by means of a lucky draw for commuters at the right stop at the right time. This adds unforeseen delays rippling through the rest of the bus schedule, hampering the ability for people living in the West to travel to work in the city. The changes to routes on top of times also mean that many commuters may not have an easy way to actually access Metro stations, especially if they are unaware of the new On Demand public transport trial, or unable to use it unless they walk substantial distances. This poses serious problems for those less mobile and those simply without the time to do so.More than mere sentimental dismay, these changes have had the effect of increasing commute time, confusion and cost. The nature of these harms are likely to be disproportionately felt by those who can afford them least: The parents that combine their career with their caretaking now have less time at home, those who face an uphill struggle in constantly changing transport, and those in unforeseen circumstances at now inconvenient times needing transport quickly and directly.The Rouse Hill 610x is dead, at least when measured to its former heights and frequency. It has gone where many buses like it have gone, to the waste bin of convenience, nostalgia, and simpler times. Those who will be unduly hindered by the changes to Public Transport will forget the 610x one day, but not soon enough. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The travails of Manning Bar have been well covered previously in Honi. The demise of compulsory student unionism (CSU) and the unattainable cost of renting close to campus have correctly been given as reasons behind the decline of the bar. However, it has been over a decade since the abolition of CSU and rental affordability has been an ongoing issue, and yet Manning Bar continues to fade further into irrelevance. Manning and Hermanns recently reported a loss of $245,000 over 2018. In response to questions from Honi, the USU attributed some blame for the poor performance of the bars to a significantly changed drinking culture on campus. What, then, is this new culture, and why have students so rapidly abandoned the haunts of previous generations?Bertrand Russell argued that modern technique (technology) has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. Education, in only the past decade, has become remarkably more efficient. The wonders of the Google search, online library databases, Computer Aided Design software and the wildly underappreciated command-F function have, among countless other tools, combined to trim hours off the learning process. It should follow, then, that this efficiency dividend has furnished students with unprecedented amounts of leisure time. It is clear, however, that this dividend is not being spent socialising at uni.The strangely positive connotations of grind or hustle are a puzzling recent addition to the student lexicon. When one is hunched over a laptop in the small hours of the morning, fermenting in ones own stress-induced sweat and the entrenched odour of Fisher, the self-congratulatory refrain of on the grind emerges in stark contrast to the depressing reality. In the New York Times, Erin Griffiths wrote of hustle culture as obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humour For those who binge on corporate office dramas and devote more time to their LinkedIn profiles than their social lives, a simple beer at Manning is incompatible with the unending competition which marks their university philosophy. To indulge, even briefly, at Manning would be to fall behind in the rat race for an unpaid, unvalued internship at a nondescript corporate body. Griffiths again: spending time on anything thats nonwork related has become reason to feel guilty. While ambition should not be discouraged, its elevation above all other considerations while at university leaves one with a sense of waste. Not until retirement will we again have so few obligations. The companies which so many seem so willing to submit themselves to are unlikely to look favourably upon a weekday afternoon spent at the pub with friends. So venture out of Fisher, patronise Manning a misspent hour wont derail a whole career.According to Russells theory, we should be invested with an excess of leisure time. And perhaps that is so. But, it can be argued that the efficiencies gained in university in the last decade have acted to discourage leisure on campus. Online lectures, the emergence of almost entirely online subjects, and the digitisation of research have all acted to reduce physical presence on campus to something of a nuisance. Cramming uni into two days is an achievement to be lauded and leaves little space for on-campus leisure time. The days, often long and with few breaks between classes, become chores to be dispensed of in the most efficient manner possible. Success in tutorials is marked by achieving the minimum amount of social interaction with classmates. The efficiencies which have revolutionised tertiary education in the last decade have, for many, reduced the university experience to a utilitarian and transactional one. When uni becomes transactional I turn up to tutes, you give me a degree leisure time becomes irrelevant. Spending time at the bars is incompatible with this increasingly utilitarian attitude of students to their education.While there are myriad generational and economic reasons behind the decline of Manning, the increasingly dour and stoic attitude of many students should not be ignored. Despite living in an era of unprecedented social and sexual liberalism, young people today are drinking, drug-taking and love-making at lower rates than at any time since the sexual revolution. We consume more sport, yet participation declines further every year. The sun shines warmer and more often, and yet we recoil from it. While the corollary of this is not necessarily that our leisure time is now spent in bed with the curtains drawn, drinking kombucha and masturbating, it is perhaps not so foreign an image. To sit under the sun on the terrace at Manning with a beer and a friend, with the quadrangle and jacarandas in the background, is one of the great remedial pleasures afforded only by Sydney Uni. So go to Manning, and stop being such nerds. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Cancel culture: wildly contentious, and everyones got an opinion on it. You either blindly endorse it, joke about it, reject it completely, or all three at once (depending on the particular subject of cancellation, of course). The term is so embedded in current social discourse that a skit revolving around it made its way into this years PoC Revue.Many a thing has been written about cancel culture its benefits and tribulations, whether its progressive or useful to cancel! every problematic boat on the horizon, well what about Keanu Reeves? and so on. What is less considered is how, in a practical sense, the culture transplants itself into the social dynamics of student groups on campus particularly when it comes to sexual violence.It seems uncontroversial to suggest that prominence within a social network should be removed from those who have engaged in patterns of sexually problematic behaviour. In that way, the application of cancel culture to the lives of students appears to be a positive step, particularly given augmented rates of sexual violence on campus. However, campus social groupings have not realistically been able to apply cancel culture in the same way as the broader movements they appear to be taking guidance from.The more prominent movements that have produced a cancel culture, such as #MeToo, tend to adopt a survivor-focused approach to the sharing of sexual violence-related experiences. Subsequently, the social response to cases of sexual violence from the left prioritises, or at least gives consideration to, the interests and wishes of the survivor in question.Campus social groups like debating or student politics do not have the same degree of access to information as the aforementioned movements. In practical terms this means that the details of instances of sexual violence are shared by word of mouth through third-parties, rather than directly from survivors. In part, this is due to the absence of a substantial platform through which survivors are able to share their experiences should they wish to do so. Mainstream journalism tends to be uninterested in narratives that dont involve famous figures. Campus media, which in some cases may be an avenue, is usually silenced by threats of defamation.Premising cancel culture on accounts of sexual violence that are spread through word of mouth creates numerous problems for the involved parties. Most toxically, it removes a sense of agency for survivors over the way their story is told and the degree of information to which others have access. Additionally, the decision to cancel someone by campus social groupings may not always be consistent with the wishes of the aggrieved person. Such practices are made worse when cancellation occurs with little to no consultation with the survivor. In many cases, the result is a small group of people within a campus sub-culture making wide-reaching moral adjudications without the requisite information or skills to do so. The manifestation of cancel culture on campus, albeit well-intentioned, has at times ignored the very people it sets out to protect.The pervasive problem is the existence of perpetrators. Students find themselves between two choices: do they cancel the perpetrator, severing ties with them and ensuring their isolation? Or do they seek out ways in which the perpetrator can be bettered and learn from their mistakes?The former is undoubtedly easier. Perhaps the perpetrators complete lack of social currency will allow them to realise that their behaviour does not come without consequence, and needs to change. Cancelling the perpetrator further provides survivors with some surety that their welfare is being prioritised. Cynically, it may provide the person doing the cancelling with a sense of moral righteousness.The latter requires resources, and a high dose of emotional energy. This kind of undertaking likely involves one or two people urging the perpetrator to access counselling services, checking in with them during that process, and making sure that they refrain from going down a path that might lead them to repeat their behaviour. Given that the in-house rehabilitation of perpetrators is shunned by those who would prefer just to cancel them, all this becomes an incredibly draining process for those facilitating it. More often than not, the facilitator ends up being a woman, rendering the whole exercise a gendered one.It is often difficult to have a situation where there are enough resources to facilitate any meaningful rehabilitation of perpetrators in student communities, and the easiest way forward is to extract someone away from a particular group, even if their behaviour does not change.The inability to balance the individualised needs of the survivor, alongside ensuring perpetrators change their behaviour, is possibly too mammoth a task for student groups. The resort to cancel culture on campus stems ultimately from inadequate external support and resources from the University, with its efforts consistently proving sordidly ineffective at best.So, cancel culture becomes the default, the easiest way to put a bandaid over a bigger problem, and the problematic behaviour goes on unremedied. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A small group of Australians obsessed with console games and/or their Sapphic lovers are only just learning of the nationwide lockdown instituted in mid-March. Gay gamer Aisha (24) first emerged from the alleged sweet screen set-up in the apartment she shares with her partner just this weekend. The PS5 just got announced so thats really been my main focus right now, Aisha said. I sort of just hang out with my girlfriend a lot of the time. Shes so beautiful. Australians who both game and are gay were found most likely to have no awareness of COVID-19. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Following sustained public pressure from exceedingly normal college kids who (like all ordinary students) have written essay length USyd Rants posts about how much Honi Soit sucks, the editorial team has decided to revise its reporting to provide more balanced coverage on the issue of colleges.Jordan Barker (Commerce IV) had a pretty good night with the lads at the Grose last Wednesday.So stoked Grose is opened up again, Barker told Honi, going back to live with my parents in rural NSW because of iso has been pretty fuckin tough.Barker has been living with his parents in Avalon.But now its Grose until close mate! Its hard to admit, but I really missed the boys: John, Jake, Jason, James, Jace and Jorge.Like most residents at Sydney Unis residential colleges, Barker returned home due to social distancing measures.But following the lobbying of the NSW Liberal Party cabinet, Sydney Universitys residential colleges and chosen pubs have been granted an early exemption from lockdown laws.It hasnt been an easy return for Barker, who has returned to a college home graffitied with anti-college messages.Its pretty egregious that people would treat my home, my oasis like that.I mean really, is it so much to ask to have a basic respect of property? Barker told a reporter, while squatting to take a shit in the main corridor.Im just worried that this will be an unsafe place to raise my poor gerbil, Mussolini.Editors Note: Commencing immediately, Honi Soit has committed to true balance, following up every article about a negative college experience with a positive one! Because thats how news works, apparently. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Who have you become? Thats for me to say and you to find out!Banana breadAs the weather turns a little chilly, you whip out your Lorna Jane vest and matching leggings. Every day is a new day, and must not be wasted! Thanks to the two hour Masterclass you watched last night with one (1) glass of chardy, you are now a qualified interior designer! Tomorrow: organise a feminist knitting sesh with the gals over Zoom. Even if you dont have three kids and a sizable mortgage, you have three kids and a sizable mortgage. The worst part about not driving your white VW Polo home from work every day is that you miss Kate, Tim and Marty! They are so funny.The greatest thing to happen to you in the last six weeks was the Le Creuset sale at Peters of Kensington because you could finally get your hands on the same casserole dish that your sister-in-law has been raving about, for only 70% of what she paid for it. HA!Sugar-free browniesThe only goal of quarantine should be for one to become, in the sage words of Snoop Dogg, tone, tan, fit and ready. Sugar is a government conspiracy designed to enslave us to Coca Cola and Big Pharma! Resist! Coconut sugar doesnt count, and you will not be vaccinating yourself against COVID-19, thank you very much for asking. The plan for next week is to tie-dye your ethically milled cotton tracksuit with plant-based dyes and the watered-down blood of Hello Fresh users, because Marley Spoon is oil reduced and clearly superior. Cinnamon rollsYour self-illustrated bullet journal is up to date and your Screen Time is at an all-time low. You dont feel guilty about indulging in a baked good, because you already have 1.5 hours of speed-walking scheduled with your childhood neighbour each evening to maintain peak cardio fitness and mental health as part of your colour-coded study timetable that will continue until the end of the Anthropocene. The act of baking cinnamon rolls is a multi-stage process, and one that requires expert dough-kneading, expert rolling of the buns and expert timing when icing. As a Dalyell scholar, you are well-placed for this task. Dont forget to email your tutor to thank them for todays class!Sourdough breadAs Australians, there are four things that are crucial to our culture: the beach, the sun, mild xenophobia and sourdough. A day in isolation is in fact a lifetime on repeat, and your mood swings confirm it as such sourdough is followed by a deep funk followed by EMAILS followed by a sprightly jog followed by left-overs for dinner. You often wonder why YOU are always the one organising catch-ups, but shake that feeling off by slapping down more spelt flour onto your table and screaming silently into the void. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Are you and your partner expecting spawn? We asked musician Grimes and car salesman Elon Musk for some of the names they thought of for their son before somehow landing on X A-12 !A Very Fast Carc2 = a2 + b2Tron: Legacy1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21The solo in Digital Love by Daft PunkMadame GasketSelected Ambient Work, 202001110000 01100101 01101110 01101001 01110011Gresthineon, Destroyer of RAMCongratulations! You are our 40,000th visitor! You have won a new iPad.font family: Comic Sans, cursiveMatthew Forbes <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Coolest. BFFs. Ever!!! Not only are the six teens from Netflixs hit show Stranger Things hanging out off-set, but theyve all taken the plunge into Hollywood stardom by injecting heroin together for the first time. Awwww!We had the idea while my mum was driving us to laser tag, explained Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) in an exclusive video interview with the young actors via their parents Zoom accounts. Now, we cant get enough of the stuff.You could say that when were not shooting a scene, were shooting up, Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) laughed, before having to explain the joke to co-star Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven).For Finn Wolfhard (Mike), it wasnt all moonlight and roses. While I was high, I googled Black Francis from the band Pixies and found out hes not actually black. I cried for a while after that. However, as a budding rock star, he found that the experience helped him tap in to his musical roots. I felt connected to the great rock stars of the 90s: Kurt Cobain, that guy from Alice in Chains, uh Weezer?A warm glow overtook my body, stated Sadie Sink (Max) as she recounted the experience. I felt disconnected, yet connected. For the first time since I began my career in this vapid industry, I was calm, at peace with my place as barely a cosmic speck in the vast expanse of the universe.Theyre naming a brand after me, said Noah Schnapp (Will) after a long silence. Theyre calling it Schmack! Awesome! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Rapper Ackquille Jean Pollard, professionally known as Bobby Shmurda, made news recently after calling for the release of everyone currently under this stay-at-home business, adding It just isnt very cash shmoney. Mr Shmurda has started a petition in hopes of achieving his goal, although as of the time of writing it has not been made available digitally.The petition, a bruised piece of paper which Shmurda placed against the glass for me to view, has come under heavy flak under allegations of duplicity. Eleven names have currently signed it, nine being his fellow inmates, while two are Shmurdas professional alias and his birth name. When questioned Shmurda responded. I thought if there were more names itd be taken more seriously.This campaign takes inspiration from the Free Bobby Shmurda movement, which saw a great deal of traction online following his arrest in late 2014. Ill never forget that shit. That was very cash shmoney. Shmurda reflects. After all that, I just wouldnt feel right if I didnt match that energy now.Although this act may come out of the blue for some, Shmurda is quick to remind people of his difficult life. I understand loss. Back in 2014, when we were shooting the music video for Hot [REDACTED] I lost my favourite hat. That kind of thing sticks with you, you dont forget how that feels.As visiting time concluded I thanked Shmurda for his time. He pretended not to hear me, asking instead for help on his latest song. Does Bologna rhyme with Corona? Upon my answer Shmurda became visibly upset, leaving the room hurriedly. He did not take the petition with him. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For when youve finished the 36 questions to fall in love, but quarantine is dragging on.Do you want children?Whats your favourite racial slur?If you could get $700 to kiss the hottest girl you know, or $100 to kiss me, what would you do?Who has more friends: me, you or your mum?Whats your favourite attribute of Elizabeth Warren and why is it that shes a strong woman of colour?Do you prefer step-sister porn or step-mother porn?If you could change my race, what race would you change it to?Why does it rain? (No I dont know, please explain it to me)Why dont you love me?Who do you think is hotter, your sister or your mum?Who do you think has it harder, Hillary Clinton or Obama?What are your stool movements like?Can you name 10 directors who are not men?This is my used tampon. Thoughts?Can you explain to me the process of menstruation and why it occurs? (No I dont know, please explain it to me)Will you sign this legally binding contract not to leave me?What is the best outfit youve ever seen me wear?Do you think aliens exist?Have you ever been probed?By an alien?What do you think about Gorman?How much do I weigh?If you had to give me a disability, what would it be?Who would you rather fuck, the OK Boomer girl, or Caroline Calloway?Will you preference me for the USU election? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Quarantine at BerniesJim is an unsuccessful actor coasting through life living with his novelist friend, Bernard. When Bernard dies due to the virus, Jim is ready to move on until he finds out Bernard has been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the $1.5 million cash prize it comes with. Jim quickly becomes embroiled in a web of deception as he uses the cloak of quarantine to mask Bernards death and make off with the prize.Catching FeelingsStuck in a boring job as a record label agent, an unhappy marriage, and a dysfunctional family, Susan doesnt expect things to change until the day she finds herself stranded in New York on a business trip due to the travel ban. Unable to return home, she stays with the young, bohemian artist she had been trying to sign, and in their friendship, rediscovers a joy she didnt know shed lost.Stuck in this JointIts the day before lockdown begins, and stoner teens Kyle, Dylan, and Jason want to make sure theyre well stocked for the months ahead. Unfortunately, so does every other teen in town, and their quest to get high quickly derails. Overcoming parents, teachers, and bullies, the group prepare themselves for the long months ahead and face up to their teenage insecurities.The SpreeCloset serial killer Josh Paul is having the worst year of his life. The pandemic has disrupted his daily routine, and it has been almost four months since his last kill. Finally, after the quarantine has been lifted, Josh plans to go out in the world and satiate his bloodthirst. But things dont go according to plan when he finds himself competing with another killer on the prowl. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Senate Deputy Opposition Leader, Kristina Keneally, will be deported back to where she came from (America), under a tough new Labor migration policy.After this pandemic is over, itll be time to put Australian jobs first, Keneally recently announced, in a distinctive American accent.Its time for radical, progressive change, Opposition Labor, and angry dough-faced boy, Anthony Albanese concurred. And by that, Labor means a return to anti-immigrant policy of 50 years ago.Were going to see an economic crisis brought on by this pandemic, and we need to prioritise Australians. The role of Senate Deputy Opposition Leader should go to someone born and bred here, said Albanese, the son of an Italian.Critics have argued that Keneallys Australian citizenship should be enough to keep her in the country, but Labors strict migration policy would apply to anyone with a funny accent or who looks like they might not be from around these parts.Keneally is distraught that such a harsh version of the policy she recently argued for in Fairfax media would be affecting her.When I said Australians first, I obviously meant people born in Australia and white immigrants. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Struggling to remain relevant to teen audiences, Disney has announced a gritty High School Musical reboot.We wanted to rework the characters you love, to give them a more modern, realistic edge, Disney CEO, Bruce Chonk told The Rodent.Troy will still be the basketball jock, torn between his love of basketball and his love of singing, Chonk reveals, but this time, hell also be a date rapist.Ryan is still the loveable twink of the original series, Chonk says, but now is in a relationship with Troys father.Gabriella has a voice of gold, but now also has an OnlyFans page and BPD.Sharpay is still the prissy girl, we love to hate, but now shes also a Soundcloud rapper with a xanny addiction.Chad is a star on the court, but weve updated the character by also making him a date rapist. Indeed the whole basketball team is.And Taylor is a real change up, Chonk tells The Rodent, in this series she wears a cool hat.Disney is conducting extensive focus groups to identify the hat shell wear.Key songs for the original will also be included, though updated to the reflect the shows new tone. They include Were All Collectively Responsible for Our Classmates Suicide Together; I Want It All (It being prescription opioids) and Getcha Head In My Asshole.Chonk clarified that the earlier announced reboot High School Musical But With Less Hot, Actually Teenage Actors, hadnt tested well with audiences. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There seems to be this pervasive misconception that once youre out, youre out, completely, ready to express your sexuality in every way, shape and form. However, as I quickly realised, this is far from the case. Whilst the mass Facebook post does some work for you, for most people, coming out is done repeatedly, on a case-by-case basis. Even once youve come to everyone, theres always the daunting task of figuring out when to come-out to new people you meet and befriend. Whilst some advocate for an ASAP approach, I personally cant seem to muster the will to do the same. I consider myself to be half-in the closet, half-out of the closet. Ive only come out to a handful of people within my life, ten, fifteen at most, plus some random people who have been at the right place at the right time and have managed to put two-and-two together. Luckily, Ive been blessed with amazing friends from this university whove not only helped me come out but also shown great compassion and love in helping me figure out my sexuality. From those who provided direct guidance, to those who were offered silent, but valued support, Im forever grateful.Id recommend to anyone questioning their sexuality to find an LGBTQ+ person to converse with about their thoughts. I dont think I wouldve ever come out if it werent for my wonderful LGBTQ+ friends, who showed me the normalcy of it all. I didnt grow up with any LGBTQ+ people within my life, but thanks to my friends, I got to see that LGBTQ+ people are just that, people, who can and deserve to live normal, happy and productive lives. I first came out to them, not in some big grand confession, but in a subtle questioning. On some fateful day in August, I asked one of my friends, Thomas*, when he first started to question his sexuality. With that question uttered, there was no turning back, and I finally began to open the door of the closet. From there, I told the rest of my friends, who, as anticipated, accepted with gracious and wide-open arms, as loving friends always should.After telling my main group of friends, I decided to tell my friends from my Mandarin class. With them, it was a bit different, as I didnt really know what to expect. I wasnt anticipating homophobia, but at the same time, I had no definitive answer as to whether telling them would be a good idea. But I decided to take a leap of faith. Telling my first friend from the group, Hunter*, has proven itself to be the most nerve-racking event of my life. Out near the stairs of Town Hall, at about 7:00PM on a Friday night, getting ready to go out in the city. Hunter had arrived first, and I second, and so we began to discuss the recently finished exams. When the conversation got to a point where I could segue my coming-out into the conversation, I took my chance, and then blurted it out. In my overwhelming nerves, however, I couldnt say it in English, and so, with some crude Mandarin, I came out to him, W b xhun nrn, w xhun nnrn. Ive only recently realised how great his reaction. Not disgust or horror, thankfully, and not overwhelming joy or support. But indifference, an accepting indifference. He didnt make a big fuss either way but accepted it and was okay with it. He realised the reality of the situation before I did. I was gay, yes, but that didnt change the fact that I was still me, with all my flaws and all my perfections. All that was different was that I liked people of the same sex. That didnt mean everything about me had changed, or that I was now some completely different person. I was, and I am still me. So, thank you, Hunter. Im forever grateful for that. In truth, I consider it to be my first coming out, more so than telling Thomas. Because it showed me that everything was going to be okay and that I would be normal at the end of it all.However, other than my friends from university, my coming-out has been quite limited. In fact, Ive only ever told people Ive known since going university, and as such the people who dominated the first nineteen years of my life have utterly no idea of my sexuality. In particular, my parents have no knowledge of my sexuality. My parents are the stereotype conservative Catholic: Mass every Sunday, prayers recited every day, rosary beads always in the pocket, conservative beliefs about everything from abortion to euthanasia. But with sexuality, its a bit more confusing. They love Will and Grace and my dad encouraged me to go to Mardi Gras, but they voted No and my father scoffs at the idea of drag queens.This constant confusion as to their true feelings on the matter has left me utterly scared and unwilling to come out to them. At best, it will be a reluctant acceptance, at worst, a disownment. My fears, of course, lie within the latter. Not only for the social and mental trauma this would cause, but also the financial stress this would have on me. Unlike with my friends, who I could easily live without if they werent accepting of it, I certainly cannot live without my parents, financially and emotionally. So, for now, I remain in the closet to them. Maybe in four years, when I graduate and (hopefully) find a full-time job, Ill consider coming out to them. But even then, I wouldve only have solved my financial problems. For the social and mental trauma, Ill need to find a way to deal with it. Luckily, I think Ive got some amazing people to help deal with that when the time comes. But for now, Im half-in, half-out.*Names changed for anonymity <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theology, broadly speaking, can be described as the study of the divine. In that sense, it can include both the philosophy of religion and studies of religion. However, more commonly, it involves the study of religious texts and their history. In particular, systematic theology aims to present the beliefs or doctrines of a religion in a coherent and rational account. However, systematic theology is not without its criticisms. To some, it is questionable whether it is possible to adequately describe a conception of divinity, especially when there are many different religions and the possibility of no such thing as a God.Theology, especially of the evangelical variety, tends to be obsessed with finding the right answers to questions about God. With this, it seeks ways of gaining clarity of belief. This at times leads to the idolisation of religious texts such as the Bible in the sense that they become the be-all and end-all of religion. However, this is not necessarily an appropriate way to think about God for example, as John Macquarie describes in Principles of Christian Theology, the Bible not only diverges on trivial details but on questions of ethics and theology, like the issue of marriage and sex. Macquarie explains that critical research has shown that traditional ascriptions of the authorship and dates of many of the Bibles books are in fact doubtful or false.As Peter Cameron mentions in Fundamentalism and Freedom, referencing a television series Jesus: The Evidence, some of the more common conclusions that biblical scholarship has reached include that the gospels were not the disciples eyewitness accounts, Jesus did not say some of the things that he is quoted to have said, and that the gospel of John is not as much a historical account but rather a theological construction by whoever wrote it and their community.Despite this, even religious liberals can accept ideas such as the virgin birth, resurrection and the holy trinity without question. This is regardless of the evidence to the contrary. Take the gospel of Mark as an example: according to Delbert Burkett in An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity, Mark does not present a virgin birth, nor does he describe Jesus as God or a preexistent divine being.My point is not that you necessarily need to reject those beliefs, but that these beliefs, should not be held with absolute certainty. Instead of trying to define fundamental beliefs, we should queer theology by taking a leap of faith and allowing for uncertainty. This, in turn, relates to queerness.Being queer involves uncertainty. From the moment someone realises theyre queer, their whole world can get turned upside down. Any heteronormative world view is destroyed and there comes a period of unlearning. For me, it may be a question of how I can relate to a society that generally assumes straightness. For many, it is a question of how they can remain in their faith communities whilst acknowledging their queer identity. Being queer means you forge your own path.In that sense, should the aim of theology be about finding absolute truth, or should it be a journey of faith and uncertainty, a journey where the end is never quite known? As Cameron mentions in Fundamentalism and Freedom, The Bible consists of a collection of maps of other journeys by other peoplealways interesting and sometimes inspiring. But to prescribe it as the map which everyone must use would be disastrous: none of us would ever get anywhere. I, for one, will never really know what the future will hold. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As I stroll down Eastern Avenue clutching a pride week themed coffee cup in my hand on the way to class, I cannot help but remain critical of pride campaigns that exist purely for some perverted notion of equality clout. Since the marriage equality plebiscite, its been a race, one of which corporation can show how accommodating and chill they are with the LGBT+ community, while doing little to nothing for the community and the University of Sydney Union is no exception.It seemed Pride Week was rather one large advertisement for USUEats, which was supposedly meant to have me embracing the rainbow with a special pride edition of the USU food truck, where I could purchase 3 rainbow ice cream mocha pieces for $7.50 a bargain Im sure. Or perhaps on the Wednesday, I could have otherwise emptied my wallet with the Pride Themed Monthly Markets, and bought myself a limited edition, pride themed, frank green keep-cup. Or if I was really feeling quite lavish this Pride Week, I had the option to attend the annual Glitter Gala, at $45-65 per ticket depending on your ACCESS membership status. It is almost unarguable that the USU seeks to turn Pride Week into a moneymaking venture, reportedly not liaising with the universities Queer Action Collective, but rather just giving them the crumbs to conduct a chalking on Eastern Avenue.I can sympathise with new LGBT+ students who would feel a huge sense of comfort seeing rainbow colours spread across campus. I can only reminisce how it influenced me, first attending a campus seemingly so open to celebrating queer pride. Yet beneath the cosy, warm feeling that rainbow flags might leave in your tummy lies a far more sinister scheme.Pride events like this intentionally ignore the fact that queer youth are twice as likely to experience homelessness; three times more likely to experience depression, half of all transgender Australians have attempted suicide; the list of real issues that demand discussion and address. But you dont hear about this during Pride Week. You only hear about the rainbow ice cream mocha pieces and pride-themed coffee cups.It really is quite a shame. 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, and with marriage equality passed, now is the time to start the conversation on transgender rights. Weeks out from a federal election, we should be diverting our money, energy and resources into the Safe Schools program, and removing religious exceptions for discrimination. But, as long as USU board members continue to move further towards the right, any future Pride Week will forever turn away from the real issues that need addressing and towards the pretty and chromatic food you can consume to forget your problems. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If you identify as LGBTIQ+ there is no excuse but to also be anti-capitalist. Capitalism has not only created the oppression of LGBTIQ+ people, but it also continuously seeks to undermine wins for equality and acceptance. It is only through struggle that queer people have won rights, and it is only through smashing capitalism that all queer people around the globe will be liberated.But, lets take a step back and look at the origins of LGBTIQ+ oppression:The oppression of queer people can be clearly linked to the rise of capitalism. Never before, either in pre-class societies or in feudalism, has deviancy from heterosexuality and cisgenderism been so vilified, outlawed and demonised. In fact, the label homosexuality didnt even exist before the 19th century. Of course, there were other words used to imply same sex attraction before this, but the idea that it was unnatural or a sickness only came about in the late 1800s during the Industrial Revolution.The vilification of LGBTIQ+ people was created in order to form and naturalise the nuclear family. You see, during the Industrial Revolution the capitalists had a problem. They found that if you make children work fourteen hour days and you dont give them very much to eat, they will probably die. The solution to this problem was the nuclear family. A unit of people who feel responsible for one another and who will not only clothe, feed, and school children, but have more children (and thus some more relatively healthy workers for the capitalist). To do this, they not only gave out minimal benefits for those who did live together as family units, but they demonised those who did not conform to the nuclear family model.As Mary McIntosh wrote in 1968: In the first place, it helps to provide a clear-cut, publicised and recognisable threshold between permissible and impermissible behaviour Second, the labelling serves to segregate the deviant from others The creation of a specialised, despised and punished role of homosexual keeps the bulk of society pure in rather the same way that the similar treatment of some kinds of criminals helps keep the rest of society law-abiding. The family and its role in sexual conformity has always been present in class societies, but the modern form of the family and its particular demonisation of LGBTIQ+ people today can be directly linked to the rise of capitalism.To show just how different the modern oppression of LGBTIQ+ people is, we can look at the various ways in which sexuality and gender were conceptualized in pre-class and feudal societies. In egalitarian societies with no class divisions and very fluid forms of marriage and parenting, same-sex attraction and gender fluidity have been recorded. For example, some First Nations people of North America have been found to have had an arrangement whereby a young man or woman who showed a preference for the tasks of the opposite sex, could, with the approval of the elders, be initiated into that gender role. They could assume all the tasks of that sex and take a husband or wife in that role, without social disapproval.Even in feudal society this can be seen. In Japan, during the feudal period from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, sexual relations between male samurai warriors were part of the chivalric code of bushido. In other ancient societies like Ancient Greece and Egypt the whole conception of sexuality was different to today. In these societies the division of sexuality was based on the passive and active roles with no conception of homosexuality or heterosexuality. Even during the early years of Christian hegemony, sinful indulgence was condemned without targeting a particular type of sexual orientation. It was all sexuality, that was not for procreation, that was condemned and seen as wayward. In fact the word sodomy was used to describe a variety of sexual sins including incest, promiscuity, adultery, and sex with nuns. It was not deemed inherently sinful until the rise of capitalism in the late 18th century.So we see, that if youre queer you should be anticapitalist because our oppression as it exists today is intrinsically linked to the rise of capitalism.You should also be anti capitalist because its only through struggling against the system that queer people have gained some semblance of visibility, acceptance and equality. In fact, when the family unit was being created in the 19th century the OG Socialists (the Utopian Socialists) were some of the first critiques of the family. Followers of Saint-Simonianism (a strand of Utopian Socialism) believed in a future where women would be equal to men and there would be free Love. Others like Charles Fourier, envisioned a socialist future where large, communal phalansteries would replace individual family units. Famously, Marx and Engels, proclaimed their belief in the abolition of the family as part and parcel of a socialist revolution.More recently, it has only been through radical struggle that LGBTIQ+ activists have won civil rights. Famously, the Stonewall Riots, inspired by the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, sparked the fight for equality and acceptance. The fight for marriage equality in Australia was only won through mass protests, widespread public pressure and the dedication of activists who organised for over a decade.While we have come far since the executions of deviants in the late 1800s, there is still so much to win. Capitalism is still alive and kicking and as it depends upon the family unit which is the basis for homophobia and transphobia these oppressions also still exist. We can all remember the outrage from the government and media when the LGBTIQ+ anti-bullying program Safe Schools was released, and then promptly defunded, as well as Mark Lathams transphobic assertion that trans people shouldnt be allowed to self-identity. Beyond Australia, LGBTIQ+ people are also vilified. In many countries being queer is still illegal, while the rise of the far right worldwide has made targeting LGBTIQ+ commonplace. In France last year, homophobic attacks increased by 15%.I think this shows, that while queer people can win significant rights through struggle in capitalism, not everyone will win liberation until capitalism has been smashed. Its so important to see that LGBTIQ+ oppression has not originated from ordinary humans, or fear of the other, in fact it has always been part of human communities for millenia. It is only due to the divide and rule nature of capitalism that it has been systematically branded as unnatural and deviant, in order to create a nuclear normal family. Its only through struggle that we have won rights, and only through struggle and a revolution, that all queer people can be liberated. It is these reasons that make it absolutely imperative to be anti-capitalist if youre queer. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The future looks bleak to me. Fascists on one side, spouting vitriolic and hateful rhetoric about me and mine, about queers and immigrants, about Jews and Muslims, about women existing and anything else they happen to take issue with.On the other, were faced with liberals. Small l, that is, the adherents of the ideology of liberalism. While Im not quite comfortable with endorsing a Social Fascism style view of liberalism, I do believe that liberals will choose their own comfort over change, and choose fascism over an alternative that threatens capitalist property relations.Perhaps, in another era, this would not be of such great concern. We could work at slowly reforming the system, at making incremental gains decade by decade. Sure, countless millions would die before their circumstances could be improved, but thats a small price to pay for stability in manys eyes.It will not, however, suffice. It will not suffice because it is immoral, and unprincipled, and it will not suffice because we are staring down a climate apocalypse.We are facing down a challenge that will require human co-operation on a global scale beyond any project ever attempted before. We have but a decade until the damage spreads far beyond our ability to curtail it, if that long. Thats not for a perfect world, but merely a habitable one.This, unfortunately, is the situation we are in. The political challenge is greater than ever.Some may be questioning how this relates to queerness. Well, firstly, as Im fond of saying, I and every other queer person I know lives on Earth. Ive looked into alternatives, but the atmosphere just doesnt suit me.Secondly, it is plain to see in the words of reactionaries how we fit into their world. Degenerates and aberrations, at best considered mentally ill with the disease of postmodern Marxism and at worst intentional deviants set on destroying everything they value: whiteness, strict gender roles, patriarchal heterosexuality and class itself.Theyre mostly right about my intentions, but thats because those changes are necessary if we want a better world.Radical negativity accepts that there is conflict in the world. Forces, and the people shaped by those forces, are set against each other, and the liberal delusion that we need only discuss matters enough to discover the root of our problems does naught but aid the right.Its darker, scarier world if we accept that conflict is necessary, even an essential part of politics. It brings into question much of how were told to be good people by compromising, by de-escalating, by seeking accord.Regrettably, however, I think many will understand the impossibility of some compromises. I will not waver on my right to be considered a full human being, equal to any other. Furthermore, I will not waver on demanding the same rights and respect for my friends and comrades, regardless of exactly why theyve been marginalised by our society.Im not going to tell people how they can make radical change happen. There are dozens of groups active in Sydney alone around myriad issues, with differing strategies and methods all being employed. I merely want to take this opportunity to say that youll know youre somewhere where you can do good when theyre not trying to appease our enemies.Because in the seemingly miserable fog that a belief in the inevitability of conflict brings, there is a beacon shining through.A light of hope and promise, that we can have a better world, a more free world. Some people will have to give up some, and its only achievable if we recognise that, but it can be done. We can succeed, and we can get through this. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My mum is studying a linguistics degree. It has its hazards: the occasional text about labiodental fricative fs; borderline-unreasonably long chats about vernacular Englishes. But one of Mums grammar-related fun facts left me really concerned. Theres no such thing as future tense in the English language. No such thing as the future tense? I was confused. Thirteen years of schooling and a bit of university, and Id existed the whole time thinking I will was future tense. In fact, I imagine myself to be quite good at grammar, with a firm grasp on semi-colon usage, and what a copula is. Nonetheless, I had simply never learned that no verb inflections exist for the future tense in English. Rather, our expression of the future is based on mood and aspect, which implies a future without modifying the tense of verbs.I think this is telling. Many amateur grammar snobs pedantically look down on colloquialisms, vernaculars, and various linguistic innovations on the basis that theyre not proper grammar. But Im unsure how many cranky grammar aficionados know that much about language at all.Grammar snobs are more than an annoyance. Id argue they take an entirely incorrect approach to English. At a point, linguistic prescriptivism becomes outdated, limiting rather than defending the integrity and beauty of a language. Prescriptivists who gleefully tell us that were using language wrong, saying words that everyone knows how to use dont really mean what we think they do, telling us language is a logical system we are spoiling, espousing non-existent grammar rules like never putting a preposition at the end of a sentence. Sometimes grammar rules make sense, and help make English clearer but too often theyre used to construct superiority around particular ways of speaking and writing.Geoffrey Pullums paper African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not Standard English with mistakes describes the media outrage that followed a Californian school boards decision to encorporate AAVE into their teaching. The school recognised that AAVE was largely the language spoken at home by their students, thus adjusting their teaching to appropriately cater to that reality. The press was horrified, falsely suggesting schools would start teaching their students slang or incorrect English. Pullum points out that this reaction is grounded in the view that AAVE, a dialect of English created by Black people in the US, is a bastardisation of Standard English. The reaction was misguided: AAVE has its own set of distinct, regular rules and uses language in consistent ways. Pullum claims: there is no more reason for calling [AAVE] bad Standard English than for dismissing Minnesota English as bad Virginia speech.The prescriptivist hostility towards Black linguistic innovation is a good case study of the arrogant and discriminatory ways in which grammar rules are applied. They are typically used to condescend the slang, vernacular Englishes, and modes of speaking of the working class and racialised minorities. Not speaking properly is weaponised to imply people are uneducated, unintelligent and less worthy of being listened to. In Australia, Aboriginal English is a dialect of English with its own lexicon and grammatical differences to standard Australian English. Rather than viewing it as wrong, we should view it as an intelligent and valuable adaptation to an imposed colonial language. Classism also creates unfavourable judgements of language snobbish distaste for the perfectly reasonable and quite useful youse means that working class Australians who created an efficient second person plural are deemed to be speaking improperly. Linguistic prescriptivists also pick on young women, nurturing an unhealthily fervent hate for like as a filler word and an unreasonable disgust for low modality word choices. If youre a linguistic prescriptivist with a proud love of pedantry, a sense of superiority from knowing what a participle is, and a desire to lecture people on semi-colon usage, its worth some reflection. Are your criticisms grounded in a desire to make peoples speech and writing less ambiguous and easier to understand? Or are they about narrowly and restrictively defining what correct English is, regardless of the fluency of communication? Are your critiques based on real grammatical rules which evolve with the development of language, or are your rules the stuff of rigid style guides and handbooks of centuries past? Importantly, do your grammar rules make English more accessible, or are they used to construct good and bad English along prejudiced lines? And pertinently if, like me, you didnt understand tense until age 18 how well do you understand the language you want to make rules about? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Climate change rhetoric tends to revolve around carbon emissions. We associate climate change with atmospheric carbon levels, excluding broader ecological destruction. In a consumption-fuelled market society, resulting mass waste causes forest and marine habitat destruction. Yet, where politicians escape accountability when they classify climate change as a problem that should be traded off against economic prosperity. The historical politicisation of climate change must be confronted in order to reach the radical solutions needed to save our environment.In 2011, Julia Gillards government introduced the Clean Energy Act, aiming to set business emission trading targets, backed by tax incentives. The market was tasked with reducing pollution levels. After three years, there would be a fixed carbon price to further reduce carbon emissions. Tony Abbott famously repealed the carbon tax in 2014. The Abbott Governments response to the climate problem was made clear early. Abbott was effective as opposition leader because he divided the publics understanding of climate change. In a 2013 Insiders interview, Abbott explained that climate change should not be considered independently of market behaviour: The important thing is to take strong and effective action to tackle climate change, action that doesnt damage our economy.This was a crucial juncture in recent political history two key, inter-connected responses followed. First, Abbotts rhetoric scared the Labor Party while deepening an ideological divide in the Liberal Party. Second, Abbott, popularised a greater concern; namely, how to simultaneously appease the state, the market, the public, and the climate. From thereon in, climate change became politicised; a phenomena characterised to be either threatening the current economy, or that future generations had a stake in fighting. As an opposition leader, Abbott was fiercely conservative nothing changed when he became Prime Minister in the 2013 election. The Labor government, that had torn itself apart through leadership spills, stood little chance at that election. Abbotts fear-mongering rhetoric around policies designed to take action on climate change policy was enough to frighten the Labor party to near incapacitation. Rhetoric and anticipation within the Australian public grew when Malcolm Turnbull assumed the office of Prime Minister, proving himself more popular than Abbott in 2015. Turnbull had been an outspoken voice within the Liberal Party when opposition leader in 2009, claiming climate change was an unignorable problem. Yet, when it came to climate action, Turnbull was virtually silent. All the while, Abbott lurked on the back bench, taking swipes at Turnbull, before calling for Australia to pull out of its 2016 Paris Climate agreement targets. It is tactical for conservative politicians of Abbotts ilk to deprioritise impending climate destruction, enabling them to focus on more winnable battlegrounds.Australia under the Coalition Government has committed to the Paris Climate Agreement. This means that we will reduce carbon emission by 26-28%, on 2005 levels, by 2030. The Labor Party have claimed that, if elected, they will commit to a 45% reduction on 2005 levels by 2030. Australia must stand in contrast to Sweden, where the government has committed to complete carbon neutrality by 2045.Yet, Australian and international governments alike are ignoring a point that Abbott made in 2013, that being, environmental policy supposedly cannot come at the expense of the economy. We live in a market society. We rely on the market society our social structure to live the lives we lead. We pay for water, buy food and rent shelter. But, we also have the choice to consume non-essential items within a market society. We buy coffee to stay alert and clothes to stay fashionable, we attend events to stay social, all the while we pay for goods and services. We inject money into the economy and create demand a greater variety of goods and services until we arrive in the present. So much of our consumption is unavoidable and yet contributes immensely to environmental degradation. We look around and see litter, but not very much. In fact, capital-rich market societies tend to be very effective at removing the vast amounts of waste it generates. Our waste disappears quickly and we generally like that.However, a major problem arises, what in fact does happen to our waste? It is buried, sent overseas, sent into the ocean and burnt. This is the real impact of climate change and its cause is precisely the creation of so many varieties of goods and services to consume within the market. Even the individual solutions sold to us, like keep cups, use similar market incentives. The desire to consume and the subsequent waste that this process incurs is at the core of climate change. If we desire real, lasting and effective action on climate change, we must be willing to question whether a global market society is the most efficient and sustainable way of allocating resources and shape policy solutions to new ends. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the tropical paradise of Acapulco, Mexico, far away from any of the grand slam tennis tournaments, Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios is battling away against all-time great Rafael Nadal. Battling is possibly not the right word for a performance such as this. The first set has been taken by the Spaniard and Kyrgios is about to throw in the towel, citing sickness. Australia groans collectively.Yet, from the depths of defeat, the Australian manages to turn the tables to beat the reigning French Open champion before beating two more top 10 players and a former grand slam champion to win the tournament. Thrown into the mix is some swearing at fans, racquet smashing and an underhand serve. Nonetheless, one would expect that, having won the biggest title of his career, Kyrgios would be met with applause in Australia.Channel 10 didnt think so. Their headline read: Nick Kyrgios just won his first professional tennis tournament in 14 months. So why does he look so unhappy? This poses the question: where does Nick Kyrgios fit in to contemporary Australian discourse? The answer is complicated, but he certainly is the anti-hero we need in Australian media.There is no doubt that Nick Kyrgios has done some things that have warranted stern criticism. He has deliberately tanked on some of the biggest stages all around the world, he has sworn at umpires, he has smashed racquets and he has made misogynistic remarks about a competitors partner. A lot of these things are indefensible and should not be excused.Outside these circumstances however, the media often fails to properly reflect on Kyrgios age and inexperience when it comes to his inability to craft a flawless public image. He is still only 23 years old barely older than most undergrad students.We are so used to the sterilised and carefully curated image of the ideal tennis player players like Federer and Nadal know exactly what to say and how to say it to the media, and who have PR machines as well as endless experience to back this up. But we should note that this is not the norm. These players are extraordinary, and we should congratulate them for that, but they are also of a slightly different generation. Kyrgios is not a hero like them in the conventional sense, but rather an anti-hero in the sense that he embodies a lot of the feelings that young people do feel and the way we react to things. On a fundamental level, he is one of us and we should celebrate that. He is of us.The idea of an anti-hero is an interesting one. In a PhD dissertation, by Leslie Erickson, she explains that anti-heroes are those who possess their own moral compass, constru[ing] their own values as opposed to those recognised by society. Kyrgios clearly does not conform to the values traditionally recognised by the tennis world. Yet, he does have a clear moral compass himself and a strong set of personal values.In 2015, he established the NK Foundation where he helps disadvantaged children through sport. After every match win, instead of a gloating post on social media like a lot of players, he simply posts a link to his foundation website. Around tournaments, and in his hometown of Canberra, he is constantly hitting the practice courts with young children, giving them a day they will never forget. This kind of dedication is rarely seen from any famous tennis player. For someone receiving the amount of attention that Kyrgios does, to have such a strong altruistic side at a relatively young age is nothing but commendable.He also generally offers some form of congratulations to players after a good shot and is normally very respectful when giving credit to opponents after a loss. This cannot be said for all players (even those at the very top of the game such as 3 time grand slam champion Angelique Kerber last week described her victorious opponent the biggest drama queen ever at the handshake). Whatever your opinions of Kyrgios, this is worth recognising.Now, why is Kyrgios so important to contemporary Australian discourse? There are a few reasons for this.The young star has been very open about his struggles with mental health. After his win in Acapulco, Kyrgios offered reassurance to others sharing the same burden.Its hopefully an example for people who are struggling and getting in some places you dont think you can get out of. If I can do it, you can do it, he said.This statement combined with his frequent posts on social media about depressive illnesses and anxiety have opened up a dialogue about mental health. Kyrgios has often been stigmatised in the media for factors that could becontributed to mental health issues and an open dialogue and public self-acceptance of his struggles could well be a defining factor for fellow young adults to open up about these extremely important issues.It is also important to note that the media has often resorted to othering the Australian tennis star. Commentators often propagate an us vs him dichotomy in regard to Kyrgios, which can make it difficult to identify with him. Kyrgios has described his passion for representing Australia on many occasions, yet still frequently shares unfathomably racist messages that he receives on social media. He is providing further example to children who embody multicultural Australia, that it is possible to follow your dreams, even in spite of being othered in various ways. It is a very powerful message to send to any increasingly multicultural population and once again, typifies what it is to be an anti-hero.Underlining all this is the simple fact that Nick Kyrgios brings attention to the game of tennis. Whatever he does invokes a strong and varied opinion from an equally varied audience. He plays to packed stadiums all around the world. He has a huge social media following and appeals to younger generations globally who revere his bad-boy attitude. He has collaborated with NBA star Kyrie Irving on a tennis show for the Australian Open, opening up the game of tennis to a whole new fanbase. His ridiculous tweener shots make the headlines everywhere. Kyrgios has given rise to a renewed interest amongst our generation in a sport which has a median viewer age of 61.Yet, for all the positives that Nick Kyrgios brings to the table, there is always someone ready to have a go at him. Its time that we stop unfairly vilifying Nick Kyrgios and we accept him as the anti-hero that contemporary Australian discourse needs. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ill do the PowerPoint presentation for the group assignment because Im a little OCD.My study notes are colour coded; Im so OCD.Youre going to write an article about OCD? I swear I have thatIm such a perfectionist.These sayings are a norm on campus. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has become interchangeable with perfectionism, attention to detail, and cleanliness. It manifests in the endearing quirk of eating MnMs in the colour order of the rainbow or wearing lucky socks before exams.But what about the constant rumination of repetitive, disturbing, intrusive thoughts? An irrational, yet tangible, fear of everyday objects and tasks? What about endless anxiety and attempting to seek reassurance from others that a perceived threat is not genuine? Engaging in compulsive behaviours to neutralise anxieties of future harm? Not so endearing anymore. These are the debilitating symptoms of OCD. Psychotherapist Jon Hershfield defines OCD as a disorder of internal discomfort which hijacks the brain and robs a person of their sense of control for more than an hour daily. Around 2% of the world population suffers from this chronic disorder, with OCD ranked as the tenth leading cause of disability by the World Health Organisation in 2018.A 2016 study by medical researchers at Stockholms Karolinska Institute revealed that OCD sufferers are ten times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. The number of OCD sufferers at USyd remains unclear. There is no available data on the number of students with specific mental health diagnoses.The reality of OCD as a mental illness remains far removed from the image promoted of it. OCD is not occasionally wondering whether the stove was left on. While some symptoms resemble the stereotypes associated with OCD, such as excessive hand-washing, the majority of stereotypes skew the reality of this debilitating mental illness.Portia Gooch, a third year Psychology student at USyd and diagnosed OCD survivor, illuminates the difference between stereotypes and reality when it comes to a friends desperate need to organise her desk in a specific order.For her, the idea of studying outside these specific conditions is unfortunate, at best, Portia says, but for an individual with OCD whose obsessions revolve around this need to make things right, this failure to perform their compulsions would result in excruciating anxiety that something terrible would happen as a result.It feels like your life is on the line every single day, and that much more is at stake than just the way youve organised your stationery.Labelling personality quirks as OCD perpetuates false stereotypes, belittling this mental illness. Thus, these comments misrepresent the dark, agonising, and debilitating monster of OCD as something positive everyone should strive for, and ultimately something to be proud of.But is this harmful? Does it really matter whether OCD is painted with blacks and blues or with pinks and yellows if people are still admiring the canvas? Although founded on erroneous assumptions, the minimisation of OCDs harms is far from detrimental, because the use of its stereotyped and mainstream meaning sparks conversations about this mental illness, raising awareness in the process.The real harm of such language is unfortunately obvious. Awareness and conversation which originate from misinformed stereotypes place the burden of emotional labour on survivors to correct such tropes.These comments distort OCD and disempower its survivors by making light of a mental illness. For students, downplaying OCDs effects is inherently harmful as it denies or at least deters OCD survivors from accessing USyds support services, including Disability Services and Counselling & Psychological Services (CAPS). The trivialisation of OCD makes sufferers hesitate and self-question their own condition, amplifying fears that their OCD will not be taken as seriously as other mental illnesses.This perception is echoed by Portia who only engaged with Disability Services in her third year.I always held a perception that the program wasnt designed for people like me, Portia says, as Im mostly high functioning and push myself even when Im not. However, as Portia discloses, this push yourself attitude has worsened my mental health long-term, revealing the necessity for these students to access these services and gain specialised support.For them to do so requires the support of those around them. This support is directly undermined by language which is dismissive, distracting and unhelpful.Since engaging with Disability Services, Portia has created an Academic Plan, allowing for increased flexibility in her studies. An OCD specialist at CAPS also helped guide her through treatment.The simplification of OCD distorts its true status as a mental illness, barring students from accessing support from family and peers when they need it.The ensuing silence contributes to stigmatisation, isolating survivors. Sufferers withhold their mental illness to avoid friends or family bringing preconceived notions of what OCD involves to the conversation, Portia says. As Portia recalls, her diagnosis of OCD was initially confusing for her family due to their lack of knowledge about what OCD actually entailed.I am messy, dont care that much for organisation, and didnt show any overt compulsions like handwashing or flipping light switches. It didnt make sense.Trivialisation reduces OCD to totalising stereotypes of perfectionism and cleanliness, preventing students from identifying lesser known forms of OCD, thereby delaying their diagnosis.Obsessions surrounding socially taboo themes, such as violence or sex often fly under the radar. For example, individuals that experience sexual obsessions often worry they are sexually perverted, rather than suffering from OCD, and are frightened to seek help according to Hershfields 2015 study.Due to the incongruity between widely-discussed symptoms of OCD and her individual experiences, Portia struggled to identify her symptoms as OCD.It wasnt until I scoured the internet for hours that I recognised that I didnt have to be clean or organised to have OCD.Trivialising OCD is an understandable mistake which arises from a deficit in understanding and a blurring of the line between a debilitating mental illness and personality quirks. Opening any dialogue around OCD and mental illness is a really positive step, Portia tells me. But if OCD is going to be discussed, it needs to be discussed properly.The utilisation of OCD as a badge of honour of cleanliness and organisation ought to cease. Comparisons between the experiences of perfectionism and the debilitating experiences of OCD survivors must be eradicated.Trivialisation needs to be called out for what it truly is: the source of much stigma and stereotype for OCD sufferers. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When St Andrews College emerged, John Dunmore Lang, a Scottish-Australian minister laid a curse on the College.Lang had a profound desire to become the Colleges first Principal. When he was unsuccessful, he showed up uninvited at the inauguration and sowed pandemonium and disorder. Lang went on to proclaim the College was, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, and certain to become a notorious failure!To conservatives, Langs curse may have been fulfilled after Dr Samuel Angus, a professor at the Colleges Theological Hall from 1915 to 1943, was accused of heresy, as was College Principal Dr Peter Cameron.In 1977, a majority of the Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) joined the Uniting Church of Australia, leaving behind a higher number of fundamentalists within the rank and file of the PCA. The fundamentalist wing soon reversed a previous decision to allow women to be ordained, appointed as ministers and priests through the conferral of holy orders. In September 1991, the General Assembly of the PCA put the reversal to a vote. By a 2-1 majority, the ordination of women was barred once again.At the time, Dr Cameron responded to the decision by preaching a sermon titled The Place of Women in the Church at St Andrews College in October 1991. In March 1992, Cameron presented the sermon to The Dorcas Society, a womens organisation, of Ashfield Presbyterian Church. In that sermon, Cameron criticised fundamentalist Christianity, supported the ordination of women and questioned fundamentalist interpretations of Pauls writings which fundamentalists asserted were divinely inspired and therefore infallible.But in fact Pauls letters indicate first that the early Christian establishment was very reluctant to grant him any authority at all His opponents dismissed him as a charlatan, Cameron said in the sermon.This sermon was the first step in the process of Camerons eventual conviction of heresy a year later in March 1993. His conviction was led by the Sydney Presbytery of the PCA. According to the Sydney Presbytery, Camerons statements at the Dorcas Service were declared inconsistent with the first chapter of Westminster Confession of Faith, and its idea of biblical infallibility, as well as being incompatible with their non-affirming view of the Bibles teaching on homosexuality.Yet, while Camerons views may be unremarkable today, the principles which brought on his conviction are still alive and well when critical faith clashes with the Church.For a start, the Westminster Confession of Faith is still used by the PCA today despite the fact that it remains decidedly anti-Catholic, calling the Pope the Antichrist in Chapter 25, which in effect rejects the entire Catholic faith as illegitimate.Like Camerons opponents in 1993, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney continues to promote self-centered views of Christianity.Last November, Reverend Andrew Sempell, Rector of St. James Church in King Street published a critique of the Anglican Diocese of Sydneys Property Use Policy. The original policy largely prohibited the expression of views contrary to those held by the Sydney Diocese and had several problems. First, it amounted to a limitation on freedom of speech, and, in turn, freedom of religion and its practice. The policy further risked fragmenting the Anglican Church of Australia by constructing specific claims on what Anglican doctrine is.An extremely unyielding and dogmatic form of Christianity permeates all of these cases. It is a form of Christianity which acts and sounds like it is the only real form of it. In relentless dogma, such a form of Christianity co-opts the whole faith, leaving it exclusive and insular. Accusing people who express disagreement as heretics or clamping down on dissent in churches is ultimately intolerant and uncritical.During the last preliminary stage before Camerons heresy trial, he wrote in Heretic Are my accusers really so arrogant and so conceited as to think that they have a monopoly of Christian truth and that they are in a position to dictate what people should think and what they should believe.Yet, in spite of all of this, Cameron fought against fundamentalism and against fundamentalists laying claims to owning Christianity.In Fundamentalism and Freedom, Cameron argued that people in fundamentalist churches are given a guarantee of salvation, safety from troubling thoughts, and contentment from being in a like-minded community based on the acceptance of a Christianity formed on obedience.However, as Cameron argues, having this security challenged is the last thing these people would want.Yet, is that how we should think of faith? Faith as obedience based on a set of rules claimed by churches who think they have reached true Christianity? Or should we take Dr Camerons example of a faith driven by freedom, even if that freedom involves unbearable pain and uncertainty?I, for one, would much rather take the latter. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While lifestyle blogs and marketing regimes have come to fill the consumer consciousness, minimalist movements have become the new trending fashion. The seemingly unstoppable rise of Marie Kondo has blasted minimalism into the Western cultural imaginary. Despite the multiplicity of these movements, minimalism and its aesthetics have been bound by a singular core principle: one of subtraction. Yet, as its path in modernity continues, the realisation dawns that nothing is sacred in the age of global capital.Subtraction, more familiarly understood in the West as reduction, fills the heart of minimalistic ideals and forms the reduction of excess or the unnecessary until only the essential elements remain. Within the sphere of Modernism, the seminal works of Truitt to Malevich to Pollock in the Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist movements, all make up the foundations of this principle. However, the philosophy of subtraction is deeply rooted in the traditions of East Asia, namely Zen Buddhism and Taoism prioritising self-cultivation over complex rituals.Minimalisms ascent was not free of political considerations. At a time when social movements like the Black Panther Party were heavily repressed, the US hoped to cultivate an image of openness in opposition to the supposed repressiveness of the socialist bloc. Covert CIA patronage for Abstraction in the 1960s helped popularise it on a global scale, highlighting the freedom of artists in the capitalist world when compared to the allegedly restrictive nature of Soviet socialist realism.The engagement of pioneers in the movement with Asian influences is well documented. But alongside Malevich, Pollock or Truitt, it is important to note the contributions of their contemporaries from the East-Asian diaspora. These include the revolutionary works of Toshiko Takaezu and Tadashi Sato. The work of Takaezu represents a genuine reinvention of East-Asian principles and a reconnection with cultural heritage: the forms of her pottery are fundamentally modernist, yet reminiscent of Zen traditions. Their works represent an important contribution to the style of Abstraction, where the autonomy of the artist or the art itself is prioritised above realism. Yet, these artists remain comparatively obscure, being largely sidelined due to the cultural dominance of their Western contemporaries.Despite their creative importance and culturally-ingrained roots, traditional sacrality and context are easily discarded in the neoliberal era. The eventual co-option of minimalist aesthetics by the neoliberal apparatus was more than just a singular act of cultural desecration. The striking simplicity of minimalism and its psychological imprint provided fruitful ground for competing firms to utilise in marketing their brands. Moreover, minimalism provided a convenient cultural backdrop for the notions of efficiency and eliminating unproductive excess that constitute the inherent logic of neoliberalism. The clean edges and sleek lettering of advertisements are now indelibly etched into the consumer consciousness. Without cultural context, minimalism becomes the deification of the excess that contemporary self-help blogs seek to criticize.It is precisely here, where aesthetic continuity exists, but contextual or cultural solidity remains in the void. A hollowed imitation of its forebearer, the traces of Minimalisms origins now reinforce orientalist tropes. It is here seen with the case of Japan. Its existence is not one of hapless victimization Japans agency is present on world markets and in cultural exchange. Instead, an idealized image and abstraction is reinforced by neoliberal minimalism, where Japanese culture is subjected to the Western gaze.Often articles from the likes of Insider fetishise Japans obsession with minimalism a fetishisation immanent in the Western obsession with Marie Kondo. Both are underpinned by an orientalist and one-dimensional view of Japans alleged cultural homogeneity, and its separation from the corporate (and only) minimalism. Japans history, however, proves far richer than the myth of singularity. Though it is true that Zen is quite thoroughly integrated in certain aspects of Japanese society, Japanese culture dates back thousands of years and minimalist art only serves as one of its facets. Comments that portray minimalist Japanese prefectural flags as reminiscent of corporate logos, rather than the opposite, ultimately obfuscate minimalisms cultural origins.As Japan is pinned as the uniquely, but also not quite true minimalist culture, China is nearly always juxtaposed as its polar opposite one where maximalism and the lust for the excess defines art. Investigating Chinese art and philosophy disproves such homogeneity, considering Zen (Chn), as well as Taoism both have their origins in Chinese history. One such example is that of the furniture of the Ming dynasty, emphasizing the accentuation of raw material form and simplicity.Global capitalisms desecration of culture is imposed upon racialised populations not just via ideals but also through material means. Chinas integration into the world market and its function as a repository of labour for manufacturing served to further the orientalist constructions of Chinas inherent maximalism. It is only now that artists are able to re-engage and reinvent traditional paradigms. We see the emergence of various architectural and design practices such as Neri&Hu, a Shanghai-based architectural practice dealing with traditional minimalist design elements in the contemporary era.They are one of many that demonstrate the efforts to functionally resist, at least temporarily, the cultural desecration and stagnation imposed by global capital. It is not a nostalgic cry for help when artists like Takaezu and Sato, nor Neri&Hu, create pieces reminiscent of a long-gone past. Instead, they yearn to find the new in the old, to illuminate our connections to the past rather than to resurrect the cold and lifeless. On the homepage of Neri&Hus website lies a simple quote from Antoine De Saint Exupry:We dont ask to be eternal beings, we only ask that things do not lose all their meaning. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> How does the relationship between gender and the body change as the individual loses bodily autonomy? Conceptions of gender are projected onto bodies according to socially constructed categories based on the sex binary. As feminist theories of gender have questioned and analysed this binary concept, bodies which do not align with this notion have attracted both recognition and contention.There exist many types of bodies that do not conform to the social structures which uphold socio-cultural discourses; bodies can also transition between different constructs of gender into a twilight zone outside of the traditional gender binary. This means that investigating the relationship between gender and different bodies requires an intersectional approach. For instance, the deteriorating or dying body rejects traditional notions of femininity and masculinity and takes on its own conception of humanity. As feminist scholarship deconstructs traditional assumptions about expression and the body, the idea arises that gender is merely a name we have given to something not entirely definable: as Jung and Franz say, it is a name based upon a system of beliefs but not on factual evidence.From birth, children are socialised based on their sex and taught to use their bodies in accordance with deeply ingrained social infrastructures. On a corporeal level, we can perhaps consider what some call feminine motility and masculine motility; however, how does the body become gendered once it loses its movement and function? If gender is created through the body, can a body retain gender as it passes between the stages of deterioration, dying and death, when it takes on different forms of movement (or lack of movement) and becomes immersed in a very unique mode of socialisation? In fact, the body becomes lost in a sea of ambiguity; its very existence signifies both life and death as indivisible, but the idea of death as being inherently chaotic implies a loss of control over the body, where it cannot continue to coherently perform gender without copying specific behaviours that suggest adherence to one gender or another.In social contexts the human body has been used as a conduit for various expressions of gender; it has acted as a symbol which doesnt have an inherent meaning but which has acquired meaning through communication and replication of social constructs. The body has been described as the ultimate vessel for expressing identity, demonstrating how it is gendered through interpretation, rather than by any inherent physical or biological characteristic. As gender is inextricably tied to the social, cultural and political milieu in which acts of performativity occur, the concept of gender itself begins to break down in contexts where regulatory ideals that categorise different types of gendered behavior are not strongly present.It has been proposed that since deliberate repetition of particular practices creates a space for certain conceptions of gender, then theoretically there should also exist a space where, by a different combination of actions, there could exist a different gender. Scholars argue that gender is always constructed through the body, but what is interesting is that there are situations where the body starts to become separated from the cognitive processes of the individual, and hence from gender as we know it, creating a new conception of how the body is conceived socially. The tension between this concept of gender identity is further magnified once the deteriorating body starts to betray the individual by preventing the performance of gender as the body and the individual start to disconnect.Our understanding of both disability and gender is derived from biological realities in a cultural system that requires ones command over their body. The deteriorating body becomes the Other, an alien entity that experiences unique modes of reception and oppression as compared with the abled female body. This relates to the perfectionistic purification of female bodily functions, where the body that loses control is seen as transgressing against itself and becoming a sinful thing, unable to be placed within the comfortable and accepted binary. The way gender is constructed to demand sanitisation of the female body and the idea that its deterioration challenges our concept of socially acceptable behavior is highly relevant to discussions of how women are not encouraged to develop bodily capacity, but instead are taught to actively hamper themselves in the pursuit of femininity. However, in death and dying the body can no longer repeat the actions that constitute femininity.The grotesqueness of the dying body creates a separation from traditional notions of gender, and hence feminist scholarship is necessary in reimagining this relationship once the boundaries of life and death start to become blurred. In the process of abjection, the individual expels part of their being by labelling it as the Other and creating a boundary between where the body ends and the Other begins. This process helps to create gender through performance, as different subjects abject different things, leading to the creation of the acts which both bring the gendered body into existence and govern it. In deterioration and dying this boundary becomes frayed and ambiguous, as the body itself becomes the Other, with its actions and motions shifting beyond the control of the individual.While in life the body is governed by imposed constraints along a gendered line, death is the limit of power, a final barrier which when crossed destroys these constraints and creates new conceptions of the body. When anlaysed through the lens of intersectional feminism, the way that gender is ascribed to a body becomes a complex dynamic between socially accepted ideals and the politics of the individuals location. A key aim of feminist scholarship, literature and activism, has been the liberation of the body from imposed socio-cultural constructions and constraints. Hence, reimagining gender and the body is crucial to empowerment and breaking down the social infrastructures that enable oppression and withhold privilege on the basis of the sex and gender binaries. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Regardless of the selective blindness of our history books, and the insistence of conservatives to the contrary, queers behaviour has been around pretty much since humans have. Despite what has been perceived as a huge increase in those identifying as part of the queer community in the last few decades, even a cursory review of history reveals that being gay, trans or non-binary is really nothing new. Of course, theres a few examples which are bandied about frequently, like the ancient Greeks with their catamites, but largely speaking, our history books fail us when it comes to depicting the queer communities and individuals who were very much a part of the past world, whether their communities were accepting of their lifestyles or not.This lack of representation can be attributed to many factors, including the incredibly Western-centric perspective of many standard history texts which often completely neglect or oversimplify any mention of non-Western culture and the queer identities which may exist within them, like the hijira of India or the maohi of Tahitian culture. Then, too, there is the issue of alternative perceptions of what constitutes being queer. Obviously, queer is a relatively new term, having gone from a neutral adjective to a derogatory slur to a term reclaimed with pride by many non-cis and non-hetero people in the course of about 150 years. Similarly, most of the terms that now comprise the LGBTQIA* community were either non-existent or had considerably different meanings and associations in the past. This means that its effectively impossible to categorise historical personalities within our own modern context we can only look at what the records tell us of their behaviour, and recognise elements that correspond with our own understanding of queers today. However, in the interests of queer recognition, allow me to call to your attention just a brief selection of historical accounts of queerness.Queerness in the European Mediaeval Period While records suggest that intersex people were often shunned and viewed as unnatural, their existence was certainly not denied. In fact, there appears to have been strict theological rules that forced intersex individuals to choose to live as either male or female, depending either on their own choice or a decision made for them at birth in this way, the Mediaeval period isnt so far from the modern attitude adopted by many parents of intersex children. The fact of their existence is supported by detailed explanations from theologians on the expected sexual intercourse of so-called hermaphrodites: the Church didnt seem to care which sex you identified with, as long as you strove to make babies with someone of the opposite sex.Homosexuality was definitely also recognised in this period, albeit mostly as an ungodly sin. Some scholars believe that marriage in the clergy was encouraged in the 11th and 12th centuries precisely because of the abundance of priests turning to sinful sodomy as a substitute for heterosexual relationships. Female same-sex love is not nearly so well documented as that of males, perhaps due to the mediaeval understanding of sex as purely the penetrative act. This has been suggested as the reason for which there are so few records of female-female sex one of the only examples comes from Katherina Hetzeldorfer in 1477, who was accused of using a [wooden] instrument in order tohave her manly way with another woman. However, there is also some evidence of lesbian-like relationships in this period, including that of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge, who were immortalised on a brass memorial which depicts both women facing each other in semi-profile, indicating a certain degree of intimacy even if the exact nature of their relationship remains unknown.Queen Christina of Sweden, who ruled from 1632 to 1654, is a well-known as a monarch who renounced gender norms. Not only did she frequently dress in mens clothes and adopt masculine mannerisms, Christina was noted as having masculine features and being unusually hairy. She was also suspected of having had a romantic relationship with at least one woman, Ebba Sparre, who she referred to as her bedfellow, and potentially others. While Christina herself wrote that she was neither Male nor Hermaphrodite, and historians have speculated that some of her physically masculine traits may have been caused by Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, other scholars believe that she may have been intersex or, perhaps, what we recognise today as a transman. In any case, it appears clear that she was, to some extent, a literal queer queen.Queerness in the Victorian EraThere are many reports of homosexuality and other forms of queerness from the 19th century. While there are some notable, oft-quoted examples of celebrities, like Oscar Wilde with his famous speech on The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, or the generally sexually wild Lord Byron, there was plenty of same-sex love happening a lot more quietly under the rule of a queen who famously declared that female sexual relationships were impossible. Poor Vicky clearly she didnt know about folks like Anne Lister, who was so busy sleeping with other women that she had to keep track of them with a diary written in secret code. When Anne tired of the playboy life, she settled down with wealthy heiress Ann Walker in what has largely been recognised as the first lesbian marriage in Britain. The two sapphic lovers also went to visit the widely-recognised Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who lived together as a couple. Though these ladies were known all over Britain for their unusual living situation and their choice to often wear masculine attire, it is not certain that the women were in a sexual relationship.In short, it is clear that there were people in the past living in a way which doesnt align with the straight cis-normativity that is so often considered the default of the human experience. However, from our modern context, it can be hard to determine whether an individual whose actions appear to fit a queer narrative was acting this way as part of a larger tradition of queer culture, or if their personal identity was a more revolutionary refusal to accept societal norms. The limited collection of queer history Ive described today is only the tip of the iceberg: if youre interested in history, there is so much more to be found, from transgender people in 18th century Europe to the gay pornography produced during the Tang Dynasty in China. Queerness is a part of our collective history even if the straight white cis men who write our history books and make our period dramas havent bothered to include it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Diaries and unit histories shine a light for the intrepid historian on a dark part of Anzac history.On the afternoon of Good Friday, 1915, roughly 3,000 Anzac troops looted and burned brothels and shops in Cairos red-light district, the Wasser, smashing windows and throwing debris onto bonfires in the street. The Australians and New Zealanders roughly handled the fire brigade (war correspondent Charles Beans own words) and threw objects at the mounted military police, who attempted to disperse the mob. The military police fired on the crowd, injuring several. According to one account, Anzacs, wildly driving a motor vehicle, ran over and killed a local child. Order was eventually restored in the early hours of the next morning. Bean discounted the significance of the riots in The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918: They were not heroic, but they also differed very little from what at Oxford and Cambridge and in Australian universities is known as a rag. In the next sentence, he contended that the subsequent good behaviour of Australians servicemen, who did not partake in a street riot in Cairo in February 1919, overshadowed any previous mischief. Looking beyond this official discourse, however, relationships with sex workers, violence towards locals, verbal abuse and rioting were key ways in which Australians soldiers engaged with the Egyptian landscape and its people during their training.Beans history was a government-commissioned project central to the creation of the modern Anzac myth. In the Official History, Bean relegated his commentary on the Battle of the Wasser and the subsequent Second Battle of the Wasser (31 July 1915) also involving almost exclusively Anzac soldiers to an extensive footnote that takes up more than half a page. This rare, incongruous foray into footnoting surely reflects Beans struggle to situate the riots within a predetermined storyline, and thus why many today are unaware of this dark element of their national history.The vast majority of Anzac troops revelled in the destruction they caused in Cairo. Lance Corporal Eric Ward described the riot in his diary as the greatest bit of fun since we have been in Egypt. In his memoir, Over There with the Australians, Captain Knyvett wrote: I doubt if any one [sic] who took part in the battle of the Wasir, except maybe the military police, are ashamed of what they did the burning of those pest-houses must have risen like incense to heavenTwo artefacts suggest that Anzac troops openly maybe even proudly discussed their destruction of the Wasser. A Greek counterfeiter manufactured a medallion in the first Wasser riots aftermath. One side read The Battle of the Wassaa. The other read I was there. The Australian War Memorial possesses a fascinating object collected in February 1919 from a Gallipoli trench by the Australian Historical Mission. It is a dug out sign with The Wozzer inscribed on it, presumably manufactured by Anzac troops. (Soldiers in all theatres during the Great War used nomenclature to humanise the nightmare landscape.) The Wasser was clearly iconic in the folklore of the 1st AIF.Improvised trench sign from Rhododendron Ridge (Gallipoli). Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.Like the Official History, Peter Weirs Gallipoli and Charles Chauvels Forty Thousand Horseman, unit histories tend to frame training in Egypt as a jovial period prior to the commencement of more serious fighting and true hardship. Battalion histories, published in limited numbers soon after the war for the battalions members, conform to two distinctive moulds. Either the authors relied heavily on the adjutants unit diary, which usually made a dry, objective account of the battalions past, or they drew from wider contemporary writing and the personal papers of troops. The latter methodology nurtured a more personalised, humorous and anecdotal account.In diaries, memoirs and battalion histories, where the authors discuss training in Egypt, the Gyppo looms large as a conniving but easily subdued figure, almost as a court jester. Euphemisms high spirits and humour bathe their pages in sanitary liquid. As Captain Hector Dinning of the Australian Light Horse quipped in his memoir, Nile to Aleppo: it is the combination of the soldier and the Gyppo that has produced most of the Caironese humour we love. And it is the humour of the place we shall remember longest not its monuments.In Australian eyes, the Gyppo was an obsequious mimic attempting to extort tourists by replicating their habits and slang. In Australian eyes, cultural difference was both a cause of suspicion and a necessary condition of imperialism that had to be maintained. In the colonial encounter between the Egyptian and the Anzac, mimicry therefore developed an ambiguous power. To counter this threat, Australians employed farce in their writing. These writers gave readers little scope to envision an honest, transformative zone of cross-cultural contact, devoid of scheming ulterior motives.Besides literary subjugation and condescension, Australian soldiers also took a hands-on approach to asserting their racial hegemony in Egypt. Far from adopting the respectful distance of British (and arguably Kiwi) troops, Australians engaged the local populace in a uniquely Australian way. They relied on hyper-masculine displays of intimidation and physical coercion. A seemingly innocuous prize fight between a member of the 2nd battalion of the AIF and a local Egyptian won by the Australian warranted mention in the battalions unit history precisely because it proved the superiority of Australian masculinity.Captain Kynvett boasted in his memoir: There was a good deal of Irish blood among us so there was some good old ding-dong scraps. Of course the Gyppo is no fighter, but he can stand behind and throw stones and cant resist plunging the knife into an inviting back I saw a pretty ugly-looking crowd dispersed with a characteristic Australian weapon when two Australian bushmen began plying stockwhips, those niggers made themselves scarcer than mice on the smell of a cat. Anzacs were comparatively well-behaved in Europe. As historian Richard White explains: In Egypt they themselves had represented civilisation because they were white. Here [Europe] they were insignificant. They behaved themselves because they were thankful and over-awed, because civilised behaviour was appropriate to Europe in their scheme of things, and because Europes respect was important to them.Scholars seem to have overlooked the racial and gender dynamics embedded in the unrest on Good Friday, 1915. Kevin Fewster, for instance, one of the few historians to focus attention on Anzac riots in Egypt during the Great War, views the Wasser riots through the prism of Australian resistance to authority. However, Australian and New Zealand soldiers specifically targeted feminine spaces normally sacred and off-limits. The men threw intimate belongings dresses, mattresses, wardrobes, chests of drawers, even a piano from windows onto the bonfires they had started. Bean recorded in his diary troops throwing household objects, such as kettles, at the military police. While Anzac troops did not physically harm sex workers in the brothels they besieged, in line with Australian notions of chivalry, they waged psychological warfare, making female domesticity a battlefield in itself.Perhaps there is a societal imperative to reconceptualise what constitutes a battlefield. Like the Anzacs in Egypt, modern armed forces in regions like the Middle East increasingly target civilian spaces. There is increased public pressure to win hearts and minds not just on the home front but on the battlefront as well no easy task . When combined with male tribalism, these factors create a dangerous cocktail, as evident in recent inquiries into the potential involvement of Australian special forces in war crimes in Afghanistan. Learning from history should not equate to moralistic judgement of past actors according to our current behavioural and cultural norms. These men were products of their time. However, it is also questionable whether past attitudes towards non-Western peoples have dramatically changed, if tomes like Edward Saids Orientalism are anything to go by.There were dissenting voices in Egypt. One Australian private labelled Good Friday, 1915, as a bad day for Australian troops due to a horrible riot in Esbekia. In his personal diary, Bean claimed that opinion among soldiers was divided on the riot. One interviewee thought things had gone much too far.However, a group mentality and the institutionalisation of Australian military history via Beans Official History and battalion histories overshadowed these minority views. Anzac misconduct in Egypt was not a case of a hushed cult but a brazen, unapologetic example of mob rule.Over time the dark episode has dropped out of collective memory. Suppression has followed initial celebration. Of the ten unit histories I have examined concerning units that trained in Egypt prior to the Gallipoli campaign, four mention the first Wasser riot. Of these four, three were published during the 1920s. While a small sample size, those published in the 1930s and 1940s generally omit the event. In The Anzacs, Patsy Adam-Smith discusses conversations she had with ex-servicemen decades after the Great War in which these men were not so eager to admit to involvement in the riot.With the government spending an estimated $552 million on the Great War centenary more than any other country it is astounding that some stories, however unsavoury, escape consideration. To truly come to terms with our nations past, it is vital that we in the present acknowledge the sinister side to Australias involvement in warfare. This is too often glossed over and excused as harmless larrikinism.In light of recent diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Australia/New Zealand over the place of the Gallipoli campaign in national identity, it is even more vital that we look beyond the struggles and losses of our own soldiers to the suffering of those they interacted with. Increasing understanding of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the expansion of public space within which it is acceptable to discuss trauma mean that, slowly, Australians are beginning to commemorate suffering rather than celebrate heroism on Anzac Day. But what about enemy combatants and civilians who suffered when we invaded their homes?The Egyptian novelist Nagib Mahfuz in Palace Walk details the life of a lower-middle class family in Cairo from 1917 to 1919. He includes telling descriptions of local frustration with intimidating, violent and intrusive Anzac troops.Past Anzacs were not always angels. They were not always brave. They were not always honourable. They are not so different from us and maybe that is something worth commemorating over a distant mythological figure, frozen in stasis within the minds of government bureaucrats. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1973 Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban declared, one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is not a distinction at all. The following year, officials from the Anti Defamation League (ADL) published a book called The New Anti-Semitism. These arguments were based on the idea that whilst we can identify and understand what Hitlerite white supremacist, anti-Semitism looks like, there was a new and dangerous anti-Semitism threatening us Jews on a global scale the criticism of Israel.This position is predicated on the notion that Judaism is Zionism, or at the very least that the two are so inextricably linked that they cannot be separated from one another. This is a falsehood. Judaism is a 3,500 year old religion, Zionism is a modern colonial movement, which has been resisted by many Jews since it began. I would go so far as to argue that Zionism as a political project constitutes a radical departure from Judaism.Nonetheless, over forty years after Ebans statement, we find ourselves in a position where the argument that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism has become firmly embedded within the gentile world. Indeed, so much so, that even minor criticisms of Israeli policy, such as the establishment of Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, are often labelled as anti-Semitic.French President Emmanuel Macron recently described anti-Zionism as a reinvented form of anti-Semitism. In the U.S, the entire weight of the American establishment recently descended on Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar for her criticism of Israel, labelling her as an anti-Semite for drawing attention to the influence that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has on American policy.One cannot deny that traditional anti-Semitic tropes focus on money, behind the scenes dealing and the notion that Jews have a dual loyalty. However, one can wholeheartedly condemn this conspiratorial mythology, and also recognise the obvious impact that money has on politics, which Omar did, as she also drew attention to other powerful lobbies, such as the National Rifle Association and the fossil fuel industry.Of course it would be a mistake to mythologise the Israel lobby (which is sometimes done, and should be condemned) in such a way so as to make it seem like an all powerful force, in that its aims are always met. For example, AIPAC went all out to stop the Iran Nuclear Deal under President Obama, but were ultimately unsuccessful.Naturally, no decent person wants to be branded as an anti-Semite. It is for this reason that the weaponisation of anti-Semitism has wide reaching and dangerous implications. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, it works to delegitimise criticism of Israel within the public square by branding critical voices as anti-Semitic, and therefore motivated by Jew hatred, rather than genuine concern.By natural extension, people who espouse views which are critical of Israel are less likely to continue to express their views on the topic once theyve been characterised as an anti-Semite. This may even extend to other contentious political issues if one is an anti-Semite, how is one to be taken seriously on other issues?There are of course many critics of Israel who are Jewish. Weaponising anti-Semitism continues in this case, albeit instead of being labelled an anti-Semite, one is branded a self-hating Jew or not a real Jew.This is an extremely effective tactic insofar as it functionally denies Jewishness to Jews who hold non or anti-Zionist views, and practically serves to push Jews out of Jewish institutions and spaces, be it synagogues, schools or campus based Jewish groups so as to continue centering Zionism within these structures. Perhaps the crudest recent example of this was when a German bank was tasked with deciding whether a German Jewish peace group which comprised Israelis and the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors was anti-Semitic because of their views on Israel.Finally, and perhaps less immediately obvious, weaponising anti-Semitism in order to shield Israel from legitimate criticism takes up necessary space within the discussion on anti-Semitism, and ultimately curbs organising efforts against genuine anti-Semitism, which is on the rise as an emboldened global far-right movement continues to grow.In 2017, white supremacists marched in Charlottesville chanting Jews will not replace us. Counter demonstrator Heather Heyer was run over by a neo-Nazi, and President Trump laid the blame on both sides, and argued some white nationalists are very fine people. The same year, 60,000 nationalists marched in Warsaw, Poland expressing anti-Semitic and Islamophobic messages.Last year, eleven Jews were massacred at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Senator Fraser Anning recently invoked the Nazi final solution term in his maiden speech to Parliament, and a few days ago Poles in New York took part in an anti-Semitic protest against Holocaust restitution. Even Israel has been increasingly aligning itself with anti-Semitic leaders and parties in Europe.When Jewish cartoonist Eli Valley drew Christian Republican Meghan McCain crying crocodile tears over Ilhan Omars alleged anti-Semitism, McCain decried his cartoon as one of the most anti-Semitic things [shes] ever seen.I couldnt help but wonder, had she never seen the infamous photo of her father John McCain standing next to Ukranian neo-Nazi Oleh Tyahnybok, who has been photographed doing a sieg heil? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The middle of last November was a tireless time for most: Students were busily entering stuvac, the campus bin chicken breeding season was beginning, and former Chief Justice of the High Court Robert French had just started his independent review into freedom of speech at Australian Universities.The terms of reference were simple. Do existing higher education standards promote and protect freedom of expression and freedom of intellectual inquiry? The answer, however, proved more complex.The review consulted a smorgasbord of stakeholders. Although yours trulys organisation, the University of Sydney (USyd) Student Representative Council was within the scope of stakeholders, SRC President Jacky He told Honi that the SRC had received a letter from one of Robert Frenchs assistants but had not been invited to a consultation.We have not been consulted in physical or media forms, He said.I believe that University of Sydney on a holistic picture promotes an atmosphere that encourages speech freedom on campus.I would like to think that everyone on our campus has the right to express their own opinions on certain issues as long as the facts that they are stating are not counterfeit.Honiunderstands that the SRC was asked on the last day of former President Imogen Grants presidency to provide SRC policies on no-platforming and other comments. Responsibility for the SRCs response was handed over to Jacky He, who apparently failed to respond.Previous Honi Soit controversies, including the suspension of former editor Michael McDermott for anti-semitic headlines, also made the cut in the report.The reviews findings, released on Saturday, concluded that protection of freedom of expression and intellectual inquiry on campus require strengthening, but only to a minor degree.The final report was 300 pages. Honi trawled through it so you dont have to. Heres what we found.The review found that reported freedom of speech incidents in Australia, including protests and rallies, do not establish a systemic pattern of higher education providers or student organisations acting adversely to freedom of speech in the sector.Two key recommendations were made.First, protection for freedom of speech should be strengthened by the adoption of a Model Code embedded in higher education providers policies on a voluntary basis.This recommendation directly responded to the terms of reference which suggested the development of a sector-led code of conduct. As a voluntary code, it accommodates University concerns towards overregulation.The review also recommended minor legislative amendments to higher education legislation to re-align free intellectual inquiry with the proposed Model Codes identification of free speech.Freedom of speech incidents at USyd represent the overwhelming majority of incidents amongst Australian universities if a 2018 audit by the conservative think tank Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), cited by the review, is to be believed.There are serious impediments to free speech within university policies, a growing number of concerning incidents, a worrying closed culture and lack of viewpoint diversity, and a failure of the existing legal framework, said the IPA in its submission. The IPA continues to lobby for the introduction of an Australian version of the Chicago principles the set of paramount principles which affirm freedom of speech and are endorsed by more than 40 American universities.The Report cites a history of student activism as evidence for the gradual weakening of freedom of speech on Australian campuses.Key examples include the lengthy scuffle between Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and the Education Action Group and National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in the wake of university deregulation proposals in 2014 and the more recent protest against the Sydney University Liberal Clubs decision to platform Bettina Arndts Fake Rape Crisis speaking tour.Beyond student activism, the audit also implicates the role of leadership and management in University institutions through activities which constrain academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus, including no-platforming.A Q&A hosted by the Sydney University Muslim Students Association entitled Grill a Muslim was cancelled at Vice Chancellor Michael Spences personal request.USyd also refused to provide a hosting venue for Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Lyle Shelton. More recently, USyd policy has come under the spotlight with the University requiring student clubs to cover foreseeable security costs.In its analysis of academic freedom, the review also referenced USyds recent sacking of lecturer Tim Anderson for disseminating lecture materials which featured an altered image of the Israeli flag including a cropped swastika. The IPA audits findings conflicted with submissions given by the higher education regulator, the Tertiary Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) which oversees higher education institutions.The Chief Commissioner of TEQSA, Professor Nicholas Saunders, admitted that TEQSA was unaware of most cases in which free intellectual inquiry was the basis of an incident or complaint on campus.The audit was also contradicted by submissions from the Group of Eight (Go8) Universities which argued that universities already had comprehensive policy frameworks in place.There is no substantive evidence of the alleged crisis of free speech on Australian university campuses, said Go8 Chief Executive Officer Vicki Thomson.Should there ever be a need to further guarantee freedom of speech, this may be best achieved through constitutional reform rather than university regulation, Thomson said.Five countries have entrenched protective provisions for academic freedom in their national constitutions. A far greater number have guarantees for a qualified freedom of expression, like the United States First Amendment.Australian universities have been historically self-regulated.The University of Sydney Act provides that the object of the university is the encouragement of the dissemination, advancement, development and application of knowledge informed by free inquiry.To that end, USyd has had a Charter of Academic Freedom for the last decade which provides several umbrella principles on freedom of speech on campus, including the need for principled and informed discussion of all aspects of knowledge and culture.In its submission to the review, the National Union of Students (NUS) endorsed the Go8s view that the review was largely redundant, arguing that its member organisations across Australia had not experienced a free speech crisis.Although individual incidents have occurred, their frequency was rather more moderate than media coverage might suggest, the NUS submission said.Several other organisations, including the National Association of Australian Universities Colleges (NAAUC) also reported that no issues of free speech had been raised to them by team members, guest speakers or delegates.A 2018 Committee on Human Rights in the UK found that certain incidents on campus can have a chilling effect on campus freedom of speech.If the French Review is anything to go by, assertions that freedom of speech is declining on campus have well and truly thawed.More to come <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On the Western half of the Camperdown campus, tucked away from student throngs on Eastern Avenue, there is a 90-year old cottage with an unassuming red brick veneer. It sits at the top of Grose Farm Lane, a pedestrian walkway from Western Avenue to the Charles Perkins Centre. Nestled in the trees, The Cottage has a vantage of the University Oval and on cosy afternoons, sunlight filters down the lane onto its two-metre-high, black aluminium fencing. On the Universitys online campus map, The Cottage is simply called The Sydney University Sport Cottage (Residence) D10.For the past 22 years, The Cottage has been home to Bruce Ross. Between 1991 and 2017, Ross served as the President of Sydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF). After his term ended, he stayed in The Cottage. He continues to reside in it today.In 2015, Honi Soit Editor Alexi Polden reported that The Cottage had been leased to Ross in an arrangement which saw Ross pay around $316 a week, and $16,461 per year. The arrangement was listed in SUSFs 2014 Financial Statement with the property a source of SUSF income under the entry Grounds. Polden reported that The Cottage boasts 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms along with convenient proximity to cafes, transport options and the Sydney CBD.At the time, both Ross and SUSF Executive Director Robert Smithies joined the Uni in refusing to comment on questions surrounding the lease.SUSFs latest financial documents submitted to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission in mid-2018 make no explicit mention of the leases value although income derived from it may well fall within other income.As part of an ongoing investigation, Honi can now confirm that Ross continues to lease The Cottage at below-market rates in 2019. Documents seen by Honi suggest that Ross currently pays a total of $25,319 per annum with weekly costs of around $487. Honi can reveal that Ross lease is currently in a holding over status as SUSF enters negotiations with the Unis Campus and Infrastructure Services for a lease extension.SUSF oversees various properties and engages in certain commercial lease agreements occasionally as a co-licensor with the Uni. The Cottage, however, appears to be the only residential lease agreement in place.The rental cost of the The Cottage was determined through a rental review conducted in 2016 and subsequent independent market advice in 2019. Whilst it remains unclear who requested the 2019 market advice, Honi understands that advice suggested that the market had not moved since 2016. The rental value did increase commensurate to inflation per the occupation agreement according to SUSFs 2017 Financial Report.Usually, a rental review will involve a comparison of the relevant property with similar properties in the area. Reviews are generally conducted at least every two years by landlords, often marking the end of a fixed-term lease. In SUSFs 2019 Tenant Register, no mention is made of a rental review being conducted prior to 2016. SUSF President James Flynn told Honi I cannot recall a rental review on the cottage being brought to the attention of the Management Committee during the three years I have served as a member, nor to me in my capacity as President.According to the Tenants Union of New South Wales, the median rental price for 4+ bedroom house in Camperdown in 2018 was $1,200. It is unclear what method led the independent reviewer to a final figure of $487, or 40% of the market rate. However, even where one reviewer did arrive at a price considerably lower than market averages, questions should be raised over the number of opinions SUSF sought.A SUSF spokesperson told Honi that the rate was made on the basis of the propertys several problems, including, SUSFs use of part of the property for its own storage purposes, serious disruption caused by the extensive capital works program and multiple power shutdowns and water shutdowns.Honi reached out to SUSFs Executive Director, Robert Smithies and Bruce Ross, for comment on the rental review process. No comment was received in time for publication.A University spokesperson refused to comment on whether the University was aware of rental reviews conducted of the property from 1993 to 2016.The below-market rate may not be the only perk attached to The Cottage. A University spokesperson confirmed that the The Cottages phone lines are provided by ICT, and that it would be possible to access university wifi from The Cottage if the resident holds a valid Unikey as a staff member, student, contractor or affiliate.The University Senate may have conferred affiliate status to Ross when he was made an Honorary Fellow in 2003.Had SUSF charged Ross the median market rate for the property over the last three years, they would have pocketed an additional $150,000 in income. If this pattern of paying below market-rates had spanned across the entirety of Ross tenancy period from 1993, that figure would be close to $1,000,000. The impact of potentially lost revenue is significant. SUSF ran a $163,494 deficit a year after the rental review was conducted.Clause 84 of the SUSF Constitution requires the Management Committee to engage a person who is accountable for the proper financial management of the organisation. In light of SUSFs deficits in 2015 and 2017, it is unclear whether this person considered generating substantial rental income from The Cottage.Clause 20 bars office bearers, including the President, from receiving any remuneration. If remuneration includes heavily subsidised rental, then it would seem Ross tenancy arrangement during his presidential term, was unconstitutional.Regardless, the fact that SUSF has entered into any rental arrangement with members of its Management Committee lends itself to possible conflicting interests.For example, SUSFs Executive Director, the only paid office-bearer of the organisation, is appointed by The Management Committee of which the President is a member. It is feasibly in their personal interest to curry favour with the President and theoretically support a pre-existing beneficial rental agreement.Such structural problems also apply to SUSFs three trustees, who are also appointed by the Management Committee. Trustees hold office at the pleasure of the Management Committee and have the power to enter into contracts on behalf of SUSF, with the Committees prior approval. This leads to a possible situation where a trustee, acting on behalf of SUSF, may negotiate the terms of a rental contract with a person who is partially responsible for their appointment.Honi makes no claim that office bearers, the executive director, or the trustees have acted in an illegal or improper manner.A SUSF spokesperson denied that Smithies was involved in the review process and emphasised that SUSFs accounts are externally audited on an annual basis and that rental reviews are conducted periodically.Consideration should also be given to USyds role in SUSFs governance. USyd apportions over $5,000,000 of student money to SUSF and employs both the executive director and financial manager. The appointment of the former requires approval from the Vice-Chancellor. Yet, a Uni spokesperson told Honi that the Uni had no involvement with the property, which is managed by SUSF.USyd ought to exercise oversight over the financial management of SUSF as a body formed through a resolution of the University Senate.SUSF is a perfect example of where USyd can foreseeably improve student wellbeing outcomes, for example, by further subsidising membership costs. As it stands, SUSF remains an institution characterised by opaque governance that is relatively inaccessible to most students.The problem with The Cottage isnt merely that its occupied by a former president under favourable circumstances. Rather, it is symptomatic of SUSFs constitutional shortcomings and more damningly, the Universitys negligent attitude towards providing real improvements in student amenities.SUSF BackgroundSydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF) administers USyds sporting clubs, organises sporting events on campus, and provides facilities, scholarships, and programs to student athletes, including the Elite Athletes Program. SUSF is a registered charity with more than 200 employees and more than 500 volunteers as of 2017. It consistently tops more than $10,000,000 in financial income annually. In 2017, it held net financial assets valued at $28,000,000. As a partially self-funded entity, SUSF currently charges USyd students $50 for annual membership. The bulk of SUSFs funding is derived from every students Student Services and Amenities Fee contribution, with SUSF receiving the biggest slice annually, including $5,000,000 in 2018.Key players: Robert Smithies Robert Smithies has been SUSFs Executive Director since 2008 and holds responsibility for the organisations day-to-day operation. In that capacity, he sits at the top of every reporting line at SUSF, according to its 2018 Organisational Chart. Smithies also sits on the Universitys Student Consultative Committee and the SUSF Management Committee which dictates the high-level strategy and operations of the organisation. In 2016, evidence before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal revealed that Smithies was on the Universitys payroll alongside Aleksandra Pozder, SUSFs Finance Manager. The same year saw allegations made that Smithies was subject to a conflict of interest as a representative of SUSF and an employee of the University.Key players: Bruce RossBruce Ross was President of SUSF between 1991 and 2017. At an annual University Blues Awards night in 2016, Robert Smithies said Ross would be remembered for his relationships with people, particularly with athletes and coaches, many of whom Ross mentored and guided over the years. Ross has previously fallen under the spotlight on matters beyond his residence in The Cottage. An extensive investigation in 2015 found Ross was operating his business, Bruce Ross Consulting, out of The Cottage, and that he was the director of MyoQuip Pty Ltd, a company which provided equipment to SUSF. Ross denied allegations that a conflict of interest arose out of any of these relationships.A history of controversySUSF has had no shortage of drama in recent times. When Bruce Ross quarter-century leadership of SUSF ended in 2017, the heir apparent was former USU Board Director and Liberal party staffer, James Flynn, who came into the role on the back of a significant campaign promising college students free gym memberships. In 2018, Honi reported that internal divisions within SUSF had been sparked by animosity between Flynn and Smithies on the question of incorporating SUSF which, if advanced, would have compromised Smithies role as Executive Director. Honi is yet to verify the fact that conflict between two senior figures of SUSF may have led the University to outsource an independent investigation into SUSF in 2018. In late-2018, SUSF retained an independent consultant to review its governance structures and investigate the possibility of incorporation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the last few decades, antibacterial resistance has risen at an astonishing rate, meaning that our world is now on the cusp of a post-antibiotic reality where even the most common infection could be deadly. Experts predict that by 2050, 10 million people will die from drug resistant infections per year, which is more than the current figures for cancer and diabetes deaths combined.Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria adapt and grow in such a way that they become capable of surviving the action of antibiotic agents. These new resistant strains of bacteria can spread and thus certain infections become untreatable by the drug that once killed them.The phenomenon of antibiotic resistance has been observed since the first discovery of antibiotic agents. However, the increased use of these drugs in modern society has caused resistance to develop much more rapidly. The overprescription of antibiotics, incorrect dosing or use by doctors and patients, as well as increased application of antibiotics in agriculture and animal livestock has lead to a terrifying increase in the prevalence spread of resistant bacterial strains.A world without effective antibiotics would not only affect our ability to treat infectious disease, but would also compromise other essential medical procedures, including chemotherapy, invasive surgery and transplants that also rely on antibiotics. In a Global Action Plan Against Antibiotic Resistance released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2016, Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO stated that [Antibiotic] resistance threatens the very core of modern medicine and the sustainability of an effective, global public health response to the enduring threat from infectious diseases.Not only has antibiotic resistance been increasing, but drug development in this area has staggered drastically. In a so called golden era of antibacterial development just after the discovery of penicillin, there was a huge increase in the number of antibiotic drugs becoming available. This influx lead many experts to (incorrectly) believe that infectious diseases were effectively cured. As a result, broader drug development strategies shifted away from antibiotics.The subsequent rise of the pharmaceutical industry and its continuous pursuit of blockbuster drugs and high profit margins has also contributed to a drastic drop in the amount of new antibiotics entering the market. Furthermore, many available drugs work in a similar way, thus resistance to one could mean resistance to many. The world therefore needs to push towards completely new and innovative therapies, a process which requires huge amounts of time and money.We are now playing a game of catch up, to fill what Professor James Triccus, a microbiologist from The University of Sydney, describes as a gap in discovery in the antibiotic development space. It is clear that in order to fill this gap and fight resistance, a diverse range of strategies are required. Right here at the University, a large team of scientists is working on exactly this.The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has provided funding for a Centre of Research Excellence program specifically to work on infectious disease, which is also supported by the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity. The initiative aims to promote national and international collaboration and multidisciplinary research to overcomethe problem.As part of the initiative, Professor Triccus has developed a method to rapidly test new potential drugs against resistant strains of bacteria in his work at the Charles Perkins Centre (CPC). His team also works on sourcing new drug candidates from nature that have the ability to kill the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB), the number one infectious killer in the world.Professor Triccus has often worked in collaboration with Professor Richard Payne in The School of Chemistry, who makes new antibiotics in the laboratory with unique modes of action in order to develop innovative new treatments. Meanwhile, Professor Warwick Britton at the CPC is attacking the problem from a different angle, working on the development of vaccines against TB, aiming to develop stronger prevention strategies.There are also clinicians at the Westmead campus who are researching ways to rapidly identify resistant strains of bacteria.Its the combination of all of these different strategies that strengthen our chances of combating antibiotic resistance. Professor Triccus claims that unless we accelerate our work and see greater global investment, awareness and productivity, we may soon have many untreatable infections, thats the reality. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Australias seeming inaction towards its waste crisis continues to spark heated discussion about how to solve one of the pre-eminent issues facing Australia today. Since the beginning of 2018, when China imposed stricter regulations on the importation of recyclable wastes, Australia has been scrambling to cope with the stockpiling mess of its own creation.Current practice sees 20 million tonnes of waste going to landfill each year. One of the most popular, and controversial, proposed solutions is the construction of waste incineration plants, more commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Commonly used all over Europe and Asia, these facilities take every-day garbage containing plastics, cardboard, food waste, and fabrics, and incinerate it to produce energy, ash, and CO2 as a by-product.In March this year, construction began on Australias first large-scale waste-to-energy plant, located approximately 40km south of Perth. In July 2018, Australias largest waste-to-fuel plant opened in Wetherill Park, located in Sydneys south-west. Combined, these plants will reportedly mitigate approximately 500,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere as well as divert more than 650,000 tonnes of waste from entering our landfills. These plants radically alter the way we use our waste, from an amassing problem to a potential fuel solution. Such a difference would have profound implications on the discourse of waste management, yet the public remains by and large unaware of the complicated conversations happening right now, leading to an impasse between communities and industry that has left Australians lagging in a global economy increasingly concerned with its green image.When talking about waste management approaches, most can conjure the phrase, reduce, reuse, recycle from primary school. More than just an alliterative refrain, this mantra represents a hierarchy, with the reduced consumption of raw materials being the most effective way to reduce waste and the recycling of goods being the least. Though short and sweet, the utility of this waste motto is tainted by the interconnectedness of many industries today. Linear supply chains have a tendency to externalise waste and emissions onto other industries, allowing innovations like electric vehicles to be lauded as environmentally friendly while the costs of extracting battery resources and the lack of established end-of-life practices are ignored.The Circular Economy is the current framework used in waste management circles, and is a holistic encapsulation of every part of a products life-cycle. Under this framework, wastes are not waste but value to be extracted. The resultant ash produced in waste incineration, for instance, has potential to be used as a replacement for cement, the production of which is responsible for 10% of all CO2 emissions. If utilised in this way, the diversion of waste to landfill could be improved from 80-85%, theoretically up to 100%.There are currently dozens of waste incineration plants being proposed across Australia, however, many face ardent opposition by Greens politicians and environmental advocacy groups as being not-as-green as they claim to be. In July last year, a waste-to-energy plant proposal in Western Sydney was blocked amidst uncertainty by the Independent Planning Commission towards the impact of the plant on air quality. Indeed, when confronted with the idea of Australia burning its waste, its easy to conjure images of large chimney stacks, violently spewing plumes of toxic gas, choking surrounding communities. However, modern incinerators continue to meet rigid emissions regulations worldwide, with the U.K. Health Protection Agency concluding that modern incinerators produce emissions that are low enough to result in very small and not detectable negative health impacts.If one has faith in Australias regulatory bodies and their ability to monitor and enforce strict emissions, then concerns about air quality are probably more productively spent campaigning for policies that reduce the number of cars on our roads (for instance). However, it is hard to distinguish where conservative NIMBY-ism ends, and genuine community concern begins. In America, environmental justice groups emerged because of the disproportionate development of waste incinerators in low-SES and communities of colour, and one need only look at the number of proposed facilities in Western Sydney to draw striking parallels to whats happening here. Although the technology is empirically and demonstrably safer than it was decades ago, failures do happen and blind faith in technology as the solution to all our problems does nothing to address the crisis of consumption that plagues Western nations today.While the most common community criticism relates to the impact that these plants have on air quality, broader concerns have been raised by environmental groups about the long-term sustainability of the plants. These groups argue that the plants implementation creates a dependence on waste as a fuel, and supplants efforts to recycle. Sweden, for instance, has often had to import waste from neighbouring countries to keep its incineration plants operational. While this may seem like a dream scenario, stakeholders in these plants do have a profit motive to see more waste being produced. While our consumer habits should be the first thing we interrogate, the platitudinous solution of simply improving recycling programs ignores the material cost of these programs and the limitations they might have. Plastic can only be recycled 7 times, and paper only 4, so what should we do with this waste when its finally unusable?In discussing this issue its important to properly characterise the current practice of sending waste to landfill and how Australias reliance on it has caused the crisis were in today. For many, its a seemingly neutral solution, taking up space and not much else: waste lying dormant and forgotten. But landfill produces so much methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, that waste incineration has a lower global warming cost, without even considering the CO2 savings from producing energy that isnt via coal. Toxic chemicals in landfill can often leach out and contaminate the water table, and waste that goes to landfill generally cant be used again. While many European countries including Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Norway have practically eliminated the need for landfill, Australia currently sees 40% of its waste end up in landfill. If landfill reduction is our priority, waste incineration will almost certainly be the most practical option.The most vocal critics of waste incineration often say that is to be used as a last resort, but when is that if not now? We are in a crisis, and waste incineration will likely play a crucial role in our future waste management process, but as always there are cautionary tales to be observed. With the careful application of the Circular Economy, waste incineration can be a green(ish) and serve as a marked improvement on current practice.However, its important for communities to continue asking important, informed questions about the unsightly result of our production and consumption. Because after all, its our waste, and we ought to know whats happening to it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The threat of war is not typically a worry on the minds of young students in Australia today.However, it was not until December of 1972 that young Australians could cease worrying about being unwillingly conscripted to fight faraway wars, for or against causes they did not properly understand. The birthday ballot was among the many dreaded stresses that young Aussies had to come to terms with, when twice per year, those unlucky enough to win the lottery would be conscripted into the Army alongside all other young men who shared the same date of birth. For most, the choice was between two unappealing options: two years of service in the Army, or two years in prison for objection. Under the threat of war, which would be the greater sentence?While misfortunately drafted university students could apply for deferment until the competition of their studies, fates were often sealed early as students could not prolong their studies enough to beat out the eight-year duration of the Australian draft during the Vietnamese conflict. Still, many students were not complacent in their anti-war sentiment and as such, they would turn Sydney University into a hub of protests and dissent. Unknown to most, the famous Graffiti Tunnel that runs between Manning House and the Holme Building was originally started as a legal, allocated area for students to display slogans and create protest art against the Vietnam War, at least in part to dissuade the practice of doing so directly onto the sandstone walls of the Quadrangle.While decades have passed since young Australians have had to face the issue of mandatory conscription, few are privy to the realities of this issue that a number of international students at the University of Sydney have faced or continue to face in their own lives.Shaun Chua, a recent graduate in Media and Communications, is very familiar with the continued practice of national service. Like all medically fit Singaporean men who reach 18 years of age, Shaun was conscripted into a minimum of two years full-time service in the Singapore Armed Forces. Speaking of his time as National Serviceman, Shaun recalls a story he shares with a brotherhood of over 900,000 Singaporeans.It was frustrating to have to interrupt my studies for national service since I felt separated from all my friends who were commencing their studies ahead of me, he explained.Unlike most Australian conscripts in the 20th century, Shauns service was unique in that he joined during relative peacetime in his country. Defining his experience in the barracks as repetitive, uninteresting and mundane, Shaun offers this rare, striking perspective.Since Singapore is relatively peaceful, the thought of war or deployment into hostile theatres never loomed large in our minds during our national service.While theres no great desire to be deployed into war zones or participate in a conflict, I often caught myself wishing to be deployed and to take on the challenges of a deployment, just to break the mundane life in the barracks and the cycle of training, Shaun explained, adding that it was a view that strongly conflicted with his desire to stay out of danger.Shaun is just one of many University alumni over the decades whose military experience was initiated by either compulsory national service or simply answering their nations call to action prompted by global conflict.Just a decade after the Federation of Australia in 1901, the Australian government found its unsatisfactory levels of combat readiness low enough to prompt the introduction of boyhood conscription (compulsory military training for ages 12-26). The result lead to the draft of all eligible Sydney University undergraduates to the militia battalion of the Sydney University Scouts. Upon the beginning of the First World War, young Aussies on the home front battled public shaming and nationwide propaganda to pledge allegiance to the British motherland, such as the notorious act of presenting white feathers to those unwilling to volunteer as a symbol of cowardice. Yet despite failed referenda in 1916 and 1917 to introduce conscription, over 60% of the Universitys Scouts would nevertheless go on to serve in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during the First World War.Following the outbreak of World War II, Australians were not so lucky after Prime Minister Robert Menzies successfully introduced conscription. What remained of the Scouts was now a reserve officer-training regiment within the Australian Army called the Sydney University Regiment. One such Arts Law graduate belonging to the regiment, Flight Lieutenant Gough Whitlam, began training as a navigator and bombardier and after graduation flew RAAF Lockheed Ventura Bombers out of the Northern Territory during WWII.When Prime Minister Menzies reintroduced conscription for a second time in late 1964 to bolster the war effort in Vietnam, 63,000 young Aussies were conscripted by birthday ballots according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. These were drawn from a randomly selected pool of over 800,000 who were required to register for national service between 1964 and 1972. Over 15,000 of those diggers would plant their boots on Vietnamese soil alongside military men by trade and other volunteer soldiers.After numerous years of protest and the continuation of a now unwinnable war, it would be none other than the now-retired Flight Lieutenant Gough Whitlam who would challenge the Incumbent PM William McMahon in the 1972 federal election under the platform of ending mandatory national service. Upon his parliamentary win, Prime Minister Whitlam immediately abolished conscription by administrative action, reaffirmed this action with the passing of the National Service Termination Act, and released from jail those sentenced for resisting national service. Last but not least, Whitlam announced the end of Australias involvement in Vietnam and ordered the last of Australias diggers to finally return home.The Australian Defence Force has remained an all-volunteer force ever since, and although many Sydney University alumni who served during these times have gracefully passed, what remains of this part of Sydney University history is the continuation of the Australian Armys Sydney University Regiment, the ever growing list of student alumni currently or previously in service to their country, as well as a continually strong culture of demonstrations and political protests still alive on campus today. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Seeing your identity reflected in the art you consume can be powerfully validating and if nothing else, listening to endless boy-meets-girl songs can get plain boring when you know that thats never a story youre going to relate to. Finding queer artists who deliver popping beats and beautiful lyrics that actually vaguely resemble your own experiences? Thats not something any queer should be missing out on.King Princess is a gay genderqueer singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist from New York. Plus, shes dating the amazing Amandla Stenberg, a non-binary and pansexual actress known for playing Rue in the Hunger Games, who also wrote one of King Princess hit singles, Pussy is King. Check out Talia as well for a solid bop.Courtney Act is a pansexual, polyamorous drag queen from Brisbane who you might have seen on Australian Idol if you were watching it back in 2003, or on RuPauls Drag Race more recently. She also happens to be a queen of electropop as both a solo artist and with the AAA girls.Brendan Maclean, gay singer-songwriter, actor and self-described blade of queer communist glory has been bringing the queerness to our radio waves since back in 2007, when he was a music presenter on Triple J. Nowadays hes a bigger part of the action, releasing singles like the popular Stupid and House of Air, the latter being released with a very gay, very graphic and very controversial music video (its only available on Vimeo, but well worth checking out).Cub Sport is a four-piece band from Brisbane who know how to deliver exactly the kind of songs about queer self-love that we all need more of just have a listen to Party Pill to get your fill of good gay vibes for the day. Plus, as an added wholesome bonus, front man Tim Nelson and keyboardist/vocalist Sam Netterfield got married last year.Kevin Abstract is a gay solo rapper but you might also know him as the front man from Brockhampton. Put on Empty to hear some of his queer beats.Mykki Blanco is a transgender rapper, performance artist and poet from California. Wish You Would is the song wed have to recommendtoday.Mal Blum is a non- binary artist whose style incorporates rock, punk and folk. The lyrics for New Years Eve are bittersweet but disgustingly relatable.Courtney Barnett is a homegrown lesbian from Melbourne whos made a name for herself as a singer-songwriter with HER distinctive Aussie accent and smart, funny lyrics. Pedestrian at Best is the perfect introduction to her profound but easy-going style.Alex Lahey is a multi-instrumentalist lesbian whose latest album, The Best of Luck Club has just come out this year. Check out Every Days the Weekend to get a taste of her catchy, addictive style.Janelle Mone releases wonderful pop bangers, with rhythm and hooks to keep you dancing for days. Make Me Feel and I like That are easy recommendations.Even if you have no idea what style youre into or just want a variety of music to suit your partying/studying/chilling needs the Transcend Playlist available on Spotify can help you discover new LGBT artists. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I want you to imagine your favourite TV Show, no matter what it is. Why do you like it? Is the genre your favourite? Can you relate to the characters and their struggles or successes? Did it frame the way you think about the world?With the answers to those questions in mind, I need to ask.What would you do if that show stood up and told you that you were completely expendable?That might sound like it would be a terrible choice for any network, but it is what has happened to the queer community through the media for decades. Because of the fear and concern about the ratings and majority audience perception, networks have turned queer relationships into marketing tools to be used and thrown away as quickly as their respect for their audiences. This mistreatment is a continued result of intense homophobia to the highest degree of the word legitimate fear of same sex relationships.Hundreds of queer females who have been killed purely as plot devices or for shock value, the Bury your Gays trope has been a recognised facet of film and television for years. In 2016, however, queer fans found their voices.The 100 spent a significant amount of time since her introduction in early season 2 cultivating a complex relationship between her and the shows protagonist, Clarke, exploring dimensions of a relationship often not seen because of the specific circumstances of the show. Not only was Lexa incredible because of her representation of queerness, she was incredible for representing a strong female in ultimate power, a dominant displayer of strength, honour, and intelligence. She was an ideal role model for young queer women who had never seen themselves on screen before and the producers used her as a plot device, ending her life in an unfitting, unworthy way. The real world reaction to her death was wild; billboards being raised in her honour, a worldwide trending hashtag that still revives three years later, and a still active fanbase not only of the show itself, but of Clexa.I cannot speak for everyone, but I can say what I know. Lexas death made me feel worthless. At the time I was young and out, and I was craving positive representation on screen. female characters who will openly love other female characters was what I needed to see, and instead I was seeing those who represented my identity being thrown away, unimportant, erased. How could I ever deserve a happy ending?However, whilst you can be made to feel worthless by negative representation, positive representation works in exactly the opposite way. Especially if it is as rare as healthy onscreen relationships are for the lgbtq+ community. A direct comparison can be made to the treatment of Nicole Haught in Syfys supernatural western, Wynonna Earp. Nicole and Waverly Earps relationship is built on from Nicoles suggestive introduction, as full and fleshed out as the Lexa storyline, albeit in a very different way, and eventually the surprise antagonist shoots Nicole in the chest. When Waverly and Wynonna run to aid her, she is wearing a bulletproof vest, standard operating procedure. With showrunner Emily Andras going on record to ensure the safety of the queer characters, this choice by the shows creators has been a huge part of the reason the show has generated its following. Wyonna Earp subverts tropes of the traditional western genre, replacing characters that would typically be occupied by white men with a diverse in interesting, layered rolls. The fandom has grown around the unkillable gays of Wynonna Earp, and unlike the way The 100 shaped a dark future for queer relationships, Wynonna Earp provides hope and promise of a happy ending.I spoke with Jenna Laurenzo, queer director of the lesbian holiday comedy Lez Bomb, In a recent interview I conducted for LOTL magazine, Its important to see happy endings for LGBTQ+ characters. Seeing happy endings gives courage to step into our authentic selves, and provide faith there is in fact, light at the end of that tunnel. Very often LGBTQ+ stories do not have happy endings. Sure, these stories are also important to tell. However, its time to bring some levity to the narrative, along with happy endings. Otherwise, as storytellers, we miss the opportunity to provide LGBTQ+ audiences with stories that reflect their own happy endings. If we dont show happy endings, were subtly suggesting those stories arent worth telling and celebrating.We are not expendable. We are important, and our stories are worth telling. Positive representation is essential. With more positive representation of healthy queer relationships, there will be less young people thinking of themselves as abnormal or wrong. With more mainstream media rejecting homophobia and accepting queer characters and relationships, more young people will live to experience them.Please check out Wynonna Earp (Season 1 & 2 Available on Netflix). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After spending the first few days of the Lunar New Year nearly two months ago at home in Singapore, I landed in Sydney. Singapore the country where pretty much everyone, from Gen Z kids to baby boomers, speak English everyday. Where, just like Australians, we binge-watch the same trashy Netflix shows, bop to the same Ariana Grande hits, and laugh at the same Kermit the Frog memes. Though I have always been mindful that I grew up in a westernised Asian country, starting university in Sydney was where I found myself in a unique conundrum that a certain type of Southeast Asian international student faces. We are not as Asian as students from China, Japan, and Korea who fluently speak their national languages and have distinctive Asian cultures, and yet we are not local enough to instinctively know what a servo means or who Paul Hogan is. We are familiar with Australias culture due to the countrys close proximity and its reputation as a popular holiday destination, but yet we cannot fully assimilate into a society we were not raised in.We are geographically and culturally Asian. Singapores public holidays include religious South Asian celebrations such as Deepavali for Hindus and Hari Raya Aidilfitri for Muslims. Ethnically Chinese Singaporeans, just like the Chinese in Hong Kong and Malaysia, still follow traditional Chinese practices such as not washing your hair on the first day of the Lunar New Year as you would wash away your good luck.Even the date of my departure from Singapore speaks volumes my family would not let me miss the most important festival in the Lunar calendar, but at the same time this event is not such an integral part of my Asian upbringing that I have to sit through the full fifteen days of the celebrations.Building a social identity when you move to a new country is tough, but what makes it all the more confusing is when your situation is shared only by a unique bunch of international students also looking to fit in.Kyle Teng, a fellow Singaporean at USyd, explained that they struggled to fit in seeing as they culturally perceive themselves to be more westernised. It was difficult to associate myself to either group [Asians or locals], due to the fact that I look physically similar to one, while I am more culturally similar to the other.Not that it is an inherent need to belong to a specific group of people, but as an international student, I was hoping to find a community, one that shared similar cultural and societal beliefs as I did, so that I could socialize and forge meaningful relationships with others.Tiffany Vaughan, a second year, half Filipino, half English international student from Hong Kong, told Honi: I felt pretty segregated [when I moved here]. At first I thought I would easily stick with a group since Sydney is pretty multicultural but [there were] only a few I really felt a connection with.To make this cross-cultural adaptation more awkward, we still face Asian stereotypes. Accents that correspond with the way we look is just one example. On my first day of orientation, a white girl was surprised to learn that I was not a local. You speak English so well, I wouldnt have thought you were an international student!,she said.This didnt come as a huge shock to me; I was aware of the stereotype that internationally, Asians speak English with a strong accent and not so fluently. But to experience it firsthand, my first thought was: Wait, so because I dont sound like how youd expect me to judging by the way I look, I would immediately be the same nationality as you? It is as though locals do not know which box to place us in. But thats alright, because we too are still searching for which box to place ourselves in. Perhaps there is not any need for a box at all. I constantly straddle between my identity Ive cultivated for twenty years and the identity I am building here. When meeting new people, I find myself deciding if I should speak in a more white-washed accent or my original Singaporean accent. Or if another Southeast Asian student wants to hang out, I catch myself hesitating because I dont want to be confined in my comfort zone, even if I do feel more at home than with a local, white student.Perhaps two months is way too short a time for any first-year student, to feel like a part of something bigger than themselves. Perhaps, at some point during my time at USyd, Ill proudly embrace my Asian heritage while dropping Aussie slang in my daily conversations and introducing my toast to Vegemite.Until then, Ill continue chatting with my friends back home in Singlish (a word recognised by the Oxford English dictionary), hang out with fellow Singaporeans (shout out to USYDs Singapore Students Society), and continue my hunt for the most authentic Singaporean cuisine (The Ho Jiak in Haymarket is pretty decent). <|endtext|> <|starttext|> South Koreas music and entertainment industry, better known as K-pop, is a global sensation that many people love, know, or at least have heard of. Those who wouldnt consider themselves among the millions of avid fans following the music genre still recognise the worldwide popularity it has amassed over recent decades. This is of course unsurprising as K-pop is now one of South Koreas largest exports, and is often seen as the countrys number one cultural ambassador. Known for its flashy bubble gum coloured music videos, its songs where lyrical catchiness reigns, and the suave choreography that often accompanies these it all, its easy to see why the industry has garnered such an intense fandom.But since late January this year, K-pop has been witnessing a snowballing sex scandal. At the centre of this story, which continues to unfold today, is Lee Seung-Hyun. Better known by his stage name, Seungri, he is the youngest member of one of K-pops most popular boy bands, Big Bang. The group has often been referred to as K-pop legends, and they boast numerous impressive accomplishments, including their fifth EP, Alive, being the first Korean album to chart on the Billboard 200.Seungri has often been referred to as Koreas Great Gatsby, or Seungsby, due to the affluence he has gained from his business empires. Seungri himself has relished in this label on several occasions, entitling a 2018 solo album The Great Seungri for example. In 2015, he even hosted a Christmas party inspired by the Great Gatsby film. The popular use of this epithet is not unearned as the parallels between F. Scott Fitzgeralds anti-hero, Jay Gatsby, and Seungri are in fact quite striking. Like Gatsby, who lived an impoverished childhood, Seungri himself is known to have come from rather humble beginnings in South Koreas Gwangju. Both figures rose to extreme wealth through their businesses, and with it, they heavily indulged in lavish lifestyles. Much like Gatsby, Seungri is known for hosting glittery parties. In 2017, his exclusive two-day party made news headlines as he hired out the whole of Palawan island in the Philippines to celebrate his birthday. The party saw celebrities, business people, politicians, socialites and social media stars from all over the world as guests. However, after examining their respective lives more deeply, it becomes clear that Seungri perhaps was not aware of what the Gatsby tale truly entailed. While their similarities in wealth and success are obvious, the parallels between the two resonate deeper, and more eerily. It seems that Seungri failed to see past the glamour, and missed the cautionary echoes of Gatsbys name. Gatsbys opulent lifestyle was gained by illegal bootlegging enterprises. Similarly, the recent K-pop sex scandal has exposed the illicit schemes that formed part of Seungris own richesThe facts of the scandal can be summarised like this: As an entrepreneur, Seungri has been known to have numerous other business ventures, including being one of the executive directors of a popular nightclub, Burning Sun, in Seouls Gangnam. The club became embroiled in massive controversy after a male patron was assaulted, alleging he had been attacked by an employee of the club after attempting to help an intoxicated woman who was being sexually harassed. Such was the immensity of the scandal that it prompted South Korean president Moon Jae-In to launch an official investigation.Leaked chatrooms on the popular Korean messaging app KakaoTalk then uncovered the bigger and darker picture. One chatroom, consisting of Seungri and other men, including celebrities, featured secretly filmed footage of women during sex. The videos were captured and sent into the chat by singer and television personality, Jung Joon-Young. In some videos, women were unconscious or heavily intoxicated. Along with these clips were a string of highly misogynistic comments and discussion revolving around the use of date rape drugs. Separate chatrooms have exposed Seungris attempt to bribe potential foreign investors at the Burning Sun with prostitutes. On one occasion, the star even promised investors women too intoxicated to be aware of what was happening. In South Korea, where prostitution and drug supply are considered serious crimes, this expose sent giant shockwaves across society. Since the discovery of these chatrooms, Seungri, who retired from the K-pop industry on 12 March, is being investigated for sexual abuse, sex trafficking, sex bribery and drugging female customers at his nightclub. Jung has been charged for secretly filming and sharing explicit tapes. Other male celebrities involved have confessed to, or are being accused of, watching or sharing these secretly filmed videos. The apparent blind eye officials paid to some chatrooms due to the connections of those in it, the accusations of Burning Sun bribing the police, and the alleged attempted destruction of evidence has also sparked investigation into the seemingly cosy ties between some of these celebrities and authority figures, taking the scandal beyond K-pop and into wider concerns of political corruption. However, because the scandal has involved big celebrity names such as Seungri, many South Korean news outlets have been heavily focused only on the individual idols, failing to adequately address the more systemic and institutionalised issues. Many media have in fact been playing the game of whos next? by almost dramatizing the scandal. This question does, of course, have to be answered for light to be shone on the truth. However, there is plenty more to turn our attention to. While this scandal is heartbreaking and necessitates justice for the victims involved, it is simply a K-pop version of the wider realities that permeate Korean society more generally. Just like how Gatsby is reflective of the flaws characterising the then American society of the 1920s, Seungri is representative of South Koreas own set of deep problems. The countrys entrenched gender inequality and misogynistic attitudes lie at the forefront of it all. Within recent years, South Korea has been experiencing whats been termed a molka epidemic. The portmanteau combines the Korean word mollae, which translates to secret, and the English word camera. It describes the mass proliferation of spycams in public transportation, bathrooms, change rooms, bathhouses, hotels or even in the victims own home for pornographic purposes. The term also encompasses the act of secretly filming someone during sex, meaning that many perpetrators know their victims, raising issues of revenge porn. In 2017, the country saw over 6,500 reported cases of molka incidents, and according to official statistics, 98 per cent of the perpetrators were men and more than 80% of the victims were women. This fuelled a large part of South Koreas own #MeToo movement. In October 2017, thousands of women took to the streets of Seoul in protest, chanting the highly circulated hashtag mylifeisnotyourporn. And while the rise to fight against such gross invasion of privacy is both necessary and courageous, the molka epidemic, where women are reduced to objects of voyeurism, without a doubt exposes the misogyny that is deeply rooted in South Korea. In Jungs official apology he wrote, I admit to all my crimes. I filmed women without their consent and shared it in a social media chatroom, and while I did so I didnt feel a great sense of guilt. This very absence of guilt, confessed in almost a nonchalant way, is probably the attitude held by spycam perpetrators and viewers. Instances like this sex scandal can essentially be seen as microcosmic representations of the wider patriarchal oppression that South Korean women face. South Korea has consistently ranked as one of the lowest ranking countries for gender equality, placing 115th out of 149 countries in last years World Economic Forums report on the global gender gap. A last look at the analogy drawn between Gatsby and Seungri may give clues on how the remaining parts of the scandal will unfold. Much like how the upper-class Buchanans escaped the fate Gatsby was colliding into, as Seungri begins to face the consequences of his crimes, it may just be that those powerful but equally involved players, such as the anonymous foreign investors, will avoid punishment. It will not be long before we know whether life can sometimes truly imitate art. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the Lowy, Gonski Gallery, where design reflects 19th century European style, is an installation highly contrasting to this architectural look. Upon entering the faade of this exhibition, the air of five decades of Chinese modern history overtakes all your senses.Yang Zhichaos massive art installation, Chinese bible, mimics a patchwork of a memory quilt, made up of 3000 diaries and notebooks from the first five decades of Communist China (1949-1999). This vast collection of radiantly coloured notebooks consists of books with political and non-political content, collected over a three-year period. The non-political notebooks contain a genuine account of the period, and are snapshots into the daily lives of the layperson in China. The extensive range of subjects include personal feelings of love and loss; elements related to daily life as commonplace as knitting patterns, recipes; and study notes connecting to history, literature and Chinese medical theory, as well as foreign languages and stock exchange information from the 1990s, when China started to adopt the Open-Door Policy.According to Yang Zhichao, the Chinese bible has a double meaning. It alludes to the political worship that was going on in that era, and mocks and criticises that phenomenon. These two types of content are the true meaning of the Chinese bible.The political aspects of some of the notebooks, especially those dated between 1950 to the 1970s, are evident in its historical and political account, when China experienced constant radical campaigns and movements. This is especially true of the decade long Cultural Revolution, where attempts were made to revive a revolutionary spirit, producing massive social, economic and political upheaval. Some of the political notebooks contain records from the communist partys instructions. The authors of the books had to write down their reflections, sometimes self-criticism or confessions and submit these to their supervisor for checking during the party-political study sessions and meetings. The Chinese bible is a gigantic memory quilt that presents a genuine account of the period, rather than a conventional history. It is also captivating in that the diaries belonged to individuals from all walks of life, contrasting well with the profuse historical account and context behind Chinas modern history.Paradoxically, this installation is juxtaposed by Yangs 2009 digital video, Washing, an integral part of showing how Yang consciously recovered and cleaned the 3000 books by ritually washing the 3000 notebooks, cleaning them in preparation for the exhibition as well as removing the dirt from their pages. This act of ceremonially washing the notebooks appearsironic as if trying to erase the painful and nostalgic past of Chinas modern history. However, Yang claims that the act of washing allowed him to develop a sense of intimacy and reconcile with his past. Chinas modern historical period, especially during the five decades between 1949-1999 was one of growth, change, political unrest, upheaval and turmoil. It forms present-day China. This installation encourages the audience to consider its significance in the present, but also acts as a reminder of the past as a force that shapes the present and future of Chinas modernity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Every simple topic seems to become complex and confusing when it is related to China. The reasons behind this interesting phenomenon are diverse. From my perspective, its not just because of Chinas unusual political system and huge population, but also because of the numerous and complicated views of this system by the western world. China acts as an effective catalytic agent small moves made by China can lead to exponential changes across the globe.What I ask is whether it is novel to understand the views of this country through diverse artists angles and analyse the way in which they re-define Chinese society? Is it novel to retain Western views of these artists and of Chinese society at large? Or is the White Rabbit Gallery just another kind of avenue for political propaganda perpetuating the existing illusion of China in the eyes of Westerners?Founded in 2009 by Judith Neilson, a billionaire and entrepreneur, White Rabbit Gallery is regarded as one of the most significant avant-garde galleries in Australia, mapping Chinese contemporary politics and society. The founder spent several years collecting the artworks to construct the world of China that she imagined. The collections in the gallery are all created by artists from China or Taiwan. These artworks are all made underground, hidden away from the prying eyes of the Chinese government. You can see the contemporary Chinese artists strong passion for their art, despite the strict censorship of their country, They continue to express their voices and provide introspections on society. I was also attracted to the various art forms and mediums created by the artists whose art adorns White Rabbits walls. These included paintings, sculptures, digital projections, engravings, and mechanical devices amongst others. This variety expands the boundaries of contemporary art and provides audiences with more opportunities to experience what China is.The exhibition I viewed focussed on the idea of marriage and sex in contemporary Chinese society. A few politically sensitive topics are also infused into the exhibition such as the centralization of power, freedom of speech and the silent majority. What most impressed me in this exhibition were the series of fictitious whale state artworks created by Taiwanese artists. Here, this non-existent state is materialised into tangible and structured details such as slogans and pictures. The poster hanging up on one of the walls, for example, depicts several opened human mouths, exposing black lips and zig-zag teeth. The headline of Glorious whale state citizens and Freedom of speech is explicitly inscribed in the upper space of the picture. The head of a man with a giant letter X overlapping it represents the idea of unifying thoughts. On the other side of the room, figures in a portrait photo express a collective unconsciousness. Their eyes are closed or looking sideways.Theres no doubt that in the eyes of the Western world and the Taiwanese artists, mainland China is a non-democratic country in which freedom and human rights are restricted by the government. But this assumption leads to a more in-depth question. How do we identify the boundaries between reality and fiction? To what extent do the artworks map this reality correctly? These are age old questions, and hark back to consistently negative opinions of the Soviet Union which dominated the Western conscious half a century ago. The fear of the red regime has been transposed to China these days. It seems the most regular impression of China in the Western World is nothing more than strict censorship, no freedom of speech and the silent majority. These conceptions, highlighted by media again and again, have subconsciously influenced people to assume there is nothing in China beyond the stereotype of the red regime. To a certain degree both the audiences and the artists become the characters in these Whale society images the silent majority dominated by the political media. Audiences should consider the deeper meaning behind these images and their complexity. They must consider its essence, not just its surface meaning.Another series of art works in the exhibition focus on the existing opinions and values of sexuality and marriage in China. The first image depicts a crowd of naked men in line. In a traditional painting style, the main naked character in the picture is of a wom*n. The function of the painting is mainly to stimulate masculine erotic desire. They are looked upon by the observers the upper-class men. In this picture, gender is turned upside down. Wom*n hold a sense of power, advocating a sense of gender equality and rejection of toxic masculinity. Apart from that, a set of animations also challenge further intrinsic taboos of society they challenge the view that reproduction is underlyingly dirty and crazy. In the rotating animation, a vagina becomes a mouth, breasts squeeze lemon juice onto a bald head and the expression to kiss ass is given a literal interpretation. Sexuality is not shameful in this place, its just like any other part of our body.These images are highly stylised and exaggerated. But it means that the sexual revolution pushed forward by these artists are finally being accepted by Chinese citizens, though the majority of Chinese people still hold conservative views on gender, especially in rural areas. Meanwhile authority still heavily controls individual expression which restricts sexual liberation as well. Because of this, its quite difficult for me to see gender as political, but the exhibits of the White Rabbit Gallery certainly provide a good way to begin this discussion.In the White Rabbit Gallery, what is important is not just the artwork that you see, but how you differentiate it from various other artworks and the holistic layout of the gallery that create surrounding illusions. Every piece of artwork is political in its own way. I firmly believe this to be true. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its an uneventful evening. Im sitting by a laptop as friends fiddle with the characteristics available on the screen to create a Sims 4 avatar. One friend, a caucasian female, does so with ease. We go from choosing their body type: slim; their hair colour: light brown; their eyes: black; and their outfit: jeans and a t-shirt. When it came to making my avatar, we struggled. The Sims skin swatches did not come close to matching mine, and in the process of finding a premade Sim by looking up Indian female, results showed lacklustre, stereotypical depictions of what is deemed Indian or whitewashed avatars in traditional Indian wear. To add to this, I couldnt even adjust the body size to match mine. Growing up on real-life simulation games like the Sims, I never realised that I, a South Asian woman, was not represented accurately on a screen without a bindi. But now that I see my ideals are more aligned with western values, the fact that I see skinny bodies as perfect, and lighter skin as beautiful, is not only a reflection of the society I grew up in, but also a damaging emotion that is propagated by the participative media I surround myself with such as Sims.Reddit users are amongst the gamers calling out the disturbingly realistic forms of racism in Sims 4. Diverse characters are whitewashed in urban living situations, and the random interactions Sims police have with young Black characters resemble America in all too familiar ways false incarceration that disproportionately targets young people of colour (POC). The Sims 4s Get Together expansion pack allows users to engage in certain activities and push for certain stereotypes, a virtual echo chamber and narrative that we can hardly ignore outside this artificial world. EA games, a US $1.04 billion dollar gaming company and the developer of Sims, told Forbes this year that in Sims 4, Were not really looking for realism, were looking more for believability. This kind of believability is incredibly damaging when combined with the stereotypes inherent in Sims 4. While called out by mainstream media and film, the stark reality of racism and sexual harassment, is not represented ethically in some of our most popular, and widely-used video games. While I may have been too naive to notice it at 12, Sims 4 indeed fails to keep up with the body positivity movement, the Black Lives Matter movement and in general, propagating respect and acceptance of people outside the norm. In games targeted at Asian markets, particularly ones like Blade and Soul and Wangzhe Rongyao (Strike of Kings), players face a microcosmic version of cultural appropriation inside this digital world when designing characters. The characters clothes may be derived from South East Asian culture, but their faces are Caucasian. This racial favouritism towards Caucasian depictions in interactive games is very destructive. The fact that globalised game developers are profiting off this culture with little or no care for experience of diversity and multiplicity of views makes their content an echo chamber for toxic norms. They undermine self acceptance and confidence, in an increasingly capitalistic society that thrives and profits off self-doubt.In 2014, Sims 4 sold more than 1.10 million copies worldwide. By the end of that year, gamers had played more hours than a decamillenium or 10,000 years. This game is isnt just a past time, but an addiction that thousands of young minds spend their time on.Sure, Sims may not inherently be programmed to judge other Sims on the basis of body type, but if young players are taught to accept a different shade of the colour of their skin, a different type of idealised body in society within a virtual world they spend hours on, their perceptions of self and of difference will be inherently skewed as they go through life. EAs definition of stark realities see creators pigeonholing people into certain body types and skin colours rather than leaving it open to moulding by the gamer the original intent of the game itself.When mainstream systems of entertainment and their creators fail to represent varied body types or diversity of background, users and analysts must find alternative means for enjoyment and social inclusion. The solution, then, is to address the lack of representation of South Asian designers employed in video game companies.It is only through the active inclusion of diverse developers in teams of coders and designers that we will see a positive effect on the self-assurance of young players. This certainly isnt an outcome of video games that is propagated enough currently by companies who are clearly blindsided by profits. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Phew, I dont have any group projects this semester. Awesome, right? The ensemble of a group project is well known: the person who does 99% of the work, the person who promises to do all the work but does nothing, the person who you wish would show up, and the person who shows up but you wish would not.If I am to be honest, I have played every one of these characters in my time. For every instance of heavy lifting, I have also ghosted every group member for other urgent commitmentsThe question remains, how do we pick the right people to ensure equal contributions from all group members? Ideally, you want individuals who are like-minded in their attitude to deadlines, and their expectations for the quality of work.These seemingly impossible questions were answered by a friend during a recent meetup. They claimed to have mastered a skill set, or rather, a methodology, of reading people by their faces.Ones appearance reveals ones heart.She cited the Chinese idiom while familiarising me with face reading techniques. They belong to the practice of physiognomy, which originated from China around 3 millennia ago.According to her account, all that is needed is a pair of observant eyes. Paying attention to the organs on their face grants you access to a persons personality; the forehead, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and chin. Although scientific sensibilities may easily have discouraged me, I listened. In the following, I will detail what I was told each section of the face indicates.Forehead: it contains information about ones life in their younger years. Wisdom is judged by the shape of the forehead: a wide and high one is preferable. So, broad foreheads are needed in a group to ensure the project is headed in the right direction from the get-go.Eyebrows: they show the fortune of the early thirties. In addition to their likely longevity, the length of the eyebrows is also positively correlated with attitudes to friends and partners, which means an ideal group member should have longer eyebrows. Moreover, as they are near the window of the heart the eyes they also reflect ones temperament and behaviourism. Longer than the outer canthus, and one is likely to be righteous and less restrained. Great team players come with great eyebrows.Eyes: people with bigger eyes tend to be cheerful, in charge of the bigger picture, expressive and outgoing, yet they are ready to trust others and get deceived. Those who have smaller eyes are usually calm and always in control of their mood, paying attention to details and unsociable. A balance definitely needs to be created in a group: having a mix of large and small eyes means having both planners and executors.Nose: stands for ones self-esteem, ability, social status, and personality, in particular in ones age of forties. A well-featured nose with a freshy tip, raised wings and invisible nostrils is believed to be the symbol of leader and good fortune. The nose tip represents self, therefore the bigger it gets, the more likely this person adheres to his or her ideas. When you vote for your group leader, observe their nose before raising your hands.Mouth: a large mouth is more fun, social, and talkative while a small mouth is quiet, private and sincere. Ones decision-making style is revealed by the teeth: straight teeth means good decisions; gaps in between suggest a proclivity towards puns and jokes; small teeth are kind, and big teeth are stubborn; crooked teeth are conflicted they can be either shy or really aggressive. Bear this in mind should you want someone chatty in the group to stave off boredom.Ears: quick learners have highly placed ears. People with ears sticking out from the sides of head tend to be rebellious, whereas those with ears that lie flat against the head are conformists. The height and shape of the ears may inform you as to who loves challenging each other an important quality in a group project! Having a challenger who dares to question, minimises the occurence of mistakes.Chin: physical strength, aggression, and survival are betrayed by the chin. Chin and jaw size represent ones stamina and willpower; the larger the chin is, physically stronger and more aggressive they are. Anecdotally, all the perfectionists I have encountered all wielded either straight or angular chins, and they all really managed the time very well.I was then equipped with face reading techniques, and a very small number of papers I found that were willing to support face readings scientific credibility (including a Czech paper that those with faces perceived to be longer, with a wider distance between the eyes, a larger nose, and a sharper, pointing, less rounded chin are more intelligent).I decided to put this knowledge to use in the past four weeks on campus. Despite no group work for me, I still tried to predict the friendly faces personality in my lecture. I read their faces, and then approached and talked to them.Discerning characters was certainly difficult. I found myself a bit guilty of using this skill set to judge people. Was the process culturally insensitive?? Perhaps. Am I horrible at this? Absolutely no one contradicted me when I told them they were intelligent, and everyone refused to be called as a control freak based on the appearance of their nose and chin.The issue here is not about not remembering those techniques or the outcome of the research. Rather, it is impossible to judge someones personality just by looking at their face, as there is absolutely no way to quantify to qualify the size of some features on every individuals face. However, there are still experts out there, accurately practicing face readings on individuals, regardless of gender, race, nationality, etc. Moreover, there is a long and rich history of physiognomy in Chinese heritage. The recent revival of face reading has crossed cultural barriers, and as the practice expands into the community. More people like me have become interested in the practice and how it works. Perhaps it guides individuals in working on their strengths and weaknesses. These face readers continue writing the history of face reading and continue retaining this ancient art known around the world.As for me, a bad face reader, I will use my old trick for my future group projects, using my sixth sense to emit and receive my peers vibe, and to spread positivity around. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Depending on the kind of circles you associate with online, the term caption rap may mean absolutely nothing to you. Caption rap, collectively coined by hip-hop fans online, describes underground hip-hop artists. They are not signed to a record label, but promote their music through Facebook.Facebook pages such as UNILAD Sound and Underground Rap World have been instrumental in many caption rappers the rise to fame. of many caption rappers. These pages regularly share songs and videos that attack mumble rap the dominant sound of the newer generation of hip-hop artists, which emphasises phonetic reduction (neglecting or altering certain syllables in a word or phrase) with simplistic lyrical content, and heavy use of autotune.The videos these artists produce are often edited by themselves, or the page sharing the video, to display large captions at the top and/or bottom of the frame, with click-bait-y text designed to capture the attention of scrolling users. Take rapper Nova Rockafeller for example: with over 60,000 likes on Facebook, they often use incendiary captions such as THE BEST RAPPER ALIVE IS A WHITE GIRL LOL.No other rapper better encapsulates the problematic nature of caption rap as a whole than former pro wrestler Tom MacDonald. MacDonald has numerous videos on his Facebook page containing self-made captions, praising himself in the third-person He looks like a mumble rapper / But hes saving hip-hop. Hes been amassing fans through his page for some time now, but his claim to fame was the controversial single he released in February last year, WHITEBOY. Moving beyond the frequent and thinly-veiled racist remarks about mumble rappers, WHITEBOY is as close to a white empowerment anthem as you can get without saying as much in words. The video for this song has been uploaded to Facebook multiple times once with the white supremacy-tied phrase ITS OKAY TO BE WHITE in the description.MacDonald is insistent, however, that he is not racist and has not participated in racist activities, which he mostly boils down to owning a slave or saying a racial slur. Youre making me the villain by demonizing my race, he effectively screams in the songs third verse. He presents an incredibly outdated and one-dimensional view of racism. MacDonald seems to be more concerned with defending white people from online-degradation than legitimate systemic racism.The mumble rap label is not exclusive to artists of colour Lil Pump is proof of that. However, the common delivery and dialect heard in music of this kind largely stems from African-American vernacular english. The backlash that emanates from caption rappers is indicative of their racist biases. The belittlement of the currently dominant mumble sound in popular rap music by white fans of older, real hip-hop represents a denial of any developments being made new members of the genre. Such belittlement only further marginalises a generation of young, mostly African-American artists, and the culture they are inspired by. Other caption rappers like Vin Jay and Mac Lethal are often adamant in their perception of real rap as that which utilises an incredibly fast flow and/or lyrical prowess. Pages and subsections of hip-hop fans respond positively to their videos, due to this wordplay or discussion of serious topics including political issues or mental health. However, songs that take a surface level approach to weighty issues, as caption rapping does, often have praise bestowed upon them merely because of their subject matter. This is a tokenistic and hypocritical version of what fans of real hip-hop claim to respect, as it shows a disregard for any actual lyricism, wordplay, or insightful understanding about real-life issues.Caption rap is, in many ways, fairly inconsequential to the culture of mainstream hip-hop. The substantial following or attention these artists gain from their videos has not yet translated into any sort of mainstream crossover appeal. This subculture is scarcely mentioned outside of online platforms. The most crucial concept to take away from this trend, then, is the colour-blind ideology artists and fans of this style take on to ignore the racial and cultural elements embedded within the hip-hop genre. Caption rap has the potential to harm the progression and sentiments of the real talent out there. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sagrada Familiar, as their name might suggest, are as much a family as they are a band. Six of the bands seven members cultivated their ties at USyds Conservatorium of Music; two of them even happen to be brothers. However, above all else, Sagrada Familiar are bound together by a love of hip-hop. I met up with them at Paragon at the start of Semester One to discuss their album, their live gigs and their plans for future projects.Sagrada had humble beginnings. The group began as a hangout activity in early 2015 between Dave Quinn, Ashley Stoneham, and Roshan Kumarage, who would while away hours experimenting with instrumental sounds. Charlie Sundborn, a friend of Ashleys, would join them while he was still in high school. Kieren Brereton was eventually brought into the fold to play guitar, as the nascent group wanted to add another layer to their music. Eventually Sid Spring-Winer was brought in on vocals, while Jack Stoneham, brother of Ashely, was the last to join the band in 2017.Roshan recounted how the band settled on the name Sagrada Familiar.I was wearing a bag imprinted witha graphic of the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, which my friend got for me from Barcelona, and we thought, thats kind of cool. When deciding on the name we agreed we may as well be called that. Simple.In terms of their musical inspirations, Kieren notes how the band has a wide range of hip hop inspirations, such as J Dilla. Whilst not trying to emulate any one artist in particular, they allow their inspirations to come together when crafting their songs. For example, Ashley mentions how he drew inspiration from James Blake when they were writing Im Okay.Ashley went onto explain their artistic process for writing songs.We think about it in terms of instrumental beats what instrumental will serve as a good base for a song. Thats how weve always thought about it.Kieren detailed how they produce their songs.A lot of our songs start off like a blank canvas we all try to contribute to. For example, Im Okay was a song we each made from scratch as a collaborative piece with its instrumental beat as a starting point, that went through a lot of changes before it became the finished product.Contrastingly, Wake Up and Come Fly started off as songs that Charlie conjured up on GarageBand during high school.Those songs would then be changed around and adapted based upon everyones insights into how it should be, of course with the added sounds, whilst still retaining its basic instrumental beat, Charlie explained.So far, Sagrada has released one album, Unfamiliar. As a band that puts as much time into creating original music as possible, Sagrada spent two years working on the album before it was released.The albums material was written in 2016, but it wasnt until April 2017 that they would be in a studio recording their album. Cooped up in the now defunct REC studios near Central Station, Sagrada spent ten days recording the 16 song album.Shit was missing, the board was broken, it was a bit dodgy, the band said of the studio they recorded in. Despite the dire state of the studio, Sagrada were able to bang out Unfamiliar within the 10 days, ready for release.It wouldnt be another year before Sagrada released their debut album to the public, on the 18th of March 2018 . The band spent the time leading up to that point making a few final arrangements, including addings synths to a few songs, creating videos and commissioning covert art, crafted by Kurt Brereton, Kierens Dad.Unfamiliar would go onto be released gradually in the space of a month in March. Im Okay and Wolf in a Mist were released as a double single; Ever Gonna Grow was then released as another single in quick succession leading up to the full album release.Both the double single and album release were launched at Lazy Bones in Marrickville. Sagrada have also played at Sly Fox supporting the Baldwins for their single launch in 2016, as well as other artists including Glen Lumanta, Motherfunk, The Honey Nothings, and Dobby.After their album launch in September, the band took a brief hiatus, as three of the band members were focused on their studies, while others travelled overseas.Sagrada did confirm however that they are currently working on producing new music. The band is focused on taking a different angle to produce their new songs, taking a digital DIY process of making musicOne thing is for certain, this time Sagrada are really focused on producing the music and working out how it will sound live after it is produced a new approach when compared to their preparation for Unfamiliar.So far, the band is aiming to produce an EP, but remain open to the possibility of making another album.The process is different this time, its not as preconceived as last time, remarks Kieren. The band reckons they should have this next piece released for 2020Whatever the case may be, based on the success of their last album, especially how unique it was, their next release is certainly something to look forward to!You can find Sagrada Familiars music on Spotify and Bandcamp. You can also follow them on Facebook and Instagram. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dairy and meat substitutes arent critical to the vegan diet but they will be critical in reversing our meat consumption. As we progress further toward a world beyond 2C, we need to reevaluate our consumption habits with a particular emphasis on meat. As the production of animal products such as dairy and eggs are tied to the rearing of animals, a decrease in demand is also critical. The Australian diet is one of the most carbon-intensive in the world owing to our near unrivalled appetite for meat. Other countries that share the obsession include the USA, New Zealand, Argentina, Israel, Uruguay, and Kuwait. Its difficult to pin the reasons behind the elevated demand between such different nations but I argue that culture holds the key. It is for this reason that I am a huge advocate for dairy and meat substitutes.One of the highlights of any overseas trip is indulging in the cuisine of another nation. The food people eat tells the story of who they are and where theyve been. Food historians reveal to us how a history of changing material conditions is embedded in the food that we eat. In the USA and Australia, meat consumption increased as the arriving colonists found vast swathes of fertile land making animal rearing affordable. While I dont argue that the stories embedded in our food are good ones, they leave a legacy. People will not be quick to abandon their heritage, no matter how bloody. Our food preferences are part of our identity, our personal history and our cultural history. Cooking is a form of communion and dairy/meat substitutes allow us to commune albeit with a reduced carbon footprint. I dont have to give up grandmas Bolognese.According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), meat consumption has grown by approximately 58% in the last 20 years. Interestingly, 54% of this increase has scaled with population growth and the remainder an intensification of meat consumption (kg/capita). Changes in dairy product demand are not uniform across the offerings (e.g. more want cheese but less want milk). Nonetheless, with the population set to cap at approximately 11 billion, there must be an effort to reduce the per capita consumption of animal products. Substitutes are far from the complete answer. Despite impressive growth in the industry, meeting global animal product demand is a tall order. Instead, we need to celebrate our vegetables and legumes but for the things we cant let go of, substitutes may fill the gap.True to name, substitutes may help people lower their consumption by substituting for an animal product without making a vegan or vegetarian transition. Anyone who has spent too long looking at burger menus may have noticed that Grilld sells plant-based burgers with bacon. The approach doesnt follow an all-or-nothing dogma, instead encouraging substitution where possible. These burgers are targeting the omnivorous amongst us. Now, Grilld isnt exactly a bastion of virtue but they highlight a viable use for the substitute product. Ill still cringe whenever I hear someone say wow it tastes just like meat, but this revelation informs us that we dont need to revert to old habits to enjoy our most treasured meals. I also wouldnt call burger eating elite or luxurious.If nothing else, capitalism knows how to find and build a market. You may argue that it plays on our impulsiveness (it does), that it sells images as much as products (it does), or that its downright responsible for the climate catastrophe we find ourselves in (it is). Yet, a product born in a market society isnt inherently undesirable. Substitutes are out there to directly compete with animal products but theyre in their infancy. The animal-consuming market vastly outstrips the vegan in both net wealth and size making it a far more lucrative one. Some companies may cater to the high-flying urban vegan, but the common man has money to spend too. The cheaper materials inputs and economies of scale achievable with substitutes will cause prices to fall. Dairy and meat substitutes arent there to make veganism inaccessible. Theyre there to reduce the carbon footprint of the schnitty-craving vegan and the climate-conscious burger fan alike. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a society that is filled with greenwashing, Fairtrade stickers, and eco-friendly produce, its hard to know whether ethical products are really ethical. With human rights scandals plaguing companies such as Nike and Nestle, who maintain a large customer base to this day, whats to say that every single product you buy doesnt have a dark past of slavery, pollution, and horrific human rights abuse?The Tree of Modern LifeYou may believe that global supply chains are a simple, linear process. But they are not; to illustrate this complexity, imagine a tree. The trunk is the final product, with the branches representing all of the products components. For instance, a chocolate bar would be a trunk, and would have branches of cocoa, milk, sugar, and so on. But those branches have other branches too, into the millions.This means that its impossible for individuals, and even companies, to trace the origins, materials, geography, and practices of every single branch in their supply chain. This can partially be attributed to sub-contracting and overseas factories lying about labour conditions. In 2019 it was revealed Target and Cotton On had been sourcing fabric from forced labour camps in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. But the brands themselves werent directly sourcing the material; the sub-contractors had been outsourcing the labour.Let us take a look at one of the most infamous industries the chocolate industry. In 2018 nearly two million children were forced into labour in the chocolate industry in West Africa, where they spent hours under the hot sun harvesting cocoa beans, with no pay. And no chocolate producer is exempt from this, not even those which are deemed ethical. In 2019 it was revealed that UTZ certified cocoa farms were actually more likely to employ child labour practices than those uncertified. But as a consumer, standing in a supermarket isle, this is also concealed through falses promises offered by ethical labelling.A Hard Pill to SwallowWaste is another major issue in our current global market, and this includes the practice of recycling. The recycling industry was founded and funded byoil and plastic companies, to keep selling plastic products without consumer guilt. The companies promoted recycling through million-dollar advertising campaigns and lobby groups. British Petroleum created the term carbon footprint to shift environmental responsibility to the individual person, rather than corporations: who have contributed to 71% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.Shockingly, only 9% of plastic produced globally has been recycled. The rest has found its home in landfill or the ocean. This is because recycling is not economically viable. It is expensive to process plastic and can only be repurposed once or twice. The recycling industry in Australia is a perfect example of this. Due to weak regulations and government inaction, tonnes of recycled waste is actually going to landfill, as industry insiders say there is no viable market for it.So why dont we just use biodegradable products instead? Probably because they dont actually biodegrade. To break down, organic compounds need oxygen, as well as micro-organisms and micronutrients from soil, which there is not a lot of in huge piles of waste.A Not-So-Modest ProposalBiodegradable products are still a far better option than plastic, which takes up to 500 years to degrade and kills 100,000 marine animals annually. And buying the most ethical option affordable will signal to corporations that consumers are searching for ethical products.But to make meaningful change, we need a novel system of production and consumption that limits unethical and environmentally harmful practices.A more local market would be a good start. By limiting the supply chain to the domestic arena, there would be less risk of unethical labour practices that come with outsourcing to unknown suppliers. The ambiguity that arises in global supply chains, where labour and environmental impacts cannot be traced, is diminished significantly.The bottom line though, is that multinational corporations are directly responsible for all the plastic produced, not the individual consumer. The neoliberal idea that individuals can single-handedly solve large geo-political issues like climate change and the violation of human rights was spread by the very companies that were at the heart of these catastrophes. What is needed is radical change: a global ban on plastic, forcing companies to produce products more sustainably while striving towards net zero emissions.In this current market, complete ethical consumption is not possible. Its too expensive and the protection of unethical supply practices through global supply chains is insurmountable.If we want real change, we have to focus on where the real issue lies; the fast-paced, wasteful, and profit-driven market. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the recent Atlanta shootings that killed eight people, six were Asian women. In the news articles and social media content that has been produced since, many still spell the names of the murdered Asian women wrong.On top of this, Captain Jay Baker, who was the spokesperson on the investigation, told press that the assailant had simply had a bad day. Baker was later taken off the case after it was discovered that he had used anti-Asian slurs on Facebook last year. Neglecting to mention the racial and sexist intentions behind why the shooter deliberately targeted Asian workers across spa parlours in Atlanta, the narrative spun by the media became one in which a 21-year-old white man had simply wanted to eliminate his temptation due to his sex addiction.If there is one thing that is glaringly obvious about the case, it is that the lives of Asian people (especially women) are repeatedly represented as disposable, as if one mans bad day can excuse the ruthlessness of the Atlanta killings. Afterall, we are the perpetual aliens, the external others, and sexual objects; expected to appreciate the yellow fever jokes that frame us as cute Asian women, perfect, obedient partners and exotic women.It is more important than ever to understand that racism and sexism are not separate issues. This intersectionality is made clear in the everyday lives of Asian women. In the stories that Asian women have shared online, the discourse of sexualised racism is embodied in our everyday lives. Living in the body of an Asian woman means that we are constantly being painted as exotic entities, small, quiet, obedient; just another Asian girl. Our bodies are hypersexualized under the white male gaze. It is no doubt the shooting is racially and sexually motivated. It is also no doubt that denying the sexualised racism underlying this tragedy is not just ignorant but filled with the sting of everyday racism, once again sweeping Asian people under the rug.THESE ARE THEIR NAMESTO THE MEDIA: FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THEIR NAMES. THANKS. Delaina Ashley YaunPaul Andre MichelsXiaojie TanDaoyou FengJulie ParkHyeon Jeong Park(two more not yet released) #Atlanta Jenny Yang (@jennyyangtv) March 18, 2021Sexualised Politics, Racism and History: Asian women migrantsSexualised racism towards Asian women has a long history both in the US and Australia yet, we are frequently left out from the discussion of racism and migrant history in general. In the era of Gold Rush America, Asian immigrant women, particularly Chinese women, were dehumanised as lewd or debauched. Part of the reason for this portrayal was that the smuggling and transporting of Chinese women into the sex work industry was secretly encouraged by the government as a soft method to stabilize immigrant men; yet, these women had no welfare guarantees. Lucie Cheng Hirata writes that Chinese sex workers would help to maintain the labor force of single young men, which is in the interest of capitalists who would otherwise have to pay higher wages to the laborers with families to support. Hirata also notes that the exploitation of Asian sex workers enable[d] entrepreneurs to extract large profits from the work of women under their control. As integral as Asian women have been and continue to be to the history of the world we know, we are constantly sidelined and forgotten.Eventually, with Asian sex workers regarded as morally corrupt, and a threat to the institutions of marriage and white males, the 1875 Page Act was established to prevented Chinese women in general from immigrating to the United States. This legislation was and later expanded to women from Japan and Mongolia. Asian people, particularly those of southeast Asian and East Asian descents, have dually been viewed as morally corrupt while sexually alluring ever since.In Australia, sexual politics remain glossed over in the shadow of colonialism, and the stories of non-Anglo women remain largely unseen, covered by the harmony mythos that permeates images of Australia. In a very similar manner to in the US, during the Gold Rush and early colonial period, Asian migrant sex workers were secretly encouraged by the government to work in the gold mining areas and immigrant worker groups as a way to stabilise the large in-flow of migrant men. The history of the treatment of Asian migrant women across continents overlaps in the lack of welfare for Asian migrant women in the sex industry, as they were globally portrayed as a threat to the purity of European marriage institutions.Despite growing discussions on the history of Asian migrants in general, few pay attention to the history of migrant women. Even today, in the decriminalised sex industry of which Asian migrant women constitute a large majority of the population, the accurate demography and statistics of these women remain unknown according to the report by the Australian Institute of Criminology.#StopAsianHate: the Australian ContextAfter the Atlanta shooting and the new waves of discussion over racism and sexism towards Asian women, it is surprising and frustrating to know that the #StopAsianHate movement has sparked little discussion in Australia. It is as if racism towards Asians is an American problem that does not exist in Australia. It might take people a while to remember the racist abuse that Asian people experienced during COVID-19. Between April to June 2020, 400 Asian-identified people reported being verbally and/or physically abused on the street in the space of three months. On USyds own campus, there were cases of Asian international students being verbally violated for speaking their first languages, asked to get back to their own country and being physically attacked. Though different from the American context, racism towards Asians in Australia is also stirred by its geographical proximity to the Asia-Pacific. In the seminal article Racial/Spatial Anxiety by the Western Sydney scholar Ien Ang, she wrote, the geography of white Australia [is connected to] the fear of Invasion The invader was imagined as Asian: so geographically proximate, so threateningly multitudinous, and not least, so alienly non-white. Bearing this in mind, it is the time for us to reflect on the disposable lives of Asian women in the Atlanta shooting, the racism and sexism towards Asian women in Australia. We must all unlearn racism in Australia, and its time to listen to the stories that Asian people have to tell, and work together to #StopAsianHate. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For the average domestic student, their transition to university is often characterised by challenges, whether it be attempting to understand university jargon, or trying to get administrative support from the University or the Student Centre. Often these and other grievances are manifested on USyd Rants, a repository for the issues that resonate with many. However, outside of the dominant discourse, there exist far greater barriers for international students and the international student community. From the oft-quoted language barriers, to the less emphasised cultural disparities, to ones personal conflicts attempting to understand and accept their own identities, these issues seem to get less air time.These dilemmas have only been made more troubling in recent years, as international students are heralded cash cows by the university, and students become all the more alienated from the wider university community. Though the facade of inclusivity is upheld by popular depictions of international students, such as in the Life in Sydney USyd website page, the contrast to reality is quite stark.The situation has only been exacerbated during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, with widespread reports at the time of many international students facing financial difficulties with the impacts from lockdowns and newer regulations. There have also been many instances of these students needing to rely on food banks, and struggling to pay rent due to the loss of part-time income.However, as opposed to offering them necessary support, be that through government aid or the University directly, a rhetoric has simply been repeated that international students in financial difficulty caused by the unforeseen pandemic could simply choose to return home. This is an assumption that is not only irresponsible, as it absolves blame from the University and government, but is also dangerous, as it essentially directs students to move to higher-risk, harder-hit areas of the pandemic away from the safety of Australia. This has all occurred in spite of University accommodation remaining largely vacant, and with the SRC having previously moved a motion calling for the University to use these spaces for temporary, affordable housing purposes.In a sense, for an institution with over a billion dollars worth of reserves, whose fundamental purpose is to serve the interests of students, there appears to be a moral imperative in such extreme circumstances to support those that are experiencing financial difficulty and immense distress through no fault of their own.However, this is an expectation that the University has thus far completely failed to meet. In essence, it is a response hinged on the Universitys own self interest, intentional or otherwise, that highlights and reinforces the supremacy of the Universitys practical obligations over its normative ones.In recent weeks, an email reminder for international students regarding their 1st of March payment date for their Semester 1 Units of Study gathered attention in the international student community, in alignment with the aforementioned concerns. Within the Chinese demographic in particular, as reported by many WeChat news curators, the University has quoted in an email that: If you cannot make the payment for your Semester 1 tuition fees by the due date, we advise you to withdraw from your Units of Study for Semester 1 now and return to your studies when you can cover the cost of your fees.This, whilst perfectly legally acceptable (as with previous responses during the height of the pandemic), is nevertheless an imperfect response, both in rhetoric and policy, carrying repercussions and impacts for the community. With the pandemics disproportionate, short-term impacts as well as a lack of any alternatives or support structures to assist with fee payments, students that would ordinarily be able to pay for their studies are being hung out to dry. With the international students being significantly affected being those of a generally lower socio-economic background, it could also catalyse the institutionalisation of disadvantage, leading to more profound long-term concerns. Ultimately, for the University, the disparity between the need to attract more international students, and their inability to provide necessary aid and support may, in the long term, simply tarnish and undermine its own image as a welcoming destination for all to come and study. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Commonly found throughout nationalist history and lore is the idea of the Pioneer,: Those who came before us, founders, discoverers, and Firsts. Colonialism and settler discourses rely heavily on this idea to drive the continuity of the settler-colonial state, and serve to erase those who truly came before, such as the Indigenous peoples of a land.Beyond the naming of places after so-called pioneers, agriculture was a prominent way colonisers established dominance over land. Until recently, narratives of Indigenous peoples being hunter-gatherers were peddled to depict them as uncivilised and savages to prove they had no territorial claims compared to the civilised European settlers who knew how to farm. In Australia, Many early British settlers were granted hundreds of acres of land where they built large estates and farms. Modern suburbs that sit atop these former estates often take their names from these settlers, erasing their original Indigenous names. Agriculture and farming thus cemented a permanent place for settlers in the new colony. The construction of the pioneer has deliberately justified and excused colonial expansion over centuries to establish the image of settlers as persevering and innovating in a new land. In reality, pre-existing Indigenous knowledge was essential to these efforts. For instance, many early explorers relied on Indigenous paths and guides to navigate terrain and discover new areas. This is true not only in Australia, but in other colonies too.Much of Israels pre-state history rests on the veneration of kibbutzim. First founded in 1909 by the Yishuv (the Jewish residents of Palestine prior to the establishment of Israel), a kibbutz is traditionally an Israeli agricultural commune. Today the number of kibbutzim has grown to 274. Long hailed as socialist communes, the aims of kibbutzim were to create a rural egalitarian utopia, infused with Zionist nationalism. Despite Zionist claims of making the desert bloom, Palestines fertile regions and tropical climate were already ripe for the successful establishment of these communes.Agricultural practices were tied to the mass displacement and forced dispossession of Indigenous peoples. The violent acquisition of land in Australia disrupted traditional Indigenous ways of life, resulting in violent clashes between Indigenous people and settlers, as Indigenous people were continually dispossessed of their land and denied access to food and water sources. Farms became sites of resistance where crops were burned and cattle were killed, sometimes as means of obtaining food, other times, it was retaliation for settler violence targeted towards Indigenous people. Efforts were also made by the colonial government in the 1800s to civilise Indigenous peoples by introducing farming and gardening activities into protectorates and missions.In Palestine, villages, towns, and cities were ethnically cleansed of their Palestinian inhabitants to make way for newly-established settlements, including kibbutzim, and the newly-created Jewish state of Israel in 1948.The introduction of European farming methods and non-native animals had a great ecological impact. Indigenous plants and animals reacted negatively to European crops and animals, and the introduced species were consequently designated as pests. The introduction of non-native animals also led to a decline in, and the extinction of, many native species. Between 1870 and 1910, dense forests were cleared, and with them native flora and fauna, to convert them into dairy pastures. The destruction of these forests for farming purposes greatly disturbed the environment, leading to decreased rainfall, large-scale fires, and an increase in floods, erosion, frosts and pests.In the case of Israel, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a non-profit organisation dedicated to buying and developing land, planted thousands of non-native pine forests across historic Palestine. These forests were planted in part to cover up the ruins of Palestinian villages and towns that had been depopulated and destroyed since 1948. The extreme flammability of these non-native trees have greatly exacerbated Israeli wildfires, notably in 2016.The Aussie farmer is frequently construed by the media and politicians as a passive victim of climate change.While there is some truth to that, the agriculture industry has caused an untold amount of environmental harm over the years since colonisation. While many farmers are presently struggling, modern agricultural practices which are rooted in Western colonial techniques, have proven unsustainable in the long-term. Furthermore, the growth of industrial agriculture and increased trade has facilitated pollution, and the exploitation of natural resources. In Australia, land clearing, deforestation and irrigation have threatened biodiversity and resulted in land degradation through soil erosion, salination, and waterlogging, to name just a few.Kibbutzim were mostly driven by Labour Zionism, the same strand of Zionist ideology that oversaw the construction of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Today, these settlements are supported by the Israeli Right through the evocation of Jewish ties and history to the land as a justification for continued land theft and settlement. Regardless, Zionism, no matter its political alignment or form, is the same nationalist ideology responsible for the destruction of thousands of olive trees, the seizure of Palestinian land, and the disposession of Palestinians from their land. Palestinians living in the West Bank continue to experience water shortages and face violent attacks by settlers. Many Palestinians rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, and agriculture forms a large portion of the Palestinian economy. Yet it has faced an economic decline due to Israels continuing military occupation and settlement expansion. Palestinians face shortages and increasing restrictions as they are increasingly isolated from international markets and forced to rely on Israel for economic support.In Australias rural areas, the struggles of Australian farmers are prioritised over Indigenous peoples, who are equally, if not more, affected by climate change and the state-sponsored destruction of sacred sites and degradation of Indigenous land. In the West Bank, Jewish ties and history spanning millennia are evoked by the far-right to justify the expansion of Israels colonial settlement project and the continued destruction of acres of Palestinian land. In both cases, it is evident that notions of pioneerism continue to drive dispossession and displacement today.The establishment of settler societies and introduction of foreign species did not innovate in any way, it simply destroyed pre-existing practices. Without Indigenous knowledge and access to vast fertile land that had been tended to over time, much settler pioneering would have not succeeded. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> People insist on the pursuit of altruism. Psychologists have promulgated various theories to explain why we seek to help others: they claim we are motivated by compassion; a sense of guilty obligation to the less fortunate; our own definition of morality; even the egoistic search for accolades. It follows, then, that we chase altruistic acts we can use to extend our CV. Studies have provided copious evidence for the benefits to individuals when we volunteer from improved mood to stronger relationships and even a longer life. But what of the other side of the equation, the groups for whom we volunteer, those we claim to protect and serve?The phenomenon of voluntourism has amassed a throng of committed disciples, but whilst it has garnered media attention and attracted many fresh high school graduates, the wave of popularity has dissolved families and demolished vulnerable communities. It is a widely accepted practice to visit extremely impoverished communities with the intention of providing help, unfettered by regulations or rules that would ensure safe behaviour. In comparison, you would be met with ridicule if you attempted to contribute similarly in Australia without adequate qualifications such as TAFE certificates or experience. One can apply this logic to almost any voluntourist trip undertaken by overzealous high-school or gap year students they brick-lay walls, care for young children, and carve wells into land with little respect for the desires of the local community. Often, voluntourists complete jobs overseas for which they would fall into legal trouble here.Whilst voluntourism can often generate positive, tangible change; it is not guaranteed nor long-lived. Untrained volunteers may have good intentions but often trigger an onslaught of harm due to their lack of skill. For example, construction projects are often butchered and thus require more resources to be rectified. Tourists inadvertently create imbalances in local communities, favouring certain orphans with trinkets or affection. For example, Kenyan woman Jane Karigo runs a Childrens Home in Mombasa and recalls once a child was gifted an iPod, leading to tension and infighting. Communities are well aware of the growing voluntourism market, brimming with those desperate to travel. This has transformed how they display themselves. Research conducted by the British charity Lumos suggests that orphanages in South Asian countries are often facades, painted with a veneer of vulnerability to draw in unsuspecting volunteers. 80% of children housed in these institutions may have a living parent but are coerced into these living situations for money. Frequently, the money that volunteers bring is distributed unequally or used to enrich the quality of their own experience rather than provide substantial benefit to an area.The performance of unethical voluntourist work in overseas countries for citizens of colour is driven by the white saviour narrative, leading to claims that this work is neo-colonialist. The idea of Western superiority to other countries is institutionally ingrained, imparted to children in primary school when tasked with projects on solving poverty and brainstorming benefits of Western aid and the imposition of our morally preferable values, such as democracy. The narrative is revised when volunteers use brown and black children as photo props again, a phenomenon that would be considered unethical with white children considering the lack of parental consent given before wide dissemination on lifestyle platforms. This perpetuates a toxic narrative of the moral high ground and paints countries in Africa and Asia as characterised by poverty and malnourished children.Daniela Papi, the author of Learning Service, a book about ethical altruism, believes voluntourism is not inherently evil, but that we need to reframe our approach. We sell a lie when we call it volunteering, she claims, [it] makes it seem like success comes from changing someone else. Learning how to serve the rest of our lives has the [greatest] impact. Many orphanages can provide a stable, loving place for abandoned children, and subsist on the donations of caring volunteers. Rather than blanketly criticising all volunteer work, we need to employ a critical lens and evaluate experiences using a case-by-case approach. And if we genuinely cannot find a justifiable way to help the impoverished with our current competencies, then it is time we stop pursuing them for bold resume lines. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The historical foundations of our public institutions are irrevocably entrenched in imperialism, European supremacy and colonial violence our museums are no exception. In these spaces, artworks, artefacts and relics are deliberately estranged from their acquisition and native histories, allowing for their public presentation to become de-historicised into a Eurocentric nostalgia for empire. In museums as they exist today, art-historical perspectives prevail, without attempts to decolonise our understanding of the object at hand. Not only does this contribute to the global erasure of Indigenous culture, but in doing so, it upholds racist and classist structures within society. In particular, 18th and 19th century European art is the single biggest culprit of depicting empire in a deeply problematic, self-reverential light. Our galleries are filled with ornate portraits of slave owners, pillagers, and colonisers, escorted by trivial words about who they were and what they did; it is easy for the viewer to take in the glistening image of an artwork without its gruesome history.To grapple with the problematic state of our modern museums in their totality, and understand why decolonising them is not as simple as it first seems, it is critical that we understand the origin of the museum as a symbol of white aristocracy. The early ancestor of the museum is the cabinet of curiosity, arising in central Europe in the 13th century. These cabinets were owned by royalty and aristocratic men, rapidly becoming the most prominent display of ones power. Filled with foreign objects taken as trinkets and trophies from their conquests, the cabinet of curiosity was a place a man could bolster his wealth, knowledge and colonial expanse. As cabinets became shelves, and shelves became rooms, museums were born out of the private collections of the colonial European aristocracy, comprised of exotic objects removed from their native place and history, just as they remain in our museums today.So if museums were born as a byproduct of empire, made possible only by the wealth generated from colonisation, this history begs the question: is it ever possible to decolonise the museum?We cannot fix the problem by simply removing problematic artworks from display, because they represent real people with real, troubling histories. To dismiss this history would be an act of injustice and disregard for the continued effects of European colonisation on Indigenous cultures globally. A first step instead may be to diversify our galleries beyond Eurocentric art. However, this is misguided, as it is critical to acknowledge that decolonisation and diversity are not synonymous. The inclusion of non-Western art created by people of colour in galleries is imperative, but this is not a means to an end for a gallery-space to become decolonised. Decolonisation is the process by which the canon of history is reviewed, questioned and re-constructed to do justice to the stories of those who have been oppressed by colonialism. A truly decolonised gallery must change the narrative it presents alongside colonial art in the form of labels, blurbs and information that seeks to represent the work in a non-Eurocentric and historically elucidative fashion. Simply including non-Western art in a gallery is not enough. It is interesting to note that cabinets of curiosity purposefully went without labels in order to withhold knowledge, providing the owner with more power over viewer interpretation. This deliberately exclusionary sentiment is apparent in the euphemistic (or altogether erasive) labelling of many European artworks in modern museums.Deliberately poor and incomplete labelling is a significant hurdle to overcome in the effort to decolonize museums. Notably, sociological scholars, such as Anbal Quijano, describe the private control of subjectivity and historical knowledge as a key pillar in the colonial matrix of power. This scrupulous control can only be dismantled through the accommodation of objects, artworks and portraits with labels that reveal the subject or owners identity, the source of their wealth, political contributions, purpose for commissioning the work, and the lineage of ownership to the present day these are the keys to building a decolonised understanding of a colonial object. Though the institution of the museum cannot be removed from its colonial heritage, it is the responsibility of curators and art historians today to begin the arduous process of decolonising artworks and objects. Alongside this, greater efforts need to be made to include non-Western art, historically dismissed from art-history as less extraordinary and unfit for gallery display. Acknowledgement and understanding through the decolonisation of the art-historical canon must be the road undertaken to transform museums into cultural institutions that reclaim and represent our collective histories unpleasantries and all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Over the past decade, streaming services such as Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon have become increasingly popular. Whilst these platforms provide access to large amounts of content at an extremely cheap rate (on a $/item scale) there is a corresponding decrease in the rate of permanent ownership.Given the nature of streaming services, consumers do have some power to demand content and influence the service providers. In 2018, public backlash resulted in Netflix paying $100 million to keep Friends on their platform for another year. Aside from isolated anecdotes though, the streaming landscape is growing more and more hostile to the consumer, with corporations steadily monopolising the movie and TV industry, with Disney owning 20+ media businesses. The corporatisation of the arts makes it increasingly difficult for smaller groups or individuals to break into the market, with policies limiting their exposure and profits, such as Apple refusing to pay artists for the first 3 months on their platform. Smaller content creators who could previously rely on free-to-air revenue and the profits from DVDs, CDs, or books, are struggling as the saturation of the market has established streaming services as exclusive. Artists employed by larger corporations are losing out as well. TV shows are being pumped out at a drastically increasing rate , but content creators are getting paid less, with many companies no longer giving them a share of the profits, and retaining less creative autonomy.In addition to creating an ever more monolithic and domineering entertainment industry, the rise of streaming has led to the loss of ownership. With many people unable to pay the endless subscription fees, we cannot experience art and media that we previously could have. No longer do you buy a DVD and add it to your collection, you simply add another subscription to your list. Now purchasing a DVD or a book tends to cost more than a months subscription to a favourite service. Why buy a CD for $20 when I can stream it on Spotify for free?This access comes at the cost of ownership. The inability to own a piece of media forces us into a cycle of streaming, which we can never really leave. Not only do consumers lose the benefits of permanent ownership (never-ending re-watches, one-time payment for all-time access, the ability to share with friends, just to name a few), but there is no viable alternative. This shifting market limits our choices and forces us into a corner in order to gain access to exclusive content (despite paying subscription fees, movies like Mulan and Rayas Last Dragon still cost an additional $34.99 to watch). Despite paying for content, we have no control over it. The service provider could easily remove your access, as such the idea of ownership is disappearing.Public content is also on the decline. As movies and TV shows become direct-to-stream, the worldwide premier is practically a thing of the past. The lack of public access to media also has significant consequences, as individuals who cant afford streaming suffer.Re-watching that show from your childhood which makes you nostalgic, reading a book you love for the first time, playing the same CD on repeat while you write your mid-sem essay the ownership of these things is an important part of life. Streaming makes these moments even more fleeting than they already were. The art that helps shape us is now entirely subject to the desires of corporations that care only about the bottom line. The rise of streaming forces consumers into a cycle of endless subscriptions, destroying the idea of permanent ownership, and cementing media as a money-making enterprise. And we have Netflix to thank for it all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The issue of whether art galleries should show works by morally contentious artists has permeated discussion in the art community over the last several decades. For galleries, there seems to be no easy path to take; they are damned if they do and damned if they dont, facing backlash both when they censor art and when they dont. In the case that we did decide to censor morally contentious artists, who would be the arbiter of such censorship anyway? Is objective censorship even possible or will it always be subject to capricious surges of public opinion?It is an unfortunate reality that if we were to suddenly decide to remove and censor the works of all the worlds morally condemnable artists, there would be myriad blank walls in our galleries. In addition to this, it would become very difficult to teach the history of art without being able to examine the works of these artists. For instance, just as it would be impossible to tell the history of the Western world without reference to Adolf Hitler, how could one hope to teach Cubism without including Pablo Picasso? A number of works featured in Picassos Vollard Suite, comprising 100 intaglio prints, depict animalistic scenes of rape and murder. Perhaps the most tormenting of the prints, however, is Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman (1933). The work shows a Minotaur hunched over a sleeping woman as it caresses her cheek. Its taurine face, rendered in incredible detail and in stark contrast to the line drawing of the rest of the print, rests gently on its own hand, showing a deep agony bordering on self-hatred.Sally Foster, of the National Art Gallery of Australia, notes that Picasso saw himself as the Minotaur and through the work attempts to portray his struggle with the animalistic urges that both plagued and devastated him during his life. He doesnt hide it, says Foster. Hes not being secretive about it, he puts all his psychological tensionsin his work for all of us to see. Whilst it is not the singular purpose of art, great artworks often share the quality of being able to authentically describe the world we live in, and offer insight into either our own lives, or broader human experiences. A depiction of Picassos internal torments, fraught with the dichotomies of pain and desire, pleasure and self-loathing, Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman is but one example of art that is so painfully honest in its twisted portrayal of human nature that it must be seen by the world. To exclude the likes of Picasso from galleries would not just make it impossible to do justice to the history of most art movements but also deny us the opportunity of learning what these pieces tell us about the darkest parts of human history and experiences.It is important to recognise also that the folly of the separating art from artist debate often clouds the discussion that we are having around whether or not to show the works of morally condemnable artists. It is folly because of course we should never view a work as separate from its artist to do so would be to ignore the fact that understanding the artist is an integral part of understanding the art. New York artist and editor of Silica Magazine, Shannon Lee is dismayed that: the artistic canon has consistently disregarded [Picassos] personal tumult with women in favor of keeping the art separate from the artist. She continues: If anything, an artists flaws ought to provide us with potential opportunities to revisit and re-contextualize their work.The experience of viewing a work of art on an aesthetic level, in combination with an education around the context of the artist, including any potential ethical issues, allows for a much deeper understanding of the work as a whole. If we were to look at Picassos Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman on a simply aesthetic level, it would be a skillful, albeit deeply disturbing work of art. However, if we understand it as an exploration of human nature and an authentic insight into the self-loathing produced by acting on animalistic instinct, it becomes a triumph of artistic skill from which it is difficult to look away. Whilst I wont argue in an absolute sense against the censorship of art, I would err on the side of allowing humanity to learn from these works. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For: Kiran GuptaBy now, weve all heard about Meghan and Harrys interview with Oprah Winfrey. Unlike some others, I didnt feel a great deal of sympathy for the couple. Harrys comment about only having Dianas inheritance to spend (estimated to be $17 million) was incredibly tone-deaf, especially in the current economic climate.Their comments only renewed strength for the argument that Australia should become a Republic, including from the chair of the Australian Republic Movement, Peter Fitzsimons, who decried the ludicrousness of an English family having a generational divine right over Australians. The debate has always been interesting to me, especially given many monarchists are progressive (such as Michael Kirby) and many Republicans (such as Malcolm Turnbull) are conservative. In my view, the argument for becoming a Republic centres around functionality, practicality and the social impact of having a Royal Family.Many monarchists believe that the Crown holds an important role in protecting the sovereignty of the government. However, Professor Anne Twomey, an expert in the Monarchy from the University of Sydney, believes that the Queens reserve powers, such as to appoint and dismiss the Governor-General, are extremely limited and if exercisable, are generally only on the advice of the Prime Minister. Buckingham Palace has always insisted that someone come physically with the advice to London, which in our case means it takes at least 24 hours to get there, she says. By that point, the person will have normally resigned first because of political pressure.Beyond the functional argument, the Royals also no longer align with Australian values. They position themselves as embodying impeccable behavioural standards that Australians should aspire to, placing them above the level of celebrities. Given that Australia is a multicultural country, the suggestion that we should accept people with serious allegations of, continued silence towards, and infamous gaffes about racism as our head of state, is highly problematic. After all, royalty is a colonial system based on antiquated, structural privilege that has directly profited off violence and invasion. It does not seem far-fetched to assume that someone in the family would express concerns about a mixed-race child.The monarchy is also subject to considerably less scrutiny than that of other public servants. The Royals operate under a guise of secrecy, reinforced by a carefully constructed narrative around needing their privacy. Through this, they place their importance above that of other public servants and celebrities. By exempting Royals from criticism, we not only allow for controversy but perpetuate an already rife class divide.To become a Republic, a referendum or plebiscite would need to occur, which would be costly and somewhat time-consuming. However, despite that, Professor Twomey suggests that becoming a Republic is not incredibly difficult, just that someone needs to sit down and do the work consistently. But Sensible, capable people are able to do it, she says.Professor Twomey does believe that it will take some time to achieve. People seem to think that once the queen dies, we can say, thats it, weve become a Republic, she says. Theres a lot of work to tie up all the loose ends [in the Constitution]. Youre looking at at least a couple of years. But it can be done.Professor Twomey suggests that there are two possible ways in which an Australian Republic could function. The first is the Council of Elders method, consisting of non-partisan people such as former High Court judges and former Governors to approve appointments and dismissals, but still on the advice of the Prime Minister. The second could be a mandated level of bipartisan support for the appointment required, which combined with a dictate that if the Governor-General removes the Prime Minister, they must also resign, would keep power in check.However, she warns that if Australia is to become a Republic, the direct election route must be avoided.If you have a direct election, you get a politician [as head of state], because who else is going to have the money to run a national campaign? Its going to be someone supported by a political party or even worse, a megalomaniac or a billionaire [their campaign promises] can potentially end up in conflict with the Prime Minister, which is asking for trouble.At the end of the day, the Royals do have influence. And their influence promotes an out of touch system of privilege that does not reflect Australian values around race, transparency and class structure. Will a Republic require an expensive plebiscite? Yes. But is this worth spending to promote a positive cultural shift? I believe so.Against: Khanh TranAnother day, another schism within the British royal family following Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys damning allegations of systemic, casual racism within English media and most of all, the Firm itself. This latest controversy has seen the resignation of figures such as Piers Morgan, and Ian Murray the former executive director of the UKs Society of Editors for his claim that racism does not exist in the British media ecosystem. It is no wonder that the republican question has been reignited in Australian politics.However, Australian Republicanism must be critically re-examined against a background of Indigenous injustice. If it does not acknowledge endemic racism and enduring colonialism, an Australian Republic will not create a just Australia but instead continue to deny Indigenous Australia a meaningful voice.To be genuinely just, an Australian Republic must, first and foremost, represent the triumph of inclusive Indigenous sovereignty over exclusive, nativist assumptions embedded in Anglo-Saxon sovereignty. Yet there remains a damning lack of political will for meaningful constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights and sovereignty, exemplified by Parliaments lukewarm response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Despite the fact that the Statement was a carefully constructed political compromise in its recognition of Crown co-sovereignty and non-justiciability, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull rejected it out of concerns proposals for a representative voice amounted to a third chamber of parliament.That such a modest compromise for constitutional recognition of Indigenous sovereignty was mired in political intransigence so quickly is a clear indicator that Australia is not yet ready to become a republic premised on equity and social justice.Scathing findings by the Scanlon Foundation suggest that Australia has yet to reconcile with its multicultural present. As of 2020, only 36% of Australians surveyed agreed with the statement: ethnic minorities in Australia should be given Australian government assistance to maintain their customs and traditions, with 63% disagreeing. These numbers suggest tensions between public support of multiculturalism and a reluctance to generously finance community events that maintain its multicultural identity.Without reconciliation, a new Australian Republic will remain burdened with grossly unresolved inter-generational trauma from its treatment of First Nations Peoples and nativist underpinnings. This is no hyperbole as past republican struggles have not necessarily entailed a more racially just politics. For instance, despite having attained independence, the United States sordid historic and ongoing marginalisation of Black Americans through voter suppression and racialised policing is an example of the glorification of republican freedom at the expense of racial equality. That is, an Australian Republic would likely mislead the country into thinking that racial injustices have been resolved which is, at present, patently not the case.Following a hypothetical republican victory, what would our constitution look like? Would it affirm Indigenous Australia through honest constitutional recognition and practical policies, or, amid the fleeting euphoria of electoral triumph, would Australia revert to colonial form and ignore Indigenous sovereignty?Thus, the proverbial extrication of Captain Cooks Union Jack from Australian soil without due respect for Indigenous Australia would be akin to extracting a corrupted nail from a wound without care or post-procedure treatment.Although republican revolutions should not inspire fear nor overly incrementalist minutiae, an Australian Republic will only be a Pyrrhic victory if 60,000 years of Indigenous, Black Australia history does not supersede its recent 233-year Anglo-Caucasian past.Against: Ben HinesThe move toward a Republic presents a counterproductive focus on symbolism, that has drastically hindered tangible, pragmatic outcomes and does nothing to solve underlying political issues causing these failures.A Republic will likely not germinate meaningful social change. It does nothing to ameliorate instantiated political mechanisms that hinder significantly progressive policy, and will likely mean any head of state will reflect, if not entrench, this wider political status quo. It is no coincidence that major political platforms often seek a media sententia; the wider population, or, at least swing voters, drag the Overton window to the centre or in some circumstances to more conservative positions. Even in a scenario where a Republic energises a progressive voice, it is unlikely in a system of compulsory voting and political disengagement to cause significant systemic change.Why is this fundamentally negative?First, if the head of state was, for electoral viability reasons, predisposed in favour of the status quo and took an active political role, then progressive policymaking at any level, from government to minor party review, will likely be at best passively hindered or at worst actively undermined. The need for a Monarchy rests upon the manner Constitutional Monarchy stays out of politics and policymaking. An elected head of state may believe themselves to possess a mandate similar to that of the government by virtue of their democratic appointment, and even if given a role largely analogous to the current system, may seek to circumvent conventions seeking to ensure neutrality or hesitance to rely on reserve powers. This is important not only in principle, but in that any such interventions are unlikely therefore to be positive.Second, transitioning to a Republic would be time-consuming, expensive, and contentious. Whilst this might unite a certain portion of the population it will also represent a significant drain on the capital and resources that could otherwise be put to direct use elsewhere, particularly in democratic politics. If this capital sought not to remove a symbol, but rather to effect meaningful change investing in under-supported indigenous communities, working to reform systemic issues in the legal system, etc. it would enact tangible pragmatic outcomes for those that need it most. That is not to say that this capital is, particularly over time, finite, but rather social change is an activity of competing priorities at the whim of public willingness. The best that could be hoped for would be to have no effect on these outcomes. At present a Republic is not a necessity, whereas solving these other issues should be viewed as such. More perniciously, any symbolism associated with the change, alongside inaccurate promises of pragmatic benefits, might create the sentiment that the job is done in many areas requiring social attention and political capital, rendering these outcomes less achievable.Furthermore, there is also no guarantee that a move away from what, to many, is ostensibly a symbol of Australias colonial past, will actually elicit, or be the result of, progressive sentiment or create positive new symbolism. This is not to downplay genuine concerns surrounding allegations of racism within the Royal Family which very much require deeper consideration- but there is also the very real possibility that support for such a movement may stem from, or at least reinvigorate, a deeper Australian nationalism of the kind that is seen when suggestions such as changing the date of Australia Day are raised. Even if the changes were the result of progressive ideals, it is not certain that what might be seen as the shedding of a colonial past will be replaced by anything other than the continued neglect of First Nations peoples and their role in Australia as again there is no compelling case that it will suddenly enable justice in Australias underlying political mechanisms. In this way the symbolism of Australias new independence may actually hinder important discourse surrounding the very concept of what Australian means.At the end of the day, substantively, Australia is already independent. The passing of the Australia Act afforded legal independence, the Governor-General is in effect an Australian head of state, and when people think of the leader of Australia they likely think of the Prime Minister. The symbolism of the Monarchy as an overseas ruler of Australia is largely lost, and practically any change wont lead to the tangible progress or benefits that Republicans claim.Nonetheless, whichever decision Australia makes, it surely will make for an interesting season of the Crown. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> One fateful Tuesday, sitting in the Law Library, I slid my hand into the front pocket of my backpack in search of a pad. Unable to find one, I rummaged a little more aggressively, diving through pens and old post-it notes, the rattling sound echoing through the Law Librarys judgemental silence.At this moment I was confronted with the memory of a neat pile of pads sitting smugly atop my bedroom duvet.Realising the direness of the situation, I sped out of the library. Finding my way through the labyrinth of the New Law Building, I frantically googled where to find pads on USyd campus, finding only academic studies and an SRC article about free pads from 2014.Giving up hope, I prepared myself for the perilous walk to Broadway. Suddenly, I remembered the USyd store in the Jane Foss Russell building and motored down Eastern Avenue. And there they were, in all their glory, sitting on the shelf beside a pack of Carefree tampons a fourteen pack of Stayfree Regular pads. And a price-tag. $9.95.Infuriated but desperate, I took them to the counter, pressing my card to the PayPass with bittersweet relief. I couldnt help thinking: were these really the only pads on campus?Later that week I set out on an investigation across campus, determined to check every single retail outlet I could find for pads, tampons, and their prices. And in total, I found three yes, literally, only three shops where you can buy pads and tampons on campus and one student space where you can find them for free.1. The Union Pharmacy in the Wentworth BuildingThe cheapest place to buy period products on campus! Each product had one standard price regardless of brand or type. Sanitary pads were $6.50, tampons were $6.00 and liners were $4.50.However, the chemist is a little harder to get to, being inside the Wentworth building and pretty far away from most classes.2. The USyd Store in the Jane Foss Russell BuildingIn the time since my desperate cross-campus pad search, this store did not update its range, still only offering the Stayfree fourteen pack for $9.95 more than double its price at Coles ($4.50).They also have one tampon option a Carefree sixteen pack for $8.95.Its very close to the chemist, so if youre making your way here may be worth heading inside to the chemists lower prices instead. 3.Footbridge Station in the Holme BuildingThe final retail location for pads and tampons on campus. While they have a little more range than the Jane Foss Russell USyd store, the pads are still $9.95 and tampons $8.95.Unfortunately, if youre on the Parramatta Road side of the Camperdown campus, this is your only option if you need period products in a hurry.Otherwise, its an eleven-minute walk to the chemist or the other USyd store which is the same amount of time it takes to get to Broadway Shopping Centre with its Coles and normal prices, so you may as well go there.Theres also a tampon and pad dispenser in the outdoor female toilets at Courtyard Caf beside Footbridge station the only dispenser I found on campus. However, itll cost you $3 for a two-pack of pads or tampons and only takes $1 or $2 coins.4. The Wom*ns Space in the Manning BuildingInside the Wom*ns Space on Level 1 of Manning Building there is a white box filled with tampons that are free for students to take.I returned from my investigation demoralised. I had hoped I would quell the rage from my Tuesday in the Law Library by discovering a range of places to find more affordable period products on campus, which I could compile into a nifty article for future students rapidly google searching.Instead, I discovered the universitys completely unsatisfactory options to students in need of period products on campus.When contacted for comment, the USU who run the USyd stores responded stating they stock a very limited range of feminine hygiene products that are basically kept in stock as a service to students for convenience or emergency situations. They explained that due to our very low sales volumes and wholesale purchase arrangements, our retail prices are higher than what customers would typically pay at retail pharmacies or supermarkets.Whilst all profits from USU operations go back into the student experience, we recognise that there is a price difference and USU management are prepared to undertake a review of our purchasing and pricing arrangements for these products. Not sure why charging menstruating students double on essential items to pay for the student experience is even slightly justifiable, but you do USU I guess.As a university with more than 60,000 students, having easily accessible, affordable period products on campus should be seen as a necessity. That could mean making pads accessible in all bathrooms, adding pads and tampons to vending machines or at the very least, changing the price of pads and tampons in USyd stores.Until USyd provides better options for menstruating students, many of us are doomed to repeat my anxious cross-campus hunt for pads. But hopefully, this list can at least save one future google-searchers time in their hunt for period products on campus and help them feel less alone in their frustration. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The NSW Legislative Assembly moves one step closer to a hearing on Mark Lathams anti-trans Parental Rights Bill as public inquiry closes this week. With the NSW Liberal Parliamentary Secretary for Education Kevin Conolly supporting the Bill and the chair of NSW Legislative Council Education Committee being Latham himself, the Bill outlawing the teaching of gender fluidity in schools and holding teachers and counselors as collateral signals the most brazen foray into anti-LGBT culture wars since the 2017 crusade against Safe Schools.The Bill asserts parental primacy over matters of sexuality and gender and prohibits the teaching of gender theory any teaching, instruction, counselling and advice that gender identity can be different to ones sex assigned at birth effectively outlawing all trans-inclusive instruction and functionally binding the hands of all school staff, not just teachers, in supporting queer and questioning students. School staff often represent the first point of contact for trans and gender non-conforming students before they formally engage with any gender-related treatment, counselling and therapy, in a period where the risk of suicide peaks. Removing the general mandate of NSW Schools to provide comprehensive sex, identity and relationship education and promote environments inclusive to the actualisation of queer youth, Lathams proposals continue a conservative legacy of institutional paternalism, in which classrooms are misguidedly cast as defending family values .While discussions of trans issues are only just now starting to be accompanied with an actual inclusion of transgender experiences, the framing of their inherent threat to society largely remains. The public was first introduced to transgender issues on the terms of public access to bathrooms. Conservatives portrayed trans women as threats to womens safety, coded as sexual predators in a dress that held their femininity as some kind of performance trick. Granting licence to access gender-specific spaces would, in their minds, somehow institute an apparent license to now commit sexual assault and the dissolution of womanhood itself.Now the focus has shifted to identity documents, the psychiatrists office and, of course, the classroom with conservatives, once deep in their conviction that womanhood was in existential threat of being erased, now are suddenly invested in the notion that it can never go away. This can be seen most recently with the fascination with gender-questioning youth accessing gender clinics, where young women experiencing gender confusion, incapable in their own agency, must be protected from persuasion into irreversible procedures by gender activists. This reasoning led the UK High Court in Bell v Travistock to decide that teenagers are unable to decide to take puberty blockers themselves which is an entirely reversible procedure. Such desire to keep kids immune from any gender ideology propels the medical gatekeeping of trans care and identity across Australia.Growing up transgender in Australia is already difficult on top of the anxieties associated with teenage life. Young people are more politically active against a state and status-quo they perceive as unrepresentative of their interests. These movements for change, such as School Strike for Climate, have been met with dismissive demands to go back to school with the ultimate concern of politicians to circumvent the social and material conditions that give rise to such alienation. The logic is that such activism is not the political consciousness of an increasingly informed rising generation but the infiltration of our curriculum and classrooms by teachers and bureaucrats by radical activists with political agendas. Lathams bill, and a desire to keep teaching non-ideological, is the next link in this logical chain.Just prior to the marriage equality plebiscite in 2017, the documentary gayby baby a film directed by Maya Newell following four children raised by same-sex parents became a focal point of an orchestrated campaign. After being shown at Burwood Girls High during class (and which resulted in no complaints from parents), the film was banned from being shown during class time in public schools by the-then Education Minister.This ministerial direction was eerily reminiscent of Thatcherite Section 28 laws that arose at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s. Calls to defend against supposed predations of degenerate evangelists on impressionable youth, in the interests of public health or moral safety, has long been a lynchpin of family values and moral panic campaigning.In seeking to frame teaching as non-ideological and free from moral instruction, the bills proponents neglect the inherent role teachers and staff play in the formation of community and provision of support to vulnerable young people. Donning well worn euphemisms of protecting children and ensuring parental rights doesnt ensure the safety and wellbeing of gender non-conforming children. It is this, and not the gesture of affirming pronouns, that is the biggest threat to realising an environment and future where such kids feel supported.Public submissions against the Bill in NSW Parliament ends this Sunday 28th March (Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020.) <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In early November 2020, military confrontation erupted in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia, forcing more than 61,000 refugees to flee for their lives into neighbouring Sudan.The violent confrontation is being fought between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and regional leadership forces in the Tigray region, which have experienced long-standing tension since 2018. The election of Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister of Ethiopia signalled a restructuring of power. Whilst this ended decades of dominance by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) as the dominant party in Ethiopias ruling coalition, the election also heightened tensions as power was restructured among the coalitions ethnically based components. The election was hailed as a corrective measure to address widespread concerns of political repression and to rectify the disproportionate influence held by the Tigray regional forces for nearly three decades.The tensions erupted into open conflict in September 2020. In part due to the COVID-19 crisis, the decision to postpone federal elections became a catalyst for TPLF defiance as the party chose to proceed with their own regional elections. On the 4th of November, a reported attack by the TPLF on federal forces became an immediate spark for violent conflict. The federal government opened a military offensive against the ruling faction of Tigray. The federal government has declared a State of Emergency. Despite the announcement of an official end to military operations, the volatile situation in Ethiopia continues to destabilise the region, and has led to a full-scale humanitarian crisis.The conflict in Tigray has forced over 61,000 Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees to flee their homes and seek safety across the border in neighbouring Sudan. Refugees arrive each day with little more than the clothes on their back, exhausted and frightened from the sudden outbreak of violence. The individuals who have been forced to flee are traumatised and confused from the experience of being uprooted, never having imagined that they would have to abandon their lives and find protection as refugees.Many refugees have had to travel great distances to get to safety. Large numbers have walked 300km over rough terrain to get to safety the equivalent distance of walking from Sydney to Port Macquarie.Thousands remain trapped within the Tigray region, where essential medical supplies, food and water are running out, and access to healthcare and medical treatment is sparse. Prior to the crisis, the Tigray region was home to some 96,000 refugees who fled Eritrea, an authoritarian nation bordering Ethiopia and Sudan, spread across four refugee camps. Access to these camps was blocked off to the UNHCR in early November last year, amid escalating conflict in Tigray, with access only being regained in two of the four camps in January 2021. Two of the refugee camps, Shimelba and Hitsats, remain blocked off to the UNHCR despite persistent calls to allow access. Many of the individuals in these camps have been without aid for many weeks, and their safety concerns are widespread.With almost no end in sight, humanitarian agencies have been overwhelmed in their current capacity to provide aid, with life-saving assistance needed more urgently than ever. The conditions within these camps remain desperate, with many families often being forced to use unclean water for washing, cooking and drinking, leading to illness. The impacts of COVID-19 have only made the situation direer, highlighting more than ever the unequal burden that has been placed on those in positions of conflict. The simple act of having a home has become the utmost privilege one that is not experienced by the thousands of refugees in Ethiopia and Sudan, nor by the millions of refugees worldwide.For more information on how to help, please visit: https://www.unrefugees.org.au/emergency-response/ethiopia-emergency/ <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Earth emotions thats what ecologist and writer Glenn Albrecht calls our collective psychological responses to the impending climate disaster in his 2017 book of the same title. In recent years, talk of these emotions has swamped our media landscape, with new buzzwords attempting to capture their magnitude. Some of these include eco-anxiety, climate grief, solastalgia, and pre-traumatic stress disorder.University of Sydney Associate Professor of Psychology Paul Rhodes believes none of them quite sum it up.I prefer old school existentialist dread, he says.Whatever the case, this feeling is at an all time high. In late 2019, the Australian Medical Association joined health organisations around the world in recognising climate change as a health emergency. But that was before a global pandemic dwarfed climate change in the playing field of existential threats and political priorities. The Glasgow 2020 Global Climate Meeting, which was to address the major shortcomings of current emissions reduction strategies in meeting Paris 2015 targets, has been delayed by an entire year due to COVID travel restrictions. School strikes that attracted 300,000 people in Australia alone have been culled by pandemic restrictions. And despite Australias reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, particularly from transport and agricultural sectors, most of the damage is likely to be redone in the recovery from Covid-19, according to a recent audit of national climate data by Hugh Sadler of the ANUs Crawford School of Public Policy. Nonetheless, emotional responses to climate change must be addressed just as much as economic ones, because the reality is it will get worse much worse.As a key example, the 2019-20 bushfire season in New South Wales and parts of Victoria began almost four months earlier than it did in the 1950s, and burned 21% of all Australian forests. A Health Issues Centre survey of teens and young people shows 36% listed mental health as the key impact they suffered from following coverage of the unfolding fires, with a further 28% describing the future in apocalyptic terms. In the same year, the federal government poured $76 million into distress counselling and mental health support for those involved in the bushfires.These are the current effects of around 1C of warming. The world is expected to breach the safe warming ceiling of 1.5C within 12 years or less, exposing it to the more dangerous echelons of 3C of warming by the end of the century. And those numbers are still a best case scenario.It is hard not to feel anxious, mournful, or to simply turn off in the face of it all.Its one morning in early March when I talk to Chris Pryor, aged 74, from my Sydney home. Her property was charred when the Black Summer Fires tore through Kangaroo Valley on January 4th, 2020. As someone who grew up in post-Blitz London, she describes her 25 hectare- home on Tallowa Dam Road as a little paradise where the wildlife was like extended family.We had been in drought for a long time, she says, describing the lead-up to the bushfires. Noticeably in the second half of 2019, when you went outside and walked on the grass it crackled. It had no moisture It was frightening, it really was frightening.Chris is warm, resilient, and an excellent speaker. Losing her house and material belongings is a small sadness she says. But when I ask her to describe the loss of the wildlife, she cannot put it into words.There was no wind, so there were no rustling leaves. There were no leaves to rustle anyway. It was like being on the moon, she says, describing returning to home days after it was scorched. There was just nothing. Nothing that was living, except me and Mike.There is a word to describe the heart-wrenching loss of ones home while one is still there. Solastalgia, coined by Albrecht, is tied to the gradual erosion of identity created by the sense of belonging to a particular loved place, and a feeling of distress, or psychological desolation, about its unwanted transformation. This underlies so-called psychoterratic theory, where health is dictated by the relationship between the earth and the psyche.If this feeling has an origin, it must lie in Indigenous peoples across the world, and the atrocities committed during the age of imperialism that remain with them, through systematic oppression today.The myth that we are not entangled with nature, maintaining a safe distance in our glass-and-concrete urban fortresses, is one of imperialist-capitalist-patriarchys biggest lies. That is why apocalyptic scenes often feature pillaged buildings and fires burning in shop windows; even if you support climate action, and understand the scale of climate emergency, the reality of its impacts remain fictive for the urbanised majority, cushioned by fairytales of its slowness and its remoteness.Paul Kingsnorth puts it well in his 2017 Orion essay, Dark Ecology: Civilization has always been a project of control, but you cant win a war against the wild within yourself.Paul Rhodes suggests that Western psychology is not equipped to understand the mental health impacts of climate change.[This is] because traditional psychology pathologises the individual, and says its mummy and daddys fault.Rhodes work has included ethnographic research into individual experiences of the 2019- 20 bushfires. In part, this uses affect theory, a framework for understanding preconscious, collective currents of feeling that are socially and politically influenced.He suggests change is distressing as it involves dislodging the human being from the universe [and] placing them around the outskirts as equals to microbes, cats, dogs, plantsits a very radical challenge to our ontology.And yet, we agree that the 2020 pandemic may already have exposed to humanity its vulnerability within the earths ecosystem.What we were looking at was COVID-19 is the same phenomenon, because what we realize is that microbes are more powerful than humans, right? Paul says.Similarly, Australian scientist Tim Flannery argues that Australias national response to COVID-19 is evidence that we are also capable of similar, science-lead, nationally-mobilising political action against climate change, in his 2019 book The Climate Cure.Indeed, climate action is more important than ever, with 2021 marking one of the final years for humanity to avert the more disastrous effects of warming.But apocalyptic thinking can be paralysing, and therefore unhelpful in mitigating disaster. You have to draw that fine line between denialism and apocalyptic thinking and go down the middle, stay with the trouble, start to act, says Paul.The only way to deal with the dread and the pain is to embrace it. You cant just feel the pain and go, Oh, thats awfulgive me some counseling. The end product is activism.Chris Pryor is also convinced that action is the antidote to despair. She is the President of the Friends of the Brush-tail Rock Wallaby, who protect the habitats of the severely endangered subspecies. She is also enthusiastic about a revolution, involving re-introducing Indigenous practices like cultural burning to combat wildfires.When I ask Chris where she is now, she tells me she is sitting in her granny flat in Kangaroo Valley a temporary home for now. One of her two cats, whom she evacuated with, is clawing at the phone.Her current home is owned by a young family, with lots of farm animals and green space.I feel blessed that I am here in Kangaroo Valley, she says, nevermind that I lost my house this is my place.I get a feeling that, despite the fact I have never been to Kangaroo Valley, our places hers, mine and all of ours on earth are perhaps not that different at all. If the grief and love we feel for our homes isnt reason enough for collective action, then nothing else will be. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Across the last decade, a once transgressive and eyebrow-raising word vegan has become synonymous with luxury diet culture. This transformation from inconsequential diet to famed lifestyle has been created through capitalist mechanisms, with of course the intent to sell. To think of veganism today is to associate it with a privileged lifestyle which extends beyond abstaining from animal products, but rather brings to mind an image of an idealised way of living. This image is a direct proponent of how veganism has been sold to us. The capitalist market has an affinity for creating new and lavish lifestyles out of any trend that is popular and has the potential to be transgressive. Take fitness, and the expensive lifestyle that comes with it: gym memberships, trendy work-out clothes, protein shakes, specialised sports shoes, and so on. These things are not requirements to become fit; they are, however, required to take part in the lifestyle of fitness as a culture. It is in this same way that veganism has become twisted into a commercialised culture monster, hell-bent on selling us things we dont actually need to be vegan dairy and meat substitutes.It is important to note that veganism is not a modern Western advent. Despite the term being explicitly coined in 1944, trends of animal meat avoidance and abstention can be traced back to ancient Indian, Greek and Eastern Mediterranean societies, pre-capitalism. This history teaches us that veganism doesnt have to be inaccessible; these barriers of inaccessibility were created by modern commercialisation. Across the twentieth century, commercial plant-based alternatives were by no means non-existent, but there was not the same market abundance and brand competition we see today. When the Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company was founded in 1898, it began producing some vegetarian products, but no other significant meat-alternative company was globalised until Linda McCartney Foods in 1991, along with several others developing in the 90s.It has taken nearly a century for veganism to break into the mainstream by a significant enough margin that capitalism has taken it on to generate profit, desperately needing to ensure that it feeds back into systems of capital because veganism encourages consumers to diverge from highly profitable pillars of agribusiness, such as the meat and dairy industries. The result is the creation of a vegan lifestyle that appears to be dependent on highly expensive substitutes. Unfortunately, the inaccessibility of meat and dairy substitutes contributes to the myth that veganism is inherently more expensive than eating a carnivorous diet. While for many years, substitutes were expensive because there was very low demand, in recent years that have seen a boom in veganisms popularity, there are more vegan options than ever; yet prices remain high. If the greed of capitalism is allowed to dictate the accessibility of veganism, prices will never be lowered to match higher demand, and new vegan products will continue to be introduced to the market at these exorbitant prices.The trend of animal-product substitutes has now become integral to the diets identity. This in turn drives the communitys relentless search for the latest vegan products I relate to the excitement but I know that this excitement is rooted in the consumerism that is hard-wired into us by capitalist society. Aided by a sickly materialism, we feel an urge to spend money on whatever society deems desirable in that moment, and through these capitalist tendencies, veganism has become a desirable image to be sold.Ultimately, what was once a little-known, subversive dietary preference, has been repackaged and sold to us as a sought after lifestyle which carries connotations of wealth, success, and eliteness. In these ways, it projects the image of a perfect, unattainable person who we chase to become but cannot catch, allowing the cycle of consumerism to continue. It is critical to see that the landscape of being vegan in the 21st century does not place everyone on equal footing. The ways in which vegan culture often perpetuates the idea of universal ability to go vegan blatantly ignores not only specific health conditions and economic situations, but it ignores the extent to which animal-products are built into modern life. The consumer should not be blamed for the horrors that capitalism endows on society as a collective, where only fundamental systematic change is capable of forging a better world free from corporate greed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When the Soviet Union expanded its industrialisation policies, masses of people poured into cities from the countryside to find work. Between 1926 and 1932, it is estimated that the urban population grew from around 26 million to 38.7 million. But as production grew drastically, living conditions declined. Overcrowding in cities meant that workers were forced to live in unsanitary conditions in tents, underground dwellings, and makeshift homes. At the sight of this housing crisis, it was clear that new planning approaches to the city were needed.In the search for a new city plan, the Green City competition was announced in 1930. It challenged architects to design a short-term vacation resort connected to Moscow by train line, which would house up to 100,000 people and provide a range of recreational and cultural activities. Once the Green City was constructed, not only would it mitigate the poor health of workers in Moscow, it would also be a model for future urban development.Many leading Soviet architects, who were long preoccupied with the question of how the new Socialist City could avoid the ills of urbanisation dirt, overcrowding, and exploitation seized the opportunity to participate. Konstantin Melnikov, for example, envisioned a circular Green City with gardens, recreation halls, libraries and restaurants enclosed by a ring of highways, as well as sleeping quarters located in a forest.But one architect, Moisei Ginzburg, with the help of his student Mikhail Barshch, went further and proposed the transformation of all human settlement in the Soviet Union. The Green Cities will eat up additional millions and only bring palliative solutions if we continue on beaten paths, he argued. Therefore, Ginzburg proposed three radical measures: ban all new construction in Moscow; move all public enterprises away from the city; and relocate the Moscow population along the roads linking the city to the countryside. Moscow would then be turned into a park, becoming the Green City itself.Ginzburgs proposal embraced the design theory of disurbanism. Led by constructivist theorists such as Mikhail Okhitovich, disurbanists moved towards a critique of the city itself, believing that its defects were so grave that they couldnt be remedied by simply changing urban design. They believed that the city was created in the interests of the ruling class: industry and services concentrated in one place to increase productivity and profit-gain, leading to inhumane population densities that forced workers into poor working and living conditions. As Okhitovich writes: The city must perish on the ruins of the capitalist relations of production As these prerequisites vanish, the city itself vanishes as their product.Therefore, dispersing infrastructure across the land and abolishing cities would be the best way to improve living conditions for all workers. They imagined linear cities which combined residential, industrial and green zones in ribbons along railway lines, so that all aspects of daily life living areas, amenities, work, and open space were located within walking distance.By eliminating the divide between urban and rural, forcing factory workers and farmers to live and dine together, it sought to remove the inequalities of bourgeois society, and to bring the reality of industrial and agricultural production to the forefront of peoples minds. Linear cities would improve efficiency of production by bringing industry as close as possible to natural resources, and by being arranged according to the natural flow of production. Okhitovich described this as conveyor belt production on a nationwide scale.Miliutins auto plant proposal.Disurbanists also aimed to downscale families, building off Engels idea that within a capitalist society, the family unit created the basic framework for the exploitation of women and children by men. Accordingly, they envisioned that people would live in lightweight, individual pods that could be freely joined or dismounted. Sliding partitions could be opened to allow couples to be together, and in cases of divorce, doors could be shut again. Children would be sent to boarding schools and once they matured, would have the right to dissociate themselves from their biological family. By dissolving family life, towns would account for new communal spaces including dining halls, laundromats, and boarding schools.Pod houses for Magnitogorsk.While the vision for a post-city society was concrete, nothing like it was ever achieved. The disurbanists vision of completely transforming human settlements within just a couple of years was ambitious to say the least. Indeed, Stalin dismissed the proposals as utopian experiments that could be economically crippling, and given the technological and material limitations at the time, the disurbanist city may well have been impossible. The Soviet Union reverted to classical urbanism, building hyper-centralist cities with grand boulevards and mass-produced towers not unlike those of today.Nonetheless, the abandoned disurbanist dream highlights ongoing conflicts in modern urban society; the alienation of the rural working class; humanitys need to reconnect with nature; the yearning for community one one hand and the need for individual space on the other. While our cities have now become service domains rather than industrial hubs, the defects of urbanisation persist. Because these plans have survived, we can look back on them as testaments to a society that could have been, and with enough imagination, visions of the future. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In February 2021, the Treasury released an Exposure Draft of a law that would change how not-for-profit organisations are regulated in Australia. These changes, which have so far escaped widespread attention, could significantly stifle activist organisations and advocacy groups more broadly.As a brief overview, all Australian not-for-profits (except for basic religious charities) must comply with certain minimum standards of behaviour in order to remain a registered entity and receive tax concessions. These Governance Standards have been administered and enforced by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) since late 2012.Governance Standard 3 empowers the ACNC to investigate registered entities which act unlawfully. At present, the ACNC can only look into serious matters either indictable criminal offences, or offences which carry civil penalties of $12,600 or more.But under the Draft, the ACNC would be able to investigate and potentially deregister or revoke tax concessions from entities who have been involved in certain lower-level summary offences. According to the Explanatory Statement to the Draft, this would include unlawfully gathering or remaining on land or in a building, which would affect organisations which undertake direct action or physical acts of civil disobedience.This concern isnt unfounded. In a media release last year, then-Assistant Minister for Charities Zed Seselja clearly expressed the governments intent to target activists, stating: Late night break-ins. Illegal blockades. Damage to property and theft of stock. These are the types of unlawful behaviours promoted and engaged in by activist organisations masquerading as charities that will no longer be tolerated under strengthened rules to be implemented by the Morrison Government.Michael Sukkar MP, the current Minister in charge of charities, did not respond to Honis request to specify instances of activist organisations engaging in the behaviour Seselja described, or why deregistration or removing tax concessions, which several not-for-profit organisations heavily rely on, would be a proportionate response.As such, without further proof, the governments insinuation that activist organisations regularly engage in violent illegal behaviour including malicious damage, vandalism or theft of personal property and common assault or threatening violence against an individual, as mentioned in the Explanatory Statement seems misleading and unfounded.Even regarding peaceful, lawful protests which are where the majority of activists and members of the public get involved recent decisions to reject COVID-safe plans for protests at the last minute and violently shut down student protests pursuant to public health orders have shown how a lawful protest can quickly tip towards an unlawful gathering, as deemed by police. Its not hard to see how not-for-profit organisations that organise protests and public demonstrations could decide to reduce or limit their organising activity for fear of deregistration, with worrying implications for democracy and freedom of assembly.Not-for-profit organisations, including the USyd SRC, have criticised the proposal. A large part of our organisational mandate includes advocacy, which by extension involves protest, says SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu. It is clear that the Government finds dissent intolerable and seeks to prevent the exercise of the legitimate right to protest and political speech. Advocacy group GetUps National Director Paul Oosting stated to Honi that [t]he government is trying to quell the rising tide of community activism [through] a politically motivated attack on charities designed to undermine their right to peaceful protest.***While the work of some activists may be hindered, several activist networks are not registered with the ACNC, and so would not be subject to this change. More worryingly, on a sector-wide level, a blunt application of the new Governance Standard 3 could cover any charity or not-for-profit that engages in advocacy, no matter how much or how little.This is because it requires registered entities to take reasonable steps to ensure that their resources are not used to promote and support unlawful activities. The wide scope of resources including an organisations funds, their responsible entities and employees, and their websites, social media accounts and other publications severely limits their ability to advocate on sensitive or controversial political matters. And the lack of guidance around what constitutes reasonable steps and promotion and support has left not-for-profits uncertain about whether they are complying with the legislation, with Sanagavarapu concerned about the prospect of liability if someone attending an SRC-organised protest commits an offence, which the SRC cannot control.If this Standard was in force this time last year, it could mean that organisations that encouraged their Facebook followers or members on a mailing list to attend last Junes Black Lives Matter protests, at the time they were outlawed, could face deregistration. It could mean that community legal centres that provided legal assistance to protestors and observed breaches of power by police, such as the Aboriginal Legal Service, could be viewed as having supported the protests. It could also mean that not-for-profits which donate to or share funds with registered organisations that organise protests could be caught up in this law.The infractions which could spark deregistration are so minor in nature that they could easily be weaponised against charities who raise genuine concerns about government policies in order to silence dissent, says Greenpeace Australia Pacific General Counsel Katrina Bullock. And considering Seseljas anti-activist rhetoric, it would not be surprising if any of those outcomes occurred; the Explanatory Statement indicated that deregistration could be pursued in all cases.The unclear wording of this Draft leaves advocacy groups and not-for-profits in the lurch. It does not adequately clarify their compliance obligations, which well-constructed Governance Standards should aim to do. Despite the Charities Act 2013 stating that promoting or opposing a change to any Australian law or policy on social issues is within the charitable purpose of a charity, the Draft may instead increase uncertainty and discourage charities from advocacy, with Greenpeaces Bullock signaling that it would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech in Australia. The SRC is clearly a charitable organisation insofar as it provides free resources and services to students, but we have never hidden the fact that we advocate for political and legislative changes to benefit our members, adds Sanagavarapu.The proposed Standard is of such concern that corporate law firm Gilbert + Tobin has warned that instead of upholding public trust in our charities, as Seselja asserted, it would erode advocacy and activism led by not-for-profits, which threatens the effectiveness and impact of the charity sector as a whole.Not-for-profit organisations lead some of the most critical social movements in this country. As Seselja accepted, the vast majority of charities are doing the right thing, and they should be treated as such. Keeping their advocacy function intact, and ensuring they are not exposed to unnecessary liability or threats of deregistration, is vital for their core purpose of social justice and charity.The Government is accepting responses to the Draft until 14 March 2021. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Whats your favorite movie? is a very standard question, but one I have always answered with some hesitation. My favorite movies were traditionally considered girly, not cult or smart enough. Legally Blonde or Twilight or Mean Girls, I had always said in a joking tone. Most of the movies that Ive genuinely enjoyed and have been able to relate to on some personal level had a specific detail about them; they were made by women for women, generally a much younger audience of women, and all the movies, no matter how intrinsically funny, well-constructed or popular they were, were dismissed, the same way I was when told a group of friends that I thought Mean Girls was a great showcase of power and social dynamics. Someone just misexplained that I was just overthinking and the conversation moved on.A specific term for such movies, first coined by Brian Callaghan in the early 1970s, is chick flicks. The term, originally meaning a sexually explicit movie, is often used in a derogatory and reductionist manner. Chick-flicks dont use women as the punchline of the joke but are catered towards their perspectives.Author Natalia Thompson expresses her opinion on the term chick flick, asserting that its a mere attempt to lump together an entire genders interests into one genre. Thompson raises a valid point. Why are there so many genres and subgenres when a movie is aimed at a male audience? In the sense that the Fast and Furious, Bond and Star Wars franchises are all different movies with their own appropriate genres, even though they all have a similarly strong, male lead righting a villains wrongdoings.This is different for chick flicks. The Devil Wears Prada, a movie about a powerful, talented businesswoman and an overachieving intern, is placed in the same category as a film about four best friends, interconnected by a pair of jeans that fit all their body types in The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants (2005 2008). These films are all slammed together in one category for their one shared trait: the screenplay is exclusively written by women with an all-female main cast, and is catered to young women.Shockingly, female directors such as Nora Ephron, (the director of Sleepless in Seattle and Youve Got Mail), and Nancy Meyers (who has grossed more than $1 billion in the American domestic box office alone) are not household names. They are dismissed for being chick flick directors when they have consistently created successful, entertaining, and charismatic films. This observation accentuates the rooted sexism in how audiences view the genre. It fails to acknowledge that most chick flicks are incredibly interesting, politically-fuelled movies that depict teenage drama or career ambition. Tina Fey, the screenwriter of Mean Girls, told the Boston Globe that she wanted teenage girls to feel that someone made this for me, not at me. Thats the reason why chick flicks are so triumphant.They bring comfort to so many young women who grew up seeing male stories in the majority of critically-acclaimed, Oscar-winning films. Whereas when films about their reality, perspective, and lifetime were seen as shallow and inane.When a chick flick comes out, it is not a surprise when its a huge success. However, the stigma surrounding chick flicks propagates negative consequences for women in the film industry. Such stigma leads to an unfair decline in opportunities and respect. Although women make up half the film school graduates, they only directed 1.9% of the top-grossing films made in 2013-2014.The best way to support female directors and casts is with your money and respect. Perhaps its the recent Promising Young Woman, which tells the story of a sexual assault survivor seeking vengeance, or even Amy Poehlers brand new Moxie. Either way, catching the latest chick flick is a good way to start supporting women for all their multifaceted and complex lives. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Young adults are often told that the years they spend at university will be some of the best of their lives. But given that Clubs and Societies (C&S) are losing funding, COVID has restricted events, and campus life is slowly degrading, does this statement still ring true?On February 15th, just two weeks before Semester 1 began, the USU called a snap meeting on the future of C&S funding. The new model of funding, which has changed three times in just as many years, is a grants based system that provides lump sums according to the membership of each society. Previously, clubs were reimbursed 50% of the costs of on-campus events, and were given $1 for every attending USU member. This system allowed clubs to run regular events and provide members with unique experiences, sustained by the purchases of new items for their use, or the arrangement of other services. Whilst the new model provides more freedom with how funds are used, the lesser amount available illustrates the diminishing campus life.The new model limits the functioning ability of C&S as they have a restricted budget for the semester, and makes it extremely difficult for smaller societies to grow their membership. This means less in-person events (which are additionally restricted by new COVID guidelines), as well as mounting pressure on the long-term plans of many societies.Due to the mix of remote and on-campus classes, life at university is unlikely to return to its former glory any time soon. The closure of Manning Bar as a public venue, and its conversion to operating on an as-needed basis, demonstrated the shift of university life away from campus. Students are increasingly enjoying their time off-campus, in many of the surrounding suburbs and venues. Additionally, COVID restrictions instituted by the USU, whilst essential to maintaining the health and safety of students and staff, were only provided to executives a week before semester began, despite the impact it may have had on Welcome Week activities planned by Clubs and Societies.In an attempt to support C&S during welcome week, Societies were allocated additional funding of $100 in USU Dollars for Welcome Fest. This funding, while welcome, establishes a system of promotion for the USU themselves, as the items available within outlets are limited to food or Sydney Uni merchandise, whereas previously these funds were allocated to reimburse societies for any (reasonable) purchases. Whilst any additional funding is welcome, the reliance on membership numbers for funding places increased pressure on smaller C&S. The ability to invest and grow their membership base is limited, particularly as funding is no longer provided through subsidies of events. This inability to grow or sustain membership may lead to a decrease or amalgamate of clubs, providing students with less opportunities to socialise and explore new interests.Many executives understand the predicament of USU, acknowledging that the USU is trying their best in a bad situation (Nancy Luo, MADSOC Event Coordinator). However, considering that the cost of many degrees have increased, staff numbers have decreased, and many courses are now delivered online or in a hybrid fashion, the ever shrinking support for on-campus events is simply another blow to dying campus life.Similarly to funding cuts, the USU also changed Welcome Fest from the, sometimes overwhelming yet always entertaining, extravaganza, to a gated section of the Front Lawns, where each society only had one day to run their stall. This set-up forced students to either commute to campus every day of the week in order to meet many of the societies in-person, or miss out on the in-person experience and research other C&S independently. New and returning students alike may be simply unaware of the existence of many C&S, or may be unmotivated to reach out for themselves. Alongside the decision to run Welcome Week parallel to the commencement of classes, the USU may have further forced students to choose between the two. Changes such as these, whilst understood within the context of COVID, are cementing the loss of a social university experience.Following a year of awkward Zoom catch-ups, socially distanced classes comprised of a few souls who braved the commute to campus, and an endless news cycle of unprecedented times, 2021 was looked to as a refreshing start. Funding cuts to C&S are simply one aspect of a multi-faceted problem. Whilst the past years have seen ever-increasing numbers of university students, these cuts are just another sign that campus life isnt what it used to be. The lack of events, venues, and university support is shifting student attention away from campus, and it is unlikely to ever fully return. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Capitol Hill insurgency was unprecedented in many respects. Historically speaking, the attack not only had the potential to be one of the deadliest right-wing terror attacks on American soil, but it was also an overt demonstration of white supremacy. While the actions of the mob on January the 7th were significantly propelled by the rhetoric of Donald Trump at his Save the Steal rally, their frustrations were preceded by months of misinformation and rallying from a number of public officials to reject the results of Novembers election. As developments unfold and we learn of the lethal possibilities of that Thursday morning, these figures have entirely evaded responsibility for their role in fostering dangerous ideologies.While swift condemnation came from both sides of the aisleDemocrat and Republican alikenumerous conservative commentators failed to condemn the riot and acknowledge Trumps role in inciting it. They all but missed the point, instead blaming Antifa and Black Lives Matter protestors, and stressing that no true supporters of Donald Trump would commit such violence.The media discourse we notice in the United States is not unfamiliar within the Australian context. Conservative media pundits here drew direct links from Capitol Hill to the condoning of leftist violence earlier this year; maintaining that leftist politics normalised and contributed to the violence on Capitol Hill. Deputy PM Michael McCormack similarly equated the riots to BLM protests, suggesting that the two events were somehow equally insidious and dangerous.What we recognise from this commentary is a persistent narrative of both sides being equated as one. Whether it be Charlottesville or the Capitol Hill riots, attempting to lessen the culpability of perpetrators by shifting the blame to the other side serves little merit. And ultimately, these narratives refuse to recognise right-wing violence and the increasing threat it poses to society.Reports published last year detail a considerable rise of right-wing activity in Australia across physical and online spaces. COVID-19 particularly has been utilised by numerous right-wing groups to recruit members and increase the scale of their operationswith groups such as The Proud Boys making appearances at anti-lockdown protests).In spite of the growing threat of far-right terror, the term terrorism itself has persistently been reserved for established perceptions of people of colourparticularly Muslims.While offenders such as the Capitol Hill rioters are spared harsh labels in the coverage of their actions, non-white offenders are often branded terrorists before proven guilty. When Ashli Babbitt died during the riots, media coverage highlighted her status as a former-veteran, and her service to the United States. When Raghe Mohamad Abdi was shot dead by police in December, headlines centred upon his status as a terror suspect. Pointing out these discrepancies within media coverage does not serve to condone or legitimise any form of violence over the other. The intention is to simply emphasise the continued double standard present between coverage of white versus non-white individuals. Moreover, it is important to recognise the stereotypes pertaining to people of colour, as they equally play a part in fuelling right-wing ideologies akin to those we witnessed at Capitol Hill.American scholar Khaled Beydoun remarked that white Americans have all but evaded responsibility over the Capitol Hill attack; emphasising rather that this burden of collective guilt is only assigned to communities of color. For people of colour, when acts of violence are committed by members of their community, they are tasked with the additional burden of demonstrating their allegiance to peace and non-violence.Growing up as a Muslim in Australia, Im familiar with the relief that is exercised by Muslims upon learning that an attack was not committed by an individual invoking Islam. Contrary to what Islamophobes may believe, the Muslim community experiences the same shock and sorrow as others when acts of terror are committed. In the aftermath however, there often comes an inevitable tide of backlash against Muslims, stoking resentment and hateful ideologies.Tides of backlash are not unfamiliar to other minorities. One does not have to look far to confront the continued backlash against movements such as BLM, as well as the resurgence of hate crimes against East Asians post COVID-19. When it comes to events such as Capitol Hill, it does not do justice to merely notice these events and dismiss them as quickly as a weeks worth of headlines. Confronting the lingering threat of right-wing terrorism requires critical engagement and a shift in the discourse around terror; and this simply cannot be fulfilled without realising the link between harmful discourses and irresponsible media coverage. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Keep cups, carbon offsets and emissions trading schemes, they all sound great but do they actually do anything to further climate justice? The short answer is no. Yet, as a society we seem all too keen to embrace the ideas of green capitalism without any suspicion or critique. We often blindly believe that the system that profits off our demise and has found a way to commodify everything will carry us in its arms and save us from the burning wreckage that our Earth is becoming. While there are many actors to blame for our blind faith and obedience in gimmicks and green surcharges, from NGOs, to advertising firms, it is up to the environmental movement to define itself and its politics.Too often the general public have become beholden to the ideas of sustainability and green consumerism presented in the mainstream media and politics. It is only within the past five years that we have seen a genuine challenge to these ideas and the mainstream promotion of systemic alternatives that could lay the basis for changes that will divert humanitys course away from catastrophe. While the some of the policies presented within the Green New Deal policy platform, championed in the US by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, are contestable, the idea of reframing climate action away from shutting the doors of industries that employ working class people is fairly new to mainstream discourses.Working class solidarityFighting for a just transition away from the fossil fuel industry should not be taken for granted, but much rather should be a demand of the environmental movement that is constantly reiterated and championed. Too often, we have seen the movement allow for the discourse of jobs vs. climate, that you cannot possibly support working people and the planet. Dangerous rhetoric around the immediate abolition of the fossil fuel industry, stokes the fears of years past whereby middle-class, liberal environmentalists pit themselves against the working class and unionised. Glimpses of this past hit the spotlight during the 2019 Federal Election Campaign, whereby Bob Brown and his Stop Adani Convoy did nothing but alienate the working class mining communities of Queensland and consolidate public support for the LNP.Given the tumultuous relationship between mainstream environmentalism and the working class, it is pivotal that those who do engage in modern climate politics do so in solidarity with workers. Workers have a unique power, they have the ability to withhold their labour through strike action, which is important in driving disruptive activism that will force governments and corporations to adopt our demands. It is up to us as environmentalists to form strong relationships with the unions and working class communities. It is a non-negotiable that we have to demand a just transition away from fossil fuels that can accommodate the livelihoods of those working in industries attached to fossil fuels. It is no longer good enough to be able to mobilise the Inner West of Sydney; in order to build a movement that can sustain itself, we must form connections across Sydney, building bridges with communities that are often neglected by mainstream politics. Our key alliances cant be with politicians but with organised communities that represent the makeup of Greater Sydney. When we move away from this, the movement can be easily divided.First Nations justiceOur alliances must also extend to First Nations People. Globally, BIPOC are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and pollution. It is often in communities of colour that heavily polluting infrastructure is erected and operated, it is Pacific Islanders that will be the first to bear the brunt of rising sea levels and catastrophic weather events, and in the Australian context, it is First Nations Peoples that have had their traditional lands pillaged and degraded. It is imperative that environmentalists recognise the injustices inherent to the current colonialist system and work with First Nations Peoples to achieve Indigenous sovereignty and autonomy. Indigenous Australians have lived in harmony with this land for 10,000s of years, attaining knowledge that is pivotal to maintaining the Australian environment, and thus as environmental activists we have much to learn. This is why we must always fight for Indigenous Justice within our movement, platform First Nations Peoples and listen.Corporations and NGOsWhile we must champion our alliances with the working class and First Nations Peoples, we must also end some of the relationships of convenience that have formed over the duration of the movement thus far. The first place to look is corporations and NGOs. For corporations and NGOs politics are negotiable and morals are non-existent. Greenwashing wont solve climate change and neither will corporate social responsibility (if such a thing actually exists). Our first point of reference should be the fact that since 1988 the top 100 global polluters have accounted for 71% of carbon emissions. Corporations, specifically those attached to heavy-polluting industries have done nothing more than individualise what is a systematic crisis. It was British Petroleum that popularised the concept of the carbon footprint, it was the NGO Keep America Beautiful, funded by beverage and packaging conglomerates (i.e. the likes of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola), that launched the award-winning advertising campaign with the slogan People start pollution. People can stop it. Entwined within this notion of the corporate enemy we must include the supposed climate saviours, the billionaire CEOs with good PR teams. They have neither the incentives or skill sets to actually solve change, and have often funded and patented alternative solutions that they can then implement to further their net wealth. Bill Gates has long advocated for a simple solution, controlling overpopulation (which neglects the fact that the rich pollute significantly more than the poor), while Elon Musk has openly supported a coup against the democratically elected Bolivian government. For as long as there has been significant evidence to suggest that climate change was a man made issue caused by the burning of fossil fuels, corporations have been passing the buck on to individuals, often given cover by environmental NGOs. NGOs have often been quick to endorse unfounded gimmicks and propaganda and even big polluters. Conservationgroups specifically have had a troublingly close relationship with the fossil fuel industry in the past, with some accepting millions in donations from big polluters (The Nature Conservancy group even took it upon themselves to undertake gas extraction and exploration). Many have advocated for the easy solutions to climate change, fighting for clean fossil fuels and market-based solutions. NGOs have also involved themselves in extremely problematic carbon offset schemes, choosing to give cover to polluting corporations through the schemes themselves, but also engaging in practices like the forced displacement of local Indigenous peoples in order to protect newly classified carbon sinks from human activity.As environmentalism and climate action reach mainstream politics once again it is pivotal that not only we keep in mind our allies and stay true to our politics, but also identify the enemy. We must point out at every turn that corporations and NGOs will not deliver us from climate catastrophe, but strong unified partnerships with the working class and First Nations Peoples will. Recognising this and then developing these relationships is the key next step for mainstream environmentalism, which will allow for the development and implementation of Climate Justice and a better future.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This May is a big month for the climate movement. Not only will thousands of students go on strike on the 21st demanding climate action, May Day also saw an historic action in support of the green ban on the Willow Grove site in Parramatta. But where should the climate movement go after May? How are we going to win our radical demands for climate justice and a just transition for workers?As international concern for climate change continues to increase and the scales of the market tip further towards renewable energy, its clear that the question is not if we shift to renewable energy, but when, how fast, and in whose interests this shift will be. Coal and gas are dying industries, and renewable energy will soon replace it, but preventing a climate crisis wont simply involve moving to renewable energy; it demands the fundamental restructuring of our economic, political, and social systems that currently abuse our environment as a source of profit. Renewable energy will mean little if our forests and wildlife disappear in the process, or if we continue to ignore the land rights of Indigenous peoples, on whose land this infrastructure will be built. Uncontrolled climate change will also wreak untold havoc on our environment and workers alike: cleaners, teachers, builders, nurses, firefighters and other workers will all be forced onto the frontlines of a growing environmental crisis, with their wages and conditions cut to pay for the damage while the rich shelter in climate controlled homes and offices. That is why we call for climate justice, not simply climate action, and why the ruling class has worked for decades to try and cleave the climate and workers movements apart. Without the united strength and revolutionary vision of organised, radical, democratic workers unions, simply shifting to renewable energy will not create a sustainable future for anyone.How do we, as workers, students, and communities, make sure that these imminent changes to the energy system are in our interests, and not just the interests of bosses and businesses? For decades people have placed their hope in a legislative path to climate justice by voting for or lobbying sympathetic MPs, but this strategy fails to see that the interests of those in parliament are inherently different to those of the working class. The parliamentary system exists specifically to suppress and mediate conflict between workers and capitalists to the benefit of the capitalist class. Both Labor and Liberal are bound to the interests of the fossil fuel bosses and the capitalist class as a whole, not only as most are of this class themselves, but because capitalists use their wealth and influence within and without the parties to prevent changes against their interests. This is why even the Labor partys policy platform includes only meagre references to renewables, and backed the subsidisation and expansion of the dying coal industry beyond 2050. Many activists believe that fighting in parliament is simply the most realistic way to achieve political power, yet it is entirely unrealistic to hope that either of the major political parties will suddenly abandon their long-held commitment to neoliberalism and work against the rich and powerful people that allow them to stay in power. Even social democratic forces like the Greens, who certainly offer a supportable alternative, must be supported critically. The class character of the Greens is indeed quite different to Labor or the Liberals, but simply supporting their parliamentary push will eventually reach a dead end. To achieve change through purely legislative means would mean that the Greens would need to form an opportunistic alliance with Labor (and thereby sacrifice their principles and credibility as a party of resistance) or they would need to capitulate to the interests of the capitalist class, who already work to suppress even the most meagre of their reforms.Fundamentally though, legislative strategies fail because the parliament does not respond to the threat of votes, it responds to the threat of revolt: protest in the street and strikes in our workplaces. This is why we need direct action to realise our goal of climate justice, by demanding, striking, and organising ourselves, rather than waiting for the go-ahead from parliament or our union bureaucrats. This principle of direct action is a response and an alternative to the inherent inadequacies of parliamentary change. It is based on the idea that the kinds of political action you dedicate your time to inherently shape the outcomes of this political action; in other words, the means that we use to achieve change determine the end result of this change.This is why our strategic choices must also consider the kinds of transformations that we wish to create in ourselves as revolutionaries. When we adopt strategies and tactics that reflect the goals of our revolutionary vision, we undergo a fundamental transformation: we take power from capital, and from the state, and can affect significant change in society beyond just the demand for better conditions. The act of organising together to directly challenge oppression and exploitation teaches us crucial lessons that no electoral campaign ever could.This is why direct action is a particularly important principle to bring to the climate movement. We cannot afford to sit and wait while the ruling class flip to a renewable energy system at the last minute, pillaging the land, closing down fossil fuel energy production without a just transition for workers, and creating a renewable energy system that will merely give more power and influence to the rich. The strike is the ultimate form of direct action and the most powerful tool of the working class, and it is the only tool that will successfully win and defend the goals of the climate justice movement. The May 21 Climate Strike is a start, but now is the time to begin organising ourselves as workers and not just students, individuals, or party members, so that we can begin agitating for a general strike for climate in the May Days to come.There is much work to be done to organise and strengthen our capacity to act together as workers, to bring us to a position where we might go on strike for climate justice. We cannot be distracted by politicians who would seek to dictate our own interests to us, we must begin immediately the hard work of organising and agitating amongst our fellow workers!This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In recent years, the conversation around waste-free fashion consumption has pivoted around the second hand market. Platforms like Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube have remarketed charity shops like Vinnies, Red Cross and Goodwill as trendy for a younger market, fueled by thrift-hauls and come thrift with me videos. In 2019, around 40% of Gen Z-ers were buying second-hand, compared to less than 30% in 2016 (according to a report by resale service ThredUp). In the next ten years, the second-hand industry is predicted to almost double, according to the same ThredUp report.It comes at a time when fast fashion companies are scrambling to respond to greater environmental concerns around consumption behaviours in younger buyers; Mckinseys The State of Fashion 2019 report states Nine in ten Generation Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues. But the rise of thrifting is not the solution to our fast fashion problem. In fact, the second-hand trend often falsely reframes mass-consumption of resale items as a sustainable, guilt-free fantasy separate from the fast fashion world.The fast fashion industry is well-known as a nefarious pollutant. In the production stages, the textile industry is responsible for 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions, producing more than the airline and maritime industries combined. It also uses 93 billion cubic meters of water enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people.On the consumption end, mounds of clothing at landfill stations create a grim backdrop to catwalks and brightly-lit H&M and Zara signs, where greenwashing abounds in the form of waste free tote bags, andgarments made of so-calledorganic cotton. In Australia,people dump 15 tonnes of clothing and fabric waste every 10minutes, according to Clean Up. Australians also buy an average of 27kg of textiles each year (including leather and homewares) and then discard 23kg into landfill, despite the fact they are mostly non-biodegradable.Its not surprising then that thriftingscircular consumption modelhas been lauded.Yet second-hand fashion is not totally separate from fast fashion. Today, second-hand store owners must work harder to retrieve items appropriate to resell in second hand stores due to the poor quality of donated fast fashion items. Australian Red Cross Head of Retail Richard Wood says the rise of fast fashion has led to a recent rise in donations, but a drop in quality. Only about 10 15% of donated items get sold in the stores, the rest transferred to landfill or exported to low-income countries, where their low prices undercut new clothes produced locally in those countries.For some Australian Lifeline stores, A-grade section items, or the best quality, dropped to 20% of all donations in 2020, from 50% years ago, according to a paid clothing sorter. In 2018, the Salvation Army charity op shop spent $6 million dollars in landfill fees for rubbish dumped on its site. Moreover, many clothing swaps ban fast fashion for this reason, only contributing to the problem. Thrifting also feeds off the instability and unsustainability of the fast-fashion industry, according to Anna Fitzpatrick, a Ph.D. student and project coordinator at the London College of Fashions Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Without that, there wouldnt be such a massive second-hand market, she says; second-hand fashion, like any business, still operates within a capitalist economy. This is supported by the fact that many resale stores, particularly on Depop, encourage the on-selling of unwanted brand- new fast fashion items, thus fuelling the careless mass-consumption that drives the fast fashion industry.In addition, the so-called sustainability of second-hand clothing excludes many. The gentrification of thrift-stores and Depop has made fast fashion the main affordable clothing source for many less socio-economically privileged individuals. This is evidenced by escalating prices, with the resale market becoming a $20 billion dollar industry in its own right. Walking down King Street in Newtown, its almost impossible to not pass a resale store. The majority areboutique curatedcollections where oldT-shirts are priced upwardsof $40 though even charitystores have upped their pricesin response to the influx ofpotential customers.The same goes for onlinestores like Depop, where thriftstore items are often resold for far higher prices, and new fast fashion is rebranded and upsold as 90s or y2k vintage stock. (Exacerbated by the fact that brands like Brandy Melville emulate the y2k style with their new fast fashion products). This generates an elitist culture of shaming those who cannot afford to shop second-hand. The bottom line is that sustainability with a price tag is no longer sustainable.In such a fashion market, does a sustainable and affordable model of fashion consumption exist?Sustainably made clothing is nearly impossible to produce, particularly at an accessible price for the average consumer. More than 60% of fabrics are now synthetic blends, meaning they are non-biodegradable and harder to recycle, since different fibres need to be sorted through by hand, and their dyes must also be stripped. Resultantly, less than 1% of materials used to make clothing are currently recycled to make new clothing. Pioneering textiles company Bold Threads Microsilk is one sustainable yet unaffordable material option; an artificially- produced, biodegradable spider silk. One Microsilk neck tie costs $314 AUD.Perhaps a shift in mindset is needed to break the cycle of obsolescence in fashion. According to Fashion Revolutions coordinator, Melinda Tually: Older generations grew up considering what value is which is longevity and high-quality materials and something you could keep season after season, she says. Now for millennials growing up, cheap fashion to them is the definition of value. If you can get a T-shirt for under $10, thats value.With the resale market set to outpace the fast fashion industry by 2024, it is time we considered whether our thrifting consumption habits are really just a redirection of the mass-consumerism instilled in us by fast fashion. The next time we donate our clothes to a charity store, we should consider if we are just offloading our rubbish for someone else to deal with, and whether that shirt or pair of jeans is going to end up in landfill in a few months time.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres a narrative by this stage familiar to anyone who has followed the climate wars. The media rolls footage of the dusty mining regions of Australia its hard-scrabble men and women, usually to camouflage visiting politicians in a hi-vis cosplay of populist virtue. Counterposed to them are the woke capital-city greenies, fighting tooth and nail to destroy regional mining communities, blinded by their privileges. Recently, this dichotomy has been challenged through the mainstream promotion and appeal of Green New Deal policies that seek to unite environmentalism and working-class politics once again. Though, in the Australian context, policymakers are seeking to transition back towards fossil fuels, not away from them. Recently the Hunter Valley has increased its coal production by 25% in 10 years while Australia has quintupled its liquified natural gas exports.We know well enough the impact on the planet of all this. However, in my own trips to the Hunter Valley and Narrabri Shire, what struck me most was how such an expansion of extraction is directly impacting the very communities held up as the defenders of fossil fuels. Its not hard to find people who want a different future for their regions.Dr Merran Auland and her partner Phil Kennedy are farmers in the strikingly beautiful Bylong Valley. They have been fighting the Korea Electric Power Corporations plans for an open cut and underground thermal coal mine for three years, but they note those who have been fighting it for a decade. KEPCO has suffered far greater resistance than most mining projects, being knocked back at the Gateway Certificate Process, the Independent Planning Commission, and the Land & Environment Court. More than anything it has been the land itself that has protected Bylong. Its valleys like this that feed people in the city says Merran this valley is in the top 3% of agricultural land in NSW, why would we ever let a mine happen here?.Yet without a single tonne of coal dug it is striking the social impact Kepco has already had. Family farms have had their names torn off and replaced with signs listing BV01, BV02. They bought about 30,000 acres of property says a cross-armed Phil virtually emptied the valleys, theres half a dozen landholders left and theyre the only thing standing in twwwwheir way.Phil bemoans how Australians have sat on our arse and let somebody manage it and rape and pillage us to our eyeballs, and all we get is a job. Whoop-de-bloody-do!. Merran talks about how she dreams of bringing the community back to Bylong, with new farming families to see this valley come back to what it was 10, 15 years ago. But so long as KEPCO carries on its legal campaign, so too will the shadow that prevents a new harvest growing in the valley. Three hundred kilometres north of Bylong is the Narrabri shire. Sally Hunter is a farmer in the area with her husband Geoff and three sons. Coal isnt what terrifies Sally. She hails originally from Roma in South West Queensland, a region where coal seam gas mining (CSG) has expanded without restraint. It takes no prisoners, it just moves across the land no matter whats in its path.wSally is particularly concerned with what will happen to the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), through which the Narrabri Gas Project (NGP) will drill. The GAB is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, its bores being the sole source of water for 22% of Australia. Drilling will draw 4 megalitres of water a day from the basin as well as reducing the pressure needed for water to rise in bores across the region. Secondly, drilling brings chemicals and toxic salts from deep in the earth upwards, and risks contaminating the GAB.The threat to the GAB is not just a scientific problem for Sally, but an emotional one. Its quite hard to explain the disempowerment if you dont have access to that water and you start to see your bores going dry. Its not a good feeling. She isnt alone. 98% of submissions to the IPC hearings were in opposition to the project, including two thirds of locals. Yet the NGP was approved by the IPC in 2020 and is a key component of the Federal Governments plans for a Gas-Fired Recovery. You just sort of wonder is this really a democracy? Geoff laments when that incredible level of opposition was shown and then given complete disregard.Little about the NGP surprises Tameeka Tighe, a Gomeroi woman and local activist against the NGP. She had a telling answer for how it felt when the project was approved. Its the life of a Black person in this country that your voice is never heard Tameeka said thats nothing new, our country has been destroyed for 250 years, its only now that its affecting white people that its an issueYet the impact of the NGP and the climate crisis is a trauma like little else on Tameeka and her mob. As a Gomeroi person and a Gomeroi woman, the destruction of my country is heart-breaking because its literally who we are. So as the country is destroyed, as the animals are destroyed, our spirituality, our livelihood, our laws and our practices are being destroyed with it. Green jobs in renewable energy and new industries are no doubt key to winning a coalition for climate action. Yet in our focus on the future, we cannot ignore the ruination of our regions unfolding in the present. New regional industries in renewables and sustainable agriculture are threatened if we despoil our land for fossil fuels, and pollute the water and air where future workforces are expected to live. Worst of all, we will continue to destroy the greatest heritage the land holds, that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders cultural and spiritual heritage. Its not about pleasing the climate concerned in the cities. Its not even strictly about climate change. Its about protecting the existing wealth and health of regional Australia.That means keeping fossil fuels in the ground.***This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Broadly, capitalism refers to an economic and political system in which industry the means of production is controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state, or the people. What the dictionary doesnt note, however, is that at the rotten core of capitalism lies exploitation and inequality. Anti-capitalism is essential not just for arresting the destruction of our planet but also in terms of addressing the systemic inequalities and exploitations that plague our society. Anti-capitalism must, therefore, be one of the pillars of the climate movement and anti-capitalist behaviour must form the basis of any approach to climate justice.The nature of capitalism and how it got us into this messThe nature of capitalism is to accumulate capital and generate profit at all costs, even if this has devastating impacts on the environment. First Nations people lived sustainably with the land in Australia for at least 60,000 years before the introduction of capitalism through British invasion. Since then, the natural landscapes and environments of Australia have been degraded to mere inputs for production as we see deforestation, mining, fracking and other equally damaging processes take place for the extraction of singular resources. Over the last 20 years in Malaysia and Indonesia, over 3.5 million hectares of forest have been destroyed in the name of palm oil, reducing viable Orangutan habitat by up to 80%. Agriculture and industry are polluting our natural bodies of water with manure, chemicals and pesticides, and more than 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year. Mining and fossil fuel giants such as Rio Tinto and BP continue to plunder fossil fuels from the ground, desecrating sacred, unceded, Indigenous land, polluting the air and water, acidifying oceans, and producing astronomical carbon emissions. In its search for resources to generate profit, capitalism allows for nature to fall by the wayside.Capitalism does not think big picture and so despite the general consensus of climate experts who say fossil fuels will eventually drive the planet, and thereby humanity, to extinction, we quite unbelievably continue to allow for them to be used. Scott Morrison refused as recently as April to commit to net zero emissions targets by 2050 when the experts say we need to do so by 2030. Labor has recently announced that they too will continue to support coal mining in a bid to win over voters in contested seats like the Upper Hunter, further entrenching the contrived wedge between jobs and climate justice.There is no profit to be made on a dead planet but the nature of capitalism demands competition between companies, and so without massive government subsidies, companies that have the desire to reduce emissions remain massively handicapped. A freighting company that tried to reduce emissions by running electric vehicles with a high start-up cost, rather than those fuelled by fossil fuels, would quickly go out of business as they would have to compete with the already established fossil fuel powered companies. This market competition means it is supremely difficult to produce quality, sustainable goods without marking up consumer prices drastically, meaning in turn that sustainable living can become a way of life that is out of reach for many of those living paycheck to paycheck. This kind of sustainability gatekeeping alienates large sections of the working class, at a time when we desperately need to unite and strike against the climate criminals at the top of the economic food chain. It also destroys working class solidarity for the climate movement when initiatives such as the 2012 Gillard governments carbon tax, which was also supported by The Greens and much of the climate movement, result in ordinary people bearing the brunt of the cost of increasing electricity prices, etc. In an indictment on reformism and corporate greenwashing, Government climate adviser Ross Garnaut admitted: Every dollar of revenue from carbon pricing is collected from people, in the end mostly households, ordinary Australians. Most of the costs will eventually be passed on to ordinary Australians. This allowed Tony Abbott and the Liberals to campaign around scrapping the tax, ostensibly defending workers rights in the process. Workers rights need to be at the centre of the climate movement both because we need their power and because an anti-capitalist revolution is about recentering the working class, not the 1%, as the basis of society.Capitalism is not equipped to deal with the scale and the immediacy of the issueRestructuring society and dismantling the fossil fuel industry means massive economic losses for fossil fuel companies who have vast sunk costs in their industries. It means that gas and coal plants, that were invested in on the basis that they would remain profitable and that otherwise would in fact remain profitable for decades to come, are retired, thus becoming stranded assets. It means massive investment in long-term, renewable energy options, likely with no profits for many decades a notion antithetical to capitalism. It means nationalising things like our electricity system and placing the quilt of privatisation that it has become back into public hands. We cannot rely on private investors who are motivated by profit and restricted in their ability to engage in sustainable practices by market competition. Besides, it is only if these new renewable energy power stations are publicly owned that we can ensure a just transition for the workers impacted by the dismantling of the fossil fuel system, guaranteeing them the new, green jobs.Moreover, the fossil fuel industry has proven over the last few centuries that it does not care even one iota for the environment, in fact it continues to actively accelerate its destruction. It has been almost 200 years since 1856, when American scientist Eunice Foote discovered that carbon dioxide can absorb warmth and suggested the environmental implications of this. For almost 200 years the government has done nothing with this climate science and the fossil fuel industry has grown exponentially listed among the worlds ten biggest companies in 2018 according to Fortune magazine were 5 oil companies and a power company. Between 1998 and 2015, just 100 companies were responsible for 71% of global carbon emissions, these being companies that either traded in fossil fuels or that were indelibly tied to them through their reliance on their power. In Australia, we are still hugely reliant on fossil fuels coal providing 60% of our power and gas a further 20%. Scott Morrisons Covid-19 economic recovery plan is known as the gas-fired recovery plan. Recently greenlighting $56 billion of new gas pipelines in the Narrabri, ScoMo has proven once again his apathy for all things environmental and for what the people demand. Covid has provided us with a golden opportunity to redesign the economy around renewables after it briefly grinded to a halt, but his solution was instead to further invest in that which threatens our very existence.If we want real climate justice in the immediate future we need to organise the power of the working class around these climate injustices. This power comes from the fact that it is the working class, not the capitalists, that keep the economy running. Despite low union density at the moment, organised sections of the working class have shown that they can exercise real power. Recent May Day demonstrations continued the proud history of Green Bans in NSW that started with the Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s. The Save Willow Grove campaign saw strong student contingents alongside CFMEU walk offs and other trade union contingents. Taking a stand against the destruction of heritage buildings and green areas, Green Bans show the power that the organised working class has to strike against government and industry dictates. Governments and their capitalist cronies may not care about the environment, but they sure as anything care about profits. It is only through continued mass demonstrations and worker strikes that threaten to cripple production and economic function, that change will be realised. The workers, united, will never be defeated.The mirage of green capitalismRecently, a trend of companies that actively support renewable energies and net zero policies has emerged and inspired hope in green capitalism a progression of capitalism that aims to solve the climate crisis largely without disrupting existing political and economic systems. One such company is Atlassian, an Australian software company that committed to running on 100% renewable energy by 2025 and instead reached this goal last year, 5 years ahead of schedule. Theyve also committed to moving themselves, as well as companies they work with. towards net zero emissions. Other companies engage in greener business models such as cost/price integration and equipment service-leasing both of which are fascinating steps in a positive direction. The issue however is not with the green of green capitalism, but with the capitalism. Green capitalism does seek, albeit without real conviction and far too slowly, to account for the environmental issues caused by capitalism, but it ignores every other social issue that is rooted in capitalism. The evils of capitalism do not start, and nor do they end, with the environment and so a progression of capitalism that only counters environmental issues will not combat things like wealth inequality, exploitation of workers, racism, imperialism, sexism, etc.An Oxfam Australia report in 2014 detailed how the richest 1% of Australians own the equivalent wealth of the poorest 60%, with economic inequality only skyrocketing further during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Washington Post reported that Jeff Bezos made $70 billion dollars over the last year, taking his estimated net worth to $186 billion and that Elon Musk grew his wealth by a mind boggling 500%, vaulting him to second among the worlds richest. Such brutal inequality cannot be justified in the name of an innovation incentive, free-market rational decision making, hard work or any other pro-capitalist nonsense. The nature of capitalism means that all the profits go straight to the bosses, either to be pocketed or reinvested in the business workers never see the profits of their labour. Green capitalism is not pro-worker, it is, as its name suggests, geared in favour of the capitalists and so while some environmental damage may be mitigated it provides a solution not even a good one to just one of the problems caused by capitalism.The Covid-19 crisis has provided us with many irrefutable examples of the deadly nature of capitalism and the necessity of anti-capitalism. Covid is currently raging through India with up to 400,000 new cases every day and yet the West continues to gatekeep vaccines in the name of intellectual property and patent law. Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel wrote: The covid catastrophe thats engulfing India and other Global South countries could have been significantly mitigated had the US, UK and Europe not repeatedly refused to suspend vaccine-related patents. People are being sacrificed on the altar of intellectual property. Other tweets described the situation as a vaccine apartheid and one user tweeted: The idea that a working vaccine is anyones exclusive intellectual property is so utterly anti-life in the name of capitalism.Nor does green capitalism provide any solution to the massive exploitation of workers that would hypothetically worsen if businesses made workers bear the cost of the more expensive green technologies inan effort to mitigate higher production costs. The defining feature of capitalism is the profit motive and so of course businesses aim to maximise profit through a multitude of anti-worker strategies. Capitalists minimise production costs by cutting wages or allowing them to stagnate behind inflation. They move labour offshore where less well-regulated countries of the Global South allow for easier exploitation of workers and cheaper labour. They attempt to boost the productivity of labour by intensifying work, lengthening the work day etc. Capitalism is therefore antithetical to a pro-worker state and so whilst green capitalism may attempt (an unfortunately accurate word) to minimise environmental damages, it will never account for the inequality, exploitation and host of other evils engendered by any and every form of capitalism.For our climate and for our people, for our survival and for our liberation, capitalism must be dismantled.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the midst of an unprecedented ecological crisis Australia is feeling the heat.The Great Barrier Reef has been destroyed and with the expected 1.5 degree increase in global temperature it will not be the only victim. Frequent extreme weather, deadly heat waves, mass biodiversity loss, and extinction are on the horizon and it will only get worse. By the end of the century, we will see a further increase between 3.5 and 5 degrees, an increase that will facilitate mass carnageTo rub salt in the wound, this will skyrocket the already present inequality, economic crisis, racism, and austerity- a deadly combination which will spiral us even further towards complete social, economic, and ecological collapse.The perpetrators? A tiny number of giant companies: 71% of global emissions since 1988 have been caused by just 100 companies. Criminals who have trillions of dollars worth of investment sunk in fossil fuels. Without interference, these companies will continue down this path of destruction.The recent election of Joe Biden as the President of the United States brings hope for genuine action. With a pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half in less than a decade, its understandable. However, this isnt enough. We not only need to zero out all emissions by the middle of the century, we need to withdraw them from the atmosphere altogether. Bidens plan would still see the U.S. remain the second biggest emitter in the world by the end of the decade.Even with this glimmer of hope, there is a strong reason to be sceptical whether the targets will even be achieved.The plan itself relies on the use of carbon capture technology which does not actually exist, and is yet another non-binding pledge. As the New York Times put it If such non-binding pledges were a reliable currency, U.S. CO2 emissions would have peaked in the late 1990s.With rising emissions and a heavy reliance on gas, Bidens approach fails to match the scale and urgency required.In comparison, Morrison cant even pretend to be anywhere near reducing emissions. Following last years slump, his key economic policy brings support for a whole new series of catastrophic gas projects.Morrisons reliance on fossil fuels as a solution to the real issues of joblessness, skyrocketing electricity prices, and economic uncertainty in the form of the Liberals so-called Gas-led recovery will not deliver. The lack of competitiveness of Australian gas both locally and in international markets means that unless the climate movement poses its own solutions to these issues we will once again play into Morrisons hands.The vast majority of emissions ever released have been since the first international climate summit in 1991. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, emissions have increased under a carbon tax. Other mechanisms such as the EU emissions trading scheme also failed to have any meaningful impact on emissions, and in some EU countries emissions also went up due to manipulation of the carbon credits system.Market mechanisms like these have been implemented and embraced across the world as the solution to the climate crisis yet they categorically fail to dent global emissions. Through higher fuel prices, electricity bills and a race to the bottom in wages and conditions for workers, they make the worlds poor pay for the ecological destruction of the rich. Despite this, governments globally have sought to embrace these policies.A recent study of the 2019 election produced by the Australian National University found that while 80% of voters thought more action was required to tackle climate change, voters were more concerned with issues of economic security. The Liberals won the climate election by relentlessly posing climate action as a threat to jobs and the climate movement had no serious response.Genuine climate action would require a rapid rollout of renewable energy, public transport and more something that only the government could do. A transition to renewables directly built and run by the government would generate hundreds of thousands of good paying, secure jobs.This is why we must insist that the climate movement must put public renewables and climate jobs front and centre. We need to mobilise the power to force genuine change, and we need to do this through the workers who have the power to bring this fossil fuel addicted system to a halt.We saw a small glimpse of this when Wharfies at Port Botany walked off the job to join the 2019 September 20 climate strike. To see this kind of action on a wide enough scale to even begin to force change, we will need to show workers across the country that climate action means addressing the unemployment crisis, lowering electricity prices, and a more secure future economically.So what can we do as students? We can shut down our university with a mass strike, showing in practice that mass strikes are possible, and that we can achieve them with demands that put workers first. This could provide the inspiration needed to spark strikes by workers, and build real strength on our side.This begins with mass organising in the here and now; Activists brought nearly 300 people to the recent Student General Meeting by meeting students, doing announcements in our lectures, convincing every student to become an activist for the campaign.We need this again on a much larger scale for the climate strike on the 21st of May. A serious strike of university students behind the banner of public renewables and climate jobs could pierce through the divisions between environmentalists and workers that the Liberals have exploited, and promote a credible alternative to this escalating catastrophe.But ultimately, strikes alone will not be enough to force the most powerful corporations in the world to simply abandon trillions of dollars of investment. The existing system subordinates our very existence on this planet to their profits and the whole of industry is tied to this setup by thousands of strings. Mass strikes can pose the question of who makes society run. But to answer it, we need the majority to not just refuse to work, but to choose on what basis they will go back to work taking production into their own hands to run it themselves on a democratic basis.Only then can we have a society that puts people, and the planet, first and bring runaway climate change to a halt.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Over a year on, the 2019 September 20th School Strike 4 Climate is regarded as something of an apotheosis of climate mass mobilisation in contemporary Australia. 80,000 students, workers, and families poured into Djarrbarrgalli, also known as the Domain, armed with placards, forming a puissant display of democratic power, and I somehow found myself in the press pen, not knowing how to act next to Craig Reucassel.Since that day in 2019, the School Strike 4 Climate movement has undergone a process of evolution partly organic, and partly catalysed by the disruption of COVID-19. Many organisers have aged out of the movement and newer faces, no less earnest in their activism, have taken up the mantle, bringing with them new visions, new strategies, and new theories of change. I sat down with three former and current SS4C organisers to gain some perspective on the evolution of the movement and their approach to the upcoming May 21st climate strike.Varsha Yajman, a graduated striker, was one of the key organisers behind September 20, and a dear friend of mine before she became a law student. She described the strike as one of the best experiences she ever had, and as a time of learning and growing by speaking to unions, Indigenous peoples, and climate deniers. I make the assumption that one of those demographics was less edifying to engage with than the others. Varsha noted that there was a definite loss of engagement throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but pointed to SS4Cs online strikes as evidence that there are still avenues to advocate for justice.I think SS4C has come back stronger than ever with a much more diverse group of people being given the opportunity to share their story, to work towards changing the narrative that this isnt just climate change but a climate emergency, Varsha opined. Although she has aged out of School Strike 4 Climate, she still holds high hopes for the movements future, I would love to see SS4C highlight the intersectionality of the climate movement even more. She pointed to the action SS4C co-led to stop the State Bank of Indias proposed $1bn loan to Adani, identifying it as an amazing step. Kayla Hill, a sixteen year old organiser, joined SS4Cs ranks mid-2019. Kayla spoke to the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted School Strikes organising, but also offered an opportunity for reflection Before COVID-19 we had so much momentum with the bushfire crisis and September 20, but we were able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and see how we can make realistic and effective change. She identified the pandemic as a crucial intergenerational opportunity to make change. We would otherwise never have this opportunity to rebuild our economy and shift the way its going.In our conversation, her determination to make the climate movement more accessible shone through. She spoke to her experience navigating the climate movement as a person of colour, and the growth she has undergone through that experience I think its necessary to keep addressing the issues that people of colour face within the climate movement. Ive definitely brought out my voice more, Ive been able to call people out and make sure they are held accountable. Kayla emphasised the importance of centering the First Nations peoples on the front lines of the governments expansion of gas projects. Intersectional activism is something which seems to be in Kaylas blood. She spoke fondly of her maternal grandfather who was involved in climate and land rights movements in Indonesia, citing him as an inspiration for her activism and following in his footsteps and following his legacy.Seventeen year old striker Nabilah Chowdhury will be taking to the stage on May 21st as an MC. Her nervous excitement was evident as she spoke about the prospect of chairing her first rally, but there is no doubt to be had that Nabilah, along with her co-MC, will exceed the expectations left through SS4Cs notably strong crop of orators. Nabilah addressed the logistical challenges of putting together a mass strike, pointing to the fact that many organisers are currently in year 11 and 12, and the task of promoting and organising a rally is something they juggle on top of school work and other extracurriculars. Nabilah herself is a fencer and volunteers at Taronga Zoo. Her plans to work in wildlife conservation after high school are undoubtedly borne of the same environmental conscience which led her to getting involved in SS4C in June 2019.Nabilah talked me through her process of getting involved in climate activism, I went to the strikes before I joined the team, and I always thought I should do that, I want to do something. I saw joining as a way to do something about the climate crisis because I felt like, for me, just standing there wasnt enough.Nabilah also spoke of the adaptations SS4C had to undergo through COVID, We had a planning day for the May 15th (2020) rally, wed planned most of it. We didnt buy anything thank goodness, but we planned a whole bunch of things and a whole bunch of speakers for an in-person rally in Sydney. While hopes of holding an in-person rally had declined slowly over a longer period, the definitive call by the Sydney team to move the rally online was only made a week beforehand. There were technical issues but I think we did alright, Nabilah chuckled.On May 21st, people will pour into Town Hall, the memories of September 20 still in their mind. School kids will show up, a little taller than they were then, bringing with them chants, witty placards, and an empowered belief in their ability to affect change.In the months since my cursory involvement in School Strike 4 Climate, the movement has been an instrumental catalyst in the development and growth of my own personal politics and advocacy. With an acknowledgement that their political standing can be a topic of contention within the wider environmental movement, I believe there is something to be said about the power these young people hold within the acolytic hope they possess in a better world.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Walking across campus is both a charm and a chore of campus life. For most students, navigation involves following obvious and well-trodden campus footpaths. But for some, the buildings of the University are not obstacles, but enticing trailheads. When being late to class is a matter of seconds, finding the optimal route between two points becomes useful, as well as entertainment that gives purpose to campus exploration, and leads to discoveries you would otherwise never make.The many names of campus roads and buildings can be confusing. I recommend taking this guide with you on your first forays through these routes. The time invested in learning them by heart will be repaid many times over. All timings were measured at a consistent walking pace of 4.8 kilometres per hour.The Graffiti Tunnel GriftFew campus falsehoods are so galling as the Graffiti Tunnel. The tunnel is a classic of supposed campus shortcuts, purportedly offering a convenient route from the Parramatta Road footbridge to Manning Road and beyond. This, dear readers, is a lie. There is almost no circumstance in which the Graffiti Tunnel is the optimal route between Science and Manning roads.If walking towards Eastern Avenue from the Parramatta Road Footbridge, enter the main entrance of the Pharmacy Building, and walk to the end of the old corridor, turning left at the glass firehose cabinet. Go down to the first landing in the stairwell, then right into the Level 3 New Wing, and immediately exit left out into the garden. Turn right down the stone stairs, then through both sets of glass sliding doors in the Brennan MacCallum Building, and out onto Manning Road.The time saved, compared to using the Graffiti Tunnel to reach the same point, is ten seconds. It is also a faster method than the popular Vice-Chancellors Garden route through the Quadrangle, since it allows you to take the diagonal down Fisher Road, and chain further shortcuts.An alternate method also exists. Between the Bank and Pharmacy buildings, there is a set of outdoor stairs on Science Road which lead down to a set of occasionally-open fire doors. Walk through these doors, turn left at the end, then right through the brick archway. Go up the small set of stairs, then immediately down the longer flight. Turn right in the corridor, then left outside S238B Microscope Room. Proceed all the way to the emergency exit double doors, and through them into the laneway. Turn left, and then right through the Brennan MacCallum doors, as above. Though this method is four seconds slower than the Pharmacy walkthrough, it is elegant in its use of the subterranean Pharmacy/Bank honeycomb. I recommend it for the campus explorer who is slightly less pressed for time.The Badham BypassA complement to the Graffiti Tunnel alternatives, the Badham Bypass is an unorthodox, but effective, means of reaching upper Manning Road from lower Science Road. The traditional student will walk downhill from the Russell Place carpark (next to the John Wooley building) to the Education Building, before turning left and walking uphill along Manning Road. Instead, walk through the open double fire doors into the bowels of the Badham Building (the doors are beneath a small Hazchem sign, and give out onto the carpark). Take the first right, out into Technology Lane, past the picnic benches and through the Brennan MacCallum underpass that would normally take you to the Graffiti Tunnel. Go straight through to Manning and save six seconds, or (if heading uphill) turn left at the top of the stairs and walk across the top of the Learning Hub to save a further five seconds.The Anderson Stuart TraverseA simple ten-second time save. If walking up Manning Road to reach upper Eastern Avenue, walk through the buildings north entrance, and traverse the courtyard past the small fountain, into the corridor, and out the front door onto Eastern Avenue. The Traverse is a relatively fringe case, and useful for reaching only a small number of destinations. Shortcuts further down Fisher Road will usually serve you better.The SLAM DunkA popular method of walking between Manning House and Physics Road (or the lower half of Eastern Avenue) involves using the pathway between the tennis courts and the sports field in front of the Physics Building; a foolish endeavour. Instead, when exiting out the back of Manning Food Court, turn left, then right through the portico of the Lawn Tennis Club (next to the Squash Court entrance). This will take you on a path between the tennis courts and the RC Mills Building, home of SLAM (School of Literature, Art and Media), delivering you to the corner of Physics and Fisher roads forty-one seconds faster than the usual route.The Edward Ford Fast-TrackA further time save exists on Physics Road. If walking uphill, and intending to turn right onto Fisher Road, veer right through the gates of the Edward Ford carpark (immediately uphill from the Physics Building). Walk through the carpark and underneath the sandstone archway, then turn left through the doors next to the tiny zebra crossing. Go up the stairs in the atrium area, then exit the building onto Fisher Road on the next floor; an entertaining four-second time save.The Chem Cut-ThroughsThe Chemistry Building is a pathway to many routes some consider to be unnatural. To access Eastern Avenue from Fisher Road, students commonly walk around the Chemistry lawns, before turning up Chemistry Lane and going up the stairs next to the liquid nitrogen tank between Chemistry and Madsen; but not you, dear readers. You walk over the grass of the Chemistry lawns, across the tree-filled courtyard behind Chemistry, and enter through the sliding doors next to the bike cage. You then walk forward up to the bathrooms, and turn right, exiting the building at the end of the corridor, next to the liquid nitrogen tank, saving eleven seconds in the process.Alas, this is only useful if your destination is Carslaw, or somewhere east of the Wentworth Building across City Road. If heading to ABS or Merewether, stay on Fisher Road up to the lights. If heading to Taste or New Law, cross the Chemistry lawns but cut left across the courtyard, past the huge drinking fountain, to the glass door at the base of a staircase. Go up the stairs and then straight out the front door to a Taste-y lunch. Finally, if heading to mid-Eastern Avenue from Manning Road, the standard outdoor route between Anderson Stuart and Chemistry on the outdoor stairs will remain fastest, as it allows you to take the diagonal down Eastern Avenue.The Engo ExpressThe Engo Express is the optimal route between Eastern Avenue and the Engineering buildings south of City Road. It begins on Barff Road, the small laneway that runs behind Carslaw and New Law. From the top of Eastern Avenue, cut diagonally down the stairs behind the New Law lawns, and follow Barff Road to the City Road intersection. After crossing the lights, go straight up the stairs, past the Catholic Student Centre and down the next flight of stairs ahead of you. Traverse Cadigal Green to the left of the Old School Building. Including the New Law diagonal, this can save you up to ninety seconds over the typical footbridge route, depending on your luck with the light cycle.The Redfern RushThe traditional Redfern Run is not the fastest way to Redfern Station. The Redfern Rush is an extension of the Engo Express that can deliver you to the station almost a minute and a half ahead of the Run. As many a Redfern Runner knows, this could mean the difference between catching your train, or a long, desultory wait on the platform. Complete the Engo Express, but cross Maze Crescent and continue straight, past the PNR Learning Hub. Cross the lawn, the carpark, and Shepherd Street, before continuing up Calder Road. Turn right on Ivy Street, cross the lights to Lawson Street, and complete the Run as normal. From after the Barff Road lights, the time saved is about eighty seconds. However, depending on where you start on Eastern Avenue, total time saved could extend up to three minutes.The only wildcard is the Barff Road lights at the beginning of the Rush. Much like waiting for a bus, arriving early in a cycle will save you no time compared to arriving just as the lights turn green. However, the potential time saves are so great, that even if RNG provides you the longest possible light cycle, you should still be no worse off.The Footbridge QuestionA matter of some contention among students who frequent the SRC or Wentworth Food Court is whether the City Road footbridge or the Butlin Avenue pedestrian crossing is faster. Evidence suggests the footbridge is superior in both cases. The City Road lights at Butlin Avenue operate on a cycle of fifty-three seconds of stop signals, followed by thirty seconds of walk signals. If you manage to arrive at the crossing at a frame-perfect light cycle, just as the walk signal begins, the time to the SRC or food court is identical to taking the footbridge from the same start position. However, the likelihood of reaching the crossing on a stop signal makes the footbridge the smart choice for the efficiency-minded student.Bonus: The Eastern AvenuesThe Eastern Avenues are two routes that run parallel to Eastern Avenue. Their advantage is that they are almost entirely under cover, making them ideal in rain, on windy days, or for avoiding stupol walk-and-talkers in campaign season. Though not shortcuts, they are useful backups for any campus walker to know.If walking northwards along Eastern Avenue from the City Road Footbridge, enter the Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences (LEES) building through the sliding door adjoining the footbridge (before the ramp goes down). Go down the stairs and through to the Carslaw Learning Hub, straight ahead and up one flight of stairs in the Eastern Avenue Lecture Theatre complex, down the corridor and push through the fire doors at the end. Walk across the glass air bridge into New Law, down two floors, straight ahead to the garden in the glass lightwell, then turn left towards the exit. Just before walking out the glass doors, turn right through the sliding doors (past the sandstone heads), and down another level into the Law Library. Turn right, and walk through into Fisher Library and beyond.Unfortunately, the fire doors between the Eastern Avenue Lecture Theatre complex and the glass air bridge are one-way. Thus, heading southwards requires an alternate, regrettably less elegant, route. Enter the northern Anderson Stuart door (next to the jacarandas on Manning Road), cross through the courtyard but turn right, rather than left, at the corridor that leads to Eastern Avenue. Leave through the southern exit facing Chemistry, and go up the outdoor stairs. Enter Chemistry and walk over the bridge, past the lockers, down the next staircase and then straight down the corridor and out next to the liquid nitrogen tank. Go up the stairs and enter the Madsen side door. If youre desperate enough to arrange swipe access with the Sydney Analytical lab, you can head downstairs and out the southeast corner of the building under the protective eaves of F23. Otherwise, youll have to turn left out the Madsen front door and onto the windswept wasteland of Eastern Avenue with the rest of us.ExtrasTake every opportunity to cross the sports field between the Education and Physics buildings on diagonals. This is one of the largest, yet most under-utilised, campus time saves, and is useful for many routes. Separately, reaching Broadway or the Parramatta Road bus stop in Victoria Park depends greatly on your starting position, but many optimal lines harness the less-commonly used gap in the Victoria Park fence, behind New Law.There are doubtless also time saves to be found between the buildings south of City Road. Not being an Engineering or Business student, I am unfamiliar with the most common destinations a field for further research. Speedrunning is an iterative process, and improvements can always be found. Get out there and explore. Quickly. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While Australias swift response to COVID-19 has allowed us to largely elude the levels of physical illness in many countries, it has also exacerbated an equally devastating mental health epidemic.University students, who have been disproportionately affected by pandemic-related economic downturns, tertiary funding cuts, and social fragmentation, have had more mental health issues resulting from the pandemic. Troublingly, Headspace found in early 2020 that half of young people were struggling to perform everyday tasks.This has translated into increased demand for mental health care services. At the height of lockdown, Beyond Blue reported a 63% increase in calls to their services.But even before COVID-19, the state of youth mental health was precarious. A 2019 Headspace report noted a rising tide of need for mental health and suicide prevention services, and that young peoples mental health issues were becoming more complex and acute. The gravity of these statistics cannot be understated.Young people face significant barriers to mental health care access. Even under a Medicare-subsidised Mental Health Care Plan, the standard gap fee for a psychological consultation is around $130, and doctors can only prescribe up to 10 sessions. For many students, paying $130 an hour is financially unsustainable. Moreover, students from lower socio-economic suburbs might not even be able to access services in their local area. Even for those who can access bulk-billing practices, which reduces the cost of consultations, many students report waiting around 6 months for an initial consultation, thanks to COVID-19.To address the mental health crisis, universities need to be more actively involved in introducing new models. While USyd does offer some services intended to support student wellbeing (including an after-hours helpline and online webinars), Professor Ian Hickie, Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at USyd, says that we have fallen behind other institutions. USyds counselling program, CAPS, has been described by students as inadequate, due to its six-session limit. Hickie agrees, saying that CAPS is a very small part of a much bigger health system. Despite student-driven initiatives from around 2010 which placed USyd at the forefront of conversations around universities and mental health, USyd has since been relatively slow to develop a system-wide response.Instead of expanding CAPS, Hickie is in favour of universities taking a facilitatory approach. He believes the role of universities is not to provide mental health care directly, but to assist students in connecting to community services and then continue to support students through their education while receiving help.In March, USyd made a promising announcement to help fund Dr Isabella Chois development of e-health services to improve the wellbeing of Chinese international students an important move, given the particular barriers they might face in terms of language, social stigma and being excluded from Medicare. Hickie is optimistic at the potential for digital technologies in supporting student wellbeing, saying that these areas have seen more change in the last few months than the previous 10 years.USyds Wellbeing Strategy, released in August 2020, details promising but vague declarations to embed mental wellbeing in all aspects of student life, in response to COVID-19. There was little discussion of facilitating student access to external health services beyond the nondescript building effective relationships with external service providers.Although I was a student last semester, I was not made aware of peer-support services or wellbeing literacy workshops that were implemented. There seems to be a disconnect between a well-meaning administration and the acute needs of student populations, compounded by confusing communication (see USyds complex website) about those services that are available. It also seems nave to assume that this strategy will result in a concrete change, where others have not.USyd has a wealth of mental health experts on staff, and bargaining power that comes from representing 70,000 people. As such, it is uniquely situated to advocate for increased government funding for community mental health services for students, and to create access pathways for students who might otherwise fall under the radar of the public health care system, and to prevent some of them dropping out.COVID-19 shouldnt be an excuse to halt new mental health initiatives; in fact, now is when they are needed most.Hickie is clear that it will take more than hope to move USyd on these issues, saying that the institution should take the lead by implementing a clear strategynot leaving it up to students to sort out where they go next and what they do.Acknowledging tremendous pressures that funding cuts have placed on universities, Hickie nonetheless insisted that USyds administration needs to acknowledge that its going to cost money, its going to take time, and theyre going to have to treat it seriously.If the university is going to do anything substantive about these issues, now is the time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Summer break, 2020. I had planned to visit my family in Perth but a new crop of COVID cases had spawned out of Avalon, leading to a hard border between WA and NSW. Bored and alone, I kept revisiting WA Premier Mark McGowans Facebook posts, specifically the well-produced colour-coded infographic maps of Australia: WA is always shaded neutral white, very low risk states are cautionary yellow, low risk states are hazardous orange, and medium risk states (i.e. NSW) are danger red. As I combed through the numerous geopolitical projections, I struggled to rationalise my fascination until I saw it. Underneath McGowans awkward but eternally endearing dad smile, there was a small but recognisable gap in-between WA and the other states, a moat that separates it from the rest of the country.Growing up in WA, that separation is palpable. You are constantly reminded that (by some very narrow measures) Perth is the most isolated city in the world, nestled in the ugly duckling of states. Its a place of greedy mining magnates, disproportionate GST redistribution, and wide-open spaces; the Wild West that Canberra forgot. From the jump, WA was hesitant about joining the new country of Australia, and after 22 years of unhappy marriage, filed for divorce. A divorce which Westminster (as the judge in this jumbled analogy) subsequently stonewalled. Possibly as delayed retribution, it has been said although probably exaggerated that during the Second World War, the federal government planned to sacrifice everything west of the imaginary line between Brisbane and Adelaide if the Japanese Army invaded. My Year 9 geography teacher would routinely decry the (dubious) betrayal each semester, demanding that we never forget the dastardly deeds of the evil eastern elites.Still, the yearning for independence persevered and the state became a Mecca for sovereign citizenry. Prior to its collapse, Australias most famous secession success story was the product of a wheat farmer who decided that he didnt want to follow the directives of the Department of Agriculture and formed his own principality, the Hutt River Province, one hour north of Geraldton. After bestowing himself the title of Prince Leonard I, he began bankrolling his new state by issuing his own currency and stamps sometimes with peculiar commemorative themes: birds of Antarctica and his 1979 holiday (ahem, official state visit) to the Vatican.But that was not the only time the Holy See got a callout from West Australian secessionists. In June 2020, four insurgents from the New Westralia movement live streamed their storming of the historic courthouse in York, declaring New Westralias independence not only from the Commonwealth, but the auspices of the Bishop of Rome, as well (as if Pope Francis cared about a town of 2,500 people in rural WA). Despite their arrest, the Westralian movement continues to fester. A few weeks ago, a sovereign citizen refused to say her name when asked in court and yelled We object when allegations of speeding were read against her. Despite being convicted, she thanked a New Westralian seperatist for their sound legal advice.The New Westralia movement is undoubtedly fringe, but their ethos is anything but. Deep rooted in the collective consciousness of West Australians at home, and in the diaspora, is a disdain for the eastern states that wronged us, spanning from the premiers infographics, to a WAxit meme page (formerly administered by the Universitys own Director of Debates), to my grandmothers declaration that shes always been a secessionist. Roughly one third of the state supports WAxit and the Microbusiness Party rebranded itself to the WAxit Party to capitalise on the political moment. Its ironic, however, that the entire secessionist discourse belies the fact that Western Australia was built on top of land that was never ceded, let alone given the opportunity to secede.But just to be safe, it might be wise for us sandgropers to start saving for international tuition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article discusses rape and sexual assault.This week, Australia learned about another womans fight to speak out about her sexual assault. Sandra* shared her story with journalist and director of End Rape on Campus Australia (EROCA) Nina Funnell, who last year created the #LetHerSpeak campaign in partnership with Marque Lawyers. Sandra is now following in the footsteps of Grace Tame and Tameka Ridgeway, who both won their right to tell their stories in the media using their full names through the Tasmanian High Court last year. Archaic gag laws in the Northern Territory currently prevent her from doing so but they are coming under attack again, and rightly so.Sandra is a nursing student from Darwin. She has been through an ordeal to get to this point. In 2017, she was raped at a bucks party by an attendee while she was working as an adult entertainer. She reported her rape to the police, and they charged the offender but it wasnt until two trials later the first resulted in a hung jury that she finally got justice. Her rapist was found to be guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years in jail but was suspended after nine months.Because of the sexual assault gag laws that still exist in the Northern Territory, any journalist that spoke out and named Sandra even with her permission would face six months gaol time. So would she.In 2017 Sandra was raped at work at a bucks party just outside Darwin. In a landmark victory 4 adult industry workers, Sandra's rapist was found guilty & given 3.5 years jail. Sandra now wants to go public but can't due to NTs victim gag laws. #LetHerSpeak https://t.co/pkRQayeiQ2 Nina Funnell (@ninafunnell) March 16, 2020This law that still exists in the Northern Territory is outdated and offensive. Its a law that benefits perpetrators and harms victims, who are not able to tell their stories or humanise themselves in any way. The public is always suspicious of people who speak to the media anonymously; when you cant put a name or face to the story, its easier to doubt it, to make nasty comments, to humanise the perpetrator instead, who has the power to do interviews and control the narrative. At the time, local media called her rapist a larrikin and a family man while she was referred to as nothing more than a stripper.Sandra must know the potential for further public backlash because of her profession and because of the misogynistic, victim-blaming attitudes that are rampant in Australia. That she wants to do it anyway is indicative of the importance of this issue to her, and of the strength and resilience of her character. For Sandra, the benefits of speaking publicly far outweigh the personal cost.Sandra wants to be able to speak publicly for two main reasons. Firstly, she wants to educate women and especially women like herself about their rights in the adult entertainment industry and more broadly. Secondly, she wants to lead the charge in combating victim-blaming attitudes across Australia. Neither of these are easy tasks, but theyre essential in protecting women and creating real change.Sandra is by no means alone and is not the only woman who suffers the consequences of these outdated laws. The Northern Territory has the highest rate of sexual assault per capita in the country, and police in the Northern Territory are less likely to pursue a sexual assault report than police in any other state or territory in Australia. The laws there systematically gag survivors en masse, to the point where it is not even possible to engage in public discourse about the issue.This law is more dangerous again because it silences Aboriginal women, who make up over 50% of women in the Northern Territory that have faced sexual assault and harassment. Its impossible to emphasise how problematic this is; the gag law perpetuates a systematic inequality that allows external bodies to speak on behalf of Indigenous people and permits them no autonomy to tell their own stories.However, both Tasmania and the Northern Territory, the last two states to have these archaic laws, are in the process of doing something about it. Last week, Tasmanian Attorney-General Elise Archer introduced a bill to reform the archaic gag laws of section 194K of the Evidence Act. This reform would allow sexual assault survivors to speak publicly about their assault if they are over eighteen and provide consent to being named in paper. The catch, however, is that survivors still cannot be named until all other possible avenues of appeal have been exhausted following the conviction, which could take years, and which still allows the defendant to speak publicly and control the narrative throughout the proceedings while silencing the victim.In the Northern Territory, the process has just begun. The government is calling for submissions from the public about the change of legislation. But survivors in the Northern Territory will face the same problem as in Tasmania. They would only be able to speak once all other avenues of appeal have been exhausted.The #LetHerSpeak campaign took off last year when Grace Tame won the right to tell her story. Its such an important campaign because its a way to support survivors while spreading the movement to change the laws. The fact that these laws still exist says something about Australia as a country. The fact that women in New South Wales are not impacted by it doesnt mean we shouldnt be joining the fight. In fact, we should be at the forefront of it, because we do have the right to speak and we can take some of the burden on our shoulders.The best way to support Sandra is to take a selfie and upload it to social media with the hashtag #LetHerSpeak.Sandra* is the name which this woman is using to tell her story.If you or someone you know has been impacted by sexual violence support is available by calling 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Uncertainty is penetrating all areas of campus life, as students, staff and workers come to terms with the impacts the coronavirus will have on the University. On Sunday, Honi broke the news that a first-year student was diagnosed with COVID-19, before Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence notified students. Two days before, on Friday, the University announced preparations for a potential campus closure, and over the weekend many students have been notified by lecturers and tutors that their courses would be shifted online. With over two weeks until the census date on 31 March, contracts on hold and thousands of students stuck overseas due to travel bans, the campus community is right to be worried about the future of University life.StaffUniversity staff are on the frontline of the impact the coronavirus will have on campus life. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) secured a win from the University on Friday for casual staff, who will be guaranteed special paid leave for any work they miss in a ten day working period. This includes staff who contract the virus, or need to self isolate. Several casual staff members have already been asked to self-isolate following contact with the student who tested positive for COVID-19. But there are a myriad of other ways staff have already been affected by University cutbacks that have been made in response to falling student numbers that the staff union has labelled as austerity measures.Due to an expected $200 million shortfall on expected student fee profits this semester, the University has announced a freeze on all new staff appointments, and on the renewal of fixed-term and casual contracts. Over half of the hours worked at the University of Sydney are worked by people on fixed-term or casual contracts, the freeze set to leave many staff un- or under-employed as their contracts run out over the coming months. If the freeze on contract renewals for fixed-term staff is maintained, hundreds of jobs are likely to be lost.According to Kurt Iveson, President of the NTEU Branch at USyd, staff have worked above and beyond for the University over the last 6 weeks to make arrangements for students affected by the travel ban. Many of these staff have been casual or on fixed-term contracts. To now be told that their contracts will not be renewed is a slap in the face for their efforts. Importantly, similar cuts have not been announced at similarly placed universities, such as UNSW, leading the NTEU to question whether the coronavirus was being used as cover for staff cuts.Staff have also complained theyve been left unsupported in the shift to online courses. Were very concerned about the amount of work that will be required to shift everything online, Iveson told Honi. This will require more work, right at the time when VC Spence is imposing austerity measures including a freeze on new appointments and renewals of fixed-term contract.The University also agreed with the NTEU at the local Joint Consultative Committee that the University would stop their attempt to use labour hire in the Student Administrative Services department, which they then broke without telling the staff union.The NTEU is planning a rally against the austerity measures on Wednesday 25 March at 1pm, however, it is unclear whether the event will go ahead at this stage, given that all student, academic and public events and conferences on campus will be cancelled from this week, as well as the looming possibility of a campus closure.Student OrganisationsThe effects of the coronavirus on the Universitys bottom line are certain to hit student organisations, which are either funded in part (SUSF, USU), or almost entirely (SRC, SUPRA) by the Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF). With an estimated 12,000 University of Sydney students stuck in China as a result of the travel ban, with most likely to defer or leave before the 31 March census date, student organisations are set to lose approximately $1,848,000 this semester, or more than 10% of last years funding. That is before considering drop in student numbers, as some students have begun dropping units or deferring due to poor quality online classes or to avoid classes with mandatory attendance.Importantly however, the decrease in SSAF will not impact student organisations uniformly. Whereas only $4 million of the USUs more than $30 million budget comes from SSAF, with most of its profits coming from food and drink outlets and corporate sponsorships, SUPRA and the SRC are entirely reliant on University funds to remain afloat. As noted above, however the organisation faces losses on two fronts, as a result of a potential campus closure and less money being spent already at USU outlets, as a result of less students being on campus and increased levels of social distancing.Whilst the SRCs base funding is secure, meaning all staff salaries, office bearer stipends and collective funding remains unaffected by the changes to SSAF, the contestable projects the SRC was planning on delivering this year look likely to be impacted by the decrease in SSAF. These include: the provision of a part-time solicitor with a focus on dealing with sexual and interpersonal impropriety, an SRC food bank, information workshops, and constitutional and regulatory reform, which would require extensive legal advice before being put to a council meeting.It also remains unclear whether student support services will be delivered face-to-face. At the beginning of the year, the SRC ceased in person appointments with the casework and legal service for two days due to staff concerns about contracting the virus. Whether monthly council meetings will continue also remains unclear, as with the student general meeting scheduled for 1 April, where students are set to vote on going on strike for May Day on May 1, and the school strike on May 15. However, the school strike for climate in mid May was cancelled on Saturday.Sydney University Sport and Fitness (SUSF) is also being affected by the decrease in SSAF funding, although its operations will likely not be impacted to the same degree as other student organisations, considering it relies largely on membership and passes fees, as well as external funding sources. In 2018, the organisation was allocated $5 million in SSAF funding, whilst also generating over $14 million in revenue, on top of donations from Hockey Donors and Boatshed Appeal Donors. The University has also advised students not to go to sporting or gym facilities.SRC President Liam Donohoe anticipates that there is likely to be a significant drop in enrolments next semester, and also possibly in the long-run if international perceptions of Australian universities decline.If enough were worried by the sudden travel ban, or there is a broader social backlash against globalism in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, there may be far less international student enrolments, which is seriously worrisome for SSAF.CasualsThough the University announced on Friday that it would be granting up to two weeks sick leave for casual staff who need to self isolate due to the coronavirus, it is unclear if staff at bars and outlets would be granted the same. University of Sydney Union (USU) President Connor Wherrett declined to comment on whether casuals employed in campus cafes and bars would be granted paid leave for isolation, which is not currently available on their contracts.That is particularly concerning for casual staff employed in campus cafes and bars who come in close contact with large numbers of people through their work.But the greater concern for staff is a potential campus shut down, which for many appears inevitable. As Honi reported on Friday, the University has begun moving units of study online and asked faculty to prepare online class plans in preparation for a potential campus shut down. Several American universities, including Harvard and Columbia, and several Southern Cross University campuses and schools in NSW and Victoria have already closed to curtail spread of the virus. Profits from campus outlets are the USUs main source of funding, with a 2018 financial report stating they made almost $27 million annually. According to Wherrett, the USU has already seen diminished profits this semester due to lowered student numbers on campus, as coronavirus fears mean students avoid campus and thousands of students remain in China due to the travel ban. In the event of a campus closure then, its possible the USU will lay off staff or not pay them.Casual staff remain in the dark about what will happen to their roles in the event campus is closed. I know myself and others are really stressed about the impact COVID-19 will have on our employment, one USU employee on a casual contract told Honi. We dont have the same support as full time and part time employers, so many of us are left questioning whether we should be looking outside for work or talking to Centrelink. You trade a slightly higher pay check for lower security and irregular shifts as a casual employee so you can brace for the loss or gain of between five and ten hours per week, but no one casual employee can adapt to absorb a loss of more than 20 hours a week, another USU casual said. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As the last specks of glitter (biodegradable, of course) disappear from Oxford street, and the flurry of rainbow, feathered and leather outfits are pushed to the back of cupboards, it is clear that Mardi Gras 2020 is over.The celebrations in Sydney were spectacular and the overall attitude of the city was joyful and inclusive. This may give the impression that LGBTIQ+ welfare is at an all-time high but it is important to remember there is still a long way to go.According to the National LGBTI Health Alliance, transgender people over the age of 18 are still nearly 11 times more likely to attempt suicide in their lifetime than the general population. Transgender people are also far more likely to experience violence, homelessness, unemployment and barriers to healthcare access.Polands recent adoption of LGBTIQ+ free zones and of course the Trump administrations proposal to roll back the transgender protection legislation adopted by Obama proves that discrimination still exists on a global scale.Last year The New York Times infamously reported that in a memo they obtained from Trumps health department, it was proposed that sex means a persons status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. Shockingly, even the World Health Organisation (WHO) classified being transgender as a mental health condition until May last year. This is simply false.Scientific understanding of the basis of sex and gender is still growing, but one thing is absolutely clear: gender is non-binary and gender incongruence, the feeling that your assigned sex does not represent your gender identify, is real. We also know that people can be intersex, that is, they have natural variations of their sex characteristics. Thus not even genitalia fits into the binary categories of male or female.The research in this area is complex, revolving mostly around genetic factors, hormones and neurobiology, and their interplay.Lets talk genetics.Genes are segments of DNA which dictate body features including hair colour and height. Theres no single gene that encodes for sexual preference or for gender identity. However, large population studies have shown that being transgender can run in families, which means that genetic factors certainly come into play. Recent genome sequencing studies have expanded on this finding and have suggested that genes that make up certain hormone signalling pathways are likely to be involved in gender incongruence.Genetics determine whether an embryo will develop to have XX or XY chromosomes. Embryos with XX chromosomes will generally develop ovaries while XY will lead to testes. We now know that XX and XY are not the only possibilities, as people can be born with natural variations of these chromosome combinations. And chromosomes arent the only important factor impacting biological sex determination, hormones play an important role too.Oestrogen for girls, testosterone for boys?We are taught as we grow up that females have high levels of oestrogen, while boys have a lot of testosterone. This is not entirely true: all people have oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone. During puberty these hormones are generally present at higher levels and do tend towards one end of the spectrum. During this time, hormones cause the development of secondary sex characteristics including external genital and other physical features. What we are often not taught is that adults generally have similar levels of these hormones, irrespective of sex or gender. Furthermore, a multitude of environmental, social and behavioural factors also influence hormone production. This can lead to variations in development throughout puberty, as well as hormone levels over a lifetime, supporting the theory that hormone levels and physical sex characteristics determine sex and gender.A male or female brain?While there is no such thing as a male or female brain, various studies have found that there are certain structural differences between the brains of cis males and cis females. These include differences in cerebral cortex thickness (the thin neuronal tissue that surrounds the brain) and composition of white and grey matter (tissue components of the central nervous system that consist of various neuronal cells). Both of these features have roles in neuronal signalling.Another feature of the brain that is generally structurally different in cis men and women is the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc). This part of the brain is involved in emotional and behavioural responses to stress. In a range of structural brain studies of trans women and trans men, it was consistently found that the BSTc of a trans woman more closely resembled the BSTc of a cis woman, and the BSTc of a trans man more closely resembled that of a cis man than a cis woman. So trans men and women have brains that are more similar to their identified gender rather than the gender they were assigned at birth.Genes + hormones + brainsResearch conducted in the 2000s showed that during brain development, exposure to particular hormones can cause masculinization (or defeminization) of the brain that will cause the developed brain to have so-called typically masculine brain characteristics. This is part of the sex determination pathway of the developing foetus just before or after birth. Furthermore, a recent study that involved sequencing the whole genome of trans men and trans women identified variations in 19 of those genes, which were associated with the hormonal signalling pathways involved in the masculization process. This data suggests that variations in these genes could mean that someone who was assigned as male at birth due to physical sex characteristics may not have undergone the hormone signalling required for masculinization and thus will develop a typically feminine brain, or visa versa.Its a spectrum.There is plenty of scientific evidence that proves that gender incongruence is real. What the science also shows clearly is that sex and gender are in no way straightforward or binary and there are many complex factors involved. The terms cis female, cis male, transgender male and transgender female are not even adequate to describe all the members of the gender-expansive community. Intersex people can also be born with a wide range of natural variations in their sex characteristics, including chromosomes, hormone profile, genitals and more.So what does this mean?While an understanding of the relevant science may be one way to help support people facing issues related to gender incongruence, we cannot simply minimise the complexity of the condition into facts and figures. What is perhaps more important is an empathetic understanding of the social and political issues still faced by trans people as well as other members of the LGBTIQ community and the work necessary to break down barriers.In a society that can truly support and celebrate natural diversity within the human race, the joyful and inclusive attitude adopted during Mardi Gras should not be limited to only one night a year. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When someone asks me to define myself, I reply, confused, I would say, someone who has grown up waking up to the morning azan? The morning call from the minaret was usually infused with the rosary breaths of my mother, the lunchbox clamour of Farah aapa from the neighborhood, groans of morning obligations, and other womanly sounds. You would expect the colony to ring with the domestic callings of women, but hardly expect to hear words like Inquilab and Azadi.India has witnessed an already tumultuous political situation flare up in the past three months following the BJP governments decision to pass the Citizenship Amendment Act, a discriminatory act which provides citizenship safety to people of religions other than Islam. This act has been received with dissent from all over India, and the world. Women, and especially Muslim women have been at the forefront of the dissent that is circulating throughout the country. My goal here is not to say that only female protestors should be glorified, but to reflect upon how seeing women I have grown up with out on the streets made me feel something in my gut. There was just something about seeing them with their fingers up in the air that made me wonder what offence they will stir amongst the rigid right-wing.Shaheen Bagh has gained popularity for being the longest running peaceful protest in India. This idea of 24-hour sit-in protests was proliferated to places like Lucknow, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Varanasi. I could not physically attend the Shaheen Bagh protests, but attended Mumbai Bagh, a similar 24-hour protest that happened in Mumbai. However, I need not be physically present to tell you about the reactions that people (read privileged upper caste Hindu men and women) have thrown at me for talking about it.There is this sense of discomfort among people when they see overtly Muslim women being the face of something dynamic. Mind you, the issue is not with women, or Muslim women who are latent about that identity. The offence arises when the right wing see women who carry any trace of their Muslim identity a hijab, the Quran in their hands, some Islamic chant, or simply the statement as a Muslim woman out and proud. It is like we are matchsticks and can only escape their matchboxes when they want to light a cigarette. The discomfort that Muslim women bring to the right wing is clear not only in high-profile politics , but also in day-to-day interactions.The women led protests are happening in Muslim neighborhoods and are led by Muslim women; a combination of topographical and gender anomaly in the Indian society. It is this game of image that comes here. If you are a Muslim woman in India, the assumption is that you are either an uneducated, submissive wife or a sensuous, promiscuous woman. The former comes from a place of geographical and societal history of oppression.My family grew up in the chawls of Nagpada in Mumbai and women of my family do not have much formal education. I have seen the women of my house in hijab all my life, and I have always associated them with sewing machines, spoons, and pots. However, when I see the current protests in Mumbai happening in the same area, and the clinking of pots and pans on protest grounds, I shiver. I hear my grandmother, and think about how the women were up all night in solidarity during the 2002 Godhra riots, how their spines twitched at the radio updates, and how they prayed through the political tumult that night. The fragility of the right winger does not see this. There is this image which has settled in their minds, of us growing up by the sewage, being imbued with jihad. If we ignore politics, we are docile. If we talk politics, we are terrorists who will burn down your shops on the orders of the men in our lives. If we try to sensitize our fellow sisters, we are wayward thinking people dismissing our religion.I have had all sorts of conversations with people, with some questioning how the poor Muslim women know about the political reality of the act. My discomfort with that term is another tale, but the lack of efforts from the opposition to understand the reality of the protests is appalling. Protests like these stimulate volunteer and educational circles, sensitising people about the issues and making them understand their stakeholdership in the revolution. These circles are a feminist conundrum of shared understanding and tranferring of information from women with more access to those with lesser access. When I tried to explain this to some acquaintances, they dismissed this by saying, anpadh auratein dusre anpadho ko padhayengi? (how can a group of uneducated women teach another group of uneducated women?) The assumption that we are uneducated comes from the sight of the hijab, the assumption that we cannot have a different life while living in such areas. My aunt, a chemistry professor, who lives in Nagpada and runs a volunteer group at Mumbai Bagh tells me how everyone assumes she is a nobody because she wears a hijab and communicates in Urdu. Wo kehte hai ki maine mera inquilab mardo se seekha hain. Par mai toh bachpan se hi meri behno ke sath azadi ko pyar samajhti hu. (They think that I have learnt resistance from the men in my life. But I have romanticized revolution with my sisters right from my childhood).When I went to Mumbai Bagh to protest, I saw girls of the age 12 18 sing azaadi in chorus until 10 pm. They then resorted to simple learning circles after the time. All I saw was an unquenchable female anger that I wish I had when I was 12. They say we protest for their money, and I ask how, how do you get the audacity to make such claims? For a large circle in Indian society, Muslim women are still the money hungry tawaiffs and prostitutes. We are either our names, beauty, or poverty. I ask here, a simple question to all Tumhara inquilab, inquilab. Par hamara inquilab jihad kyu?Your resistance counts as resistance, so why does our resistance count as terrorism? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1998, British scientist Kevin Warwick conducted the very first experiment with RFID (radio-frequency identification) implants and became the first human to host a microchip. Lodged just under the skin, the implant was used for meagre tasks like opening doors or switching on lights with just a wave of a hand. When Warwick strolled through the front door of his office, a computerized voice would be activated by the implant: Good morning, Professor Warwick. You have five new emails. These implants are now used to store digital identity information, medical records or to gain access to buildings. Martijn Wismeijer, Dutch marketing manager for Bitcoin ATM manufacturer General Bytes, placed RFID chips in both of his hands to store his Bitcoin private keys and business card. Jonathan Oxer, a programmer based in Australia, self-implanted an RFID chip in his arm using a veterinary implantation tool. Thousands of Swedes are implanting microchips under their skin to speed up their daily routine.Whilst Warwick believed that a human-computer hybrid has many applications, both negative and positive, Katherine Albrecht, an anti-RFID evangelist, has been very vocal on the negatives. She believes that such technology may unfold to become the mark of the Beast and wrote a book The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance warning other Christians about the technology. It is believed that the mark of the Beast is a way to distinguish those who worship the Antichrist, indicating the end of times; a future time period when the world will cease to exist. A passage in the Book of Revelations 13:16 states,[The Beast] causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.RFID has been linked to the mark for about 15 years now. Back in 2006, Katherine Albrecht told C/net that her goal as a Christian is to enunciate the alarm. The connection between this technology and the mark has been established for two reasons. First, the microchips have been implanted onto the palm of the right hand for ease and convenience. This mimics the phrase from the passage where all are to receive a mark on their right hand. Second, some of these chips have been used to store credit card information, which Biblical theorists believe is true to the phrase that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark. This has led some people to infer that those without the implant/mark will not be able to earn a living.In 2017, a company based in Wisconsin offered to pay for their employees to get RFID implants if they wanted one. This action received grave backlash from religious advocates, who voiced their displeasure on the companys Facebook page, and accused the company of being the Antichrist and doing the dirty work for Satan. The company received hundreds of one-star reviews, and were accused of committing a sin by using RFID as a form of identification or payment.This is not the first time that end-times theologians have portrayed the apocalypse in reality. Some believe that the WWW (World Wide Web) would bring forth the end-times, on the basis that in Hebrew www is 666, the mark of the Beast. In Hebrew, the letters are used as numbers, translating www as 666.Rev 13:18 states,Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man, and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.Grant R. Jeffrey, bible teacher of bible prophecy, wrote in his book The Prince of Darkness: The number 666 indicates that the letters in the Greek form of the name of the Antichrist will add up to 666. There is a slim possibility that his name will equal 666 in the Hebrew language since the Antichrist will be Jewish. The numeric system does not work in English or in languages other than Greek or Hebrew, so it is useless to calculate the values of names in these modern languages. Further, the www is not imprinted on the right hand or forehead, making it improbable to claim it as the mark of the Beast.Worried evangelists have had this terror about salvation and apocalypse a feeling now commonly known as the salvation anxiety. This anxiety has been in part because of the mark of the Beast, as seen on their posts on contemporary forums. Predicting and understanding the first sign of the Antichrist has always been a topic of fascination among them, which is why interpreting the lines in Revelations surrounding the mark has been a topic of interest. These lines however, are ambiguous and can be interpreted in various ways on the basis of different contexts. These so called marks would be seen many times over, based on different interpretations. After all, there is no correct way, or a doctrinally acceptable way to foretell whats to come and prevent the rise of so called Antichrist.While the religious concern about the mark of the Beast might be evangelists worrying about technological advancements, the origins of the matter do suggest an intriguing question about merging the human body and computing. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a 2017 speech at the Values Voter Summit, American President Donald Trump addressed the crowd by saying, We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values were saying merry Christmas again. It seems patently absurd to assert there is an intrinsic Jewish value in celebrating a Christian holiday, not least when the holiday in question largely revolves around eating a huge hunk of ham and copious amounts of prawns (in Australia at least). Nonetheless, the term Judeo-Christian has come to be deployed fairly frequently by those on the political right, from Republicans to alt-right message board dwellers. So, what does it all mean?On the face of it, it might seem like an act of good faith inclusion to incorporate Judaism into an imagined set of Western values. But this has not been how the term has operated. Instead, the term has functionally served to exclude rather than include. Indeed, it is clear that Trump has no genuine intentions to be pluralistic or pro-Jewish. This is, after all, the same guy who labelled neo-Nazis at Charlottesvilles Unite the Right rally very fine people and trafficked in antisemitic tropes when he questioned the loyalty of most of Americas Jewish population to the Democratic Party.Majority Christian nations, particularly those in the Anglosphere such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States like to assert themselves as being grounded in a Judeo-Christian values system. However, it is critical to acknowledge that Jews have been historically persecuted and excluded from these countries. Whether its the 13th century expulsion of Jews from England, the 1905 British Aliens Act, or the cap on Jewish immigration to such countries even after the Holocaust, it is abundantly clear that for the vast majority of history, Jewish people have been deliberately treated and cast as unwelcome in the Christian world.It is only recently that Jewish people have been, for the most part, welcomed within Christian countries, albeit on someone elses terms. Of course, now Muslim people, especially Muslim immigrants and refugees, are receiving similarly racialised and exclusionary treatment. Accordingly, the term Judeo-Christian is now most frequently used as a way to be falsely inclusive of Jews whilst excluding Muslims.The phrase operates in drawing a false distinction between a set of imagined Christian, Western values on the one side, and Islam, as an ideology alongside the percieved threats of Muslim immigration on the other. This framing is encapsulated by right wing populist Nigel Farage, who in denouncing the Islamic fundamentalist, Anjem Choudary, stated my country is a Judeo-Christian country. So weve got to actually start standing up for our values.Here, Farage is linking his fears about Islam with Judeo-Christian values. However, its apparent that he is not really concerned with including Jews, but with excluding Muslims. Further, seeing as Farage has been roundly criticised for antisemitic comments, including complaints about the impacts of the Jewish lobby in American politics, its seemingly unlikely that he places much value on Jewish people, Jewish culture or Judaism as a religion. Instead, the Judeo- functions as a useful shield with which to attack Islam and Muslims.When those on the right, like Trump and Farage, deploy the term they are fundamentally engaging in an us versus them division regarding the West and Islam. Importantly, this is not about incorporating Jews within this, but about the deliberate and xenophobic exclusion of the other. Additionally, it is often used to propagate a mythic narrative of Christian persecution in the West.It is not just those on the populist right, but those on the more radical right who are beginning to embrace Judeo-Christianity as a framework through which to propagate their views. Their willingness to embrace the term represents a strategic shift in how the right deals with Jewishness. Of course the radical right remain enchanted by the antisemitic fiction of Jewish financial control, a centuries old conspiracy theory largely embodied in the modern George Soros myth. Further, as Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue murderer outlined in his manifesto, many on the radical right view Jews as supporting non-white (particularly Muslim) immigration, casting them as the real force behind white genocide.However, whilst this is the case, Israel is often held in high regard within sections of the radical right as a powerful embodiment of Western values. The countrys military prowess against its Muslim neighbours combined with its ethno-nationalist philosophy, as explicated in the 2018 nation-state law, which asserts that Israel belongs to Jews alone, enamour the radical right. As Americas most famous white nationalist, Richard Spencer, has proclaimed Jews are, once again, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and sovereignty for all the future, showing a path forward for Europeans.Importantly, this is not just a phenomenon in the Anglosphere. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen also propagate antisemitic myths about Jewish financial control and globalism, whilst at the same time musing on Judeo-Christianity and cuddling up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Even a cursory search on social media will show that while large sections of the right have embraced the term, Jewish people have overwhelmingly rejected it. Jewish people are not falling for what is fundamentally a right wing dog whistle, and the myth that Judaism and Christianity are one and the same when it comes to values. Indeed, Judeo-Christianity represents a longer, historical trend of erasing Judaism and Jewishness by subsuming it into Christianity. As K Healon Galston, a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School explains, some Christians have for many years viewed Judaism as the dead root of the flourishing branch.It is clear that the notion of Judeo-Christianity functionally excludes both Jews and Muslims whilst centring Christianity. The phrase implicitly excludes Jewish people by subsuming Judaism into Christianity and explicitly excludes Muslim people in its intention to justify anti-immigration rhetoric and Islamophobic policy. Practically, Judeo-Christian values make reference to a specific form of right wing Christian values. As Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote on Twitter: Much of Judeo-Christian tradition involves centuries of Christians trying to kill us. If you mean not Muslim say it.Ultimately, the popularising of Judeo-Christianity is part of a broader political trend within the right, wherein progressive terms are weaponised for their own political gain. For example, freedom of religion, meant as a universalist term and practice has been appropriated by the Christian right in defence of conservative values. This is currently the case with the Federal Governments Religious Freedom Bill which seeks to allow for sexist and homophobic discrimination. Indeed, the same parallel can also be drawn when it comes to those weaponising the right to free speech. Deployed by disgraced figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos or Bettina Arndt, freedom of speech is strategically used as a shield to harass and insult minorities and survivors, rather than being used as some great defence of liberal values.If we are to celebrate religious pluralism and inclusion, rather than exclusion and bigotry, we should reject and retire the word Judeo-Christian immediately. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When three baboons escaped from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) two weeks ago, in their reporting on the event, The Guardian repeatedly used the same stock image of an olive baboon, found throughout equatorial Africa, despite the escaped male baboons obvious mane of grey-white fur and red face announcing him as a hamadryas baboon from the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula. While a mistake as obvious as this should reveal poor journalistic standards, it is likely to go unnoticed by readers as the majority of us know very little about any other animal species: their forms of embodiment, social and kinship structures, dietary habits, lifespans, preferred habitats, technologies, means of communication and self-expression.This is the result of the entrenchment of urbanisation and industrialisation, which has transformed space in the European imperial core and its colonial outposts including the Australian settler-colony, razing other animal habitats and constructing our own out of concrete, timber and steel. In the process, other animals have been banished from their own homes to make way for ours. Those that remain such as rats, pigeons, ibises and cockroaches, are seen as pests in their defiance of human attempts to banish all other animals (besides our pets, eugenically curated to suit our aesthetic preferences) from non-wild space. While in many other parts of the world, including more remote parts of the Australian continent, people and other animals still coexist and share their environments, most of us in the Global North have never engaged in an organic relationship with a non-domesticated animal. And through colonisation, First Nations peoples totemic cosmologies have been removed from their original context, involving relationships with and knowledge of animals and the land.It is partially because we have learnt to never see non-domesticated, non-bird species in our midst that the sighting of three hamadryas baboons was so shocking to passersby. Of course, a great part of the shock came from the knowledge that baboons are not native to Australia and do not exist in the Australian bush or urban landscapes. But that does not mean that they, and other primate species, are not prevalent within Australian borders. Most readers have likely seen various species of baboons, gibbons, orang-utans, and gorillas imprisoned within some of the 61 zoos currently operating in Australia. But behind locked doors, razor-wire fences and security clearances are a number of medical testing facilities which often use primates like baboons because of their relative closeness to humans in terms of DNA.The Aussie Farms Farm Transparency Map reveals 10 medical testing facilities in Australia, including the Australian Animal Health Laboratory which does research into emerging infectious disease threats to livestock and aquaculture fish in order to bolster the profits of these industries; the DPI Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, which contains and researches upon animals for the purposes of Australian biosecurity; the National non-human primate breeding and research facility at Monash University; and ozGene, which breeds customised genetically modified mice. Evidently, the common use of animals in research does not take place purely out of the goodwill of scientists trying to make the world a better place by alleviating human illnessit is directly related to the need to maintain Australias profitable livestock sector despite its negative environmental impacts, its ongoing role in colonial dispossession, and its brutalisation of other animals.The baboons came from the National Baboon Colony at Wallacia which is part of the Sydney Local Health District, a division of the NSW Government Department of Health. Amongst other organisations it has historically received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Centre (NHMRC). According to data available on the NHMRC website, during its 2017 Grant Application Round, the NHMRC allocated University of Sydney researchers at least six grants using so-called animal models, totalling $5 million.While no 2018 University of Sydney (USyd) grants from the NHMRC mentioned animals, at least 35 grants from universities across Australia did, including Monash, the University of Queensland (UQ), UNSW, and Adelaide University. Most grant descriptions did not specify which animal models they intended to usethose that did mentioned mouse models and one grant awarded to Professor Mark Walker from UQ mentioned the use of non-human primates in research into a Group A streptococcus vaccine. The grant description advises that the use of animal testing will underpin commercial decisions by our industry partner (GSK) leading to human trials and the development of a safe group A streptococcal vaccine for human use. GSKGlaxo Smith Klineis a British pharmaceutical company which was fined US$3 billion in 2012 for bribing doctors to prescribe their antidepressant medications to children and failing to report safety problems with diabetes drug Avandia. USyd also collaborates with GSK, through an Industry-Based Learning Program offered to undergraduate students in their final year, reflecting the rise of public-private partnerships in the education sector.While mice are traditional in vivo test subjects, primates are often used as alternatives where transgenic mouse models fail, due to their closer physiology to humans. Due to the size similarity between human and pig organs, researchers at USyd including Alexandra Sharland have been doing research into xenotransplantation between pigs and baboons, with the ultimate goal of using animal organs for transplantation into humans. Sharland has been part of 6 research teams receiving grants from the NHMRC spanning 2000-2015 for research into xenotransplantation. It is highly likely that this research has involved baboons from Wallacia.In this way, other animals are constantly being evaluated for their exploitation and commodification based on their proximity to humannessin some cases primate closeness to humanness leads to concern for their conservation, in other cases it makes them research subjects to have their reproductive functions controlled, bodies mutilated and existences confined to labs and cells. Historically, racialised, colonised and criminalised populations have also been used as test subjects due to their perceived loss of proximity to humanness, such as human vivisection experiments carried out by Germany and Japans fascist regimes during World War Two, or the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment carried out on African-American men. In Australia during the 1920s and 1930s, First Nations people were subjected to medical experiments by the University of Adelaide justified by a regime of scientific racism.While many student-led campaigns emphasise the importance of showing solidarity with university staff and defending the right to university education, I think we also need to recognise the way that the academy has been the originator of many discourses and practices that intellectually bolster colonial regimes, develop techniques of power for capital and the state, and deepen the hierarchies of class, race, sex, ability and species which make up our world through knowledge production and technological development.There are other ways that we can know other animals than through the disciplines of natural science which seek to objectify and instrumentalise their bodies, the voyeuristic spaces of zoos and aquariums, or shallow pop culture representations. When I saw the footage of the baboons escape, I saw three agents affirming themselves against the speciesist power of the medical institution that they were escaping from. I read their activity as a form of protest, a way of thwarting the people who depended on their bodies for research funding and clout within their discipline. Although they were eventually captured, on some level their protest was successful: it generated discussion in Australian news media about animal testing, sparked a protest outside RPA last week, and created new knowledge of vivisection.However perhaps what was missing from the news and from the animal rights protests was a knowledge of the baboons as agential subjects with whom we can stand in solidarity, not simply pit or feel the need to save. I heard fellow vegans describe how scared the baboons must have felt on the streets of Sydney, when really I think they would have been relieved and overjoyed to be out of the confines of the hospital being able to move about on their own terms. Ironically, it was this welfarist idea that was used to legitimate Taronga Zoo handlers recapturing them.Ultimately, what propels forward my politics as an animal liberationist is the desire to know other animals as they know themselves: as subjects of their own experience. I would encourage anyone who currently views other animals as alien to their existence to cultivate that curiosity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sport is central to the Australian social psyche: it speaks to aspirational elements of our national identity both in its egalitarian nature and its capacity to unify us. This summer, Australia was forced to reconcile the extent to which we would accept our sporting heartstrings being pulled by politicians. Prime Minister Morrisons hope that big sixes and inswinging yorkers would melt away the horrors of the bushfire crisis was roundly rejected. Instead, we have sought solace from the partisan cauldron of politics on the sporting field.Its a common refrain whenever athletes speak out on social issues, particularly women or athletes of colour most famously, shut up and dribble. Sport has never been divorced from politics to suggest otherwise is incredibly nave, and to suggest that it should be, equally so.Though much has been written on the rights of elite athletes to give social commentary, comparatively little has been on to the ways in which sport is exploited by political elites. Sport has a unique role in our new environment of optics politics: where all that matters is the photo op and mere pretence of integrity in our institutions. By virtue of its unique position as a sacrosanct public space, it has incredible power to be leveraged in a politic obsessed with imagery and politicians know this. Morrisons great hope in Tim Paines men giving us something to cheer for is not merely that of distraction from his own leadership (or lack thereof), but a calculated investment in this nebulous idea of a national collective, a jingoistic mechanism by which voters forget the sins of his government. At first glance, one might think he is attempting to adopt John Howards image as a daggy sporting tragic, a brand that won four elections. Thus far, its been an effective ploy for Morrison, who ends his press conferences with a confected Go Sharks! despite being a union man from Bronte. The investment in optics, above all else, is an art he seems to have perfected: the majority of his Prime Ministership has been spent running for office, indiscriminately splashing cash at sports clubs (as long as they were in marginal electorates). He won that election convincingly it would be easy to take away that whipping out a garish scarf and having a decent drop-punt is a surefire electoral winner. On further analysis however, Howard built his brand not on a love for sport (or indeed any ability), but on nationalistic symbolism. It was Howard who placed the Test captaincy on a pedestal above even his own job in terms of importance, and would milk the personalities that held the office for soundbites that embodied what it meant to be Australian: Mark Taylor was humble and honest, Steve Waugh a gritty warrior. Its no coincidence that his famed power-walks were performed in the most garish of green and gold tracksuits.Cricket may be the quintessential Tory game, but it is not unique in its capacity to be leveraged for political gain, nor is that gain necessarily solely the preserve of the right. Sports role as a political mechanism is contested there is a long history of sport being used for progressive protest, and particularly by Australians. The 1968 Munich Olympics are remembered for the silent Black Power salute of victorious American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium of the 200m sprint. They were joined by a white Australian, Peter Norman, who stood solemnly in solidarity with an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on his left breast. For his principle, he never ran at an Olympics again. Even in death, Parliament refused to acknowledge the racism involved in his blacklisting. 52 years after they blacklisted Norman, the Australian Olympic Commission has supported an International Olympic Committee ban on political protest at the Tokyo Games later this year. The fact they also supported Mack Hortons refusal to share the podium with alleged doper Sun Yang at last years Swimming World Championships betrays that it is political protest, not protest generally, they are wary of.It is not misplaced conservative sporting establishments have every reason to fear the rise of sport as a political arena after a summer where using it for distraction has been rejected with the white-hot anger of a public sick of being taken for fools. 2020 looms as a year of political action in the sporting arena no doubt the Prime Minister will hope for Ellyse Perry to lead the Southern Stars to victory in March so he can crow about sports grants. But he would do well to remember our athletes dont tend to like smoke inhalation, and the rumblings we have heard this summer are set to become deafening. In this environment, we would all do well to be conscious to be critical of the political messaging involved in our sporting entertainment this year.This article was originally published in the Week 1, Semester 1 edition of Honi Soit. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Cultural appropriation is perhaps the most overused and misunderstood concept of contemporary social politics. Despite its proliferation in almost every aspect of cultural dialogue, the cultural appropriation discussion often neglects issues of class, particularly the way that class manifests in the appropriation of fashion and dress.The practice of the upper classes taking the fashion and uniform of the working classes and re-establishing them as high fashion, often described as class appropriation, is nothing new. Dr Martens, now found on the feet of everyone from university students to Bella Hadid, were once workers boots. In the 70 years since their creation, their signification the meaning we ascribe to their wearer or the act of wearing them has been transformed and re-transformed as theyve been worn by different social groups and subcultures. Theyve been adopted by both the right and left side of politics, the wearing of them indicating their owners beliefs in anything from facism to anti-facism and anything in between. Their significance as footwear for factory workers and postmen has long past.Dr Martens are no longer a current convincing example of class appropriation, because time has attributed their social meaning significant fluidity. Blundstone, their Australian near-equivalent, are a more interesting contemporary example.Once the mainstay of construction sites Australia-wide, Blundstones are now equally as common on the footpaths of Crown or King street. A middle class alternative to RM Williams, Blundstones are the cooler counterpart due to their perceived authenticity, their immediate connection to worker culture, and the fact that they arent the preferred footwear of the Liberal party.Blundstones are representative of the uneasy line that class appropriation straddles: the wearer wants to be perceived as authentic, without seeming so authentic that they are mistaken for a member of the class that their clothes are referencing. Theyre an immediate reference to a moment of Australian working class culture that is now (again) in vogue: of mullets, pub rock and bad tap lager. Blundstones allow their middle class wearers to engage in cultural tourism: the aesthetics and culture of the working classes, without actually having to wear them to work.A new entrant to the Australian workwear market takes this behaviour further- SUK, an ethical brand that sells working clothes at a Gorman price point, founded in 2018.Mimosa Schmidt, the brands founder, is a former labourer, lending the company an air of authenticity that would otherwise be lacking. With a supposed member of the working class at the helm, SUK is able to use identity politics as a shield.In fact, much of SUKs image is shrouded in the kind of hollow social justice politics currently popular amongst liberal creative types. It advertises size inclusivity, despite admitting that its products run 1-2 sizes smaller than average. Its built on the ethos of celebrating all workers as worthy despite the fact that few workers could afford even its lowest priced garments.SUK brands itself as ethical workwear, but its target market isnt actual workers. People working the jobs that SUK purports to make clothes for- waitresses, labourers, and factory workers- are unlikely to afford such frivolities as a fashionable workers bib for $80. Most of the garments sold by SUK are available in some form from other manufacturers, such as King Gee, for half the price. Aware of this contradiction, the brand is careful to use working imagery in its advertising. A video advertisement published across social media shows models working in various settings, and though some are working in their actual work environments, most are popular Melbourne instagram creatives playing dress-up.This is what makes SUK such a compelling case study for class appropriation. In play-acting at being working class, the branding of SUK is mirroring the daily behaviours of its true target audience: hip middle class professionals and creatives, blithely unaware of the reality of life for people who wear such clothes for work, not fashion. Its not necessarily problematic to wear a $180 boiler suit, but it is interesting to interrogate the meaning of wearing such an item for leisure, especially when the wearer doesnt engage in the kind of work that requires it. In practical terms, such a meaning is decidedly sinister: as the clothes become more fashionable, those that wear them for work are priced out.As unsafe working environments lead to injury and death, as our media class advocate for a reduction in hospitality wages, and as our government attempts to introduce new union-busting laws, yuppies continue to play at being poor. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In December 2019, the people of Bougainville, a small island province of Papua New Guinea, voted in an independence referendum. The result, though not binding, was unequivocal 98.31 per cent of participants voted in favour of independence.For many, the name Bougainville might evoke images of a flower rather than a small island in Melanesia with nearly 250,000 inhabitants. But both the flower and the island are namesakes of the same person Louis-Antoin de Bougainville, a French explorer who circumnavigated the globe and visited the island in the late 18th century.Apart from the name of the island itself, there are other place names in the Pacific that are reminders of Bougainville and Papua New Guineas (PNG) colonial subjugation. The Bismarck Sea (named after German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck) and Empress Augusta Bay both harken back to the time the area spent under the control of the German Empire. The islands of New Britain and New Ireland also demonstrate how unimaginative colonists were when it came to names.Sources:Photograph of Empress Auguste Viktoria, unknown photographer, German Federal Archives,1913.Portrait of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Jean-Pierre Franquel, unknown date.Photograph of Otto von Bismarck, Jacques Pilartz, 1890.While the referendum result was a resounding success for those who fought for independence, it simultaneously serves as a sobering reminder of what Bougainville has endured throughout its history.Tensions on the island began to flare in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At this point in time the island was under Australias dominion as part of the territory of Papua and New Guinea. In 1969, Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia (CRA), an Australian subsidiary of Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation, began the construction of the massive Panguna copper mine. Bougainvilleans, well aware of the environmental and social damage that could result from the project, began to protest. One demonstration that captured the attention of the Australian media was a protest in the Rorovana village, where female landowners resisted the acquisition of their land for the construction of a port.A woman resisting the construction project in Rorovana. Source: Sydney Sun 1969.Bougainvilleans were not alone in their fight against CRA. On 6 August 1969, the communist newspaper Tribune reported that several USyd students were protesting at CRAs Sydney offices. The protest was organised by the Students for a Democratic Society Racial Action Committee. Students presented letters of protests to directors at CRA and distributed leaflets to the public.Just a day later on 7 August, a lengthy article about Bougainville was published in Honi. An anonymous correspondent lamented the lack of democracy in the territory, explaining that Indigenous Bougainvilleans felt that they were only being consulted on matters relating to the mine on a post hoc basis. Unlike other protestors, the author opined that independence was not necessary. Instead, they suggested that a beneficial partnership between Australia and the island could be formed as long as Australia stopped making paternalistic decisions.An illustration in the 7 August 1969 edition of Honi Soit.Two weeks later, the Tribune reported on another protest for the rights of Bougainvilleans. The article mentioned that students from Sydneys three universities distributed a petition to 50 foreign embassies in Canberra (in 1969 the three universities in Sydney were USyd, UNSW and a fledgling Macquarie University). The petition was simple it pleaded with the international community to uphold the rights of Bougainvillean landowners.Later that year, Honi reported that students from USyd and the University of Newcastle were protesting at Sulphide Corporations Sydney offices, a subsidiary of CRA. Several students held a sit-in at the offices and were then arrested. The article mentions the possibility of students paying fines and court costs, though it is unclear whether this eventuated.By 1972, mining had commenced on the island despite extensive opposition. The Australian government was able to quell tensions on the island by performing an act typical of colonial administrations who feel their grip on their subjects slipping it increased the islands autonomy. However the Australian government soon lost control of PNG entirely, with the territory becoming an independent nation in 1975.A fortnight before PNG became independent, Bougainville declared its independence as the Republic of the North Solomons. This attempt at sovereignty was short lived the island was reintegrated into PNG in 1976 again with the condition of greater autonomy. After this point, references to the island in student newspapers seem to dwindle.But autonomy was only a band-aid solution to longstanding tensions on the island, which continued to simmer into the late 1980s. These tensions boiled over in 1988 when the Panguna Landowners Association (PLA) demanded compensation from CRA.One major issue was that the mine was exacerbating wealth disparities, as government compensation schemes for the acquisition of land were highly flawed. A 1999 inquiry into Bougainville conducted by the Australian House of Representatives noted that land compensation schemes contradicted traditional clan-based ownership. For example, CRA frequently provided compensation to the primary claimants of land, ignoring complex forms of land ownership whereby there could be many subsidiary landowners. As a result, monetary compensation for land acquisitions was concentrated in a small number of individuals, leaving many landowners feeling short-changed.Another issue which caused ire among Bougainvilleans was the environmental impact of the mine, which they had correctly anticipated well before its construction. During the operation of the mine, its tailings (the remaining waste after valuables are extracted from ore) were deposited in rivers. It was expected that these tailings would eventually flow into the ocean, whereupon they would mostly be harmful to the sea floor. However this failed to eventuate most of the tailings never made it to the ocean and instead remained dormant in rivers, causing significant damage.After the rejection of their demands by CRA, members of the PLA began to hinder operations at the Panguna mine. The association soon morphed into the Bougainvillean Revolutionary Army, the Panguna mine was shuttered, and a civil war had begun.USyd students continued their involvement in protests during the civil war. In March 1994, an article in Tharunka detailed a rainy, late night protest at USyds Holme building. A trade union dinner was being held inside the building, attended by the then Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans, who had disavowed secession movements in PNG. Over 300 people attended the event. Many attendants were students, as the demonstration was supported by USyds SRC.The civil war concluded in 1998 with the Bougainville Peace Agreement. One condition of the agreement was that PNG would facilitate an independence referendum on the island within 15-20 years. Bougainvilleans initially lobbied for the referendum to be binding but acquiesced in the face of opposition from PNG, hoping instead that a clear result in favour of independence would force PNG to respect the outcome.Despite the uncertainty that has prevailed in the months since the result was announced, the fight for Bougainvillean sovereignty reveals how vital perseverance is in order for an activist movement to succeed. Bougainvilles fight for self-rule has been intergenerational, enduring for over 50 years. This was the case not only in Bougainville itself, but also on campus.In the span of those fifty years, 10,000 to 15,000 Bougainvillean civilians lost their lives in a pointless civil war. The unnecessary human and environmental costs of conflict on the island remain the fault of those who refused to heed the prescient voices of Bougainvilleans. After 20 years of peace, hopefully this time the emphatic desire for sovereignty expressed by Bougainvilleans will be respected. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Life hasnt been what you were promised. The people are angry, the government cant get a grip, and fascism is on the rise. Sound familiar? Its Germany in the 1910s. You are not a reader of Honi Soit; you are German Dada artist Hannah Hch, and youve got one meaty bone to pick with the Weimar Republic of Germany.One crisp autumn morning during my senior years of high school in 2019, my art teacher (bless them, they had no idea what they were getting me into) introduced me to the fantastical, wild world of Hannah Hch. I was hooked. Hchs work wasnt at all what I was used to no striking portraits of wealthy toffs with exquisite flowing silks and gleaming jewellery, no striking landscapes of jagged cliffs or raging storms, each stroke painstakingly placed. Instead, there were chaotic arrangements, an abundance of clipped images stuffed into frames, impossible figures hastily constructed with mismatched parts, as if Hch was playing Frankenstein.I distinctly remember seeing Hchs 1919 photomontage Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Beer Belly of the Weimar Republic. The photomontage is an explosive array of symbols, and one of her most famous works today; a bold critique on the failings of the Weimar Republic following the First World War, and of the male dominion of Germanys politics and art. Hch was one of the pioneers of the photomontage technique, using it to explore her ideas on gender, the New Woman, androgyny and politics, the disorderly stylisation expressing her feelings of discontent and frustration.Hchs contributions to the Dada movement in its founding years should not be understated. She worked alongside Hausmann, Richter and other key figures of Berlin Dada. She collaborated, protested through art, brought forth new ideas to Weimars public, and developed the photomontage form. Though, being one of the few women within the elite group, Hch was heavily scrutinised. For a movement that aimed to reject tradition in all senses of the word, Dada was a fundamentally sexist movement.Hch recalled in an interview that Most of our male colleagues continued for a long while to look upon us as charming and gifted amateurs, denying us implicitly any real professional status. Not only was it rare for a woman to be so heavily involved within creating avant-garde art, but Hchs bold feminist themes also made her fellow artists hesitant to accept Hch and her practice.I admire Hch for her perseverance in the art world, even when those in her inner circle would not respect her. We can learn a lot from Hchs art, and herself; her unapologetic exploration is something to be admired. Hchs artistic themes still resonate today, particularly in a political climate where hateful ideologies constantly make headlines. Her exploration of gender fluidity and sexuality were before her time, and are topics that are only recently becoming (somewhat) accepted in Western culture. Hch is certainly not the only female artist within Dada who has been overlooked by the history books. We know the names Duchamp, Ray, and Ernst; but Clara Tice, Beatrice Wood and Sophie Taeuber-Arp are mostly erased from the Dada chapter.This is, of course, an issue not limited to the Dada movement. Throughout the entirety of Art History, women artists have been diminished and even completely erased, but perhaps these artists calls for equality can finally be heard on a larger scale. Artists such as the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who was once relatively unknown, have been rediscovered. There is a lot that these forgotten female artists have to offer, and I think we can all learn from their fierce, unyielding calls for equality. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A large SOLD sign now sits atop the awning of Cafe Ella. Last Saturday, 274 Abercrombie Street was sold to the highest bidder. The building, business, and all the furnishings and bric-a-brac inside no longer belong to Peter Borbilas and Priscilla Boswell, ending an era that began when they served their first coffee back in 1996.Cafe Ella was long a staple of the Redfern Run. Their homemade boiled bagels and warm atmosphere drew in crowds of local artists and university students. The sounds of Bob Dylan and Miles Davis drifted through the cafe, punctuated by footsteps heading up the creaky wooden stairs. The beige walls were decked with Paul Worsted paintings and bookshelves chock full of old records and second-hand book store finds.For a man who has never drunk a cup of chai in his life, Peter had mastered the recipe. His wife, Priscilla, could be spotted carting tray upon tray of Sydneys best carrot cake and traditional Greek desserts from their home down the road (Nigella Lawson once stopped by to try the muffins).My parents ate at Cafe Ella almost every day for the last seven years. They joined the gang of locals perpetually sitting at street-side tables in the sun. Cafe Ella offered my family comfort and an excellent cup of coffee through thick and thin meals when the money ran out, a chai before a deadline day.But ours were not the only lives made better by this homely place. Over the years, Peter and Priscilla collected an eclectic gang of waiters and waitresses. Denises warmth and Freds quick wit pepped up the mornings of Darlington residents. Local sculptor Stella paid her way through art school there. Peter and Priscillas son, the trombone-playing Hugo, recently joined the Cafe Ella team.Cafe Ella was no nonsense. It was one of the last genuinely affordable, friendly, family-run cafes, that will be missed in an increasingly shallow cafe culture.The cafe shuts its doors at the end of May and will reopen under new owners. Priscilla hopes theyll be able to boil a good bagel. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I called my dad today to get his opinion on some things about music.Yes, hes Gary Briggs of Briggsy Boys fame; part of the highly lauded duo that play dim Sutherland Shire pubs and clubs about twice a year. Their setlist is a tapestry of 70s and 80s hits that set the sticky dance floor alight with the wayward legs and arms of forty-somethings. One such gem is Stone Temple Pilots Plush, which my dad thinks isnt popular enough to perform but my uncle likes too much to take off rotation. Uncle Mark is two years older so he wins.What do you think about 433? The silence piece? Id asked him. John Cages 433 is a one of avant-gardes biggest hits a piece made entirely of rests, or silence, so that the everyday sound of the performance space form the music made.The answer was unexpected.Aw, its not music. Silence isnt music.I was thrown. I panicked. I weaponised the only example I could think of on my feet, to make him feel a bit silly.What do you think about MC Hammer, then? Huh?Stop.Wh-Hammertime.My dad stuck to his guns.Well, its a pause. The music happens around it. Its not the music.Id found here maybe our sole musical point of contention, besides the offensive timing of Radioheads Pyramid Song the value of the avant-garde, with a disregard of convention in favour of the conceptual.Avant-garde, by nature, is in complete opposition to popular music genres. It thrives on subversion; it looks at the status quo and ruins it. As a result, its not widely embraced outside its community.But it doesnt lack value because of its limited appeal, as my dad would suggest. His case was that 433 is purposeless, because the sounds would exist whether they are framed by a score or not. Theyre not music. And he doesnt like it.However, Id argue that my dad is somewhat already an unwitting fan of avant garde. He loves the introductory laugh in The Polices Roxanne. The laugh isnt music per-se, but its a fundamental part of experiencing the song. Without John Cage, we wouldnt as readily hear it as musically vital. 433 shows us musicality in the mundane.Artists that create within more popular fields of music rock, pop, and indie engage with the avant-garde to spur innovation and momentum. They take a specific element of avant-garde music and repurpose it; becoming a way to powerfully reshape genre as its recontextualised. Often popular genres water down the avant garde for mass appeal, but nevertheless the song is imbued with genre-pushing, boundary-shattering potential. Every artist said to revolutionise their genre does so with the tools presented to them by the avant-garde.Exhibit A is Sufjan Stevens. With the release of his 2005 album Illinoise, he revolutionised contemporary folk. With wonderfully rich orchestration and lyrics about longing that tear at your heart, its easy to see why. Folk has never been heard like this before.But minimalism has!Sufjans complex instrumental layering violently evokes (or blatantly rips off, as users on the Progressive Rock Music Forum argue) composer Steve Reichs 1976 piece Music for 18 Musicians an hour-long venture where gossamer chords unfold gradually across time. Yes, its long, but absolutely decadent. Across that time, you feel like youre swimming through the rich textural tapestry Reich has created for you.Now, Music for 18 Musicians isnt quite avant-garde itself it wades in the water of contemporary classicism and minimalism. We must make one more leap before Sufjan connects with real avant-garde.Were lucky! Reich does the leap himself.Reichs early work begins with tape experimentation. The 1965 piece Its Gonna Rain uses these words played in unison on two seperate tape recorders. They slip out of sync as a result of the imperfections between the two machines; in the piece, you hear all of the possibilities in the combination between the two tracks before they fall back into unison with one another something known as phasing.Reich translates this into a more traditional musical format with Clapping Music, which lends its rhythm to the main musical phrase in 18 Musicians. Phasing is done texturally here each chord in this piece is held for two breath cycles. The texture shifts and wavers, each chord feels alive as different layers are drawn in and out of the aural space. The elements at play in Reichs early tape works remain resolute in his pice de rsistance: the work unravels slowly. We find ourselves in a new section before were really able to recognise it, pointing at the tape desyncing that gradually transports us to a completely new sonic world.Stevens Out of Egypt shimmers with the subtle textural shifts behind its melody. Instruments weave in and out of prominence, emulating Reichs sound in 18 Musicians almost to a T.Illinoise was undeniably influential it ranked first in Pitchforks Top 50 Albums of 2005 and with it, Sufjan Stevens has earned himself a throne on the court of indie folk music. Even his latest release, Convocations, waves at Brian Eno and early computer music. Sufjan owes his debts to the avant-garde for his position as an innovator of the folk genre.Avant-gardes grip is so strong it extends prominently into greater pop culture. Remember that massive SNL video, Dear Sister? Where Andy Samberg, Bill Hader and Shia LaBeouf shoot each other in a cutting parody of the The O.C? The crux of this video falls on the repetition of Imogen Heaps Hide and Seek, which has cemented its place in comedy history.Heap takes her cues in digital vocal harmony from Laurie Anderson and her unexpected hit, O Superman. Where Andreson felt the track demanded a Greek chorus, her vocoder creates harmony that adds a grandeur to her lyrics in contrast to the simple, solo looped background vocalisation.Heap uses this harmonising for similar effect the acappella style forges a remarkable rawness as the harmonies interplay with her main vocal line. With Andersons first foray into popular music as an influence, Heap is able to create an intensely striking piece . Infamously, Jason Derulos debut single Whatcha Say samples Heaps track,connecting a singer known for singing his own name with the rich and complex history of the avant-garde. Wild.Laurie Anderson married Lou Reed, the frontman of 60s art rock band The Velvet Underground who are also deeply enmeshed in the history of the avant-garde. Their manager was Andy Warhol, who joins the avant-gardes rejection of preconceptions about high art.The Velvet Underground takes John Cages concept of the prepared piano and gives it a unique flavour. The piano in their song All Tomorrows Parties is prepared with paperclips so every chord glitters. Sufjan also borrows this in his track, Futile Devices. A short tape-muted note from the piano sparks notions of something not fully realised it sounds like a piano but isnt quite there yet; musically granting him the sense of yearning hes so famous for stirring lyrically.Cages original construction of the prepared piano isnt quite as sensitive as his descendants. Required listening here is Sonata V: it sounds like when you accidentally try to force a second DVD into your DVD player. Its strangely wonderful to hear such harsh sounds from an instrument lauded for mellow clarity this is the instrument upon which Claire De Lune was written. With Cages innovation, he breaks the idea of the piano. It becomes its own rhythm section, and produces sounds that are utterly unique.Both of these artists water down elements of the avant-garde. They sparingly selected a single way of piano preparation so that the original sound of the piano isnt totally eclipsed. It delicately pushes the boundaries of their respective genres,subtly immersing themselves within popular music while also firing innovation in them with their masterful presentation of the new sounds.Tori Amos uses prepared piano, sampling in hip-hop has roots embedded in Pierre Schaeffers musique concrte. The whole genre of lo-fi; where aural imperfections arising from production is vital to its sound, owes some kind of debt to 433.I texted my dad again when I began to write, to give him a fair hearing about 433. He clarified he could see some mindfulness value in sitting and reflecting on the silence, but that was it.I fought back. Looking at just silence overshadowed the essence of 433; where everyday noise and chatter is elevated to the status of music.In my final wave of assault I called on the very songs he had given to me in order to make my point. The laugh in Duran Durans Hungry Like the Wolf, the city noises the Pet Shop Boys spliced into West End Girls. Im using his own weapons against him.He began to consider this.Theres a Cold Chisel song called Saturday Night which has a whole lot of background noise, Its a fundamental part of the song. Whenever I picture that song in my head, all the background noise is in it.I think thats the furthest hell budge. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In my final year of high school, a good friend of mine started driving me to school. In a year where you were inches away from a freedom that seems so close yet so vastly far, the fact your friend had their Ps and could save you an hours bus ride was a small venture into so-called adulthood. In the early years of our friendship (pre-Toyota Camry), she would show me new music on our bus rides. She introduced me to Pandoras Indie-Pop Radio in Year Ten. It was a gateway to leave behind Top-40 radio and explore the sounds of 2000s indie; the Kooks, the Naked and Famous and Phoenix, to name a few.One morning as she drove me to school, navigating one of the many thousands of roundabouts on the Central Coast with a McDonalds iced-frappe in hand, my friend played me a song. It was relatively new at the time and from the first listen I was addicted . It was the kind of song that would be a crime to not turn up in the car as its electronic, synth saturated, pop sound needed to be played super loud. Miike Snow, a band I had never heard of before, had managed to make a despotic Mongolian Emperor into the namesake for an upbeat yet slightly dark bop Genghis Khan was well and truly stuck in my head and I wanted to hear more.Miike Snow is the amalgamation of a Swedish producing duo; Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, and American songwriter, Andrew Wyatt. They came together in 2007. All successful in their own right, Karlsson and Winnberg had produced hit-after-hit for many popular artists, such as Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Sky Ferreira. More notably, they co-wrote and produced Britney Spears Toxic in 2003. The pair sampled and pitched up strings from a Bollywood movie to create arguably one of the most unique pop productions of the 2000s; a fact I only discovered recently thanks to the wonderful world of TikTok. Wyatt himself has written and produced songs for Liam Gallagher, Lady Gaga and Lorde and had a relatively successful music career as a bassist in New York.When the three finally came together after meeting in a recording studio in Sweden, they milked their shadow for all it had obscuring their faces for months in 2009 before they performed live in New York for the very first time. The band has always been elusive, hiding behind the hits they wrote or produced for pop royalty, and still to this day many know little about the bands own music.Their name, Miike Snow, appears to be a moniker for one man and not a whole band, and their album covers always feature a folkloric, mythical creature called a Jackalope, which is a jackrabbit mixed with antelope horns. I have no idea what it represents but potentially it is symbolic of their blend of musical interests, their style transforming from song to song. I think those quirks encapsulate the point theyre going for Miike Snow focuses on the music above all else; celebrity status or an intricate brand image means nothing to them.Often their songs have no clear meaning. They leave the interpretation in the listeners hands. Id listen to one of their best songs,God Help This Divorce when studying for the HSC. I was transported away from my economics practice paper into an expansive, bleak soundscape. The song always reminded me of a black and white, old fashioned Western. I could visualise two figures engaged in a standoff, their black felt hats tipped forward to hide their identities.It didnt matter that the song had no bearing on my current life as a seventeen-year-old; being neither married nor divorced. It was the way they were able to create a palpable sense of melancholia interspersed with glimmers of hope that made the song so memorable nostalgia for something I didnt even know I understood.After a four year break, the band achieved commercial success in 2016 with the release of their album iii. After this, I waited and waited for something new from the band. Miike Snow seemed to have completely disappeared off the radar and this stint between albums is now longer than ever before. There was a period where I tried searching for their older music on Spotify, but it was removed. Whether due to copyright or a personal choice by the musicians Im not sure, but it definitely added to the mystique of Miike Snow.As I researched more for this piece, their disappearance began to make sense. Miike Snows tendency to vanish from the scene was due to the band members other pursuits, seeming to be of greater importance than the passion project that has become Miike Snow.Karlsson still works as one half of Galantis, a bubble-gum electronic outfit that penned Runaway (U & I), an annoyingly catchy song that takes me back to awkwardly fist-pumping at school discos. Wyatt continues to produce for an array of musics big names including Flume, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars a testament to the respect theyve fostered from peers in the industry. Miike Snow also established a record label along with other Swedish Indie darlings such as Lykke Li and Peter Bjorn and John (of Young Folks fame) in 2011.I rediscovered Miike Snow in my first year of university. I was sitting outside at Courtyard Caf (as a media student its a precondition) and the song they were playing caught my attention. It was the perfect song to listen to in the winter sun, chilling with an eerie melody; the piano-based house blend has Wyatts voice soaring over the top in Auto-Tune.e. The descriptor sounds strange if you havent heard it, however, thats where the beauty in Miike Snow lies they can blend a range of musical capacities into something youve never heard before, yet it still feels familiar. To dip back into Miike Snow almost felt like the soundtrack to my own movie as cheesy as it sounds. Their music was a constant at a time of much change.My least favourite memory of listening to the band was on a train home from a friends bon voyage party in the Blue Mountains. The Mark Ronson remix of Heart is Full is sultry and solemn. Its a begging appeal from one lover to another to be considerate of their love. I self-indulgently and non-ashamedy sobbed to the song in the early hours of the morning on the T3 Bankstown line. Partly due to my own impending six-month exchange and the long-distance relationship I was about to enter into (as well as the copious number of Absolut Botaniks I had consumed that evening), the song seemed to summarise all the mixed emotions I was feeling.As much as Id love new music from the band, its made difficult by the fact that its members are scattered around the world. From Sweden to Bangkok to Los Angeles, their lives and music are segmented across the continents. Two of the three are now fathers, so its clear that Miike Snows priorities have changed.The importance of family and searching for an earthier ground was encapsulated by Wyatt and Winnbergs most recent project together with Lykke Li and Bjorn Yttling. The Swedish based supergroup, liv, injected a psychedelic soul into harmonious folk. Their numerous singles released in 2016 and 2017 never eventuated into a full album but had a lot of potential as a new-age Fleetwood Mac. Earlier in March, Miike Snow tweeted that it was still possible for the group of them to perform which I would absolutely love to seeIn a not-so-distant past, Miike Snows lives were a blur of festival after festival. COVID-19 brought a further pause for reflection and a political call to action for the band during the US election by way of their Twitter (the only social media they are ever active on). Last November the band also tweeted that they do have a bunch of new music coming out in 2021, b/c 2020 was kind of a bust good time to make stuff not necessarily put stuff out.With 2021 well and truly here, there has still been no update on the new music. Miike Snow may very well be on the backburner for Karlsson, Winnberg and Wyatt. They have said that Miike Snow [is] this funny, strange, slightly awkward UFO that we all three get on and take a ride in, and then we get off it and do our own things. In the meantime, a rediscovery of their work, personal and together is still highly satiating. But I cant deny that I am looking forward to new Miike Snow songs to punctuate my continuing foray into the unknown world of adulthood. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Twitter recently came together to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the iconic CBBC series Horrible Histories. Found on ABC 3 in its heyday, Horrible Histories originally ran between 2009 and 2014, shaping a generation of young Australians views of the past. Structured as a variety show, each week featured a range of catchy songs and sketches that covered everything from Henry VIIIs wives to the Suffragettes. The writing was watertight, the jokes were funny, and its charming cast of comedians like Mathew Baynton (whose portrayal of Charles II was a viral fan favourite) and Martha Howe-Douglas were incredibly talented.Based upon the series of 23 books by British author Terry Deary, Horrible Histories explored the details of history deemed too gory or disgusting for the classroom. Deary always viewed his texts as anti-establishment, worried that children would stop reading them if they were used as a tool in schools. Ironically, for books touted as a rebellion against the system, Deary notes that the book topics were chosen on their marketability by Scholastic. The successful masquerade of Dearys books as edgy and dangerous successfully caught the attention of rebellious children in libraries and scholastic catalogues worldwide.Producer Caroline Norris was first asked to develop Horrible Histories into a television series for CBBC with Dominic Brigstocke in 2007. Over email Norris told me: Id spent 10 years in and out of childrens TV at the BBC and had moved onto adult programming, so I was reluctant to go back However when I read Terrys books, I knew I couldnt let anyone else get their hands on them!Wanting to carry over Dearys tone and humour to the screen, Norris and Brigstocke devised the sketch format, putting together a mood reel of Some Python stuff, Do Not Adjust Your Set sketches and Blackadder. The shows writers room was an ensemble of Brigstocke and Norris favourite writers, blending the worlds of BBCs prime time and childrens comedy. Writer/Producer Giles Pilbrow created the popular Stupid Deaths segment, the iconic host Rattus Rattus, and guided the production on how to transform the books original art into animation.Many of the shows greatest successes came from portraying history through parody of other media. Segments made fun of prominent reality TV shows with historical wife swap and aped the mopey lyrics of Morrisey in a song about Charles Dickens.The shows run was not without its fair share of controversies. The writers were accused of being anti-British after a skit pointed out that all Englands cultural cornerstones are stolen from former colonies. Another episode was pulled after it inaccurately represented Florence Nightingale as racist for comedic effect. Yet, the original all-white troupes portrayal of historical figures of colour can make for an awkward, even objectionable watch. While historical moments like the civil rights movement were played by a diverse cast, events like the First World War are represented as exclusively caucasian affairs. A song that dealt with the British colonies of Australia happily described the conditions of convict quarters, while only giving Indigenous people a passing mention for their killing of labourers. As a series that promotes contrarianism and radicalism in the presentation of history to children, future iterations should embrace a non-eurocentric perspective and casting a more diverse range of voices.Despite its flaws, Horrible Histories continues to be a global triumph in government-funded broadcasting, acting as a catalyst for a generations interest in history. The cast and crew of the original show, which ended in 2013, have continued to collaborate on a range of projects. The troupe went off and starred together in the film Bill and the series Yonderland, and now Ghosts. As for herself, Norris said Martha has just been a guest in Motherland which I produced and several of the gang pop up in Tracey Ullmans Show. However, for fans who want more Rattus Rattus, they will just have to tune back into the original Horrible Histories. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Before the emergence of higher education in the West, older institutions were already teaching across the globe. Amongst them were the Confucian academies within the Sinosphere, which inherited the ideals of Chinas Guozijian and were scattered across Vietnam, Japan and the two Koreas. These ancient temples of learning offer both an alternative to Western conceptions of scientific education, and a cautionary tale for meritocratic reforms elsewhere.Chinas Guozijian and the Imperial civil service examsFounded in the 12th century during the Yuan Dynasty, the first Guozijian () in Beijing continues to stand amidst the hustle of city life. Unlike the Western conception of a self-contained campus university, Chinas Guozijians were an apparatus of the state, serving as incubators for future bureaucrats who would serve generations of emperors and a literati class that would dominate cultural life.In contrast to the liberal curriculum that emerged in Europe following the early modern period, the Guozijians revolved around recitation and meticulous textual and political analysis of the four Great Books of Confucianism: Analects, Doctrine of the Mean, Great Learning and Mencius, amongst a host of other works. These books, despite their emphasis on constructing a harmonious political system, occasionally provoked heated controversies. For example, The Ming Dynastys inaugural monarch attempted to prohibit all use of Mencius, deeming anyone who celebrated the philosopher guilty of lese-majeste (an offence against the state). This ended in a compromise, where ministers removed a passage that challenged absolute sovereignty of the government: The people are the most important element; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the least important.Within the Guozijians curriculum lies a notoriously demanding testing system Chinas imperial civil service exams. Men from any social class were eligible to sit in the lowest tier of exams in their respective province. If they succeeded, they were allowed to enter metropolitan rounds in Beijing and subsequently, the elusive imperial paper. The last of these exams were often supervised by the Emperor himself. This cultivated a literary elite that could administer local, prefectural and metropolitan governments.Life as an aspiring scholar-official was arduous. Candidates contended with constant pressure from their family, and the high-stake exams exerted a price on students mental health. Indeed, an account by Shang Yanliu, the last tertius (third-ranking scholar) in a prestigious round held in 1904 Beijing, detailed the tolls the system exerted on students:In 1891 at the age of twenty, my brilliant cousin passed the provincial examination and became a provincial graduate. However, upon his return the following year to Guangzhou, from the metropolitan examination in Peking, he fell ill and died soon after. My mother said to me, Too much intelligence shortens ones life better be a bit stupid like you.Imperial service exam cells surrounding Jiangnans Guozijian. Source: Charles Poolton.According to Benjamin Elman, the civil service examination system, despite its brutishness and gruelling nature, marked a radical change from purely political appointments towards a more meritocratic social order. But, despite its aims, this system entrenched class inequality as privately tutored students from wealthy landed gentries could prepare far more than the peasantry.Following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty after the 1911 Revolution, the Guozijians were rendered obsolete. Today, the legacy of Beijings Guozijian lives on in the form of Peking University, an institution set up by Emperor Zaitian. Its premises include former imperial gardens and buildings of its predecessor.Vietnams Quc T Gim and the literati classEstablished in a similar fashion to Chinas Guozijians, Vietnams first Quc T Gim or the Temple of Literature was founded in modern day Hanoi in 1076. The Temple did not commence formalised, regular instructions until 1272 following a royal petition for a substantial endowment. In keeping with its Chinese predecessor, Vietnams imperial academies taught the Great Books and Classics alike, and utilised a combination of Sino-Vietnamese and traditional Chinese (these institutions predated Alexandre de Rhodes reform of the Vietnamese language towards the Latin alphabet).Gates leading to the Imperial Academy in Hanoi. Source: Vietnam National Museum of History.The grueling humanistic training that scholars received in Vietnams academies was not limited to rote recitation, but also the expert use of prose. One example is Mc nh Chi, who became a national household name after securing the highest honours in his imperial exams at age 24. This was a rare achievement, given the vast majority of scholar-officials only passed provincial exams at a similar age and even then, these early rounds were intensely competitive. During a royal tour of Beijing at the behest of Klg Khan of the Yuan Dynasty, the monarch challenged the scholar with a poetry challenge, writing:Nht ha vn yn, bch n thiu tn ngc th. orThe Sun lights aflame, the clouds above are smoke, by day they sear the Moon Rabbit asunder.In response to the Emperors boastful comparison of his kingdom to celestial objects, Mc offered:Nguyt cung linh n, hong hn x lc kim . orThe moon is a bow, the stars are arrows, by twilight they pierce the Sun until her fall.In recognition of Mcs prodigy and sharp wit, it was said that Emperor Klg Khan bestowed upon Mc the title of lng quc trng nguyn or bilateral zhangyuan, meaning the highest-ranking scholar across both kingdoms. As such, its civil service exam deployed prose and poetry to political effect, rather than as mere preparation for administrative duties.A private class delivered by a Vietnamese Confucian scholar. Source: Nghien Cuu Linh Su.Hanois Quc T Gim went on to teach until 1779, when Viceroy Trnh Sm closed the institution to prepare for the relocation of the Vietnamese capital to Hue. There, degree-granting powers were subsequently transferred to its counterpart in the Forbidden City. Over the intervening years, the Hanoi academy became a high school, and was later declared a monument historique under the French protectorate, thus becoming a museum. Following reforms introduced by French colonists towards a European university system, all academies ceased operations, despite partial efforts at restoration by the French School of the Far East.The two Koreas SungkyunkwanNorth and South Koreas institutions originated from the Gukjagam () in modern day Kaesong during the Goryeo dynasty, which was an integral parcel of Kaesongs royal palace. This single institution would go on to experience several name changes, one of which was Sungkyunkwan () when a dedicated complex was constructed in Seoul in 1398.Koreas version of imperial civil service examinations was known as the gwaego. Since there was a very strict selection process, success in passing these tests entailed automatic employment in state administration. Each round of exams were separated by 3 years and limited to 25-30 examinees per session. The government also examined family history and ties of successful candidates should students names or family ties indicate a less prestigious upbringing, they would likely fail even if they passed the exam. This represented a marked departure from the theoretically meritorious nature of neighbouring states approach. Hence, Sungkyunkwan acted both as a cultivator of the literati class and a protector of the feudal hierarchy.Examination book for forensic expert from 1796. Source: The National Library.Sungkyunkwan, however, did not wield a monopoly on Confucian education due to other institutions known as Seowons (). Unlike its sisters, Seowons were never founded under the direct auspice of any dynastic powers and were, instead, private neo-Confucian schools. The first Seowon Sosu Seowon opened in Yeongju in 1593. As per UNESCO heritage listing of Seowons, there are nine scattered across South Korea; the majority located next to rivers, mountains and other landscapes. Even though Seowons may have partaken in civil service exams, they tended to be local literati and intellectual hubs for the administration and enrichment of non-metropolitan cities.Over the latter half of their existence, Seoul and Kaesongs Sungkyunkwan witnessed mixed fortunes as Korea wrestled with political struggles against neighbouring Japan and then split when partition occurred. In 1592, for instance, Seouls Munmyo, a Confucian shrine at the heart of the campus, was destroyed during the Imjin War fought between Hideyoshi Toyotomis forces and King Seonjo. Subsequent years saw repeated revivals of Sungkyunkwan. Today, Seouls Sungkyunkwan has survived through its namesake 3-year university Sungkyunkwan University and its North Korean incarnation is preserved in Koryo Songgyungwan University alongside time-worn Confucian shrines at both schools. These institutions no longer offer regular instructions in the Chinese and Confucian classics.Ashikagas Ashikaga Gakko and Tokyos Yushima Seido JapanUnlike royal patronage offered to Chinese, Vietnamese and the Korean institutions, Japans Yushima Seido () was a private Confucian academy established by Hayashi Razan in 1630 in Ueno Park, Tokyo. Since the 19th century, the academy has been located in Yushima, within the precincts of Tokyo Medical and Dental University.Although an earlier private academy, Ashikaga Gakko () (circa 9th century, refounded 1432), predates Yushima, its relative isolation from Tokyo and the fall of its namesake Ashikaga clan resulted in terminal decline until it was converted into a primary school in 1868.Unsurprisingly, the institution focused on studying the Chinese Great Books and Classics alongside Confucian ethics and philosophy. In contrast to continental East Asia, however, Confucian education in Japan wrestled with additional costs in the expense of imported classical Chinese texts from either China or Korea, which, according to Tsujimoto, were largely illegible to all but the founding Confucian scholars of Yushima Seido.Staff of the Yushima Seido Exposition in Meiji. Source: Yokoyama Matsusabur.By 1797, Yushima came under the endorsement of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It transformed its role from a private Confucian Temple to a state institution that trained bureaucrats and diplomats for the Shogun. This change emerged following the issuance of the Kansei Edict by Tokugawa Ienari, which established neo-Confucianism as Japans official state ideology. Such a drastic measure, Peter Nosco argues, was triggered by social problems exacerbated by poor crops, famine and natural disasters. Another benefit of such a policy was to present Confucianism as an ideological bulwark against Christian evangelisation which accompanied Jesuit and Western missions to the country.However, two key distinctions lie between Yushima and its East Asian counterparts: its leadership was hereditary rather than appointed through merits or a streamlined exam system. Thus, an unbroken chain of Hayashi descendants spanning over 200 years, starting with Razan and ending with Gakusai, governed the school until the emergence of the Japanese imperial university system. The other difference is that Yushima and the Shogunate never fully implemented Chinas civil service exam system. Instead, depending on ones social status, men could enter one or two out of four possible exams. Success would reward the successful candidate with a suitable court rank.The inner courtyard of Tokyos Yushima-Seido.Source: Tokyo National Museum.Yushima Seido, despite having lost its authority to teach Confucianism and Classical Chinese after Meiji Restoration reforms in 1870, continues to play a role in the cultural and educational elite of Tokyo. Today, it acts as a place where students can come to pray for luck and pay respect to an imposing statue of Confucius. Even if the classrooms of Yushima no longer witness throngs of scholars reciting the Analects or Mencius, its edifice is a constant reminder of Confucian influence.***The Sinospheres Confucian institutions are imperfect, with the majority of them adopting discriminatory policies against working-class students and a punitive examination system. This system survives today in the form of Chinas notoriously difficult Gaokao (university entrance exam). However, they offer a glimpse into the political value of higher education from a non-Western context. This is especially important in the English-speaking world where tensions arise between the humanistic, socially-oriented inclinations of university education against the increasing corporatisation of higher education. Other jurisdictions, such as France, must heed the Guozijians cautionary tales of punitive exam systems, as the countrys tertiary sector is hindered by an elitist division between the grande ecoles and universities the latter featuring first-year fail rates averaging 50%. Whilst the Sinospheres example exemplifies an outdated, feudal model of learning, it is clear that higher education is inherently political and indivisible from a states view of the human condition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sexmission is a 1984 Polish science fiction film directed by Juliusz Machulski, and starring Olgierd ukaszewicz and Jerzy Stuhr. Panned by critics at the time, the film has since garnered a cult following for its satirisation of the Communist government. Some have come to recognise its more sexist and even transphobic elements over time, however. One must wonder, then, if these issues are endemic of the film itself, its genre, or perhaps its contextual milieu of contemporary Poland.The film follows its two protagonists, Albert and Maks, two schlubby and arrogant working class men in the 20th century who abandon their families and are placed in hibernation. Intended to be thawed out after only three years, the men are instead woken up fifty years in the future, discovering the Earth has been ravaged by an apocalyptic WWIII and that the world is populated only by women. Seemingly utopian at first, this matriarchy soon reveals itself to be anything but the paradise they imagined, and its from this that they hatch a plan to escape.From the opening moments of the film, Albert and Maks seem as though they are the villains of the piece. Abandoning their wives and children with little regard as to how they will live without them, before waking up in this future society dominated by the opposite gender, only to treat them with little respect, ogling them any chance they get it is hard to believe that the framing of the film shifts to their perspective, and we are meant to side with them as the plot moves along. What seems like a satire of toxic masculinity at first, eventually becomes an endorsement of their behaviour. Women strip nude, with their naked flesh and genitals are on full display; delirious, unconscious and confused women are sexually assaulted by the two men and it is treated as either a moment of comedy or climactic achievement at the end of the film. The populace fawns over the protagonists, and the men are similarly thrown into wild sex driven frenzies at the mere sight of a boob.In the climax, the head matriarch of the society is revealed to have been a man in disguise, only able to survive by dressing as the opposite gender. One could read this as the reason why the society was so dystopian in the first place, as it was run by a man and not a woman, but the film treats it more as a joke at his expense that he wore a dress. No attempt is made to try and probe deeper into questions surrounding their gender, and it seems that in this utopian society driven by women, there are no transgender men.At the same time, the climactic reveal spreads harmful mistruths and myths about people using transgender identity as a ploy to invade womens spaces. This misinformation is still running rampant today, with bathroom laws being a prolonged topic of debate. I could lie and say that transgender people were not considered during the filmmaking process. However, it was there, but only for the purpose of mockery and defacement. Are these issues endemic to the film itself or a product of the genre it inhabits? As speculative fiction, Sci-Fi seems primed to tackle an evolving notion like gender. Many texts explore the liberation of the human form from the traditional limitations of the past, including the binaries of gender. Robert Heinleins All You Zombies is a 1950s short story blurring the lines between male and female as the protagonist transitions between genders through various time travel adventures, eventually giving birth to themself and ensuring the creation of their own life.Feminist Sci-Fi has been especially popular of late, with television shows such as The Handmaids Tale, based on Margaret Atwoods book of the same name, presenting a dystopian future ruled by an authoritarian patriarchy where women are subordinate and their bodies are merely vessels for birth. Many Sci-Fi texts, however, have not been so concerned with these issues. The image of the birthing machine, or the artificially created human a recurring motif in Sci-Fi from Aldous Huxleys Brave New World, to Andrew Niccols Gattaca, and even Sexmission is always presented as a sign of the dystopian, as if society has moved away from a more natural way of producing life. But if the genre is about the liberation of humanity, why is this not afforded to women? Astronaut Dave Bowman can evolve into a giant space baby at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Iron Man can survive explosive blasts in his metallic suit, but god forbid a woman is relieved of the stress, pain and anxiety of childbirth.The issues and questions around childbirth are especially prescient for contemporary abortion laws in Poland. Right now, the governments stranglehold on abortion laws is being increasingly strained, with the Constitutional Tribunal in 2020 labelling it unconstitutional for women to abort a foetus showing signs of fetal defects. Female bodily autonomy is being policed to greater and greater extremes, and with protests by activists being met with brutal, state sanctioned violence, it is an inexorably hostile time to be a woman in modern day Poland.The state of LGBTQIA+ rights is no better, with Poland, according to ILGA-Europes 2020 report, ranking as the worst country in the European Union. This is mostly due to the inseparable relationship between the Church and the State. For a transgender person, attempting to get gender reassignment surgery is made nearly impossible by an obstructive bureaucracy and hostile regulations. A proposal to make the process of transitioning easier was, unfortunately, vetoed by President Andrzej Duda.As it stands, it is difficult to determine the toxicity that drives Sexmission, whether it be the sexist tropes that have dominated the Sci-Fi genre since its inception or Polands strict, dogmatic rule over sex and gender. This issue, however, runs deeper than one mere genre or country. There is a deep infection that runs through the veins of the entire planet, a stronghold that is choking the life out of the world: the patriarchal umbrella we all live under. If Sexmission truly wanted to imagine a dystopia, it need only depict our current world as is. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Prep in Australia, generally speaking, is dead. In a country colonised long after the establishment of the British and American colleges where prep fashion was derived, the many bastions of prep fashion have faltered. Qualities such as age, parentage, and cultural proximity to the Ivy Colleges have lost their draw in a country two steps and several centuries removed from preps source (the Preparatory schools of England). Even the University of Sydney, inarguably the countrys preppiest tertiary educator (Vampire Weekends photoshoot on the campus tennis lawns comes to mind), maintains none of the cultural cohesion of universities such as Yale or Oxford. The ivy on the Quadrangles walls is just for show.Private schools, understandably, are one of the few alcoves that allow prep breathing room. Students dressed in the mainstay iconographies of prep blazers, collared shirts, ties, hats, shorts, long socks, and sturdy black shoes as outlined by Anu Lingala in her essay on the history of prep form a coalition of traditionally dressed yuppies. The single-gender policy and religiosity of these schools also conform to the attitude of manliness and godliness established by Donald Leinster-Mackay. The colours of rugby jumpers run into each other in polychromatic clashes during weekend sports, and the brutally high cost of tuition ensures single-minded exclusivity. But, school uniforms are just that, and after their signatory function ends they are replaced by hoodies and T-shirts.Moving from the logical locus of the popped collar, the eye moves to the coast. Here, in the outskirts of Sydney, is where prep should be found. Rose Bay has two golf courses within two hundred metres of each other, Sydneys wealthiest 10 suburbs have a combined spending power higher than fifty countries, and each jutted finger of the geography commands its own sailing club.Yet, interestingly, it appears that the salmon-pink shorts of American Prep have failed to make the voyage across the Pacific. Activewear replaces the uniform of wealth. The few attempts at prep are slouchy, new, or insecure (all antithetical to preps spirit). The hem of a Ralph Lauren polo suffocates, tucked into the waistband of a pair of cargo shorts. Leather shoes shy out from mid-wash denim. The stomach churns. There is none of the self-awareness built-in to prep, no interest beyond the bare minimum. Simply wearing an expensive brand is not prep. There needs to be humour to it. Where are the go-to-hell lobster print pants? There is a clear consideration of the aesthetic of the American WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), though the extent to which this cross-cultural contamination has successfully integrated into Australias world is uncertain. The RM Williams boot is the lone emblem of Australian prep. Incontestably linked with high prices and a settler-colonial history, it accords to the crass idealised values of traditional prep.If prep is not found in Sydney in a blue sweater thrown over the shoulders after a rowing regatta, it must belong elsewhere. Amongst the homes of Vaucluse, bristling through heavy metal gates, rises a new form of preppy presentation- that of the garden.Rostam Batmanglij, once-member of the aforementioned Vampire Weekend, remarks: One thing I always liked about preppy clothes is that they have really saturated colors. When I think of Lacoste I think of that rich green, deep red, radiant yellow. Staring at the metres-high walls of Vaucluse, one can observe the Lacoste colours in the crawling vines, elephant ears, bromeliads, or tight-knit hydrangeas.Conceptually, the garden serves its purpose as a hyper-exclusive presentation of wealth. But, as the form changes, so must the rules. The allure of the worn-in elbows of your fathers rugby jumper does not translate one-to-one into the new arena of the garden. What becomes important is size, cost, and how effectively it forms a visual barrier between house and street. These spaces constitute hours of upkeep, a team of green thumbs deliver already-grown plants into the front yard of an otherwise ecologically illiterate owner. The maintenance, too, is beyond the owner, who hires others to take care of their yard.Visually, the garden sits atop or behind a large (usually sandstone) wall, a thick scarp of hedgerows sitting battlement straight, shoots of Kentia palms exploding over the enceinte, their trailing firework limbs framing a balcony or entryway. Optionally, there may be croppings of flowering plants such as birds of pleasure or roses. The cost and construction of these places conjures immediate visions of enormous riches. These are not the cute or cozy gardens of Balmain (a suburb of somewhat comparable wealth). There is a forceful illustration of affluence, a neighbourhood-wide conformity, a codified image that projects the same implication as a Ralph Lauren bear or Lacoste alligator, though with less preppy frivolity.This is not a love letter to prep. The exclusionary attitudes that calcified a cultural uniform do not deserve the widespread presence that a logo enables. Preps proponents appear to realise this. Ralph Lauren alternates between acknowledging groups such as the Lo Lifes and marketing to their core customer base; Rowing Blazers collaboration with the NBA indicates a promising porosity to prep in the fashion world to come. Preps mass commodification has led to mass adoption, diluting the looks concentration. While there may be more shirt collars at The Golden Sheaf than at Birdcage, boat shoes are found at neither. As prep becomes more streetwear-oriented, and as the walls collapse, perhaps its only natural that the WASPs cling to the seclusion of their gardens. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The true stories of gay pirates have been lost in most Hollywood representations. These historical badasses had more of a colourful history than Pirates of the Caribbean made us believe. Somewhere between pillaging villages, burning their own beards, and scurvy, there was love on the high seas. Or at least historians suspect there was, and with hoards of men stuck at sea for years on end, you can understand why. Unfortunately, little documentation of gay relationships survives. However, one common pirate custom does hint towards their bootylicious partner preferences. Pirates had their own form of same-sex marriage called matelotage; matelots wore matching gold rings, fought side by side, and, when one died, the other got their cut of the booty.Some matelotages were purely platonic, but the matelotage of the pirate captains Robert Culliford and John Swann, in 1698, was far from it. The pair were said to have run away together to a tropical island near Madagascar after years of pillaging, with John Swann cited as Cullifords great consort who lives with him. The couple separated years later in Barbados, when Culliford took up piracy once more. He was captured shortly afterwards and narrowly escaped the death penalty. Culliford then flew underground and never saw his beloved again.Examples of pirate couples were rare, yet there was one particularly heartwarming match between pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts and the pirate surgeon George Wilson, who joined Roberts crew very willingly on their second meeting in 1721. According to a fellow pirates court testimony, Wilson spruced up with a fresh set of clothes before greeting Roberts at their reunion off the coast of West Africa. Meanwhile, other witnesses to the couple claimed that Roberts and Wilson were particularly intimate on board and had plans to blow up and go to hell together if they were captured by enemy ships. Sadly, as with most pirate love stories, their romance ended in a hail of gunpowder when the British Royal Navy intervened.During the golden age of piracy, between 1650 and 1730, crimes of sodomy were threatened with cruel punishment in the Queens Navy, hence Navy men fled to piracy seeking freedom and refuge. A few women also found freedom in piracy, and dressed as men to hide aboard the ships. At the time, lesbian relationships were not illegal, but instead swept under the rug to discourage female curiosity.Mary Mark Read and Anne Andy Bonne were fierce pirates, who were each fooled by the others disguise and became lovers when they revealed their true identities. Living as outlaws, the two women became valiant fighters, and on one night off the coast of Jamaica the lesbian lovers, while both pregnant, battled a band of pirate hunters as their drunken male crewmates hid in the hold of the ship. As legend goes, Mary shot her gun at the hold and told her crew to come out and fight like men. Court records state that Mary and Anne were both captured after the battle, and they fortunately escaped execution due to their pregnancy.On the whole, relationships between pirates were polyamorus, even within matelotages where the union was respected like marriage. The island of Tortuga was the main hub for pirate activity where the population was overwhelmingly male and it was likely somewhat of a gay paradise. In order to dispel such activity, a French governor named Jean Le Vasseur arranged a shipment of over a thousand prostitutes to Tortuga. This of course did nothing to prevent the practice of matelotage; instead the men chose to simply absorb any marriages to prostitutes into their union.So defiant were these gay outlaws with their rich history of daring tales that their stories, as recorded by witness testimonies, should not be swept aside for the sake of a heteronormative vision of the past. The pirates of the golden age have become a part of a changing queer perception of archival history, and their story should be told with the same audacious sentiment they lived by. Hopefully, one day the newest Pirates of the Carribean movie will boldly feature these queer historical characters. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University Carillon the bells in the Quadrangle regularly rings out over campus, but few pay it much heed and fewer still know its history. Beyond the chiming of its bells lies a remarkable and contentious past which involved some of New South Wales most influential figures, and brought a Vice-Chancellor to the brink of resignation.One of the most distinctive features of campus life is, in fact, a monument to the dead. The University Carillon is, formally, the University War Memorial Carillon a memorial to the students, staff and alumni of the University who fought and died in the First World War. The outbreak of the war enraptured the newly federated Australia, with tens of thousands rushing to enlist. The University was no different, with some 1,800 students and graduates enlisting, 197 of whom would be killed over the course of the war. At a time when active annual enrolments totalled less than 2,000 during the war years, this was a significant number.With the wars end, the University Senate resolved to construct a suitable memorial for those who have given their lives in the service of the Empire in the Great War. A series of options was canvassed: a swimming pool, a hostel, a sports ground, and no less than a University War Memorial Boat Shed. It would not be until 1923, five years after the wars end, that the Evening Students Association would put forward a proposal for a carillon to fill the role.A carillon is a huge musical instrument, consisting of tuned bells played from a keyboard. Carillons are rare: only two others exist in Australia, in Bathurst and Canberra, and the University was to have the countrys first. The carillon proposal quickly garnered widespread support and planning began for the mammoth task of raising the necessary funds. Bells would have to be cast in England, transported by ship to Sydney and installed through the roof of a reinforced and restructured Quadrangle clocktower. The cost was expected to be 15,000 (about $1.2 million today). Each of the 49 bells would be funded by individuals or groups 21 for the smallest, 1,500 for the largest with the right of inscription afforded to some.The endeavour provoked huge public interest, with an all-encompassing fundraising effort involving fetes, memorial services, plays by the Sydney University Dramatic Society and a visit from Dame Nellie Melba. Veteran organisations contributed significantly, with AIF (Australia Imperial Force) eventually being inscribed on the largest, 4-ton bell.The intensity of support was seemingly motivated out of a perceived debt to the Great souls who by their blood won for us this our native land, as the carillons motto proclaimed. The war is seldom seen in the same terms today. There was a clear expectation that the carillon would forever preserve the memory of the dead, and though the bells still ring today, few now know for whom.By the end of 1924, over 17,000 almost 700,000 in todays terms had been raised. Seldom has any movement so captured the popular imagination, wrote the Sydney Morning Herald. John Taylor & Co of England were contracted for the princely sum of 17,397, which would cover bells, a frame, construction costs, and 75 for the cost of carriage from wharf to University of 47 tons of metal. Despite ordering 49 bells, the frame was wisely constructed to hold 54, which would allow for the instruments expansion decades later.With bell casting and construction plans well underway, the project appeared to be a triumph. But in 1925, a group of academics began to disrupt the Universitys plans. They were concerned that the musical quality of the carillon would inevitably be compromised if it were housed in the Quadrangle clocktower, and that only a standalone campanile (a free-standing bell tower) could do the instrument justice.Vice-Chancellor Mungo MacCallum was not pleased with the eleventh-hour criticisms. In April 1926, the University Senate gave the newly formed University Campanile Committee just six months to raise the necessary extra funds for their proposed campanile, or face the carillon as originally proposed. Had the Committee been successful, a 70-metre bell tower would stand where Fisher Coffee Cart is today.The Committees member list reads as a Whos Who of Sydney society at the time. Former NSW Premier George Fuller served as chairman, along with vice-chairman John Bradfield the famed engineer who would go on to design the Harbour Bridge and Isabel Fidler and Professors Wilkinson and Madsen, now the namesakes of University rooms and buildings.The cost of a campanile was prohibitive. The Committee conservatively estimated that a further 25,000 would suffice, while Bradfield personally believed a minimum of 60,000 was required, far more than the carillon itself. Yet these harsh realities did not prevent the committee producing wild illustrations of grand towers, in some cases literally reaching to the clouds, which would stand for a thousand years to come, according to their fundraising brochures.Not content with an audible reminder of the memorial, the Committee wanted a visible structure that was suitable for not only the greatest but also the most beautiful set of bells ever fashioned by the hand of man. No expense was to be spared. The tower would have a lift to carry sightseers to the top, electric lights and a large plaza at the base. It would be a fitting monument of a great and glorious episode of adventure and suffering, death and victory. In the opinion of one member, to settle for the Quadrangle clocktower would be unworthy of the university, unworthy of our own past, of the example of our fathers, of the sacrifice of our brothers and sons and comrades.But things did not go smoothly for the Campanile Committee. Six months of fundraising became ten, and the Senate eventually received a letter from Fuller in February 1927 blaming a University cancer research appeal for drying up campanile funds. The Senate was deeply unimpressed. Chancellor William Cullen severely criticised the extremely unsatisfactory request for more time, the inactivity of the Committee and its continued avoidance of a final campanile design and cost estimate. The meeting was contentious enough to force a special Senate meeting to resolve the situation, in which a further one-month extension was narrowly granted to the Committee.The Vice-Chancellor promptly resigned. MacCallum had repeatedly sought to emphasise the supremacy of the Senate and was incensed that, in his view, the Campanile Committee was undermining the Senates authority. He condemned the Committees mischievous vice-chairman Henry Barraclough for publicly requesting campanile funds beyond the Committees original October mandate. MacCallum rescinded his resignation only after Barraclough sent a deferential apology letter expressing his sincere and unreserved regrets for his actions.His position secured and Barraclough admonished, MacCallum went on the offensive. A day after the special meeting, he sent a letter to the press imploring people not to contribute to the campanile fund, which he saw as unnecessary and a danger to planned fundraising for the Universitys 75th anniversary. The campaign for a campanile was effectively over.That a musical instrument could elicit such venom is indicative not only of the passion the project inspired in so many, but also of the strain which severe economic constraints and post-war austerity had placed on the University at the time. The present-day is not the first time that tertiary education has found itself in dire straits.Final plans for the carillon were drawn up by Bradfield himself, and it was installed in time for Anzac Day 1928. At least ten thousand people turned out for its inauguration, accompanied by a full military ceremony with a procession by the Sydney University Regiment, a salute from a field gun and a prayer for the King and Nation, in scenes which are difficult to imagine today. Chopins Funeral March was the first piece played. Although the carillon was designed to automatically chime on the hour and quarter-hour, the mechanism proved something of a flop and went into compulsory early retirement, writes carillonist John Douglas Gordon.The inaugural carillonist that day was visiting Englishman Bryan Barker. According to David Woods history of the carillon: Mr Barker left Sydney shortly after this for the United States. Little has been heard of him since. But others stayed and have become part of a select and tight-knit international community, with official University Carillonists taking on assistants and numerous honorary carillonists who often stay for long periods, such as Gordons extraordinary 58 years of playing.While it briefly fell silent between 1973 and 1977 as some bells were recast and more added, the 54 bells of the modern carillon continue to play regularly for events, recitals and graduations, ringing out over a city which has largely forgotten their original purpose, but continues to appreciate their beauty. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CONTENT WARNING: eating disorders, sexual abuseWhen a loved one is diagnosed with an eating disorder, one of the first directives you can expect to receive is to separate the person from the illness. Distinguish the human you love from the faceless thing that has attached itself, parasitically, to their body, taken up residence in their brain a devil on their shoulder, a gremlin along for the ride. Some people like to give it a name Ed or Ana, for instance. A matter of personal preference. Of course, your daughter (son, sister, brother, friend, mother, special other) isnt psychotic. Or possessed. No need to hunt down an exorcist (ha) though its an analogous case, to be sure. What is achieved by the separation of human and illness is the externalisation of the eating disorder. In turn, treatment can be framed as a fight against it, rather than an assault upon the individual or their bodily autonomy. The patient has an illness. The illness is the problem. The person is not the problem.In group therapy, I am asked to describe my eating disorder. Shes a fucking bitch, I blurt, and the other attendees laugh. Real bad news, that one. Sadistic as all hell.The therapist today its Lynne nods encouragingly. I shift, wishing I no longer had the floor. Such discussions, I know, can quickly become heavy, loaded can escalate from zero to a hundred in seconds. Overshare, get emotional, say the wrong thing, and the dominoes are set in motion. Soon enough youre crying, the person to your left is crying, the person on your right is awkwardly patting your arm, so-and-so across the room is tight-lipped and pale (triggered), old mate sitting by the door is indignant because why-should-she-have-to-sit-through-this-shes-done-the-inpatient-program-x-number-of-times-already, the group facilitator is gaping like a fish and half the group have gone back to crocheting or reading or filling in sudokus manically, because group is a waste of time and what is the point in talking about it, coping skills dont work, CBT, DBT, ACT, its all psycho-babble bullshit. Were all irreparably fucked up anyway.When I speak at last, its only to fill the silence. Im not saying anything groundbreaking or revelatory. Its not something any other anoretic, bulimic, or EDNOStic couldnt tell you.The bullshittery is unrivalled.For your reference, here is a brief history of every eating disorder ever, according to any person ever to have held an opinion on the matter. The first thing to remember, to whip out and brandish whenever invited (or not invited) to offer your perspective, is that eating disorders are about control. Theyre a comfort object, a security blanket. In the same way a toddler will self-soothe by sucking their thumb, an individual with an eating disorder will renounce the practice of eating and/or acquire an all-consuming preoccupation with food and eating. Of course, an eating disorder is also a repudiation of adulthood and adult responsibility, an attempt to teleport oneself back to childhood by rewinding growth and development and reassuming a prepubescent body. Eating disorders are an articulation of undivulged trauma, of unverified or unverifiable injury, of unaired suffering. Oh, and heres another staple: eating disorders are the domain of whitewealthywomen. Its a womans prerogative to change her mind, and its a womans prerogative to starve or feed herself into obscurity. Indeed, this is a phase most women go through. See also: female hysteria. An eating disorder is a cry for help, a diet gone wrong, a bad habit, like chewing ones nails, or picking ones nose or dirtying ones dress hem. A lack or perhaps, excess of order; hence, disorder. Now were gathering pace, do try to keep up. You may know it as the pursuit of thinness or cleanliness (next to godliness), perfectionism, people-pleasing, internalisation of patriarchal attitudes and misogyny and unrealistic beauty standards. A defence mechanism, an invisibility cloak are you getting all of this? A middle finger to ones parents, ones swim coach, ones music teacher, ones agent, ones boss, who pushed too hard and asked for too much. If not, you might like to try shorthand. Try: a feminist statement, an anti-feminist statement, masochism, asceticism, selfishness, vanity. Genetics. Environmental factors. Nature versus nurture. Because she felt lonely and ashamed, because she was chubby as a kid and Tommy in the third grade called her thunder-thighs. Because her older sister had depression and was always in and out of the local psych ward, and her little sister had behavioural issues and she felt pressure to be her parents anchor. Because she ran too much, too many laps, too many reps, too many races on an empty tank. Because chronic illness was all she knew and why not have the body to show it. Because she didnt want a masc/fem body, or a body at all. Because nobody ever really took the time, because the one teacher in high school who did was actually grooming her, and because that teacher is still the only person shes ever loved, and no one spoke up, and no one said anything and no one said anything why didnt they say anythingFor eating disorder sufferers, there is a question that pulsates, flashing feebly la broken neon sign. The question aches, groans, whines and twinges, like a perpetually pulled muscle. It forms the soundtrack to recovery, though it is also there, an unwavering hum, throughout relapse, remission, relapse, treatment, neural rewiring and nutritional rehabilitation. Its there, later still, during quasi-health, quasi-recovery, life in a bigger body, life in a smaller body, kgs up, kgs down, two-steps-forward-one-step-backs. For good, better, worse, better, worse and beyond.Is it worth it?What are we ED sufferers, the medical profession, psychotherapists doing when we refer to the aberrant force or voice inside as the bitch? When we give the thing a face and form that of a demonic female creature and insist that it (she) must be expelled, blacklisted, sent packing indefinitely? How can we fail to notice the link between these discursive practices and existing strategies that work to alienate, pacify and police the inferior sex in our society?In creating new entities to blame, we condone the masculinist assumptions that underpin current treatment models, therapeutic philosophies and cultural understandings of eating disorders. While externalising the illness can be a useful strategy and means of interpreting eating disorders in therapeutic contexts and beyond (maintaining a sharp distinction between individuals and their problems and avoiding the placement of blame upon the individual) externalisation tends to distract from what is, in substance, the real issue. After all, it is our culture (media, lifestyles, economic systems, institutions, families, friends, teachers, workplaces) that legitimises projects of self-destruction (including self-starvation) that masquerade as self-improvement. We need to recognise that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we as a society have been conditioned to view, use, measure, and evaluate our own, and others, bodies womens bodies in particular. Only then can we entertain any hope of comprehending and reducing the incidence of complex bio-psycho-social illnesses like eating disorders. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As a part of the 2019 Boundless Festival, I wrote a letter to Alice Pung, an award winning Australian writer. After a few days, she wrote back.Dear Alice,I read your Unpolished Gem when I was in Year 9 for English. Before it, we had just studied To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet, so you can imagine that, as a class of fourteen year olds right at the peak of hormonal rebellion, we were suspicious and wary of our teachers assurances that we were going to enjoy this book. Attending a majority Asian-Australian selective school in Sydney, they English faculty probably saw in Unpolished Gem a golden opportunity to engage us with stories we could see ourselves in. Nonetheless, when we heard our teacher say we were going to enjoy your book, some of us (myself included), took it as a challenge to not enjoy it, as if going out of our way to inflict misery upon ourselves was a valid expression of youthful defiance.But despite my best efforts, I found myself immediately drawn to the story, as did most of my classmates. For the next hour or so, we sheepishly sunk into our chairs, quietly reading your stories of your familys journey to Australia, of growing up in Australia while Chinese, of navigating two different worlds that often feel diametrically opposed, all while marvelling at how similar some of our experiences were. And instead of my usual after-school routine of watching TV, I continued reading, reading until I realised I had reached the epilogue a little while after sunset.Is that it? I remember thinking to myself, a little taken aback by the fact that the book had finished. Like an accelerating car suddenly brought to a stop, I probably felt a little jolted I had, after all, never finished reading a book in one sitting. But more than that, I think what confused me was this lack of a clear, happy ending. The simmering familial tensions, and the poignant feelings of diasporic loss and guilt which pervaded the book didnt seem to have been resolved by the last page as they would have in, for example, a Hollywood film (you know, with a wedding banquet and emotional heartfelt speeches where everyone acknowledges past hardships but agree theyre all better off for it as they face the future brimming with hope cue the credits). Instead, they seem to have faded into something I couldnt put to words at the time, but now know to be acceptance.I remember feeling a bit hollow. In many ways, in the hours I spent reading, I came to expect your book to be like a deck of tarot cards for me, portending my own future with each chapter, marking my destiny with each word. And I guess I wanted to read, from someone whos been there before, that things would all end up okay, that the mutual sacrifices made between parent and child would ultimately result in everlasting happiness. Our popular culture conditions us to expect immigration to be this magical happily-ever-after for all parties involved, but the reality is a lot more complex, and Unpolished Gem was what pushed me to critically explore my own familys migration story.Fast forward to today and I am now 21, in my fourth year of university, and like you, I am studying a law degree. Walking into a Dymocks earlier this year, I saw another one of your books Her Fathers Daughter. Intrigued by seeing your name as the author, I bought it and, once again, finished it very quickly. How interesting it was to see familiar characters and stories told from a different perspective quite literally as well. I was fascinated by how chapters alternated between your own point of view and that of your fathers. What was it like to write from his perspective? And what did you father think of it?I ask because I recently realised that Ive been writing a lot about my parents. Maybe too much. From their experiences in Communist China, to their reactions to a film we watched together, it seems like theyve become my fountain of creativity (much to their amusement). I think unconsciously Ive put their experiences on a pedestal, treating it as some sacred truth that cannot be questioned. Looking at my writing, I notice some of it follows the exact same story arc, starting off with my parents have differing views on something, followed by them explaining their perspective, and ending with me growing more sympathetic to their opinions while unsteadily maintaining my own. That or I take some liberty in annotating their views, almost romanticising them by attaching causes to why they think the way they do in what is perhaps an artificial manner not at all grounded in reality. For me, writing about my parents has almost become an act of filial piety, as if bringing their experiences to the page is akin to honouring them. But at the same time, I have recently started to feel like Im using them as mere plot devices to convey wider humans concerns which I fear I just dont have the ability to express on my own. When the doubt really gets to me, it feels like Im stealing their experiences and then rewriting them as my own to piece an extra layer of, wait for it, authenticity to my writing. Have you ever felt the same? If so, how do you overcome it?I guess this is all part of a broader problem Im facing where I feel so inspired and invigorated by my cultural heritage and my identity as an Asian-Australian, but simultaneously feel somewhat confined by it. Almost everything I have written invariably relates back to my ethnic identity, and while I am so proud of who I am, sometimes, the bonds that connect me to who I am feel a bit more like chains.I didnt always feel like this. Ive always felt that, given how scarce Asian voices are in the Western world, if I dont record down these experiences then no one will. But there is now a wave of diasporic Asian literature (yours being a shining example) that Im starting to wonder how exactly my voice contributes to it all. Ive also seen some Asian celebrities, especially in film and comedy, warning against falling into the trap of being too focused on your own Asianness, saying that you begin limit the universality of your ideas to a non-Asian audience. I think it just got to me, and I started to doubt whether anyone except myself actually enjoyed reading anything I wrote. So I gave myself a challenge to write something not in first person that had nothing to do with my Asianness (I ended up writing something about the architectural merits of a building on campus). It was strange but enjoyable to write, but it also felt so contrived, as if the whole piece was actually about me trying to prove a point that I was more than just Asian as opposed to the subject matter itself. Have you ever struggled with something similar? Is the trap of being too Asian in your writing really a thing? Youve brought such powerful stories about your own experiences to the page, but did you ever feel any pressure to write something grounded in something completely removed from yourself? Or have you felt a profound obligation to write your own experiences down? And when you did, how did you know it was a story that needed to be told?I apologise for the sudden flurry of questions, but they have been weighing down on my mind every time I try to write. For all my worries about not being seen as an Asian writer, I realise that its become the main focus of this letter! I recognise that these are difficult questions which probably dont have a definite answer, but I look forward to reading your insight and I deeply appreciate you taking the time to respond to them.Best RegardsBaopu* * *Dear Baopu,Apologies for my late reply. Your letter interview was very special. You are an outstanding writer. I reckon your letter should be published not for what it asks about me, but what it says about you, and your life, and your fears and concerns as a writer, which are both different and similar to the ones I had over one and a half decades ago when I was first starting out. But your voice is entirely your own, so unique and eloquent. So its an honour to receive such a missive, from someone who has read my work so closely.Because you spent such thought and time into it, I had to make sure I had time to give you the considered and thoughtful response it deserves. Of course, some of our concerns are similar and still remain so: how do we write about our families? How do we represent ourselves and our culture? How do we ensure we are not tokenised? Back in my day we called it ethnicity, and bookstores had separate sections for ethnic literature. This is not the case any more, to everyones relief! But the underlying issue behind your questions is what does it mean to be an Asian writer?When I was growing up, to be a published Asian writer in the West was to be:a) a womanb) who had suffered grave injustices for being Asian and a woman, andc) who was able to poetically, or at least narratively, describe these immense sufferings to a Western audience.I read books like Wild Swans, and Falling Leaves, and Ten Thousand Sorrows and Chinese Cinderella. A white guy named Arthur Golding even wrote an enthralling book (well, enthralling to my 16 year- old self) called Memoirs of a Geisha.I also discovered Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan Asian-Americans, whose voices seemed closer to my experience than anything else Id ever read. They were inventive, funny, and shared similar embarrassments about their families not assimilating into the mainstream Western culture.Unfortunately, there seemed to be no Australian equivalent of such books, with the exception of Looking for Alibrandi about an Italian girl. Or didactic books about Vietnamese refugees that featured protagonists who were a bit too perfect their only flaws were that they were poor and too hardworking at school (because these books were not written by Vietnamese people).I wouldnt say I wrote Unpolished Gem purely to redress these imbalances. I dont think I had such a big coherent perspective then. Maybe I just wanted to rant about my family! But perhaps subconsciously, these questions also played in my mind when I was writing my first book.Wedged between those awesome classics Shakespeare and Harper Lee, of course I understood how much your class would have felt compelled to hate this little tiny upstart blip in the miniscule literary landscape that was Australian diverse publishing. Of course, you would have felt punished! I probably would have felt the same, thinking, oh no here is another well-intentioned teacher force-feeding us Oriental culture just coz were Asian.But I am grateful to your teacher for putting this book on the curriculum, because when my book was launched, my father asked all his friends to come along. Most of these were people who never went to university, who worked in factories or had small businesses. They bought my book for their kids, which was about two hours of wages back then. And their kids reluctantly posed for photos with me. And I could feel, if not see, their eyeballs roll. Because on the back of Unpolished Gem, the blurb describes me as a writer and lawyer. So these parents were probably thinking this book was a manual on how to make it for their kids, how to achieve the Great Australian Migrant Success Story. But as you know, the last third of the book details my mothers depression, my nervous breakdown before my Year 12 exams, the death of my grandmother and the failure of my first relationship. The lack of a clear, happy ending was deliberate, as was starting the book with the sentence This story does not begin on a boat. Because I didnt begin on a boat, and I wasnt going to tell a story of success to justify being worthy of being Australian.Like my friend Randa Abdel-Fattah, who just wanted to first start writing a story about a girl who goes to school and who just happens to be Muslim Egyptian, I wanted to write about a girl growing up in the Western suburbs of Melbourne who just happens to be Chinese-Cambodian. Of course, no one just happens to be a particular culture. Over the years, Ive met many interesting Chinese from all over the world Brazilian Chinese, American Chinese, South African Chinese, and adopted children who were from China but are now raised Jewish or Italian or in rural Iowa. I understand how culture shapes you as a person, and how it makes you interesting to outsiders. But the beauty of being inside your own skin is that each morning you go about living your life, not performing Asianness. And the only times you perform Asianness are the times when you are up against people who dont understand you, or who oppose you, or who fetishize you. So I sought to explore this in Unpolished Gem, and then also my first novel, Laurinda.When I came to edit Growing Up Asian in Australia, I also wanted to approach it from the perspective of picking stories based on two considerations Amy Tan taught me when I first saw her at Melbourne Writers Festival almost 20 years ago. What is Story? And What is Voice? A piece, no matter how beautifully written, that is all just about culture for example, how a family goes out to yum cha during Chinese New Year and what exotic dishes they order is more instructive than story. Youre performing or teaching an audience that doesnt know or understand about your culture. But in such a scene, what Im most interested in is why everyone doesnt eat until Grand Pa does; why no one is talking to Eldest Aunt, who is missing two fingers; why your mother is so snarky with cousin Melanie. That kind of writing has a heartbeat. A book I read recently, Pachinko, by Min JIn Lee, about a family of Christian Koreans in Japan, did this beautifully.You asked a very important question about being worried that your writing might be veering towards being too Asian. I dont think there is such a thing. What I do believe you are asking, though, is how do you ensure that your writing is not so culturally specific that it would be uninteresting or unintelligible or unrelatable to people outside of your own culture? I guess it depends if the story has a voice, and a heartbeat to it. For example, I read a book by Rohinton Mistry called A Fine Balance, about four disparate characters surviving the Emergency in India, and by the end of it, felt transformed. I often quote my friend Professor Cording, who is a Professor and poet, and who says this about poetry:I always tell my students that the first question they must answer when they write is: Why is the speaker of the poem speaking? If a poem is to be convincing, then the speaker of the poem must be convincing. The reader must feel that he/she is making contact with a real human being, not simply with arguments and opinions. If the poems feels like it has sifted and arranged received ideas, then it will fail. The poem has to feel, I think, as if there is a real person struggling with real experiences that will not yield some handy lesson, but nevertheless are not entirely without meaning. The voice that convinces will always be the voice of an individual who the reader experiences as an individual and not as a spokesperson for this or that idea.It is the same with prose, I think. I am writing to you about the technicalities of writing, Baopu, and not the political considerations, which is altogether a different matter. For a piece of writing to really work, and move, and transform, I think it has to transcend the ego, it has to transcend even culture or class or gender or religion. It cant all be about capital I issues. It must be about a true struggle, and true struggles do not often easily resolve themselves.This brings me to answer your question about what it was like to write Her Fathers Daughter, which was my most difficult book to write. It didnt have the same voice as my first book, and I was attempting something more ambitious with it. I wrote it in third person because it was about my father and I didnt want to write first person from his perspective because I didnt presume that in my late twenties I had the voice of experience and wisdom as a man who was approaching sixty. But then because my dad was in third person, I couldnt put myself in first person as the book would then read like my story, or a sequel to Unpolished Gem. I wanted both voices to have equal weight, and for the book to read like an unspoken dialogue between a father and a daughter. I had a Greek father come up to me shortly after the book came out, to tell me how much it meant that I understood his crazy overprotectiveness. That was when I knew Id done something right.Your parents probably understand that you write in your own voice, Baopu, and so I dont think they would feel you were stealing their stories. I have two sons now, and I dont think they could ever steal anything from me because they are my children and everything I have is theirs anyway. But in the paraphrased words of Kahlil Gibran, my children are of me but they are not me. And the Torah says that we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. My father knew that the character of him in my book was not the man he saw himself as, but the father I saw him as. Good on you for trying to understand your parents through your writing, and for trying to see from their perspective. You may never really reach what you are searching for, but you find other things along the way. Along the way, you may meet a stranger youll know as your future self.I am glad that you also write about the aesthetic merits of university architecture! And like another writer who I much admire, Nam Le, who also was the editor of his university magazine, Farrago, you will go on to write about so many, many things that are unrelated to your race or culture. After all, you dont think about it 24/7. But when you do, it means you have something to work out, or something of interest to say about it.Dont think about the great Hokusai Wave of Diasporic Asian Literature drowning out your voice! There is no great wave. It only appears that way because at last there is a lot more diverse representation of Asian-Western voices in popular culture/Arts/Media etc. Micheline Lee writes about disability, Jenny Han writes about love, Jenny Zhang writes about class disintegration, Alexander Chee writes about everything. And then theres Mirandi Riwoe and Roanna Gonsalves and Merlinda Bobis, Ben and Michelle Law, Hoa Pham, Tom Cho and Rebecca Lim and Leanne Hall so many great voices covering every genre imaginable. But perhaps thats still not enough, if young writers still feel intimidated and worried that they are too Asian/not Asian enough.I am not sure this answers your questions but Ill end on a personal note. In my published books, I have chosen to write from the perspective of an Asian protagonist because I know that voice well, and I like it, and I understand it; not because I need to represent this idea or that person, but because its a voice thats the most complete and three-dimensional voice I can muster. It gives my characters their heartbeat.All my very best wishes,Alice <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The first learning experience I can completely remember is sitting with my dad at the kitchen table as he taught me how to add. He had primal migrant parent instinct, something that would make me fear him yet seek his approval at the same time. So my brothers and I learnt how to add at lightning fast speed and how to multiply with military precision, shedding one too many tears in the process. For the outsider, it sounds like a tale of childhood trauma. For me, its a shared experience Ill always cherish.For parents like ours, the language of numbers was one that both generations understood it was the one thing they could proudly pass onto us, and it could never get lost in translation. This soon evolved into this idea that, well, numbers dont discriminate. Regardless of where you came from and how the world saw you, as long as you could solve a problem, you would be okay.Ive always found a sense of familiarity and comfort in STEM. For some, its incomprehensible but Ive always enjoyed the combination of wonder and finality in it. Patterns can form without you creating them, because they simply exist and are waiting to be found whether it be the rings of a tree trunk delivering history, or the perfect symmetry of a simple snowflake. There are one thousand and one ways to solve a problem, yet at the end of the day there is one right answer. The back and forth between the complex and the simple is beautiful..The way my parents taught me the English language was through books. The idea was that if I managed to read enough books that I enjoyed, I would figure it out myself. My dad used to work across from a bookstore. He would observe the frenzy of children and pick up whatever book was popular for the month and bring it home, a steady stream of words for an eager kid to consume from Harry Potter to Inkheart to Clair De Lune. Books have a special place for sheltered ethnic girls; its this absolute escapism where you transpose yourself into imagined realities, those that not even the television screen can imagine. It was cool to be Igraine The Brave, a 12-year-old girl defending her castle from siege.Even then, its always been an escape its never really been my story on my own terms. To this day, the English language is something that still daunts me. I can never truly be confident in what I have to say and how I say it. Im not sure if Ill ever learn to command it on my own, but maybe if I do it on my own terms I can.Stories are told so differently in many portions of the world, whether they are written, visual or told through movement. For my family, its oral storytelling how we learn about our past, our culture and our values. My mother who silently observed as my dad taught us, used to be an urdu teacher. She says that urdu is the poets language, one that carries itself with grace, softness and respect. A language that is melodious and powerful at the same time. While my dad gave me books and maths, my mother gave me bedside stories and hymns. When she talks, words become less daunting and more familiar, as the softness of her voice embraces us with warmth. Although I havent inherited my mothers soft-spoken elegance, Ive learnt of the power of the voice in speaking ones truth and sharing it unashamedly with others..The idea of left brain/right brain dominance, one or the other, persists to this day. Ive tried to commit to one side but find myself writing poetry when Im sick of numbers, and wishing I had an engineering problem to solve when Im knee-deep in readings. So far, Ive used one to be a reprieve for the other. As I near the end of my studies, Im trying to learn how I can take the best parts of my mum and dad and turn them into my own.As the educational and professional spheres scramble to find answers to the diversity problem in STEM, and as I try to find meaning in my career to come, I look to STEAM Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics. The experts say the idea is that we can use creativity in the problem-solving process, and vice versa.While Ive found comfort amongst equations, sometimes there is still loneliness. You are constantly craving to be part of something bigger: a community and purpose. For me, the A Arts is an opportunity for meaningful representation and personal reflections on the changing world. It has ranged from utilising poetry to exploring what it means to be human, to talking to girls who look like me about the wonderment the world has to bring. As a person still trying to figure out my place, its seeing women of colour pave the way and telling myself its possible to make it.In a way, there is equilibrium to be found in STEAM. Amongst the barrage of voices in the 24-hour news cycles, its a way for me to find comfort in fact. As the planet deteriorates, its a way for me to stay a hopeful idealist and believe that humans will eventually pull through despite all odds. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are stories that predate our need to tell them. They exist as a whisper between thoughts, their shadows following creators until they are ready to be brought into the world. Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat compared them to creation myths, stating that these stories are not ones we make up, but ones we already know.In terms of the universe, there are many creation stories: abiogenesis where life arises from the ground, Iroquois mythology where life falls from the sky, Greek mythology where life emerges from chaos. But what about the life that comes from within? The life that exists as a half-formed thought, fighting its way into being?Based on my research, the most common story of creation is creatio ex nihilo creation out of nothing. The first things that come into existence are often the ocean and the sky the vastest things that humans were aware of. Creation stories reflect writing traditions of the time, as well as ideals and norms that already existed. In the Popol Vuh, creation was spoken into existence. In Hinduism, the world is created over and over again in periodic cycles that give birth to innumerable universes. This makes me think of a frustrated artist drafting multiple versions of their art, unsure of which one to move forward with.But what is the purpose of a creation myth? To take nothing and turn it into something? To explain why and how certain things come into being? Maybe we dont always create these myths, but sometimes they create us. In Ancient Greece and Rome, creativity was a disembodied genius, a divine attendant spirit from a distant and unknowable source. This spirit was called a daemon, and was thought to be the cause of all human creation. The paranormal nature of this concept is one with which I resonate, because I often feel like my characters are on loan to me from creation gods, only made available when Im desperate. It is quite humbling to believe that the most remarkable aspects of my being came from somewhere outside of me. Building on daemons, I believe it is possible to catch a story. In a TED talk on Your Elusive Creative Genius, author Elizabeth Gilbert talks about a woman who could feel her poems coming toward her in a thunderous train of air that would shake the earth beneath her feet. She would miss the poem if it wasnt written down immediately, and the poem (or daemon) would move on to find another poet.I have characters Ive been trying to write since I was fourteen. Their narratives change often, but they remain the same. An overpowered woman, an army of one surrounded by a pale lilac glow, who never has to fear for her safety or answer to anyone. An angry girl with glowing eyes and demon claws and vengeance coursing through her. A boy who can bend reality if he obsesses about it too much, who lives in fear of the things hes afraid of coming to life. Now that I know they form my creation myth, I see glimpses of them in my childhood, character traits sprinkled into imaginary friends and nonsensical daydreams.I wanted to know if other people had similar experiences, obsessions that haunted them into creating art or destroying it. A friend of mine, Sunaina, has multiple creation myths. She, too, described the sensation as if it had agency, as if it forced her to tell stories. It was similar to what I had experienced, the incessant need for my magnum opus to be out in the world. We didnt know how, but there was something within us that needed to be made, to be freed. She told me that it was different from writing, like shed be walking down the street and see a certain shade of green she had to have in the background of a video she wanted to make. The first one she ever told me about always crosses my mind. Theres a melody shes always known, chords that communicated yearning and introspection, vocals that relayed anxious inhibition. Attempting to recreate it was never practical. The baggage that came with wanting every little detail to be perfect was not easily discarded.The wonderful thing about creation myths is the possibility of a new one to emerge. It doesnt have to be the start of the physical universe, it could be a world beginning entirely for myself. The myth is only the origin what comes after is entirely up to me. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Like many others who have irregular menstrual cycles, I have explored options to regulate mine and cope with the severe pain during my period. Unsure of whether I was prepared to face the potential side effects of the birth control pill, a referral to an experienced traditional Chinese medicine doctor became an option during a visit to Shanghai.On that day, I visited a large gynaecology and obstetrics hospital in the Minhang District with my mother. Inside the room, the doctor peeked at me a few times through her reading glasses. She read my name and date of birth on the patient card. I heard her mutter, 19 years old, so young. A little puzzled by her comment, I tried to catch her eye. She looked to be in her 50s. Her long hair tied back to emphasise a sense of sterile cleanliness. She spoke Mandarin with a heavy Shanghainese accent.After answering some general questions about my usual cycle length and flow, the doctor asked without lifting her pen, Boyfriend or no? Yes, I answered truthfully.There were no follow-up questions on whether there was a possibility that I could be pregnant. I found myself escorted, rather forcefully, to the examination room for an ultrasound. I was not told what the procedure was but assumed it was needed to be performed in order to receive the treatment I sought.It wasnt until the radiologist prepared a long metal rod that I realised a vaginal ultrasound was far beyond what I was comfortable with.The examination was traumatising, probably more so because every muscle in my body tensed with fear. I sat up from the bed feeling vulnerable with blood between my legs, sobbing uncontrollably. Perhaps in an attempt to console me, the radiologists explained that there was no sign of pregnancy and the blood was not from an injury but from my period. Soon proven to be ineffective, I was told to leave the room immediately as my actions would lead other patients to think I had been violated against my will.Back in the doctors room for a final consultation, a radiating pain in my lower abdomen reminded me of what had occurred earlier. To my dismay, the doctor had no intention of answering my enquiries but berated my ignorance on how pre-marital sex would damage my reputation and future. She claimed that safe sex did not exist because men simply do not want to wear condoms due to discomfort and birth control pills would lead to women becoming indefinitely infertile. Other forms of contraception such as the IUD and vasectomy would only be performed for married couples after the birth of their children. She questioned what my future mother-in-law would think of me for not being a virgin bride. She said my boyfriend would leave me, and was probably cheating on me at that very moment.There is no doubt her views form an overgeneralised attitude towards pre-marital sex and birth control. It does, however, provide an insight into how, in some circumstances, the Chinese healthcare system bears the burden of poor sex education outcomes in the country. Legal abortion in China has recorded 9 million procedures every year according to the National Health Commission. Amongst those who choose to undergo the procedure, a vast number of unmarried young women have performed terminations.Given this, it is not difficult to understand the disillusionment often felt by gynaecologists towards unplanned pregnancies, performing several abortion procedures daily in a society which stigmatises every step of that process. As a result, it has become easier for them to promote abstinence in women by distributing false information such as the pill leading to infertility rather than providing knowledge on forms of contraceptives.Confucian culture may also play a role in upholding abstinence in unmarried women. Under the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, a woman is expected to remain a virgin until marriage to pledge loyalty to her husband and the family, by extension. Ironically, the long-held belief in a virgin bride is predominantly being upheld by middle-aged women in society. They pass down the same expectations that were placed on them before marriage. In turn, they are affirmed by popular culture. The popular Chinese TV drama Ode to Joy echoed this perspective in an episode in which a young womans virginity before marriage was depicted as an admirable quality for a good daughter-in-law according to a mother.However, some things seem to be changing. In recent years young parents have realised the importance of comprehensive sex education for their children. Programs such as the Sex-ed Camp where sex-ed lectures by government licensed practitioners have been planned across 20 districts across China are ways for children to receive guidance on safe sex outside of public schooling.It is also the attitudes of a younger generation that will help to overcome the cultural view that sex is taboo. For now, this may help to normalise sexual freedoms for future generations. Im quietly optimistic. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I was asked the question in an ice breaking game in my first semester at uni. Glenffindor? I said to the partner I was assigned to. Gryffindor? I love it as well. I hoped the tutor would not continue with a why?, otherwise people would figure out that I have only watched the first movie, at the age of 7, in Chinese. In other words, I completely had no idea of what it was all about. However, when I was asked the same question in another tutorial ice breaking game for the second time, I knew this Harry Potter ice breaking was not a coincidence- at least not because tutors are all big fans of Harry Potter.The problem is not about Harry Potter. The problem is that tutors presumed Harry Potter to be a cultural pre-requisite for everyone in the tutorial room without considering that there are people who are not interested in these series, and people from minority cultural backgrounds and people from overseas who just never watched them, or were not interested in watching it. While USyd promotes itself as a multicultural and global campus, and over one quarter of its students come from overseas, its disappointing to know the tutors are not fully culturally aware of the people they teach.The classroom beyond Harry PotterTo avoid myself being predominantly occupied by my observer bias, two weeks ago, three other people, including one social science undergraduate, one tutor and one professor, participated ina focus group on International students English ability, but soon the discussion became focused on problems of cultural awareness on campus.The Harry Potter ice breaking game is not an isolated case. Ash, a second-year social work student in USyd said she remembers in some tutorials the class discussions would suddenly became a one-on-one chat between the tutor and one active student, with the others left behind, particular people like herself from overseas with English as their second language. Ben*, a tutor and PhD candidate who preferred to be anonymous,also recalled one of his colleagues got into trouble for not being well aware of the different needs of students. In a role play game in an introductory international relations class, the tutor (his colleague) deliberately assigned Chinese international students to play the role of China in a model United Nations activity, whereas domestic students were put into the role of the U.S and Australia. This elicited quite an unfriendly atmosphere of debate amongst students. The role play game, as he described, became a battlefield for nationalism from both sides, exposing rifts in identity and ideology in the class. However, the tension could have been easily solved, with a further possibility of promoting mutual understanding with just small adjustments in Bens class, he tried to make Chinese international students play U.S and Australia, and domestic students as China. This helped the class understand why people think the way they do, and how this is shaped by the culture they were raised in. And of course, it was more enjoyable for all groups involved.The cultural awareness of teaching staff is unquestionably important to promote class discussion and mutual understanding amongst students from different cultural backgrounds. For international students from East Asian cultures, who are often blamed and stigmatised for being silent and not contributing to class, they are willing to be active in class discussion and offer insights from their own cultural backgrounds if they are given an environment where they feel comfortable and supported doing so. An example from Ben is that, noting that East Asian background international students often come for individual consultation after class, with the views they want to contribute in the classroom but are too afraid to vocalise, he made it clear in his tutorials that everyone should respect the ideas of others. As a result, more and more international students contributed at the end of the semester.Why a cultural awareness program?This outcome is beneficial for all students, regardless if they are international or domestic. We, or at least a great number of we, all come to university with an implicit expectation of exchanging perspectives and making friends with people from different cultural backgrounds and communities. However, the truth is, the classroom has lacked voices from culturally diverse people, particularly English as a second language for international students. Despite the number of international students, the campus is becoming more split up.I never saw it at ANU, but here in USyd, white people are with white people, ABCs with ABCs (Australian-born Chinese) and international students have their own bubbles. said Ash, who transferred to USyd from ANU 2 years ago, during the focus group.Outside the classroom, there has been discriminating graffiti on campus, followed by verbal and physical harassment to Asian international students. Inside the classroom, some lecturers are concerned that tensions between pro-Beijing and pro-Hong Kong students may become disruptive. Since last year,The negative portrait of Chinese international students as spies in the mainstream newspapers and documentarieshas profoundly alienated this group of students. However, on some occasions, tutors and lecturers automatically seek the most convenient way to deal with the dispute that is, to avoid discussion on politically sensitive topics, or narrating class discussion in a way favourable to one stance but not the other. Prof. Wanning Sun, from the UTS Department of Media and Communication, who haswritten on this issue, said in the discussion that she believes avoiding sensitive topics for the sake of managing differences and maintaining order is not necessarily the best approach. Conversely, these politically sensitive moments are opportunities whereby critical analytical skills can be taught and learned, and whereby mutual understanding amongst students from different cultural backgrounds can be fostered. This requires both lecturers and tutors facilitate class discussions in a way where views of all sides can be respectfully and calmly aired.From Consent Matters to Culture Matters?While Tutors and lecturers are responsible for not organising the classes in a way that is friendly to all,its not all their fault. Tutors are all on casual contracts, with most of them being PhD candidates. Some are even normal undergraduate or postgraduate students. In the Arts Faculty, the University does not offer any kind of official training to tutors before their first class.When I stood outside the door before I stepped into my first tutorial class, I completely didnt know what was going on. Ben said in the focus group,I needed to get my own teaching material organised. The activities and the style of teaching completely depend on myself.Without cultural awareness training combined with a loose casual contract, its understandable for tutors to lack any sense of direction in making the classroom a friendly environment for all, and in facilitating discussion from both sides.The sad fact is, the University doesnt have any interest in promoting cultural awareness on campus, despite earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from international students every year. In 2018, the University made the consent education online program Consent Matters a compulsory part of study for every newly enrolled student to address the problem of sexual harassment and sexual violence. This proved the University at least has the capacity to make a shared online program for all staff and students, as long as it has the motivation to do so. However, in terms of cultural awareness, the university seems to have the strategy of better say than do. Each year, the Vice Chancellor makes a statement on why cultural diversity matters to USyd after mainstream newspapers negatively portray Chinese international students. However, theres neither training towards staff, particularly tutors on how to manage a multicultural classroom, nor compulsory units for students like Consent Matters on how to respect others cultural norms and opinions in classroom discussion and group work.Under the current circumstances, promoting a classroom that everyone can contribute to is crucial to dismantle the invisible barrier between domestic and international students. It provides an opportunity, at least on the Usyd campus, for people from different cultural backgrounds to understand each other through communication, not through fear.A sincere thank you to Prof. Wanning Sun (UTS Media and Communication), Anonymous tutor B, and Ash Chen Bachelor of Social Work and Bachelor of Arts II (Philosophy) for consenting to share your invaluable insights and experience in this article. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Superb fairy wrens made their springtime nest in our orange tree this year. Blue flashes through our lounge-room window when the male wren soaks and shimmies in the bird bath right outside. Mum sends me outside to shoo away a predatory Pied currawong that has sent the smaller birds the wrens, finches and a Willy Wag-tail into a panic. Theyve taken eggs before, she warns. Brown and gangly, I make a good scarecrow.Earlier in the year, we were visited several times by two adult Magpies. One had a deformed, but still functional, foot I called her Ajani. The other, Zoya, liked to announce their arrival through chortled song, stretching neck and beak to the light dappled leaves of our blueberry ash tree. We fed both of them small amounts of cheese and fruit. This gesture seemed to pay off when, on their fourth or fifth visit, they brought their juvenile with them. Magpies are generally quite curious, and very intelligent, but juveniles also tend to be more trusting of humans. When I sat in the middle of the yard, it hopped into my lap. I was softened and named it Penguin. It waddled quickly around the yard, inspecting every corner like a small, inquisitive child assembling treasure.On the website magpiealert.com, anyone can add a record to the map of magpie swoops across Australia throughout the year. Swoops that resulted in an injury are marked by a red icon, the rest are road-sign yellow. Users can add their own comments about the nature of the swoop too. A recent recount from North Parramatta notes, swooped 4 times, very gentle taps on the top of helmet. Another person, in Earlwood, was swooped and injured while running. In early September, a magpie in Bella Vista was shot dead by The Hills Shire Council after local residents lodged over 40 complaints about its exceptionally aggressive, territorial behaviour along Old Windsor Road. One person was reported to have had a heart attack, mid-magpie attack. Magpies mate for life, and somewhere in Greater Western Sydney, a magpie is surely wondering where its mate went. What now remains of the Windsor Road Monster is just a cluster of records on magpiealert.com that mark where it once called home.While bird watching (also known as twitching, or birding) is traditionally an analogue practice, and hobbyists are generally white and middle-to-upper-class, my experience of the digital archiving of birds and bird activity is strangely similar to, if not intertwined, with some of the queer and so-called-radical digital spaces I have access to.@femmebirds is a US-based Instagram account that declares in its bio that it is anti-racist, trans/gnc celebratory, fat liberationist and intersectional feminist. High definition photographs of gorgeously plumaged birds follow relatable, edifying captions. It is certainly a neat intersection of some of my interests. Some posts celebrate a femme icon or make a cheeky reference to romantic endeavours, others affirm fashion choices or the accounts left-wing politics (pun intended). Beneath a row of six puff-chested green bee eaters, the captain stands in particular solidarity with trans women in the US. They await a Supreme Courts ruling over whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) protects employees from discrimination based on sex and/or sexual orientation.In an older @femmebirds post, the caption Yes, yellow eyeshadow is in this year, Becky. And fuck you, no, I did not overdo it, refers to the yellow Pulcinella face of the masked plover in the accompanying photo. Masked plovers have notoriously protective and gutsy parenting techniques. This is important when youre a bird that evolved to lay eggs within anxious proximity to human foot traffic on the ground. A plover chick, about the size of an apple, once played dead right in front of me. Hearing its parents rapidfire kikiki-ing, the chick knew exactly what to do close its eyes and collapse on the spot barely a day into its life. Later, I watched it bounce up a grassy knoll behind the adults, knowing it was safe.There is a @butchbirds account too. For those playing along, the Emu and Macaroni pengiun are both, apparently, categorically butch while the Australian Pelican is femme. The jury may still be out on the ibis. Though, neither @butchbirds or @femmebirds pretend that their two categories have any hard and fast rules when it comes to birds. The brilliance of these two accounts, in this era of memes, memos and mood-boards, is their archive of an unabashed beauty of small things.Any account I make about small things can be owed to Arundhati Roys novel The God of Small Things. Roys novel operates within an economy of magical realism and it is the laws of nature of lush utopias and in-between states that manifest as magical realisms political language. Not all birds are small, I concede, but, unless one really pays attention, they take up a small part of the quotidian. How many pigeons, seagulls, ibises or magpies are really being noticed when they arent shitting on us, swooping, or eating our trash?The narrative in The God of Small Things does not entertain extraordinariness or sublimity, nothing and no one is larger than life but small witching hours, small lives, can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes [l]ittle events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. A witching hour feels like waking up from a mid-afternoon fever nap to the rare sight of a goshawk outside. It feels like the familiar call of a masked plover flying overhead late at night standing in an inner Sydney street that yawns into an unfamiliar darkness.Digital archiving is a way of tending to my own queer feelings; I screenshot messages from lovers and crushes, map date spots, make playlists on Spotify. I have tried to do the same with bird encounters record bird sounds, bookmark links detailing unfamiliar species. I once watched a documentary about the great hornbill, the state bird of Kerala (in which The God of Small Things is set). The hornbill has a horned structure on its bill called a casque, which I found so impressive that I was compelled to rank my favourite birds in my notes app. The hornbill came in at number 7, the kookaburra in first place. Somewhere else in my notes app, I have typed 3:22am birds during an acid trip I took on a mild Boston night.To me, the archival space of Magpie Alert is not entirely dissimilar from the mapped structure of a Canadian-based website called Queering the Map. Users pin locations on a Google-sourced global map (like Magpie Alert) then submit queer moments attached to that specific location. The ephemeral nature of some queer acts remind me of the brief swoop of a bird. For a single moment, another creature sees youand only you. The body is self-aware, triumph or danger imminent.In The God of Small Things, Roy writes, Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things they could get used to. In the same way I might see a dog on the street and exclaim, dog!, once I developed an interest in birds, it became a habit to acknowledge their presence. Just ask my girlfriend, who has spent enough time with me waxing lyrical about birds to say she now thinks of me when she sees a magpie. And why should we overlook the small things, why not pay attention to the ecosystems around us? The climate is changing, you can hear the droughts and floods in birdsong too.This week, I read online that birds can see colours on the ultraviolet spectrum that our trichromat vision cannot. Birds know that they shimmer in many more colours than humans have the language and capacity to name, or to even imagine. Birds and love have that in common. And maybe we could say the same about each other. In each of us shimmers a tiny universe worth trying to see and know.This coming summer will likely be my last chance to look out into our backyard. I will leave the nest, my childhood home, next year. Goodbye to the red-whiskered bulbuls whistling atop our TV antenna. Goodbye to the spotted doves, two lumps on our lawn. Goodbye to the honeyeaters and the figbirds. Goodbye to the magpies and the wrens in our orange tree. Another morning song awaits. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I have always considered my earliest memories of suffering from Crohns Disease to be somewhat strange. Their peculiarity does not arise from the specifics of what happened. In fact, they mostly involve quotidian family interactions that most people would easily forget. What perplexes me about them is how little they actually have to do with the symptoms or physical experience of Crohns itself.One of the memories which resonates with me most is an interaction I had with my father around the age of eleven. I recall that until that point, like many children, I had maintained a respectful sense of caution around him. We would, of course, spend a lot of time together he would keenly follow my sports or answer the tedious questions I asked as he drove me to school. However, our relationship was certainly not one which allowed us to be emotionally uninhibited around each other. One day shortly after my Crohns diagnosis, he came to my room and sat on a chair opposite my bed. There was an unfamiliar tenderness about him, which at the time I couldnt entirely comprehend. After a few lingering moments of silence, he asked me how I was feeling and if there was anything I wanted. We exchanged a few more words, he gave me a hug, and then gently walked out of my room.Eleven years later, while Im visiting my parents on the weekend, I share this memory with my mother, explaining how odd it is that this is my first memory of Crohns. To my surprise, she begins to instantly tear up, looking away as she tells me I wont understand. When your child is suffering like that its worse than anything you could go through. I speak to my father shortly after, asking him what it was like in the early stages when my Crohns symptoms were at their worst. The pain hasnt quite left his voice as he recalls his fear and despair over the horror stories he had read on the internet. My mother later tells me that although he couldnt quite articulate it at the time, it was incredibly emotionally difficult for him.To hear my parents recount that period is a little disorienting. When I was younger, I had very little appreciation for the magnitude of what I was going through. I was certainly in a lot of pain, but as a child, that pain seemed transient. It never caused me to dwell too seriously or attach any sense of meaningful emotional disruption to my condition. For me, being unaware of what Crohns really was or its long-lasting consequences, my illness simply meant a day off school every once in a while. I have no memory of the tense discussions in the consultation rooms as each new treatment seemed to fail. I cant even recollect fragments of the debate over whether parts of my intestine should have been surgically removed. All that lives with me from that period are snippets of family interactions and a sense of frustration over the quality of toys in Sydney Childrens Hospitals waiting area.As I have gotten older however, I have slowly been able to make more sense of my disease. I often see my specialist alone, make many of my own bookings, and take an active role in monitoring my condition. Naturally, the transition into adult treatment has been empowering for me in many different ways. Paradoxically though, the more I begin to understand Crohns disease, the more Im troubled by a persisting sense of uncertainty.My experience of suffering from a chronic illness is undeniably made easier by class privilege. Unlike many people around the world, Im fortunate to have family support as well as access to proximate and affordable healthcare. Unfortunately, though, the fears and anxieties of chronic illness remain enduring. Each small instance of pain or mild sickness brings with it a sense of panic that I may be falling out of remission. Any thought of the future inherently involves a contingency for my symptoms worsening. In stark contrast to my childhood, its incredibly difficult to simply leave Crohns out of my mind.The uncertainty of chronic illness doesnt confine itself to my physical condition either. It means that Im often left yearning for certainty in other aspects of my life. It makes me a little guarded in social interactions, perhaps in the hope that a stoic facade will allow the world to see that I havent let this disease get the best of me. In my personal relationships, I am forced to seek reliability and comfort in ways that many of my peers are not.Ultimately, though, Ive learned to make my peace with the uncertainty. I know that Crohns will be a permanent fixture in my life. But so too will my mother accompanying me to every infusion I have, or my father awkwardly (but nourishingly) checking in on me. I know my closest friends will continue to support me and that my sister will crack a joke when Im feeling down. For now, at least, thats really all the certainty I need. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Before getting into an article that puts racism under a microscope, Id like to acknowledge that the writing and publication of this article took place on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Sovereignty was never ceded, not in 1788 when the First Fleet began its violent conquest of this land, and certainly not now when this University has a building and statue dedicated to the coloniser William Charles Wentworth. This acknowledgement will mean nothing unless we make active efforts of decolonisation in our lives. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.Its really hard to talk critically about racism in communities of colour. In some ways, it feels like a betrayal to suggest that we could be willing participants in our own oppression. However, if there is anything that I have learned since entering the political maelstrom of the University of Sydney (USyd), it is that people of colour are not as immune to perpetuating racism and white supremacy as we may think.I have no shortage of childhood anecdotes that are fraught with innocuous racial prejudice. My parents are Chinese immigrants, and I was born here in Australia. I remember laughing when my white friends would jokingly pull at the corners of their eyes in exaggerated mimicry of my own. Sometimes I would copy them, much to their uproarious laughter. I thought that because they were my friends, they could not be racist or mean any harm by their remarks. I forgave them out of the pure virtue of friendship.My own internalised whiteness became painfully and starkly apparent to me when I was asked for my Chinese name the other day and I came up completely empty-handed. I must have pondered it for hours, reaching desperately for three characters that should be as familiar to me as the lines of my hands. Like most forgotten memories, the more I tried to remember, the more it slipped away. The hatred that I had for my mother tongue as a child leaves a dark mark on everything I do, even now.These stories of shame are just two of many that I keep stored away in the back of my mind. They reveal to me the two common misconceptions or untruths that uphold the popular belief that colour and racism are mutually exclusive.First, that racism is the intentional discrimination based on a hateful prejudice against people of colour. The racism that Ive encountered from childhood through to student politics has rarely been this simplistic. Racism is intrinsic to living in a Western world that places a post-racial blindfold over our eyes and tells us that we have multicultural harmony. Were all familiar with the violent colonial narratives that have resulted in the world we live in. Our biggest mistake is assuming that this history is not still being carried out. Racism on a micro-level comes out in forms of microaggressions and stereotypes that are often deemed too unimportant to call out for what they are. Thus, these incarnations of racism survive.Second, that the term people of colour is inclusive and progressive.Uses of the term people of colour or PoC can render us as homogenous and erase the unique struggles faced by people of all different ethno-cultural backgrounds. This world is fractured immeasurably by race, not simply halved by polar opposites of whiteness and colour. My experience of racism is different to the person next to me. Additionally, this is not a term that was born in this country; it comes from the United States and brings with it a host of different racial politics, histories and traumas. We should be carefully examining our use of this term in Australia in the first place, as we should with all transplanted ideologies.People of colour can and do uphold racist structures. There exists the presumptions that Chinese people are dishonest, that Latinx people are inherently associated with the drug trade, that Brown people are terrorists, that First Nations people are uncivilised. While we often think that these sentiments are reserved for our white oppressors, they absolutely are not.I am the eldest daughter of Chinese immigrants, but I am not proud of the anti-blackness that permeates my mother culture. East Asian beauty standards are notorious for their paleness; my limited cultural understanding of this is that historically, darker skin tones indicate more time spent outdoors doing peasant labour. I have had friends, also of East Asian background, jokingly call me Cambodian for my tanned complexion, a far cry from the snow white complexions that are plastered across the billboards of Guangzhou my parents home city across the sea. So, whether I like it or not, there is a form of racial supremacy that has made my body its playground. Its covert presence manifests in colourism prejudice against darker skin tones and the Trojan Horse of white supremacy in communities of colour. It is disguised as a gift, as a ploy to poison us from within. I have often felt like even my body isnt my own, that I cant lay claim to the Chinese identity if I dont fit comfortably into the form that it has designated for me.When my father speaks, I have often noticed a certain green-eyed possessiveness tinge the air around us. His racial prejudice is not limited to anti-blackness; upon realising a bad driver is East Asian, he changes the tune of his argument: New Chinese immigrants bring all their bad driving habits here and ruin our roads. This is absolutely not something that you would expect coming from the mouth of a Chinese immigrant who has lived in this country for thirty-odd years. I tell him this. His reply is: Im different. Ive been here for 30 years and I have always respected the culture of this country.My fathers xenophobia leads me to wonder why certain immigrants are so spitefully hostile to others. I arrive at this hypothesis: though I come from a low socio-economic background, and my family communicate in a discordant mixture of Cantonese and English, we are a part of an immigrant class that possess a certain upward mobility into a white society. This upward mobility leads to the formation of an immigrant underclass, a group that is both different and worse-off than us. As an Asian-Australian, I find myself as part of a model minority, put on a pedestal by the West in order to keep other inconvenient immigrants in line and subjugated. Our perceived position as good immigrants is used to drive wedges between different communities of colour. Perhaps the reason that this model minority myth has been allowed to survive for so long is because of the untruth that engenders a homogenous people of colour.Lets unpack this idea of a model minority. On first glance, many people have made a broad range of assumptions about me: that I am good at maths, excel in piano or violin, excel academically, and that one day I will be a doctor, lawyer, dentist, or prominent businessperson. As a woman, it is assumed that I am quiet, dutiful, and graceful. It is assumed that we keep our heads down, eyes averted and mouths shut. This is ideal for the prism structure of white supremacy that thrives off silence and uses it to create illusions of multiculturalism and harmony. Our perceived submission and assimilation into society is something that Western powers want to replicate in all minorities.Dont get me wrong, my experience as an Asian-Australian is not easy, especially at this University. Recent waves of Sinophobia on campus have made me feel terrified to live in my own skin. Several incidents come to mind: on the first day of this semester, a Chinese international student was assaulted on the stairs leading up to City Road. On the first day back from the mid-semester break, Asian students faced disgusting sinophobic slurs from a man outside the Wentworth Building. During campaigning for the SRC elections, presidential candidate Josie Jakovac was accused of verbally harassing a Chinese campaigner for speaking in Mandarin to another campaigner and upon realising her mistake, did not apologise for her hurtful presumptions. Despite these atrocious sinophobic incidents that have occurred too close to home and heart, my life has been far easier than many. This is because as a model minority, Asian-Australians have been deemed to contribute to society (through cultural avenues such as popular culture, cuisine, fashion) more than the aforementioned (implicitly non-white) immigrants that are assumed to not work, commit crimes, and bring their war with them.My fathers possessiveness of Australia stems from a deep-seated colonial legacy which places white-tinted lenses over his eyes. Australia, like all other offshoots of European colonialism, has historically painted a grandiose portrait of itself as a golden land of exciting opportunity, multiculturalism and harmony. I am conflicted about the way that racism has rooted itself into the immigrant heart. On the one hand, my father views immigrants of any sort as a threat to this false golden land. On the other, despite his many flaws, my father has also often expressed his sorrow for the struggles of First Nations people in this country. And despite the way that Chinese culture is inextricably intertwined with the hegemonic white traditions of the West, I know that my father loves his motherland, and the centuries of tradition and culture that it is built upon. The internalisation of whiteness comes from a place I can understand; a place yearning to belong.Before I first stepped foot into this University two years ago, the idea of internalised racism and where it comes from had seldom crossed my mind (a testament to my privilege in itself). For all its flaws arguably because of them this University opened my eyes to the intricate machinations of race in political arenas. Being politically active especially during the recent 2019 SRC elections when the student body saw the conservative Liberal-backed brand Boost make a grab for the presidency made me think long and hard about the way that race operates in conservative politics. Im referring, in particular, to conversative political figures such as British Home Secretary Priti Patel. I name and shame her specifically because I was recently sent a video of Patel on Twitter where she promised to end the free movement of people once and for all. In her spiel condemning implicitly non-white migrants, she also ironically criticises the North London metropolitan elite whilst conveniently leaving out the fact that she was born in Islington and is still a part of the racist ruling class that she calls out. Patel also uses the fact that her parents are Ugandan-Indian immigrants to ward off any possible backlash of racist sentiment. She tells us: this daughter of immigrants needs no lectures. Her smug, smiling face fills the screen as she pauses, inviting applause from a very white audience that thrives off the British colonial legacy that has oppressed (and continues to oppress) the people of her motherland. Watching that video made me sick to my stomach.If there is one takeaway from this article, let it be that racism isnt a white thing. Its an everyone thing. I have lost my own name in the name of assimilation. I have lost my mother tongue, I have lost the ability to love of my own culture. We are never going to be able to weed out racism if we cant even confront it within ourselves, starting with the aforementioned untruths of racism. While the colour of our skin gives some of us a unique vantage point from which to examine race, in a grand twist of irony, it can also blind us to our own racial prejudices and internalised whiteness. As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, one who possesses certain privileges of access, safety, and ability, I am responsible for educating myself on the way that race shapes our lives in tandem with gender, class and other lines of intersectionality. To rework the words of the inimitable civil rights activist and writer Audre Lorde: I am not free while any person is unfree, even when their shackles are very different from my own. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ive mastered the speed walk. In fact blisters are developing on the soles of my feet from the spring in my step. My head is whirring; trying to decide what task to do first feels overly complex. Its been a busy shift; Ive lifted, Ive ran, Ive asked a series of overly personal but necessary questions, Ive been screamed at and my pants are only just drying of suspicious looking fluid. On my hurried way to the storeroom I hear Nurse! Nurse! Screeching to a halt I realise that the person calling is not my patient. I dont have time for this but it feels inhumane to walk away.Shes a tiny old woman all alone. Shes trembling in a hospital bed that looks like its swallowing her minuscule frame.The words are childlike but totally justified, Im scared.My indignation that she breached usual protocol, that she yelled instead of pressing her button, quickly fades. Though weve never met she grasps hold of my hand with unexpected trust. She needs someone to listen. As I let her speak her eyes go hazy and gradually her breathing slows as she drifts to sleep. I feel content.Nurses are the clinicians that spend the most time with a patient. We have the opportunity to form connections with people that help them through the most difficult of times. Caring for people through their worst life experiences isnt easy but it feels like a privilege, particularly when you get beneath the surface.Trust and human connection blossom and suddenly working in a place that most people avoid is worth it.Nursing students are valued for their ability to fill the care gaps missing from a registered nurses time. As junior practitioners, we are task limited and energy fuelled, meaning we have the opportunity to share conversations with patients that a registered nurse would have to cut short. These therapeutic relationships are key because they promote trust and consent, in accordance with the need to care for people in very direct and interpersonal ways. Connecting with a nurse helps improve peoples perception of their condition or illness experience.Due to the fast paced and task heavy nature of the hospital environment, senior nurses are often less than pleased when junior nurses take too long caring for emotional patients.This could be for several reasons. Though it is recognised that nurses have the responsibility to provide holistic care, the current hospital system is unable to uphold properly invested patient relationships. Therapeutic relationships depend on time and energy which nurses do not have. Australian health facilities are systematically overloaded with patients. Care is rushed and there is little time to form connections beyond the absolute minimum. In addition, with the lack of mandated nurse patient ratios and the recent increase in nurses responsibilities the job can rapidly become overwhelming. Levels of burnout are high, meaning that care becomes depersonalised and cynical, leading to poorer patient outcomes. Nurses who have been in the job for a longer period simply do not have the energy to provide such care and cant understand why others would want to.Being a patient is hard enough as it is without the feeling of burden that being treated like a problem brings. Substandard nursing care puts the pressure on patients to advocate for their own illness experience as they feel misinterpreted and undervalued. This is exhausting, particularly when afflicted by poor health. For student nurses, observing such care can change the way we think about nursing. We witness first hand the effect nursing interventions have on patients.Student nurse Emily recounts how the behaviour of some nurses towards their patients have made her uncomfortable while also shaping the kind of nurse she wants to be.The biomedical health model, which underpins the Australian healthcare system is partially responsible for this countrys depersonalised nursing care. The models goals; diagnosis and cure, make it a cost and time effective intervention. However when applied to a system with a high patient flow, the model promotes treatment which is focussed on body parts, resulting in a mind body dichotomy for patients. This is particularly apparent when facilities are under resourced and health workers are burnt out. To free space for the next case, patients are reduced to their problem parts and identified only by their bed number. Their harrowing illness experience tends to remain unaddressed as the hospital machine keeps whirring.Therapeutic relationships themselves are not without their challenges. Conversation doesnt always flow in the busy hospital environment, particularly for junior contingents like student nurses.Hospitals cluster a variety of extreme states of emotion. This is confronting for those who lack experience. A patient may experience feelings of guilt for being a burden on their family or biographical disruption if their illness was an unexpected twist in their personal life plan. Coming to terms with such a situation brings about intense emotions which nurses are at the forefront of.Communication escalates quickly, particularly if not properly handled. Due to the level of trust patients place in nurses, queries are almost always of a sensitive nature; Am I going to die? is frequently asked. These statements shock the conscience into fight or flight mode and cannot effectively be answered by the verbal fall back response of student nurses: Ill ask my nurse. You quickly learn to appreciate living a healthy life.Physical violence against nurses is not uncommon and affects student nurses drive; not only to make a difference in their patients lives but to even enter the nursing field.I remember the first time I was hit by a patient, as we rolled him over he struck out at my stomach. It was a quick moment as other nurses restrained him but I went home that night feeling drained, dreading work the next day.Mimi*, an enrolled nurse, suggests that unfortunately aggression is a common part of the job due to the ward environment or the patients diagnosis. She claims that one of the hardest things for a student nurse to do is to develop a thicker skin when faced with such behaviour. A tough attitude is commonly enforced as a prerequisite for nursing perhaps because of the limited infrastructure against this violence.Student nurses initially believe our role in therapeutic relationships is solving all patient problems, but quickly grapple with the fallibilities and limitations of this.When faced with people experiencing the worst life has to offer we wish our super hero status incorporated the use of some magic wand capable of fixing everything.Though it is important to make a difference if possible, sometimes just being there is enough. Mimi found that one of the greatest skills she picked up as a student nurse was the use and control of silence, a common tool for the junior or student nurse.Though difficult to accomplish in a busy ward environment, it allows the patient to know that someone is there for them, whether they are going through something too difficult to verbalise or need someone to vent to. Mimi remembers one special moment when she held a patients hand as she died. Though not saying anything, it, gave the woman peace of mind as it let her know someone was there to help her let go. Providing this support made her realise that no one should die alone.Time is a necessary ingredient for therapeutic relationships and holistic care. Yet when nurses are forced to balance an incredibly intense workload, their ability to do to look after all of their patient needs is limited. For now, student nurses are often relied on to fill holes in care relationships.Still new and filled with drive and passion, we enjoy the opportunity to connect with each element of the health care world. This energy surely cannot remain for the rest of our nursing careers. Perhaps soon, hospitals will ensure patients and nurses alike are given the attention they deserve. For now, I can only hope. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The rats of the sky. Useless vectors of disease. That dieting friend that guiltily stares at you for hours while you eat your sandwich, desperate for a morsel. Fee-skippers unknowingly waddling onto City Circle trains maskless. We sneer as their grey bodies glide gracefully over us. Pigeon persecution is societally encouraged as we aggressively shoo them away. If dog is mans best friend, then the pigeon is his sworn enemy. But this is a complete dismissal of this birds loyal service to man for many millennia.Pigeons are far from bird-brained. From identifying cancers in imaging, to categorising childrens artworks as good or bad with a simple peck, to possessing the capacity to comprehend space and time itself, it is evident that they are the Stephen Hawkings of the bird family. Pigeon slander of alleged unintelligence can only stem from ignorance or insecurity. Studies suggest they may even be superior to us; that they are faster at multitasking thanks to the density of nerve cells in their avian brain. Most famously, pigeons possess a paranormal homing ability attributed to strong magnetoreception skills.Better the bird you knowThe first depiction of the domesticated pigeon is carved lovingly into Mesopotamian stone, displaying their loyal homing skills and iconic nature. A timeless friend to Pharaohs, pigeon images have been found on numerous Egyptian tombs and may even have travelled with dynastic leaders into the afterlife, their bones scattered on tomb floors. The pigeon served an important role in many religions, their sacrifice to various Gods demonstrative of their beatitude. Pigeons flock around temples and mosques in a hungry throng, and are fed readily due to the strong historical associations with pigeons in Islam and Hinduism. 1st century Roman philosopher Caius noted that many people have quite a mania for pigeons; this ancient fanaticism was not restricted to zealots in one country. As far as the pigeon flies, people were intrigued by this modest birds many talents and pious grace.A pigeon a day keeps the plague awayIt appears that I have humbly stumbled upon the cure for COVID-19, recalling the (dubiously) successful methods employed in the Tudor era to steer clear of the bubonic plague. When aristocrats fell ill, doctors artfully strapped a pigeon to each foot, such as those belonging to none other than Queen Catherine. It was believed that the disease would pass via transference to the pigeon, thus curing the patient. Irrespective of its success rate, it is important to recognise the bravery of such loyal pigeons who sacrificed their lives.Send in the culver-yIt is widely known that pigeons were used to relay messages during the World Wars, often surviving targeted shootings and transmitting significant updates to the frontlines. Pigeons saved lives, often communicating the exact location of sinking ships at the lightning speed of 125 kilometres per hour. Carrier pigeon service can be quicker than the internet, evident in 2009 when a single pigeon Winston delivered a USB stick twice faster than the same amount of data streamed from the internet provider Telkon in South Africa. They actively served in the Indian Police Pigeon Service until the 1970s, crucially communicating messages during adverse weather conditions. For their efforts, veteran pigeons in the limelight have been rewarded with medals for valour. Major General Fowler, Chief of Communications in the British army, claimed, It is the pigeon on which we must and do depend when every other method fails I am glad to say they have never failed us. Notably, in 1918, one pigeon solely saved 200 U.S. troops by delivering a note containing the location of the Lost Battalion in the Argonna Forest, despite being shot and wounded. Pigeons were also employed to spread news of victory and defeat in other wars, seen in the aftermath of the Normans successful battle against the Saracens in the eleventh century where King Roger fastened parchment dipped in the blood of the defeated to his legion of homing pigeons, disseminating the news with dramatic flair.Stool pigeonsMost intriguingly, pigeons have been historically accused of undercover investigations due to their plain outward nature. The use of pigeons for aerial photographic purposes was developed in depth by German apothecary Julius Neubronner, but later abandoned until the CIA invested in a battery-powered camera for pigeon espionage purposes; the details of its use are currently classified, but it is enough to make you suspicious of any flying creature. In 2015, an Urdu-stamped pigeon found in India was indicted as a spy, the Indian government claiming it infiltrated borders to covertly spy on the contested region of Kashmir. A year later, 150 more alleged criminals were seized at the border one of whom carried an abusive note directed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The feather forecastForget canaries in a coal mine, in early 2020, ten pigeons served the niche role of air-quality surveyors! A London company fitted fashionable backpacks with air monitors on their trusty backs and sent them to measure levels of pollution in different regions. As they tweeted around the city, findings were also literally published on twitter, alerting citizens to conditions thanks to the feathered meteorologists.Pigeon pocket-rocketsDespite our under-appreciation of these speckled doves in Australia, pigeon-keeping is an honourable pastime in Turkey, China, and the Netherlands. Fanatics label themselves as pigeon collectors, racers, or even fanciers, where they artificially select certain traits such as a large pout, frilly coat or fan-like feathers. Pigeon enthusiast 2Tone from Brooklyn trains his league of pigeons in aerial acrobatics to compete against a fleet of 300 flying at the other end of the borough. He allows them to fly and see if they return, And if they do, he says in a documentary, then you know theyll never break your heart.No pigeon left behindSome sub-species of pigeons, known as rollers and tumblers, have the genetic inclination to curl into a ball and somersault rather than reach the aerial heights of their fellow peers. Such pigeons are used, without incurring any pain to them, in sports where they are rolled like lawn bowls there is even a World Cup for this niche. Spectators often note that these gymnastic aficionados appear to enjoy somersaulting, frequently arching their back and clapping their wings before performing their impressive tricks. Scientists have not currently determined the cause of this behaviour, but suggest it may be linked to differences in neurophysiology, creating their proclivity to roll their heads backwards rather than fly upwards.Costs a wing and a footIn prominent pigeon markets, birds are sold for upwards of $100, and are adorned with silver on feather and foot. In Beijing, the racing pigeon capital of China, feathered athletes have been sold for up to $1.4m. A far cry from pigeon hatred, enthusiastic Turkish auctioneer Mam Dildas proudly proclaims, This is a passion, a hobby you cannot quit. Ive been known to sell the fridge and my wifes gold bracelets to pay for pigeons. While auctioneers intensely pigeon-trade at night, they let their pigeons stretch their wings calmly at sunset; pigeon-keeping allegedly instils a sense of deep peace.The values of the pigeon are limitless, if only more humans coo-d see it. For thousands of years they have gracefully served and supported us, only to be denigrated and scorned at our feet. Justice must be served for this loyal, loving creature. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We are all prey to the astonishing illusion of the Hollywood celebrity. The supposition that our favourite filmic faces have always been the dashing stars that greet us through the screen like old friends. Brad Pitt is no exception to this rule. When a fresh-faced Pitt and his rippling abs graced our screens in the iconic Thelma and Louise, a star was born. Little did we know that three years prior, a youthful Pitt was muffling in a black, leather gimp suit, and pummelled by a dolphin, starring in the Yugoslavian drama The Dark Side of the Sun.Like fans following the transition from Clark Kent to Superman, Dan Dixon and Joseph Earp have committed themselves to a chronological assessment of the Brad Pitt catalogue in The Brad Pittcast. With each episode dedicated to unpacking a film featuring Pitt, the podcast provides a unique insight into the genesis story of the star that we all know and love, facilitated by a deep dive into the films that we remember, have never seen, or maybe even choose to forget.In conversation with Honi, Dan and Joseph spoke of the immediate familiarity of Brad Pitt, but simultaneously held that when they started to look at the trajectory of his career, other narratives started to emerge. Hes probably one of the only male stars that still fits the traditional mould, said Dan, evoking references to traditional Hollywood stardom; the good looking, slick but not quite mass-produced likes of Jimmy Stewart. Joseph continued, Pitt encapsulates what its like to be a massive Hollywood star in a world that makes Marvel films. In these observations, Dan and Joseph hint at a tension that Pitt seems to grapple with throughout his professional life, as he portrays the classic leading man archetype, whilst also maintaining his reputation as an extraordinarily interesting character actor.But for those that are still unconvinced by the charm of the golden-haired heart-throb, what sits at the core of The Brad Pittcast, and was the primary reason for its creation, is a deep and considered appreciation for film held by both hosts. This is not to say that Dan and Joseph enjoy the same films, in fact, the pair have quite polarising tastes, often reinforced by Josephs enthusiastic discussion of exploitation and horror cinema, rivalled by Dans opposition to expressions of cruelty. But such divergent attitudes make for vivacious conversation, with added colour coming from the reading of Letterboxd reviews, randomly selected to present weird and wonderful opinions about films from people across the globe. The listening process guides you through discoveries of hidden gems, such as Cutting Class, a 1989 high school whodunit, and shines a light on old classics like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, reminding audiences of their brilliance. Additionally, Josephs encyclopaedic knowledge of films from all genres means that whether you are listening to an episode on the childrens animation, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, or the much acclaimed, Fight Club, you will leave the podcast with a list of dozens of non-Pitt films, common and obscure, to add to your watchlist.In an ironic departure from the podcasts title, many of the films for which Brad Pitt is credited possess noticeably brief Pitt performances. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is Charlie Kaufmans Being John Malkovich, wherein Pitt portrays himself in a cameo for all of one second. In view of the podcasts subject, its only natural to wonder how this film could produce an episode that goes for a whopping hour and forty-two minutes. But it is in episodes like this one where listeners are reminded that The Brad Pittcast is more than just an investigation of the man that is Brad Pitt, it simultaneously acts as a survey of the rapidly changing American film industry, revealing the peaks and troughs of a culture that has irrevocably transformed the world that we live in.Dan, an English academic who is particularly attentive to contemporary American writing in his professional life, noted that Films allow us to dig deeper into a mythic American culture that we never try to make relevant, but is somehow still always relevant. This line can be read as a distillation of the podcasts purpose, an act of slow looking that forces audiences to pay attention to what is on the screen and see how that translates to the world beyond. Joseph, who spends much of his professional life engaging with complex works of philosophy, aligned this notion with German director Werner Herzogs practice of watching WrestleMania, as in the words of Herzog himself, the poet must not avert his eyes from whats going on in the world. In order to understand whats going on, you have to face it. The American film industry is in many ways a damning, predatory, industrial complex, that perpetuates often irritating and unhealthy discourse. But the longer you spend looking at the media produced by the industry, the more likely you are to find gems. More importantly, the more likely you are to truly find Brad Pitt.The concept of finding Brad Pitt may seem bizarre when his is a name that is routinely splashed across star-studded credit lists, and his face is almost as famous as Hollywood itself. Such a thought leaves me pondering the curious visual of Brad Pitt at the 2020 Oscars Luncheon, wherein he equipped himself with a name tag, as though no one would know who he was already. But for two men that have spent the past year and a half intensely watching masses of Brad Pitt content, and spending just as much time discussing the subject, their prevailing finding is that Brad Pitt is not who you think it is.We see the artificial Hollywood star in Troy, the playful yet considered apparition of death in Meet Joe Black, the witty Nazi-killer in Inglourious Basterds, and the man with the name tag at the Oscars Luncheon. But do we really know the man behind the label? You should listen to the podcast to find out for yourself.Dont know where to start your Pittcast journey? How about you have a listen to one of these episodes to get you started?For those that want to start at the beginning of the Pitt timeline.Episode 2 Dark Side of the Sun: Revel in the absurdity of the world where Pitt got his start a world of leather gimp suits, motorcycles and dolphin encounters that add nothing to the plot. Join Dan and Joseph as they attempt to unravel the inaudible dialogue of a masked Pitt, and grapple with the themes of fragility and the outsider that weave themselves into the fabric of the film.For those that havent watched any of the films, but still love Brad Pitt.Episode 18 Brad Pitts Fits: The paparazzi, whether we like it or not, play such a vital role in shaping the way that we view our favourite celebrities. In this episode, Dan and Joseph scroll through the tabloids of yesteryear to assess the outfits and accessories that have come to define the Brad Pitt that we know and love. A fun, mini episode that explores the comfort that we get from our sense of familiarity, imagined or real, with people that mean a lot to us.For the fan that has only come across Brad Pitt this decade.Episode 1 Ad Astra: A thoroughly modern Brad! Take a sneak peek at what is to come in the first episode ever produced by The Brad Pittcast crew. A great start for followers of the 2020 awards season run, lovers of space, and fans of a contemplative, aged Pitt, often staring in silence.For a discussion about a genuinely good film that you should definitely watch.Episode 42: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: You know whats going to happen its literally in the title. Nonetheless, this film is an irrevocable masterpiece! In addition to a chat about a marvellous work of cinema, The Brad Pittcast takes an empathetic turn, discussing high stakes, life-changing decisions, and saying farewell to a dear member of The Brad Pittcast family.For the children at heart and cartoon fans.Episode 35 Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas: Featuring the vibrant Xavier Rubetzki Noonan, this episode is a trip down memory lane for those of us that grew up with the fever dream that was DreamWorks 2D animation. Find out whether a man whose career has been built around the physicality of his performances can pull off a role that rides exclusively on his voice.For those that love a classic.Episode 26 Fight Club: A considerable amount of ink has been spilled and audio recorded about the David Fincher sensation, Fight Club. But Dan and Joseph bring something new to the mix, discussing, among other subjects, the alternate universe in which Robert Pattinson portrays Tyler Durden. Relish in the unadulterated hotness of Brad Pitt and question whether or not this film is truly cinematic gold.And if youre still stuck mulling over what to listen to, just listen to all of the episodes. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A certain unflinching determination is required to make a film that has its outcome in the title. But in many ways, certainty is the very essence of Oliver Hirschbiegels project in Downfall. The film opens on a crumbling Nazi leadership, hurtling towards apocalypse as the thousand-year Reich is crushed beneath the treads of Soviet tanks. From an early scene, in which Hitlers birthday is heralded by a thunderstorm of Russian artillery, there is no mistaking the fact that everyone in the infamous Fhrerbunker must flee or perish. In this regard, Downfall is a masterclass in relentless claustrophobia, as the audience cannot help but watch Hitler and his generals draw up pathetic counter-offensives with a gut-wrenching sense of empathy. True hopelessness is a hard feeling to shake, particularly under the shadow of the impending, faceless cataclysm that Hitler and his inner circle faced. Hirschbiegels skills as a director are in full throttle as he creates an environment more reminiscent of a horror film than an historical epic at times. But one inescapable question continues to haunt viewers as they watch the film: why do I feel sorry for the Nazis?Half of the answer to this question is straightforward: competent filmmaking. Downfall isnt a particularly cinematic film, with most of it being shot in the ruddy confines of Hitlers bunker. A lot of the time the cinematography seems to be closer to a found-footage film than anything else, as handheld shots track characters frantically pacing through labyrinthian hallways. Beyond the cinematography, watching Bruno Ganz as Hitler is an absolute treat, as Ganz pours all of his energy into the performance. Downfalls most famous scene, in which Hitler slightly loses his cool, has broken into the Anglosphere in the effective package of short memes with edited subtitles, becoming a popular way for people to react to any kind of current affairs, and causing major headaches for anyone trying to learn German from the film. While this scene seems almost impossible to take seriously given its status as a meme, in the context of the film it is more than natural; it is utterly visceral. Ganz manages to perfectly capture Hitlers passion, egotism, viciousness and lunacy in an eerie way. Watching him is nothing short of delightful and terrifying. So, if Downfalls problems dont come from lazy direction or weak performances, there must be a more sinister source.Downfall flirts with fascism in a way that creeps unnoticed onto the screen. It doesnt come in the form of a huge lie, but it pulls on the fabric of history just enough to open a few tears. Take, for example, Albert Speer, Hitlers architect and armaments minister of Nazi Germany. In Downfall, Speer acts as a rational counterweight to Hitlers increasingly erratic decision making, culminating in an emotional scene in which Speer admits to Hitler that he has not only refused to pursue the mandated scorched-earth policy, but even actively hindered Hitlers directives. This conversation, however, exists only within the pages of Speers post-war memoirs, wherein he carefully constructs the image of the good Nazi for himself, depicting himself as an apolitical architect who was merely swept away with the cyclonic winds of the time.A similar case is that of Wilhelm Mohnke, a general in the Waffen-SS, who, in Downfall, attempts to prevent the fanatical Volkssturm civilian recruits from dying weaponless against the Soviet colossus. Back in reality, however, Mohnke was found guilty of having killed Canadian prisoners of war (POWs) in 1944, and is also accused of having murdered British POWs after the Battle of Dunkirk. You wouldnt know this from the film however, as a YouTube commenter shows when remarking Mohnke was a good leader. His command of the ragtag force of SS, Volkssturm and Hitler Youth is testament to his leadership, resourcefulness and bravery. Another commenter praises Speers pseudo-historical defiance, saying Thank God Speer decided not to fulfil the Nero plans [scorched earth].This kind of thinking that Downfall has inspired in its audience very closely resembles the beliefs of the clean Wehrmacht myth, a false narrative pushed after the war by German generals and NATO powers in order to free German war criminals for military service by denying involvement in war crimes and furthering an apolitical image for figures such as Speer and Mohnke. By romanticising the fanatical defense of Nazism, Downfall makes it eerily easy for its audience to sympathise with fascist murderers, often making no effort whatsoever to remind the audience of these figures crimes.The danger of Downfall lies in this very lie. It distorts perhaps intentionally, perhaps out of laziness the Nazis reputation as unequivocally evil. It cannot be forgotten that the resistance to fascism in Germany didnt come from the military or within the party itself, but from the millions of Jews and anti-fascist dissidents that perished in the flames of Nazism, flames that were fanned and stoked by these supposedly apolitical figures. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With every new technological breakthrough comes innovations ranging from revolutionary to deeply flawed. With the Network of Things concept springing up over the past decade, weve seen the release of both internet-connected devices that have greatly improved our lives, and Smart gadgets that are either questionably useless like Bluetooth water bottles, or dystopically intrusive like Amazons Echo. No-one can deny that one of the most exciting new technologies to emerge recently is that of the blockchain, which de-centralised and community-based foundations have the power to wrench financial and informational control out of the hands of corporations and place them back into the hands of the people. While our understanding of the possible implementations of blockchain technology is still very much in its early infancy, one of the most unjustifiably detrimental and explosively popular applications of crypto techniques is that of crypto-art.The concept is simple: digital art, because it is comprised entirely of data which can be endlessly copied and shared without degradation, has no inherent value. Crypto-art presents a solution to this seemingly unavoidable nature of data: by minting a unique token on a chosen crypto-currencys blockchain that is attached to a unique piece of art, artists can create value for any piece of digital art through artificial scarcity, since there is now a distinction between an original and a copy. Artists can then auction this off on crypto-art sites like Zora, with winners receiving either a symbolic or legal ownership over the auctioned piece of data. However, the widening gulf between the noble goals of crypto-art and its actual practical effects are abundantly clear.First, crypto-art seems to fundamentally misplace the blame on the nature of data itself rather than the disappointing contemporary culture surrounding paying artists for their work. Outside of mere aesthetic similarities, digital works bear no real resemblance to their physical counterparts in either their distribution or their enjoyment. To listen to a song or look at a digital artwork is to already own a copy of it somewhere on your device: this fact has been responsible for a level of informational and artistic freedom and democratisation unlike the world has ever seen. Artists are able to reach audiences wide beyond their physical networking capabilities. As such, the lack of financial compensation for these artistic experiences should not be the fault of the medium itself, but rather the forces that have shaped its toxic culture up to today: streaming services, the over-policing of pirating, the industrys heavy reliance on outdated label deals and publishing houses, and copyright law.Moreover, crypto-art threatens to re-engage a deeply harmful part of the traditional art market that digital art proposed to abandon long ago: the speculative investment element that comes hand-in-hand with scarcity. Though crypto-currencies are decentralised now, its not hard to imagine the possibility that one day the blockchain could be policed by governments or other bodies in order to protect against scams or fraud the ATOs recent actions into identity verification already demonstrate that such a future is likely. If so, digital art will fall into the same pit of inaccessible elitism that the medium so inherently resists. If Mark Cuban is getting in, that should be a clear-enough sign that something is ripe for exploitation.Perhaps most concerningly, however, is the massive environmental impact crypto-art has. Minting unique tokens and auctions on blockchains such as Ethereum have a massive electrical cost, since all servers hosting the blockchain must be constantly refreshed and updated with the relevant transactions and movements. A recent investigation done by Turkish computer scientist Memo Atken revealed that running an auction on Ethereum for ten seconds generated more CO2 than powering a large electronic music studio for two years. And for a largely symbolic act of ownership, such an ecological cost seems absurdly unjustifiable.The fundamental motivation for crypto-arts inception is understandable. The exploitation of datas malleability by companies and labels, like streaming service mega-giant Spotify, has made it almost impossible to survive as an independent artist in 2021. The overwhelmingly capitalistic sponging of surplus value by these corporations desperately calls for an alternative system of remuneration for artists. Crypto-art is a possible solution, but one that is embarrassingly detrimental. One simple look at pay-what-you-want and donation-based models, like Bandcamps massively successful revenue-waiving Fridays promotion, shows us that another world is not only possible, but on the verge of arriving. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In case you havent heard, my old friends Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, better known as The Silver One and The Gold One, have called it quits. The post-mortem tier lists have been drafted; the Wikipedia verbs have been quietly transmuted to past tense. Daft Punk is over, and in shockingly mundane fashion. Their video farewell Epilogue had an undeniably poetic quality, but the fact that it reused both video and music from their older work made it feel much more like a budget AMV than a parting gift from our most serene Digital Frenchmen. No final parting track? No heartfelt goodbye? Is this really it?Call me a tragic, but I cant help but wish that their break-up had the same compulsive mystique as their career. Daft Punk thrived on theatrics. Many artists who shun the spotlight end up reaping the rewards with a kind of Streisand effect (see Frank Ocean or the late MF DOOM). But Daft Punk didnt just reject the media, they rejected the appearance of humanity, adopting instead the likeness of the android. Since 2007, you can count their number of live appearances on one hand, and their career is naturally brimming with apocryphal stories.In 2012, shortly before the commercial release of Random Access Memories, there was just one single copy of the albums master in existence. It needed to get from the studio in New York to the Label headquarters in L.A but owing to the fractional chance that X-Rays from airport security could decay the priceless album, air travel was deemed impossible. Two Columbia Records interns were instead tasked with driving cannonball across the entire country, and told to deliver the precious cargo by hand. Doesnt this story just ooze with screenplay bait, crafted to hype up eager fans?Or, take the torch-passing encounter shared by Australian disco outfit Parcels in 2016. Embarking upon their pilgrimage first to Melbourne, then Berlin, the youthful Parcels came face to face with our heroes one night while performing in a Paris club. As they prepared backstage, whispered rumours from the crowd came through to them: the Robots are coming. As Daft Punk later appeared in the crowd (incognito of course), they judged the group worthy of an invitation to their studio. There they would produce the groups breakout single Overnight, ushering in Parcels career as loyal servants of The Funk.Since I was a kid, these legends of Daft Punk kept me hanging on every scrap of information. To date, the greatest betrayal of my life was believing a fake teaser for a 2017 Alive Tour complete with ersatz coordinates promising an Australian leg. Last week Daft Punk announced their split, and it seems that Pitchfork were the only media outlet in the world with the phone number of the duos publicist, Kathryn Frazier. The news could not have been more banal: Kathryn Frazier confirmed the news to Pitchfork but gave no reason for the breakup.With all of that said, if youre struggling to cope with the disappointment, allow me to recommend a treatment: forget their fiction and just enjoy the music. Take a walk in the City and inhabit the world of Homework. Relive the sublime heights of Discovery over drinks with friends. Or lie back with headphones and subject yourself fully to the technical mastery of the peerless, the flawless, and the ruthlessly funky Random Access Memories. After these three albums and all the rest of their discography, its hard to wish for much more. Their personas may have retired with more of a whimper than a bang, but their music will speak for itself again, and again, and again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Whether it be a credit to my Capricorn stellium or a well-developed sense of critical observation, my recent social media consumption has been overwhelmed by heated scepticism and baseless insults towards the online astrology community. An increasingly large group of sceptics have coined and weaponised the term space racism against astrologers. While the phrase has garnered significant attention, a justification for its emergence and use is lacking. What kind of treatment had this coterie of critics endured for such a polarising, politically weighted term to have emerged? And why has it so easily slipped into the vernacular of spiritual cynics without critique? To quell these concerns, I conducted interviews with various peers, who identified anywhere on a scale of militant opposer to avid practicer of astrology. In these interviews, we discussed the nature of space racism and the anger propagated throughout online mediums and social platforms against this community.But what is astrology, and why is its practice attracting so much contention? An assortment of answers paints a distorted image, defining the practice as a hobby or a religion, even an ideological system. Officially, the western zodiac popularised across social media is recognised as a spiritual practise. Neither a mindless activity to fill space and time between more productive efforts nor a formal institution,it is a way of interpreting ones place in the world and connecting to a higher form of self. In this regard, astrology respects a natural balance of good and bad energies, appreciating the complex layers of strengths and shortcomings which constitute each individual. Hence, with no inherent biases for one sign over the other, but all exhibiting an organic combination of positive and negative energy, astrology is fundamentally unable to propagate celestial absolutes or cosmic (zodiac) stereotypes.Unawareness of the true nature of astrology means that many people view the practice solely in light of its recent commodification, characterising it as a cultish crutch for broken, lost, or sad individuals who need a sense of direction to give their lives purpose. The fervent scepticism towards astrology is part of a larger history of hypercriticism against areas of interest marketed towards and primarily occupied by a female or queer demographic. Reflecting a growing anger at perceived unfair prejudice of character, based on something no one can control; a birth date.So, where does space racism fit in this discussion? Celia Connolly speculates, it could be a term calling out the white spheres of the discourse. Space racism invites avid astrologers and sceptics alike to participate in a conversation to become more aware of the cultural and spiritual astrological differences of eastern and western zodiac systems. Broadly, the proliferation of commercial astrology has seen astrology adulterated into a commodity for mass consumption. Furthermore, the phrase might have been productive if it expanded discourses to the dismissal of PoC astrologers by their white counterparts, a commentary on the colonisation of spiritual identity. However, the term space racism proved overwhelmingly disappoint[ing] in its intended context. It is deployed as a vehicle of unsolicited, unwarranted criticism that minimises the experiences of people of colour and endorses a neoliberal worldview where discrimination is individual bad actors rather than a broad systemic issue.After talking with my interviewees about the terminology of space racism, they were justifiably confused; Bella Henderson encapsulated these concerns by saying, I feel like Im missing something. I dont understand where the connection to racism is. And ultimately, thats because there isnt one. Connolly argues that the term reduces discrimination to bad actors bullying or degrading people for natural traits they perceive as undesirable. This disproportionately male group of opposers expound, space racism in fact acts as a defence mechanism against fears that women will reject their romantic proposals or offers of friendship based on their sun sign. To be clear, this avoidance has not been physically actualised, only threatened, nor have potential romantic partners perpetuated actions of hostility, but instead expressed an underlying connotation of disgust. There is no connection between constellations and racism. There is no cosmic institution perpetuating racist structures and norms, enabling racial discrimination. In a nutshell, the term space racism encompasses a personal dissatisfaction with the stereotypes surrounding a star sign and a rejection of a projection of these qualities onto an individual. Sceptics justify its use as a rebellious cry from beneath the weight of systematic astronomic oppression. Inarguably, this term is inappropriate and offensive. It trivialises the realities of racial discrimination experiences and turns them into a satirised metaphor, with which the (mostly female and LGBTQ+ populated) astrology community is shamed out of rejecting romantic pursuits or offers of friendship. While birth dates cannot be changed, it is not akin to experiences of racism. Connolly articulates that racism is far more institutionalisedculturally entrenched and [the] caus[e of] great human suffering, while astrology fails to execute any discriminatory behaviour institutionally and perpetuates negligible social harm.Contrary to common misconceptions, astrology allows us to map out the intricate experiences and characteristics that make us human. It provides a vessel for us to understand ourselves and each other better. Astrology does not subscribe to absolutism; like many spiritual practises, it focuses on a balance of advantages and weaknesses. This balance of flaws and strengths is exhibited through the drawing and interpretation of birth charts. Human beings are layered and complex; subjecting their entire identity to a single zodiac sign would be inaccurate and superficial. Instead, a whole chart is constructed to understand where the constellations lay in the planetary system and the corresponding houses, impacting a persons possible life experiences or character. They depict celestial imagery of ones life.At the end of the day, the sentiment of zodiac sign preference is unfounded among most dedicated astrologers. Still, sign preference can be easily equated to male dating preferences, which are similarly satirised by groups of women subjected to them. Henderson confirms, she wouldnt consider [the nature of sign preference] as different to general dating preference. However, the women subjected to the impossible heights of these normalised dating preferences, have not invented polarising terminology, reducing centuries of social, political and economic activism for racial equality to an inadequate caricature of racial discrimination. Henderson iterates that the etymology of space racism is an assumption [that] is inherently racist.Astrology is not for everyone, and non-participation and disbelief are valid and respectable; however, the aggressively tone-deaf and insensitive critiques of the community are deplorable. The term space racism is belittling and disrespectful to people who suffer racial injustice, rooted in patriarchal entitlement and bigoted ignorance, unfairly criticising an area of interest marketed towards and predominantly occupied by women and queer individuals. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Visiting art galleries and attending openings of local artists is often focused within Sydneys Inner-West and CBD, but with emerging artists all over the map, spaces for Western Sydney creators have been growing.With the shift in demographics to first and second generation migrants, ethnic clusters, and cultural groups, art in Western Sydney often explores the artists culture, family and heritage.PARI is a small art space in Western Sydney, where local artists come together to create art, organise workshops, talks, screenings and shows. I spoke to Fei Gao who has volunteered at a number of galleries, but found a strong connection with the community at PARI. Everyone really puts their work into PARI to make a better space for local artists. he said.Fei is currently completing his Masters in Early Childhood Education, which alongside his childhood memories of an absent father, ignited the idea for an interactive work that uses the Brio Marble Maze with Chinese text reading is dad still not back?My dad and I were pretty distant growing up and he was always absent and busy with work So because my dad wasnt very expressive with his feelings he didnt play with me as much. But now that Im older, weve connected more. My dad and I email each other. Fei said.Fei thinks the difference between emailing, texting and video calling is that the process of creating a message is much more strategic and premeditated. He parallels this in his artwork Is dad still not back?.When you play the game, you place the ball at the beginning of the sentence and roll it around without the ball falling in the hole. I feel like thats how I write emails to him should I delete this, or say something else?, that was pretty much the inspiration.As an only child, Fei kept himself occupied with single player games and toys, like the marble maze.The sentence, Is dad still not back? is me saying to my mum, Where is he?. But its also saying hey dad, I want you in my life, I want to connect with you, I want you to play with me. Its making the effort to love and to connect.Fei grew up in China and moved to Australia when he was 19 to study at UNSW. He didnt expect to learn art theory and history at university. He had been trained to focus on the technical skills of his practice and hadnt yet been exposed to conceptual art making. After coming from Beijing and being rejected by numerous shows, Fei felt humbled. I then attended shows to see the art there, meet people, and make connections, he said.With exposure to more artistic mediums, and art as a form of social commentary, Fei began creating more conceptual works. He sees gaming as an intrinsic part of our generations childhood and subverts the idea that it is an escape from reality, separate from this world.Im trying to take serious issues, like chronic pain and family problems, and put them in a light-hearted gaming style People go to games to escape an issue, but what if the game is a representation of that issue?Moving away from home, Fei had a hard time making connections with people in the arts. He knew one of the directors at PARI and got involved after a working bee call-out for volunteers. I had a lot of fun with the directors there and started to get to know more people. I really liked the vibe and it felt like a space that I belonged in.This work [Is dad still not back?] was basically made in PARI, using their resources, tools and advice from the people there Being in the space you see how things work; how the walls are built, how artworks are installed. You just learn so many skills.Its important to focus on your style of art while also getting inspiration from other artists. I find that its most important to have your own practice. Im really grateful for PARI and the opportunities Ive gotten. Everyone is so welcoming and I wish to contribute more and get involved more in the future.For Fei, having a space where he was able to create, learn and talk about art, was central to connecting with people in the art world; and more importantly, bringing his conceptual works into the world sharing his experiences and connecting with us. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Listening to my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist in May 2018, my hem was snagged on the briar of Connie Converses singular voice and lilting guitar. Compared to the phosphorescent pop that had played prior, the song was diminutive; a melancholic, yet wryly playful sound. Herein laid its inimitable charm. The entire album, How Sad, How Lovely, wanders through lyrical thickets of loneliness, sexual longing, and the desire for simplicity and beauty, doing so through surreal and fantastical images of fishermans wives, playboys, lilies and magic trumpets.I was stumped. Where did she come from? Undeniable are the distinctive references to 1950s Americana, with Converse meticulously combining the stylistic hallmarks of rural blues, country, gospel, folk, pop, jazz, hillbilly, parlor songs, and early jazz, as Howard Fishman contends. Yet simultaneously, the nostalgic, lo-fi production coupled with the albums lyrically and emotionally raw, female-driven sound was reminiscent of mid-2010s indie singer-songwriters Karen O, Angel Olsen and Mitski. The disjunction between these elements drew my assumptions away from the possibility of Converses work being truly vintage.As Go-Betweens singer Robert Forster astutely observes, in the 1950s, women werent writing songs so desperate or pure of feeling, or so flippant and wild. And the albums Spotify release date was only 2009. The sweetly hand-painted album cover struck me as a classic bit of slightly-cringe early-naughts-does-retro branding. Even her name; Connie Converse. How naff, how American, to name yourself (alliteratively no less) after a brand of shoes. Heres the kicker. The whole album was recorded in the early 1950s. Mitski should be reminiscent of Connie Converse, but her enduring obscurity has rendered her timeless; a ghost whom we play dress-up with in the present.Aiding this is Spotifys inherently hauntological structure. Through the platform, dead artists become ghosts, who, in the words of French philosopher Colin Davis; are neither present, nor absent, neither dead nor alive. In Connies case; the ability to follow her, the section for merch and the Artists Pick recommendation create the sense that she controls and curates this cyber-space, yet she also feels removed from it. Hauntology is a term first used by philosopher Jacques Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx (1993). At its core, hauntology captures the sense that time is not experienced as linear. Mark Fisher writes that time has a way of using us to repeat itself, and this can be seen in our collective obsession with nostalgia. TikTok users appropriation of vintage love songs into Gen Z anthems, including the mildly terrifying Tonight You Belong to Me (1956) by Patience and Prudence, and the resurgence of film photography are but two examples of this. Technology plays an integral role in this collapsing of time, as it allows for seemingly infinite possibilities for recycling and repetition.Connie Converse is ghostly indeed. When she moved to New York, after dropping out of her second year of college, to pursue a writing career, she taught herself guitar and began writing and recording songs. The cartoonist Gene Deitch invited her to his music night and recorded her work, and she performed once on CBSs Morning Show, but she never enjoyed the glow of commercial success. A week after her 50th birthday in 1974, she drove away from her home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, never to be seen or heard from again.Her music lay deep in fairy tale slumber until 2009. Squirrel Thing Records released How Sad, How Lovely after one of the producers heard Gene Deitch play an old recording of Converse on a radio show. Converses new EP Sad Lady was released in 2020. If you listen, perhaps shell float out of her grave and perform on Jimmy Fallon, a translucent hand plucking her guitar. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A major survey exhibition by artist Lindy Lee recently showed at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Informed by Zen Buddhist philosophies of Master Dgen, she represents existential mediations of the self and ones place in the universe. Lee explores a sustained motif of celestial reverence in Moon in a Dew Drop, uniting juxtaposing notions of worldly and metaphysical infinity and finiteness. As a Chinese-Australian artist, Lees work is centred on a personal interrogation of self, articulating her sense of cultural identity and personal displacement. However, Lee extends this discourse beyond individual experience and connects her art to a larger understanding of an inextricably intertwined cosmos. As an appreciator of Lees most recent exhibition, I will review her installation pieces and a meditation on the personal journey her work prompts in audience members.Greeted by her piece Seeds of a New Moon, viewers are immediately introduced to the crux of Lees exhibition, featuring an elaborate circular design of polished, flung bronze. Epitomising the rich symbolism of Lees work, the materials of this piece demand critical appreciation and reveal the direct influence of Dao and Zen Buddhist ideas, encouraging an intuitive and deeply personal recognition of the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. In previous interviews with representatives of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lee explains that her propinquity to bronze is entirely militant, associating her protective gear with the thick armour of a great warrior and the act of flinging bronze itself as mimicking a dangerous battle. Each movement is imbued with purpose and intention, as Zen values dictate, and the finished work reflects every external and internal influence of that moment as it flows through her. A creation unlike any other whose existence is threaded within all other lives Lee the artist, us the audience, the liquid bronze which formed that shape. This art style is repeated in Strange Condensations and Buddhas and Matriarchs, each illuminated in sections by downlights, emphasising the reflective surfaces. Acting as a fragmented mirror, these regal creations provoke a subconscious introspection, almost preparing us for the spiritual journey ahead.Central to Lees exhibition is the large-scale, polished bronze sculptures and installations, including Open as the Sky and Exploding Suns. Her use of abstract contours exemplifies the mutability of the dew drop and her use of bronze encompasses the central Buddhist principles of adaptability as the elemental medium is able to move beyond a single artwork style. Effectively, Lee captures the dewdrops organic and constant movement to immortalise it for audiences. The sheer scale of these pieces is intimidatingly engrossing; I found myself drowning in their reflective depths. The sculptures instigate a realisation of an interconnected universe, inspiring audiences to deliberate how many people had viewed this same artwork. My mind was soon occupied by thoughts of others personal experiences and interpretations; how had this piece impacted their lives and manifested in their journey of self? Solidifying an understanding of our limitless universe, Lee highlights the delicate bounds of individuals. I found myself appreciating the essence of Lees work, and by consequence the Buddhist philosophies which informed it. It is the nature of dewdrops to evaporate; no moment can be a recreation of another, everything is alive, constantly changing and flowing freely.The immersive Moonlight Deities installation is a visually stunning and profound inclusion to Lees exhibition. Encapsulating the moon in the dewdrop, sheets of reinforced paper hang from the ceiling, full of variously sized, burnt holes. Carefully illuminated, the room allows these circular patterns to cast intricate shadows on the walls and floor and the moving audiences, leaving no surface uncovered. The piece represents all threads of life intertwining, creating the fabric of the universe, continually changing and shifting as the shadows lift off the walls and onto the skin. The large room allows this symbolism to be literally personified in the multitude of viewers that gaze upon the installation at one time. Under Lees artistic guidance, the piece inspired me to understand how every moment is influenced by surrounding moments in an intricate, living and mercurial astronomic web.The final large-scale piece of Lees exhibition is Listening to the Moon, a suspended sphere of polished stainless steel. It radiates a warm glow from the LED light placed in its centre, projecting through the small holes that litter the entire circular surface. Symbolising the moon, the piece is maybe the smallest of her sculptures, subverting natural metrics of the moon and dewdrops. These separate installations also bring the astronomic to the earthly. Personifying St Zen Buddhist imageries of an infinite and finite universe, Lee draws our attention to the mutuality between corporeality and transcendence. These pieces prompted me to think about spaces of belonging and un-belonging, the subjectivity of my individual life experiences, the communities I felt a part of, and others where I felt my presence left a greater absence.These works evoke a spiritual ecstasy, bringing the vast expanses of our cosmos to the forefront of the conscience, where our place is narrowed, seeming almost inconsequential. We are reminded that each thing is living and significant, entirely unique to a specific moment that can never be recreated, continuously shifting and evolving. Lees exhibition represents an intricate cosmic tapestry within which all things are tied to one another. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the past year, its safe to say that many of our lives stagnated as the world found itself in an endless house arrest. Repeating days of online learning and choking-down unprecedented times for breakfast, a glance to the future elicited nothing but an anxiety-laden fog and a queasy feeling. Many of us, turned inwards on ourselves, falling back into the soundtracks of 2012, revisiting our teen emo phase, and picking up old hobbies like skating. It appeared to be the standard way young people coped; when the present became too much to bear, we turned to our past. If youre anything like myself, you may have also turned to TikTok, the Gen Z dominated app that seems to be everyones new vice.Over the summer, I couldnt help but notice videos tagged #renaissance popping up all over my feed. At first, I was pretty pleased with the fruits of my labour (read: mindless scrolling) because I had finally reached Art History TikTok. Except, there was one small problem. Virtually none of the art used in the hashtag was actually from the Renaissance period. Most of it appeared to be Mannerism or Neo-Classical. The trained eye may immediately pick out the anachronisms of TikToks Renaissance, but it is easy to see how ordinary viewers may think otherwise. To defend Gen Zs historical inaccuracy, Renaissance iconography re-appeared in varying forms long after the period officially ended. Though, how can it be that a trend with a cumulative 764 million views on the app is entirely historically inaccurate? This sticking point got me thinking about what Gen Z does associate with the Renaissance period; I concluded that the ideological connotations matter more than perfect historical accuracy. The trend reveals an entire generations relationship with the Renaissance, how we relate to it, and how we understand it as a cultural beacon.Its easy to suggest that the #Renaissance trend is appealing on social media for the romanticised opulence we associate with the period, but this still begs the question: why are these images still relevant at all? For me, the Renaissance is one of the most prominent symbols of cultural change in western history. Credited with bridging the gap between the modern-day and the Middle Ages, the Renaissance saw rapid innovations in scientific thought, culture, and politics, all of which paved the way for our modernity. The bold new imagery characteristic of the Renaissance bursts with themes of prosperity, individualism, and humanism. The fact that a TikTok trend has associated just the word renaissance with its intellectual and lavish themes is indicative of the gravitas these artworks still hold today. I believe this is the crux of the trends motivation, and the reason for its comeback. In a year of pain, uncertainty, and loss, the Renaissance trend was a much-needed escape for an entire generation.In itself, the gravitation of young people to the romanticised past trend is symptomatic of late-stage capitalism. The ways in which 2020 was ravaged by the knock-on effects of centuries of capitalistic greed were devastating and even more devastatingly predictable. Many young people became essential workers or frontline heroes a thinly veiled way of sugarcoating the choice to work in a pandemic or not be able to pay rent. Further, the isolating format of online learning only exacerbated students monotony and disillusionment everywhere. TikToks return to the Renaissance was a yearning for the past, a resounding outcry for escapism, with needs far surpassing lost high-school hobbies. To create or watch a TikTok that re-imagines the Renaissance is a therapeutic fantasy.So sure, Gen Z got the art wrong, but they got the ideas right. Young people whose lives felt lost by the wayside in the stifling pressure cooker of 2020, turned to a time in history emblematic of creative expression and lifes beauty. Beyond this, its a yearning for a hopeful future, a possibility other than the nine-to-five and more years like 2020 to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A fixture almost as notable as low taxes, climate change denial or doubt has long formed a constitutive ideological role within the political right in Western liberal democracies. Yet, with the last five years being the hottest on record, there inevitably comes a point at which one starts to sweat the contradiction between conservatives claims and a changing climate becomes too great. Accordingly, with the increasing incongruence between their words and the weather, some sections of the far right are embracing the traditionally liberal realm of climate science, and are in turn using it as a framework to push their own reactionary, racist agendas.In September 2017, American Renaissance, a white nationalist magazine, presented a question to their readership: What does it mean for whites if climate change is real? In the ensuing several hundred words, the publication deviated from decades of right wing doctrine in order to propose an ethno-nationalist perspective on global warming. They correctly analysed that changing weather patterns have and would continue to impact poor people of colour in the Global South disproportionately, which would by extension lead to higher rates of migration to the Global North.Indeed, the magazine wrote that the population explosion in the global south combined with climate change and liberal attitudes towards migration are the single greatest threat to Western civilisation, adding that [this is] more serious than Islamic terrorism or Hispanic illegal migration. Defending this position, American Renaissances editor-in-chief and prominent white nationalist Jared Taylor stated, I make no apology for urging white nations to muster the will to guard their borders and maintain white majorities.Similarly, on the eve of the 2017 Unite the Right rally which saw anti-fascist counter-protester Heather Heyer murdered in Charlottesville, Richard Spencer (perhaps Americas most famous white nationalist) wrote that, we have the potential to become natures steward or its destroyer. He continued, putting aside contentious matters like global warming and resource depletion, European countries should invest in national parks, wilderness preserves, and wildlife refuges, as well as productive and sustainable farms and ranches. The natural world and our experience of it is an end in itself.Alt-right Reddit threads concerned with the ethno-nationalist position on climate change generally indicate a simultaneous belief in climate science, and a desire to attempt to mitigate global warmings effects through violent means, with commenters arguing, if you believe in global warming the obvious implications are that global migration must be shut down and that all the quickly growing populations must be quarantined or encouraged to stop having children.Others suggest that only those on the political right truly care about the environment, with comments such as to be fair, the Third Reich was one of the earliest governments to make conservationism a major focus, and another user writing, what really pisses me off is how everyone associated deep ecology with communism and far left ideologies which are deeply rooted in industrialisation. It was Nazi Germany that was environmentally aware not Soviet Russia, with the rabid industrialisation.The eco-fascist movement has certainly grown in influence within far right circles as a result of both growing fears of the climate catastrophe and traditional white nationalist arguments about demographic replacement or white genocide. Yet, fascistic ideals have long been premised on a nostalgic natural world, with far right environmentalism stretching back to Nazi Germany. In their important book on eco-fascism, Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier note that Nazi ecology was linked with traditional agrarian romanticism and hostility to urban civilisation, and that environmental ideas were an essential element of racial rejuvenation.The infamous Nazi slogan blut und boden (blood and soil) coined by the Nazis principle ecological thinker, Richard Walter Darr, and chanted at Charlottesville in 2017, was designed to encapsulate a supposed intrinsic connection between a racially constituted group of people (blood) and the land upon which they live (soil). Nature has also featured prominently in other nationalist movements, perhaps most notably with the white cliffs of Dover in English nationalism. Yet, eco-fascism is not relegated to 20th century history and 21st century Reddit and 8chan threads.Nine minutes prior to the Christchurch shooter entering the Al Noor Mosque and massacring 50 people, he emailed a 74 page manifesto to more than thirty different recipients including to the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardens office. His manifesto outlined his motivations for the attack that was about to unfold, where he referenced white genocide in keeping with the white nationalist position of the great replacement theory. He referred to the Muslim victims of the attack as a large group of invaders and referenced British fascist Oswald Mosley as the figure who most influenced him. Yet perhaps most interestingly, or unusually, the shooter described himself as an eco-fascist, writing there is no nationalism without environmentalism.Five months later, in a copycat massacre in El Paso, Texas, which saw 22 people murdered in the city at the US-Mexico border, the gunmans manifesto was eerily similar to that of the Christchurch killer. He also espoused an eco-fascist ideological view and chillingly titled his four page manifesto An Inconvenient Truth, in an ode to Al Gores seminal 2006 climate change documentary. An entire paragraph of the manifesto is dedicated to ecological degradation and a Malthusian philosophy, as he writes that the decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations. The next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using our resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.There are also indications that far right political parties are beginning to take the climate crisis seriously and are going green. Frances far right National Rally led by Marine Le Pen has promised to make Europe the worlds first ecological civilisation and has harkened back to Nazi language railing against nomadic (see: rootless cosmopolitan) people who do not care about the environment as they have no homeland. Further, National Rally party spokesperson and recently elected member of the European Parliament, Jordan Bardella, proclaimed borders are the environments greatest ally; it is through them that we will save the planet. Bardella has also espoused the great replacement theory.In a further sign that far right political parties are shifting on the issue of climate change, the youth wing of Alternative for Germany (AfD) have urged their party leaders to renounce the difficult to understand statement that mankind does not influence the climate as it is an issue which motivates more people than we thought. Whilst the AFDs vote share grew marginally in this years European elections where they received 10.8 per cent of the vote, its increase paled in comparison to the Green Partys surge to second place where they garnered more than 20 per cent of the vote in a country where climate change was many voters top concern.As the 2020 US election is beginning to heat up, there are even rumours that Donald Trump is attempting to go green, with the majority of Americans in favour of stronger environmental protections. David Banks, who previously advised Trump on environmental matters, told Bloomberg, for the President to win these battleground states, hes going to have to have some record of environmental achievement to showcase.The far rights changing stance on climate change presents a clear challenge for progressives and leftists. Of course it is principally and politically imperative to explicitly reject the most heinous eco-fascist blood and soil sentiments, however, it is just as crucial to not let their arguments seep into genuine environmentalist movements, which have already formed in some sections of the so-called left, with arguments around population control and the supposed threat of mass migration often used.More importantly however, it is incumbent on us to acknowledge that the liberal left has already been ceding ground to the right. For the past two decades, the climate debate has hinged upon climate denialism versus climate science, and the liberal left strategy has been simply to debate the right on their own terms (is anthropogenic climate change real?) and to convince the public of the science. Whilst this is certainly important, particularly given the power that right wing media organisations wield especially in Murdochs Australia it should never have been the sole or even primary strategy. Ultimately, this singular focus on attacking denialism has meant the liberal left has remained on the back-foot, ill-equipped to go toe-to-toe with the political right if and when it proposes harmful policy prescriptions concerning climate change. The majority of progressives and leftists alike have been defined by what theyre against (climate denialism, Adani, the Liberal Party), rather than what theyre for, failing to articulate a broader, cohesive political vision.Denialism seems to be slowly on the way out, and its pertinent to ask whether the alt or far right will be able to influence the narrative. However, a cursory glance at Trumps America should already give us the answer. Right wing populists such as Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon who teeter at the ethno-nationalist fringes of society have already been successful at importing their ideas into the White House. Moreover, as right wing populism and anti-immigration sentiment continues to grow in Europe, it isnt difficult to imagine far right positions on climate change infiltrating climate policy. Where climate change and immigration were once viewed as discrete issues in the political sphere, taken up by the left and right respectively, it seems increasingly likely that more sections of the right will begin using climate change as an effective political tool to advocate for even more punitive immigration measures.Currently, the liberal left is unprepared to deal with such a challenge, and the strategic choice for progressives to focus on climate denial has functionally depoliticised climate change and turned it into an intellectual contest of ideas, rather than a political fight over competing visions of our collective future.Those on the left now have the opportunity to abandon denialism and scepticism as focal points, and instead analyse what the climate realists on the far right are doing. Pertinently, there is a desperate need to advocate a bold, just and transformative agenda. There are certainly interesting developments around what a Green New Deal would look like. Importantly, in grappling with Labor losing the unloseable election and decimating its vote in Queensland, sections of the Australian environment movement have recognised that green jobs must be a central demand in winning over workers and broadening the environmental movement beyond the #StopAdani #Resistance.Ultimately, political leaders in the Global North can denounce El Paso and Christchurch and offer thoughts and prayers. But failing to both dramatically curb global warming and open borders to refugees in the face of migration spurred by climate change will in the end have far deadlier consequences than any 8chan eco-fascist with an assault rifle. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I was twelve, my mum brought a video Id made for a school assignment to work, and showed it to her colleagues during lunch. She was obviously proud of the cinematic masterpiece I had whipped up on Windows Movie Maker during the school holidays, and like any proud parent, wanted to share it with everyone she knew. But instead of gushing praise, her colleagues, most of them white, seemed to only comment on only one thing my accent. Despite having grown up in Sydney and having done all my schooling in English, I apparently spoke with an Asian accent that her workmates decided was from Hong Kong. Dont worry, they reassured her, its only very slight! He still sounds pretty Aussie.Of course I reacted with indignation when my mum told me. Im not sure what angered me the most the fact that she showed my school assignment to her colleagues, or the fact that they proceeded to say that I had an accent, and not just any accent, but an Asian accent. Are you sure you didnt misunderstand them and they actually meant I sounded British? I asked, trying to make sense of the ridiculousness of it all (Hong Kong, after all, was a former British colony, and sounding British would be acceptable a compliment even). Back then, the hyphen that linked my Chinese and Australian identities together was in a volatile state of flux, and finding out that someone Id never met before thought I sounded Asian, and therefore different to the mainstream, shattered some of the confidence I had haphazardly built up in being Australian. At the same time, it didnt make me feel any prouder of being Chinese either. To me, sounding Asian meant sounding like my parents, or worse, sounding like one of those late 2000s Asian Youtubers when they impersonated their parents. Id laugh at these videos before, especially at the crazy accents, but the joke didnt seem so funny anymore now that I was the punchline. Even if I didnt look Australian, I thought I could at least sound the part.Unsurprisingly, I angrily dismissed my mums colleagues as a pack of racists and refused to speak on the topic anymore. In my head, however, I was redoubling efforts to make sure I sounded more Australian in the future, so that no one would ever throw such an accusation at me ever again.But people did. Not frequently, but over the next few years, every now and then Id get comments about my accent. Each time it was raised, Id vehemently shut it down. If they pressed any further, I would bring out the R-word, more out of frustration than anything else.And then I noticed it myself. Towards the end of Year 10, I saw a video that was going semi-viral on Facebook of the Indian-Australian comedian Neel Kolhatkar. The premise was quite simple a mock interview comparing the different studying habits of a White girl and an Asian girl (both of whom were played by Kolhatkar.) Whilst I found the content itself very funny, what intrigued me the most were the accents Kolhatkar adopted to act out the two characters. While Kolhatkars white girl sounded like she had stepped right out of the set of Home and Away, the accent he used to play the Asian girl was one I initially thought Id never heard before. It definitely wasnt one of those stereotypical herro Im yerrow accents Id come to expect from online Asian comedians, and was very different to the one he had used for the white girl. Strikingly so. It sounded harsh, almost aggressive, and absolutely different from any mainstream Australian accent I had heard before. Speaking to Kolhatkar many years later, he describes the accent as very fast paced, almost like a variation of the w*g accent, adding that the vowel in no is particularly elongated. After hearing it multiple times, its features become clearer. Clusters of words dramatically slurred together, some syllables cut off abruptly, others extended for unusually long, and the catchphrase Oh my god sounding more like omagoor. And yet, despite these stark differences, it all sounded strangely familiar, as if I had actually heard it in the past. But where? Before long, it hits me.Omagoor. That was my accent.Not only that, it was the accent of pretty much everyone I knew at the overwhelmingly Asian selective school I attended. Suddenly, all those comments about my accent, and my complete denial of them, started to make sense. I had an accent because I existed in a bubble where everyone my age spoke like that. And because everyone around me spoke like that, I lacked any meaningful points of reference, so I had never realised that I spoke any differently to the rest of society.And just like that, I went from thinking that comments about my accent were racist fabrications designed to attack my Australianness, to firmly believing that I, along with many other people like me, speak with a unique accent that is not purely Australian or Asian, but a true mixture and compromise of both.* * *Naturally, I chose to study linguistics at university, and I was lucky enough to conduct my own research project looking into whether an Asian-Australian ethnolect has developed in Sydney. While doing a preliminary literature review for it, it seemed like virtually no Australian had ever done any research into this. Even when I looked to America, a country arguably more abundant in academic literature about race,I could only find marginally more research papers on Asian-Americans, which was surprising given how extensively other American ethnolects had been studied. Thinking about it more, I couldnt help but find the scarcity rather amusing. Not only are Asians underrepresented in Hollywood, I thought to myself, theyre also underrepresented in sociolinguistics research.There is the argument, however, that Asians have not lived in the West long enough, or in large enough communities for them to have developed their own unique ethnolect. Whilst this is true in many instances, the unique social topography of Sydney makes it an ideal location for ethnolect formation. For starters, using the broadest definition of Asian, Sydney is one of the most Asian cities outside of Asia, with almost 30% of the population having Asian heritage according the 2016 census. Even more striking are the demographics of certain suburbs of Sydney, such as Eastwood, Hurstville and Cabramatta, which are majority Asian, suggesting that there is cohesive geographic structure to the community. But while Asian enclaves exist in almost any Western city (though perhaps not to the scale of Sydneys), what is not as common is having so many schools which are overwhelmingly attended by second-generation Asian students like Sydneys selective school system. Disregarding for a moment the intense debate about their social value, the 16 selective schools in Sydney, where the percentage of Asian students generally hovers at 80% but can be high as 97%, have unintentionally provided the perfect environment for the formation of a unique Asian-Australian diaspora culture and ethnolect. Due to the geographic closeness of the community, second-generation Asians who attend their local public high school are also likely to be surrounded by students from similar cultural backgrounds. Consequently, while we often hear stories in the Asian diaspora of people trying to become more white in order to fit in with those around them, this may not be as common in Sydney. And so, in the period of their life where they are most susceptible to change, many if not most young Asian-Australians in Sydney are in an environment where there is little racial pressure to conform to the mainstream because, in their social bubble, they are the mainstream. If they speak differently to the rest of society, its because no one is telling them not to. As such, it would be highly unlikely that a Sydney-wide ethnolect hasnt arisen among Asian-Australian youths, my introduction concludes.But an accent only exists if people can actually hear it, and so I decided to conduct a perception study where I compiled a list of 12 short voice clips from YouTube videos of young people from Sydney, six featuring Asian-Australians, and 6 featuring white Australians. All of the voice clips had been made since 2010 and were carefully chosen to exclude any possible markers of ethnic identity in what was being said (which meant even references to studying couldnt be used). Then by means of an online survey, I asked respondents to give each voice recording a score from one to five one being the most white Australian and 5 being the most Asian-Australian.Just as I had hypothesised, the respondents, regardless of background, were able to tell with remarkable accuracy the ethnicity of the speaker just from listening to their voice. In the end, Asian and white voices averaged a score of around 3.7 and 2.2 respectively. Of course, this was not to say that ethnicity can uniformly dictate a speakers speech patterns, and there were instances where respondents couldnt accurately tell the ethnic identity of the speaker. One case featured the voice recording of an Asian-Australian who attended a majority white private school, who most respondents thought sounded white. This is to be expected as other social factors, such as class or degree of identification with ones heritage culture, play an equally important role in shaping the way we speak. More interesting was the case of a clip featuring a white Australian who attended a majority Asian selective school, who many respondents thought sounded very Asian-Australian, leading to an average score markedly higher than the other white speakers. Whilst it could ultimately be statistically insignificant, this seeming subversion of linguistic power dynamics suggests a degree of panethnicity to the hypothesised ethnolect, and that there is enough cultural cohesion and capital in Sydneys second-generation Asian community that they can lead language change as opposed to being mere passive recipients of it. This level of panethnicity can help explain how second-generation South Asians fit into this sociolinguistics puzzle. Wary of how the nebulous nature of Asian can make it meaningless as a demographic label, I limited Asian to East and Southeast Asian for the sake of reducing the variables. However, given that the South Asian community and other Asian groups are in very close proximity to one another in Sydney, living in the same suburbs and going to the same schools (some selective schools in Sydney are majority Asian due to the large population of South Asian background students attending them), it could very well be that they are also leading a unified linguistic change together with their East and Southeast Asian peers. Kolhatkar, who first observed the accent in his classmates at the selective school he attended, believes the different Asian groups share many features in their speech patterns, but notes that there is a vague difference he puts down to South Asians speaking with less of a twang.Of course, the study above was still limited by the constraints of it being an undergraduate research project (glaring methodological problems and all), and it didnt conclusively prove the existence of an Asian-Australian ethnolect, but rather pointed to the possibility of it existing. Just as its difficult to tell what individual paints form a colour after theyve been mixed, its equally hard to disengage the various social factors that ultimately go into an accent, so perceived variations can ultimately relate to something else entirely. And even if it existed, the actual features of the ethnolect still eluded me. From my own intuition, I could point out a couple of phonetic details, but none of these could be said to be cohesive changes, or uniquely Asian either. I also couldnt find any widespread use of slang by Asian-Australians. After much research, the only words that I found that could truly be said to be Asian-Australian were LG (an acronym for little girl which denotes a member of a subculture revolving around raves), and caps (if an Asian-Australian tells you they took a lot of caps in Year 7, they probably dont mean the drug but rather Japanese sticker photos which, for a while, you could only take at Capitol Square hence the name.)But while I struggled to find any unique features, some professional linguists are currently working on doing just that. There is currently a government funded research project being conducted by the Australian National University called Sydney Speaks, which is seeking to document and explore Australian English, as spoken in Australias largest and most ethnically and linguistically diverse city. The project is led by Dr Catherine Travis, an Australian linguist who previously spent 10 years at the University of New Mexico studying Spanish-English bilingualism in the US. Talking to me over Skype, she tells me with an obvious, effervescent passion about the increasing attention that ethnolects are receiving from the academic community a result of more and more people finding themselves in diverse urban centres across the globe.London, Berlin, Toronto people have talked a lot about ethnic groups drawing on their ethnic background to mark their identity.What inspired her to undertake the project in Sydney was a pioneering study from the 1970s by linguist Barbara Horvath, which looked into Australian English as spoken by Anglos, Italians and Greeks in Sydney.I just thought how wonderful it would be to replicate that study and see what has happened now forty years on, she says, adding that the new study now includes Chinese-Australians in their twenties as a way to take into account what society looks like today. While Mandarin is currently the largest language other than English spoken in Australia, Sydney Speaks currently focuses their research on Cantonese-heritage Chinese-Australians, as they have been in Australia for longer as a community. However, Travis adds that they will be looking into Mandarin-heritage Chinese-Australians as a future step.While they are looking at everything, of particular interest to Travis and her team are the way Chinese-Australians produce vowels. Through analysing spontaneous speech gathered from specially recorded interviews, they have found that Chinese-Australians do produce vowels of a different shape to their Anglo counterparts. However, these differences seem less to do with their Chinese ethnicity and more to do with their social standing in Australia, and Chinese-Australians produce vowels associated with the Australian middle class even more so than Anglo-Australians.One way to interpret this that, rather than marking their ethnicity, they are marking their Australianness in their realisations of vowels. Travis says, noting that this seems to contradict much of the literature on ethnolects, and indeed, my own intuition on the subject. However, she explains that this seeming lack of ethnolectal formation is more complicated than it first seems. In the initial stages of the project, Travis was able to get in contact with Barbara Horvath and discovered she still had cassette tapes of the recordings she did in the 1970s stored in her garage, all in fantastic condition. Tapping into this treasure trove of sociolinguistic information, Sydney Speaks has been able contextualise their findings with broader shifts in Australian English something most studies cannot do. Viewed simply at a single point in time, it does appear that Chinese-Australians are producing ethnically distinct vowels, but when they are compared not only with their Anglo contemporaries, but also with Anglo-Australians from forty years ago, Travis found that Chinese-Australians seemed to be at the forefront of wider changes happening in Australia. I see this almost immediately when she shows me a diagram comparing where in the mouth the three groups produce the diphthong (a sound comprising of two vowels) in speak. In the past forty years, it seems the diphthong has gradually shifted to somewhere more to the front and top of our mouths, with this change being even more pronounced in Chinese-Australians. So when Travis says Chinese-Australians sound more Anglo than the Anglos, thats not necessarily to mean that they sound exactly Anglo, but more that their vowels are the logical next step in an ongoing language change happening across Australia. From one perspective, the way Chinese-Australians sound today could be the way Anglo-Australians sound in another ten years.Travis work is far from complete, and while her team have not observed ethnolectal variation in the vowels, they remain open to the idea that they may find it in prosodic features not in the sounds of speech, but in its rhythms.Languages differ in whether they are stress timed or syllable timed. Mandarin and Cantonese are syllable timed while English is stress timed, and some people have proposed that Chinese heritage people might have more syllable timed English.Towards the end of our conversation, Travis notes that as young Chinese-Australians enter the workplace, they may feel a strong pressure to conform to Anglo norms, and so any ethnolectal variation developed before then could be wiped out. Languages, after all, change all the time. Anecdotally, I was told by a friend once that I sounded more white when I talked to white people, and that ever since university began, my accent had drifted away from what it was back in high school. Its both strange and sad to think that the way I and so many of my peers speak could be, like sound itself, something transient doomed to fade with time. What a relief, then, that someone is studying and chronicling it while its still invigorated with youth and confidence.* * *Ive told most people Ive met about this passion project of mine, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. However, there was one particular moment where I questioned the social utility of what I was investigating. A respondent to the survey I made, a white university student, refused to answer any of the questions and instead wrote an impassioned critique in the additional comments section about how he objected to the research because it was problematic, adding that he honestly does not and cannot judge people based on the way they speak. At first I was furious, and dismissed him as coming from a long lineage of white liberals who think its their duty to lecture people of colour on what they should and should not be offended by.However, I couldnt shake off the feeling that he might be right. Indeed, when people of colour in Australia are confronted with racist assaults on their right to be in this country, what they often brandish as a weapon in defence is their accent. How many times have we angrily retorted to people that we speak English as well as they do, that our vowels and our inflections should be enough evidence for our right to call ourselves Australian? More than a sport or a mythic set of values, the thread that binds Australia together is our accent. And by trying to show that perhaps there isnt just one, but several interlocking threads that form our nations linguistic tapestry, maybe I was leaving people like myself open to division and attack. But then I remembered a line from one of the only linguistic papers I found on the second-generation Asian diaspora, which talks about how Asians in Western countries are pigeonholed as either forever foreigners or honorary whites. In this dichotomy, Asians are considered either so exotic to Western society that no amount of integration can change their foreignness, or that they are so successfully aspirational that there is virtually no difference between them and the mainstream white population after a generation. And sometimes it does feel like theres no in between. With the rise of Subtle Asian Traits, the Asian diaspora is currently soul-searching for their own identity, one more meaningful than bubble tea, and more exciting than good grades. With it has come a deepening realisation of the sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious confusion that comes with being an Asian who grew up in a Western country. But if we are to live in our society on our own terms and not that of our Asian families or of our white surroundings, we must forge a cultural identity that is unique to us alone. And perhaps an ethnolect isnt so bad a place to start looking. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content Warning: This article deals with experiencesof incarceration, as well as sexualassault, domestic violence, mental health, violence and substance dependency.She arrives by truck handcuffed, and is walked directly into a gated reception. Its stark and quiet and the space echoes. The walls are white and fluorescent and the air smells like disinfectant and something else that the disinfectant was meant to kill. She is led into a cell and asked to take off her clothing, squat, open her mouth and run her hands through her hair. For the next three weeks she remains in induction while awaiting classification. Sounds of the cement block, a cough, a scream, a fight, are amplified by the hollow spaces. She has been given a garbage bag on entry with track pants, plastic cutlery and a pair of white volleys, the closest size that will fit. Inside and outside her cell it is volatile and violent. A wom*n with which she shares a bunk bashes her head against the cell wall into the early hours of the morning. She has been given one Panadol caplet for the severe drug withdrawal symptoms that plague her system. If theyre not violent the days are mostly empty, moving from one basic space to another the food is carb-filled, wom*n fight over the two TV channels available in the lounge, the yard is cemented and the wom*n walk in circles for sunlight and exercise. * * *Little is publicly known about the devastating effects of incarceration in Australia. By its very nature, prison withholds people from the communities from which they came, preventing them from accessing rehabilitation and preventing the public from any belief that they should have the right to. Currently, the number of prisons in Australia and the number of inmates they hold are steadily rising while the national crime rate continues to fall. Wom*n in Australian prisons make up only 8% of the incarcerated population yet the rates at which the number of new wom*n are imprisoned is rising by 38% annually. Statistically, communities are the safest they have ever been, yet strict bail laws ensure that wom*n fall into the prison system quicker and easier than ever before. Additionally, more women are in prisons for shorter stays often on remand, awaiting sentencing. In New South Wales (NSW), the number of wom*n in prisons is the highest of any other state with a total of 996 wom*n incarcerated in 2018 in NSW alone. One day in prison is enough to ruin a wom*ns life, and, with the destruction that these stays cause, the likelihood of a wom*n returning to prison once she has first entered is high. The narrative expressed earlier is Kat Armstrongs experience of incarceration, a wom*n, mentor and advocate, who has moved in and out of prison for ten years. Her story is not unique and her voice, and many voices like hers, are commonly unheard or regularly disregarded. Prisons themselves prevent wom*n like Kat from accessing rehabilitation and the government behind them fails to both allocate funding for the supportive programs needed and structure those support methods effectively. The prison system is devoid of support and oppresses based on gender, class and race. This is why wom*ns experiences must be highlighted. The structure of these institutions inherently disadvantage them and their issues are made invisible, pushed aside and shrouded in a much larger discourse of incarceration. For Indigenous wom*n embroiled in this system, the structure and methods of these environments are particularly devastating. For them, prison environments enhance a broader narrative of cultural dispossession. This is a depiction of stories of Australian wom*n who have been incarcerated. It outlines only some of the injustices often concealed and warped by government and media. It does not encapsulate the experience of imprisoned men, nor do we, as writers, attempt to encompass all the perspectives and issues facing each wom*n who has been incarcerated either this in hindsight would simply be far too big a task.Instead, we observe the commonalities of some of these wom*ns experiences which make clear the inherent flaws in these hidden, ancient and damaging structures. To observe the work of organisations and advocates in this field is to also understand that the labor they are taking on is at odds with the government, which continues to fund the construction of new prisons without the distribution of program or rehabilitation support to go inside them.* * *For wom*n in particular, there are gendered dynamics to the patterns and structures of incarceration that further damage those kept in its confinements. Kat spent her first night trying to stop the wom*n with which she shared her cell from exposing her brains against the wall. Having been in prison before, Kat knew not to ask these officers for assistance. They will just laugh at you, she said. If other women in the prison were to hear you, you would be punished by the wom*n for your weakness. You have to automatically know this whole policy and politics level of what you can and cant do. Theres no book, theres no one telling you what to do and its a very volatile and violent area.The cells in which these wom*n are placed destroy any sense of privacy from fellow prisoners or male prison officers. A lack of access to exercise, daylight, fitted clothing and an abundance of high carbohydrate filled food finds some wom*n unable to recognise their own weight gain. These wom*n have been displaced, wiped of any personal belongings and, unless they have money when they enter a cell, have no access to communication and subsequently to family or to their children. The Arunta phone system is the only connection line allowed for those wealthy enough to afford to be in contact with their family. When you come into induction, youre given a sheet of paper with 6 contact numbers on that list, so in three weeks if that Arunta system is set up and you have money you are able to make a call, said Kat. The effect of this is enormous for wom*n. If you have children in your care and you havent been able to phone them or tell them youre in custody, more often than not they are lost to children and community services. Family members usually do the stressing and the searching themselves to try and find out where those women are. If youre estranged from family, people might not know for six months where you are, said Kat.A lack of communication is just as damaging to the educative rehabilitation of criminalised wom*n as it is to their family ties. Kat Armstrong commenced a law degree while in prison. An application to commence studies for Kat was outstretched and restricted. You are regularly told stop bothering us with these applicationsyoull always be in and out of gaol. Volunteer organisations like Justice Action, a group that fights for the legal, communication and education rights of incarcerated individuals, strive to deliver those studying while incarcerated with the academic resources they require. At the same time, wom*n like Kat have their books thrown into the garbage by prison guards on duty. I was waiting on my law books which academics had organised to be delivered to me and I was wondering why I still hadnt received them yet, said Kat. The only reason Kat found out this was occurring was because a fellow inmate whose job it was to clean and sweep the mail room, found them in the garbage and smuggled them back into Kats cell. This is what were up against, Kat said. Were regularly told that were hopeless if we want to progress.Prison is, for the most part, undramatic and stagnant, damagingly so, with unimaginable bursts of violence and conflict. The first stage of entry, a space in which up to 60 wom*n are held, many on remand, is called induction. Induction is a really volatile, violent area where you have the majority of women withdrawing from drugs, many are experiencing extreme mental health issues and I dont mean just stress. I mean serious mental collapse due to withdrawal symptoms, said Kat.For the twenty-four hours of the day that wom*n remain locked in these buildings they are herded from place to place with little consequence and overwhelmingly repetitive patterns. They are removed from their cells to an open space to eat, sent to a communal TV room where wom*n fight over the two television channels available for several hours. Theyre walked in circles in the yard for exercise, heavily watched and regulated. They are returned to their cells in the early afternoon where they remain until 7:30 when they will repeat the arduous process again. These processes are completely dehumanising, devoid of purpose and energy. They can and do gradually derail personal autonomy.These communal environments wipe wom*n who have been incarcerated from their rights to privacy and safety. They are packed in, trapped in a cyclical environment, devoid of transformation, communication or support which contributes to their dehumanisation. These wom*ns bodily autonomy are almost completely removed in the process of these systems. Being strip searched, especially if youre a victim of sexual assault which I have been, is a really horrible experience, said Kat Armstrong. For those triggered by physical touch or association, the knowledgeable professionals required are simply not provided. Silverwater prison for example holds up to 300 women and up to 60 women in induction at any one time with two psychologists on hand, Kat told us. At this stage, prison environments are volatile and devoid of this kind of specific support.Statistics provided by Justice Action suggest that in 2017, of the wom*n that entered prisons in Australia, 61% suffer from depression and 51% from anxiety, while 70% have witnessed a traumatic event and 71% have been in an abusive relationship. These statistics are almost too overwhelming to personalise they paint a picture of a group of people who, in the early parts of their life, have likely suffered terrible experiences, causing complex trauma. We do not have access to statistics confirming whether these wom*n accessed medical support for their conditions. However it does not seem to be a far cry to suggest in many cases this would be unlikely, making prisons one of, if not the first, sustained contact they have with state support services.From those we spoke to, it seems as though prisons only abate the complex traumas and severe mental health problems wom*n often enter with. KazZinnetti is completing a masters in criminology and criminal justice, and both volunteers as a mentor for, and participates in research projects with the Womens Justice Network (WJN), which provides support and mentorship for wom*n in and upon release from Australian prisons. She has also hadpersonal experience with the criminal justice system. For Kaz, trans and gender-diverse women face structural disadvantages before entering prison, and may not have access to required health care resources. Prisons are generally not the place for those with severe mental health issues.Kaz points out that, considering how high incidences of domestic violence are for wom*n, and the debilitating impact that trauma can have, wom*n are effectively criminalised [by the Australian justice system] through responding to acts of violence perpetrated against them.In a context where prisons are themselves a common source of trauma, there seems to be a particular injustice when those same prisons do not provide adequate mental health support for the wom*n within them.A 2014 paper presented to the NSW Parliament by the Community Justice Coalition and Women in Prison Advocacy Network, indicated that only two out of the seven womens prison facilities in NSW offer sexual assault programs. Run by qualified professionals and independent of prison staff, the wom*n who participated reported high satisfaction with their care. However, these programs were only pilots and therefore of a small scale. They were insufficiently accessible for the number of women in prison who are in need of sexual assault counseling across the State, the paper remarked.The inadequacies of gender-unique health care provision extend far further than mental health services. Kaz considers herself a particular advocate for the rights of LGBTQI prisoners, given her personal connection to the community, and the fact that they receive disproportionately little attention. Kaz tells us that, transgender or gender diverse women may find it incredibly difficult to get access to appropriate transition treatment or specialists.Additionally, even if there was sufficient political good-will, it would still be difficult to fix such problems: Australian prisons record prisoner information using binary gender-classifications and documentation.Prisons continue to subject wom*n to harsh prison conditions. Those wom*n have been criminalised, at least in-part, due to their history of complex trauma, or membership of minority communities. All the while, despite being in the care of the state, they are not given the health-care one would imagine be prioritised in an otherwise rehabilitative justice system.* * *Wom*ns health and wellbeing has been made invisible in society for hundreds of years. The wider narrative of a disassociated community that patriarchally ignores or disregards the welfare of wom*n is made more serious and measurable for women facing intersectional oppression. They are generally deemed the most hysteric, undeserved, worthless and outcasted of all wom*n. As a harsher and more invasive microcosm of this countrys broader cultural narrative, Australian prisons enhance this mentality. A community and government driven strive to lock em up is also an excuse to distance ourselves from a select few that perhaps require the most societal support.Prisons are not making the community safer, as many would believe, because wom*n are not made better by the system. They are released back into the community with the trauma of their experience in prison short or long stacked atop any trauma they may have accumulated throughout their lives. Kat Armstrong tells us, You shouldnt come out of the system more damaged than when you went in. A rise in media representation of wom*n in prison has seen our national broadcaster begin to air programs depicting the lives of the rehabilitated criminalised wom*n. However, the profiles remain hollow, devoid of the truly devastating realities of daily life in prisons and their lingering effects.There is still little understanding of the ironically criminal violence and trauma that grows behind these government funded bars. Theyre not talking to people like me, Kat tells us. Until people get the direct honest insight of what prison does to somebody of how harmful, how negative and how oppressive it is, theyre happy to ignore the idea that people are locked up in this way.Perhaps theres also a level of wilful inadvertance in how the community disassociates itself from those who are incarcerated, branding them as hopeless criminals. Without the support of governments, smaller organisations, often wholly consisting of volunteers and previously incarcerated individuals, are left to resolve the destructive aftermath of the prison system. Surely it should not be their responsibility.* * *While those in prisons suffer quietly, battling for public sympathy, upon leaving, many wom*n find themselves falling further into obscurity.Speaking to Ally Colquitt, who spent time in prison, is a graduate of the Womens Justice Network and now is a member of their advisory panel, we got an idea of the personal difficulties wom*n go through trying to re-enter society.Ally, now 35, grew up around alcoholism in her Coffs Harbour home. Although she drank from 14, she did well in school and aspired to continue studying at university. After dropping out, she found herself working in alcohol-centered jobs, and eventually developed a drug dependency. She was arrested in 2015, at age 31, for drug-related offenses. Though her life until then was not merely defined by drug and alcohol-consumption, Ally says that their influence explains much of why she was inevitably criminalised.Ally now has a community services diploma, and helps shape WJN to be a positive influence in the lives of those they mentor and advise. She hopes to set up an art program for kids with behavioural problems, who might have already had contact with the juvenile prison system. Ally is very open in comparing the details of her situation to many wom*n she was incarcerated with or now works amongst, whether that be her ongoing battle with substance addiction or the trauma associated with contact with the justice system.Despite being criminalised as the result of her dependencies, she received very little rehabilitative support. The Intensive Drug and Alcohol Treatment (IDAT) program that runs in NSW prisons is often only available to those with severe dependency issues, with a history of repeat offenses and drug related crime. When Ally referred herself to the IDAT program in her prison, she was a first time offender, who had never been in rehabilitation and so was deemed ineligible for the program.When Ally was released in 2017, she was still battling substance addiction, and it was only with the support of the WJN that she was able to find a substantial rehabilitation service to help her engage her addiction. It felt like no one wanted to help me, Ally recounts. When youre reaching out for help and getting nothing, it is really hope-destroying.All the advocates we spoke to told a similar story to Allys: parole officers tasked with helping wom*n find stable housing, employment, health services, and education are overwhelmed to the point where they are not able to provide sufficient case-management.Beyond inadequate funding, parole also seems particularly inflexible for the unique constraints of wom*n with children. Kaz explains that some womens parole breaches may be a result of being primary care-givers of children. Inflexible parole requirements can easily force mothers who need to care for their children to risk recidivism, a pertinent case of the criminal justice systems inattentiveness to the gendered expectations of parenthood.This all takes place in a broader process that displaces already vulnerable wom*n from their families and communities, in many cases also aggravating existing complex trauma.In Allys case, her WJN mentor a social work student from the University of New South Wales was allowed by corrective services to form a relationship with her, and then provide both friendship and hands-on support once Ally left prison. Where corrective services is merely able to house women, [rather than] fix their lives, Ally suggests the WJN empowered her, and told her that she was capable. Where national statistics for female recidivism sit around 45%, the wom*n that engaged with the WJN sit at a rate of almost 7%. For Ally, this is because, unlike corrective services, the WJN takes a holistic approach to supporting criminalised wom*n, rather than punishing them for their vulnerabilities.* * *Those in the WJN are by no means the only people that recognise the insufficiencies or internal contradictions of Australias current approach to criminal justice. Amongst those we did speak with, and those we were unable to, there was a mosaic of political organisations. All of them were responding to the same crisis: wom*n left forgotten as they are scorned by the cyclical criminal justice system in Australia.While the WJN and Womens Legal Service assist women affected by criminalisation, other organisations focus on intervention prior to criminalisation taking place. Debbie Kilroy, the founder of Sisters Inside, is currently operating a campaign to stop West Australian (WA) wom*n being prisoned for unpaid fines, operating off the logic that poverty should not be a reason for criminalisation. As of 4 August 2019, the fundraiser stood at $426 677, and she continues to lobby the WA Attorney General John Quigley to reform the laws in question. Heartbreaking but high profile stories of women like Ms Dhu, who died in a WA watch house she was being held in for unpaid fines, have sparked media attention, energising discussions about the need for the abolition of prisons as a tool of law enforcement.There are also organisations which spend their resources lobbying against the broader justice approach being taken, arguing for system reforms that embrace less-punitive and more compassionate approaches to those vulnerable groups currently being criminalised. In addition to prisoner support, Sisters Inside have also hosted conferences for policy discussion around prison abolition, and alternate justice approaches. In November 2018, the 9th international Imagining Abolition Conference brought people to Brisbane to discuss the failure of prison reform; over-imprisonment of First Nations people; systemic racism and sexism; state violence and deaths in custody, amongst many other topics. Such discussions often involve many wom*n who have had experience with the justice system themselves, and aim to stamp out the information deficits that exist in broader society.The picture of these groups cannot properly be encapsulated within the scope of one article. However, commonalities exist between individuals and organisations. These advocates recognise that a great deal of problems exist in the status quo of the Australian criminal justice. Some are more willing to openly make a prison-abolitionist argument. Others respect these arguments, and openly praise the work of abolitionists like Debbie Kilroy, but see there being a trade-off in how they personally can spend their energy, thus choosing to instead intervene in the lives of wom*n suffering in the cycle of criminalisation. Together, however, these groups form a broader movement of people, comprised largely of those with lived experience in the justice system themselves, who work tirelessly and often thanklessly to respond and organise against the structural failings of Australian prisons.Of course, they can be nowhere near as effective without the centralised powers or immense capital of a government. To cease the endless cycle of criminalisation that ravages the lives of indigenous, low SES, trauma-impacted wom*n all across Australia, there would need to be sweeping systematic changes to the options courts use when presented with vulnerable people who have broken laws. Until those changes are won, however, the Australian public must know the harm prisons continue to inflict upon wom*n. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The wind extinguishes the 42 degree, Wollombi morning, leaving silver streaks like a mesh frame. It shrouds me in wispy exo-skeleton. The grass only grows in tufts but the drought-stricken bush glows yellow and green under the acid glare. The endless horizon fizzes blue.Chatter bubbles from within the shed-cum-living space behind me. A bee settles on my pinkie. I allow it to explore the grooves in my hand. The grass feels like curly hair beneath my fingers. Red gums and wattles rustle where the afternoon breeze caresses them.(My insides tingle and my throat begins to fill with pressure.)I know I can move inside and Ill have internet connection. I know I can move inside and talk to my friends.(My cheeks are wet.)I roll another Champion Ruby cigarette. I lean into the earth, splashing beer across myself. The bottle lolls at a precious angle, leaking. I dont care.(The wind whips across my face and scatters my tears like a farmer throwing seeds.)I dont know how long I sit there crying but it must be a while because, by the time Henry and Caleb join me on the grass, the sun is setting already. They have also taken acid. They dont say a word. They have heard snippets.(I float in a pool of tears.)They pass me a cigarette. Someone plays Smoko by The Chats. The kitsch song draws a twisted, masochistic smile on my face.More friends sit down around us. I dont feel ashamed for one moment, despite my puffy eyes. Someone suggests a walk before the world goes dark on us. Maybe its me. Im both there and not there, leading the conversation and following it.We set off so eagerly I dont find time to put on a shirt.When darkness begins to engulf the land, the others are keen to return to the shed.I linger behind them. Hunter Valley hills unfold in the twilight. In the dust and the heat, my mind expands to fill the space around me, bending and rolling into itself. I feel like I am the sole inhabitant of the planet. What if, what if, what if* * *In recent years there has been talk not in hushed voices but in loud, confident shouts of a psychedelic renaissance. In June, a panel on psychedelic research forged a space within the very walls of NSW Parliament for the inaugural Science in the House.Psychedelic drugs (read: medicines) such as LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, have significantly helped people with treatment-resistant disorders including depression, addiction and end-of-life anxiety.Scientists theorise that these medicines have therapeutic effects for psychiatric disorders because they reset or rewire brain networks, allowing the brain to return to a predisease state. When taken in significant enough quantities, they can induce ego dissolution and mystical or transcendent experiences. They also present us with radically new ways to tackle mental health issues.So often we are told that, when we are down, the problem exists within us. Perhaps our suffering is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain and to feel better we need only swallow a pill. Perhaps we need to practice mindfulness to keep our mind centred in the present and non-judgemental. Both are necessary for short-term stabilisation. But they are only band aid solutions.Last year, like one in eight Australians, I was given an antidepressant prescription. Along with the prescription came diagnoses a passport that allowed me to jump over a threshold of acknowledgment into, I anticipated, a new realm of recovery and self-awareness.Antidepressants took me away from the edge of a cliff but then left me stranded in no mans land without adequate supplies. They provided some stability but they also numbed my senses, interfered with my sleep pattern and left my body playing catch up as I adjusted to the medication. For a long time I felt more ghost than human, and I was only on a low dosage. Only after many psychologist sessions, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and several acid trips did I begin to perceive a more familiar landscape.I am not alone in my awareness of the limits of antidepressants. A raft of studies show that antidepressants have almost no more meaningful impact on improving mental health than a placebo except, some argue, in cases of very severe depression. Unlike placebos, antidepressants present numerous worrying side-effects, withdrawal symptoms and vicious dependency cycles.A growing movement of disparate voices are calling for medical practitioners, researchers and policy-makers to focus on the root causes of depression environment and disconnection rather than a chemical imbalance in the brain. Johann Hari and Irving Kirsch, in Lost Connections and The Emperors New Drugs respectively, foreground their own conversion from antidepressant believers to antidepressant heretics, speaking to a profound sense of betrayal among those who have taken antidepressants for many years (Hari) and those who have prescribed them (Irving).Dr Stephen Bright, a psychologist and academic at Edith Cowan University, explained to me on the phone, An antidepressant is like putting training wheels on your bike. Its going to help you learn how to ride the bike but eventually you need to learn how to ride it on your own. You need to make lifestyle changes so you can eventually take the training wheels off, go off the antidepressants and not relapse into anxiety or depression.More sinisterly, popular tools for combating depression antidepressants and mindfulness reinforce the neo-liberal doctrine of self-control, boundless agency and free-market logic because they fail to address the societal causes of personal distress.In his polemical tome McMindfulness, Ronald Purser coins the term mindful capitalists to emphasise that the recent commodification of mindfulness by companies such as Google and Apple has depoliticised the practice and unmoored mindfulness from its ethical and Buddhist origins. Used in this way, mindfulness becomes a tool to make us accepting of power imbalances and resilient within precarious, uncertain economies. This privatisation of depression and anxiety threatens to support the status quo.When antidepressants are effective sometimes this involves changing dosages and medicines multiple times they can make us thriving members of society. However, they can also bulldoze motivation and emotions both positive and negative leaving us flat and potentially more susceptible to accepting business as usual.Im not saying we should toss antidepressant bottles into landfill or abandon mindfulness. Many antidepressant sceptics believe the drugs should be used (in the short-term) alongside therapies that treat the social causes of depression. But are there other options?* * *While the stigma attached to psychedelic drugs is dissipating, Dr Bright suggests academics and health professionals often remain less supportive of psychedelic research and drug law reform than the average Australian. Even people who are really conservative in Australian culture are open to the idea of the medical use of illegal drugs, said Dr Bright. Alan Jones, for example, supports medicinal cannabis. They can see that A: there is a difference [between medical and recreational use] and B: there is a need.Dr Bright and Dr Martin Williams, co-founders of the non-profit organisation Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine (PRISM) have written and publicly spoken about entrenched conservatism and risk-aversion in Australian research communities and universities.According to Dr Bright, Australia is conservative regarding psychedelic research because individual disciplines are so insulated here. The best way to fast track a career in academia in Australia is to jump on board what everyone else in your lab is doing and get on those papers. The most difficult way to work your way up is to do something different, to challenge the paradigm. This is also not very Australian because you become a tall poppy and people want to cut you down. Up until very recently, no senior academics in Australia would stand up in support of these [psychedelic] treatments. Dr Bright laments Australias history as a disinterested follower, rather than a leader, in psychedelic research. Since Australia is so far behind clinicians and patients are becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of movement in the research space. There have been a number of media reports one by Jenny Valentish for the ABC, and another by Jesse Noakes for Meanjin on the underground, psychedelic therapy scene where people are accessing psychedelic therapy in an unregulated environment because theyre sick of waiting for trials to happen in Australia.Besides the obvious risks of tapping into an unregulated drug market, Dr Brights warns, if youre working in an unregulated environment and something goes wrong with the patient, the threshold before you bring in paramedical services is probably going to be a lot higher than it would be in a regulated, sanctioned environment.Similarly to the NSW governments draconian stance on drug use and pill-testing at music festivals, excessive legal and bureaucratic obstacles to psychedelic use and research may harm Australian adults intent on making their own decisions more than it helps them.Government regulation is not the only potential obstacle to the fair distribution and use of psychedelic medicines.The possibility that multinational corporations and profit-driven venture capitalists could co-opt and misuse psychedelic research exacerbates its already precarious position in society. Concerns have arisen surrounding the funding for Compass Pathways, a for-profit corporation that has undertaken psychedelic research, and recently made a patent application for the psilocybin production process. Intellectual property rights have long been a weapon in the arsenal of Big Pharma, attracting criticism from experts such as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Since psychedelic drug treatments centre on consumption within clinical settings with trained professionals, market monopolisation may make an already expensive treatment inaccessible.By framing the micro-dosing of psychedelics in terms of productivity and innovation for tech entrepreneurs, rather than in terms of the therapeutic effects, media coverage meanwhile has cemented the phenomenon as a Parthenon in the Silicon Valley landscape, resplendent in marble. Micro-dosing taking small doses of a drug for cognitive benefits does not slide smoothly into a medicalisation mould but it has received widespread support where it supports the capitalist model.Psychedelic culture has also become synonymous with whiteness and findings suggest white people use psychedelic drugs, like many other drugs, more than any other race. It is hard to discard the images of (predominantly white) Silicon Valley techies micro-dosing, obscene wealth and comfort at faux-hippy festivals such as Burning Man, a war on drugs that has targeted racial minorities and the racialisation of schizophrenia as a black disease from the 1950s. Perhaps this explains why over 80% of participants in research-related, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy are white.Arguably, psychedelic research has been conducted by white people for white people, although the American organisation Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has very recently taken steps to address race within psychedelic debates and fund studies on trauma within minority communities.Dr Bright suggests that the paucity of people of colour in psychedelic research is a direct result of the society within which we all live. When youre accessing research therapy, there is no cost associated with it Youre the guinea pig The reason minority groups have been somewhat excluded thus far is not about cost. Its about how you access a clinical trial. You need to [already] be accessing a well-connected psychiatrist or psychologist who can refer you into it.With the St Vincents [psilocybin] trial in Australia, for example, there is nothing that would lead to minority groups being excluded in any way other than the people theyre seeing prior, who would need to refer them in. These professionals may not be as well connected as others. Better connected professionals are difficult to access in the first place unless you have private health insurance.As the all-pervading force of neoliberalism surreptitiously scouts mental health as a new frontier, research suggests there are empirical barriers to the capitalist exploitation of psychedelics.A recent preliminary study on micro-dosing by staff at Macquarie University, has shown that the actual effects of micro-dosing differ from the expected effects. According to Dr Vince Polito, one of the studys authors, they began the research precisely because the claims that people were making [about micro-dosing in the media] were pretty wild considering the doses that were being reported It seemed like there was at least the potential that some of these effects may be exaggerated or that they could be explained in terms of expectations from people reading the media.Unlike media reports and research on high-dose psychedelics, this study found no significant change in creativity and open-mindedness among the 98 participants over a six week period and a small increase in neuroticism. But micro-dosing did increase feelings of personal well-being, reduce stress, anxiety and depression and improve absorption in activities. The investigation suggests a note of caution due to the capacity of the experience to create unease. The authors assert that regarding its potential as a business tool micro-dosing may not be universally beneficial.Furthermore, the benefit of psychedelic drug treatments and the reason Big Pharma has generally steered clear is that their administration bumps up against our current reality of prescribing antidepressants indefinitely. Research suggests that participants only need one intense spiritual experience to feel continued benefits for months afterwards.In a randomised, placebo-controlled study with patients with life-threatening cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 2016, 80% of participants stated, six months after their psilocybin experience, that the experience increased well-being or life satisfaction moderately or very much. While there is little effective pharmacotherapy for drug dependency, another recent study on psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for tobacco addiction has shown that, one year after taking psilocybin, 10 of 15 participants were abstinent from smoking tobacco. 13 ranked their participation as one of the five most meaningful events in their lives.If psychedelic drug production is indeed a playground for profit-seeking venture capitalists this is highly questionable it will likely be culpable for many broken bones and a scarcity of thrills.Dr Bright understands the scepticism of Compass among psychonauts: The psychedelic experience is one of unity with the cosmos and connection with Mother Nature things that are quite inconsistent with the capitalist model. But Compass recent emergence in psychedelic spaces does not alarm him. Rather, he sees this progression as a reflection of the need to work within the dominant capitalist model. In his eyes, Compass simply offers something different from non-profit organisations like MAPS and PRISM.* * *In many ways, psychedelics offer a promising alternative for treating depression and anxiety. While I am ambivalent about micro-dosing something I have never tried, mind you my own experiences with higher dose psychedelics align with the research. Taking acid while I was on antidepressants and after I stopped taking them helped me to engage my pain in empowering and progressive ways, and to reconnect with friends, nature and a meaningful future.Our current approach to depression, which centres on the neat checklists of psychiatrists, prescription antidepressants and self-help, encourages individual disconnection from the world and, sometimes, from the pain necessary to growth and future happiness.I genuinely believe my trips (and CBT) helped me more than any antidepressant. But this is my story, and my story alone.I told this belief to my psychiatrist when I explained to her why I wasnt taking Zoloft anymore. She shifted into a condescending tone and scribbled down a list of drug counsellors, shooing me out to the door. I dont expect everyone to understand.If this article has raised any personal issues,the following services may be of use to you:Beyond Blue:1300 22 4636Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14USydcounseling and mental health support: +61 2 8627 8433Headspace <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content warning: mental illness, misogyny, domestic violence and abuseAccording to the Australian Medical Association, many Australians will experience a mental illness at some point in their lives, and almost every Australian will see the effects of mental illness manifest in a family member, friend or work colleague. A quick scroll down Facebook pages like USyd Rants reveals a large amount of anonymous posts on depression, anxiety and attention disorders, all at varying severities and within different contexts. As a university student who has been diagnosed with a severe anxiety and panic disorder, these posts are all too familiar and relatable. My first experiences with mental illness are not my own. To be an Arab woman in this country is to know heartbreak, hazn (sadness) and depression like a second language you will never unlearn. It is from the generations of women who have come before me, whose lives have been continuously harmed by patriarchy and whiteness, that I have learnt what survival means. I have learnt that, despite different historical contexts, our experiences will always be similar, bound together by the resilience we have to learn from the pain we are forced to experience.To be an Arab woman is to know that mental wellbeing and illness do not exist in isolation. The two are inextricably linked to traumatic experiences relating to patriarchy and whiteness. These experiences are embedded into the lives of all Arab women who battle between being foreigners in the West and restricted in the East. We battle between finding comfort in a culture that confines them and breaking free from the chains that they dont often know they have. As a result, it is impossible to have even a slight understanding of mental health issues among Arab women unless an intersectional and intergenerational lens is used.1949It is the year after the Nakba. A woman named Inaam is born in August as the summer sun rises to kiss the horizons of a newly independent Lebanon. Just under eight years have passed since its liberation from French colonialism. My grandmother is one of eight children born to a poor family in a tiny coastal village north of Trablos, named Deir Ammar.My grandmother, my Tayta, is a tiny, quiet and poised woman. She is infinitely proud, defiant and the definition of resilient. She has raised seven kids in a foreign country, and had to bury one of them just before she turned 26. My mother is her oldest daughter. She once told me that my Tayta said that she had never felt true happiness in her time living after losing her son Hassan.In the year 1976, my Tayta, my Jedo and their kids came to Australia. My Jedo swears on his life that they came on a vacation to take a break from the war, but 43 years on and he has only ever gone back for six short stays. Tayta says that there is nothing left for her in Lebnan anymore. Her parents have long since passed away and she now struggles to find a feeling of home in the land that she was born in; in the land that she had to bury her first son.I know only a little of the pain my Tayta has had to deal with. In her 43 years here, she has never learnt English. Her limited vocabulary extends to what she learns from my sisters and I. Words like hectic and wow are sometimes incorporated into her conversations with us, but it never extends beyond that. Despite this, she is one of the most intelligent women I know. Born one of ten siblings, seven of whom were girls, my Tayta was also one of the few in her family who did not go to school. A mixture of poverty and patriarchy were the reasonings, with my great grandfather often jokingly boasting that she did not need to go to school. For what? he would say. So she can write letters to all her lovers?Tayta often whispers to me that one of the few pains in her life is that she did not learn how to read or write in English or Arabic. She says this with a heavy weight in her voice its obvious that it is not only her love for learning that inspires this feeling, but also a mixture of terrible experiences.To be an Arab woman is to be socialised to want to marry from the moment you recognise that boys are boys. To be an Arab woman is to think of planning our lives around children who do not even exist before even thinking of our careers, our education or our futures. Children are blessings, and the Arabic word for womb is rahm, with a root meaning of mercy. It is in this mercy and the loss of these blessings that some of my Taytas worst pain has been felt. On her belly are several large scars. The marks are still criss-crossed on her skin from one end of her rib cage to another. Some of the marks are testaments to the children that she has lost. My Mama says that Tayta has had 14 miscarriages and counts seven as somewhat traumatic. It is in these losses that Tayta wishes the most that she knew how to speak English.Of all the losses shes had, from her first son when he was seven years old, to one of her younger sisters, the most chilling is her recollection of her first hospital experiences in Australia. Tayta often jokes about how when she first arrived, she learnt the hard way that concentrated cordial needed to be broken down with water, and that dog food was indeed not food for humans. But it was her descriptions of her experiences at Bankstown Hospital which surprised me. I was only 14 years old when my Tayta told me that she had lost a child that she almost carried to term. She never got to see what he looked like. She vividly remembers trying to mime to the white nurses that she wanted to see her baby only once. That she wanted to hold the baby, skin on skin in her arms, just one time before he was buried. Her requests were misunderstood, refused, confused whatever you want to call it. Not only was she denied her child her mercy she was denied a moment to see her blessing before he joined his oldest brother Hassan in Jannah.Some would argue that there is no literal Arabic translation for the word depression. The Arabic word most adjacent to the word depression translates to sorrow. When she talks about health, my Tayta says that a lot of these mental illnesses are new. That, back in the day, there was no such thing. But there are moments when I see my Tayta force a smile, or a laugh that never quite reaches her eyes and I understand that she has never felt true happiness. It is definitely sorrow, but it is also so much more.1972Born the oldest girl, Mama knows tough skin like no other. Between being a translator for her migrant parents, and helping Tayta raise her baby brothers and sisters, Mama has had the experience of mothering to last a lifetime. Born in Bhanine in a tiny house in the middle of a farming town, my Mama arrived in Sydney with a single word of English on her lips. Her name is Kadije, like Khadija, the Prophets first wife. She once told me that in high school some students nicknamed her cabbage because they couldnt pronounce her name. She laughs it off, says it was normal at the time, but can now acknowledge that those students were probably racist.In the early 1990s my mother was an accomplished fashion designer, working hard to become an assistant at Supr and living the life she dreamt of. She was successful, came from a well respected family and was a hard worker. Men all around flocked at the family home one by one, asking for permission to get to know my mother, all with the end goal of marrying her. She never really gave many men time of day until she went to visit Lebnan.Calling him the handsome boy next door, Mama always reminds me that she shouldve paid more attention to many of the ways my father made her miserable before she even married him. When you are taught that you exist only in relation to men, it is often difficult to not make excuses, to not ignore all the fuckups, to not shrug off everything as a mistake. My Mama often tells me that in her childhood, both boys and girls were raised the same, but I often wonder whether this is completely true. I have seen both my aunty my Khalto and my Mama marry young, abandoning careers and education for children. I know that deep down, no matter how much interpersonal education passes between generations of women, these practices are embedded within culture.My mother doesnt speak much about my father anymore. When my sisters and I were younger, her commentary about him ranged from sadness, to anger, and then to downright despair. My mother is still recovering from the long term trauma inflicted upon her, even over 15 years after their divorce. In the eight years they were married, my mother cannot recollect a single moment where he put a smile on her face.A study undertaken by the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare found that intimate partner violence has one of the most serious impacts on womens health. In 2011 alone, it contributed to more burden of disease (the impact of illness, disability and premature death) than any other risk factor for women aged 25 to 44. Among these, mental health conditions were the largest contributor to the burden due to physical/sexual intimate partner violence, with anxiety disorders making up the greatest proportion (35%), followed by depressive disorders (32%). Dealing with emotional, financial and physical abuse, alongside cheating, I still know that my Mama was one of the lucky ones.Mama has thanked God many times for the fact that she has only given birth to girls. My father was the oldest of his family, and, in a twisted and old cultural practice, wished that every single one of us were boys. For my Mama, this meant more abuse targeted at another element of her life that was out of anyones control. She gave birth with only my Tayta as support.Many times during my childhood, I knew my mother, though extraordinary in many ways, continued to battle demons long after her divorce. Years after she had resigned from fashion designing, she studied social work. Though the profession is rigorously focused on wellbeing and coping, I still see the struggle. I still see the post-traumatic stress with which she is forced to navigate the world. I still see the scars that my father and the patriarchy have left on her.1998I was born the second of three girls to a passionately Lebnani family in the suburb of Bankstown, and I am well aware of the fact that being born in this country affords me the utmost privilege. For that I will be forever grateful. However, despite this privilege, to be born in this violent settler-colonialist country as an Arab Muslim woman is also to be caught between two different forms of patriarchy: one that is rooted in whiteness, and one that is deeply entrenched in the culture that one has learnt by heart. It is to be told that, despite the so-called progressiveness of this country, my anxieties are absurd. That despite my depressions, I need to remain positive and grateful.My Tayta and my Mama have endured pain too long and too deep to describe, and I will never know the full extent to which they are still suffering. It is through their experiences that I am able to recognise that the long-term trauma of the Arab woman is intertwined in the registers of race, gender and class. It transcends as a physical and psychological memory. It is and is reinforced by culture and daily experiences of exclusion and domination. To mobilise against this is to recognise that my Mama, my Tayta and myself are just some of the few that exist in a collective state of depression around the world.For us, it is something akin to feeling. These dark shadows that accompany our lives are embedded within our daily experience. From fleeing war, to losing children, to living in a violent settler-colonial islamophobic state, to being policed on our expressions our experiences are intergenerational. They are not passed down but passed through, and all we have is each other. To be an Arab woman is to know sorrow like another language, but to live despite this. To exist is to resist, and to resist is to survive, and survival will only continue if we erase the problematic masculinities that are embedded within our culture. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If one believes university is a public and secular affair, they might occasionally observe a few anomalies on campus. The first time I was inside the Catholic Societys Clubhouse was on a cold Winter morning after a lecture. The Centre, underneath the Urbanest in Jane Foss Russell Plaza, is modern, clean, and in a better condition than the University of Sydney Unions (USU) buildings. Wooden panelling adorns its interior. Free printing and wifi is provided. Theres a chapel and a common room with a pool table. Its a relaxing scene. The chapel was built and owned by the Archdiocese of Sydney. The construction was approved by the then Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell.The Catholic Societys Clubhouse one of many links between the University and established religion sits at the terminus of the historical evolution of religious appeasement and secularity in Australia, all dating back to the beginnings of colonial New South Wales (NSW) and this very university.Land rightsThe year is 1788 and the First Fleet has just arrived. Eucalyptus trees dominate Port Jackson where small shelters litter the cove in a makeshift clearing. The terrain is rough and the soil is in an even poorer condition. The days are long under the threat of starvation. The distribution of land after its theft from traditional Indigenous owners would become the key means of financing the colony, typically through lease agreements and as an incentive for convicts. Land was distributed throughout NSW in a grid with private lots bordered by Crown reserve. The grid gradually faded away as the State leased and sold its reserve land. William Bligh, the fourth Governor of NSW, was granted 240 acres for private residence in late 1806. The acreage encompassed the present suburb of Camperdown and the entirety of Newtown. Directly east of Blighs private residence was Crown land leased to Major Grose who used it for agriculture. It was Groses farm that would eventually turn into the University of Sydney (USyd) in 1850. Today, the only remnants of Groses Farm live on through Grose Farm Lane on Western campus.Two years after the establishment of the penal colony, the Lady Juliana arrived in Port Jackson. New orders were dispatched to Governor Phillip from Lord Sydney that a particular spot in or as near each town as possible be set apart for the building of a church, and 400 acres adjacent thereto allotted for the maintenance of a minister and 200 for a school master. These letters were recorded in Hermes, archived by assistant Fisher librarian, J. A. Tunnicliffe. The orders went on to majorly influence education in NSW.For the University, the orders meant the land directly under City Road was reserved for schools, a fact which can still be seen today. In 1958, the Cumberland County Council Plan defined that land under special uses educational and medical. The old Darlington School used to inhabit this area until the end of 1975 when the land was purchased by the University. The only surviving building is the Old School Building in the middle of the Cadigal Green oval. It was on this special uses land that the Catholic Chaplaincy now resides.Church and StateThe year is 1534 and the Act of Supremacy has just been passed; Catholicism has been rejected. King Henry VIII has founded a new state religion in the Church of England. The implications for English history are obvious but its consequences are wide reaching, explaining birth of USyd, the colleges, private universities like Notre Dame in Broadway, and private schools like the Kings School.The Church of England would be codified in Englands premier universities, Oxford and Cambridge. As Turney, Bygott and Chippendale, authors of A History of the University of Sydney Volume I explain, a university education, or at least a university degree was the prerogative of those, and only those, who subscribed to the established religion. Both Oxford and Cambridge students had to prove their adherence to the Church of England, which was also supplemented by compulsory attendance at daily chapel. This tradition, though more relaxed, continues with St. Pauls and St. Johns offering weekly chapel. The ruling councils of Cambridge and Oxford, the Caput and Hebdomadal Board respectively, were clerical oligarchies with members ordained ministers of the Church.Today, links between religious bodies and senior management of Sydney University remain. Vice-Chancellor Michael Spences ordination as an Anglican priest is well known, and he remains a volunteer member of the Anglican Diocese. At least seven current members of the University Executive have religious ties. External Senate Committee member Vincent Graham is a non-executive director of NSW Catholic Schools. Terry Williamson is a member of the Finance Committee of the Society of the Divine Word, a Catholic missionary congregation. Prominent Undergraduate Senate Fellow Francis Tamer is a former president of the Catholic Society. At least five other present and past Senate Fellows have been affiliated with St Pauls College, either through familial ties or having studied there themselves. These links are not solely to the Christian Church Senate Fellow Ilana Atlas is a non-executive director of the JewishCare Charity.It is now rare to have ordained clergy belonging to the University Executive, unlike the age of compulsory chapel. Instead, even as far back as 1939, the undergraduate Donald Horne identified that [The Universitys] governing body was largely controlled by important judges and doctors from downtown.The old education system of the 1500s was challenged in the late 19th century by an emerging middle class less interested in religious liberal arts teaching and more concerned with a secular and professional education. The Scottish poet, Thomas Campbell addressed this issue, writing to The Times in February 1825 proposing the establishment of a new university in London. Turney, Bygott and Chippendale enlighten the context, writing that indirectly, Campbells initiative also gave rise to the foundation of Kings College, chartered in 1829 as the Anglican counterpart in the metropolis of the godless college in Gower Street.These issues in England were transplanted to Australia as the USyds very own motto foreshadows Sidere mens eadem mutato (the stars change, the mind remains the same). Vice-Chancellor Spence explained that the mottos direct implication continues to mean that our University can do it as well here as anywhere else in the world. In 1850, when the University of Sydney was founded, this was a bold, even radical, thing to say [because it took] a commitment to excellence in everything.Spences answer reflects the Universitys foundations on the backdrop of religious diversity at a time when it was radical for a university to be secular, or make concessions to a religion other than the Anglican Church. The various Christian denominations of the settlers and convicts complicated initial attempts at establishing a primary church. The powerful Anglican (Church of England), Presbyterian (a Scottish reformation denomination), Wesleyan (an off branch from Anglicanism) and Roman Catholic lobbies ultimately led early colonist William Wentworth to create a secular university.The founding The year is 1850, 62 years after the arrival of the First Fleet and Sydney is a bustling hub of trade, supported by 187,000 residents. With a large portion of the eucalyptus forest removed, great plains spread from Farm Cove to Grose Farm littered with houses and infrastructure. In Grose Farm, fields of barley cover what is now St. Johns College, whilst a small military barracks surrounded by stockades stands where Sancta Sophia College now sits. Parramatta Road is a 3-horse carriage wide thoroughfare from Botany Bay to Parramatta.From this prosperity, multiple religious denominations attempted to create their own college to provide a traditional education in preparation for the ecclesiastical profession. The Roman Catholic Archbishop, John Bede Polding developed St Marys Seminary in Sydney whilst the Anglican Archdeacon Thomas Scott, under endorsement from the English government, helped coordinate the Church and School Corporation. That corporation attempted to supply the Anglican Church an estate comprising one-seventh part in extent and value of all lands in each county. Unsurprisingly, the corporation failed to obtain popular support. Curiously, The Kings School in Parramatta was founded partly in response to this failure, perhaps explaining the size of its 365-acre campus.Wentworth pushed to establish a secular learning institution called Sydney College, now Sydney Grammar School. The College, the predecessor to USyd, was only secular in the sense that students and administration would not have to prove their loyalty to a religion. However, it would still teach religious subjects in providing a liberal education. For its time, the Colleges secularity was contentious and the Archdeacon of the Anglican Church was not in attendance at the Colleges opening ceremony.As historian Manning Clark argued, this liberalism would have said a loud Amen, [however] the founding on [secular] liberalism prompted only indifference and unbelief towards religion.Wentworths push for secularity met strong opposition from the major religious groups of NSW. As a Sydney Morning Herald editorial from 12 October 1849 titled, The fate of the University Bill argues, in his inordinate anxiety to make his university comprehensive and liberal, he hit upon an expedient that would make it ultra-exclusive and intolerant. A letter published in the same newspaper by an anonymous writer, argued, the express exclusion of no other portion of the community than that class whose office is to uphold the interests and teach the principles and practice of religion, prove beyond question to every reasoning mind that the Sydney University is intended to be an infidel institution. To break the deadlock on the University Bill, Governor Richard Bourke allowed each of the four major religious groups to build their own colleges to administer their own education. These four colleges St. Pauls (Anglican), St. Johns (Roman Catholic), Wesley College (Methodist), St. Andrews (Presbyterian) would have subgrants of 20 acres of land in the USyd campus. The funding of these colleges was split between the Church and State with the State matching all money raised by the Churches. This would be formalised on the 18th January 1855, with a deed of grant by the State where no less than 18 acres would be given to each college. These grants would be owned by a trust with USyd given responsibility as the main overseer. This appeasement worked and the University Bill passed. Religious tensions ultimately heralded the origins of a secular university. It was the first time that the Catholics as a body had been recognised officially as on a footing of perfect equality with the Protestants recorded a historian of the Benedictine Pioneers.Schisms over the Universitys secularity have not disappeared since 1855. In 2016, the USU attempted to deregister the Evangelical Union (EU) and Catholic Society over faith-based requirements for membership. The USU argued these requirements were discriminatory and limited accessibility to all USU members, before backflipping on deregistration threats after public pressure from the mainstream press. The result is faith-based requirements continue today, with clause 3.2 of the EU Constitution requiring ordinary members to confess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.Despite the rigorous debate surrounding Sydney Universitys establishment, relationships between the University and Churches remained cordial. After the founding, the Churches focussed resources on developing their own religious institutions of higher education, including Notre Dame University (Catholic) and Moore College (Anglican), both in Sydney Universitys vicinity. However, tensions lingered on an individual level. As described in A History of the University of Sydney Volume II, Professor of Philosophy from 1927 to 1958, John Anderson criticised the role of religion in public education as a limit on enquiry. Andersons speech in April 1943 before the New Education Fellowship was heavily criticised by both Church and State. In the Legislative Assembly of the NSW parliament, a motion was passed stating that Andersons comments were unjustified and calculated to undermine the principles which constitute a Christian State. Sir Henry Manning, representative of the Legislative Council on the University Senate was more zealous in his criticism, attempting to pass a Senate motion designed to remind the Senate that the reason for the foundation of the university was the advancement of the Christian religion and to assert than no university teacher could attack that purpose.This Senate motion was ultimately amended to avoid directly attacking Anderson, instead re-affirming the Universitys purpose of free intellectual enquiry. The university todayThe year is 2019, 169 years since the founding of USyd. The landscape is hardly recognisable from its natural setting. Asphalt and concrete cover the environment turning Grose Farm into an urban jungle. What was a eucalyptus forest is now one of the most heavily developed suburbs in Sydney.These changes are also represented in the student body where the students come from over 140 countries, a far more multicultural and diverse array than the 19th century colony. Likewise, the religious landscape has changed too. As of the 2016 census, 52.2% of the population identify as a Christian, 2.6% as Muslims, 0.4% as Jews and 30.1% as having no religion. Resulting student societies have sprung up to represent and practice their faith. Besides the Catholic Society, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, EU, and Sydney University Muslim Student Association maintain high membership year-to-year. The University has accommodated different faiths by constructing a multi-faith chapel and providing religious services through liaison church representatives. Specific needs have also been addressed such as the dedication of rooms in Old Teachers College for Islamic prayer.In spite of it all, the Universitys connections to organised religion have come at a cost. Since the first fleet, First Nations cultures have been erased from learning institutions. Indigenous songlines, and stories of the Dreamtime, have been cast away from campus museums, whilst colleges, and the Universitys settler-religious connections, remain deeply rooted in their place. Tensions between religion and a secular education have long shaped the Universitys changing history. Yet the University ovals have remained the same since the construction of the colleges. Parramatta Road remains a 3-car wide thoroughfare (albeit now with cars instead of carriages). Even the concerns of the student body remain the same. An Honi Soit editorial in 1939 published survey results indicating that most student complaints were about compulsory lectures. Some things never change. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While the urban public argue with each other over the finer points of tax cuts and negative gearing, rural NSW is really hurting. Years of drought and mismanagement of the Murray-Darling river system have left entire towns without drinking water, and many residents feeling that they have no future. Walking through these places is like something out of a horror movie boarded up shops, tumbleweeds and dust devils blowing by, run-down weatherboard houses baking in a summer sun so hot it melts the asphalt. Local Aboriginal people face a bleak reality in which they do not have water on their own country, and grapple with what it means to culturally as well as materially depend on a land which is being destroyed. But these communities are also extraordinarily resilient, and you find inspiring characters and powerful stories of hope as often as you find anxiety. This is a small story about one community effort to respond to this crisis.Photography by Fighting In Resistance EquallyActivists from Sydney-based Aboriginal rights group FIRE (Fighting in Resistance Equally), including a number of students from Sydney Uni, have delivered water filters to the town of Collarenebri this weekend as part of an ongoing community response to the water crisis in Western New South Wales (NSW).Collarenebri, located 750 kilometres North-West of Sydney, is a majority-Aboriginal community in the lands of the Gamilaraay/Gomeroi people. The town has been on Level Five water restrictions for a number of months because of the declining water levels in the Barwon River, from which the towns water is supplied.The Barwon River has not flowed for over nine months, and now consists only of a series of stagnant pools including the one behind the dam at Collarenebri. This has been a common prospect for many of the two million people who live in NSWs Murray Darling Basin.Local Gomeroi elder Uncle Larry Flick has been coordinating the delivery of donated water to Collarenebri, and organised the distribution of water filters throughout the community Hes lived in the community for 64 years and while there have been periods of drought before, Larry says the river has never been this dry before. Mr Flick was born in 1954 and aside from a few years of moving around, he has lived in Collarenebri his whole life. Larry has 4 children, 22 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren. He is a big family man who aspires to be just like his inspiration in life his grandfather. Larry has always respected and maintained the voice of Aboriginal People within his community and since becoming the chairperson for Collarenebris community working party, he wants to be a voice for his region. Larry is also a member of the Land Council.That 65 drought was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime drought. But now that period is getting shorter and it happens every 10 years.The water in the weir contains very low levels of oxygen and has high levels of sediment and algae, with residents complaining of the waters foul taste and numerous negative health impacts.You cant even drink the water at home, says local resident and Gomeroi woman Louise Sims. You get kidney infections, bladder infections, youll start to get lumps on your skin.Photography by Katrina PascuttiniThe majority of residents avoid drinking the water and rely on bottled water, either donated by community groups or purchased themselves. Bottled water is several times more expensive in these remote areas than in Sydney, and residents in Collarenebri are often required to travel over 100 kilometres to supermarkets in neighboring towns in order to purchase it. The waters foul taste has led to problems with dehydration as residents either avoid drinking or substitute water with soft drinks. Given the town frequently enjoys summer temperatures topping 45 degrees, this presents a serious problem.Matthew, a local nurse in the community says that the past summer saw record levels of admissions to the local clinic for cases of dehydration, especially among older people. Another resident, Gomeroi woman Alison Hinch, is deeply concerned about the health impact of the water on older people in a community where Aboriginal people already have a very low life expectancy. If our elders cant drink the water and feel like theyre dying inside, then its a flow on effect throughout the community, it goes right down, she says.Aboriginal men in Western NSW live on average 58 years, compared to over 78 years for the wider NSW population. Uncle Larry is 64 and is the third oldest Aboriginal man in the town. Poverty, chronic stress and poor-quality diets in an environment where fresh food is very expensive are the main reasons for this.Since January 2019, FIRE has been fundraising to deliver drinkable water to Aboriginal communities in north-west NSW affected by this crisis. The efforts originally began through the purchasing of bottled water in Sydney using donated funds. The cargo was then driven to affected communities in volunteers cars.Since then, the effort has evolved into a larger operation in collaboration with other community groups such as Dignity Water and Menindee Water Run. Water is purchased in bulk, sometimes including donations from supermarkets, and delivered by truck to communities where they are distributed by locals and FIRE volunteers. It is these methods that have allowed FIRE to deliver over 100,000L of water since January to affected communities. Donations have come from all over NSW, including Goulburn, the Illawarra via the local Aboriginal Medical Service, and from Canberra. Local organisations such as Dharriwaa elders group and the Walgett Local Aboriginal Land Council have also been involved in distributing donated water along with local volunteers.During the summer, disastrous water quality levels lead to the death of over a million fish at Menindee. In the aftermath, Menindee Water Run facilitated the installation of water filters for the entire community. This medium-term solution allowed people to use the local town water, free from fear of adverse health impacts. Following this model, FIRE has decided to provide water filters for Collarenebri, another town reliant on stagnant weir water which could be filtered to an acceptable standard. Sydney University students from the Environment Collective managed to raise $5,000 to contribute to this effort.The sad state of the rivers reflects the lack of rain throughout NSW for the last couple of years, but it is also a fundamentally political issue. Cotton irrigators have a stranglehold on water policy in the upper Murray-Darling basin. Scientists have argued that the over-allocation of water licenses to irrigators is indeed the primary instigator for the low levels of water in the Barwon, rather than being a product of the drought alone. There have been enough rain events further up the catchment with the potential to provide relief for towns such as Walgett and Collarenebri, but the water was intercepted by irrigators before it got there.In all levels of government have been some combination of ignorant, apathetic or negligent on this issue. The local Walgett shire refuses to acknowledge the water quality issues in both that town and nearby Collarenebri, claiming that the water is generally safe to drink. This has been contradicted by water testing organised by Dharriwaa Elders group in Walgett, which found that the bore water in the town has three times the safe level of salt. This is especially problematic for a community where salt exposure is already high because of the towns reliance on cheap, salty preserved foods.And yet, the Bourke Shire Council inadvertently admitted the following:NSW Health has given advice to doctors about patients who may need special attention because of the extra sodium in the drinking water. These are pregnant women, and people with advanced kidney disease, poorly controlled high blood pressure, diagnosed heart failure and others who are on a low salt diet. Council appreciates that some people are concerned about the taste of the water. Chilling your drinking water can help reduce the salty taste. You could also add flavouring such as mint, a slice of fruit, a splash of fruit juice or low-sugar cordial or make a flavoured brewed tea, which may improve the taste.Water quality information for Collarenebri is not currently available, although previous alerts have been issued instructing residents to boil the towns water supply to ensure it does not contain harmful microbes. FIRE is organising water quality testing for Collarenebri and will publicise the results when available.The State Government has been largely silent on the issue, despite significant political upset in the Far West, culminating in a state election victory for the Shooters and Fishers Party, elected to the seat of Barwon largely on the basis of widespread outrage about the water crisis.The Federal Government has simply suggested that the situation is a result of the drought, remaining silent in response to requests for community assistance, and investment in more reliable water infrastructure for these communities. Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price has continually refused to meet with community members about the water issue.Water is not only fundamentally important for sustaining the health of these communities. The livelihood of the rivers is deeply implicated in other aspects of wellbeing. Rivers offer a crucial space to cool off, socialise, fish, and transmit cultural knowledge for local Aboriginal communities. Droughts are associated with declining mental wellbeing and higher rates of youth crime, especially in the punishing summer heat. This has led some local Aboriginal people to argue that the dominant water policy is essentially a form of cultural genocide, and underpins real fears about the future of these communities.We all grew up along the river and lived off of it yellowbelly cod, yabbies, mussels, you name it, says Uncle Larry Flick. With that river dry, I really worry for my grandchildren and great-grandkids. Without that river us Murris are nothing.Its very simple, says Uncle Larry. If there were 20 million of us and 1 million of you, we wouldnt treat you like this.While the installation of water filters provides a medium-term solution for Collarenebri residents, the water crisis remains an ongoing issue. The health of the river system shows no sign of improving under current government policy. The efforts of community activists unionists and students hand in hand reflect a notable instance of solidarity. Yet, they also speak to the deeply broken nature of Australias government.Many other communities are reliant on bore water, which contains unsafe levels of salt. This water is not suitable for filtration by household systems and these communities will continue to depend on bottled water until local infrastructure is improved.In two weeks, FIRE will again be collaborating with Dignity Water to deliver 66,000L of clean water to the town of Bourke.If you would like to help, you can send money to FIRE:Bendigo Bank SAWC SydneyBSB: 633 000ACC: 166 790 485Write water gift in the description.Dignity Waters fundraiser link:https://www.gofundme.com/water2drywest <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On the morning of 6 August 1945, Pedro Arrupe is surprised by a blinding light that floods his room. Opening his door, the young Jesuit faces a deafening explosion. The walls of his home crumble and blanket him as he is violently thrown to the floor. As he rises to his feet, a destroyed city lies before him. A group of young women painted in blood and blisters drag themselves up his street. A steady procession of 150,000 injured Japanese civilians fleeing their destroyed city would pass Arrupe. Using his medical background, he helps those he can. On that day alone, more than 70,000 Hiroshima residents would die. By the end of 1945, that number would nearly double.The witnessing of this scene of horror and mass slaughter marks Arrupe for the rest of his life. Later spurred by the reformative potential of the Second Vatican Council, he heralds a socially progressive Catholicism focussed on serving the poor and marginalised. He becomes Superior General of the Jesuits, a historically conservative religious order within the Catholic Church tied to establishment power throughout the West. Many of his admirers would go on to lead activist campaigns and join radical leftist organisations. In him, they saw a progressive Catholic leader capable of spearheading social change.* * *In stark contrast, Catholic doctrines in Australia today are most closely associated with conservative positions. For those who know the Catholic Church as a propagator of homophobia and sexism, helmed by stern old white men, the two ideologies verge on synonymity. There are good reasons for this. An increasingly senescent institutional hierarchy continues to strangulate progressive Catholic movements. As a majority of Western Catholics move away from the rigidity of Church doctrines, a calcified Vatican further entrenches strict social tenets on marriage, abortion, and euthanasia. Catholic leaders in the electoral arena continue to push conservative agendas. And yet, banished to the margins of the Catholic institutional core reside a significant number of progressive Catholic individuals and institutions. Their relegation is the result of a bizarre fusion of political and theological conservatisms.Modern political conservatism is defined by an economic conservatism, underpinned by notions of individualism and self-reliance, and a social conservatism, focussed on preserving traditional institutions. Conservatisms inherent relationship with the institutional Church is certainly ambivalent. Catholic notions of collective responsibility militate against economic conservatism while many Catholic social teachings support social conservatism. Yet despite this ambivalence, the Catholic presence in Australia remains largely aligned with political conservatism. This phenomenon is not isolated to the modern Australian experience, and yet its logic is perplexing.* * *On 7 August 1981, paralysed by a stroke, Arrupe resigns as Jesuit Superior General. His reformative stances and social activism see him retire as one of the most popular, albeit controversial, Catholic figures in the world. Nonetheless, in an unexpected turn of events, Pope John Paul II rejects Arrupes choice of interim leader and personally installs Paul Dezza as Jesuit Superior General. Described as a papal smackdown and a personal affront to Arrupe and the Order, John Paul enrages many progressive Jesuits. One Jesuit contends that John Pauls actions are fuelled by the fear of a possible strengthening of Arrupes legacy. Another commentator labels John Pauls intervention an act of martial law.John Paul insists that Dezza, an 80-year-old conservative Jesuit, is the necessary delegate who will represent me more closely in the Society. Writing to the paralysed and now mute Arrupe, John Paul II cites the necessity for a more thorough preparation of the Society before an election for Superior General takes place, effectively cementing temporary control over the Jesuit Society. More than a year later, in preparation for the election of a new Jesuit Superior General, Dezza suggests the Jesuits should elect a conservative successor and implies that Arrupe had committed errors in his leadership.The seeds of John Pauls resentment towards Arrupe and the Jesuits were rooted in the latters controversially progressive and reformist endeavours. The most famous of these endeavours was found in liberation theology, a theology which emerged in a Latin America characterised by conservative military dictatorships as a synthesis of Marxist analysis and Catholicism. It sought to aid the poor and oppressed through political participation and social activism. At its core was Arrupes principle of the option for the poor a principle which stressed giving priority to those in the most marginalised positions. Accordingly, its proponents posited that the best translation of salvation in their repressive contexts was liberation liberation from poverty and repressive governments. Adopting the class struggle dialectic, many of liberation theologys manifestations were unapologetically Marxist. In Nicaragua, Jesuits featured in the revolutionary Sandinista government. They even held ministerial positions in Government. In El Salvador, Jesuits advocated for a negotiated settlement between the government and guerrilla organisations. Six were murdered by government forces for their efforts.During this period, John Paul accused the Jesuits of causing confusion among the Christian people and anxieties to the Church and also personally to the Pope. Priests of various denominations promoting liberation theology were suspended. The doctrinal czar in this Vatican crackdown was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a theologically conservative ally of John Paul. Dubbing liberation theology a singular heresy, Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith zealously silenced proponents of liberation theology. Following John Pauls accusations that the Jesuit Society was engaging in secularising tendencies, Arrupe attempted to stem the tide of papal criticism. He limited the way in which Jesuits could adopt Marxist analysis, allowing only for the adoption of methodological insights. This attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. Ratzinger continued to view liberation theology as a threat to orthodox Catholicism as it moved doctrinal focus away from the sacraments and towards social justice.* * *Curiously, Catholic groups of different political and secular persuasions worldwide did not face similar treatment, themselves seemingly more problematic. The alleged ties between various conservative and fascist governments and Opus Dei, a notoriously secretive and ultra-conservative Catholic institution, were ignored by the papacy. If anything, Opus Deis anti-communist rhetoric was lauded. In 1982, Opus Dei was made a personal prelature by John Paul and encouraged to increase its presence in Latin America.Given the sheer size and global reach of the Church, the existence of a diverse political spectrum is not surprising. However, the differing treatment of various ideologies by the Church begs justification. The instinct for self-preservation explains the Churchs concern over strains of communism that are staunchly anti-religious. However, these concerns do not provide a basis for fundamentally associating Catholic beliefs with politically conservative positions, nor for dismissing theologies centred on social justice.The local seeds of the modern association between Catholicism and conservatism in Australia are found in the political migration of Catholic Australians during the second half of the 20th century. Historically, the membership of the Australian Labor Party and Australian Liberal Party were divided along sectarian lines. Working class Australians of Irish Catholic backgrounds found their natural home in the Labor Party while British Protestants populated the Liberal Party. However, during the 1950s, Bob Santamaria led the staunchly anti-communist Catholic wing of the Labor Party into a new party: The Democratic Labor Party. This fracture, coupled with the decision of the Liberal Government to fund private Catholic schools, paved the way for a great migration of disaffected Catholic voters to turn to the Liberal Party. Demographic changes in the form of higher incomes and changing class interests only facilitated the flocking of Catholics into the Liberal Party. And yet, as already suggested, the roots underpinning the relationship between Catholicism and political conservatism should not be surprising they are found in a Vatican hierarchy that stifles progressive Catholic movements. In reaction to liberation theology, the Church silenced many of its most vocal proponents, rejecting any theological relationship with Marxist analysis. Historically, the Vatican adopted some of liberation theologys terminology, such as the option for the poor. Critically, however, it refused to import any of the political significance of these concepts, therefore disabling any meaningful progressive implications. Modern priests who varied too far doctrinally faced similar consequences from conservative members of the hierarchy. The Jesuit Thomas Reese was forced to resign as editor of the America magazine for his openness in discussing nettlesome issues such as the Churchs relations with Islam and same-sex marriage.Today, a senescent hierarchy within the Catholic Church continues to prosecute a culture war which fixates on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. Even the most reform-inclined and popular pope since John XXIII, Pope Francis, isnt able to sway this institutional bureaucracy. With a reformist Pope in power, many in the Vatican hierarchy are forced to reimagine themselves as conservative dissenters. The institutional strength of the conservative Vatican wing, however, allows dissenters to be influential and decisive. Any reform to conservative dogma, even by the Pontiff himself, is subject to review and criticism. Francis decision to allow Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics is criticised as heretical. After stating that atheists may enter heaven, the Vatican later clarifies that the Pope only intended to state that Gods grace was available to all. While in the secular sense of the word, Francis progressivism may seem mild, his attempted reforms stand in stark contrast to the Churchs fierce past of political conservatism.This conservative institutional dominance isnt confined to the walls of the Vatican. Its doctrines extend and influence how local Dioceses express themselves, especially in the electoral arena. No clearer example is the Catholic Bishops Conferences support for the Coalition for Marriage in the same-sex marriage plebiscite. In the recent Federal election, the Archdiocese of Sydney released a federal election guide surveying the policies of various parties on four issues: Life and Family; Education; Care for the Vulnerable; and Religious Freedom. The issues canvassed a broad range of progressive and conservative topics including Catholic school funding, offshore detention, environmental issues and housing affordability. And yet, in an opinion piece accompanying the election guide, the Director of Public Affairs for the Archdiocese of Sydney claimed that the issue of primary concern was religious freedom. The Director stated that this was fundamental to resisting attempts to teach LGBTIQ sex and gender education in Catholic schools and allowing Catholic hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, IVF and surrogacy, gender reassignment surgery or euthanasia. The Director concluded by highlighting the potential of minor parties in the Upper House, warning against a future where the Greens hold the balance of power and lauding the potential of another Australian Conservative Senator to join Cory Bernardi in upholding religious freedoms in education and expression. For the Director, these were apparently more pressing concerns than offshore detention, education funding, housing affordability or First Nations representation.The trend of promoting socially progressive issues care for the vulnerable while emphasising the importance of strict social tenets is not isolated to the electoral arena. The progressive Jesuit high school I attended placed great significance on producing men for others who would strive for social justice. Progressive teachings were incorporated throughout the syllabus and community service was expected of all students. And yet, despite this commendable focus, the external hierarchy saw to it that conservative social tenets were present. The school mandated that only female partners could be brought to school formals. It distributed the Sydney Archdioceses pamphlets advocating against marriage equality during the plebiscite. It warned students of the sinful perils of masturbation. These teachings reveal a disconnect between the institutional hierarchy of the Catholic Church and self-identifying Catholics. More than 70 per cent of Australian Catholics believe abortion should be left to individual women and their doctors. The majority of Australian Catholics do not adhere to or agree with the Churchs teachings on premarital sex, contraceptive use or civil divorce. By shifting the focus of Catholic doctrine towards controversial social tenets, the Church continually falls short of its mission to engage with pertinent economic and social justice issues. This allows the Catholic Churchs most vocal teachings to mirror conservative positions, as only conservative social tenets are thoroughly addressed.Throughout all this, certain progressive teachings in the Catholic Church remain consistent. However, the perceived synonymity between Catholic and politically conservative beliefs is furthered by prominent Catholics in the electoral arena who avoid implementing legislation consistent with progressive Catholic teachings. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the offshore processing of refugees in Australia. Catholic institutions have unanimously advocated for more humane processing of refugee applicants in Australia. However, despite each of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey consulting with Jesuit priests during the 2009 Liberal leadership spill, none followed the Churchs teachings on the issue. In 2013, when asked what Jesus would do in relation to asylum seekers, Abbott reminded viewers of Q&A that Jesus drove the traders from the temple, and that Jesus didnt say yes to everyone. It appears that conservative Catholics may themselves chose when the Vatican is incorrect.* * *In 2005, John Paul was afforded the luxury he expressly denied Arrupe: having a successor who would further his own legacy. John Pauls confidant and fellow conservative, Joseph Ratzinger, was elected as Pope Benedict XVI. Ironically, Benedict would be followed by a reformist Jesuit.Perhaps the supreme irony, however, is that while a reformed-minded Pope is unable to shift the institutional hierarchy of the Vatican, the hierarchy itself is proving to be increasingly irrelevant. Indeed, Australian Catholics continue to vote with their feet as empty churches attest to Australias disillusionment with Catholic institutional conservatism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), the first tutorial is code for icebreakers: we are told to form groups and introduce ourselves to each other. The tables morph in a well-rehearsed formation that is unquestionably repeated throughout semesters: the Avengers have found each other, sparing only passing glances at Kung Fu Panda, who is cornered at the table and searching for the Furious Five who are scattered across the room. I feel the palpable apprehension in the class when it is my turn the visibly black-haired East Asian boys turn to introduce myself. The tension dissipates when I speak English, the language of domination. You are heard more if you speak English. People of colour know this in the differential treatment they receive when they strategically move between languages at the airport, on the streets and indeed in the classroom. Specifically, I know that I can let my Australian accent run loose, knowing that it will disavow my ostensible otherness without unsettling the white gaze that structures the self-segregating seating pattern and racial dynamic of the classroom. In cruder terms, I have passed a white supremacist test; I am whiter than the next person of colour.My experience, however unsurprising, is not exceptional. Rather it is one of the banal rites of passage that students of colour face on a campus that centres students who have only ever known predominantly white schools and neighbourhoods, that are suddenly put into close proximity with students whose first language might not be English. Identifying as a student of colour does not inherently absolve ones complicity in this racial dynamic either. In fact, this dynamic is reproduced when domestic students of colour with native English fluency rhetorically manoeuvre to distance themselves from international students (who you likely pictured as Chinese). Reliance on tired pejoratives or attempted disavowals of difference do not abrogate our responsibility as students of colour to resist this us versus them mentality because we will be seen but not necessarily heard regardless of whether we are fluent in English or not. When I sit with East Asian international students who have previously addressed the class in English, it has become so unsurprising to see how they are passed over in peer-to-peer conversations without even the slightest attempt at eye-contact. It is easy to pass these instances off as exceptional yet they reflect a common array of microaggressions that are rationalised through discourses predicated upon Western prejudices: they like to stick together, that [non American or British] accent is too hard to understand, its just too awkward, its hard to relate, you know? Amongst the cacophony, whiteness and its criteria for social respectability goes unquestioned. It is telling that Australia finds it more offensive to be called a racist than to actually be racist.I did not know how to make sense of these microaggressions until I heard a series of lectures on hegemony, race and racial formation delivered by one of the few FASS academics of colour. If you have heard these lectures, you know just how incisive and insightful she is. Her lectures gave expression to experiences that I had never previously been able to convey about growing up as a Chinese/Australian, a perpetual foreigner subsumed within a monolithic category that is both invoked as the model minority and reviled in the national imaginary. I adopt the slash in favour of the hyphen (in which Chinese becomes a qualifier of the Australian) to indicate my displacement my inclusion and exclusion from both categories. Separately, there is one lecture she delivers that stands out for its student reception. It is about decentering whiteness and making whiteness strange. Whiteness, we learn, varies across different cultural contexts and gains its power through masking its own historical, material, and cultural specificity. To be white in a certain cultural context is to be seen as normal, to have your worldview pass as universal, to be able to refuse ones reality, and to be able to project that worldview onto others so that everyone non-white must define themselves (and their humanity) vis--vis whiteness. It is an affectively taxing but necessary lecture that she herself has come to dread. When the lecture finishes, a deep communal breath is exhaled and a crowd rushes to speak to her. There are profuse thank yous and tears founded on a sense of linked fate. For many of the students of colour, this will have been their first (and perhaps only) time approaching a lecturer out of want not need, out of gratitude not desperation. This is because it is the first time that the totalising whiteness we have uncomfortably grown used to has been named, addressed, and, above all and most profoundly, understood. It is cathartic to finally have the vocabulary to articulate embodied feelings that we have always known but have never known how to express.These powerful and difficult conversations invariably fall upon the shoulders of faculty of colour specifically. This is, however, a burden of representation that faculty of colour are sometimes unprepared or unable to bear given that they have been primarily hired to teach and research. This burden is notably exacerbated by the lack of FASS academics of colour a contributing factor to the alienating students of colour experience. At the same time, students, irrespective of race, recognise that these discussions ring hollow even when conveyed by the most well-meaning of allies. That is not to say that these efforts are unappreciated, but these discussions about race, whiteness, and coloniality inevitably carry significantly greater weight when led by academics of colour. For they do not have to try and fathom the non-white reality through their experience of another marginality. Put simply, they do not have to imagine what racism might be like based on their experience of other oppressions. As such, faculty of colour are invaluable to students. When it comes to issues of race and ethnicity, their work vitally instils white students with a critical consciousness of their white privilege and provides students of colour with the tools to make sense of their own experiences. For students of colour, however, they are especially important; they are not only educators but on campuses all over the world they are very regularly called on to be mentors, stand-in parents, friends, therapists, and financial planners. Beyond faculty-student interactions, academics of colour also contribute immensely to the educational missions of their respective universities through their presence and labour. Firstly, universities traffic in the currency of diversity: academics and staff of colour serve as the face of institutional diversity, evidence of a racial conscience, proof that the university has far departed from its Eurocentric origins. Sydneys promotional campaigns would be incomplete without its token people of colour. Academics of colour perform both invisibility and hypervisibility in the university setting. They are commonly mistaken for tourists, students or administrative assistants, and their work is more often than not underestimated or devalued by their own colleagues. At the same time, they are deemed threatening when they speak out and delusional for seeing what others in the room do not realise the racial politics at play. Performing diversity, thus, becomes a fine balancing act for academics of colour. Acutely aware of the representational challenges faced by people of colour, and consequently of how privileged they are to have this space, they feel an intense sense of responsibility to take full advantage of this hard-won platform to challenge the asymmetrical racial dynamic. However, a gilded cage is still a cage regardless of how it is furnished, and there are definite limits to the extent of which academics of colour can use their platform. These limits, which are often capriciously enforced, materialise through increased research scrutiny, the denial of tenure and even the redirection of ones career. Secondly, faculty of colour disproportionately deepen the breadth of academic offerings in their respective disciplines and programs. These academics are the creators of courses that venture beyond Western scholarship. Their courses explore ideas produced by Indigenous thinkers, that espouse decolonial aspirations, and interrogate the experiences of the displaced; their expertise is often the only respite from the otherwise Eurocentric research interests in the humanities and social sciences. At Sydney, the only courses that rigorously attend to race and postcolonial literature are taught by women of colour. Of course, their research interests do extend beyond issues of race and ethnicity, and furthermore they bring fresh critical perspectives to the Western canon, which has historically been centred as the departure point for all academic inquiry. The teaching and research contributions of white academics interested in the non-West should not be readily dismissed though; their work is valuable because they can model constructive modes of allyship. What complicates the politics of their involvement, however, is a long (and ongoing) history of orientalism and exoticism in Western academia that has been documented and critiqued in fields like anthropology and sociology the extraction and exportation of Global South knowledges for Global North profit. What distinguishes academics of colour is that they bring to the subject experiential embodied knowledge and an intimate relationship with coloniality, which no white person will have no matter how familiar they are with another culture, and regardless of whether they are married to someone from that culture. While proximity may offer a window, the experience of race and racism is never far removed from academic inquiries into the Global South.Thirdly, faculty of colour are disproportionately tasked with providing culturally and linguistically diverse, multicultural, ethnocultural, perspectives on university committees. While these invitations reflect an institutional self-awareness of the universitys whiteness, they problematically place faculty of colour in a double-bind where they either stand in as the token diversity spokesperson, only for their ethnic viewpoint to be challenged by those who have never been racially other; or turn down the platform, leaving a decision that will likely harm staff and students of colour to an all-white panel. All of the above support and services that faculty of colour provide to students and institutions is on top of what faculty of colour are actually hired to do a phenomenon known as invisible labour in the higher education discourse. It is invisible precisely because institutions do not value it with the currency used to reward faculty work: reappointment, tenure, promotion, grant or sabbatical all of which are important for academics, especially early career researchers engaged in emerging diversity work. It is important to note that women of colour tend to undertake more of this invisible (emotional) labour than their male counterparts. While already invisible, this labour has its own unique challenges. Internally, faculty of colour are always aware that their diversifying missions risk opposition, not just from those with conservative views, but more insidiously from those who are wonderful advocates on issues of gender, sexuality or class yet fail to recognise their blind spot when it comes to race the perfect storm for white fragility. The difficulty of finding an academic of colour to speak on record about these issues is telling. When approached for comment, one academic politely declined, stating It is not a safe environment whilst another cited concerns about the potential backlash: It is these calculations that we must make as much as we dont like it. At the end of the day, the invisible labour heaped upon faculty of colour detract from their capacity to undertake their own administrative, research, and teaching responsibilities. Nevertheless, there is a clear tension. Universities recognise the value of faculty of colour yet are reluctant to provide the structural changes necessary to support them. While hiring and retaining academic staff pose separate difficulties, increasing the representation of academics of colour across the university, within leadership positions, and especially within the arts and social sciences are useful starting points. Universities can go further to facilitate safer institutional settings by acknowledging and encouraging scholarship on race and difference.When race and racism are increasingly important conversations to have, when tragedies like Christchurch reveal global circuits of white supremacy, and with the spectre of the Ramsay Centre rearing its head from beneath the horizon, universities ultimately need to do more than simply hire faculty of colour; they need to acknowledge the invisible labour that faculty do and make the structural changes necessary to support them in supporting the institution and its students. When faculty of colour embody hope, refuge, and, above all, a sense of linked fate, how or indeed whether we care about our faculty of colour is telling about the place students of colour are afforded in our universities. When faculty of colour go unsupported, there is a point at which they have no choice but to say no, not because they are selfish, irresponsible or even incapable, but because it is a matter of survival in a racial minefield that constantly challenges the reality of their lived experiences. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the mad rush of August 2008, when the final preparations for our move to Sydney were being made, an envelope of photographs fell into my hands. Most of the prints I recognized from albums and the other prints were duplicates that apparently didnt make Thaththas final versions. Mixed in with the duplicates and discards was a set of photographs from the mid-80s and 90s that I had never seen before. Among them was the photo of Gayan I keep with me now an original print of the version used in his missing student report. I didnt know who he was at the time; I assumed he was a relative I hadnt met, someone from the extended family. Which, in a way, I suppose he was.I kept the photographs in a box with me throughout high school and early university. Quite often, I would lay them out on the floor of my bedroom and go through them. Id study the faces, the poses, the architecture, the greenery, the art on the walls some of which I recognized, some of which I didnt. During one of these routine examinations, I learnt from Amma that the young man in the worn 2 x 2 photograph was Gayan, a friend of hers who was killed in 89.I have learned most of what I now know about politics and the people of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) revolt of 1989 from listening to Amma and Thaththa, from their conversations with each other and with friends from their university days. Without fail, there always came a point in every visit, in every trip or some such gathering when, as a group, theyd mull over that time. Us children would watch and listen. There is something vacuous about being born of such a generation a generation whose collective bravery and idealism was a force to be reckoned with; a material and ideological threat significant enough that the government set their troops on them. By virtue of being the products of our parents shared, brutalised trajectories, theres an unspoken comfort that, as their children, we take from each other.* * *The student movement in Sri Lankas south had become a powerful force by the 1980s. Their ranks swelled in this period, due to them being left to mobilize opposition to the increased dictatorial tendencies of the United National Party (UNP) government. There was a lot of overlap between the student movement and the JVP, the largest grassroots Communist party in the country in terms of membership, ideology and activities.Both movements were rooted in the islands poor and largely rural masses. Indeed, most students and JVPers came from such backgrounds. If it were not for access to free education, it is unlikely that many of them would have been able to access secondary schooling and university studies. In the decade preceding the JVP insurgency it was this segment of society that bore the brunt of the UNPs free-market policies.The resistance that unfolded tried to meet the tyranny which precipitated it. Following 7 years of increasing economic hardship and racial disharmony under Sirimavo Bandaranaikes SLFP government, the UNP secured a parliamentary majority at the general election of 1977. This is known as the starting point for the despotism, corruption and militarisation that have come to be so deeply entrenched in life on the island. In conversation with Amma and Thaththa, its clear that this is what their experience leads them to believe. Its hard to disagree, after hearing their memoirs and reading about the period when all policies and events are unfolded on paper.Within about 6 months of becoming Prime Minister, in February 1978, UNP leader J. R. Jayawardene transferred the Parliaments state powers to an Executive Presidency and assumed this position himself. He did so without holding a presidential election. In 1979, the Prevention of Terrorism Provisional Act was introduced on the pretext that it was necessary for fighting the growing militancy of the Tamil separatist struggle in the North. These laws could be invoked once a state of emergency was declared under the Public Ordinance Act. Significantly, they did not grant the presumption of innocence for parties accused under the Act. Nearly a decade on, these laws were brought into force in the South of the island during the crackdown on the JVP insurgency.The traditional opposition to state corruption was defeated in one brutal event. The union movement which had traditionally led these fights in the period immediately prior to and after independence was left in shambles after the defeat of its general strike in 1980. In an unforeseen and unprecedented response, all 130 000 public servants striking in protest of the rapidly rising cost of living were summarily dismissed by the government. The unions continued an established tradition of strike action going in no previous movement ended in complete defeat. The UNP governments response dealt a heavy blow to the tradition of union organising. The government had set out to show mass action was a futile effort, and in large part, they succeeded.In 1982, the government issued a document of policy proposals, known locally as a White Paper, titled Education Proposals for Reform which outlined its plan for privatising the free public education system. The Inter-University Student Federation was established that same year and led a nation-wide opposition movement which forced the government to withdraw the White Paper.Both Amma and Thaththa entered the arena of left-wing political activity through the student movement. As a high-schooler, Thaththa became heavily involved in the White Paper fight of 1982. Amma very clearly identifies the North Colombo Medical College (colloquially known as the PMC) fight of 1987 the student movements next major campaign as the turning point for her, as it was for many others of that generation.The PMC fight was a particularly crucial moment in the broader socio-political landscape as it directly fed into the JVP insurrection. In protest of the beginning of a pay-to-enter private Medical School in Colombo, the students of Faculty of Medicine of the University of Colombo collectively boycotted their exams. This effectively brought the state medical education system to a halt, and by extension, that of the private medical college as well. The Colombo campus shut-down indefinitely and remained so for the next 3-4 years. For Amma, the realisation of just how powerless those of little wealth and status were rendered in the face of the well-connected, how difficult it was for an ordinary group of people to confront this injustice, was borne out of this struggle to guard free public education.These events significantly contributed to the growing discontent among ordinary Sri Lankans about the trajectory that society had taken under the UNP government. It was, from the outset, a common persons struggle.Following the UNP cracking down on the opponents The JVP along with other far-left parties were proscribed in 1983. Following this, the governments war against the Tamils in the North intensified, as did their crackdown on left-wing, anti-government activities in the South.These movements brought to the fore the frustrations that had been rising within the Sinhalese psyche since the UNP came to power. Ultimately JVPs growing political cachet culminated in a full-blown Marxist-Leninist insurrection.The sparks of the revolution grew hereon to such an extent that troops were retreated from the North and redeployed to the South. Beauracrats and military dogmatists would claim the necessity as they reflected on their violence, as the militancy of the JVP led to widespread democratic political mobilisation. About 40 000 people were killed, or disappeared. All of these were by Sri Lankan military forces and pro-government paramilitary groups in the South. The violence against JVPiers and JVP-sympathisers, at times in situations where people were merely suspected to be involved with the JVP, spanned from 1987 to 1991. By March April 1990, all but one of the JVPs politburo had been killed/disappeared, as had a significant mass of its membership. Thaththa, who was deeply embedded in the JVPs ranks, left the country for France in 1991 to avoid being killed and to continue the JVPs reorganisation effort from abroad. Amma left for France in 1992 to join him there.Despite the work she did for the student movement and the JVPs activities following the PMC fight, Amma was never officially a member of the JVP. She met Thaththa through Students for Human Rights, a radical organisation that documented the abductions, killings and disappearances that were taking place under the UNP governments watch and smuggling this information out of the country to raise international awareness about the situation. Gayan had been the General Secretary of Students for Human Rights and was also a representative of the IUSF; someone both Amma and Thaththa worked very closely with. He was abducted and disappeared by army personnel in December 1989.Unidentified dead bodies were a common sight in the streets and canals in those days. Often naked and battered, sometimes limbless or decapitated, sometimes burning on rubber tyres. Amma first came across the administrative term unidentified dead bodies, or , while working for Students for Human Rights in late 88. She was handed a single sheet of grid paper which had a list of locations where unidentified bodies had been seen, how many bodies there were and what conditions they were in burnt, burnt with tyres, burnt beyond recognition and so on. This data, along with records of missing school students, university students and other civilians were collated and filed. Some were smuggled out of the country and the rest remain in the country. The files that Amma has with her now are a small portion of this large collection, most of which have since been misplaced. Amma had kept these files hidden in her home, bundled up in her mothers saris, through the worst of the insurrection. They were almost found once during a search of the flat. She left them with the JVP when she left for France in 1992. Looking after them was no longer a life-or-death matter by this point; those cards had more-or-less been dealt by then.I think much of Thaththas bitterness I dont know if hed agree with me using that word has more to do with the JVPs failure to do justice by everyone who was killed or disappeared, than anything else theyre so scared of that past that militancy, that revolutionary spiritThey fear that if you talk about the people who were disappeared, that past will come to the fore. Their mission is to forget that past. And to a large extent they have. Yes, he remains very critical the JVPs part-hypocrisy, part-political spinelessness, part-Sinhala chauvinism when it comes to the issue of Tamil self-determination in Sri Lanka. Talking to him, there is clearly a great deal of regret at how regressive the JVP has come to be in this sense; Its like any other Sri Lankan political party. Well, of course, they talk about globalisation, workers rights. But at the same time, when it comes to the mother of all problems in the country, the National Question, they shy away from it. But more than anything I think its about the sense of personal loss that is tangled up with the collective memory of 89 and the Partys unwillingness to persist after redress in the 3 decades that have elapsed since.While writing this piece I was asked if I thought Id inherited my parents cynicism. My initial response was to question the word cynicism. For whatever Amma and Thaththa have said in the past whatever criticisms, or hesitancies they may have about a given progressive/left-wing endeavour I have never witnessed them being totally dismissive of such attempts. Experiencing something like the insurrection no doubt changes a person and takes time to recover from. I feel its more a matter of that than cynicism. To this day, Amma remains somewhat forgiving of the JVPs failings; There is a lot to be desired, Im sure. But I still have some respect for anybody who is engaging in that spectrum of politics. A lot of people run them down people who were in it especially. But I still feel, if I am to run them down, there are many others that Id have to run down before that.* * *Thinking about 89, it often strikes me that it really did end in total and utter defeat. It was a failure in the sense that they set out to achieve something and didnt achieve it. The critical mass of the rebellion was taken out. Between the two of them, Amma and Thaththa lost friends, brothers, lovers, comrades, acquaintances, mentorsI have often wondered how society comes back from something like that. How is it when so many bodies are plucked off the face of the earth? Is it roomier? Quieter? I instinctively find the notion of a peoples revolution in the Marxist sense a lovely one. But I feel unsure. And I think that a large part of it is because of the defeat in 89 what and who my parents lost, everything and everyone I feel it too. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Following the decision to host NatCon online this year, numerous delegates have expressed concern that the conference will operate too efficiently without their much needed in-person disruptions. While the traditional face to face NatCon facilitated real-world heckling, jeering, chanting, and the occasional interfactional tussle, this years conference will most likely conduct critical NUS business without substantial disruption.Its a disgrace. Said veteran SAlt delegate Grace The Mean Means Alexander.My computer doesnt have the revolution I mean, resolution, to show me the faces of our many enemies in the high definition Ive grown accustomed to.Others have embraced the change, with one Liberal, who usually palms off his proxy to Unity delegates, saying he finally feels comfortable attending the conference.Ive always felt like such an outsider, like my hatred for public education meant I didnt belong. But over Zoom, I think I can finally come out of my shell. The Liberal delegate informed Honi.NUS heavyweights have expressed their relief as well, with many concerned theyd be cancelled on the conference floor if it was in person.I have not been a particularly good comrade over lockdown. One NUS exec member told us.Between voting for student union casualisation and accidentally becoming a landlord, COVID really flew by.With opinions divided, all students can hope for is that the NUS continues to perform its critical function of absolutely nothing in these trying and troubling times. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In truly astonishing news for fans of law, sport, monarchy, embezzling, revolution, panthers, sex offending, cars, fashion and deejaying the world over, assumed-to-be-dead celebrities Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Kobe Bryant, Princess Diana, Tina Lee, Qasem Suleimani, Chadwick Boseman, Karl Lagerfeld, Paul Walker and Avicii, have been discovered living a luxurious, drug-fuelled existence in Tel Aviv, Israel.The motley gang were discovered this week after passersby heard strange sniffing noises and groans coming from a seemingly innocuous underground bunker, previously assumed an abandoned military shelter for decades. Turning a blind eye at first, the neighbours attempted to go about their daily business.However, they soon found the commotion too much, and their curiosity overwhelmed them. With skyrocketing coronavirus cases in the country, and threats of a third lockdown, they knew something wasnt quite right, and went in to investigate the problem for themselves.Qasim was sharing the good shit.But RGB was hogging the poppers!What came next was inconceivable! Hands wielding glowsticks circled the air as the uplifting trance of Aviciis Wake Me Up permeated the room, the Swedish DJ riling up the crowd below him. Smoke machines began wooshing, as peoples bodies as if possessed by the Party Phantom began contorting in anticipation of the drop. RGB threw her head back and began to sing along:So wake me up when its all overWhen Im wiser and Im olderAll this time I was finding myselfAnd I didnt know I was lost.Consumed, she took out her Zap amyl, huffing heavily three times in each nostril, before attempting to pass it to Kobe behind her. Failing to meet his hands in the heaving chaos, Kobe turned her around and picked her up by her ass cheeks, wrapping his big hands around her tiny waist. She thrust the bottle to his nose as he inhaled deeply. As the dissociation hit, he plunged his tongue down her throat, kissing her passionately.Above, a revolving disco ball shaped like a coronavirus molecule lit up the dance floor in neon pink, purple and blue hues. As it swirled, different scenes began to emerge.Outside the bathroom, Paul Walker was fucking Princess Di up the ass, yelling Vroom Vroom!, as she swallowed four MDMA pills.As one neighbour told Who?Weekly: Shes my idol, Princess Di is, and to find out shes alive after all this time, only to be hiding away and involved in such debauchery has got me questioning so much about her that Id always taken for granted.In another corner, Epstein was snorting a line off a supine Karl Lagerfeld, dressed only in his signature thick black sunglasses, his Chanel face mask submerged in a bowl of GHB-induced punch.Whilst others were finding their partners for the night, Chadwick (with a bleeding nose) was bounding across the space, wall-to-wall, growling like a panther, as he shoved swabs of speed up the noses of unsuspecting dancers. Leaping over to Tina Lee to give her a bump, Lee declined, pushing him away and said: Goodness me! Its Tina Lee, and Tina Lee only does the finest cocaine!After snorting a line, she picked up a bottle of Veuve, shook it and then sprayed it all over the crowd. Everyone cheered loudly as hysteria engulfed the room.Qasem, a gram of 2cb in hand, approached the decks. Avicii, my man! You know whatll really get me going?What do you want, you Sulei-Man?Levels. You know, Ill let you in on a secret. It was the Guards hype song, he said as he motioned zipping his lips. This was, after all, his biggest secret.The disco ball began to slow down, as the music began to transition, the crowd waiting in expectation.A euphoric pulse started to fill the room.A crack appeared and confetti slowly fell from the roof. Then, a beaming light shone on Qasems face, who stood with his arms outstretched and smiled with pink powder all over his teeth.This was their safe haven, their escape from all the haters outside. They had found their wonderland, in the Holy Land. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> USU Board Meetings? More like USU Butt Meat-ings! Thats right those notorious in-camera sessions during Board Meetings are just a front for the Board Directors secret sex society: U.R.E.T.H.R.A. (Union Recreational Ejactualation, Tickling, Heavy Rimming and Anal).A Union worker tells us that, while the Pulp cucks wait patiently in a Zoom breakout room for the Board to finish their confidential business, the Directors head to Manning Bar, don their robes and penis masks, and commence the ritual they refer to as The Big Fuck.As part of this, the Directors use their sacred names. These include: I Rim Ma (Hole), Cady Bound, Bendy Schlong, Ben Hymen, Quicky In, Boobies(?) Lots(!), Dick Jiggly, Blow In Da Bomb Ass, Pullout Willy-Weak, Cummer Wet, and Nick Forbutt.The Senate Appointed Directors, who are referred to as Stained Bummond and Many Leaks, are apparently the leaders of this cult, and participate in an infrequent ceremony known as The Senate Suck-and-Fuck.The unfortunate staff members who have witnessed the societys rituals have all been fired this year under the guise of financial constraints. More like staff un-cuts!Unfortunately, invites are closed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Who? Weekly has learned the road to incoming SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapus historic provisional election was marked with terror and blood. 2020 General Secretary Liam Thomas, who once eyes a bid for the presidency himself, was cornered by Sanagavarapu in the SRC Building one night and threatened out of the race. Sanagavarapu had apparently obtained the blonde wig Thomas uses to become his alter-ego, Connor Wherrett.Similar tactics were used to dissuade James Ardouin from running, as Sanagavarapu held Ardouins lifetime supply of R. M. Williams polo shirts hostage. A traumatised Ardouin was sent a video of Sanagavarapu wearing all 732 shirts at once and yelling TRY PROVING YOURE A YOUNG LIBERAL NOW, FARTOUIN, before eating the collar of the top shirt.General Secretary/Entrepreneur Abbey Shis hopes for the Presidency were quashed after Sanagavarapu threatened to leak her tax returns, evidence of her inheriting apartheid money, and footage of her sellling international students to USyd via a human trafficking scheme.2020 Vice President Felix Faber, however, was not blackmailed, but instead murdered by Sanagavarapu. NLS members were sent photos of Sanagavarapu wearing Fabers skin, accompanied by the caption Guess NLS stands for Not Long for this world, Shitheads. Sanagavarapu apparently plans on writing plays under Fabers name next year.Swapnik sitting victoriously as President in Felix Fabers literal skin. Felix, pre-skinning, very much dead. Murdered by Swapnik! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ladies! Theres a new famous Armenian family in town with a name you cant pronounce or spell the Berejiklians! Whilst Gladys showed us that someone with a long surname and a woman can be Premier of NSW, it was only when her story of heartbreak with Daryl Maguire burst into our newspapers and onto our newsfeeds that we began to recognise her true star power. But Gladys isnt the only hairy-legged heartthrob out there, her sisters Mary and Rita are getting ready to piggyback off her new-found fame. Rita Berejiklian-Odom has a lot to handle with a bub on the way and her heroin-addicted hoop-shooting hubby philandering around. Mary Berejiklian-Disick doesnt have it any easier though, she has bubs number trois on the way and her ex-husband causing dramas with his model girlfriend. But three things keep these attractive Armenians together: love of family, love of money and love of loving. We talked to these curvy cunts from the Caucasus to find out how they have men wanting to keep up with them.1. Dont be afraid to go for the nobodyYou might think that a strong leader never goes for the rural loser, but think again! You cant let your social standing get in the way of the quest for romance, said Mary. When Gladys was young, her dad and momager, Krikor and Arsha actively tried to set their professionally minded eldest daughter up with potential suitors high up the corporate ladder. But dating down does have its perks. Duds are always aiming to please, she says. Theyll be discrete, go down for days and dont expect much in return.2. Corrupt dick hits betterBad boys do it better! the trio declare. Good guys are OK, says Rita, whos now onto her second marriage. But a man with flaws is the spice of life. Daryl oh my God should I even say his name! always knew his way around, Gladys remarks. Men who live on the edge can really take you to the edge. You can really tell when you have a man in bed who doesnt give a damn, lives life like every days their last, and operates a cash-for-visas scam, she adds. When I found out, I sucked him on the spot. It was pretty brutal.3. Dick doesnt need a labelPartner, boyfriend, sex slave it doesnt matter what you call it for this frisky family from the former-Soviet Republic as long as he puts out. You shouldnt over complicate things with labels, Mary says, Just because your parents are traditional, it doesnt mean you have to have a traditional type of relationship.4. Sometimes you need to come firstLoves important, but its not everything, the lovely ladies from the land-locked nation, state. Sometimes you, and NSW, need to come first, Gladys says. Our pretty Premier was recently left heartbroken after finding out that the bodacious backbencher that had stolen her heart had been involved in corrupt behind-the-scenes schemes. Im still trying to process it. I feel like its someone else living this Its like Im the main protagonist in a movie. Its like Im the feature and the film is going to end and my life is going to go back to normal but it will never be normal again. Sometimes you need to put your professional life first Im just going to say I have always put my job first, rightly or wrongly, and that will now continue indefinitely.5. Sister solidarityThe salacious sisters from the state surrounding Lake Sevan will always have each others backs. Your siblings know you best, and you cant trust anyone else, Rita says. Always make sure to have some sister-sister-sister time before your story makes tabloid headlines. Before Gladys recent media pivot, it was the women with whom she shared a womb that she turned to first. Of course, make sure theyre sworn to secrecy, and that your elderly parents are taken care of before you make your ICAC debut! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Deputy Jock Neighborne awoke happy. He peeked past the curtain and saw little droplets of dew humming atop freshly mown grass. The smell of the earth teased him, lulled him from the bed. In the past few weeks hed awoken despondently the burden of unrequited love was seeping through his bones, slowing him down, filtering all parts of the world that he usually found beautiful with a burdensome sepia glow. That morning however, was different. He was delirious. An energy coursed through his body, and from every direction. It flowed powerfully to one spot his heart.What beauty, Jock thought to himself, as he reached over the pepper-spray on his bedside table and pressed play on the speakers. The dulcet piano chords of Daryl Braithwaites classic Horses emanated through the room. He stretched his neck and sensually massaged the base of his spine it was painful that morning but the pain was worth it. As Daryls sultry voice whispered it away, Jock smiled with the wry smile of nostalgia. He remembered it like it was yesterday, that first night after being inducted into the police academy. He and his comrades were at the pub, wielding their big black batons and singing, baton-in-baton, the chorus of Horses at the tops of their lungs. They were forming transcendental bonds not only with the men in the room, but with policemen all over the world, united in their purpose to dick-swing, boot-lick and sublimate childhood trauma into unrestrained aggression towards Aboriginal kids and queers. But, as Deputy Jock Neighborne knew, nostalgia was just that, nostalgia a relic of the past, a reminder of good times. But now happy Deputy Jock Neighborne had finally discovered something to smile about; who needed nostalgia when you had the love of a beautiful companion to walk through life with? Jock had been admiring him for months. He was imposing. His skin seemed as if it were crafted by hands that were out of this world; his hair was dark and had the metallic sheen of a ravens coat. He had chiselled muscles like a marble Achilles. Jock had seen him chase down and trample many a Docs-wearing, petit bourgeois, uni student, fast like a jaguar and with the power of a semi-trailer. Jock craved the day he might experience such power. Oh, Beefcake, be mine. Take me to the Hershey Highway. But this was Jocks dirty, guilty secret. See: Jocks worst nightmare was his work colleagues finding out about this secret crush. Hed seen how they mocked the gays in Newtown. This was a game of furtive glances, blushes and joyous wanks just going for a cig in bathroom stalls at the Redfern cop shop. The issue was that Jock was still a lowly Deputy. He paled in comparison to those other men whod dedicated their lives to the force, loved the force and caressed the force, as if all the boys in blue were one big biological family. The other lads and girls had proven their credentials. They were battle-hardened and scarred from beating the shit out of 40 kilo queer activists and emaciated crackheads. Beefcake barely noticed him.So accustomed to dominating civilians and writing out tickets, Jocks sexual fantasy, his kink, was something different to his everyday experiences. He salivated for something new. He himself wanted to see what it was like to be penetrated and dominated. And so, when others left to go home, he stayed back. Beefcake didnt talk much. He was staunch and all business. But he listened and thats what Jock loved the most. Jock told him about his love for all the finer things in life a Dare iced coffee in the morning, JPS Gold (only tailors) and Oakley sunglasses. He was silently in awe of Jocks passion for Sudoku, which hed spent hours on alongside his morning glass of whiskey. Jock told him about the beach that had been a formative part of his childhood the rolling waves, the calming coalesce of kids frolicking on the beach, the birds chirping, the thrill he got making sandcastles.He told him about his first wife, who didnt like being second fiddle to his first love the force and how lonely hed been since then. He even told him about all the kids who used to make fun of him at school, the steroid addiction he developed as a result and how he struggled to get his cock up for his wife.But Jock assured him hed be able to do it for him. He imbibed it all, all his imperfections and all his eccentricities but at no point did he, like so many others before, say youre a fucking loser. Despite all the time they spent together, Jock knew someone like him couldnt hold his attention for long. Beefcake needed a spectacle, a Hollywood-esque display of love, to be convinced that Jock was the one.It was a balmy evening, and they were all returning after a long day of brutalising some uni student fuckheads. One of Jocks comrades asked him if he would be joining them for beers, but one look into Beefcakes dark, cosmic eyes forced him to reject the kind offer. He guided Beefcake into the stable and nestled his head within Beefcakes rippling muscles. Jock caressed him softly. He grunted in pleasure. Jock looked him square in the eye and as they stared at each other, time slowed to a drawl, and the tick tock of the clock was replaced with the protracted beats of his heart, thumping and heavy, oozing out from his swelling body. He gave him a peck on the cheek and moved around toward his back. Jocks fingers traced abstract across Beefcakes body and they carefully, agonisingly, moved further down. He felt around and to his surprise, felt something not soft and wet, but firm, thick and pulsing. He looked down and a giant horse cock stared him in the face. Is this me? he asked himself. Trust your heart Jock, trust it. He got onto his knees and moved into his best downward dog. Jock reached behind him and put his hand around the horses penis, clenched his jaw and with one swift movement, he felt a rush, unlike nothing hed ever felt before all the stars on in the sky burst, all the birds in the world chirped and all the other compartments of the earth spiralled and self-immolated, channelling all their energy to the powerful fusion of Jock and his saviour, the police horse. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a-very how you say, excellento news for the Italianos of the Americanos, signora Jill-a Biden has become the first-ah lady. Molto bene! It was not always, as you say, looking like it should be the most benne outcome. Signore Trumpo was a-looking like he would be il presidento, after a molto forte showing on the election-e day. Mamma mia! But, what do you know, signor Bidenno he won the day! And ah-now his molto bella signora, Mrs Jill-a Bidenno is the primo signora of all the land. Ay! Gabagool! Finally after, comme se dice, centuries of oppression the Italianos have taken the most highest position in the land!This is most molto good news! Signore Trumpo with his golfing-o and his racismo was not molto benne. He was molto bad! Almost as bad as signore Berlesconi with his Bunga Bunga parties! We can now say ciao to Trumpo and ciao to Bidenno! His wife-ah though was bellisima! When she leaves she will be very missima! So now we say congratulazioni to signora Bidenno! Mamma mia are we glad to have such a bellisima italianissimo lady to be our First Lady! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It was in the bathrooms of the New Law building that [y/n] first met Harry Styles, then Socialist Alternative candidate for USU Board, now known to most as the courageous paladin that suicide bombed the F23 Admin Building.It was like love at first sight. I walked out of that bathroom and ran straight into him. Ill never forget it. [Y/n] tells Who Weekly.What followed was a 9 month affair, a secret to everyone but [y/n] and Styles. They met in a number of campus locations from the library, to the Anderson Stuart Courtyard, Courtyard, and Hermanns bar. [Y/n] says that although she enjoyed talking to Harry, what really had her hooked was what they got up to afterwards. I couldnt stop myself. He talked about Marx a lot, and Trotsky, but he would always shut up after a while, and thats when the magic would really happen. The things he would do with his hands A blush creeps up [y/n]s cheeks as she recalls the intimate happenings of their weekly meet-ups, almost all too explicit to publish. He would **** my ****** and then *********** in my ******. Hed *********** my ******* with Mark Fishers Capitalist Realism, and then we would ******.After a few months of saucy meet-ups and rendezvous, [y/n] experienced a shift in the way she viewed the world, and her politics as a result. When I met Harry, I was so naive. I thought everyone was in SASS just to make friends! He really opened my eyes to the reality of campus politics.As [y/n] fell deeper under the spell of Styles, she began to reconsider the friendships she had first made at University. I was friends with lots of people in SASS Melinda, Conrad (former University of Sydney Union President Conrad Ferret) but as Harry educated me further on the teachings of Marx and Trotsky, I realised I just wasnt compatible with those people any more[Y/n] eventually joined the Womens Collective, and became friends with what Harry described as petit bourgeois Grassroots scum. Harry demanded that they continue to keep their relationship a secret, and [y/n] reluctantly agreed. Although it was hard.not being open with my friends about him. The secrecy actually made it hotter.They hit a stumbling block when Harry dropped a bombshell. He told me he was joining Solidarity, and running for SRC president. I was shocked. I tried to reconnect with him after that happened, and then he asked me to ask Grassroots to support him for president. I couldnt take it. This wasnt the man I knew. We didnt talk for a month. In the end, Harry didnt run for president.It wasnt long until they reconnected. A traumatic event, which [y/n] is unable to disclose, brought them back to each-other. We were in the tunnels under the quadrangle, when I fell back into Harrys arms again. We made love by candlelight, and when we finished we looked up, and realised where we were. We were in the weapons cache.It was this experience that ultimately caused both [y/n] and Styles to further flirt with revolutionary ideology, namely Maoism. I was interested in Maoist ideology, but Harry was really invested. His commitment to Mao Zedong thought was unparalleled.Harry and [y/n] resumed their dalliance, meeting almost daily in the tunnels. It wasnt long until [y/n] realised that the store of weapons were slowly depleting. I asked him about it, but he avoided my questions. I felt him slowly pulling away from me, becoming more and more distant.Eventually, Harry stopped returning [y/n]s calls. I was so worried about him. I hadnt heard from him in weeks. Then one day he called me, and told me to meet him in our usual place.It was there that she heard a loud boom, and the tunnel walls began to shake. I knew before I saw what had happened that he had done it. Harry had bombed the F23 Admin building. It wasnt until I got closer that I realised he had blown himself up in the process, in an ultimate act of martyrdom.Several weeks later, [y/n] returned to their tunnel. It was there she found a note in Harrys handwriting, written in what looked like blood. It was strange - I expected it to be about Mao, but it also contained a list of minor grievances and gripes with campus operations. There was a lot that Harry was angry about.Exclusive: The Note <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Following their purchase of Melbournes Festival Hall last week, Hillsong have announced plans to acquire Sydney bar Scary Canary.The venue will be used to instigate a new initiative by the megachurch to promote Christian-themed clubbing, or, as they have dubbed it, Bible Bashing.Were ecstatic to be reaching out to an entirely new demographic, Hillsong pastor Steven Quiffhead explained. Our ministry wont just be for white suburbanites who buy their clothes exclusively from H&M, but also white suburbanites who buy their clothes exclusively at Tarocash.Along with this purchase, the church has unveiled a new lineup of weekly events to take place at the venue. Wet Wednesday will become Worship Wednesday, Make-Out Monday will become Ministry Monday, and Fireball Friday will become Forget our Founders Father Frank Houston was a paedophile Friday. The church plans to also add a brand new theme: Tax-evading Tuesday.Additionally, the foam used for Canarys famous foam parties will now exclusively be made from holy water, and the music played will mostly consist of sermons set to ambient house beats.Hillsong founder Brian Houston has promised that, despite these changes, the spirit of the bar will remain the same.We know this purchase will be met with controversy, Houston explained over the phone, after the unmistakable sound of a long snort. But I know the Lord is with us, and he approves of us doing this, and he loves it, and he loves you, and he loves me, and hes never failed us God we know you love us come on everyone lift your hands up lets reach out to the Lord COME ON AMEN MY GOD IS SO GOOD I AM FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT I LIFT UP MY SPIRIT TO THE LORD!Houston proceeded to go on like this for an hour, seemingly manifesting anthemic background music out of nowhere halfway through. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A recent transfer into your ECOP1001 class, has recently taken a strong interest in whether youre going to organise any protests soon or maybe have any illegal drugs he can buy.Chris (who refuses to tell you his last name), 39, clearly fits right into your class of 19-year-old radicals. His Oakley sunglasses, very cool K-Mart jeans and flash walkie talkie has everyone in class wanting to be in his tute presentation group.Despite being a little older, hes clearly young at heart, often interjecting in class discussions to say a point is woke, on fleek or vape.Though only transferring in last week, Chris has already made some important contributions to class discussion. In one discussion about recent police killings in the US, he reminded classmates that actually police are just doing their jobs and that theyre the thin blue line between absolute anarchy, before adding, after a pause, that of course thats fine in his book because he is an antifa anarchist who loves to party.Unlike many classmates, he has really tried to shift discussions about readings to practical organising. He suggested recently that rather than discussing these commie readings perhaps students should talk about any plans to protest police repression over a marijuana cigarette which he loves because hes a total weedhead.Though youre not very close yet, its been great that hes taken an active interest in your life. Youve recently noticed that hes started looking over your shoulder in class and noting down the names of all the friends youve messaged, probably so he can message them later to find out what sort of gift youd like for your birthday.Youre more than a little pissed off about the ageism from some of your nominally progressive friends in the Education Action Group, who have refused to let him join in meetings. Its fine though, youve just decided at next weeks protest youll add him to the Discord group anyway. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Jimmy Thomas (19) debuted his livestream DJ act last Saturday night over Instagram Live to a rapturous crowd of twelve of his high school friends. Performing under the moniker Jay Tommo, the evening of music lasted a total of forty minutes and featured such timeless classics as Rhythm of the Night and Barbara Streisand. Thomas also included a few of his favourite tech house hits for good measure.I just think with the whole quarantine situation, everyone is just missing those eets Ivy vibes, Thomas told The Rodent from the comfort of his parents property in Mosman, and what better way to use all this time on my hands than to do something creative, learn a skill, and bring joy to all my mates?Thomas, who only started learning how to DJ on Friday after asking his dad to buy him some Pioneer CDJs, says he took an immediate inclination to the craft.I just loaded all my tracks on there and started mixing straight away. It was almost like the music was playing itself.When asked about his career roadmap as one of Sydneys up-and-coming DJs, Thomas was not afraid to tell The Rodent about his lofty ambitions.The next stop is definitely a slot on Room 2 Radio. And after that, who knows? If I keep building my Instagram numbers, I might even move to Berlin one day. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> 1. Administration Building (F23)Move over Quadrangle! Sayonara Manning Bar! Theres a new, beloved campus institution: the iconic Administration Building (F23). I have to admit, I wasnt sure if the architects I briefed would be able to pull off the brief I gave them non-descript but vaguely threating. But youve got to give it to them, they really captured the way students see me on campus. When I look out from my Panopticon, I mean, uh, office, I really feel proud to be part of revisioning this campus.2. The secret tunnel systemIts incredible to be part of an historic campus, with its secret passageways, ancient buildings and relics from a by-gone era. Some passageways allow you to get anywhere on campus undetected (including the 2018 Repselect room), others seem to attract clueless busty virgins, and still others are wide enough for you to unhinge your jaw, using your powerful back molars to bite through soft, first year flesh. Really makes you think!3. The sleep pods in FisherIn the hundreds of glowing profiles written by uncritical, brain dead, ambitious Fairfax grads over the years, Ive been constantly asked What keeps you so young and fuckable?. Well! A gentleman doesnt give away his secrets, but all I can say is that its definitely not being sucking the dreams through high-tech pods in Fisher library.4. Putting cockroaches in the UniBros pideOver my time at USyd Ive been proud to preside over a number of important changes: the neoliberal restructure of the University, the secret murder of Tim Anderson at a CIA blacksite, and getting more healthy protein in the diets of students. I first tried getting this done by encouraging the Economist to entice students to subscribe to their British propaganda outlet using chips made out of crickets. When that didnt work, I just started sneaking them into the UniBros pides. After my years at the University, Im proud to announce Ive met my goal to get a bug in the mouth of every student. Including you! Yes, I can see you! You!5. The Anderson Stuart labsI understand at my time at USyd, some of the actions Ive taken have been controversial: the casualisation of staff, redundancies and course cutting have not always been popular. But though the University community hasnt always seen this, the administration has always looked out for our staff. While casuals have worried about their job security during our period of austerity, weve been proud to announce a new way they can remain a part of our students learning experiments. The Anderson Stuart labs have been used to begin valuable scientific research, using the bodies of our casual staff (I know what youre thinking, and no there are no workplace rights for casuals), some animals and some good ol needles and thread, weve been able to put redundant staff to good use. Youre welcome! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Cluedo: This unregulated bonanza of death explicitly promotes vigilante justice and extra-judicial investigation to a dangerous extent. Up to 6 players, or should we call them outlaws, investigate the murder of a dear friend. Do they call the police? No. Do they telegram the police? No. Do they send out some kind of messenger with an oil lantern in search for the police? No again. Just to prevent my conscience from being eternally stained I introduce an extra unofficial character to the game called Inspector Indigo. He wears a purple trench coat, loves to knit and most importantly of all is a trained and authorised agent of the law. Please visit my Etsy shop for the Inspectors figurine. Bulk purchases will be discounted.Jenga: Construction codes and building industry regulations are critical to the safety and wellbeing of all. Why then is Jenga allowing the unauthorised renovation and subsequent demolition of a brutalist (and most likely heritage listed) high rise building? I dont recall the proper permits being granted by the Jenga towers local council (Presumably the City of the Dining Room Table, which after amalgamation merged with the City of the Lounge Room Coffee Table). And I certainly dont recall them seeking a materials exemption with the Department of Planning, considering that the double thick wooden planks theyre using could spell another cladding crisis. Shame on Jenga and shame on Hasbro for encouraging such dangerous behaviour!Monopoly: This game is perfect. It represents the majesty of free market capitalism in its purest form. The rule book is the ever present invisible hand and the two dice (found in the game box) which exactly replicate the unquestionable fairness of unregulated markets. And like all good public transportation systems, taking the train can potentially bankrupt you (depending on how concentrated its ownership is). What this adds up to is a highly educational experience which teaches humans aged 8 and up what truly unregulated bliss feels like. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Sydney University Law Society Cruise has been quarantined due to an outbreak of COVID-19, to the delight of everyone else on campus. Emergency supplies of boat shoes, Sydney Law jumpers and torts notes have been shipped over by NSW Health.Were horrified, a SULS spokesperson told The Rodent Review. Who could have foreseen virus spreading on a cruise ship, of all places? Especially one full of black out drunk law students fingering each other?On board, reports emerge that things are turning dark. Militant factions of MOOTers vye for power against Clayton Utz paralegals, the two groups looking to dominate the rapidly depleting supplies of Smirnoff and smuggled on Little Fat Lamb.Appallingly, The Rodent can reveal that the University has offered Arts students $500 dollars to clean the now putrid ship. This is a good opportunity to earn good money, an email from Vice Chancellor Spence states. We doubt that it is any more likely that students will contract COVID-19 on the boat than elsewhere in our infested campus.But despite everything, many remain positive.I have coronavirus and havent eaten anything except stale Doritos in two days, one first year Arts/Law student said, but this is still better than that fucking SASS Welcome to Uni party. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Live Coverage has been awarded to Chinese-Australian mother and Wechat extraordinare Linda Wang (53) for her fearless, persistent and multi-faceted reporting on the Coronavirus outbreak.Speaking for Columbia University, a representative from the Pulitzer Prize said the judging committee was blown away by Wangs sheer dedication to reporting, citing that her live coverage in her family Wechat group averaged at approximately one update every two minutes vastly outstripping any mainstream media outlet.The Pulitzers further praised Wangs ability to synthesise both English and Chinese language sources in her reporting, and her speed in breaking scoops hours before mainstream newspapers. When asked how she knew there was a coronavirus case at Ryde Hospital, Wang was equally swift in her reply.Oh that? Thats simple. My daughters high school friends boyfriends mums colleagues mahjong partner is a nurse at that hospital.Speaking to The Rodent, Wangs daughter Mary (21) was proud of her mothers achievements, but wished she would tone it down a little.I get that shes worried but a phone call update every hour is a bit ridiculous Every time I check my phone there are like 100 notifications.Honestly I havent seen her this preoccupied with something since I finished my HSC.Wang was unable to travel to New York and accept her award, having placed her whole family in lockdown based on an article she read on Wechat about how the Australian government is hiding the true extent of the virus. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a shocking twist of events, first generation migrant and local ethnic parent Min Hong expressed her regret at forcing her son David to study medicine.After pleading with her son for him to stay home instead of going to the hospital he is interning at, which has been at the centre of the Coronavirus outbreak, Hong told The Rodent that she never thought being a doctor would be so dangerous.I always told my son that he should have studied law or engineering or even commerce but he never listened to me. And now because of his bad decision, I cant even sleep at night.David contradicted his mothers claims, stating that he never wanted to study medicine, but was guilt-tripped into it after his mum told him she wouldnt be able to sleep at night if he didnt. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Preggo women have been making waves in elite sports over the last few years. Not to be overshone by Serena Williams Grand Slam win while two months pregnant in 2017, Ronda Rousey will become the first UFC fighter to enter the ring while 8 months pregnant.The fight will be the first return for Rousey to the Octagon, since her humiliating loss to Holly Holm.Im coming back with twice the power, Rousey told The Rodent, and Im ready to kick whichever sterile bitch Im up against right in the pussy.The Divas star denied allegations that the move was just to create a story arc in a failing reality show about WWE fighters. Its not exactly like people are going to pay extra to see a pregnant woman do MMA, Rousey said. Why? Do you know anyone whod be willing to pay? How much?Following her MMA return, Rousey is planning on transitioning her WWE persona to better reflect her pregnancy. Ive been workshopping a few different ideas with Vince McMahon, Rousey said to The Rodent. At the moment my favourite is just painting my belly black and slamming into people, Ill be The Bowling Ball. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Amidst an unprecedented lockdown in Australia due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, one man in the beachside suburb of Bondi has taken a brave stand against the Chinese Communist Party. Fresh from his illicit evening swim in the ocean, David Croft (52), a financial manager, told The Rodent that he knew exactly who to blame for the social ostracisation he has received recently from just going about his daily ritual.Its completely communists fault. If they didnt lie, the virus wouldnt have spread across the world and we wouldve been more prepared to face. And I would still be allowed to go to the beach. he said, his dad-bod glistening with the famous turquoise seawater of Bondi.When presented with the fact that he was still going to the beach in spite of the government lockdown, Croft was swift with his dismissal.Yea well Im not going to change what Ive been doing for the past 20 years just because of some virus. Its a free country and I can do whatever I want. Do you think I paid all that money for my house by the water just to look at it? he stated, before going into a coughing fit.Sorry mate. Must be because of the water. Its getting colder and colder out in the surf. he wheezed, before coughing again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Dressed from head to toe in Gorman and an avid fan of Aperol Spritzes, Melissa Davies (25) is not what normally comes to mind when someone says indoctrinated Stalinist. However, the PR assistant is finding herself more and more drawn to the ideology that ruled the Soviet Union from the 30s to the 50s with an iron fist after her recent break-up with her boyfriend.Look, I get that Stalin did all those awful things. But that time he edited Nikolai Yezhnov out of a pic after Nik was purged? Thats so me haha what a mood.Davies own Great Purge has involved a full sweep of her social media handles where she has removed all photos which feature her ex-boyfriend. Davies has been brutal, sparing no mercy not even for the ones she looks really hot in.I thought about maybe just changing the captions to something like I should have never trusted you or Counter-revolutionary scum but then I remembered that Comrade Stalin wouldnt have compromised. He wouldve gone the whole way.Davies said she topped it all off with blocking her ex-boyfriend, but only after creating a fake account to continue monitoring his online activity. She expressed no remorse for her actions.Stalin was way hotter anyways, she said. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I throw my long, brown hair into a messy bun. I check my appearance in the mirrors of the New Law bathrooms. Not great, but itll do I guess. Gathering my library books, I hurry out of the bathroom. Im late for class!As I exit the bathroom, I run into someone. Embarrassed, I glance from beneath my fringe to apologise. When I look up, I gasp in shock. Its Harry Styles!Im sorry Harry! I say, barely concealing my stutter.Dont worry about it, he smiles, placing his hand on my arm. Hey, do you mind if I take a moment of your time? Its about the upcoming USU elections.I can barely contain my excitement. Harry Styles is trying to give me a walk and talk?Yeah, sure. I mean I guess! Go ahead I say nervously, hoping none of my friends in Student Unity see me talking to the Socialist Alternative candidate for union board.He briskly walks me toward the voting booth at Fisher, but Ive tuned out. Im staring deeply into his eyes.Anyway, I guess you could say that Adore You is inspired by my admiration for Karl Marx Harry stops, awaiting my response. He chuckles as I dont say anything, handing me a how to vote card.Just follow the instructions on this. Ill see you later. He winks at me, watching as I walk toward the line.Two hours later, Im studying in the stacks when I get a text from my friend Conrad.Hey Bitch! I heard u were talking to that filthy trotskyist Harry Styles outside Fisher 2day. Hope u know who to vote for!Conrad is the current USU President. Hes pretty much the Regina George of the University of Sydney. Hes in Student Unity, with all of my friends from SASS.I go to reply to his text, when I get a new one from an unknown number.Hey [your name]! Its Harry. I got your number from that petition you signed last month. Would you like to get a coffee with me before council tonight?Im hot and flustered all of a sudden. Harry Styles wants to get coffee with me? I send him a reply, trying to act cool.Hey, sounds good. Lets meet at Courtyard.Im waiting at Courtyard for Harry to arrive when I realise that I should have picked a more discreet location. Some of my friends from SASS are there, and they wave me over.Hey [your name]. Conrad told me you were seen speaking to that Harry Styles. I hope you didnt vote for him! Melinda looks at me with hurt in her eyes. I instantly feel guilty.I voted for you Melinda, of course! How is your petition to save Manning Bar going? I know that Melindas petition only has 22 signatures, but I need to change the subject.Its going fine! she snaps. I have to go. Ill see you later [your name]. Melinda and her friends march away, just before Harry gets there. Relieved, I walk toward him.Hey! Lets get takeaway and walk to council? I think youll really enjoy it. Im instantly worried what if Conrad and Melinda see me with him! Harry senses my fear, drawing me into his arms.Dont worry [your name]. You can sit with your SASS friends, and Ill text you. Itll be our secret. Im blushing furiously, as Harry releases me to pick up our coffee. He passes me mine and grabs my hand, as we walk toward council.Two hours into council, and nothing interesting has happened yet. Im sitting next to Melinda, trying to act casual. Harry locks eyes with me from across the room, and I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.Want to get out of here?He motions for me to follow him out of the room, so I turn to Melinda and tell her Im going to the bathroom.Okay. Just make sure you stay away from those filthy commoners. They have germs. She points toward where Grassroots and SAlt are sitting, and I nod my head. I leave the Professorial Boardroom and walk down the steps into the Quad. Wandering through the cloisters, I wonder where Harry has gone. Suddenly, I feel two strong arms around me. Harry turns and pushes me against the wall, leaning over me. I blush as he caresses my cheek with a single finger, winding an arm around my waist.Ive wanted to do this for so long.We were sent a link to this fanfiction late Sunday evening. It has also been uploaded to Wattpad. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Allen Poes words, The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins?There is something about vividly unsettling images that has always tickled my analytical bone, and Carmilla (1872) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, a vampire novella written decades before Bram Stokers Dracula, did just that. The lesbian vampire narrative not only appealed to the interests of my 2014 Tumblr-user self, but it also made me question the perception of female sexuality and desire in Gothic literature.Intimacy is often depicted as fearful and terrifying in Gothic narratives due to the grotesque and supernatural storylines. However, the desirable relationship between vampire Carmilla and mortal Laura in this novella doesnt just contain bouts of pain and intoxication but also points towards other, gentler directions in the depiction of lesbian intimacy. The text hints towards a broader question of whether the characters desire is an alternative in the absence of heterosexual romantic satisfaction.The novella focuses on Lauras lack of social connections, as she lives a life of modest comfort in a lonely and primitive place. Lauras identity is restricted to the first few pages where she talks about her family, but not her individuality, which demonstrates how women are expected to see themselves as dependent on others. The limited insight into Lauras character not only points towards social alienation, but her lack of opportunities for heterosexual intimacy which would typically determine a womans life. Lauras social depravity lies in the Victorian social structure, where a man was seen as the benefactor of a woman. Elements of romantic exploration and identity building through socialising are missing in her rural upbringing. Before Carmilla enters her life, we see her downtrodden, solemn outlook:I was not frightened, for I was one of those happy children who are studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories, of fairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads when the door cracks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a bedpost dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces. I was vexed and insulted at finding myself, as I conceived, neglected, and I began to whimper. (6)However, the entry of Carmilla soothes her and she looks at her with a kind of pleased wonder (6). The novella artistically frames lesbian romance as a much needed alternative; an escape from Lauras adolescent wait for a heterosexual connection. Even the pains of physicality with the vampire are shown to be emotionally satisfying rather than obnoxious.Another factor which shows that their desire is not fearful and terrifying, is the normalcy that Laura shows towards Carmilla in their interactions, despite her being a supernatural creature. Tales of vampirism revolve around a narrative of the contaminating vampire and its innocent victim. However, in this novella, the perceived predator is normalized and romanticized by the victim as a viable alternative to the drudgeries of a heterosexual life path. Laura associates pleasant things like languidness and beauty with the vampire, she says, There was nothing in her appearance to indicate an invalid (33). The use of words like invalid shows a further blurring of the boundaries, where although Carmilla is an outsider, her movements are completely acceptable to Laura. Their connection organically blooms and is an exciting intervention in Lauras traditional life. The novella also depicts the clashes of interest that are also seen in mainstream heterosexual romances, like Carmillas disbelief in God. Her contrast to Lauras religiousness is startling, but not a frightening, horrendous opinion that disturbs Laura enough to change her feelings. We see a sense of comfort and mingling of the opposing lovers both physically and emotionally, where neither one of them harmfully overpower the other. The lack of dominance of one lover in this relationship despite Carmilla being a vampire is presented as an alternative to heterosexual connections in this novella, charting a growth of affection into passion.Carmilla and Lauras relationship is a tale of equal interest fuelled by ardour and affinity. The diminishing of vampiric and human boundaries arises when we see how Carmillas desire for Laura is equally or even further reciprocated. There is no contaminating one-sided chasing in this romance unlike in a typical heterosexual love story where the man courts the woman, which would make the vampire story grotesque and fearful. Laura admits that she feels there is a love growing into adoration (37) and that her curiosity towards Carmilla is a restless and unscrupulous passion(34). The story invigorates a building tale of equal desire, a perceived comfort from Lauras end too as they hold hands, kiss, and Laura calls Carmilla romantic. Their desire is idiosyncratically that of equal interest, which is quite different to heterosexual love practices, demonstrating how women are capable of strong feelings of desire too, which challenges traditional patriarchal ideas. There is an absence of any romantic endeavours from a man towards Laura, but she does suspect that Carmilla is a male interference.What if a boyish lover had found his way into the house and sought to pursue his paramour in masquerade with the assistance of a clever old adventuress? (38)She rejects this by saying that she cannot boast of any masculine attentions (38). There is a conscious lack of male attention and a pointed removal of male intervention through their relationship. Their romance is not fearful, but a way of fulfilling desire in Lauras rural and social terrain. The presence of the supernatural in the narrative is used to transgress the patriarchal boundaries of our reality to portray female sexual and emotional passions in new and powerful ways.Le Fanus novella was one of the first to talk about about lesbianism in way that was complex and passionate, and can be considered revolutionary if we think about the appropriateness of literature to its time. When I read this text, I wondered whether or not it should be deemed as feminist literature, or just a text with some forward-thinking undertones in its depiction of female desire under the guise of the supernatural. Such a presentation of lesbianism made me speculate whether we can placidly take in unconventional love stories of other texts at face value. Carmilla unravelled a new dimension of Gothic literature for me because includes softness and comfort even in an unsettling storyline; its blurring of boundaries is indeed a small act of radical revelation. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Since indications of a pandemic lockdown began, mainstream media have reported on the increased risk of domestic violence, running headlines such as Triple threat: coronavirus, family violence and child sex abuse, The coronavirus lockdown has Australias domestic violence shelters fearing for migrant women, and Coronavirus lockdown results in 75 per cent increase in domestic violence Google searches.On March 26th, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a statement warning governments and the public about an exacerbated risk of violence in the time of COVID-19. Already, one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner. WHO and the media have identified many factors about why it may be worse: those suffering from domestic violence are stuck inside their homes with their abuser with less freedom and ability to seek help; their support networks have been cut off, there are fewer people present in the community who could bear witness, and people who are financially dependent on their abuser have no ability to leave if theyve lost their jobs.This is part of a broader, historical pattern that has seen rates of abuse increase during times of hardship. While statistics are hard to come by, oral histories from the Great Depression in Australia documented by Wendy Lowenstein describe these difficulties. Interviewee Miriam Tonkin describes her home life as, my father was not only mean, he was violent. We lived in terror of him. Sometimes we were locked out because of his violence and we slept in the Park. This is just one of many stories documented by Lowenstein, and countless other stories that have never been shared. Research into the 2007 recession in the United States also reveals a slight increase in domestic violence. By understanding the current crisis within this historical context, the repercussions of the COVID-19 lockdowns are frightening.Given the incredible risk that people in already vulnerable situations are facing, governments, NGOs and community groups are attempting to help in new and innovative ways. Womens shelters have been actively sharing and promoting their services, while calling for extra funding and donations. Hotel chain Accor has offered to shelter people fleeing domestic violence. The Victorian Government announced a $40 million package for additional crisis accommodation and specialist family violence services during COVID-19. This is a necessary step, but it is unclear whether other states will follow suit.On a personal level, maintaining connections is vital so that our physical distancing does not result in social distancing and isolation. Some individuals have posted Facebook statuses similar to the following: If youre isolating in a dangerous environment, message me about makeup and ask if Im still selling it, Ill know to keep checking up on you. Ask me specifically about my eyeliner and I will call the police for you.While the ectonomic and social impacts of COVID-19 have heightened the concerns and risks of domestic violence, it is crucial to remember that domestic violence is a persistent issue. Even prior to the crisis, our prevailing systems failed to eradicate abuse within the home. In 2015, the Australian Federal Government called domestic violence a national emergency, yet there have not been any substantial results. Therefore, it is important that the current increased media attention on domestic violence is maintained.Around the world, responses to coronavirus have been successful when they are rapid and focused on education and mutual aid. Crucially, this is also the best way to approach domestic violence. Over the past month, there has been a spike in the googling of community-minded terms such as mutual aid. COVID-19 has provided us an opportunity to envisage a new world that could radically improve community support and resources for domestic violence survivors.Given that there is no end in sight for current social distancing measures, it is imperative to continue the conversation about assistance for domestic violence survivors. We must look beyond creating awareness, and shift attention towards complete non-acceptance of any domestic violence and strengthening societys belief and support of survivors.If this article has raised concerns for you or someone you know, contact the National Domestic Violence hotline on 1800 Respect (1800 737 732), use their free 24 hour online chat service (https://www.1800respect.org.au/) or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I was ten years old, my father lived in Hong Kong. Whenever I visited him, a whole month every summer, Id stay up all night watching TV. This was, of course, before I believed in words like jetlag and healthy sleep cycle. I stayed up late becauseTotally Spieswould come on at 2am every night. But, one night, I slept throughTotally Spies. I awoke to a pre-teen crime show,Sally Bollywood: Super Detective.It wasnt until that moment that I realised my identity affected how I consumed popular culture. My first thought was:its so exciting to see a brown girl on television outside India.My second thought was:this is the stupidest thing Ive ever seen. I had so many questions about the show. Why was her last name Bollywood? How did this twelve-year-old Indian girl have so much agency? Why couldnt I, a ten-year-old Indian girl, relate to her character on levels more profound than the colour of our skin?Did my anglo heritage make me inauthentic?Sally Bollywoods description states that she lives in a city where people of different nationalities and ethnic groups make up the population. I found it peculiar that this was something they needed to specify, as if people of different nationalities and ethnic groups didnt make up the population of almost every city. It almost sounded like the only reason such a character was allowed to exist and be the protagonist of a French-Australian television show was to showcase that other ethnicities existed and were allowed to have their stories told in an industry that was predominantly Anglo-Saxon. Such descriptions are not commonly found for other shows.These feelings permeated other aspects of my life. From then on, every piece of western media I consumed was tainted. It was really easy to see how much I wasnt being represented.Hannah Montanadisappointed me,Wizards of Waverly Placedisappointed me,Barbiedisappointed me. It was odd that I was looking for validation in these places when I had an ocean of Indian content to choose from. Idont know whySon PariandShararatdidnt matter to me; why they didnt feel enough.But I think I am able to see more of the picture now. I thought these shows reflected real life; that American high schools had floor-to-ceiling length posters of their basketball team, that Miley Cyrus went to high school with a wig on, that it was possible to be a teenager and save the world. While one of those things might be true, the lack of brown representation in the media created all these spaces I wasnt welcome.When I wrote my first story, all of my characters were white. They had commonwhite names, lived in New York a city I wouldnt visit for eight more years and were royalty. It was a terrible story, the plot was in shambles, and the characters barely had a second dimension. It was a while before I realised I was writing about characters Iassumedpeople would want to read about, rather thancharacterswho were authentic, tangible, and present in my everyday life. I genuinely thought that every aspect supporting roles included had to be white and that there could only be one token character of colour.The internalised racism I harboured was so intense thatthe presence of more than one person of colouroffendedme. I felt indebted, uncomfortable even, with the space they took up.As artists and people of colour, the capacity of art to challenge and progress society depends upon the lengths we go to be true to ourselves. Our work should reflect our values, not anglocentric methods of storytelling. Irobbedmyself of hundreds of tales born in my country in favour of New York city lights, Venetian balconies, and London rain.The process of unlearning so many years of indoctrination was exhausting. There are moments even now where I find myself slipping. The only way, I think, is to be an active observer and critique everything put in front of me, no matter how tiring it may be. There are millions of stories that arent for me, ones that I am allowed to enjoy. And I have learned that if I find gaps in either Western or South-Asian stories, it is up to me to try and fill them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The hospitality industry fell in under a week. There were rumblings of things about to go wrong on Monday, and by Saturday almost everyone had lost their jobs.Its hard to describe the grief I feel at the loss of my own. I feel foolish for trusting there to be work in an industry known for its precarity at the best of times. In Sydney, restaurants close as frequently as they open. How could I assume they would survive a pandemic?Hospitality in Sydney is a more interesting study as a scene than as an industry. On the business side of things, its much the same as anywhere else: companies are profit-driven, workers are exploited. Im among the lucky few that work for establishments that pay correctly and treat their staff well. Most others are the victims of missing payslips and an award system that is frequently misunderstood. There is very little in the way of union support, despite the successes of Hospo Voice in Melbourne. Like Melbourne, exploitation is rife.This is perpetuated by a media class more interested in Neil Perrys burgers than the workers from whom he has stolen millions of dollars of wages. The workers that make any of these places worth writing about in the first place the waiters, the glassies, the bartenders and the chefs, are ignored in the face of the latest celebrity opening. It is these people that create the culture of hospitality in Sydney, and it is for them that I mourn.The hospitality scene in Sydney is tight-knit. You know everyone. You either worked with them, know someone that worked with them, or met them at 4am at the Strawberry Hills Hotel. In a demanding, high pressure service environment, the relationships that are formed can become those most important in your life. Theres also a camaraderie in being hospo, heightened by the sense that people outside the industry dont really understand it.Friendships that arent formed behind a bar are formed over one, on shared breaks and drinks after shifts. The bars and restaurants that we visit on and off shift, as well as the ones we work in, are the physical base of our community. Their staff become an extended part of our working lives, as much a part of it as the people we actually work with. The loss of these spaces has contributed considerably to our shared grief though some will reopen, many will not.I think that I am grieving the loss of these spaces the most. This loss, though temporary, is more than an absence of places to drink in. Their walls hold the memories of departed friends, of people I wont be seeing for a while. Many wont make it back to Sydney, even after the pandemic abates.I am also feeling a deep sorrow at my lack of work. I miss my customers. I long for their conversation and their company, their familiarity. I miss even the worst of them, not for themselves, but for the solidarity they unwittingly created between me and my coworkers. I feel the loss of every hour of my working week as keenly as I did in the moment I knew my job was lost.COVID-19 may have sounded the death knell, but it wasnt what killed hospitality. The structures of power and oppression that control our society are ever present, if not amplified by the nature of our work. Merivale mournlessly stood down the same workers they have underpaid for a decade. Racism and xenophobia is rife, with migrant workers largely left out of the COVID-19 discussion, even as it affects them the most. Many workers are currently existing in Fair Work Act limbo, unsure if they have been stood down or made redundant, or what either term means.Though many workers are individually political, the invisibility of the union movement in Sydney hospitality means that most arent unionised.Watching their response to the unfolding crisis, its easy to understand why many workers are disillusioned with the left and their respective unions. The university educated, middle class left condemn those that fail to practice social distancing with religious fervour, whilst ordering Ubereats. It would seem that there is no greater evil than going outside, unless youre a delivery driver bringing the outraged their food. All the while, many of the recently unemployed see social distancing as the direct cause of their situation and who can blame them?Those with a job in hospitality are the lucky few. For most of us, its over. Many will have to return home, whether that be interstate or overseas. The rest of us are left waiting for Centrelink, watching as the government stutters over decisions that will determine how we survive the next few months.In some senses, COVID-19 has been transformative.The response to the crisis has revealed an overwhelming sense of solidarity and community. Those lucky enough to still hold their jobs have provided for those without, as free meals are offered across the city. The economic devastation of the pandemic has instilled a more furious and immediate class consciousness amongst my co workers than I have ever encountered before.Though I am filled with sorrow, I am also filled with hope: hope for my community, for my friends, for our lives. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Youre sitting on a train. The humming of the vehicle is causing you to feel a little drowsy, the people and buildings outside are passing in a blur. It should be comforting, sinking into your chair while barrelling towards your destination. But the seat beneath you is like sandpaper against your thighs, the window is painted with hateful words, and in the distance, is the sinister sound of racism pervading the carriage.Weve all experienced it. If youre a regular commuter youre bound to have witnessed at least one act of racism on public transport. In my first year of university I was headed home on the 412 when a man began hurling obscenities at people of Asian ethnicity for having the audacity to step foot on the bus.Ive watched at least a dozen videos online that have made me feel like Im watching back my own experience. Moments of hatred shared on social media. We watch and we think how terrible, and then, we move on with our lives, comforted by the thought that if we had been there that day, we would have stopped it.But standing on the bus, gripping the metal pole, trying to maintain balance as we zipped through the city streets, I did not. I watched the man spew revulsion and disgust at ordinary people for no reason at all. People who were the same as me; my classmates, trying to get home. And I said nothing.Instead I felt transported to another time. I was 14 years old again, travelling home on the bus after a hot, sweaty day at school, the older boys in front of me snickering and making pointed glances my way. When the bus finally skittered to a halt and I shuffled towards the gliding doors, I faintly heard the word gorilla come from their direction. It hung over me like a shadow.This particular memory rendered me utterly frozen. I stood there listening to this man spread vulgarity and chaos on the bus, no longer an intelligent, confident woman but a frightened schoolgirl. I had no voice, and so the cycle was perpetuated. Those people on the bus left feeling as powerless and alone as I had so many years ago when nobody bothered to speak up for me.Why has public transport become an unrelenting breeding ground for racism? Why, when we are surrounded by so many people, do we feel the most afraid? Maybe its because train carriages and buses are enclosed spaces that leave us feeling trapped. Were surrounded by hideous beige-coloured walls, sticky floors, and an inescapable musk, with nothing but our own reflection staring back at us. Were forced to see our own faults and imperfections and instead of confronting it, we deflect that feeling of hatred onto someone else. Race is an easy target. Without ordinary pleasantries to distract us, do we become nothing more than selfish, ignorant discriminators? In these unsettling times, when people have resorted to hoarding toilet paper, and brawling over the last can of tomato soup, its scary to imagine that humans are incapable of common decency under extraneous circumstances.I cant give you a definite answer as to why people behave this way. All I can say is that I wish somebody had stood up for the 14-year-old girl struggling to comprehend why the word gorilla was being thrown at her all those years ago. All it would have taken was one person. And then perhaps, I might have been able to return the favour for those students on the bus who most likely left feeling as lost and alone as I once did.The virus sweeping our nation has only worsened this pre-existing issue. New incidents of racism on public transport are emerging every day. These new outbursts stem from the naive misconception that those of Chinese descent are carrying COVID-19 microbes everywhere they go and so, we are left with racist upsurges and people moving seats on the bus to get away from Asian Australians out of irrational fear. Political and economical instability fosters xenophobia. Trump continues to refer to COVID-19 as the Chinese virus.European right-wing political parties have been using the virus as a ploy to halt immigration. Other news sources have reported a collective feeling of villanisation. A Taiwanese woman riding the train in France recounted her experience of racism; I sat down with my headphones and suddenly heard the word Chinese! and a mother and child got off to change carriages. While Eunice, a woman living in NYC spoke to The Atlantic about people overly distancing themselves from her on public transit. Similar stories have been surfacing all over the world.These global challenges should be uniting us against the faceless foe that is a deadly virus, but even as national leaders from around the world urge us to be kind and considerate, we are still divided.Maybe a little time spent at home in self-isolation will lead to some self-reflection, so that when this is all over and were next faced with a beautiful array of multicultural Australians crammed into a moving metal box, we wont be afraid, well embrace it. But at the very least, my hope is that we can all ride the bus feeling a little safer than before. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We amble our way through the world, life punctured with world events that have meaning to us. Im Victorian, so my lifes progress is measured, like a metronome, by AFL Grand Finals and Boxing Day Tests. I also grew up Muslim in the West at the turn of the century and this has a very particular meaning to diaspora Muslims; even more so to those who are visibly Muslim. It means our lives are punctuated by altogether more sombre events and we live in constant anticipation of the next, bracing ourselves for the deluge of hatred that accompanies it. For those of us that are visibly marginalised, by way of hijab or complexion, we have come to terms with the idea that we dont get jobs like white people, or that we date differently, or that we make less money. Many of us in a millennial context have made our peace with that. We never make peace with the loathing; with our categorisation as lesser-than. It is a point of incandescent rage in the Muslim community that we never reconcile why wont it just fucking stop?March 15, 2019. Christchurch.51 dead, and an outpouring of grief and support from voices Id never heard, unlike anything Id ever known. Perhaps it was the closeness, compounded by the fact it was an Australian who perpetuated it. It has been encouraged by our elected officials in the name of the fabled marketplace of ideas, as long as I have known. After the attack, we were told the narrative would change; that it would be different now.Why then, are my Twitter mentions filled with neo-Nazis, more emboldened than ever? Why is it that we have seen an uptick in Islamophobic hate crimes, even after Christchurch made it unpalatable for even One Nation to go on the attack against Muslim communities? How is it that neo-Nazism is alive and well on campus, an arena that supposedly suffocates free speech with the vice-grip of the do-gooder left? Why am I still on edge, waiting for the next brown terrorist to shatter this faade of calm?It is because even in the face of death, we never actually confronted Brenton Tarrants ideology as a nation. When the Prime Minister was taken to task on national television last year for suggesting in 2011 that shadow Cabinet leverage anti-Muslim sentiment in the community, the Prime Minister explicitly rejected addressing any issue of historic Islamophobia in the Government or his Party, and spoke instead at length about his personal reputation in the western suburbs. While ASIO warned of right wing extremism and white supremacy as the most significant emerging threat to security in Australia, we saw the responsible Minister focusing on a confected threat of left wing Islamist groups; consistent with his turn away from the specific demonization of Muslims he engaged in pre-Christchurch, in favour of his newfound position as a culture warrior.It seems an uncomfortable reconciliation for Australians; for white people built upon (an obviously problematic) notion that this nation was settled in a similar vein to America, with the aim of freedom of religious pursuit. Therefore, the idea that we can be so explicitly Islamophobic (as if White Australia didnt prohibit Muslim immigration) is at odds with our idealistic construction of Australian identity. It is an ideological dance we are forced into with every Breivik or Tarrant or Jones in this country, and it is rooted in the imperialism Western governments so gleefully engage in. We so deeply and so quickly politicised the role that Muslims have to play in the West since the turn of the century that it became partisan indeed, the Opposition opposed the decision to enter Iraq, and the government had no majority in the Senate. There is little question of how the War on Terror fed off, encouraged and exacerbated Islamophobia in the West this much is clear and uncontroversial, whether it was propagated by Bush, Blair or Howard. With unilateral action being taken in Australia to follow the United States into Iraq, there was little opportunity for any degree of cross-chamber or public resistance. Putting aside that the rationales for Iraq were entirely confected of themselves, our course of action in 2003 laid the path for the War to become a partisan issue, and by extension the role that Muslims have to play in this country, and in the War.We were forced into perpetual apologia, or otherwise, a distancing from our faith. Any public response to the contrary invites a revocation of your right to Australian identity, even if it is so mild as to simply reject the basis for Western neo-imperialism, or ones relation to fundamentalists on the other side of the world. To be with us was to be progressive, and to be against us was not. Such a fundamentally flawed binary model of identity results in what we saw a year ago on Channel Ten the Prime Minister, presented with a decade of Islamophobic behaviour in his ranks, sought not to address it but to run. He had little choice; commit the grave political sin of throwing his colleagues under the bus in favour of bolstering his own leadership credentials to a substantial portion of moderate Australia, or otherwise admit that there is a tension between acknowledging the humanity of Muslims and efficient conservative leadership in this country.When we shove political issues into partisan boxes, we devalue them. In devaluing the Muslim community in the War on Terror to a partisan issue, we have failed them. We forfeited our ability to substantively address the Islamophobia we perpetuated for the sake of neo-colonialist wars on the other side of the world. When I ask myself why nothing feels any different since Christchurch, perhaps its because it is no longer possible to think differently, not as long as the War on Terror rages on. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Lebo, wog, or the staple cuz a colourful swatch of endearments drizzled into a conversation by your non-Lebanese friends. While vapid attempts at appearing in the know may earn the favour of those who have transcended intergenerational marginalisation, an image still lingers of a migrant community caught somewhere between two worlds. Where is the line drawn between owning ones heritage and resisting assimilation?Despite suspicion around Irish migrants at the time of Federation, and Greeks and Italians in the 1960s and 70s, many once-vilified migrant communities have nestled into a comfortable space in Australian society. But why has it proven so difficult to dismantle the image of the terrorising anti-social Lebanese other? Call it our coping humour, but perhaps we are part of the problem. Do we enjoy dwelling in all two dimensions of a tired caricature? How much do we find ourselves bending to such stereotypes in our dress, manner and speech to the point where an accent manages to skip generations beyond where the Arabic language could ever reach?Recurrent caricatures of our migrant community particularly their disadvantaged children are something that Lebanese-Australian youth often cling to in an attempt to embody relevance and slide in to a comfortable place in the ethnic-Australian landscape. We can look to Fat Pizza and The Footy Show where Arabic terms of endearment like habibi, once used affectionately by our mothers to us as children, are repurposed for identifying an individual with very little prospect in life. Weve ritualised shrugging and laughing these stereotypes off, perpetuating a caricature of the Lebanese-Australian as little more than a meme, as though our ancestors did not toil to protect their volatile homeland and then leave it all behind in better hopes for us. While it might make onlookers more comfortable for us to laugh along with humorous portrayals of our community, we should not let ourselves be the butt of the joke. At what stage did being Lebanese begin to mean skirting the rules? Since when did our ethnicity mean an old-fashioned take on life? Why does a Lebanese job seem to infer a haphazard effort? Perhaps all that negative self-talk is no longer worth punchline.At one point the Lebanese-Australian identity would fall into a backdrop of what it meant to be a wog, sharing attributes with our European-Mediterranean neighbours of speaking loudly with our hands, being family-oriented and drowning our food in olive oil. While wog remains a derogatory term, in the year 2020 this slur still feels more manageable than being called an Arab. In a post-9/11 Australia, the ethnic identity of 430 million people seems to carry more stigma than a curse word. Little wonder so many Lebanese-Australians are resistant to identifying in such a manner? Its perhaps time to move beyond rehashing old wounds in a society that struggles to separate bad eggs from a batch of good ones; an incapacity to move beyond the mention of the Cronulla Riots in a sociology class, or to set aside race from the actions of the 2000 gang assaults in a Criminal Law lecture.Lebanon is a vibrant corner of the globe, home to 18 different religious sects. A bustling nightlife and a breathtakingly green mountainous terrain, Lebanon has been the safe preserve for Maronite Catholics, Sunnis, Shiites, Antiochian Orthodox, and Druze for centuries. With migration dating back to 1857, it bares difficult to speak of the challenges that face fifth-generational Lebanese-Australians from the village of Kfarsghab as we would first-generation migrants from the city of Tripoli. Its important to realise that minorities exist within our own minority, predicated on geographic, religious and generational parameters. Its time we dropped sectarian tensions and banded together in recognising that we are first and foremost united as Australians, and its through organisations like Young Australian Lebanese Association (YALA) that we find our strength.YALA, which takes its name from an Arabic word which loosely translates to come on, lets go or Alex come downstairs and speak to your aunt on the phone, aims to make our voices heard. The Lebanese-Australian community is a proud and diverse diaspora. We have a lot to show for our community: the first female Governor of NSW Dame Marie Bashir, former Premier of Victoria Steve Bracks, sportsman Hazem el Masri, fashion designer Steven Khalil and Aussie Home Loans CEO John Symond. We are a community that values hard work and reveres determination, encouraging entrepreneurship and admiring our most innovative minds. Lebanese-Australians are students, we are mothers and fathers, we are doctors and lawyers, we are politicians and tradesmen, we are traditional or fervently progressive, we live in the suburbs or by the sea, we are Muslims, Christians, atheists and everything in between. But above all we are Australian, and we are bloody proud. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim. In the name of God, the most-Gracious, the most-Merciful.One year on and my mother has called me 30 times in one evening. I have been offline and without communication for two hours after I said I would be home, and she assumes the worst. Anyone would. One year on and the Christchurch Massacre haunts me. It is all but a forgotten memory to those who will never know what it is like to be a visibly Muslim person in this country. 51 people murdered, and after the initial month of mourning and shock and horror, it seems as though everyone has moved on. Yet still, one year on, and it lingers in the minds of my mother, my grandmother, my sisters, my aunty and my uncles. Two hours without any communication and my mum thought I had been kidnapped. Why?On Friday the 15th of March 2019, I attended one of the largest rallies Id ever been to. At that point in my life, I normally worked on Fridays but I had taken it off for the long-awaited global climate strike. I remember being in awe at the hundreds of thousands of people that marched globally, at the warmth of solidarity, and at the sheer strength in numbers. Once the strike had come to a close, my mum began calling me. She is quite a stressful and protective woman. Many have known her to call and message me often, asking for an update on my location, or an estimated time of arrival home; this call was different.I remember hearing the tremors in her voice, begging and pleading for me to come home. Chills immediately overtook me and I left a whole group of friends without saying goodbye. On the long commute home, I kept refreshing relevant news outlets and social media apps, each time the death count growing, my heart aching and my senses going numb.I still think about this day often.Because while others have moved on, I cant shake the memory of my family huddled in the lounge room staring at the television. I watched testimonies from families, distraught yet so full of forgiveness, wondering how they did it. How could they forgive, when one year on, I have not yet? That night I stayed up for hours, shedding tears for lives that I did not know, who still felt like kin to me. In Islam, all Muslims are brothers and sisters, bound together by faith, and allegiance to the oneness of a most-Gracious and most-Powerful God. We are driven to live and love in this life, knowing that this is not the end for us, and our lost loved ones await us in the next realm. I find comfort in this.In my life, grief and mourning are not something I have been a stranger to. As an Arab woman I have witnessed death and murder at the hands of colonialism and western intervention from the moment I could put a name to a place. My mother and my mothers mother have taught me that heartbreak is not foreign to a Muslim woman.We have all endured islamophobic attacks ourselves, our hijabs making us walking targets, and we live on despite this. We have no other choice.One year on and I can recognise that the grief and anguish that has been expressed by the Muslim community post-Christchurch massacre, is one that is collective. This is due to the fact that incidents like this do not and have not existed in isolation. It was not even a day after the massacre in New Zealand that a man rammed his car into the gates of a Queensland mosque while shouting offensive words to worshippers inside. It was not even 6 months after the massacre, that the name of the Christchurch shooter and a phrase from a Serbian anti-Muslim song were sprayed onto the outer wall of a Brisbane mosque. It was 10 months after the massacre that a heavily pregnant Muslim woman wearing a hijab was brutally attacked, punched and stepped on by a man yelling islamophobic hate speech in Sydney. All this, and it is not just these violent attacks that permeate our everyday lives. It is consistent microaggressions, isolation and anti-refugee sentiment. It is silence. It is complacency. It is calm. It is calm. It is calm. When we are all storm.It is the fact that exactly one year on, and my mother still worries that I will end up another statistic in Documenting Oppression Against Muslims, and then forgotten by the rest of the world.One year on and my mother and I are trying to remember peace. I hope we find it someday.One year on and we remember the 51 lives taken on Friday the 15th of March 2019 in Christchurch in New Zealand. Two consecutive shootings were committed at the hands of an Australian far-right white supremacist in two different mosques during Friday prayers. May their souls rest easy, and may their families find the strength they need to live on. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> By the time I arrived in Hong Kong in late January, the pro-democracy movement that had begun in June 2019 was tapering off. After half a year of sustained anger and violence, even those who held the cause closest to their hearts were feeling the fatigue. The city bore aging scars of conflict: graffiti, out-of-order ticket machines, and a quieter million scream (a nightly event where people yelled protest slogans out of their windows). Lennon Wallsmurals that collated pro-democracy Post-It notes and posterswere becoming sparse as pro-police crusaders tore them down with no one to put them back up.Anti-government energy was far from fading. As an alternative to demonstrations, pro-democracy (yellow) Hongkongers participated in the Yellow Economic Circle. This scheme encouraged yellow consumers to boycott pro-police (blue) businesses and financially reward yellow ones for their politics. Shops would decorate their interiors with pro-democracy symbols and slogans to advertise their political leanings to attract yellow customers.Pottinger Lane in Central is famed for its quaint upwards-twisting cobblestones; here, it is decked out in splendid red dcor for New Year. I took this photograph on the Tuesday evening before New Yearthe next morning, the Chinese government would finally admit after a month of denial that the novel coronavirus was transmissible between humans. With the seventeen-year-old spectre of SARS looming over the city and faith in the government at an all-time low, all of Hong Kong would start wearing face masks.On the third day of New Year, my relatives and I went to Tai Mei Tuk and the adjoining Plover Cove Reservoir, an outdoor recreational area in Hong Kong. At the peak of the SARS outbreak in 2003, the government had encouraged residents to escape our tiny flats and venture outdoors to breathe in some fresh, germ-free air. Many of us had the same idea during this outbreak.Lion dances are a popular New Year spectacle; the Southern style performed by Hong Kongs lions isin my biased opinionparticularly agile and beautiful. These lions tend to visit businesses and houses to eat lettuce for good luck and receive redpackets. This year, I witnessed something rare: the qilin (, a mythical beast witha dragons head and deer-like body) dance. This type of dance is traditionallyperformed by Hakka ethnic minority communities.Fai chun () are calligraphic decorations displayed on doorways during NewYear. Most of them nowadays are mass-produced but when visiting the small fishingvillage of Tai O, we saw fai chun everywhere written in a beautiful, distinct hand.Upon further inquiry, we discovered that these were handwritten by a local sifu.Staying jubilant amid the paranoia, my aunts tried out the see-saw in an emptyplayground. I had a go on the swing; it wasnt not designed for adult legs. As a kidgrowing up in Hong Kong, the swing had always been my favourite play equipmentbut because of coronavirus fears, the one in our estate had blocked offaccess until further notice.Final day in Hong Kong. After a hike along the Insta-friendly Dragons Back trail, weended up in this market in Shau Kei Wan. Wet markets in Asia have gained a badreputation since the outbreak but they are a staple of everyday life hereandincreasingly regulated in light of past outbreaks of avian flu and African Swine Fever. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last November, I took a trip to Hong Kong to witness the revolution of our time. I became inspired by the sense of defiant righteousness that seemed to sweep the city, and as a history student, I felt an obligation to bear witness to an epochal moment. Throughout that semester, I studied Chinas democratic heroes like Dr Sun Yat Sen, and consumed an endless media diet of live-streamed videos and activist group-chats. With the internet, I was able to gain vivid access to a mediated version of the protests, but I felt I needed to see the real thing. Combined with a real sense that it may be now or never, I booked a flight for the evening after my final exam.I arrived in Hong Kong late at night on the 18th of November 2019 and took the first train from the airport into the city centre. As soon as I stepped out of West Kowloon Station, I realised the answer to the question which had been plaguing me: How bad can it be over there?The nights of the 18th and 19th of November 2019 marked an attempt by the people of Hong Kong to distract their police force from a surrounded urban university campus. The events of November 2019 have become known as the Siege of Polytechnic University. They gained international attention due to dramatic, if anachronistic photos of Students wielding homebrewed bows and arrows.The situation had turned especially grim. Any student caught escaping the citys urban campus faced arrest and a ten-year prison sentence for charges of rioting. In sympathy with the trapped students of PolyU, the grassroots movement had planned large-scale marches to create a diversion. Tens of thousands had taken to the streets to challenge the police presence at the university, leading to some of the most open street conflict the city had ever seen. It was that night, hours after my final semester 2 exam, that I arrived in Hong Kong.Leaving the station, I crossed a pedestrian sky bridge passing over a highway. I was greeted with warm sweet air and the clamour of thousands of people. Something like the crowds buzz at a football match hung in the air. My plan was to ditch my pack and change clothes before heading out for the night. To reach my hostel further up the citys peninsula, I would need only to walk a few blocks and change train lines. Glancing around, I saw a large group of people moving on a sky bridge running parallel to mine, perhaps a stones throw away. I felt a rush of excitement. They were walking in the direction I wanted to go.But as I turned to join the crowd, every warning bell and alarm in my head fired in unison. With almost sub-conscious, instinctive analysis you feel in a situation of danger, I registered that the people had stopped, and were now running back towards me. Trying to read the motion of a crowd can be difficult, but there is something unmistakable about people turning and scrambling for safety. What had been a solid mass of people passing over a street, turned instantly into two camps crouched at either end of a twenty-meter stretch of bridge. Below on the street, two armored trucks had stopped just short of the bridge and disgorged a squad of Hong Kongs finest suited and booted for combat. Two officers stood with tear gas launchers, aimed at the exposed section of the walkway just in front of me. The two groups at either end stood poised, waiting to see what would unfold. With no other obvious choice in front of me, I decided the only way through was forward, so I hoisted my pack and ran the exposed distance.I covered the stretch of bridge without looking back, and for the rest of that night, I remember feeling a single-minded determination just to keep going through the chaotic atmosphere. Arriving at street level, I got my first sense of the Hong Kong Protests. The highway I had just crossed over devoid of cars was filling up with a mass of protesters. The crowd formed a front against a flotilla of police and fire trucks. The flash of petrol bombs illuminated the semi-dark. The streets terrain had been torn apart for the protesters gain: every single brick which formed the tessellating pattern of the sidewalks had been prized, crowbarred or kicked free. Once loose, each chunk was thrown onto the street to slow police vehicles. Streetlights were wrenched from the ground. The sidewalks and streets were an impassable mess of bricks, sand and twisted metal.Although it was around 11:30 pm, the scene was still heaving with people. That night I saw an even ratio of regular civilians and Hong Kongers in all-black getups. These were the front-line agitators, who bore bats and full gas mask helmets, running in packs down the neon-lit streets. Chants intermingled with omnipresent sirens. I continued to make my way up the street, now against the flow of human traffic. It was surreal to be witnessing the kinds of images and conflict I had only seen in sanitized, digital form.When I got to the subway station I had been looking for, it was as if it had never existed. With metal shutters pulled down over every shopfront in the vicinity, the area that should have shown me Jordan MTR Station was a scene of wreckage. The glass canopy that normally covered a descending staircase was shattered. The subway system was controversially closed early in the evenings and on weekends, bringing waves of accusations of collusion on the part of the operating company. I realised that instead of a quiet air-conditioned ride up the peninsula, I would be picking my way through debris on foot to my hostel.To gather my thoughts, I sat on the downed beam of an overhead traffic light. Two young guys in all black also sat along the crashed pole and when I asked, one kindly gave me a cotton surgical mask. The faint acrid tinge I could detect on the back my throat had been growing steadily, and I found myself blinking back tears from a residue of tear gas canisters, which would blow with the breeze. I began to make my way north along Nathan Road, the citys main thoroughfare, keeping a careful eye on my footing. I dug through my bag and shifted my passport to the front pocket of my jeans.I came to an intersection just as a detachment of riot police arrived on foot. The twenty-odd officers interposed themselves between the crowd, blocking passage ahead with round riot shields and helmets. Most of the crowd stopped and began milling at the intersection, but I decided to take a right and look for a route north parallel to Nathan Road. I followed a trickle of people, crowded underneath air-con units and restaurant back doors, to a dim alleyway next to the street. Suddenly, I became aware of sweat breaking out along my brow, accompanied by the taste of acid in my mouth and nose. The people around me began coughing violently, and spitting into the gutter I felt compelled to do the same, as an invisible cloud of Dioxin Tear Gas funneled its way into the alleyway.We began to run, compelled to escape the alley into the clear air of the open streets. Tear gas stings your nervous system through the eyes and throat and skin, the burning effect of which is physically impossible to escape. My cotton mask was entirely useless. Weeping, but free from the alleyway, I looked to my left. Another squadron of police was blocking the northern end of the street I had just avoided, detaining whoever had been caught in the middle. This was no doubt the target of the tear gas rounds which spread collaterally to the alleys and side streets. Had I arrived at that block just minutes earlier, I would have been caught directly in the middle of the pincer maneuver. From those blocks, which I would later learn was the epicenter of the nights conflict, the way forward was safe. I was forced to take further detours due to police presence but thankfully stayed clear of tear gas. What should have been a twenty-five-minute walk took well over an hour.The big question in my mind going into Hong Kong had been how obvious would it be? To what extent was it a media fabrication, and life was still going on like normal. Its pretty obvious to me that there was no exaggeration. In my life, Ive never seen anything like Kowloon that night. From the disruption of the trains, to the inescapable conversational topic, to the tactile upheaval of the literal ground underfoot, the protests were the demanding and overriding concern of the city. The unrest for the week peaked after that night, as protesters were urged to show restraint in the leadup to a local council election. After a landslide democratic victory, the marches immediately resumed, as passionate and determined as ever. The Hong Kong protests are still going; however, the mass gatherings have largely been suspended due to fears of public assembly at the height of the coronavirus outbreak. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It is typical of a paternalistic Western mindset to minimise issues faced by African nations as a consequence of political misconduct, tyranny and corruption. According to Transparency International, a non-governmental, anti-corruption organization based in Berlin, corruption in Africa is hindering economic growth, political and social development, and a major barrier to basic freedoms. In countries where the democratic model itself has failed, it is undeniable that government figures utilise power to rob state coffers, improve personal living standards and bribe cronies for political leverage. But it simply isnt a fair analysis to hold Africa to a higher standard.Numerous external factors have undoubtedly trapped much of the continent in an inexorable cycle but many have shattered this trend. Diminishing the inherent cause of backward development and hindrance of individual liberties to African leaders themselves disrupts an unprejudiced examination of politics across the continent.Firstly, each state has its own unique cultural, historical and political narrative that is reflected in their governance. They share certain similarities, however, in that much of its economic infrastructure was funded by the US, Soviet Union and China to obtain ideological leverage during the Cold War, and European imperialist administrations during their colonial scramble. Many post-colonial nations who swayed towards the ideology of African socialism following independence became benefactors of numerous infrastructure projects a famous example being the ambitious TAZARA railway of the 1970s.In Tanzania and Zambia, foundational leaders of African socialism Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kuanda (respectively) called on China to aid in the construction of a railway connecting the financial hub of Dar es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast to Kapiri Mposhi, in landlocked Zambias central province. Following the Sino-Soviet split, China subsequently spent 2.67 billion USD on the project in an attempt to defer economic dependence from the USSR. It was completed in 1975, becoming the longest railway network in Africa at that time.The project was a disaster. The railway itself became an easier means for China to access Zambian copper, but following privatisation of copper mines in the 1990s due to crippling economic conditions, railway networks began to compete for previously guaranteed cargo and TAZARA became a neglected liability. Further, the majority of pre-existing infrastructure was built by colonial bureaucracies, with the primary intent being the extraction of Africas myriad resources, which fueled Europes economic progress (eg. rubber from the Congo, cobalt from Zambia, diamonds and gold from South Africa etc.). This trend of Cold War powers (exerting ideological influence through financial investment targeted only at further resource extraction), has meant that Africa is not built to sustain itself, but is rather meant to be sustained by external investment and trade.Resultant economic nonautonomy has translated to crippling levels of debt. In 2018 alone, sub-Saharan Africa owed the World Bank 538 billion USD. These countries have received no economic compensation for centuries of brutal resource extraction and forced labour by imperial Western states. Consequently, countries like Malawi, Uganda, D.R. Congo and Ethiopia have exorbitant poverty rates. When a privileged leading class arises given this context, it is not incomprehensible that many take to corrupt behaviours to financially benefit themselves.But many nations have not fallen privy to these behaviours. In Namibia, under leftist leadership in the South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO), the corruption perception index (CPI) has risen to 66/100. Botswana and Rwanda have similarly strong CPIs, at 61 and 53 respectively. Smaller island nations such as Mauritius, Cape Verde and Seychelles also have healthy CPIs. Comparatively, Australias corruption perception index stands at 77/100, whilst a country such as conflict-ridden and governmentally unstable South Sudans is a mere 13. In July, when pressed on how his government was tackling state cronyism, Rwandan President Paul Kagame replied, We have always talked about not entertaining corruption as our way of life. That has always been at the centre of the politics that I have associated with and others in this country, and I think there is respect for that.Africa operates on an inequitable economic playing field. It has been crippled by history, and left in perpetual poverty by our global financial institutions. The perception that the sole cause of Africas economic stagnation is corruption on behalf of greedy politicians furthers racist undertones, and dismisses the true cause of its underdevelopment. It is time we realise that Africa is not corrupt we have corrupted it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Two years ago in the lead up to the biennial Senate elections, Honi boldly declared the race to be the most important student election of 2018. But does that hold up to scrutiny? Following our recent Senate explainer and canvassing the candidates, in addition to the election of Gabi Stricker-Phelps (undergraduate representative) and Lachlan Finch (postgraduate representative) last week, it seems necessary to interrogate the role of student representatives beyond the sloganeering and buzzwords. How much power do student representatives have on the Senate? How much can students practically achieve on the body? Are other student elections more important insofar as collectively fighting for students interests?There is no doubt of the Senates importance in how the University of Sydney is governed it does after all sit at the top of the Universitys decision-making hierarchy. Of course, one of the Senates key responsibilities is approving the Universitys annual budget and overall strategic vision. Yet, there is little discretion with regards to annual budgets from year to year, given they are broadly pre-determined by existing spending commitments and carry over from previous years. Whilst the Senate is tasked with big picture decisions including: the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor (and this year, who will replace Michael Spence), in addition to the incoming Western Sydney campus, the Senate also addresses operational matters that the Executive or Academic Board bring forward.Yet, with 15 fellows many of whom are drawn from senior management or the corporate sector the numbers (2) are certainly against any students committed to pursuing a genuine reform agenda. Students have no veto rights and thus fellows power lies in their ability to vote for, or against particular decisions and in their attempts to persuade the likes of those embedded in the arms and fossil fuel industries years their senior.Perhaps most importantly, the Senate rules also stipulate restrictions on fellows capacity to make public comments and provide information with external parties. Ultimately, these restrictions are the main impediment for any student fellow, namely fiduciary duties.Per the regulations, fellows have the fiduciary duty of loyalty to act in the best interests of the University. This includes, for example, not causing detriment to the University. Such phrasing is deliberately nebulous, written by management, and easily wielded to quash dissent. Indeed, this is not the only use of purposefully vague wording. The Universitys misconduct policy initially saw a student suspended for participating in a pro-choice protest on the grounds that it undermin[ed] the good order and government of the University and the good name or academic standing of the University.Resultantly, it is ironic that once student fellows are elected on at least some student-representative mandate they are legally obligated to defer theirs and the interests of students they supposedly represent, be they undergraduate or postgraduate to the University. Given this, it can be reasonably deduced that a student fellow publicly condemning the Universitys cuts to medical sciences, or the proposed redundancies in the Learning Centre and Maths Learning Centre would be punished. Students are thus restricted legally (speaking out, leaking documents) and practically (diminished voting power and responsibilities).Even applying the above to this years successful candidates (who ran a joint-style ticket campaign), we see a problem emerges. Despite not running on a particularly progressive or reform-driven agenda, and not positioning themselves as anti-management, much of the Stricker-Phelps-Finch campaign platform is functionally meaningless. Despite taking a stance against the Universitys use of ProctorU, seemingly in line with student opinion on the exam software, the Senate has nothing to do with the administering of ProctorU and wont discuss it. Additionally, their pledge to fight against trimesters, seemingly in reference to the recently proposed 12-week shift (that was defeated) is the Academic Boards responsibility, not the Senates.It also seems pertinent to note that the SRC sits on every committee beneath the Senate where students are able to express views without fear. Moreover, the prominence and more hotly contested SRC elections, in which voters are more effectively able to delineate between candidates and brands, seem to, as a general rule, result in the election of Presidents, councillors and Honi Soit editorial teams more in line with the student bodys ideological views, than the Senate elections. Finally, the SRC is chiefly concerned with student representation, advocacy and activism and is not subject to the whims of fiduciary duty clauses, or the influence of University management as is the case with both the Senate and the University of Sydney Union (USU).Of course there are useful debates to be had about the efficacy of the SRC. Is it as important as factional heavyweights make it out to be when September rolls over every year? Would USyd be leading the student fightback against the LNP gutting higher education were it not for our SRC being the most radical in the country? Would activists be able to effectively organise without the institutional support of their student union?However, one thing is for sure. If one is committed to fighting for students interests via student representative positions on campus, the SRC is a far more effective body than the Senate.Indeed, Liam Donohoe, the co-author of the 2018 article which claimed the Senate race as the most important, successfully ran for the Presidency instead and ruled out a Senate run this year. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres no doubt of the chokehold the Murdoch press has on Australian democracy. Australias media concentration statistics make for grim reading some of the worst in the developed world in terms of digital media, and second only to China and Egypt in terms of print. The Murdoch vice-grip reduces political discourse in this country to a game of flag-waving and tribalism; one in which it openly cheers for conservative parties of government, and has an almost monopolistic dominance. This is not conspiracy theory: Murdochs fingers are in electoral pies across the Western world. His newspapers coverage has been acknowledged by the Trump and Leave campaigns as pivotal to those victories. Indeed, Tony Abbott has said in reference to his signature broadsheet The Australian, no newspaper has more profoundly or more consistently shaped the intellectual life of our country. The Australian has borne [Murdochs] idealsit has been his gift to our nation. This influence is so intertwined with the Western politik, its reach such a bygone assumption that Murdoch rags have gone so far as to claim credit for political victories on the front pages it was The Sun wot won it.This has long been recognised by media academics, the red side of politics, and anyone with functioning eyesight. In retirement, Kevin Rudd has sought to do something about it by encouraging us all to sign a parliamentary petition for a Royal Commission into the influence of the Murdoch empire. This has caught fire, and across progressive social media circles weve seen fervent agreement about the cancerous threat the Murdochs pose to Australian politics. An inquiry that is predicated on unveiling the relationship between conservative politicians and the Murdoch press is ostensibly a good thing, and should be welcome in such a cripplingly polarised political environment if it would actually achieve anything.Kevin Rudds chosen strategy of parliamentary petitions is intriguing, and is based in a British approach the UK Parliaments e-petitions system provides relatively transparent avenues for concerned parties to petition it, as well as mechanisms (without guarantees) for motions to be debated in public, with enough support. In the UK, if one gets 10,000 signatures, the Government will formally respond, and one gets 100,000 signatures, the request is considered by the Petitions Committee for debate in Parliament. The largest ever petition (since the e-petitions website was launched in 2006) garnered 6.1 million signatures, and requested the revocation of Article 50 and for the UK to remain in the European Union. Those keen on international relations may have noticed that this did not happen indeed, the consequent debate in Parliament was one-sided, with the Government taking it as an opportunity to further justify and articulate its plans for the exit process.Closer to home, the largest ever Parliamentary petition was in 2014, with 1.2 million people supporting a petition against unconsulted changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. This was addressed to then-Health Minister Peter Dutton, who didnt change anything. Australias e-petitions process is largely the same as the UK, but lacks any mechanisms that would expedite public debates on issues, or guarantee action on the part of governments. Kevin Rudds petition on Murdochs empire has 373,689 signatures at the time of writing, and closes in just under a fortnight. Somewhat ironically, a parliamentary petition is the exact kind of empty stunt that Labor hacks love to criticise the Greens for, but the Greens have actually articulated in some detail their commitment at a federal level to a Productivity Commission review into media diversity and ownership, in contrast to the ALP not mentioning the issue at all in their national platform. Without any sort of guarantee of even a letter back from Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher, what makes petitioning the Parliament an effective mechanism of change on any issue, let alone one as critical to the health of our democracy as this?These are not novel points: I would posit that Mr Rudd knows them very well, and this is simply the vacuous virtue-signalling of a scorned ex-Prime Minister. That this has become the centre of recent Labor activism on such an important issue merely demonstrates the ALPs broader inhibitions when it comes to meaningful activism, or even change through Parliamentary means. By next election, it will have been almost a decade since the last federal Labor government, and instead of grassroots organising, we see the party apparatus trying to mobilise in the abyss of waterdrop Twitter. Its not as if Rudd didnt have two stints as Prime Minister wherein he could address media diversity and siphoning, or as if it wasnt Paul Keating who actively cheered for Murdochs takeover of The Herald and Weekly Times in 1987. The Labor Party are as cynically opportunistic when it comes to the media as any other political party, and have played as significant a role in the desecration of the Australian media landscape to the point that it has reached today.There are actually brilliant lessons to be learned from the UK, where arguably Murdochs grip on national media is tighter. Instead of petitioning, we should look to Hillsborough. At the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest, police mismanagement of the Leppings Lane Stand end resulted in an extraordinary human crush: 96 people lost their lives, and a further 766 were injured. Four days later, the Murdoch tabloid The Sun ran untrue and unsubstantiated front page headlines claiming that working-class Liverpool supporters looted from the dead, urinated on police, and bashed good samaritans in the commotion.Newsagents refused to stock the paper, and Merseysiders refused to buy it. Readership plummeted to virtually nothing. To this day, Liverpudlians refuse to say the name, and refer to it in writing as The S*n, or otherwise The Scum. Sun journalists are still banned from Liverpool FC and Everton FC grounds. To this day, arriving in Liverpool, nearly every taxi at Lime Street Station is emblazoned with warnings, Do not buy The Sun, and football fans in particular across the UK as well as the worldwide audiences that consume the Premier League are conscious of The Suns reputation as a lying, sensationalist tabloid rag. There are the obvious cultural effects of boycotts, but there are also much wider-reaching political effects. The Sun was one of the most read newspapers in Liverpool (and indeed the UK as a whole), and when readership largely switched from the Eurosceptic tabloid to the altogether more pro-EU Daily Mirror as a result of the boycott, it resulted in something extraordinary. Merseysiders were generally cynical of the EU before the Hillsborough disasters, and the boycott resulted in a more pronounced shift in favour compared to the rest of the nation. This is argued to have resulted in a Brexit vote in 2016 almost 12% greater in favour of Remain than would otherwise have been the case, and it also has changed voting attitudes in a city that whilst working class, has been targeted by conservatives for decades. The key difference between Merseyside and its Remain vote from 21 other counties with similar demographics was organisation against Murdoch influence.This is what we can do in Australia. We have had mass disaster in no small part compounded by the influence of the Murdoch empire, as recently as last summer with bushfires that the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph claimed were the result of anything but the climate change that so obviously exacerbated them. With more than 400 dead as a result of the bushfires, there is an incandescent hotbed of community anger at not only the incompetence and mismanagement that resulted in the tragedy of last summer, but at the lies being peddled in a Murdoch-dominated media about it. This is not an isolated incident by any means the Murdoch press have lied about, exacerbated and exploited tragedy in this country for decades, and herein lies the opportunity for grassroots organising. When there is a media mogul hellbent on tearing apart the lives of working people and manipulating the political process for personal gain, with tangible evidence of the destruction in its wake, it should be a focus of organising as well as a policy priority for the parties affected.Kevin Rudd is right the Murdoch empire is a stain on the state of Australian political discourse and a cancerous danger to the health of our democracy. The only problem is asking the Government nicely wont fix that, and this commitment to empty grandstanding over grassroots organising is precisely what will continue the cycle. Rupert Murdoch didnt get his hands on the mantle of power by operating in good faith: we would do well to remember that in working to kick him out. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I hate crowded buses and once upon a time I hated no bus more than the 413. For two years, I caught the 413 to university in the morning and then home in the evening. Outside of peak times the journey to university would take no more than twenty minutes, the bus hurtling down Parramatta Road. Most mornings though, there would be no free seats and I would have to awkwardly prop myself against a railing, sandwiched between a hundred other commuters. These journeys often took forty-five minutes to an hour. None of this quite explains my visceral hatred for the 413 though. The truth is that I have a potent anxiety around crowded spaces. On the 413 I would often be forced to close my eyes and hyperventilate to calm myself. I would sometimes still be visibly distressed a half hour after tapping off my Opal card.One Monday in March though, I unwittingly caught the 413 for the last time. Predictably, it was 20 minutes late. Passing Parramatta Roads abandoned shop fronts took fifty agonising minutes until the bus unceremoniously spat me out at Footbridge. That day ended up being my final day of face-to-face class in Semester 1. The initial chaos of the pandemic forced my family to move away from the clutches of the 413. Now I can walk to university. I am not shackled to its temperamental schedule. Regardless, buses nowadays are a far quieter affair abounding with empty seats. The days of shoving through commuters to exit the bus are long gone.Despite all the countless hours and anxieties Ive saved, I still have a 413 shaped hole in my heart. I would give anything to wake up, take a shower, pack my bag, walk to the bus stop and wait for the (inevitably late) 413. I would give anything to be sandwiched on that ramshackle bus. I would give anything to emerge at Footbridge to find it bustling with people, to walk through the quad and down Eastern Avenue to awkwardly find my seat at the back of a loud lecture theatre. It occurs to me of course that my yearning is not really for my old morning bus at all but for life as it once was, for the halcyon days of yore.In the last several months, the COVID-19 pandemic has unceremoniously and nonconsensually ended many of our rituals and replaced them with entirely new ones. Online conferencing softwares like Zoom have leapt out of relative obscurity to become mainstays of our everyday life. Lockdowns and social distancing norms have significantly disrupted the normal ebb and flow of our social and personal lives. Globally, it has been a confusing and austere year in which to live. It is therefore not altogether surprising that I, like many I suspect, have radically reinterpreted my life in the time before COVID with the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia.Nostalgia is a powerful anodyne to the malaise of the current geopolitical moment. It is also a dysfunctional and potentially dangerous one. On an interpersonal level, pre-pandemic nostalgia airbrushes the past and leaves us to conclude that our lives were idyllic before COVID. Setting aside the fact that this was seldom true for any of us, nostalgia inevitably clashes with the growing realisation that this pandemic is now set to be a drawn out affair with no clear end date. Nowadays to fondly remember mundane past events is to feel the impotence that forming similar memories has been rendered impossible, either forever or for the foreseeable future. This sting, unique to pre-pandemic nostalgia, quickly reinforces the hopelessness that is becoming an ever more common commodity in 2020.The real danger of this nostalgia though is in the way it threatens to colour our political analysis of this pandemic. The material consequences of COVID for society are obviously far more serious than my comparatively trivial rituals on the 413. Australia is in recession. As unemployment and insecure work have risen meteorically amid lockdowns and ongoing restrictions, Jobseeker payments have already been slashed. The federal government just passed a higher education bill that doubles the cost of humanities degrees and cuts funding to the entire sector. The years-long political theatre of the American presidential election is, in under a week, going to come to a spectacular climax amid the worlds worst local epidemic of COVID-19.The internet, a more important forum than ever before, is abounding with shortsighted existential dread and nostalgia is kindling the embers of hope. 2020, it is presupposed, has been a uniquely terrible year that has created all of our present problems. We reassure ourselves though that soon enough we will have an effective vaccine that allows us to hang up our masks for good and head back to festivals. The wealthy will be able to once again jet off to European summer and Donald Trumps presidency will, hopefully, have ended. To quote the conclusion of Dolly Partons (quite good, for the record) pandemic-era song, life will be good again.Ignoring for a moment that this is an extremely optimistic portrayal of a vaccine rollout, this is nevertheless an unsustainable vision worth properly interrogating. Australia was projected for imminent recession before this pandemic. Students and the unemployed have been the victims of a neoliberal austerity project for decades. For many people though, 2020 has nakedly demonstrated for the first time the inability of our political institutions and the market to respond to long-term crises. We know that microbiologists and epidemiologists have been warning for decades that our land use practices were inevitably going to trigger a pandemic like the one we are living; their warnings were evidently unheard. The threat of climate change has been well known for at least five decades, and minimal action has been taken to avoid catastrophe. The market, and our political institutions were already failing to address crises well before 2020 and the end of COVID will not change this reality. Pre-pandemic nostalgia however, rather than prompting us to look outward and analyse structural issues, is prompting us to look inwards, blaming one another for the symptoms of a failing system.Since March, I have ritualistically refreshed the NSW Health twitter at exactly 11am every morning, anticipating the daily case numbers. Once I hear Dr. McAnulty report back, I then head to the CoronavirusDownunder subreddit where the minutiae of the days numbers are already being discussed by a dedicated online commentariat. When there are new venues where cases have visited, these are extensively analysed and pre-pandemic memories of these venues shared. Those who have visited too many venues or apparently waited too long to be tested are condemned as socially irresponsible reprobates. Daniel Andrews is the most controversial figure on the forum and his personal failings are discussed extensively as the root cause of Victorias second wave, rather than wider and more long-term problems with the casualised workforce. Andrews, of course, has fervent supporters (mostly Labor true believers) who point to his apparent personal sacrifices amid the second wave. These online communities validate our primal anxieties about change and provide us with convenient, and it must be remarked, usually incorrect, scapegoats.It comes as no great surprise then that far-right conspiracies have flourished in the pandemic. While the antivax movement has been steadily gaining prominence for many years, their alliance with a complex web of anti-lockdowners, anti-maskers and QAnon conspiracists has allowed them to gain more mainstream relevance than ever before. Just a few days ago, Friday 23 October, their Melbourne protest against the ongoing restrictions made national news. This group is united by a radical theory that also draws on pre-pandemic nostalgia of greater individual freedoms to argue that in fact, COVID-19 is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a global elite to surveil citizens and test their ability to totally control society.While I acknowledge the problems of generalising conclusions from the dark corners of the internet, I deeply worry that nostalgic longing for our lives to return to normal is going to compromise the potential of this political moment. It is legitimate and human to grieve what might have been and the permanent loss of our comfortable old rituals. Returning to the past has, however, never been a worthwhile political project and has been the historical pretext for unsavoury reactionary ideologies I need not discuss extensively here. This pandemic has exposed a structurally broken economic and political system, but it has also exposed an opportunity. We are positioned today not simply to return to the normalcy of neoliberal capitalism, but to create a new society wholesale. So tonight I will not dream of the countless journeys I took on the 413 in a bygone era. Instead I will dream of a better society, one that we can and will create together. I will let that be the thing that gives me hope. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Your phone, vibrating, jumps up and down on your bedside table like an infatuated, placard-bearing fan at a celebrity meet-and-greet, demanding your attention. In the inky darkness of half-consciousness, you reach out, fumbling for the device or the lamp switch. Whichever you strike first. Its the lamp. White rays invade your eye sockets. You look at your phone. 130 unread messages. You look at the clock. 2 AM. Something about recording interviews with some stu pol kids. You sigh and turn off your phone. You turn off the light, sinking back into the heated spa of sleep, knowing it will be another early start.Welcome to the life of an Honi editor.* * *Any reader of Antonio Gramsci will conceptualise mass media as an instrument for cultural hegemony the concept that power can be exercised and reinforced as much through cultural texts as physical force. Contrary to the traditional perception of the press as an integral cog in democracy, holding governments and multinational corporations accountable, unequivocally benign the common sense view Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media, suggest that the media serve elite interests. Like a mirage on the horizon, mainstream media provides the illusion of freedom of thought and debate within a desolate civil society. The press integrates the populace into capitalist, institutional structures by indoctrinating individuals with the necessary values and codes of behaviour. This requires systemic propaganda.Herman and Chomsky outline a propaganda model, detailing five inherent traits in modern media structures ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak and anti-communism. They argue that ever-expanding media conglomerates, clasped tightly within the fists of a few wealthy families and advertisers, have hijacked public discourse. The media, kow-towing to commercial interests and PR hostility from well-resourced elites, adores sensationalism. This increases circulation and profit. Think clickbait listicles from Buzzfeed, news anchors yelling at interviewees and televised meltdowns. This is the modern media landscape.Many (leftists) therefore view student media, a subset of independent media, as an El Dorado a hidden city resplendent in gold, free from the greed of capitalist invaders. Honi Soit undoubtedly does function like this, launching frequent skirmishes outside the city walls against powerful entities. But it is also true that Australian student media Honi in particular is not entirely separate from mass media, free market dynamics and capitalist relations of production.Thats not to say that Honi doesnt push boundaries. Honi has a flat organisational structure and an egalitarian ethos. No boss looms over us. Each editor largely has equal say and each week a different editor functions as the editor-in-chief (EIC). Besides writing the editorial on page 2 and guiding a couple of minor design decisions, the EIC role is little different from a normal editing role.As part of our working agreement, we, like previous teams, have a 7 person majority for decision-making. Maani Truu, an Honi editor in 2017, explains: in worst case scenarios that led to discussions that went on all night over a small thing In the best case scenario, that led to really invigorating debates There was inevitably someone else on the team who disagreed and they would want you to answer to that As a temporary experience it was really enjoyable. It was what you imagine university to be like really robust debates and lots of crazy ideas.As a weekly publication, Honi presents promising possibilities. While its more news-focused than other student media, it has a capacity for introspective, analysis pieces or slow journalism from students frequently engaged in cutting-edge, radical thought. As Herman and Chomsky detail in Manufacturing Consent, sourcing is a key issue within mainstream media. In fast-paced newsrooms, journalists rely heavily on credible, official sources. They attend court hearings and police departments. They skim-read press releases and draft legislation. They return to well-trusted, proven leaks. This minimises the cost of investigating and fact-checking, and allows fewer journalists to monopolise news production. Their reporting usually therefore replicates ruling class narratives. Student journalists, by contrast, tend to bypass the structural issues that shape mainstream media.With freedom to experiment unlike most newspapers Honi has a creative and comedy section and most editing teams are not smitten with objectivity students often provide counter-hegemonic narratives. Former Honi editors Michael Richardson and Julian Larnach (2011) believe its precisely this snarky and irreverent tone which distinguishes Honi and makes hard-hitting journalism possible.Furthermore, Honi is a weekly, printed broadsheet, and thus unique among Australian student media. Regarding student culture and the onslaught on tertiary education by successive governments, Michael remarks that its as if the music has stopped and everyone is scrambling for a chair. He believes that, despite the newspapers issues, it is worth protecting because there is a tangible connection to USyd when you have a physical copy in your hand.When you recognise that reading in print is more immersive and linear, you realise that Honi has a dedicated readership and the ability to expand minds in ways that advertisement-laden, hyperlink wormholes do not. Researchers Neil Thurman and Richard Fletcher have charted the decline in engagement with British publications which move to a purely online format across a number of years. They found, for instance, that audiences spent time perusing the British newspaper The Independent 81% less in the year following March 2016, when it became online-only. Framed in this way, we can view Honi as the vanguard of a possible print revival; a blueprint for the future.* * *The suffocatingly-massive elephant in the room is accessibility. Privilege is everywhere and unmissable. It presses you into a corner and sucks all the air from the room. See, despite the rich history of Honi editors fighting for workers rights in other industries, there has been little self-reflection, at least publicly, on our own (poor) working conditions and the ways in which Honi reproduces hierarchies of power.As a near unpaid internship, which lasts far longer 12 months than your average internship, the pay rate locks out lower SES students. No wonder then that the vast majority of Honi editors come from a small crop of elite private schools. Toiling away for what equates to roughly $3 or $4 per hour there is a stipend of $4400 for each editor entrenches a culture of privilege, like all unpaid internships, where positions are generally only accessible to those leaning on families for financial support or those in no rush to finish their degree. This often means losing the benefits of studying full-time (Centrelink benefits and a concession opal card).This situation mirrors the entrenched underpayment of writers within a neoliberal society. Writing industries frequently outsource labour to unpaid interns and freelancers. The 2015 Interns Australia Annual Survey found that internships were more common in media and communications (23.43 percent) and the arts (15.7 percent) than in any other industry.Just this year, Fabian Robertson exposed in Honi the exploitation of unpaid interns working for the Australian lifestyle magazine Offspring. Trawling through the Facebook group Young Australian Writers reveals a whole host of horror stories, from freelancers never receiving promised payments to casual journalists being overworked to young writers having their words plagiarised.But the stipend for Honi editors is also symptomatic of funding issues for the USyd Student Representatives Council (SRC), which receives just over $2 million in funding from the student services and amenities fee that small additional fee of $150 or so you pay each semester. The University of Sydney Union and Sydney University Sport & Fitness, meanwhile, receive roughly $5 million in funding, and they have consistent sources of revenue. Aside from advertisements in Honi, the SRC does not produce any revenue.The lack of investment in student bodies is, of course, a structural issue within capitalism. Voluntary student unionism, corporate university business models and funding cuts to higher education stem from the neoliberal infatuation with the economic value of, and marketability of, knowledge. This system legitimises and funds pursuits such as technological innovation, medical research, weapons manufacturing and the mass production of pharmaceuticals because they support the productivity, competitiveness and power of the nation on the global stage.The arts, meanwhile, suffer. As Michael explains: Heres the problem: a 24 page paper requires way more resources than the SRC really has. If you want this thing, it has to come from the passion and the hours and the free labour of the editors. Thats not going to happen any other way.Stress and overworking is a shared (read: endured) experience for Honi editors. After grabbing coffees with reporters to discuss pitches, writing your own articles, replying to emails, attending meetings, breaking news, editing work and posting content online, the Honi schedule culminates with the mad weekend scramble to lay up the next weeks print edition on Adobe InDesign. With ten budding writers and stu pol hacks career paths magnetic to big egos jostling cheek by jowl within a matchbox-sized office, the atmosphere fluctuates between jovial, tense and deranged. Michael confesses to me a particularly memorable meltdown he had in the office in week 4 of first semester. He says he took the work way too seriously to begin with.I had been really pushing myself those first four weeks because I was the most technically-proficient. (Im a programmer now.) I was really getting into the nuts and bolts of all the software we were using and laying everything up. I was coming in and finding that people were not aligning things properly I realised: who cares? I was setting myself a set of standards that I then quietly held everyone else to totally unreasonably.I too remember reaching a tipping point in first semester. My dedication to Honi was causing rifts in my relationship. Only after talking to my partner and recognising that I was pressuring myself unnecessarily did the job become easier. Put succinctly: I learned to give less of a shit.Late-night Honi shifts have entered the realm of folklore. Tales of caffeine-fuelled editors pulling all-nighters, tapping methodically on keyboards like woodpeckers drilling into bark, permeate the student-activist population at USyd. Collapsing into a nest of emergency blankets on the office floor, aching for sleep, is like a rite of passage. Some stories are no doubt embellished. But many are entirely based on my own reality.When Julian describes the intense workload he endured, it all sounds eerily familiar. We had an attitude where the more hours you could work the better. If you could be there until 4 in the morning [on the weekend], thats good The more time you could give to it even if you werent doing any work was important.These last words hit a particularly raw note. Memories flash before me of futilely button-jamming in the Honi office before a frozen SRC computer, vainly hoping that sheer willpower might revive the ever-unreliable, junkyard Mac. With frequent VPN issues and therefore an inability to work remotely some Sunday shifts this year have seen only one SRC computer still working and nine of us editors crowding around the one editor lucky (unlucky?) enough to have a functioning machine. The role of the Honi editor, it seems, is to be omnipresent, to create a weekend theme song with pen clicks and finger-drumming. Ingrained in the work culture is the expectation that you want or can sit around an office for hours, depriving yourself of sleep, even when you have no tangible way to contribute to laying up and no easy way to get home at 2 AM, Monday morning.Embedded within Honis work culture, and passed on almost as a cultural legacy, are bourgeois traits hyper-competitiveness, intense productivity and social capital. The better connected you are the more likely youll be useful to Honi. Integral to editing the paper is a desire to one-up previous editing teams and to break university-related news before our public broadcasters and the Murdoch press juggernaut.Since there is a turnover in staff every year, the expectations and workload threaten to become bigger as every term passes. Indeed, Honis online presence was practically non-existent when Michael and Julian edited the newspaper in 2011. In recent years, teams have begun publishing content online from December, when they cover NatCon, and intermittently during January, instead of beginning with the O-Week edition in early February. Is it the case that Honi editors put in more hours than ten years ago? Quite possibly.Asserting that its up to individual team members to decide how hard they work is a cop out when the toxic work culture is an historical and structural issue. Since Honi has a trend-setting function in Australian youth culture and employers revere Honi editors, the newspaper has the capacity to normalise poor working conditions for aspiring writers. To get a leg-up in a capitalist society which undervalues writing as a skill, working your socks off for a negligible wage is perceived as necessary and acceptable. We must critique and dismantle this view.Social capital is the fuel that drives this thirsty engine of student journalism. To even become an editor, candidates must undergo a gruelling election campaign. Personal reputation and the institutional power of well-established political factions hold particular sway in this process. This election process drags Honi into a cut-throat student politics world, perceived publicly as centring career advancement and CV-stacking as much as worker solidarity and alliance-building.Maani dedicated much of her time as an editor in 2017 to illuminating structural inequalities at USyd. In one iconic article she argued for the abolishment of Honi elections. On the phone to me, she asserts that student elections are not particularly effective at engaging students outside of a pretty niche bubble. Thats why we see the same faces often popping up in multiple roles over many years. Michael, meanwhile, suggests that the election is a fucking nightmare and a little comical.If your goal is to make a student-focused and student-voiced paper, I dont think you necessarily get that by going up to some second year with their AirPods in, harrying them as theyre walking down Eastern Avenue.* * *At a time when the cost of journalism, arts and creative writing degrees are set to double, it is more important than ever that we make Honi more inclusive. If neoliberal models for higher education, centred on the employability of students and profitability, persist worldwide, journalism will remain an elite pursuit. As Maani says: The benefits [of Honi] dont just stop when you stop editing Honi having that on your resume or just being able to point to stories that you wrote during the year, if you want to continue a career in media, is really invaluable We really need to diversify the people getting into student media so we can also diversify the people moving into mainstream media.When I chat to Julian, he quips, quite eloquently: Student journalism is a protean form of journalism trying to figure out what it is while the writer is trying to figure out who they are. Part of this self-discovery process involves honest self-reflection and acknowledgement of my own racial and financial privilege, which locks out those less fortunate than myself from future career prospects.In 2016, Maani campaigned on the basis of bursting the Honi bubble with a nail gun. She wanted to see more regional, international and first-in-family students contributing to Honi. This was a personal crusade. Maani always felt less worthy to be an Honi reporter or to be in student politics because she grew up in the Central Coast, did not attend a private school and did not grow up amid obscene wealth. She wanted to put the ladder down for other people in a similar situation.In the editorial for the last (serious) edition of Honi in 2017 Honis last edition is always a satirical edition Maani recorded an admission of guilt. She felt that the team had failed to bring more diverse voices into Honi. Rich kids already have the world at their feet dont let them have student media too.Three years later and nothing has changed. This time its on all of us. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Three tickets look set to contest this years election for the Sydney University Law Society (SULS), headed by Wendy Hu, Casper Lu and Dani Stephenson.If all candidates manage to form tickets, this would be the first three-way election SULS has faced since 2010.Max Vishney, who previously submitted a Presidential Expression of Interest (EOI), has withdrawn from the race, instead joining Stephensons ticket as her Vice-President (Education) pick.Additionally, ten students submitted Senior Executive EOIs, though Presidential candidates can and have looked to fill Senior Executive positions with students who did not submit an EOI.Why is this election important?This election comes at a time when SULS is at a critical crossroads. COVID-19 has had a profound impact on students, many of whom are experiencing financial hardship, heightened job uncertainty, and declining mental health.Students have had to adapt to significant changes, including the transition to online learning, a shortened 12-week semester and the cancellation of Summer School. Drastic reductions in clerkship intakes have also left an overwhelming majority of students without the security of a graduate job.Importantly, ongoing government cuts to higher education which will see the cost of Law degrees increase by 28% have necessitated a strong response from students.As a result, the organisation has had to direct more attention to its role as a student representative body, rather than just a service-provider. In particular, SULS has lobbied the faculty on issues such as ProctorU, waiving of attendance requirements and use of reserve funds for COVID-19 student grants.It has also taken stances on various government policies, and has supported protests organised by the SRCs Education Action Group and the Autonomous Collective Against Racism. This has challenged SULS usual culture of non-partisanship and apoliticism.Voters will no doubt be looking to see how candidates plan to address these issues during their term, and what they envision the role of SULS to be going forward.In electoral terms, a likely three-way contest means that candidates will have to fight hard to capture and appeal to the small electorate of the Law School, especially as this years tickets seem to split the votes of cohorts and even friendship groups. Preference deals may also be crucial.Importantly, this is also SULS first online election, which may prove challenging given the 2020 SRC election was marred with delays and mishaps in adjusting to a new online voting system.It will be interesting to see how candidates adapt to this new landscape, and particularly how they will use social media and multimedia content to reach out to new voters, disengaged students or voters outside their social circles.Who are the presidential candidates?Wendy HuHu is a fourth year Commerce/Law student, and was on the SULS Executive in 2019 as a Competitions Director. She unsuccessfully ran for Vice-President (Education) last year under Zest for SULS, and has been involved with the Financial Management Association of Australia (FMAA).She has formed a complete ticket, comprised of Sinem Kirk, Sophia Semmler, Cameron Jordan, Alison Chen, Tiana Dumanovsky, Gretel Wilson, Caroline Xu, Felix Wood, Onor Nottle, Georgia Spilsbury Watson, Justin Lai, Calvin Kwong, Sofia Mendes, and Sissi Xi Chen.Kirk and Chen are current Executive members as Womens Officer and Publications Director respectively. Semmler and Kwong ran under Zest for SULS last year as candidates for Vice President (Social Justice) and Campus Director.Hus vision for SULS is focused on restoring a sense of community within the law school in light of remote learning.She told Honi that she wishes to encourage meaningful student engagement by optimising SULS offerings to the hybrid in-person/online model. She particularly wants to engage first year students who she believes have missed out on many rite[s] of passage at law school.Additionally, Hu wishes to be a strong independent voice when lobbying the law faculty for a more flexible academic program. She specifically points to the need for change in the law facultys outdated legacy systems of teaching.Hu is staunchly against the recently-passed university funding cuts, stating that they will worsen existing structural inequalities within the legal industry.She commends SULS increased role in advocacy, believing that the organisation should continue to shed light on social issues from an educational and legal standpoint and look towards coordinated efforts with other law societies.While she is open to publishing legal commentary and supporting actions such as protests and fundraisers, she believes that a line should be drawn where SULS is commenting on or affiliating itself with political parties or sitting Members of Parliament.This distinction is unclear, given that several issues SULS may take stances on, including the higher education bill, are necessarily a result of the incumbent Coalition government.Casper LuLu is also a fourth year Commerce/Law student. While he has not previously been on the Executive, he has had extensive involvement in SULS, particularly through judging competitions and editing publications.He has considerable exposure to the world of student politics as the Returning Officer for the 2019 SRC election, and the Deputy Returning Officer for this years SASS election, though less so as a candidate himself.Lu has refused to disclose details of his ticket before nominations are due, but sources have told Honi that he is likely to form a ticket or has already formed.His vision involves increasing student engagement by offering less time-consuming ways to get involved. He notes that sufficient free time as a law student is a privilege.Lu also plans to address the impact of COVID-19 through increased flexibility in education by encouraging online lectures and submissions. He says that discussions need to be had with faculty to understand their position and to propose alternatives.He also wants to further advertise job opportunities and financial support, mentioning how COVID-19 led to students losing their jobs or failing to secure clerkships.Lu told Honi that he hopes to address issues that predate COVID-19, such as promoting awareness of non-corporate career paths, working rights and support services. However, it is unclear what measures his Executive might take to address these issues beyond simply awareness-raising.In regards to the education cuts, Lu says that prospective students should not be barred from pursuing a degree merely because of the cost. However, he believes that the default position for SULS should be apolitical and to remain representative of its students.He would assess issues on a case-by-case basis, if they affect a subset of law students, and whether the detriments of any proposed action outweighs the benefits of doing so.Dani StephensonStephenson is a third year Economics/Law student. She is a current Executive member as Campus Director, winning last years election under Pop for SULS, and has been involved in the Sydney Law Revue.She has also formed a complete ticket, comprised of Max Vishney, Eden McSheffrey, Tatiana Neumann-Murphy, Alex De Araujo, Maya Eswaran, Thrishank Chintamaneni, Carol Lin, Kathy Zhang, Mikey Glover, Sophie Driver, Grace Wong, Genevieve Couvret, William Pyke and Anne Peng.Vishney, McSheffrey and De Araujo are on this years Executive as Equity Officer, Queer Officer and Socials Director respectively. Eswaran is a former University of Sydney Union Board Director and Honorary Treasurer.Stephensons vision, as she told Honi, is predominantly focused on issues of equity and accessibility. She promises to work towards reducing disparities within the law school and advocate for students whose voices are not typically heard.In particular, she plans on leveraging SULS relationship with the law faculty to better support students.Her platform, which is about bringing wellbeing and social justice to the forefront of the organisation, is a noticeable difference from SULS perceived corporate culture. However, details are unclear as to how this would reflect in or beyond SULS usual offerings.When asked about the current state of higher education, she said that she will oppose the higher education bill at every turn, given its obvious and debilitating effect on student wellbeing and the student learning experience.Stephenson has adopted a more cautious interpretation of political advocacy. She says that she does not consider the cuts to higher education to be a political issue, but rather one that directly impacts every SULS member.Emphasising the organisations commitment as both a body corporate and a charity, she envisions a SULS that looks beyond surface level questions of factionalism and party influence and instead, identifies the core issue of what the material needs of SULS members are and how we can satisfy them.What comes next?A Presidential debate has been scheduled for Tuesday 27 October, for students who are interested in joining a ticket to speak to candidates. However, with almost all positions filled due to the competitive nature of this years race, it is unclear how useful this debate will be for students not currently on a ticket.Hu, Lu and Stephenson have until Wednesday 28 October to submit nominations. Polling begins on Monday 9 November and ends on Tuesday 10 November.Deaundre Espejo is the current Vice-President (Social Justice) of SULS. Jeffrey Khoo managed Pop for SULS campaign last year. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The resurgent momentum of Black Lives Matter protests in recent months has seen various celebrities emerge from their apolitical slumber to voice support, sharing posts on social media and making news for turning up to protests. While celebrities have the power to bring issues to a larger audience, their activist efforts more often than not de-politicise and obscure the systemic nature of the issues they are trying to fight against.As members of the elite ruling class whose hoarded wealth is reliant on continued mass exploitation and suffering under capitalism, it is not in the interest of celebrities to commit to challenging the established order. It may be tempting to call on celebrities to act as leaders and give a voice to movements, but the majority of their pretensions to activism are self-serving and mediated by a PR team for the promotion of their own brand image.Furthermore, celebrity support for movements often defangs radical messages by advocating for liberal solutions, such as voting for Biden or checking unconscious racial bias rather than abolishing the carceral apparatus. Mainstream celebrity activism, which typically takes the shape of humanitarianism through NGOs such as the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, is not a challenge to global inequality and neoliberal capitalism. Instead, it promotes and legitimates the very forms of global inequality it claims to redress by defusing and institutionalising political anger. In Celebrity Humanitarianism: the Ideology of Global Charity Ilan Kapoor writes that the overwhelming tendency is to tackle the symptoms rather than the causes, the quick and efficient managerial fixes rather than the more complex political struggles.The type of militant activism that is needed to transform society is not the type that advances a celebritys reputation, for it would require them to be traitors to their own position, sacrificing a life of comfort for on-the-ground action. Jane Fonda is an example of a celebrity who committed much of her life to activism after being born into a privileged family and gaining prominence through her role in Barbarella. Fondas dedicated opposition to the Vietnam War required courage; she was harassed, her reputation smeared, and she was denounced as a national traitor.During the 1960s Fonda supported the Black Panther Party, a Marxist group which began as armed patrols for self-defence against police brutality; she called them our revolutionary vanguard we must support them with love, money, propaganda and risk. In the 70s Fonda became heavily involved in the anti-war movement. Her most controversial action was her trip to North Vietnam in 1972 where she denounced US military policy on radio programs, earning the nickname Hanoi Jane after the media photographed her on an anti-aircraft gun. The backlash received for rebelling against the state was frightening; she became the target of a three-year COINTELPRO operation in which her home was raided, and her children were followed from school.Another actress who was effectively blacklisted from Hollywood was Jean Seberg, famous for her role in the French New Wave film Breathless. Seberg developed severe mental health issues after being ruthlessly subjected to COINTELPRO for her covert financial support of the Black Panthers. Recognising her as a domestic threat, the FBI stalked her, tapped her phone, and searched through her mail. In 1970, they sent false allegations to Hollywood gossip columns claiming that Seberg was pregnant with a Panther leaders child and not her husbands. Traumatised by the defamation, Seberg had a miscarriage. She later attempted suicide on numerous anniversaries of the childs death and tragically died at age 40.In her memoir A Taste of Power, Panther leader Elaine Brown wrote that, there was nothing radically chic about Jean Seberg I felt her genuineness and decency. The phrase Radical Chic refers to Tom Wolfes 1970 essay that lampooned celebrities who endorsed revolutionary causes. Wolfes criticism of the composer Leonard Bernstein for hosting a party for the Black Panthers to raise bail funds effectively intimidated a significant base out of supporting them. In Panther leader Donald Coxs autobiography, he described Wolfe as a leech for profiting the most from the evening.While celebrity activism and humanitarianism since the 1970s has become more deeply entrenched in a marketing and promotion machine anchored in neoliberal capitalism, the FBI continues its aggressive surveillance of activists involved in movements including Black Lives Matter. Wealthy elites donating only a small percentage of their wealth, offering liberal statements, and centring their own benevolence provides no challenge to the established order, whereas those who betray their own class through life-long opposition to capitalism and imperialism do. As twitter user @jestom quipped in late May those of us who are middle class/wealthy must accept our role, as paypigs to the revolution. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On Thursday 24 September, Labor MP Anna Watson introduced a private members bill to the New South Wales Parliament to amend the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007. The amendment seeks to criminalise coercive control in domestic relationships. Coercive control refers to the use of controlling and manipulative behaviours including psychological, emotional and financial abuse within domestic relationships. Coercive control is committed to gaining and maintaining control over another person. This bill will make it an offence to engage in coercive control over another person in a domestic relationship. Carrying a maximum penalty of imprisonment for five years and/or a fine of $5,500 and, in cases deemed to be aggravated, a prison sentence of ten years imprisonment and/or a fine of $13,200.Anna Watson is not alone in proposing legislation to criminalise coercive control with Greens MLC Abigail Boyd giving notice for similar legislation in June this year. Womens Safety NSW, a state-wide peak body for womens specialist services, have said that criminalisation of coercive control [is] essential if Australia is to achieve a substantial reduction in violence against women and domestic homicide. While domestic violence services and some advocates have praised the move to criminalise coercive control, criticism of the bill has emerged from prison and police abolitionists, who have labelled the proposed legislation as embedded in ideas of carceral feminism. Carceral feminism refers to a response to gendered violence which calls for increased policing, law reform and harsher prison sentencing for perpetrators. Though originally coined by Elizabeth Berstien in her discussion of sexual labour and calls to criminalise sex work, it has come to refer more broadly to feminists reliance upon the criminal justice system for safety and protection. Feminist anti-violence movements fought for the social and legal recognition of domestic violence and an increase in punishment for perpetrators of this violence. Historically, the criminal justice system whether via the police or the courts saw domestic violence as a discrete and interpersonal family issue. Feminists fought to have the system recognise domestic violence as a political issue that the state needed to address. In doing so, many feminist anti-violence activists failed to recognise the violence rooted in the criminal justice system itself. In her book Decriminalising Domestic Violence, Leigh Goodmark argues that while criminalisation of domestic violence brought tangible benefits to some women, the criminal justice system has failed to prevent intimate partner violence by trying to solve what is fundamentally a social issue without broader investment in social services and infrastructure. A broader community response that incorporates housing, health, economic security and structural change to gender relations and patriarchy is imperative. In failing to recognise the violence inflicted by policing and the prison system, carceral feminism relies on the idea that violence can be prevented or fixed through punitive measures, reinforcing and empowering these violent systems. The proposed legislation relies on women being willing and able to involve the police in situations of violence. For many women, involving the police can lead to additional violence, with the police acting as another perpetrator of violence in denying support, inflicting further harm and compounding existing trauma. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, disabled women, poor women and other women living on the margins, police pose a very real threat to our lives. Policing and prisons serve only to provide a veneer of safety.Supporters of the push to criminalise coercive control and reform the criminal justice system to respond to domestic violence have argued that opponents of the bill are defeatist and nihilistic about the ability of the justice system to protect women. However, as abolitionists, opposition to the criminalisation of coercive control does not stem from pessimism. Instead, our resistance to it has developed from a thorough understanding of the inherent oppressive nature of policing and the criminal justice system, in addition to the limits of the system in responding to deeper social issues. Abolitionist feminism demands of us as women and people deeply embedded in our communities an optimism in our own ability to respond to violence without reproducing harm. Modern policing and incarceration have become so naturalised that there is immense difficulty in imagining and conceptualising how violence could be addressed outside of these systems. Abolitionists optimism and creativity is situated within our ability to imagine alternatives outside disempowering hegemonic systems. Failures of the police to respond to gendered violence is well documented. Statistics from police data, as reported by the ABC in their investigation of police failing sexual assault victim/survivors, suggest that while approximately one in five women have experienced sexual violence, only 19% of female victim/survivors of sexual assault in Australia reported the incident to police. Further, only 30% of all sexual assault reports led to an arrest or other legal action. For many marginalised women, there are extensive barriers to reporting violence. Research published by ANROWS, for example, highlights the challenges to reporting women with disabilities face, with substantial abuse occurring in spite of, and because of, systems that are intended to provide protection. With this knowledge in mind, it is paramount we pay attention to the way calls for criminalisation of coercive control intended to provide protection may similarly cause harm.We must also consider that, whilst in some cases, reporting may stop future acts of violence, police and the criminal justice system cannot be relied upon as the answer to violence prevention, and often are complicit in compounding the trauma of victim/survivors. Police failure to respond to acts of violence in a meaningful way often leaves victim/survivors re-traumatised and without resolution. Even when police involvement leads to an arrest or other legal action being taken against the perpetrator, victim/survivors are left without material support, as the justice system is unequipped to respond to acts of violence beyond the states legal mechanisms. While some supporters of the bill may believe that expanding police powers through criminalising coercive control will improve the literacy and skills of police in responding to violence, abolitionists understand that the issue is not with literacy and skills, but with the limitations of the polices role within the community. Current rates of domestic and sexual violence prove that the threat of police involvement and incarceration is not a deterrent for those who commit violence against women. Yet, if we understand gendered violence as a social issue, alternative approaches of both alleviating and responding to violence can begin to be imagined. Supporters of the proposed legislation believe that the enactment of similar laws in England and Scotland provide a valuable roadmap for their introduction in Australia. However, what supporters of the bill must be acutely aware of, is that as a settler colonial state, Australias approach to criminalisation functions differently than in Europe. While supporters of the bill have refuted the idea that police will mistakenly identify women as the perpetrator this is already a pressing issue. In particular, misidentification affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, migrant and refugee women, women who dont speak English and other marginalised women already over criminalised and threatened by the police. By referencing empirical evidence of this not occurring in Scotland and England where coercive control has already been criminalised, advocates fail to recognise Australias unique colonial context in reproducing violence via the policing and prison systems.As feminists we dont refute that coercive control and intimidation tactics lie at the heart of domestic violence and pose a serious threat to womens wellbeing and safety. However, coercive control and intimidation can not be isolated and detached from the broader structural, patriarchal violence that exists. While seeking to expand understandings of gendered violence, this bill poses the very real risk of seeing violence against women as interpersonal and not structurally situated. This fails women whose lives cannot be detached from the structures we live within whether they be disabled women living in institutions and experiencing abuse at the hands of violent service providers, Aboriginal women subjected to police brutality or criminalised women subjected to sexual violence within prisons.In questioning the push to criminalise coercive control, we want to make clear we are not disagreeing that coercive control is a form of violence. We do not wish to invalidate the experiences of women who have been subjected to coercive control, and honour victim/survivors sharing their stories we all want justice. We also acknowledge that the debate happening amongst feminists has become highly polarised in response to this issue and we do not want to be complicit in drawing attention away from what is at stake, which is the lives and livelihoods of women.However, what we hope to present is a radical alternative to dealing with violence within our communities. Ultimately as abolitionists it is from a deep love, hope and belief that we as a community, especially those subject to multiple forms of interpersonal and systemic violence, hold the answers and can continue to work towards a world that does not rely on carceral systems. In building strong communities, developing collective care ethics and struggling for structural changes to housing, health and social services we will end violence against women. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> What is the Senate?The Senate sits at the top of the University of Sydneys decision-making hierarchy. The 15 people who sit on it (called Fellows) are responsible for appointing the Vice-Chancellor, who is responsible for much of the Universitys day-to-day operations and long-term vision. The Senate will be entrusted with choosing a replacement for current VC Michael Spence when he leaves at the end of the year. Additionally, the body is responsible for approving the Universitys annual budget and overall strategic vision.There are 15 Senate fellows. These include the Chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson, who is also the chair, the Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence, and the Chair of the Academic Board, Tony Masters. In addition, two people are appointed by the NSW Minister of Education, another five by the Senate itself, while non-academic and academic staff elect one and two representatives, respectively. Many of these members are drawn from the corporate sphere, with a long list of potential conflicts declared online.Why is it controversial?The Senate itself has generated a considerable amount of controversy over the last few years. The voting in of a reduction of the Senates members from 22 to 15, with only 5 of these being elected and the rest appointed by the Senate or the Education Minister in 2015 led to heavy criticism from groups such as the EAG and the NTEU, as well as a staff-elected senate fellow, who called the decision a further centralisation of decision-making power. A report commissioned by the Senate earlier that year, which was obtained by Honi in 2016, had recommended that the body slash its membership and adopt a more corporatised form of governance.Recently, the Senates influence on the USU has also been criticised, specifically in response to the alleged swaying of the USU Executive Election by the organisations Senate-appointed directors.Whats happening now?This year, postgraduate and undergraduate students will have the opportunity to elect one fellow each to the Board. They will have a vote on key decisions of the Senate and would be expected to represent students interests in major policy discussions it undertakes.If you havent heard about them before, youre not alone. Senate elections are generally less prominent, and less heavily contested than those for the Students Representative Council or the University of Sydney Union Board. That is in large part thats because they only occur every two years. Its also because only one candidate in each election will be elected, discouraging heavy contesting where most candidates know theyll probably lose. As the Senate race occurs in between the SRC elections and RepsElect, factionalised candidates often dont contest the Senate race.The online format of Senate elections has often lent itself to controversy. In contrast to the very public campaigning of USU and SRC elections, candidates can be successful without being interviewed by Honi, campaigning in coloured T-shirts, providing a comprehensive policy statement or launching a social media campaign.Instead, in both the 2014 and 2016 elections, the elected undergraduate fellow was accused of standing over or near students as they voted through the online portal. In 2016, campaigners for the ultimately successful candidate were accused of racially profiling and targeting international students to vote in the elections.This has meant that often the students are surprising. In 2014, in the middle of a strong student campaign against Tony Abbotts proposed deregulation of university fees, the ultimately successful candidate said he was not really sure on the issue. Current Undergraduate Student Fellow, Francis Tamer, had not had experience with student politics prior to the election. Instead, he was best known for his vocal support of the No vote during the marriage equality plebiscite and had featured prominently in right-wing media supporting the view. The fact that he had won the election with a handy 1800 votes (whilst his campaign page had a mere 220 likes), therefore came as a surprise at a University whose student population largely voted Yes. He was the second consecutive conservative to win the election with the backing of the Catholic Society. If current Catholic Society Secretary, Alessandro Sobral, wins itll be a third.University management has also not stayed away from the fray. In 2016, Honi reported that in collaboration with the USU, they contacted at least two students and potentially more. Honi also reported that Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson and the Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence had morning tea with the Liberal candidate Dean Shachar, but could not say whether any support or promises had been given.Whos running this year?Eight candidates are contesting the undergraduate student Senate position, far fewer than the 24 who threw their hat in the ring last time. They include, in ballot order: Kewei (Benedict) Xu, Cole Scott-Curwood (Engineers for SRC), Alessandro Sobral, Alexander Naple, Alysha Baig, Anne Zhou, Courtney Leanne Daley (NLS) and Gabi Stricker-Phelps (Liberal associated).Xu is an international student and a relatively unknown figure with seemingly little experience in student representation. St. Pauls College resident and 2021 councillor-elect, Scott-Curwood is styling himself as a progressive candidate, pointing to recent involvement with the SRC environment collective. Yet, when Scott-Curwood penned an article for Honi earlier this year in support of the Senates new sustainability strategy, it was discovered that a current Senate fellow was directly editing the document to make the body look more favourable.Sobral, as previously mentioned, is the Secretary of the Catholic Society, though makes no reference to this in his candidate statement, perhaps deliberately, and is running as the everyday student. When pressed by an Honi editor at Courtyard as to why he was running, Sobral waxed lyrical about the student voice, though was unable to provide a solid definition of what that was. As to the most important issue on campus at the moment, he gestured to the Universitys controversial usage of ProctorU.Alex Naple, despite arguably being the most experienced candidate running for Senate, given his 1980-81 USU Presidency is a bit of a mystery to the contemporary student body. Thankfully, a look through the Honi archives reveals a highly contentious campus figure. Read for yourself here (page 3).Alysha Baig is also relatively unknown figure and never responded to Honis attempts to contact them. Baig does mention that she worked for the United Nations Human Rights Council, however its unsure in what capacity. Anne Zhao is an international student and current headkicker and de-facto leader of the Penta (Panda) faction. Zhao has also listed involvement as a student representative with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.Courtney Leanne Daley, part of student Labor Left faction National Labor Students (NLS), is also styling herself as a progressive environmentalist, and will seemingly be competing for the left-wing vote along with Curwood. Daley is currently the SRC Sexual Harassment Officer and is pledging to review the Universitys sexual misconduct and alcohol policies.2019 SRC Womens Officer Gabi Stricker-Phelps is also in the running. Whilst not a member of the Liberal Party herself, she ran on the Mod-Lib Shake Up SRC ticket in 2018 and was supported by them in her controversial bid for Womens Officer over the candidates elected by the Womens Collective. She is being supported by the campus Mods once again, running somewhat of an unconventional campaign. She has joined forces with postgraduate senate candidate Lachlan Finch, who was last years Liberal USU Vice-President and her current partner. Whilst the two are separate elections, this is a smart play from the two of them, who, in talking to voters who are ineligible for one election can point them to vote for the other. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Police repression of protests has escalated in Sydney in recent months, an intersection of tactical and ideological factors making way for a heavy-handed response that has been largely unchallenged by the public. This lack of public backlash against repressive police behaviours has been disappointing but unsurprising. The police force is itself a racist institution, one that exists in Australia to protect colonial peace and capitalist prosperity, two constructs which the vast majority of Australians believe are deserving of that protection.Following the hugely successful Black Lives Matter (BLM) rally in Town Hall on the 6th of June, which saw tens of thousands of protestors turn to the streets despite New South Wales Police taking the matter to the Supreme Court, other events in solidarity with Indigenous deaths in custody were organised to capture the momentum of the movement.Police at this first large scale protest coming out of Sydneys lockdown were simply outnumbered by the sheer mass of people in attendance. Once the gathering was authorised by the Court of Appeal, they could only stand by as marshals. As though scorned by their loss of power and lack of control, their tactics evolved dramatically and immediately after this. Police have since made less effort to hide the intentions behind their actively racist tactics. This wasnt unknown before, but should be given more spotlight considering not only the absurdity, but the danger of tactics such as bringing out sound cannons, and galloping horses to intimidate activists, which have been used at recent protests.The 12th of June BLM protest saw over 600 police, including riot squads, mounted officers and vans filled with police dogs ready to shut down the action. This heavy handed approach was justified as being necessary for public health in order to win favour from the media and broader public, despite the hypocrisy of their own lack of distancing from each other and from protestors.By the time the David Dungay Jnr and BLM protest came around on the 28th of July, police were interpreting the Public Health Act differently. 20 person groups were no longer allowed within larger gatherings, even if those groups werent interacting in a way that could lead to the transmission of the coronavirus. It became ideological; it allowed police to break up actions which had multiple groups of less than 20 people if they were there with a common purpose. This new interpretation of the Public Health Act was handed down to police by New South Wales Police Commander Mick Fuller, specifically in order to break up the BLM rally on the 28th of July. In turn, protests that have had an active anti-police stance such as the BLM protests have been targeted more heavily.Activist Padraic Gibson helped the family of David Dungay Jnr organise this action, which was the first at which protesters received fines for breaching the Public Health Order. The persecution of Black Lives Matter protestors is very closely bound to the persecution of Aboriginal people, Gibson told Honi.When it became clear that the police were going to shut down the protest in the Domain, there was a large focus on making sure that the Dungay family and other Indigenous protestors werent targeted or arrested.It was quite deliberate, the way we approached the police in the Domain. [There was] a determination on the part of the protest organisation that we didnt want members of the Dungay family arrested. I think that they would have quite liked to grab Paul Silva, Davids nephew, who is quite outspoken, but he left the scene very quickly, as soon as the police attitude became obvious. They have given him an enormous amount of harassment travelling to and from demonstrations.All left wing protests are now being policed with that very heavy handed interpretation, that it needs to be said, hasnt yet been tested by a court. So that is the interpretation now of senior police command, and it means effectively a ban on any political demonstrations in Sydney, said Gibson.The way in which protests have been reported on in the mainstream media has additionally had significant impact on the power which police have gained. The widespread misinformation traced back to the Police Commissioner, but disseminated widely and uncritically by the media, that BLM rallies in Melbourne were responsible for the second wave of coronavirus was immeasurably damaging. It cut off tens of thousands of people who were interested in fighting against Indigenous deaths in custody and institutionalised racism from a movement that needs mass power now. It also justified, to some sections of the wider population, any amount of police repression, arrests or fines. This argument, while delusional, was easier to make when funeral numbers were still below 20, but is waning now.Activist Seth Dias believes that the media interest has definitely resulted in the extra police powers we are seeing at the moment. The amount of media attention and the number of people who turn up to protests are also important factors in the way police approach the situation. In order to avoid criticisms from the wider public, the police have held back from repressing large actions, as these gain significant attention. However, its become very clear that they have no qualms with going hard at actions which are organised and carried out by students. At the University of Sydney Womens Collective National Day of Action rally against fee hikes and job cuts on the 23rd of September, police command were heard saying get every last one of them, dont let any of them get away. 21 students were fined.In the past two weeks, the mainstream (non-Murdoch) media has become more sympathetic in their reporting on student protests. I never think its the media that won that for us, though it is a tool that helps us reach others, said activist Dashie Prasad. Its been activists continuing to fight and point out absurdities in the law that has brought some journalists on side.In response, the tactics of protesters are evolving in order to outsmart police in novel ways. Decentralised actions with different purposes are allowed to go ahead, which can be used to our advantage. Having a large number of protest contingents meet at separate locations and then join together to march with mass numbers is becoming both more popular and successful. Police shutdowns of this nature are far less justifiable, and mainstream media have become more sympathetic to protests in turn.There is a clear racial element to this police repression. Dias told me that this has a lot to do with the fact that there was a perceived threat of violence due to the instances of rioting seen in the USA following the murder of George Floyd from the start which has been spurred on by racist narratives in the mainstream media. Notably, one of the most obviously racist tactics is the change to the 20 person rule made specifically to target the BLM rallies. Prasad, when being fined at the education protest on the 23rd of September, was asked if their stop black deaths in custody shirt was the reason they were at the protest. Project Odin letters which single out individuals as being on a watchlist, and tell them that they will be fined or arrested if theyre seen at another protest have been sent to activists who have attended BLM rallies, to make them feel watched and in turn, scare them out of future attendance.The 28th of July was a turning point in the police repression of protest, and the new interpretation of the 20 person rule was a specific attack on the rally organised by David Dungay Jnrs family to bring attention to his case. The way policing protests has evolved over the past few months has been actively racist, but we cant let it deter us. Rather, it is more important now than ever to be pushing back against police repression of protest, to be supporting Indigenous rights movements, and to be coming up with new tactics that undermine police authority. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Three and a half years ago, I picked a medical science degree, like many confused seventeen-years-olds before me, because Id always loved biology in high school but couldnt quite close the deal on undergraduate medicine. I quickly found a genuine love for medical science. While it is true that its students are occasionally awkward and often competitive, I have never met a more earnest group of people in my life. One of my first university memories is of a lecture introducing diabetes where a lecturer wore a shirt extolling the virtues of the pancreas. I am also deeply fond of the Anderson Stuart Building, a building that despite Honis postulation that it was haunted in my first week on campus, has since become my second home.In noting these things, I would be remiss to ignore the very public crises of management that have coloured my years here. In the first semester of 2019, on my way to anatomy and histology classes, I would walk through corridors where flyers and posters begged for Anderson Stuart to be saved. The buildings staff were being threatened at the time with eviction, and I tried to show solidarity in whatever small ways were possible.In 2020, against the backdrop of a pandemic that ought to have strengthened the imperative for basic science teaching, staff in my own major of physiology were threatened with losing their jobs. I rallied with them, fought police repression and even participated in a historic occupation of the F23 building to try and protect their jobs. This year I watched as several of my friends who had gone on to start their honours years were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building, once again under the auspices of safety concerns and an allegedly toxic workplace culture. Over the past few weeks, I resolved to speak with staff, unionists and student activists to try to understand exactly why the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH) has generated these yearly crises.Jamie*, a former FMH staff member who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, describes a once drastically different workplace culture and attributes recent changes to the appointment of the inaugural Dean, Professor Robyn Ward, in July 2018. Before that time, they said that while management was not perfect, staff felt that their opinions were valued by Heads of School and that they collaborated freely and extensively.Ward was appointed three years ago to oversee the centralisation of what were once seven separately administered schools Medical Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Sciences into a single mega-faculty. Jamie says that staff in the School of Medical Sciences (SoMS) perceived themselves as particularly targeted, and that their trust in faculty leaders has been most especially eroded by a lack of collegiality or consultation over the last two years.Jamie believes that the targeting of staff in SoMS began in late 2018 when staff who worked in wet laboratories (those that use biological material or liquids) in the Anderson Stuart Building were told that they would be evicted on the grounds that their laboratories did not adhere to safety standards. Initially, Ward argued that the workplace health and safety risks were so intolerably severe that they could not be remedied by usual procedures, and mandated full relocation to other facilities by, at the latest, mid-2019. Staff say they were confused by this sudden development on two accounts. First, many staff reported that immediately before this proposal, their labs were found to meet Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) standards or had received minor, rectifiable recommendations. Additionally, management were extremely reticent to provide any detailed WHS reports on which the claim that the laboratories were unsafe was based.Rob Boncardo, a member of USyds National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch committee, says that these actions on managements behalf led staff to seek NTEU involvement to wage a dispute with the Faculty on their behalf. Boncardo argued that given the lack of WHS evidence, managements initial actions were a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) as they did not engage in a formal change process, in which consultation and discussion would be required to move staff from the Anderson Stuart Building. This motivated the NTEU to challenge the decision with the Provost, the Vice Chancellor and ultimately arbitration by the Fair Work Commission. In October 2019, the Fair Work Commission ruled in favour of staff in the Anderson Stuart Building and declared that the University should have entered into genuine bargaining through a formal change process.Both Jamie and Rob tell me that there was a noticeable shift in the narrative of management during the dispute. After it became clear that FMH had insufficient evidence to support evictions on WHS grounds, they began to prosecute an argument that the staff deserved better facilities and so ought to be moved out of their presently suboptimal spaces in the Anderson Stuart Building.Jamie says that staff were sceptical of this narrative as they had seen management promises of new buildings and facilities fail to materialise in the past and ultimately felt that the move was done to specifically demoralise and separate staff who had previously become accustomed to close collaboration. Campbell Watson, a fourth-year student in the Faculty and long-time activist, tells me that this was the first time that students became aware of what he described as a longer term culture war between management and SoMS staff. Watson also recalls the high levels of staff militancy and the horror of many students when they discovered how their teachers were being treated.In 2020, Watson was a key organiser in the campaign to Defend Medical Science Education, an involvement he says was motivated by his belief that the staff who were to be made redundant were some of the best people who had ever taught him. In late 2020, Professor Sarah Young, the current Head of the School of Medical Sciences, put forward a Draft Change Proposal that made redundant positions in the disciplines of Physiology and Pathology. Jamie was one of the many staff members whose job was ultimately made redundant under the proposal, and notes that several attempts to be genuinely consulted on the proposal were rebuffed and that directly negotiating with management was difficult.The justification for the proposal was argued on two grounds: a) an attempt to further centralise teaching and b) to address what was argued to be overstaffing of the Physiology and Pathology disciplines. Physiology staff reported to management that the data being used to calculate the full time equivalent (FTE) value of their work was incorrect and did not take into account its full scope. In one other incident, management was especially combative, insisting staff were not being paid for a bioengineering class that staff knew they were being paid to teach.Undergraduate and higher degree by research (HDR) student attempts at consultation were also rebuffed. Watson recalls a meeting with Sarah Young after the Revised Change Proposal was released, in which he and other students demanded that they be given the opportunity to make submissions and be consulted in the negotiating process. Watson describes Youngs approach in the meeting as completely retaliatory as she referred to technical descriptions showing that students did not need to be consulted on matters of staff employment.Everyone I spoke to noted that after the Anderson Stuart incident, management appeared to now be weaponising the terms of the enterprise bargaining agreement to their benefit, particularly against concerned students. Jamie notes that while the EBA required the Faculty to demonstrate that it was consulting staff, they were not obliged to make concessions to anyone, and appeared unwilling to do so throughout the process. In one survey conducted by the Defend Medical Science Education campaign in 2020, 69.17% of the 132 SoMS staff they surveyed reported feeling bullied by the actions of senior management.Despite a large-scale campaign of resistance involving two disputes issued by the NTEU and a mobilisation of both staff and students, SoMS ultimately proceeded with the majority of the planned staff redundancies. Kelton Muir de Moore, a casual staff member in Physiology and member of the NTEU, remembers the campaign as a moment of unprecedented staff mobilisation, describing the campaign as the best level of colleagueship Ive seen in my time in Physiology. Although relationships between staff had become tense, Muir de Moore says that the struggle against the brutal management of staff gave staff a commonality that nurtured friendships and desires to fight the mismanagement of the University.This year, in a sequel befitting of a scripted drama, honours students were threatened with eviction from the Medical Foundation Building (MFB) and asked to change their supervisors on short notice. The eviction was initially justified on safety grounds by the fact that an unknown white powder and broken glass were found underneath a poster criticising management. Many of the same staff and postgraduate students that were evicted from Anderson Stuart in 2019 were relocated to MFB, and the culture of the building has been described by staff to be particularly sceptical of senior management. Subsequently, the eviction of honours students was justified on the basis of a supposedly toxic workplace culture within the building.Boncardo explains that the NTEU closely engaged with the affected students in the MFB as losing honours students can significantly impact staff workload provisions and make them appear as if they were not performing their job adequately. Initially, Boncardo says, FMH management did not respond to NTEU appeals for mediation and proceeded to contact students informing them of an intent to evict regardless. The NTEU subsequently used a right of entry protocol to audit the evidence for the toxic workplace culture. The evidence, Boncardo says, was found to have been sourced from only six Faculty members, all of whom were members of the senior management team, and only one of whom worked in the building. At this point, Boncardo recalls, staff began to suspect that the phrase toxic workplace culture was managements way of describing the strong union culture in the building.Students, helped by the NTEU and the Students Representative Council (SRC), attempted to bargain with the Faculty and wrote individually and collectively in order to stay in the building and continue their original projects. The Faculty eventually reneged on good faith negotiations with the NTEU and the students were told that they would be moved out of the building at the end of the week. Subsequently, a meeting was held between management and students in which Boncardo attended in his capacity as a representative of the NTEU and the interests of students. Despite the students wish for Boncardo to remain in the meeting, management asked him to leave. Boncardo describes these actions as a breach of the Universitys enterprise bargaining agreement and a transparent effort at union busting. Eventually, after two weeks of negotiations, the Faculty decided to allow the honours students to remain in their building.An honours student affected by the incident, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, described the personal toll of the two weeks on their education. The student said that they lost weeks of work and what feels like years off my life [and] I really cannot emphasise enough the mental and emotional toll. Several students expressed to me that they were finding it impossible to sleep and eat properly as they were feeling too hyped up by the adrenaline, stress and uncertainty around the decision and our meetings with management.The student further described dealings with management as devoid of empathy. Several honours students affected by the project have reportedly lost their trust in the Faculty and have strongly reconsidered their intentions to undertake further studies.The SRC President, Swapnik Sanagavarapu, who was heavily involved in assisting students as a representative during the incident, confirmed that management were particularly hostile during meetings and did not seem to want a resolution. When asked to speak generally about accusations of a toxic culture in the faculty, Sanagavarapu said that in his experiences advocating for students, he felt that there was no faculty that has had so many instances back to back of people being treated so poorly (by management).The NTEU has since conducted an audit into the workplace culture of the Medical Foundation Building and found that there was no evidence of a toxic or urgently unsafe workplace in the area. Overwhelmingly, respondents to the NTEUs audit said that the space was safe and had a positive culture among colleagues. 69% of respondents, however, felt that the senior management of the Faculty negatively impacted the culture of the building. On 27 May, the NTEU recommended that further consultative processes with staff should be taken by senior management in order to best meet their needs. As Boncardo surmises, while this process began with management cruelly accusing staff of cultivating a toxic workplace culture, it has ended with a rigorous and wide-ranging audit showing that it is in fact management themselves who have a lot of work to do to improve their relations with staff and students.Senior management may well have had an important (even good) idea when they set out to establish this mega-faculty. Change of this scale, however, requires a well articulated vision, clear communication, regular trustworthy consultation and authenticity where actions match a shared vision. The narrative so far seems sadly lacking in all of these attributes. Staff, students and unionists all appear to agree on one thing: FMH management have, for multiple years now, been engaging in a campaign of obfuscation, bullying and managerialism. If a toxic culture exists in the Faculty of Medicine and Health it is surely not one that exists amongst its students and teachers. Instead, it is one created by senior managers who have, thus far, unsuccessfully tried to divide and conquer them. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I remember sitting in the back of my uncles car, my younger brother and cousin sitting on either side of me. I was twelve and it was the first time that I had travelled overseas without my parents. We had just crossed the border into Northern Ireland and the radio was trying to acquaint itself with the UKs FM waves, a haunting crackle broken by the odd word in an accent that was thicker than what I was used to hearing. I dont know what it is about the radio, but my brain is like a sieve for that form I could probably count on one hand the stories that have stuck with me. But for some reason, the tinny voice that came through the cars speakers on that day is still scorched into my memory with a burning sense of clarity.A murder trial was about to commence. The victim was an elderly woman, alone on Christmas Day at her home in Newry, too frail to visit her family. The accused was her next door neighbour, a middle-aged mother delivering a gift on Christmas morning. The facts of the case were particularly gruesome. The victim was sexually assaulted and later, bludgeoned to death with the wooden crucifix that she kept by her bedside. Her body was found with internal bruising, bleeding and fifteen broken ribs. An imprint of the crown of thorns was deeply embedded in her chin, the Christ figure detached from the cross, lying beside her.When in Ireland, I stay in my mothers childhood home. It is an unavoidably warm place. The fire is always blazing, the living room always filled with relatives and friends. But on that night, I didnt sleep a wink. I lay in my bed, mistaking my rapid heartbeat for feet clambering upstairs, holding my breath as I watched the cinema of shadows created by the headlights of passing cars. I could feel every kilometre of distance between me and my parents. I worried how long it would take for me to get to them if anything were to happen. But most of all, I was transfixed by the crucifix that was hanging above the door. A staple in the Catholic Irish household, so long a symbol of sacrifice and devotion, now a lingering figure of cruelty. I had almost convinced myself that I could see and hear blood dripping from its outline. It was really nothing but shadows, and Irish rain.Of course, my adult brain is starkly aware of the fact that most neighbours are perfectly sane people, and that most people are not bludgeoned to death at all, let alone by a crucifix.***Upon reading The Argonauts in the summer break after my first year of university, I fell hopelessly in love with Maggie Nelsons writing. This passion manifested itself in the decision to purchase her entire catalogue of books, which arrived on my doorstep in the middle of the second week of semester. However, as the story of impulsive online shopping inevitably goes, the semester passed, then the next, then the next, and I hadnt read a single word of any of them.I was sitting in my criminal law class, pondering the absurdity of how it is considered normal to contemplate the facts of six brutal murders before breakfast. I assumed that it took a certain person to be able to mull over these things in any sort of detail, and gathered that I was obviously not one of them my only contribution to that class being the observation that the victim in a cannibalism case shared the name of the tiger in The Life of Pi. With this conviction in mind, and my penchant for topical distraction, I took to scaling lists of isolated lines from great texts and thinkers concerning cruelty, in the process of which, I stumbled across a familiar name Maggie Nelson.2011s The Art of Cruelty is a meditation on the relationship between art and cruelty that consciously assaults the increasingly feeble barriers between representation and reality. Each essay reads like a palimpsest of ideas, with Nelsons incisive vision inscribed atop the musings of a rich index of philosophers, theorists, writers and artists. This is, at the best of times, an intimidating trope. I for one, nearly threw the book at the wall when the first line of the first essay in the collection was a direct quote from the knotty and bizarre mind of Fredrich Nietzsche. But one of the things that I most persistently admire about Nelson, if not envy, is her ability to make reading feel like walking through an expansive forest of familiar names and ideas, whilst being guided by a compassionate friend that is familiar with the route. Casting aside any semblance of certainty or truth that I had previously grasped, I took Nelsons hand and trampled into the forest of cruelty a journey defined by three books, countless minds and endless questions.***With this mania we all have for depreciating everything, as soon as I have said cruelty, everybody will at once take it to mean blood, wrote Antonin Artaud in The Theatre and Its Double. The Theatre and Its Double. In this preface to his theory of the theatre of cruelty, Artaud attempts to counter the societal assumption that cruelty is unavoidably physical and visible. The great irony of this stance is that Artaud himself succumbed to the trope that he so passionately wished to sidestep, with much of his theatre representing a very literalist interpretation of cruelty, capitalising on gore.But despite Artauds theory in many ways manifesting as a regrettable lexical error, I cant help but think that there is some merit to his idea. The world is routinely swallowed by darkness, humanity the largest existential threat to humanity. Perhaps the theatre of cruelty is not a literal theatre, but rather the world around us.When we are confronted by cruelty, we become drunk on the need for justification. Why would someone do this? How could they think such evil thoughts? The criminal law is literally hinged on this principle, as the severity of punishment is qualified on the basis of a justificatory logic connecting mens rea to actus reus. Nelson unwittingly effaces the supposedly impermeable rationality of this system, considering cruelty not just in terms of what can be seen, but as a means of structuring thought. In this task, she is aided by a careful interweaving of the theories of Elaine Scarry and Emmanuel Levinas.Scarry contemplates vulnerability with a sense of child-like optimism, imploring that the natural response to beauty and fragility is the will to protect. This notion is perhaps best conveyed by analogy when a child finds a ladybird on a petal, they have the compulsion to guard it. They let it scurry across their little hands, watching in awe as it defies gravity and disappears onto the underside.Nelson problematises this position, borrowing from Levinas perception of the schizoid nature of human responses. In this version of events, the child realises that they are more powerful than the beetle, and their admiration turns into a volatile cruelty that sees the poor insect reduced to little more than a pile of guts and fragmented exoskeleton ground into the pavement.The fantasy of knowing is intoxicating. The belief that every action and every thought can be justified so long as we devote enough attention to it. But still, I picture the elderly woman from Newry, who like the ladybird is gentle and harmless. In my mind, she sits in her armchair with her crucifix, rosary beads and bible her frail fingers moving across the beads, keeping count of her devotions.Perhaps what I fear most about cruelty, is that no matter how hard I try, I dont know where it comes from. But then again, I dont think Scarry, or Levinas, or even Nelson, know either.***In my mind, all great writing allows the reader to glance into the inner-mind of the writer. This voyeuristic position rides on the assumption that the most interesting part of reading is seeing the author in conversation with themselves on the page. This can be seen quite literally in many works of philosophy, where the writer will disagree with and respond to their own arguments in pages bound by a single cover, as though they are their own most virulent interlocutor. However, in Nelsons work, this interaction is much more subtle, as Nelson the writer blends with Nelson the character, attempting to piece together disparate memories and theories into a perfect tapestry of edification. However, whilst Nelson is unavoidably at the heart of most of her books, her 2005 poetry collection, Jane: A Murder, speaks with a different voice, as she composes works of poetry from a combination of her own cogitations and the diary entries of her Aunt, Jane, who was murdered at the age of 21 in 1969.It is easy to fetishize victims of cruelty to position them as martyrs, eternally wrapped in the story of their demise rather than the stories of their lives. Nelson is supremely conscious of this, articulating that Jane is about identification not fusion. In view of this, she allows her Aunt to speak for herself through diary entries giving vitality to the life that came before the murder, not just the murder itself.In The Phaedrus, Plato asserts that writing is an act of mimesis that language itself is to blame for the distance from reality often reflected in literature. Whilst Jane, a collection that is predominantly fashioned from the private musings of a dead woman, appears to be mimesis in the purest form, I contend that Nelson manages to breathe life into a topic that has been waterlogged by taboo and sensationalism. The prose is bare, the number of words on a page sparse, the gaps left to be filled, immense.But Nelsons unique, personal voice slaps the reader into a state of attention in 2007s The Red Parts, which focussed on the re-opening of the trial of the 1969 murder of Jane, depicts an emotional navigation of how human beings come to terms with cruelty when the concept itself is naturally unintelligible. Blending true-crime drama with memoir, Nelson commits to contemplating the question of proximity to cruelty forced to struggle with the reality that she never knew her aunt Jane, whilst also being acutely aware that the victim of the brutality that was being detailed in the courtroom was someone that shared her DNA. As a reader, this reality made the image of a young woman with a stocking embedded in the skin of her neck, and a blood turning her auburn hair an even darker read, all the more resonant.Re-reading The Red Parts in 2021, a year that in many ways, exists under the shadow of cruelty, is almost sickening. I scroll through my Twitter feed and see an update from @DeadWomenAus that 11 women in Australia have lost their lives to violence so far this year. I think about the names that, unlike Janes, are erased from public consciousness, and I think of the project of wilful ignorance that bears its ugly head in the form of political rhetoric day after day. Anger is a terrible thing, it causes hate. says Jane. I wish I could talk this over with someone. The greatest cruelty of all is the silence.Whilst a consistent theme in all of Nelsons work, vital to The Argonauts is a contemplation of the role of language. This is perhaps most poetically expressed in Nelsons invocation of Roland Barthes, that just as the Argos parts may be replaced over time, but the boat is still called the Argo, when the lover utters the phrase I love you, its meaning must be renewed by each use. Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts, whilst one a book of poetry and the other a quasi-memoir, are bound by a similar consideration of the value, and even more importantly, the limitations of language. The discourse of cruelty, like the lover saying I love you is volatile. With every utterance, the emotional tone, the justification, the act, transforms to create a concept anew. Nelson references Joan Didions essay The White Album to contemplate this idea further. We tell ourselves stories in order to live says Didion at the start of the essay, only to end with the line writing has not yet helped me to see what it means. I came to Nelson with the hope that my understanding of cruelty would be clarified. Nonetheless, I still dont know what cruelty means. And for that, I am indebted to her.***Williams Carlos Williams in The Ivy Crown wrote;The business of love isCruelty which,By our wills,We transform to live together.But in these theatres of cruelty, I am left empty, searching for love I cannot find. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The farmboy stands at the edge of the world he knows. A wide vista stretches before him. He turns for a last look at home. He could be safe there, happy even but that is not what he was made for. He gulps and takes the step.Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D) has occupied a number of positions in the public imagination since it was first published in 1974. At times, it has been a source of moral panic, the supernatural elements of the game at odds with the insurgent Reaganite evangelical conservatism of the 1980s. Seeming to represent a manifestation of the various forms of moral dissolution feared by suburbanites at the time, D&D was described by Patricia Pulling, the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons as a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings. More recently, it has operated as a useful punchline, acting as a signifier of a certain type of person: a 35-year-old with pallid skin and gamer spine, putting on a wizard hat and talking about trolls in their mothers basement.Today, D&D enjoys a relatively good run in terms of public image. Likely aided by popular media such as Critical Role, tabletop roleplaying games have grown more mainstream, with the CEO of Wizards of the Coast (the company behind D&D) estimating current tabletop player numbers of its 5th edition at 9.5 million worldwide.The farmboy sidesteps the ogres hammer, as three fletched arrows fly into the beasts thick hide. He turns to see the ranger, cape flowing in the wind. They grin at each other, and the farmboy returns to the fray.While these periods in the public imagination are all indicative of Dungeons and Dragons social, cultural, and even political impact, they are secondary to what it is. Attempts to describe D&D can struggle to do it justice: describing it as a fantasy roleplaying game captures the narrative feel, but ignores the rules and processes that make up the game. Describing in detail the games rules and procedures may provide a better idea of what it entails, but can fail to capture the spirit of the game.At its most basic element, D&D like all other tabletop roleplaying games is a group of people working together to tell a story. That process is mediated by the rules of the game, and refereed by the Dungeon Master (or Game Master, or Keeper, or Master of Ceremonies, or Big Mack Daddy it seems almost like a requirement now that independent games come up with their own twist on the DM). At the core of any good tabletop roleplaying game, however, is the story. Whether its a search for answers in a city shrouded by mist, a quest to slay a dragon, or the passage of a ship through dangerous waters, the mechanics of gameplay exist to service the story.They enter the tavern, full of old smoke and creaking floorboards. The dwarf makes his way to the bar. The ranger makes her way to a man in the corner with a face worn soft by age. The farmboy follows.In one campaign I played, we were tasked with killing a giant snake that resided in a nearby cave. Soon into the combat we found that giant snakes are less easy to kill than advertised, but collapsing a cave on a snake is actually rather simple. So we did that.Every D&D player will have some story like this: an eventful adventure or a particularly memorable character. What can be striking is just how similar many of the stories are if not in content, then in the form the stories follow. This is because tabletop roleplaying games are not just sets of rules or patterns of cliches. They are a narrative form in and of themselves. It would be easy to dismiss this out of hand, to claim that tabletop RPGs, acting as the dumping ground of every trope imaginable, are simply the detritus of fantasy literature. This fundamentally misunderstands the nature of narrative form. Narrative form is not determined by substance (that is, the story that is told) but rather by means through which that substance is created and conveyed. Examined through this lens, we can see that tabletop roleplaying games are a unique narrative form as distinct as poetry, or prose (though admittedly less developed). The stories developed in a tabletop roleplaying game are done so collaboratively, improvisationally, and are mediated by a set of rules. None of these are unique features to the form on their own. Virtually any form of film or theatre requires the creative collaboration of a number of artists, improvisational theatre and comedy are widespread narrative forms, and video games are also mediated by a set of rules albeit digitally. Taken as a whole, however, these aspects make up the unique narrative form of tabletop roleplaying games.They creep through the echoing halls of the tomb. The old man had told them of treasure hidden in its depths treasure guarded by a lich. The dwarf carries a torch and leads the band, forcing its light into every nook and cranny as if to edge out any spirits hiding there. The farmboy stays back, and keeps his hand on his sword.These distinct aspects make up a type of story that can be exceptionally thrilling. The improvisational, collaborative nature of tabletop roleplaying games means that the beats of their plot are genuinely unpredictable. Player characters apparently have a universal desire to seduce and/or kill every creature they come across, which usually tends to interfere with the games story structure. While the Game Master may have an idea of where the story will go, the influence of the players and the referee nature of the games rules means that the actual direction of the plot is impossible to determine. Through the outcome of a die roll, a player can change the direction of a campaign entirely. This creates stories that are unlike those of any other narrative form yet often similar to each other.Like any distinct narrative form, tabletop roleplaying games contain tropes, like that of Chaotic Stupid, a character whose Chaotic Neutral alignment expresses itself in tedious wacky hijinks (in my first session of D&D I tried to set fire to another characters hair for this reason). Most of these tropes emerge from the collaborative nature of the storytelling. With advancing the plot the responsibility of every participant in the game, its easy for the story to get bogged down by players impulse to pursue the freedom that a tabletop roleplaying game provides. This can lead to the habit affectionately known as murderhoboing where player characters devolve into itinerant criminals who kill, maim, and thieve their way across the game world with little regard for the story, setting, or NPCs they come across. While some people see this as a predictable outcome of any tabletop RPG systems design, others have aspired to design RPGs differently.The lich bats the dwarf to the side with a casual drift of its hand. The ranger nocks an arrow, letting it fly into the lichs wretched frame. The lich turns to the ranger with a hiss cut short by a wild swing of the farmboys sword.The Forge was an online community of tabletop RPG creators and players, focused on creating narrativist games. Narrativist systems are tabletop games where the fun of the game emerges from telling a shared story. These are distinct from gamist systems based on the fun of competition with other players and the DM and simulationist systems based on the fun of following a game worlds internal logic. While these may seem like small distinctions that can be tweaked within the existing processes of a games system, the structure of a games rules provides an important framework to emphasise or de-emphasise certain aspects of play.The game systems created by the Forge community reflect this attempt to centre narrative in game design. Forge games have a wide range of genres, themes, and mechanics, but have some common characteristics: methods of conflict resolution that rely on the logic of the games story, not external dice rolls; a greater degree of narrative control afforded to players; and an emphasis of improvisation and collaboration in gameplay. Much like a piece of improvisational theatre, Forge games build on offers between players and GM to build the games story.From a narrativist standpoint, the resulting game is exceptional. Players are incentivised to lean into their characters emotions and arcs, and the aim of the game seems to shift from lets-see-who-can-kill-the-most-goblins to coaxing a sincere, moving story out of the minds of a few people and some dice. Some of the stories these games create can rival serious works of fiction for their complexity and depth. If you were trying to assess tabletop games based on their ability to facilitate quality art, narrativist games would certainly be the most successful. The question remains, however, as to whether that is how we should measure a games success.The farmboy sidesteps the sickly beam of light that has burst forth from the lichs fingertips, seeing the ground it hits start to rot. The elf and dwarf lie on the ground dying.The farmboy summons his last reserve of strength. It is now or never. He steps forward, darting his sword to the lichs gleaming phylactery, the blade travelling true and straight towards the amulet.He rolls a 1, trips, and falls.The truth is, much of the charm of tabletop roleplaying games come from how hackneyed they are. Murderhoboing may be an easy pattern of play to fall into, but thats because its fun. I wont pretend that compelling, emotional, and thoughtful stories usually come from a game that largely centres around dick jokes and carnage but I also wont pretend that playing that type of game isnt a joyful experience.One of my fondest memories in my time playing D&D comes from one dungeon that caused every member of my party to die, several sessions in a row. In terms of narrative, this was obviously not ideal. The repeated strain on both the players patience and the suspension of disbelief required to justify all of our new characters meeting again each week began to wear the story thin. But despite this, there was some satisfaction in coming back each week with a ridiculous new character, raising the stakes on what was acceptable.One week, I came back with a foppish rogue; the next, with a barely disguised expy of a hardboiled detective. Finally, the party agreed to play only wizards (mine was a gnome illusionist). From the perspective of a Forge designer, with the emphasis they place on quickly between important moments in the story, this weeks-long stalling on a perpetual meat grinder of a dungeon was not what a tabletop game should be. But it was fun.The farmboy lies bleeding out on the dungeon floor. Thoughts go through his head of his ma and pa, his dreams of glory, and how far he made it from the world he once knew. His eyes glaze over, and he breathes his last.This tension, between the desire for a quality narrative and a quality game, is difficult to resolve. This is not to say that either of these aims is correct, or even that they are mutually exclusive great joy can be found in a narrativist game, and a moving story can be found in any game. But the question of which gets emphasised the story or the game is central to the game design process.Realistically, the question comes down to that of the audience. The vast majority of games audience will be contained to the people that play them. This puts tabletop RPG players in the unique position of being both the creators of a story, and its primary audience and critic. In a way, this means there is a pretty simple answer: play the way you and your friends agree is fun. But I cant help but feel like tabletop games can aspire to be better, to make the most of a unique form of storytelling and create beautiful art thats also fun to play. Playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time as a pale, sweaty teen was the first time I had a captive audience to my imagination. It was the first time I really felt like I had the agency to create a story that moved, that entertained myself and others. Having that experience mattered to me. I hope it could matter to others as well.A new farmboy stands at the edge of the world again. Many more have stood where he stands. Many will again. In a way, it offers him comfort, that there will always be another one. He smiles at the thought and takes the step into a new story. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If, as Joan Didion said, we tell ourselves stories in order to live, then we tell the stories of others in order to better know how to die. How to leave a legacy.The biography is one such device. Last month, publisher W. W. Norton permanently halted distribution of Blake Baileys recent biography of American novelist Philip Roth after allegations surfaced that Bailey had groomed, harassed, and raped multiple women. Its hard not to relate these revelations to one of the main criticisms from which his biography suffered that he was uncritical of Roths misogyny, claims of which soured and followed Roth for much of his career. In fact, Ross Millers very frankness about Roths misogyny led Roth to end an agreement with Miller to initially write his biography. But any poetic justice in the mistreatment of women befalling the publication of Roths own biography is still deeply unsatisfying.This is because its unclear what will happen to Roths legacy in the wake of this incident. Bailey was granted exclusive access to archives and materials about Roths life, which may be unavailable to future scholars in light of his passing in 2018. Perhaps there are pages still left unturned in his personal history, now mired in Baileys prose, between which more about Roth could be discovered. Despite everything, why does this feel like a loss? Why is it so unfair that even just a moment of insight could be snared by Baileys crimes? These events serve as context for larger questions about what it means to us as readers to preserve the legacy of great writers in a certain way.Posthumous accounts of famous novelists in the Western tradition often serve to illustrate that great public works are made in spite of, or perhaps because of, private immorality. The collective history of many prolific white, male authors has invariably been one of mental anguish, narcissism, and chauvinism. When reading, it is important to historicise and put these men into context. But more than that, in the dialectic between author and reader that is shaping a legacy, we must learn how to reconcile the value of their literature, the truth of the person behind it, and the irredeemable fact of their death.This need not be wholly a question of cancel culture, of separating the art from the artist; yet another way the storm of the individual washes away rivers of manifold experience. Roland Barthes most deftly maligned how literary critics inflect the meaning of a text with aspects of an authors identity in his 1967 essay The Death of the Author. Barthes argued that readers must separate literary work from their creator in order to liberate that text from interpretative tyranny, where the experiences of the author serve as an explanation of some ultimate meaning of the work, handed down by the Author as God.Underpinning the need to sever this relationship is the fascination we have with it in the first place. Quite apart from how many writers blur the relationship between themselves and their characters apparent in much fiction particularly auto-fiction of writers like Proust there is an anterior question, and we ask it not of the abstract, critical reader but of you and me: many men of dubious character, whose private lives were charged and broken and mythicized, create the conditions for questioning not just whether and how this influenced their work, but why it even matters to us if it did. At the heart of all this tension, in the tangle of our understanding, is that it seems to matter a very great deal to us who is behind the stories we tell, both irrespective of and because of what their stories might mean to us.Consider how there is a scramble to publish a biography, make a tribute and publicise condolences after a famous persons death. As soon as someone dies we have to ascribe meaning to it. Our fascination is not even entirely with the individual, but with mortality. Why do we need to understand someone to bury them? It is because they cannot be redeemed. It is because all we have is what we can become until we are no longer. Understanding the person who has died is thus an end in itself. It does not excuse them, but it helps us to forgive ourselves for seeing ourselves reflected on the page.Although biographies are non-fiction, they invent. Lucasta Miller, the author of The Bront Myth, is mistrustful of biographies in her own account of the Bront sisters. She considers biographies a form of myth creation: what biographies invent they also reproduce for market consumption. This is another way that we reduce the reputation of particularly famous novelists into cultural objects which are sold as ideas or signifiers of genre or style or identity in a digestible form: read Jane Austen if youre a woman into classics and romance, read James Baldwin or Toni Morrison if you want to learn about race in America, read Jack Kerouac if youre cultivating your identity as a softboi. And while this is all true, in doing so we fail to appreciate what books do how fiction transmutes ideas into people and how those people become us. We instead materialise and thereby minimise what they merely are as products of the people that wrote them. It works, too personal branding infects a literary legacy. Just consider how unread copies of Infinite Jest tend to signal a kind of literary chauvinism; the ability to intellectually grasp male privilege, manifesting in performative displays of wokeness, because of how Wallace captures the disenfranchised white male in his work. It makes the rest of us deeply sceptical of these texts. To idealise, just like to hate, is to reduce someone to ideas about them. Fortunately for the writing itself, Didion suggests that fiction is in most ways hostile to ideology.Ernest Hemingways life is a fitting example of the idealisation of our favourite authors a man heralded as being at the forefront of war, surrounded by women and friends and bullfighting, whose sparse prose sparked a reckoning in American literature, pared back unto itself. The fact of his suicide is a lump in the throat when swallowing his personal history. Biographers continue to ask why, to decipher it as if it is some mystery, lest our ideal of Hemingway disintegrates. But it is no mystery a familial and personal history of severe mental illness, alcoholism, and complex childhood trauma scream the answer. Some would say that knowledge of his suicide requires reading something new into his work: an identity crisis, an obsession with mortality, trails of wounded women, won wars and lost bullfights. The darkness of his life discovered after his death now casts shadows across his pages.It may not even be controversial, merely disappointing, but it still shatters the illusion. To read Sofia Tolstoys journals and discover that her husband was cruel, critical, and inflicted much pain on her throughout the life she dedicated to him is to remind us that love, marriage and family may be no more than concepts in books. It is to render them unreal. In her words, I devote so much love and care to him, and his heart is so icy. To read T. S. Eliots love letters to Emily Hale during his first unhappy marriage, only to discover that he never married her after his first wife died and married Valerie instead. To think about how Hemingway dumped his first wife and child in Paris. Similarly, D. T. Maxs biography of David Foster-Wallace uncovers a portrait of a complex man surprisingly disinterred in the real-life concerns of many women he slept with. We ask, how can he write such exquisite prose and demonstrate such acute awareness of feeling and society, but be so inconsiderate of the people in his own life? Maybe sometimes people like the poetry of what they say more than they mean it or can ever put it into action.To discover bad things, especially after death, simply hurts. The question, always the question, is why does it hurt so much? The metaphorical death of the author is clearly made more difficult by their real-life passing. Jonathan Franzen provided his own account of David Foster-Wallaces suicide in The New Yorker. He described the suicide as performed in a way calculated to inflict maximum pain on those he loved most, demonstrating infantile rage and homicidal impulses. He felt that Wallace betray[ed] as hideously as possible those who loved him best. The brutality of imbuing selfishness into a suicide seeks to undermine any martyrdom Wallace achieved in death. The searing need to be honest about someone who has died, the bleak portrait of being hurt by someone that you loved, captures a much deeper kind of betrayal. But rippling on the surface is the same kind of suffering we, as readers, face when we grapple with the reality of who a writer becomes after and by virtue of dying. The pain may come precisely from the fact that we do not know them personally and we can only know them as a representation or projection of themselves. The lines across the pages are like those on the back of our hand, but we still seem unable to grasp or reach anything with it.In On Beauty, a novel itself about aesthetics and how the personal is always more real than the political, Zadie Smith remarks that the greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free. We are captured by the writers we love because they make real and legitimate what we are going through. To fall in love with a book is to be rewritten, in a slight and subtle way we may not even notice. There is no technology on Earth that can achieve what the novel can, no engineer like the author, no science like words. Because we emotionally invest in a writers work, our hearts get broken when we realise our captors have deceived us into thinking we were free to love them. Perhaps we cant anymore, because the pedestal on which they sit has been lowered, and in our culture we find it impossible to love and pity simultaneously, to revere and condemn at the same time.This is because we become complicit in elevating certain writers. We give cultural capital, money, time, respect, and literary status to those who have channelled the worst of themselves into fiction. In Franzens own words, Foster Wallaces fiction is populated with dissemblers and manipulators and emotional isolates. Roths work was similarly rife with constant self-reference, sexual perversion, and vindicatory portrayals of raw masculinity. Compounding those feelings of complicity, we are often guilty of romanticising the relationship between the beauty of a text and the sordid reality of the person who wrote it to make up for who the man was by what he created. Maybe he was just a bad guy. How can that change things?George Orwell explores similar notions in his review of Salvador Dals autobiography, Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dal. Dal recounts incidents of severely harming children and women; his grave sexual perversity and necrophilia also manifest in his work. In spite of this, Orwell refuses to fail to see any merit in him. Against the facts of his life is the recognition that he had very exceptional gifts, was a very hard worker and has fifty times more talent than most of the people who would denounce his morals. Although Dal was a visual artist, not a writer, the principle operates in the same way: one ought to be able to hold in ones head simultaneously the two facts that Dal is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other.But there is cognitive dissonance in holding these two thoughts in ones head that is not one of logic, principles, or aesthetics. Indeed, as Orwell notes, what is morally degraded can be aesthetically right. It is emotional. It is a kind of love. Sometimes it hurts too much to accept that both those things are that they must be true. But novels should neither be reduced to the aspects which best reflect the person who wrote it, nor entirely removed from them. In Orwells words, these two fallacies presuppose a false binary: either a piece of art is intrinsically a reflection of the artist, or it bears no relation because its meaning belongs to its audience. The relationship between psychology and art is not so simple as to fall on either side of this dichotomy. People are not the sum of their parts. Authors give us the best and worst of themselves. They might be one terrible moment. They might be a thousand ambiguities.Lets not pretend that we can ever be objective or innocent about art. We taint a piece of writing as soon as we begin to read it because it is not the first story we have ever been told. As Barthes explained, a work is eternally written here and now because the origin of its essential meaning is exclusively in the language and its impressions on the reader. What applies to literary criticism also applies to our modes of appreciation Milan Kundera speaks of poetic memory, the way we lodge into our minds and ascribe significance to that which we find beautiful and meaningful. It may be pretentious. It is certainly self-dramatising. But regardless of the significance you place on it, the process of reading, like remembering, like forgetting, is an act of interpretation.According to German philosopher Immanuel Kant, aesthetics is a retreat from everyday life and its ethical questions. It requires a stance of disinterestedness, a space of moral freedom. Art is singular, without comparison and non-purposive. We must let art be possible. This does not mean it has to stay in print, that it should ever escape necessary criticism or that its sales can be abstracted from the finances of the person who created it. The artist is not exempt from what they are morally culpable for in their personal lives by virtue of their talent. If the facts demand it, by all means, be appalled! As per Orwell, people are too frightened either of seeming to be shocked or of seeming not to be shocked, to be able to define the relationship between art and morals. Define that relationship for yourself, as we all must define our own morals. Nothing is worth admiring unreservedly. But we must not take away its capacity for meaning. Letting yourself be upset may be precisely a part of that. After all, as Wallace said, you get to decide what to worship.F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Nick Carraway, tells us that reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope. Why then feel the need to eulogise a writer when their work lives on to preserve what perseveres anyway, to make an ending out of theirs? When we do so, we attempt to pull together the strings of a persons life into some coherent narrative but it is fiction that there is such a thing. Lives do not end like plotlines. Resolution does not happen with time sometimes it never does. People do not experience arcs like characters they go through things. Sometimes they go forward, sometimes they regress and fall back upon themselves like waves. Adrift. Sometimes they dont go anywhere at all, except inwards and onto the page. Could that be enough?The most simple and morbid answer to why a legacy is important is that there is no answer. The answer is always oblivion. But as Sandra Newman said in her extraordinary novel The Heavens, as the character of Shakespeare, I am a fool, and my greatness is the mumbling of fools; a paper greatness that will burn and be naught. But there is no greatness else.Let it be enough. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Nestled in the inner-city, a world away from the polished lawns of suburbia, the early days of Glebe Markets were a hubbub of young adults seeking out the latest cultural trends. Students roamed the avenues, thriving in an atmosphere fuelled by dissent and alternative culture. Vitality sprung from every corner, and whispered its way through the streets.In the time immediately after its conception, Glebe Markets was the young persons market, the place to be. I worked there in my early twenties, and the culture was different then, said owner David McCumstie as he sipped his morning coffee. But it has always belonged to young people. Glebes culture has always evolved to fit the whims of newer generations, and I think that is spectacular.David is a tall, chatty man with salt and pepper hair, usually dressed head to toe in vintage finds. He sits up the back of the market, coffee in hand, watching the passing parade. Gaggles of teenage girls walk by, clutching bags overflowing with bargains. Young mothers scout for bohemian baby clothes and a group of musicians make their way to the grass. David reflects on the trends of recent years, with the Markets now selling vegan and cruelty-free products, upcycled and recycled clothing. Blending bargains that you cant walk away from with collectables that you could cherish forever, Glebe Markets has it all.Glebe Markets was born of a middle-class dream to do more, started by Bob and Judy McCumstie in 1992. The pair owned a coffee shop over the road and spent their Saturdays peering across at the empty schoolyard. It was unlike anything theyd ever done before, said David. My mother was a high school teacher, my father was an agricultural economist and a farmer. It was an exciting adventure.Judy could spin a great yarn. In those early days it was her tough exterior and gift of the gab that got the markets going. She rallied 40 stallholders from the competing Sunday market down the road, chatting to different artisans around town and encouraging them to pack up their goods and head to Glebe Public School. She has an amazing ability to be feisty and stand up to people, David gushes. Shes incredibly intelligent and determined.On the other side of the coin, Bob was the strong, silent type. He was the financial brains behind the operation. Shes the vocal one and hes the quieter, more thought-through side of things, said David. He brings the maths and the business, and a more peaceful and gentle energy. Ive always really appreciated that about him.Together, the duo were a force to be reckoned with. When it came to dealing with the stallholders they were a unified force you couldnt lie to them and get away with it, said David. Its nice to see a husband and wife team working so well together thats what marriage is all about.Glebe Markets was more than just a business for the McCumsties. The markets are about family, theyre my parents legacy, said David. Even before I owned the markets I was invested. It was their creation, it was ours. When David is out of town, his niece manages the markets, fielding calls and chatting to stallholders. My daughter jokes about how she may own Glebe Markets one day, he laughs. I give her complete freedom not to, but who knows what the future will hold.Over the years, the McCumsties have watched on as Glebe erupted with youth and life, bringing new people and new stories to their doorstep. In the early 1990s, Glebe was populated with, in the affectionate words of David, wild and crazy people. Glebe was a hub of youth counterculture in Sydney. University students flocked to Badde Manors for late night coffees and Nirvana played the Phoenician Club on the corner of Mountain Street and Broadway. Twenty-somethings in flannel shirts flooded out of overcrowded share houses into the markets every Saturday morning. Anarchists drove cars filled to the brim with punk paraphernalia. They would tear through the lawn, doing donuts in the parking lot with no care for those in the vicinity. There was even a time when the market was overrun by groups of young people who would set up tables and declare themselves a religion, attempting to convert passers-by to pray to newly-minted gods.That was the time of a different generation of people, of those unburdened by the precarious future we face now. They did not have to worry about HECS, or the job market or climate change, David mused.Though Glebe has since evolved, caught up in the flow of a changing world, it has always been a place for people to sit on the grass with their friends, an alternative metropolis and escape from suburban mundanity. Author and academic Vanessa Berry would religiously catch the train to Central Station almost every weekend as a teenager and walk up the hill to the corner of Glebe Point Road. Being in Glebe and absorbing the culture surrounding the markets and the records stores and book shops, I always felt like I was a part of something, she said. My friends and I would buy petticoats from the markets and dye them in the backyard. You could buy cheap clothes and play around with them, she adds, discovering what worked for you and what didnt.If you have ever been to Glebe Markets, you will surely find that the main attraction of community markets is the sense of anticipation not knowing what you will find. When people go to Portobello Road and The Grand Bazaar, when they go op-shopping, they go for the thrill of discovery. Perhaps there is room for a decorative oil lamp that summons out a genie, or a rare collectible, waiting to be found under a giant pile of clothes.That feeling of discovery and wonder can be felt in Glebe today; the stall-holders have made sure of it, ensuring that the past is not lost as it has been in many other pockets of the city. There was a symbolic aspect to the place as well, Vanessa reflects. It was going somewhere which collected all these interesting people and objects. It seemed to suggest a lot of possibilities.Its this air of possibility and a sense of romance that nourishes the market, more so than the handmade emerald sweaters and butterfly hairpins. Indeed, for some the Markets are a place of love. Sitting at a nearby coffee shop, rumours swirl about the early days of the market, and Bella and Robert, whose fairytale starts at Glebe Markets or so legend claims.The story starts in the early 90s, on the corner where the Four Friends coffee shop now stands. Bella was sitting at her stall when she met a very flustered Robert, who had been tasked with finding a last-minute gift for his mothers birthday. He happened upon the sweet smell of the candles, and the sweet face that sold them, and left with two tealight holders, a coconut candle, and a little strip of paper with a phone number. Their child told us the story excitedly before rushing off with her friends, their canvas totes filled with wonderful wares.So you see, there is a rich history to be unravelled here, if one would only take the time to listen. As we wove through the market, we found ourselves at the stall of Jacki Pateman, who has been selling clothes at Glebe Markets since the very beginning. I came from the Northern Beaches, so to be amongst it in Glebe, which was just such a happening place at the time. It was hugely instrumental in informing who I became as a young adult.Her stall, Jacky LeStrange Vintage, is a treasure trove of 1950s and 60s lingerie and white cheesecloth dresses. For Jacki, the 9-to-5 life that most people are content with wasnt an option. When she was nineteen, she sold all of the vintage clothes she had gathered out of the boot of her car. I had been op-shopping for years at that point, she said. After that, I quit my office job. I had decided that this was what I was going to do for a living, and I have never looked back.But the thrill of the buy isnt the only thing that has kept Jacki in the business. The people around me have kept me going like nothing else. I mean, people come and go. There are people from the very beginning that arent around anymore. Theyve moved on or passed away. But theres just a camaraderie between stallholders. Theres rarely any anger or animosity or jealousy or backbiting. It really is just a community of people who are all in the same boat, she said. While the COVID lockdown was on, there were a bunch of us that were very in touch and checking in on each other. People seeing if anyone was able to get JobKeeper and seeing how everyone was staying afloat. It comforted me to know I had these people in times of crisis as well.The community at Glebe Markets has been a constant pillar in Jess Pisanellis life. As a loyal customer for many years, she was welcomed in with open arms when she started Marlow Vintage about a decade ago. There are some people at the market that have been there since it started, and there are people who have been there for two years, she said. You get to know their family, you get to know when someone gets married or has a baby. It does have a really beautiful community.Jess told Honi that the community doesnt only share celebrations, they mourn together in times of grief. When my dad passed away, I was away for a few weeks. I only told one friend at the market but by the time I came back, word had got around. The outpouring of love and condolences and really lovely kind words was so beautiful.As we reach the top of the main aisle, we come across the tree community, a group of stallholders bound together by their prime location and love of a good puzzle. It took years of hard work and dedication to get in this prime position and now they reap the benefits of the steady flow of foot traffic and perpetual shade. Every Saturday morning, Liz Sledge, a loyal member of the tree community, parks herself under the large, leafy tree with the Good Weekend Quiz. Fellow stallholders make their way up to her shop, Sappo Trading, to lend a hand. First, Peter joined from his t-shirt stall across the aisle. His knowledge of Oz Rock has become indispensable to the operation. William and Chai, renowned for their cookies and cakes, began to contribute, and now Karen, purveyor of sugarcane juice, wanders up from the food aisle to help out.It becomes clear as we talk to stall-holders across that market that David is a beloved icon within the community. David bought the business from his parents about a decade ago. The sense of community cultivated by Bob and Judy still forges on, with stall-holders praising Davids commitment and spirit. Every weekend before Christmas, David braves the sweltering heat and delivers fruit cake to all the permanent stallholders. Multiple people told Honi that he is the true heart of the community.David has let the market evolve organically, Jacki said. Some markets stipulate you have to have excellent presentation. And David encourages it but doesnt require you to have a slick operation. It keeps us homespun.Because of the ways community markets have evolved, mainstream brands have filtered in and co-opted stalls from small business owners who sell authentic vintage clothes. Kara Otter looks like she just stepped out of an early Britney Spears music video. Shes been attending Glebe Markets for over a decade, and sells authentic early 2000s pieces under her brand Karamelon. Kara airs her grievances about the mass-produced brands infiltrating community markets and selling lesser-quality products for cheaper. It is hard to compete with clothes that are sold for $1, said Kara. When something is so cheap, you cant help but wonder what sort of profit one could possibly make.While other markets have strict rules for stall holders stipulating presentation and the products sold Glebe keeps its stallholders at front of mind, giving them a sense of creative liberty and freedom over how their stall appears and what they sell. It allows for a more vibrant way of being, and weve always been like that, David told Honi. You can end up with exploring and finding a new thing in every nook and cranny.From the outside, Glebe Markets looks almost identical to how it did in 1992. While the carloads of anarchists, cult leaders and punk-rockers blasting Smashing Pumpkins are all long gone, the air of vitality and wonder remains; it lingers in the brickwork, carried on in the chattering voices of the market-goers. If David (and even one day, maybe his daughter) has his way, Glebe Markets will continue to shape-shift and reflect the culture of future generations for decades to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The reclamation of physical space is a fundamental requirement in resisting colonisation, and is a necessary precondition in the campaign for Aboriginal sovereignty. Last year marked some of the first protests to occur on the Domain parkland or Djarrbarrgalli in traditional Gadigal language. Gathering in Djarrbarrgalli was momentous for the Indigenous justice movement as it represented the reclamation of traditional land for its original purpose as a meeting place. These protests in mid-2020, which drew comparisons between the treatment of Black people in the United States and here, took place away from the colonial monuments that litter most of Sydneys urban landscape including Hyde Park.The call to return to this space was instigated by traditional descendents of the area, who asserted their sovereignty and reclaimed the place as their own land after rediscovering its traditional name. These Gadigal descendents articulated that Djarrbarrgalli was a deeply important site of gathering and community in pre-colonial times, and to them it was the perfect place to come together today and continue fighting for justice and sovereignty.I sat down with Nadeena Dixon one of the Gadigal descendents who was part of this process to discuss how the reclamation of Djarrbarrgalli came about during the 2020 protests. We discussed the Indigenous experience within Sydneys urban fabric, and the historical importance of reclaiming physical space to counter hegemonic cultural ideas within the colonial system.***Seth Dias: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your family?Nadeena Dixon: Im Nadeena Dixon, Im an artist, an academic and a child of freedom fighters who have lived in the Sydney basin for 80,000 years. Im also an educator, so I think its important to talk and transcend the bullshit weve been fed through very limited [colonial] narratives.My mum is Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor; a Gadigal Elder. She was born in a time when Aboriginal people werent actually recognised as human beings in Australia, so for the first 14 to 15 years of her life she was treated as Flora and Fauna. At that time, Aboriginal peoples lives were completely controlled by government legislation and we were monitored by the Aborigines Protection Board a very oppressive and dehumanising regime that was placed on Aboriginal people. Thats had a huge impact on us to this day.My grandfather was Dr. Charles Chicka Dixon; he was heavily involved in the freedom fighter movement that brought about the 67 referendum that gave Aboriginal People the right to vote on their own sovereign land. He, being of the older generation, suffered extreme degradation, starvation, abuse and complete government control over his and all Aboriginal Peoples lives; adult people that had no rights, who werent even considered to be human. With the [child] removals policy we had lots of people, even in my own family, that were removed. They werent even able to form normal relationships because they had been institutionalised from such a young age, meaning they had no family structure or family environment to develop in. The impact [child removals] had on the psyche is far reaching through the generations, so we have inherited the legacies of intergenerational trauma, which is yet another reason to fight for justice.SD: 2020 was a landmark year for the Black Lives Matter movement both here and overseas. How do you think this has shaped or influenced the Indigenous sovereignty movement in Australia?ND: Weve always resisted as sovereign peoples who never ceded their sovereignty. We resisted from the very beginning. I suppose it hit this point where the world had to awaken to these realities. We realised that unless all of us are free, then none of us are free. This applies to all movements, such as marriage equality which came so late as well. Its like, why are we even talking about these things so late in the day? It feels like there is a great need for connection and meaning as a global community; we want to connect to something bigger than us. The same goes for climate action today as well its all interconnected. The planet doesnt care if were black, white or whatever. We have to come together and move above these illusions that separate us. The 2020 protests went a very long way in showing just how connected these things are and how united we need to be.SD: Last year saw a change in venue for many Indigenous justice rallies, with Djarrbarrgalli (the Domain) becoming a key meeting point. Can you explain why this shift occurred?ND: It was documented in the earliest colonial contact and mappings of the Sydney basin that all the prominent locations along the coastline had Aboriginal names. Growing up being a traditional descendent of the ancestors from this area, I always felt like our existence had been erased; and it literally had you know? Its been under attack from the very beginning of colonisation and weve been pushed out of the city over time. There were rulings made that enforced curfews for Aboriginal people they couldnt be within the city limits after dark. People were rounded up and put into missions mainly out at La Perouse, Western Sydney and other Aboriginal missions where they were basically monitored and surveilled. So all of our history and our beautiful legacy had just been erased from the landscape in such a short time less than 200 years out of 80,000 years of peaceful existence. We lived in another Black reality where we had such an awareness of these things existing, but the outer world didnt present or mirror any of that.The site of Djarrbarrgalli is significant because it was a ceremony site; it was documented and known to be a ceremony site and a very significant area for Aboriginal people to gather and talk about important business. Then later on during the 1930s, there were significant Aboriginal people that would go there and speak about Aboriginal rights. There is an area within the site where people would stand on speaker boxes; people like Donny Dodd, Pearl Gibbs, Jack Patten and other community people. These were leaders who came out of Salt Pan Creek, which was a significant camp community of Aboriginal people that refused to live on the missions and be under the control of the government. There was an autonomous community that was quite large and lots of the early resistance of the 1930s came out of Salt Pan Creek.***As Nadeena articulates, there is a significant historical precedent of physical space being used as a base for counter-cultural development and political education against hegemonic ideas. One of the best examples of this is Salt Pan Creek.Emerging in 1926, Salt Pan Creek was an autonomous camp of Aboriginal families and refugees. The new community had withdrawn from the Australian colonial project, rejecting the oppressive powers of the Aborigines Protection Board which required constant surveillance, containment and management of all Aboriginal people by settlers. Instead, they sought to establish a community where they could self-determine their future and launch a broader campaign for their sovereign land. The establishment of community and sovereign control in this historically rich place is seen by many as the beginning of the modern struggle for Indigenous Justice. Legendary Gumbaynggirr activist Gary Foley explains that the self-declared autonomy of Salt Pan Creek allowed the political growth and education of some of the foundational leaders in the movement. Historically influential Aboriginal leaders and some of those activists who spoke at Speakers Corner spent time there in the late 1930s learning and defining the modern Australian anti-colonial movement in Sydney. The political planning and education that came out of the Salt Pan Creek community culminated in the 1938 Day of Mourning protest. This was one of the first major protests held in Australia on the 26th of January, or Invasion Day, and is considered the first public rally in the modern fight for Indigenous justice. With a cultural landscape that is dominated by colonial ideology, the reclamation of any physical space to then practice and teach counter-cultural ideas of anti-colonial resistance, must be realised to achieve true justice for Indigenous People.***When asked about some of the major historical anti-colonial protests in Sydney and the importance of place to them, Nadeena immediately asserted the importance of land to community and gathering.SD: These major historical protests relied on important geographical bases of resistance, such as Salt Pan Creek, The Block in Redfern or La Perouse. Do you think Djarrbarrgalli could be the next site of resistance?ND: I think it is, because it holds that energy of memory and it holds that energy of business [and] of coming together to benefit the broader community. Its a place where we can hold space to seriously discuss these issues, so even within a contemporary context we can go there for business and for ceremony I believe its the peoples court. So were holding court there to say this is what we want to happen, the power is with the people there and the people alone. In so many ways, the government has become a dictatorship and were being forced to live in their constructed realities which we dont align to, and its a system that doesnt value or include us at all, and chooses to value settlers instead. I think its this idea of gathering where my people could come together from all different clans and groups and give reverence to mark time, space and ceremony. The place [Djarrbarrgalli] becomes a magnetised space where you can assert intention for your cause, in this case resistance, in physical reality. It can become a portal or space holder for these energies and causes to gather power; this is the importance of a place to us and our struggle.***Since 1938, we have seen many militant protests and celebrations of Aboriginal survival on days such as Invasion Day. Without a reclaimed place like Salt Pan Creek to organise and educate from, some of the foundational figures in the movement may never have had the space to learn to lead this campaign and instigate the movement were still fighting for today. Power is expressed and sustained in the reproduction of culture, which manifests itself in physical space; the act of establishing a new self-determined community in Salt Pan Creek allowed for the reproduction of counter-cultural anti-colonial ideas in a physical space. This could not have been done under the constant surveillance imposed on Indigenous People by the Aborigines Protection Board. Much like then, today we also need a place to connect and build community. While we may not live there, the connection to Djarrbarrgalli enables many of the same counter-cultural ideas forged at Salt Pan Creek to be expressed and refined. Without Djarrbarrgalli, those leading this movement are forced to educate and communicate in physical space that exudes dominant cultural ideas and could therefore invoke traumatic memories.The way physical space plays a fundamental role in perpetuating dominant cultural ideas can be seen across Sydney in two overarching ways. Firstly, the grid system and central planning arrangement here is an imposition of Eurocentric geometric ideals which can be observed across the colonial world. Settlers and early planners of the city believed that the grid system was a superior system which would allow them to position themselves in the centre of power and override the undulations of the natural landscape. Settlers then began a rapid process of containment of Indigenous People, pushing families and communities out into missions located on the outskirts of the grid system, where many still reside today. Early planners believed that the grid represented the European power of intellect and organisation. It is a clear tribute to Euclidean geometry as an urban form, a system seen in Greek, Roman and Victorian cities; imposing this system on the colonial world laid the physical foundations of Eurocentric cultural dominance.Secondly, we also see the perpetuation of dominant culture across this city in the form of cultural memorials. Sydney is rife with these, with statues depicting Captain Cook, Governor Macquarie and Queen Elizabeth scattered across the Central Business District. Memorials or monuments may seem like a background concept in our day to day lives, but for those not within the dominant cultural group for example, Indigenous People living on their stolen land they serve as a constant reminder of the trauma of the revered figures and the political ideas from which they are excluded. Geographer Philip Hubbard argues that Both literally and figuratively monuments and memorials set dominant socio-spatial relations in stone. Reclaiming space enables marginalised groups to express their culture away from physical reminders of their oppression.***Nadeena explains that there are abstract and physical forms of land reclamation. To her, both are equally important and need to be fully realised in order for true sovereignty to be achieved.SD: There has been a broader international movement to decolonise places by renaming them, would you support something like this for the Domain, and could the reclamation assist in the broader fight for Indigenous Justice?ND: I think naming is extremely powerful it connects the energy of the language back to the Country that its come from, that its always existed within. So even us speaking the name is giving it power, and were putting a whole different shift in consciousness back into the place, into Country as a living entity. Its not the case that we build the city over the country and then it becomes a nameless and story-less space with no history. But what happens [after 1788], and what has happened historically is the erasing of the human connection to it all. Were hoping that by renaming, reclaiming and speaking the name back into awareness that were bringing back the energy of the countless generations that existed there.SD: So in conclusion, what does reclaiming space mean to the Aboriginal community broadly?ND: Im part of this emergent school of thought known as design sovereignty. There are so many ways that we can unpack space from Indigenous perspectives and methodologies In contemporary society, were told that were nothing; just a number among many. The idea of space for community dialogue, ceremony, sharing the difficulties and celebrating the wins, and where we people can feel a part of something bigger than ourselves will bring nourishment, joy and resistance. [It] is a fundamental requirement of achieving justice for our people. [Colonial] society has taken so much from us that can only be brought back from the grassroots, and from community, but it all starts from reclaiming space and restoring true sovereignty over this Country. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Veiled in respectful silence, Taylor Square is surprisingly still, calm even. The sheer number of people that have turned up smother the occasional spot fires of nervousness that jump through the crowd. Bodies radiate quiet determination.Im going to get a little bit emotional because, as I stand here on this occasion, I am recalling that first Mardi Gras, says Mark Gillespie, microphone in hand, his voice filling Taylor Square.Gillespie is a 78er, one of the original protestors who marched down Oxford Street from Taylor Square on 24 June, 1978, to commemorate the Stonewall Riots. When police denied the marchers access to Hyde Park that night, where they planned to have speeches, cries of on to the Cross multiplied rapidly. Protestors broke through the police cordon and rushed on Kings Cross. Curious onlookers, stumbling from bars, watched on. Some joined the march. Some even joined the protestors in resisting arrest and fighting back against police when police turned on the crowd, brutally apprehending 53 people.This resistance stimulated the widely-held belief that the protest was a riot. In 1979, protestors marched again, cementing as a legacy Sydneys Mardi Gras Parade.It was protest and mass action that got us where we are today and its going to be protest and mass action that gets us the rest of the way, yells April Holcombe from Community Action for Rainbow Rights at Taylor Square on Saturday 6 March, 2021. Its a fierce assertion that the queer community has returned to its radical roots.The horde have already surprised police by occupying the intersection between Oxford Street and Flinders Street. Soon, we begin to march.An effervescent eruption of colour spills forth. A contagious bout of boogying ripples outwards like an earthquake, tugging at limbs. At the epicentre, electro swing emanates from a solar-powered wheelie-bin cum portable speaker. Chants gallop down Oxford Street ahead of the march like a first strike force.Bottoms and tops, we all hate cops!Were here, were queer: Were fabulous, dont fuck with us.When someone lets off a flare, pink smoke billows in the air like a satin bed sheet on a clothes line.The march is part carnival, part protest, and at least 3000 strong an incredible turn out considering the organisers scrambled last minute to advertise and legalise the rally. On Pride in Protests notice of intention to hold a public assembly, addressed to NSW Police, PiP put the number for the expected turn out at 900.Three weeks later, as I sit in Camperdown Park with Charlie Murphy, I ask her why the Mardi Gras march was important. Her voices wobbles and her eyes glisten.As a sex worker, she emphasises the importance of marching alongside Scarlett Alliance Australias peak sex worker organisation. After the protest, someone from Scarlett Alliance messaged Charlie, thanking her for giving them the opportunity to know what it would feel like for our communities to march in the 80s and 90s.Charlie cites their presence as evidence of the revitalisation of a community that had dropped out of the queer struggle. For her, sharing solidarity with other sex workers and trans communities was invaluable.Oscar Chaffey, queer officer at the University of Sydney, meanwhile, underlines the importance of this historic event in the evolution of their own identity. I went out in drag publicly for the first time at the Mardi Gras street protest and asked my friends to start referring to me with they/them pronouns. The queer community has always been fundamentally endearing to me for its colourful shades of regal defiance and beauty; it was ultimately the promise of belonging to these shades at our gay Christmas that compelled me to leave behind an inauthentic version of myself.* * *Photography by Aman KapoorCharlie is an activist, a trans sex worker and a member of Pride in Protest (PiP), the splinter group behind the (unofficial) Mardi Gras protest on 6 March. She is also on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Board (SGLMG).PiP was established in direct opposition to police presence at Sydneys Mardi Gras Parade and corporate pinkwashing. In recent years, the group has platformed motions at Sydney Mardi Gras AGMs critical of entrenched and taken-for-granted principles. Charlie describes these meetings as incredibly hostile.The tension behind Mardi Gras organising reached a climax this year. It resulted in the PiP led rally on Oxford Street on the same day, Saturday 6 March, as the official Mardi Gras Parade at the SCG. Relations between PiPs (two) members on the SGLMG Board and the rest of the executive reached a head in early March when board members voted at a secret meeting to undemocratically, unceremoniously and temporarily boot out PiPs two representatives on the Board Charlie Murphy and Alex Bouchet.The board granted neither Murphy nor Bouchet a right of reply, and there was no provision of evidence. Charlie believes the board acted unconstitutionally.Murphy and Bouchet maintain that they have been squeezed out of the frame in a political pincer movement, seemingly for having the sheer audacity to support a march defending queer rights.To say that Mardi Grass right-wing caucus view PiP as home-wreckers and gate-crashers, arriving late and uninvited to the house party with a posse of menacing, young hooligans, is no exaggeration. In the eyes of those right-wing members, PiP have rolled up with their own speakers to their doorstep, their residence, forced their way through the door, cut off the music and spray-painted their pristine white walls with scathing slogans, all to their own radical soundtrack. In their eyes, PiP have caused a stable queer community to turn on itself. The sacred, comfortable territory of the bedroom is now filled with screams and accusations.Charlie does not agree. They [the right-wing caucus] cant accept the idea that we are community members who have a valid voice, she says. Its not that we dont like what Mardi Gras is and what Mardi Gras could be. Its just that we dont like what they do specifically The thing that is hard for them to accept is that we like Mardi Gras too much. Thats why we are involved.PiP fight as much against liberalism in queer spaces as conservatism. Describing the ebb and flow of queer political history, Charlie suggests that the queer community fell into a more liberal version of itself during the marriage equality debate in 2017. While left-wing activists were involved in this public debate, the focus was on a liberal, human rights framework. Corporate power seized the opportunity to exercise its influence over the queer community, watering down radical messages. Since then, Charlie believes that united front politics have resurged in the queer community. People have returned to material questions and deepened ties with other materially-disadvantaged communities.When I place the same topic before Mikhael Burnard, another PiP member, they have a similar response. I would say the marriage equality campaign was very interested in working within the system It was saying: hey queer people please ask nicely. Please ask very politely and we will consider giving you rights.Photography by Aman KapoorAt the Trans Day of Visibility rally on 27 March, which PiP co-organised with a network of other community organisations, longtime PiP supporter and Greens MP Jenny Leong condemned trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), defiantly building a moat around the fortress PiP have built. You [TERFs] are not our friends, she screeched into the mic to raucous applause. You are as much a problem as the patriarchy is a problem.To bookend the period of stagnation in local, queer, radical politics, its possible to flick back through the archival albums further than Charlie suggests. As historian Robert Reynolds demonstrates in his essay Endangered territory, endangered identity, opinion pieces lamenting the loss of Oxford Street as a queer space peppered the pages of the gay street press in Sydney in the 2000s. One particularly polemical think piece from 2007, published in SX News, suggested that hedonism and selfishness had replaced earlier activism and solidarity and that the queer community was complicit in Oxford Streets demise. The writer, a resident atop Taylor Square, traced Oxford Streets devolution into a space filled with over-medicated males from the suburbs staking their territory Kath and Kim clones and the sirens and yelling [of] yet another crystal-fuelled fight or G overdose.Accurate or not, that anxiety touches on something PiP are very critical of the queer community selling its soul to big business (rainbow capitalism). This is evident both in the excessive corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras and gentrification on Oxford Street.What we are witnessing is a turning point in queer activism. From the perspective of Mardi Gras right-wing caucus, it is a terrifying cultural shift of seismic proportions. PiP, constantly emphasising the intersectionality of oppression, appears to be a staunch, younger, more racially and culturally-diverse generation fighting against an established generation of queers. Through their podcasts and rallies, PiP have platformed new voices, usually sidelined. Formerly incarcerated, gay, Aboriginal man Keith Quayle is just one example.In the eyes of PiP to generalise for a moment the right-wing Mardi Gras caucus grow fat in the ivory towers of a post-gay utopia. What PiP members see is an older generation who have priced out younger queers from Sydneys disappearing, inner-city, queer enclaves, assimilated into Australias middle class cosmopolitanism and given up the struggle. They have fooled themselves into believing that their sexual orientation and gender identities are almost, now, no longer important and no longer targeted. Academics including Alan Sinfield and Henning Bech have theorised that a gay identity, perhaps even a lesbian one, may be historical phenomena.PiP expose the frailties and privileges in such a worldview. Part of the current fracture in Sydneys queer community stems from PiPs recognition that the community is not comfortable and safe. This sanitised vision excludes more marginalised subsects of the queer community including trans women of colour and trans sex workers who are disproportionately subject to abuse.PiPs persistent campaign against trans violence could not be more timely. National watchdogs and reports suggest that trans violence has increased in neoliberal democracies in recent years. Since the Human Rights Campaign, the largest queer advocacy organisation in the US, began logging data on violence against gender non-conforming Americans in 2013, the organisation has reportedly never recorded a year with higher fatal violence than 2020. While data on violence against trans bodies is notoriously difficult to collate, due to underreporting, crime data being recorded in gender binaries and a failure of bureaucracy, data obtained by the Victorian Pride Lobby has revealed that anti-queer hate crimes spiked in 2020. One survey published in June last year suggests that trans women of colour in Australia are particularly vulnerable to abuse. They are more likely than other women to report having been assaulted by a stranger. They are also twice as likely as other women to be sexually assaulted 10 or more times.Only a couple of weeks ago, Australias trans community was rocked when news broke that a man convicted of manslaughter for choking and killing Mhelody Bruno, a Filipino transwoman, during sex had avoided prison due to a sentencing error. Many believed that this was not an honest error but a result of systemic oppression and a criminal justice system that is biased and brutal towards non-gender conforming people. (The man, a former RAAF corporal, was re-sentenced on 29 March to 22 months in prison.)Pride in Protest collaborated with Anakbayan Sydney and Migrante New South Wales to organise a protest and vigil in late March to demand justice for Mhelody Bruno. PiP issued a statement in which they located the death at the intersection of transphobia, sexism, and racism and within the context of Australias ongoing imperialism in the Pacific.Similarly, PiP campaign against police presence at Mardi Gras because they recognise that police actively contribute to discrimination and violence against queer communities. As Charlie points out to me, police rarely prevent hate crimes at the time that they occur. This year there were a number of homophobic incidences during Mardi Gras. ABC journalist Mark Reddie, for example, was walking home from a Mardi Gras afterparty near Oxford Street with a group of gay men when occupants of a car, cackling, threw eggs at them. When he tweeted and wrote a perspective piece about the incident, a number of people came forward with similar stories of egging and having bottles thrown at them that night.Photography by Aman Kapoor* * *Its a few days before Mardi Gras and I am sitting in a circle with an affinity group. A friend is furiously scribbling in a note pad. She interjects sometimes to clarify decisions, words shooting from her mouth like machine-gun fire. I keep leaning down to itch my leg.Albeit disconnected from the main organisers, we are creating lists of supplies to bring to the Mardi Gras march in case of police violence and brainstorming ideas about how to combat fash or alt-right media, should they turn up. An air of underlying trepidation pervades the whole meeting.Its been a tough year for activists. Police have been all over us. The navy blue uniforms of the Public Order and Riot Squad have been a perennial eyesore at even the smallest protests. The clip-clop of the Mounted Unit and the barking of the Dog Squad have become white noise. Under the guise of public health, Australian authorities have implemented techno-totalitarian state surveillance.One trans rights rally, organised by Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR), coincided with the peak of police brutality during lockdown. Police descended violently upon the crowd that day and broke the wrist of a trans PiP organiser; memories of which dont die easily.At PiPs Mardi Gras rally on Oxford Street this year, there were no arrests and no fines issued. This is not to say that the police behaved themselves entirely. There were two drug searches nothing was found and one police officer wore a thin blue line patch. But Charlie describes the police response as unprecedented.The reason? The community pressure was there. PiP received endorsements from various politicians Labor, Greens and an independent non-government organisations and 78ers. Aided by media attention, momentum was building like water boiling over in a pot.But the legality of the march was far from guaranteed. NSW Police had moved to block the march from going ahead, taking the organisers to the NSW Supreme Court. As Mikhael explains, PiP were unwilling to compromise on their position. We have a policy of not really negotiating when we can avoid it.Two days before the rally, after receiving advice from Greens MP Jenny Leong, the organisers applied directly to the Minister for Health Brad Hazzard for a health exemption. Keen to avoid an overflow of scalding hot water and burns injuries to queers and their allies they were undoubtedly going to turn up regardless of the events legality the health department granted PiP a health exemption mere hours before their court hearing was due to begin.Charlie suggests that the [NSW] health department wanted this to happen to prevent an explosive situation. When she discusses the value of the march, her voice crescendos and her words develop a sharper, steely edge. With a staccato rhythm, she proclaims: what we showed in this rally was, actually, if you fight back and you push back not only can you win arguments about reducing police presence at Mardi Gras, but, if you do so, you actually make your community more safe.This ripple effect, this armour, protects an entity far greater than just the queer community. In a post-COVID world, Charlie says that PiP have a responsibility not just to our community but every community that needs the right to protest.If we make concessions on the right to protest here, its going to have an effect on every rally that comes after us.Photography by Aman Kapoor* * *One criticism that has cropped up in conversations Ive had with left activists about PiP is that PiP focuses too heavily on lobbying the Mardi Gras Board and the parades symbolic politics rather than more practical or useful queer activism. While this may have once been true PiP began as a single Mardi Gras float advocating for refugee rights and the cessation of mandatory detention recent events suggests the opposite to be true. PiPs focus and ambition extend well beyond Mardi Gras.As PiP evolves, it is becoming, Charlie suggests, a broad mass movement inside the community centred on concrete demands, such as the nationwide decriminalisation of sex work, prison abolition and stopping Mark Lathams anti-trans Parental Rights bill. Already, PiP has gone some way towards solidifying a pink-black alliance.By contesting the leadership of the queer community and striking at its symbolic heart Mardi Gras Pip are poking eggshell fantasies and it has made them a few enemies. Mikhael issues a word of warning on the phone to me: They [Mardi Gras right-wing caucus] dont want us there because we threaten their hegemony. We threaten their control of the narrative and their corporate sponsors I hope that we keep scaring them.Threatened they certainly are. After the Mardi Gras protest, PiPs social media accounts attracted a mob of trolls and online vitriol. In late March, Pride in Protest publicly shared screenshots from the reactionary Pride in Progress Facebook group, in which two self-identifying Mardi Gras Arts Ltd employees wrote that it is their duty to fight and start rallying members against Pride in Protest.PiP arent interested so much in reshaping systems and institutions as they are in rebuilding them from the ground up. Perhaps there will be some collateral damage amid the dust storm that results from their demolition work. But its the possibility of something better a persistent optimism, not cynicism as many believe that drives the organisation forward. To Mardi Gras right-wing caucus, the vacuum of the unknown and the desolate cold of reality are still too daunting to consider.Perhaps Mikhael sums it up best.We wont achieve our pure liberation under a system where we have to ask for liberation. We achieve our pure liberation when we take it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CW: Graphic mentions of sexual and racial violence.Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, one of the only green community spaces in an area which has changed its face over decades of gentrification, is in some ways the last refuge of what was once working-class Newtown. The park, which is on Gadigal Country, holds a palimpsest of memories both national and local, visible and invisible, as multi-layered as the dirt beneath the picnickers and dog-walkers who frequent it daily.Used as a significant social hub with a playground and an open green area holding everything from community gatherings and rallies to the Newtown Festival, the question of crime has long been a defining point in the parks history. What many of us dont realise or often forget about the place affectionately dubbed Campo, is that its historic cemetery enclosed by a high sandstone wall once covered the park in its entirety. 18,000 bodies are buried just below our feet at the centre of life in the Inner West; their headstones and monuments, of which there are only 2,000, have been relocated inside the walls.Founded in 1848, Camperdown Cemetery was the main cemetery in Sydney after the burial sites at Town Hall and Central railway station filled up. During the early 20th century, the local council responded to complaints that the overgrown cemetery was a threat to public health by making intermittent efforts at turning it into a park. The proposal was rejected by successive governments and looked upon with scorn by the cemeterys trustees who were concerned with its historical and particularly colonial significance. It wasnt until 1946, after missing 11-year-old girl Joan Norma Ginn was found raped and murdered in long grass between headstones, that the conversion into a park was finally prompted. News stories from the time provide a glimpse into residents views that the cemetery was a rendezvous for undesirables, an uncared for blot on our community and the Newtown Jungle; attitudes which have uncannily re-emerged in the past decade.The site of the murder. Image Source: Daily Telegraph.When I attend a tour of the overgrown cemetery on a clear Sunday, I am greeted by birdsong and dappled light which dances from grave to grave, filtered through the many trees which have been planted in peoples memory. I notice the locals in attendance exchanging raised eyebrows over teenagers with dyed hair and goth outfits who are having a party amongst the tombstones. As we sit on the 170-year-old roots of the Moreton Bay fig tree at the entrance, a pair of attendees tell the group that they went to school with Joan Norma Ginns siblings. All they talked about was their sister who was murdered, the whole school was fascinated by it. The woman solemnly recalls the strong impression that a picture of Joan stuck up at Newtown railway station left on her as a child, and how it was later removed during renovations.In 1948, two years after the murder, four acres were cordoned off for the current cemetery. The above-ground monuments were brought inside the walls and a foot of soil was placed over the site, the bodies left in the ground where the park is today. Archaeologist Jenna Weston tells me the reason not everyone buried in the cemetery had a headstone may be because their relatives were unable to afford one. The common interments, where the government paid for the burial because the relatives couldnt even afford that, were not allowed to have headstones and they were mostly located outside the current wall, on the outskirts of the cemetery.While visible monuments give an idea of the wealth of some of the people buried in Camperdown Cemetery, many poor people were put in mass, unmarked graves. Little is known of their lives beyond their names and causes of death. During a measles epidemic in the mid-19th century, there were days where up to a dozen people were buried in communal graves. Sitting in the park with friends, I speculate with morbid curiosity about whose grave might lie just a few metres below us; its not easy to imagine death outside the realm of the distant and abstract, even when it is knitted into the fabric of a place.Wanting a better understanding of whose stories have been remembered and forgotten in the cemetery, I visit Fisher Librarys Rare Books & Special Collections where a disintegrating copy of Prominent Australians and importance of Camperdown Cemetery by P.W. Gledhill is stored. The Chairman of trustees from 1924 until 1962, Gledhill was devoted to the cemetery. It becomes abundantly clear from his foreword alone that the cemetery functioned not simply as a place where bodies were laid to rest, but served an ideological purpose in its commemoration of British colonisers. Gledhill wrote in 1934 that the trustees wished to safeguard and treasure the cemeterys monuments in order to inspire reverence for those pioneers whose self-denying and courageous exertions securely established the future of our Nation.One of the pioneers buried in the cemetery is surveyor-general Thomas Mitchell, whose recumbent tomb stands out in an unmarked grassy area and is flanked by a tall iron fence. According to Gledhill, Mitchells funeral procession in 1855 was the largest, save William Wentworths, that had ever been seen in Sydney. Like Wentworth, who founded the University of Sydney, Mitchell was abhorrently racist. Known for exploring the Darling River, Mitchell and his surveying party massacred at least seven Barkindji people on Mount Dispersion in 1836, later describing them as treacherous savages in his journal. In the hegemonic narrative of history, Thomas Mitchell is remembered for his valuable work as Gledhill describes it, while his involvement in the genocide of Indigenous peoples is either omitted or given little emphasis.In another section of Gledhills book called Early Australians: A Plea for Perpetual Gratitude, Secretary of the British Empire Union in Australia M. F. King writes, how good a thing it would be to collect the mortal remains [of the pioneers] and inter them in a vast mausoleum in a conspicuous part of Canberra. Quite the next best thing to this would surely be to see that the known resting places of their bodies are preserved for all time as properly cared for shrines of remembrance. One such place is Camperdown Cemetery.The excessive nationalistic appraisals of the cemetery which played a part in the decades-long conflict between the trustees and council over its conversion into parkland are almost laughable when read in contrast to the current usage of the space. One can only imagine how Gledhill and King would turn in their graves if they saw the political graffiti which emblazons the inside of the cemetery walls, or the swaths of young people who come to the park to drink in preference to the upmarket bars of King Street.The cemeterys landscaping and neo-Gothic sextons lodge, like the University of Sydney Quadrangle, were designed to have an English appearance. Not far from the entrance is a Gothic headstone in memory of colonial architect Edmund Blacket, who designed the Universitys main building as well as St Stephens, the Anglican church inside the cemetery. The sandstone buildings designed by Blacket needed lime mortar for the laying of bricks, and this was sourced by burning shell middens created over thousands of years by Aboriginal people, recorded to be structures 100 metres wide in some places along the coast. As Peter Myers writes in The Third City, Sydneys Second City is probably the largest urban system ever built from, and upon, an existing fabric directly constructed from the urban structure of a preceding civilisation.St Stephens Anglican Church. Image source: City of Sydney.Perhaps the most frequently visited and largest tomb at Camperdown Cemetery is the mass grave of the Dunbar shipwreck, which is adorned with a rusted anchor. In 1857, the Dunbar was wrecked at South Head during a night of heavy rain and strong winds. Out of the 122 passengers on board, only one survived. A day of public mourning was declared, the city closed down for a funeral attended by around 10,000, and most of the recovered bodies were interred in a single tomb at Camperdown Cemetery. Annual memorial services were held, and the Dunbar took its place in the settler-colonial imagination as a symbol of perseverance. In a 1952 meeting of trustees, Gledhill suggested that an avenue of 24 trees be planted to the memory of the pioneers of Sydney, including the Dunbar victims.If you enter the park opposite from the Courthouse Hotel, you might notice a stone plaque to the right of the footpath. This area is called Cooee Corner. The plaque is inscribed: this tree was planted to the memory of Mogo, an Aboriginal who was buried here on 9th November 1850. Little information is available about the lives of Mogo and the other Aboriginal people buried at Camperdown Cemetery, or why Mogo in particular is commemorated. After the annual Dunbar service in 1932, a pilgrimage was made to the graves of Mogo and William Perry, which were covered with shells from a Pittwater midden. During the memorial service, Dharawal man Tom Foster spoke and played a hymn on a gum leaf. Foster was known as a critic of the Aboriginal Protection Board which was responsible for racist child removals; he later went on to speak on the eve of the first Day of Mourning in 1938.In The reality of remembrance in Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, Hannah Robinson draws attention to the disparity between the commemoration of colonisers versus Aboriginal people, all of whom, bar Morgo, are buried in unmarked locations in the park. A peculiar Rangers League of NSW Memorial obelisk sits just opposite St Stephens Church as a tribute to the whole of the Aboriginal Race according to its inscription. Robinson writes This baffled me. The state of the monument which had been previously vandalised, and the grouping of Aboriginal people as a collective rather than individually being given burial sites, seemed to contradict this message.Newtown folk legend holds that the real-life Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens 1861 novel Great Expectations is buried in the cemetery. After an English lecture in second-year on the Victorian novel, I recall a friend telling me that the story of Miss Havisham closely parallels that of a woman buried in the park in 1886, Eliza Donnithorne. Donnithornes bridegroom was said to have jilted her on their wedding day, causing her to suffer a breakdown and become a recluse at her home in Cambridge Hall, on what is now King Street. The story tells that the wedding breakfast remained undisturbed until after her death, and that all her communications with the outside world were through her doctor and solicitor. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorderin 1946 tells that: When death at last came to Eliza, those who came to carry her to the greater peace of Camperdown Cemetery found her still clad in her bridal gown.One theory on how Dickens may have heard the story before writing Great Expectations, proposes that social advocate Caroline Chisholm corresponded with Dickens about it while she lived in the Newtown area. Other historians have suggested that readers of the book in Sydney gradually added details to the urban legend for which historical evidence is scarce so that it aligned more closely with the story of Miss Havisham.Donnithornes headstone is located in a shaded part of the cemetery, where an overgrown carpet of English ivy crawls through tombs cracked by tree roots. Constructed from marble and stamped with lead letters, it is clear that the cross-shaped headstone belonged to a family of wealth. We are told on the tour that when the headstone was vandalised in 2004, the UK Charles Dickens Society put money towards its restoration. Gesturing toward a row of headstones opposite the Donnithorne grave which are held up by wooden boards, the guide tells us that because sandstone is easily crumbled by vandals, the cemetery is in a state of graceful decay.In recent years, Camperdown Memorial Rest Park has been the site of increased police presence with residents demanding they put a stop to anti-social behaviour, which they say includes underage drinking, drug use, threats of violence, and public defecation after nightfall. A statement from residents to the Inner West Courier complained that The park at night, especially after 9pm, is being used like a pub. At the tour, our guide tells us that she often has to pick up condoms and syringes in the cemetery. In April 2016, police set up a command bus with four officers deployed as a deterrent to any crime that might arise. From the murder of Joan Norma Ginn to incidents of assault and harrassment today, the actions of the police have done little to deter sexual violence in the park.On 19th January 2018, a civil disobedience picnic with live music was organised by community group Reclaim the Streets to protest against a council proposal to implement alcohol free zones in the space. Reclaim the Streets argued that the proposal would disproportionately target young people, Indigenous people, and the homeless, and that it would have the opposite effect intended since violence in the park was occurring after the alcohol prohibition came into effect at 9pm. The removal of lighting at night to prevent people from congregating in the park has also been criticised as counterintuitive.The Sydney lockout laws, which were lifted in Kings Cross only this month, have also contributed to a changing cultural scene in Newtown and the park. The laws have been connected to an increase in queerphobic violence as a result of more people heading from the city to the Inner West for nightlife. Many queer people in the area will tell you that they, or someone they know, have experienced harassment and no longer feel safe in Newtown.The counterintuitive effects of increased police surveillance and laws combined with the gentrification of the area mean that the inclusive atmosphere of Camperdown Memorial Rest Park is under threat. With many who have fallen through the cracks of middle-class Newtown relegated to the park, the use of public space has always been an expression of the community it belongs to.As I leave the quiet park and re-enter the bustling, colourful streets of Newtown, I think of the thousands of stories buried in this place that have gone unwritten. While I had initially set out to research the stories of people from early Newtown like Eliza Donnithorne whose memories are preserved in the park, what I had not anticipated to learn about this place is how intertwined its history is with that of colonialism and class interest. There is nowhere in this country that is not a deathscape once you scratch below the surface of its monuments. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The question of whether an inherent degree of politics comes alongside being an artist is difficult to answer. Some art is openly and loudly political, some less so. However, in a country where art and culture belonging to Aboriginal peoples is stolen and mass produced for profit; where proceeds arent returned to the communities from which the art came; many Aboriginal artists have no choice but to be political with the art they create.Art and activism are perhaps never quite as intertwined as in Australia, where communal copyright is non-existent, and traditional art styles and cultural practices are not recognised as belonging to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples under colonial law.Alternatives exist, but the traditional laws of Indigenous peoples are not recognised by the Australian legal system. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property works as an alternative across the world to protect traditional Indigenous art and culture. However, Australian law only protects some aspects of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property. Works created by individuals are protected, while styles that belong to groups are not. Traditional languages, dances, medicines, or methods which have not explicitly been written down are also left without any form of protection.When I speak to Stephanie Parkin, Chair of the Indigenous Art Code, about navigating Aboriginal art and copyright, its clear that theres a lot of complexity involved when working within a legal system that doesnt prioritise community ownership or recognise cultural property.For a lot of artists, their works are statements of who they are as individuals and their positioning in their communities and more broadly within Australian society, says Stephanie. I definitely think art by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists is a powerful mechanism to convey those messages to the broader public. And yes, inherently, they are political in the context of where those artists are from themselves, and the messages and stories they convey.Stephanie works with Indigenous artists to ensure they know their rights when it comes to copyright law and licensing agreements. All artists have agency and authority in their own decision making processes, she tells me. And while the law is still in one sense trying to catch up, there is a way for people to do the right thing and to engage appropriately.The Indigenous Art Code is a voluntary code that artists and dealers can sign up for to show their commitment to ethical and transparent standards when dealing with Aboriginal art and copyright. The Art Code exists primarily for artists, to educate them on their rights when it comes to licensing agreements, and ensure they maintain agency in these transactions when they occur.Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative is an organisation in Sydney which works with the Indigenous Art Code, encouraging their members to subscribe to it, and encouraging them in their artistic careers otherwise. Boomalli has been important to artists Peta-Joy Williams and Darren Charlwood.The co-operative was established in 1987, its primary goal being to promote Aboriginal Artists whose language groups exist within the NSW state. They achieve this through education, protecting copyright, hosting exhibitions and supporting regional artists, who make up over half of their membership. Both Peta-Joy and Darren are Wiradjuri artists who grew up in and around Sydney, and who have a connection to Redfern, Eora College and Boomalli that has influenced much of their lives.The Art Code aims to prevent fake Aboriginal art and dodgy transactions between artists and sellers, which is a prominent and recurring issue within the Australian art world. Without being educated on the details of licencing agreements, Aborginal artists can often be persuaded to enter into agreements which see them losing income and copyright to their artworks.One such agreement, and probably the biggest case in Australian popular consciousness, is that of WAM Clothing holding the exclusive licensing agreement with the copyright owner, Harold Thomas, for the use of the Aboriginal flag for clothing, digital and physical media. WAM Clothing is part-owned by Ben Wooster, whose previous company was fined $2.3 million for selling fake Aboriginal art. This private copyright is a slap in the face, and means that sport teams, not-for-profits, community groups and activist organisations risk fines for using the Aboriginal flag. Its emblematic of a bigger problem with the way the rights of Aboriginal artists and art is conceptualised within the courts and the legal system.Beyond this private ownership of the flag, copyright has always been a significant issue for Aboriginal art. When Aboriginal artists are forced to work under the umbrella of colonial laws, it is difficult for ownership of styles and more abstract cultural knowledge to be properly protected. This is especially true of works belonging to a particular culture or language group, for which community custodianship is central, but not recognised under Australian law. If its different enough, but its in an Aboriginal style, most of the time there wouldnt be any recourse for artists to pursue it, says Stephanie. Thats one of the deficiencies of the Copyright Act. Australian copyright law was never created to protect Aboriginal culture or Aboriginal art in the first place.Darren and Peta-Joy, as Wiradjuri artists, both make it very clear to me when I speak to them that they are not dot painters. Im very much an anti-dotter when it comes to the stereotype of what Aboriginal art is. It really annoys me when people call themselves Aboriginal artists and they sit there and do dots. Thats not where that comes from, says Peta-Joy.Dot painting comes from the desert, so for Aboriginal artists from the south-east of the country, their traditional styles are very different. Its not my story to tell, says Darren. I know very clearly what I can and cant do, what I can and cant say.Darren is enthusiastic when he speaks to me, and its clear from the start that he has a lot to say about activism, copyright and culture. During our conversation, Darren talks passionately about the harm in telling cultural mistruths, of telling the story of a country youre not from and that hasnt been passed down to you. Its not the kind of cultural theft that first springs to mind when thinking about copyright in Aboriginal communities, but in using others stories to create art and make a profit, youre still taking one tiny fraction of a greater philosophy, belief and spirituality and using it to benefit yourself.There are hundreds of different Aboriginal nations and language groups across this continent, each with unique history, cultural practices and stories. Amalgamating them and blending them into one is harmful not only because it erases the nuances of cultural practice which make it more likely to be lost, but also because it waters down the connection that an individual has to their own heritage.Darren tells me about one artist in particular who is guilty of profiting off the stories of other Aboriginal groups. Hes someone who will just appropriate anyones story and then turn it into a money making venture, cloak it in a delusion that [hes] fighting for culture and that [hes] an activist when really hes just taking money away from communities.The person he speaks about is of Biripi heritage, but recently created an artwork based around a Dharawal story, which he then sold for an enormous price tag. Not a cent of that profit went back to the people whose story it is to tell. This is an oral tradition and a story that people still share, Darren says. You can trace it back and go and talk to the guys ancestors who this happened to.Darrens views on activism stem from his interactions with this artist, and with others like him. Hes very much of the mindset that the streets are not the only place where activism happens, and that its not always the best way to go about creating change, especially when some people are there with the wrong intentions to platform and benefit themselves at the expense of others.Nonetheless, he understands the necessity of demonstrating. In my family and in any Aboriginal family, you dont have to go through many degrees of separation to come across someone whos been stolen, someone whos killed themselves, or someone whos so caught up in being incarcerated and the police system that their lives are simply just that. This statement isnt easily digestible, but nor is the reality of what Aboriginal people in this country face on a day to day basis. New South Wales was the first point of colonial contact, and so much robust cultural practice and language has been lost as generation after generation have suffered ongoing colonialism and intergenerational trauma.Weve gotta do it, weve gotta march. But theres a line in the sand for it, and when you go over it you lose your point, Darren says. And its a really easy point to lose in Australia because we live in a racist country; we live in a country that wants Aboriginal people to fail.Darren is a teacher and program coordinator at The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, and his passion for his work is overwhelming. Darren understands he can make change by educating and engaging the kids who come through the gardens, and this is where he sees his purpose.For me, being an activist is still being here, still teaching culture, still being proud and still being seen. I do that through education You change little kids minds and you change the world.Darren spoke with conviction that the next generation are the ones who will address some of the systemic issues that impact Aboriginal people in Australia, and that educating them would make all the difference. We need to celebrate culture, embrace and love culture, teach it, live in it, thats activism, that is being an activist. That is what were fighting for and that is the desired outcome at the end of the day, he says.When I speak to Peta-Joy Williams, she tells me that she walks in two worlds. She shares a love of teaching with Darren, and much of her life has been spent connecting deeply with learning and teaching, predominantly at Eora College. She also has an understanding that reclaiming language is an essential part of continuing to practice culture. She learnt her language, Wiradjuri, only recently. Her great-great-grandmother was the last person in her family to speak Wiradjuri, and now Peta-Joy and her son have been the first to bring it back.I felt really empowered when I first learnt my language. It was like putting a piece of my puzzle back in, something that was taken away from me and I was reclaiming. And then to be able to share it and teach it with young people and elders was an amazing thing, Peta-Joy says. My end goal is to be walking down a street and hear two people speaking in Wiradjuri to one another.Peta-Joy tells me she needs a strong reason to create art. I cant paint because I see a vase or a bowl of fruit and I go look! I can do it, but why? I have to have a reason, she says. Politics isnt always the reason, but often she just needs to get a piece out, and cant rest or move onto another artwork until its done.Probably the most political piece Ive done recently is No Voice, which was the Aboriginal flag. Instead of the yellow sun in the middle, Ive got no voice written in yellow with the copyright symbol for the C.The fact that Aboriginal peoples cannot use a flag that should belong to communities reinforces the way that intellectual property law has failed the people it should be protecting. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property has been commercialised within Australias colonial context, and has often been used, as in the case of the flag, without respect or community consent, and in the case of the artist who sold a Dharawal story, without any form of acknowledgment or compensation for the community.There are gaps in colonial copyright law which mean that unless Indigenous people can meet the requirements of them, they are unprotected and their rights open to exploitation. Communities are suffering because of this, not only because it is shameful that non-Indigenous people are able to profit off them, but also because it allows the watering down and devaluing of tens of thousands of years of cultural knowledge and practice.Stephanie Parkin puts it perfectly. The artwork is more than just the physical piece or the aesthetics that people look at while its hanging on the wall. The value that it really has is the stories and the handing down of traditional knowledge and the understanding of family connection and understanding of why were here and what our purpose is.Editors note: This article was updated at 11:22 pm, 31 March 2021, to amend statements regarding WAM clothing. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Bertolt Brecht, the German modernist best known for his theatrical works, avant-garde dramatic theory and avowed Marxism, might not seem immediately relevant to an Australian audience in 2021. His poetry, difficult to translate and underappreciated in the English-speaking world, might seem even less topical, especially at a time when poetry as a medium appears to have fallen generally out of favour.Nonetheless, I would contend that Brechts poems, especially those composed in his exile during the 1930s and 40s, and published in the Svendborg Poems (1939), have a lot to say to us. For one, they are immensely enjoyable to read. Beyond this, they also encourage an estrangement from the familiar and seemingly inevitable social, economic and political institutions of our society, allowing us to historicise our own social role and act on the grim reality that confronts us without falling into despair. Brecht encourages us to reflect, even in times of crisis, on how people have created the circumstances in which we live and thus, how we as people can transform them. At a time of global pandemic, reactionary political trends and a global economy characterised by inequality and instability, Brechts poems suggest a valuable mode of thinking.IBrechts language is sharp, condensed and uniquely his own. He avoids the formal register and lyrical artifice that one finds in many other German poets (think Rilke), instead imitating the rhythm and feeling of spoken German, but without writing as any German would actually communicate. Brecht mixes this everyday German with archaic terms, commonplace sayings and bureaucratic jargon to create a unique poetic idiom. Perhaps the closest comparison, and what Brecht himself considered his greatest literary inspiration, is the vigorous language of Luthers bible. His language and the unsentimental sharpness of Brechts ideas makes him very enjoyable to read, even for those who are generally sceptical of poetry. There is a reason why lines such as Erst kommt das fressen, dann kommt die Moral [First comes eating, then comes morality] were so popular with audiences in 1930s Berlin. Brecht slices through the reader, presenting didactic political statements and unresolved contradictions in even measure, laying bare the contradictions at the heart of our social, political and economic institutions. In Questions of a Worker who Reads he asks:Who built the seven gates of Thebes?In books you will read the names of kings.Was it the kings who dragged the stones into place?And Babylon, so often destroyedWho rebuilt it so many times? In which of the housesOf gold-gleaming Lima did the construction workers live?Where, on that evening when the Chinese Wall was finishedDid the masons go? The great city of romeIs full of triumphal arches. Who set them up? Over whomDid the Caesars triumph? Did Byzantium, so much praised in songHave only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled AtlantisThat night when the ocean engulfed it, the drowningRoared out for their slaves.Young Alexander conquered India.Was he alone?Caesar defeated the Gauls.Did he not have so much as a cook with him?Philip of Spain wept when his armadaWent down. Did no one else weep?Frederick the Second was victorious in the Seven Years War. Who elsePrevailed?On every page a victory.Who cooked the victory banquet?Every ten years a great man.Who paid the bills?So many reportSo many questions.Antiquity and the middle ages, sitting at a comfortable distance from the present, throw into sharp relief the inequalities and oppression that Brecht sees all around him. The simple rhetorical questions force a reconsideration of historical narratives, but more importantly they suggest a reconsideration of contemporary narratives which are, Brecht suggests, themselves historical and hence changeable. Who built the gates of Thebes? can quickly become Who built the immense wealth enjoyed by our elites? The answer is much the same.In this way, Brecht carries over into his poetry the famous Verfremdungseffekt that is so central to his plays. This is, as Fredric Jameson explores, the estrangement or distancing effect whereby the natural and habitual are shown to be historical, constructed by human beings, and hence able to be transformed by human beings. This process distances his audience, including a contemporary one, from their assumed social, political and economic relations, and allows them to reflect on how they could and should be changed. The purpose is to instil what Brecht calls the most beautiful of all doubts:When the downtrodden and despondent raise their heads andNo longer believeIn the might of their oppressors!It must be acknowledged that his particular use of language also makes Brecht difficult to translate. Idiosyncratic simplicity and clarity of form at times comes off as banality. His setting of idioms and archaisms in unfamiliar settings can appear cliched. Meaning is often lost when the form is necessarily changed. The result is that, as Martin Esslin says, the champions of Brecht in the English-speaking world often appear to be overstating their case.Brecht himself used this to his benefit when, in 1947, he was hauled before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, accused of being a Hollywood communist. Having fled Hitler in the 1930s and moved to Los Angeles, Brecht insisted that he had written literature on the side of the workers and in the fight against fascism but had never been a member of the Communist Party. Brecht was telling the truth about his non-membership of the Communist Party. However, his ideological sympathies were clear, and his defence seemed to be faltering, when HUAC began to cite translations of his more revolutionary works. Brecht, however, simply objected to the translation, to the consternation of the Committee members and the amusement of the crowd.Mr Stripling: Did you write that Mr Brecht?Mr Brecht: No. I wrote a German poem, but that is very different from this [Laughter].Despite these difficulties, there is still much to be gained from reading Brecht in English. For the purposes of this article, I have relied largely on the translation of Brechts complete poetic works by David Constantine and Thomas Kuhn, published in 2018. These faithful renderings of the poems allow the Svendborg Poems to maintain a lot of their original power.IIFrom under my Danish thatch, my friendsI follow your struggle. In these pages I send youAs I have before, a few words The Svendborg Poems begin with a prefatory address from Brecht to his friends and comrades from his exile in Denmark. This sets the tone of the collection: reports from a time of struggle and despair from a man who has fled his homeland, addressed to his friends and comrades, as well as the next generations.This launches into the German War-Primer. These short poems address the people of Germany on the eve of the Second World War and are written in Brechts version of the classical lapidary style poems made to be inscribed into stone. Like a latter-day Horace, Brecht is minimalistic and punchy. These poems seem almost inevitable.The war that is comingIs not the first. Before itThere were other wars.When the last one was overThere were victors and vanquished.Amongst the vanquished the lowly folkWent hungry. Among the victorsThe lowly folk went hungry also.As Brechts friend, the critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin noted, these are slogans to be scrawled in chalk on concrete by a partisan who, by the time we are reading their lines has already fallen. The language is simple, the satire sharp. The elites are Die Oberen (The High-Ups) who live decadently while the vast majority starve. The war that the fascists are planning appears, for Brecht, to be eerily related to their peaceit will kill those who their peace has left over.Brecht soon moves from pithy slogans into slightly more ambiguous territory:In the dark timesWill there be singing?There will be singingOf the dark times.Brechts question seems poignant, his answer is jarring. At a time of deep human suffering, we tend to wonder whether there is still a place for singing, for beauty, for human creativity. This is an understandable sentiment. Yet in posing the question and then immediately answering that there will be singing of the dark times, Brecht estranges us from the tendency to lament the loss of beauty and instead encourages us towards action. Not only should we, the reader, be singing of the dark times as they occur, but we should act on the knowledge that, once the dark times have passed, others will sing of them. This view to the future turns the present into a historical moment, it leads us to historicise ourselves. In knowing that the eyes of those who come after will be trained upon us, we (hopefully) cannot help but see ourselves as active participants in a world that is being created as we speak. In two brief sentences we see the Verfremdungseffekt at work. Brechts emphasis on the future, and on seeing ourselves as historical actors, is emphasised further in a series of Childrens Songs with titles such as The child that wouldnt wash and Little begging song. Brecht, in response to Walter Benjamin questioning the inclusion of these juvenile songs in the supposedly serious collection of poems about the coming war, insisted that they remain. His reason was that In the fight against them [the fascists], we must leave nothing out. They dont have anything small in mind. They are planning three-thousand years of horror For that reason we cannot forget anybody. Grandiose as it may seem, Brecht was writing for the children to be born after the dark times in which he was living, for the possibility of new life itselfMoving from the war primer through a series of ballads and songs, Brecht comes to the third section of the Svendborg Poems, titled Chronicles. Brechts subject here shifts. It is no longer the coming war, at least not directly. Instead, he presents a series of slightly longer poems, dealing with historical and philosophical themes. The aforementioned Questions of a worker who reads establishes the tone, and Brecht continues in like fashion, contradicting expectations and unsettling the reader.In a dream he visits the exiled poets, and in the middle of an amusing conversation with Dante, Ovid, Tu Fu, and Heine, among others, a question comes from the darkest corner of the room:Hey you, do they knowYour verses by heart? And those who know themWill they prevail and escape persecution?ThoseAre the forgotten ones, Dante said quietlyIn their case, not only their bodies, their works too were destroyed.The laughter broke off. No one dared look over. The newcomerHad turned pale.In this matter, likely closer to Brechts heart than most of his readers, he still produces a valuable tension. An idea is presented or a question is asked. It is then contradicted or answered so as to cast it in a strange light. The poem ends without a satisfactory conclusion, and the reader is left discomfited.At times this constant tension and sharpness can make Brecht feel unrelenting, cold and even dehumanising to read. Brecht doesnt just deflate his reader, he punctures them. Addressing those who waver in the face of fascism, asking On whom can we rely? Is it luck that we need? Brecht answers contemptuously So you ask. Await/No other answer than your own!. But this is, to borrow from Benjamin again, part of Brechts satirical brilliance as he strips the conditions in which we liveNaked as it will be when it reaches posterity, their human content emerges. Unfortunately it looks dehumanised, but that is not the satirists fault. Brecht makes the reader tense, but it is a productive tension.The Svendborg Poems end with To Those Born After, one of Brechts best-known works. It is both a condensed recapitulation on the primary themes of the collection, and uncharacteristically personal. Really, I live in dark times! it begins, and Brecht proceeds to lament his own hypocrisy:They say to me: eat and drink! Be glad that you have the means!But how can I eat and drink whenIt is from the starving that I wrest my food andMy glass of water is snatched from the thirsty?Yet I do eat and I drink.Proceeding through an almost biblical description of how he passed the days Granted to me on this earth in doomed struggle against the oppressors, Brecht veers towards a confessional style. He even comes dangerously close to the cathartic purging of emotions through art that, in his polemics against Aristotelian poetics, Brecht argued vociferously against. But catharsis never arrives, as the poem ends with an ambiguous appeal to those who will emerge again from the flood/In which we have gone under. Brecht asks merely that:You, however, when the time comesWhen mankind is a helper unto mankindThink on usWith forbearance.Again, Brechts audience in 1939 is encouraged to historicise, to see themselves in the eyes of posterity, and to try and transform their world. But we, those who live in the world following the Second World War, one where humanity is not a helper to humanity, sit in an even more interesting position. We are those born after. We live in the world after the flood, a world that we have and continue to create. What have we made of it? The call to understanding from Brecht, is a call also to learn from the mistakes of his time. We should read Brecht, understand him, and begin to see ourselves as agents of historical change.IIIPoetry makes nothing happen in the words of Auden, however, it survives/A way of happening, a mouth. This is the value of Brechts Svendborg Poems which, as Brecht intended are poems expressing the disharmonies of society. They set up a series of questions with unsatisfactory answers, prompting a tension which leaves us unsettled but encourages us to look at our circumstances from the estranged perspective of history.This allows us to conceive of a response to times of crisis that goes beyond both despair and naivete, a clear-eyed questioning of social conditions and an unwavering commitment to our political principles, even as the world seems to descend ever further into darkness. As Brecht himself puts it in a poem titled simply Questions and Answers:Can truth be mortal, lies eternal?Without a doubt.Where on earth does injustice go unrecognised?Here.Who knows anybody who has ever achieved fortune through violence.Who doesnt?Then who in such a world could fell the oppressor?You. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Alone, alone, all, all alone,Alone on a wide wide sea!And never a saint took pity onMy soul in agony.(Coleridge, 1798)Grief is isolating, but even more so when we must endure it alone. In Coleridges poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a grey-bearded sailor recounts the tragic story of his ship and its crew, who after great misfortune at sea, meet Death and Night-mare, playing dice for their souls. In the story, each sailor drops dead one by one, Death sparing the mariner alone. The image, like a mirage, shimmers on the page, still managing to inspire dread today.In history, there are few places richer to search for the theme of loneliness than pandemics.In his famous diary accounts of the bubonic plague in 1665, politician Samuel Pepys lamented the ghostliness of London during quarantine, haunted by spectres of the living.Now how few people I see, and those looking like people that have taken leave of the world, he wrote on 28 August. Pepys was, admittedly, not an excellent self-isolator.The writer John Evelyn also described a dismal passage the streets thin with people, the shops shut up, and all in a mournful silence as not knowing whose turn might be next. (Sep 7 1665).It is not only our streets then, but ourselves. That is why, in modern times, Colerdiges lumine inscriptions of loss and loneliness ring with a startling clarity.On ANZAC day this year, Annas* father died in Manchester. She was stuck in Sydney due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, but tells me she knew it was coming for some time he had dementia, and recently was moved into critical care. I spoke to her the day after her fathers Zoom funeral.I never ever thought Id never make it to one of my parents funerals, she says.Its awful. Youre just removed from it I think its like watching a TV episode, but youre emotionally involved in it, and you should be there.Annas father was Irish- born, with what she called a wacky sense of humour. (I cant help imagine the Ancient Mariner, with his glittering eye).He hated foreign food, she says, even pasta, and liked the 70s detective show Kojak. She recalls with laughter how he convinced her cousins a gorilla lived inside their cupboard; the way he sang Oh Lord its hard to be humble, when youre perfect in every way, around the house lyrics of the 1980 song by Mac Davis.He would have thought it [the Zoom funeral] was a load of nonsense, she says.When I was over in February, [he said] Ive had enough. Now I do want to die and I dont want a big funeral. So he got his wish. We have some comfort that he got his wish There were 16 people who were close to him.Annas father might not have passed due to COVID-19, but the pandemic did affect her experience of grief.I was fearful about going over there and couldnt realistically stay with my mum who was also 86 and with my sister whose husbands got multiple sclerosis.And then there was also the issue as my daughter pointed out, when I came back to Australia, [of] being quarantined for two weeks when I probably would be grieving it the most.At the time of writing, there are reportedly over 345 000 global coronavirus deaths. The infectious remains of many have not been properly mourned due to the sheer volume of the bodies overloading morgues. Funeral services exceeding ten people have been off limits since March in many places. (A funeral for funerals, if you will).But are we better off than past generations? More equipped to handle the agony of grieving alone, thanks to technology?Perhaps not as much as we think. Technology is an oxymoron in lockdown. Computers rectify our loneliness at the best of times, exacerbate it at the worst. The slightest glitch can derail a conversation, reminding us of the cyberspace barrier between us and our interlocutors. Even with the best Internet connection, we must work harder to interpret, at a loss for body language and distinct facial expressions. These technologies, it seems, are jarring antithesis to everything that is human.Nina*, who attended her uncles Zoom funeral in May, described her experience of this tech- dissonance to me.At the beginning the 10 people that were there were waiting for the service to start and it was delayed. So I was sort of logged in early and then just sort of sat there staring at the coffins.I cannot help but think of 17th century London, that vision of urban dread.The dead have a presence, however paradoxical that sounds. But our technologies exorcise it, and somehow that is even more unsettling than it being there.It felt quite detached anyway says Nina. But then with all the technical issues that are added to it, I suppose it created that sense of even being more removed from celebrating his life.She also taught me what a Virtual Hug was.You could send a message through and they had balloons hanging in the room with the messages tied to them. [But] to be honest, I felt that that wasslightly tacky. [I] say that with all respect Despite my comments about it leaving me feeling a little bit detached, I think thats just the nature of technology.The absence of a wake at Zoom funerals, said Anna, was also a heavy one.People would get together and theyd have dinner and theyd have a discussion of his life.Youd have that great warm feeling about it all and there just wasnt that chance to do that.All of this makes me wonder whether Zoom funerals, virtual hugs, and online memorials these things, will become artifacts of covidity. The 21st century-equivalent of Dark Ages diaries and letters preserving much of our knowledge about plague life.I suppose there is the issue of them not being physical. But hypothetically would there be anything bad about that?Both Anna and Nina told me that despite the pitfalls of mourning a loved one during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are unexpected blessings.When they brought him back in the hearse to the street the whole street was lined with all the neighbors and friends and family friends and cousins who werent able to go to the crematorium. So the whole street was lined up and my sister, and it was beautiful, says Anna. I think it meant alot to my mother.Nina compared this to the old Irish tradition of processing the hearse around a town.Its those sorts of really nice touches that may come into play and stay around after this[Its] interesting, the way that grief changes.But when asked whether Zoom funerals could become new traditions, both women seem dubious, even mildly horrified. Though, they did eventually agree it would be convenient for relatives living far away, which may be self-evident of a sociological shift we cannot fully understand yet.Perhaps one day technology will progress enough for us to feel the physical warmth of a fellow human being through a livestream, to smell a whiff of their shampoo.But for now I agree with them. Nothing, especially not Zoom, can replace the physical. In fact, I would urge us to start writing letters to our friends in these times, send more care packages and deliver baked goods. Such artifacts may seem trivial, but work wonders for quelling loneliness. Future museums cant very well put virtual hugs in glass cabinets. And there is a reason why text messages have not yet outstripped love letters.But Id like to return to Coleridge now. At the end of his poem, the mariner departs from the wedding guest, to whom hes told his tale.He went like one that hath been stunned,And is of sense forlorn:A sadder and a wiser man,He rose the morrow morn.Of course, to be overly optimistic would contradict what I have already said: that grief in isolation is difficult, painful. But I would hope we can remember Coleridge in these times. Like ships, we are, passing between this point and the next one, but we may end up sadder and wiser at the end. And landing is always imminent.*All the names in this article were changed to protect the privacy of interviewees.(I rediscovered Rime of the Ancient Mariner through The Big Read; British writer Phillip Hoare in collaboration with others has assembled a crew of actors, musicians, artists, writers to recite lines of the epic over the past 2 months. These have been uploaded to Youtube weekly, starting 17 April and ending May 28. They include Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop and Hilary Mantel. I strongly recommend listening here.) <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Fashion journalism is continually evolving and changing shape, however, there is still a distinct lack of critical writing in mainstream and indie fashion magazines, even those claiming that their independence gives them an edge.Its pretty clear that there is a need to hold industry accountable, but when the hot takes that fashion magazines hold up as proof that theyre challenging the mainstream are as boring as new sustainable line of clothing from historically unsustainable brand shows a shift in industry thinking its not even worth pretending that thats what youre doing, really. Worse still, are the takes that headline: why we need a radical fashion revolution and go on to make the argument that the public should do away with fast fashion by choosing to buy better quality clothing. Obviously, anyone who persists with fast fashion is an Uneducated Loser (read: poor person).Vestoj is the best example that Ive found of a fashion journal that actually interrogates, critiques and uncovers not only the underlying trends and issues within the fashion industry, but also the operation of fashion in global and individual ways. Its not super visual, and it doesnt use advertising, which makes it quite dense and wordy, but the ideas it puts forth are just genuinely very interesting. Vestoj means clothing in Esperanto, a language that was made up in the late nineteenth century in an attempt to unify the world. It seems nave and idealistic that fashion which relies so much on capital can be held up as unifying when it so often divides people by class, gender and culture. Yet this magazine is very much of the view that you dont have to be anti-fashion in order to be critical of the way fashion operates in a capitalist world, and that being critical of the way fashion operates in a capitalist world doesnt mean that you cant also enjoy taking part in it as a cultural phenomenon.Academic writing on fashion cannot be separated from the fashion industry itself and is essential to holding the industry accountable. As Yuniya Kawamura says, institutions that help create and spread fashion, such as fashion magazines and newspaper periodicals, are participants in the system the link between the production/distribution of clothing and the dissemination of the idea of fashion is interdependent. The increased focus on bridging the gap between academia, politics, art and fashion is something that Vestoj is very good at. It is by no means the first publication to do this, and it borrows much that has been in discussion in academia for centuries, but in bringing it to industry, and looking at fashion on a much deeper, theoretical level, it forces other independent fashion publications to consider theory as well, at least on a level of self-reflection. This is especially influential, because fashion media is easily as, if not more important than the word of brands themselves.Past themes of Vestoj have included masculinities, power, shame and capital. The theme always comes first, according to publisher and editor-in-chief Anja Aronowsky Cronberg. She has an advisory board that is made up of 50 per cent academic and 50 per cent industry representatives, which is essential to helping maintain relevance to both fields. Vestojs editorial philosophy addresses three central ideas; independence, quality of academic, interdisciplinary content, and the gratification of the reader. The manifesto states: We must remain independent in thought and action. We must actively encourage critical thought and never be satisfied until we have examined every theme intrepidly advertising is forbidden, We will place academia and industry side by side, and give equal significance to both, Fashion must always be taken seriously We are as interested in the minutiae of clothing as we are in the grand themes of fashion.One of the most beautiful articles Ive ever read was about the importance of fashion to homeless people. It described the significance of the garments they own, not only for the fact that they provide safety, comfort and warmth, but for what they say about personality on the street, what they say about the relationship that these individuals have, the ways in which it marks the passing of time. This is demonstrative of the fact that there is a much deeper level of fashion journalism out there, that goes past advertising, and goes past surface level ethical consumerism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A recent trend in reality TV of an abundance of all-star seasons has emerged bringing back memorable characters for another chance to win fame, glory and Instagram brand deals. Its a long list: in February, Channel 10 premiered Australian Survivor: All Stars, followed immediately by MasterChef Australia: Back to Win, which banked (correctly) on the familiar faces of past contestants to ease the transition to brand-new judges. Channel 7 attempted My Kitchen Rules: The Rivals, with fans competing against favourites; The Voice in 2019 featured returning contestants in the mix; and were waiting for the next instalment of Bachelor in Paradise, where problematic faves get a free Fijian vacation, an excuse to day-drink, and a chance at true love.Australias not alone in the all-star game. In the US, Survivor, the original (and in my opinion, still the best) reality TV show, just wrapped its 40th season, Winners at War, bringing back 20 champions to play for the biggest cash prize in reality TV history of $2,000,000. RuPauls Drag Race All Stars has been a staple since 2012, and The Amazing Race in mid-2019 saw all-stars from Survivor, Big Brother and The Amazing Race gallivant across the globe.Yet as I flicked through the channels, I couldnt help but wonder: why? Why this explosion of all-star seasons, and what might it say about the future of reality TV?Perhaps its simply about money. Unscripted TV already costs less to make than scripted shows, and bringing back old heroes and villains means that networks can rely on tried-and-tested talent which viewers will tune into. Its a strategy which should deliver reliable advertising revenue, all the more important for traditional networks as Australians consume more content from on-demand streaming services.This is a plausible theory. MasterChef has easily had the warmest reception in a while, whereas Australian Survivor delivered a 94% increase in 18-to-49-year-old viewers, compared to the same dates in 2019. But it hasnt worked across the board; MKR had abysmal ratings and is potentially facing cancellation.Ultimately, prudent financial decisions dont always make for good TV, and one could view this all-star glut with some sense of weariness. Some argue that all-star seasons, the same show but just with different configurations of characters, indicate a lack of innovation or a certain tiredness in the reality TV genre.But reality TV isnt dead; instead, its having a renaissance on Netflix. The streaming platform has produced hit after shareable hit with The Circle, Love is Blind, Too Hot to Handle, Queer Eye, Nailed It and Next in Fashion, all featuring either brand-new concepts or intriguing storytelling. Netflix benefits from having a business model optimised for online; Joshua Rivera argues that reality TV is being reinvented on Netflix for our extremely online world, with shows, while focused on entertainment, also exploring questions of authenticity, perception and human connection. Lauren ONeill and Emma Garland point out that Netflix isnt under the same obligations to please advertisers and regulators as commercial networks, and thus can proceed full steam ahead with more daring concepts.So what does commercial reality TV need to kick its all-star habit? For one, their production and social media teams need to be attuned to shifting digital patterns of consumption. Its unlikely theyll ever be able to take over Netflixs niche, but commercial networks need to prioritise younger adults as an important demographic.But I think its ultimately simpler than trying to find the next magic formula. Reality TV is at its best when it presents real, interpersonal drama, such that its not quite reality, but a heightened, curiously constrained and altered version of it. Networks seem to be focused on manufacturing the next viral clip, or introducing the next controversial character for the public to flay alive, that they forget what originally made reality TV so compelling: throw a bunch of complex, fallible characters into a situation where they are challenged, and simply watch how they interact. Make them step out of their comfort zone, and see them react with humour, anger, grace or scandal. Its what Netflix does so well, and its what makes recent successes like Love Island or Married at First Sight such addictive trainwrecks.My favourite reality TV moment comes from Survivors first Final Tribal Council, where eliminated contestant Sue Hawk, after being betrayed by her alliance, gets the chance to make a speech. She compares the two finalists to the snakes and rats that infested the jungle theyd been living in, and lays bare the pain and barely-contained rage she felt, all while feeling personally conflicted with having to award $1,000,000 to people who didnt deserve it. It was an incredible, honest moment. Id argue that the 52 million people who watched it didnt need more all-stars to know that. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Earlier this month, Carriageworks, Australias largest multi-art centre, announced that it would be going into voluntary administration. A short walk from Sydney Universitys Abercrombie Building, Carriageworks has become a staple of Sydneys cultural scene, using its 17 venues to host awards ceremonies, art galleries, theatre productions and seminars, to just name a few. Throughout its 13 years of existence, its provided a space for unrestrained creative expression and diverse, radical ideas. We reached out to a number of people with fond memories of the precinct from former employees, to artists and audience members to provide a glimpse into Carriageworks importance, and why we cant afford to let it die. We hope that these memories will play a small part in the fight to save an iconic cultural institution.Jenny Leong: Greens member for NewtownIt is impossible for me to share just one memory of Carriageworks images fly in to my head of the countless performances I have seen as part of Performance Space programming, independent programming or festival seasons, dancing in the middle of a sweaty crowd while Jesswar performed, slurping up piping hot pho at the Saturday markets surrounded by fine food and delicious smells, tasting beer at a craft brewing festival, experiencing vast visual art installations in the main space like Zhang Huans Sydney Buddha, and watching Australian music legends including The Presets and Sarah Blasko play at FBI Radios 10th birthday celebrations back in 2013. I also love wandering around this space when there are no people around, soaking up the heritage, the histories and the memories of the past. We must keep this precious public space and institution in public hands.Rhian Mordaunt: USyd studentI went on a first date to Carriageworks to see the opera The Rape of Lucretia directed by Kip Williams back in 2017. It was the most weird first date Ive ever been on opera singers dramtically singing about Ancient Rome, suicide and sexual assault isnt my idea of a romantic time. But in a shocking twist of events I ended up dating that guy for over a year. Carriageworks will always have a special place in my heart and Im forever grateful for all the times Ive been able to witness beautiful (and sometimes traumatic) art and theatre over the years there.Madeline Martin: Former Carriageworks employeeI was Monica Lewinskys bodyguard for fifteen minutes. That was just one of the indelible experiences of my time at Carriageworks. The institutions diverse programming, which spanned visual art, theatre, food and live music, meant that working at Carriageworks was never dull. Truncating my myriad experiences is difficult, but some highlights include having my aura portrait taken by Kate Mitchell for her installation All Auras Touch, the bidaily activation of Tom Mllers Ghost Line during the National 2019 and the monthly chef masterclasses which ran in tandem with the weekly Carriageworks Farmers Market. It was also a great privilege to work on the site of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops, the birthplace of the Great Strike of 1917. A lesson to learn from this moment in Australian industrial history is that times of crisis do not have to erode the rights of workers. Ultimately, the most formidable aspect of working at Carriageworks was forming bonds with my Front of House comrades, with whom I stand in solidarity with during this sad time.Image courtesy: Madeline Martin.Image courtesy: Madeline Martin.Lauren Lancaster: Fashion Week volunteerLast year I worked backstage at Fashion Week, and it was the coolest experience! Carla Zampattis show with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra playing the middle of the runway was by far the highlight but we had to stay back for three hours after the show scratching the silver foil off the runway with our bare fingernails!!Lawrence English: Artist and founder of Room40There are many venues in Australia and there are many arts centres. They all contribute to how we form a sense of ourselves, culturally, socially and even politically. Beyond pure inspiration and joy, they provide us with creative mechanisms to ask difficult questions, they allow us to ponder uneasy problems through divergent media and they invite us to dream of the possible futures that we action through our day to day lives. There is however only one Carriageworks.If people asked me about what I felt about Carriageworks, I would reply with a simple statement Carriageworks is a benchmark for the kind of curatorial vision that is profoundly needed in this country, and especially Sydney! Carriageworks is a beacon, a shining light of possibility for how art, music and culture can be radical and at the same time draw in audiences and moreover send them home with experiences that continue to resonate long after they have passed. Carriageworks hailed the experiences of art not merely as spectacle or hollow entertainment, but as transformative, life altering encounters that carry forward.I have had the pleasure to curate part of the music program at Carriageworks since 2015; specifically Room40s Open Frame Festival and in 2019 a special presentation of the legendary Japanese free music unit Marginal Consort. For over half a decade, I have been able to share my musical obsessions with some 500 curious others each evening in Bay 20. It was without question one of the most satisfying and inspiring curatorial projects I have ever undertaken. Personally, Carriageworks also offered me a wonderful reminder of the value of support. On numerous occasions, Lisa Ffrench and Lisa Havilah (and in recent times wonderful folks like Rosie Fisher and Daniel Mudie Cunningham), reminded me that there is inherent value in this work. There is a cultural legacy that is built and that legacy is not merely the space within which the work unfolds, but it is the combined efforts of all the amazing humans that toil to realise it. This is what Carriageworks really is; its the people who worked there and the people who visited. They were the flesh of this architectural skeleton and to them I am eternally grateful to have shared these experiences.Carriageworks is what our art centres should be like its lungs breathed a profound sense of curiosity, wonder and warmth. Its a reminder of the wonder of possibility and the promise of imagination. Image courtesy: Jacquie Manning.James Bradshaw: Local musicianI attended Open Frame: Room40 at Carriageworks in 2019, a two-day ambient and experimental music highlight that featured artists such as Stephen OMalley of Sunn O))) and industrial noise mastermind, Merzbow. It really changed my life. To be able to see these artists that I had always heard were essential live acts in a place as accessible and well facilitating as Carriageworks. I honestly cant think of any other venue in Sydney that would have both chosen to present such artists and have presented them in such an expert way when it came to audio quality and audience experience. It will be another massive hit to Sydneys artistic identity to lose such a vital and communal space for those working in any medium.Ben Hansen: Presenter at FBi RadioAs a fresh faced 19 year old, I attended the FBi SMACs Festival at Carriageworks in 2016. I vividly remember running around the halls listening to and watching legends of the Sydney music scene such as Sampha the Great, Palms, Cosmos Midnight, and even future leader of the Labor Party DJ Anthony Albanese. Before this, my friends and I had only been to larger festivals like Groovin the Moo. This experience at Carriageworks turned me from a music lover to an obsessive. It was the first time I felt like a part of my local music community. I would return to Carriageworks many times throughout the years, even returning earlier this year for the SMAC Awards as an FBi Radio volunteer, but that first gig is one Ill always hold near and dear.Paul Dwyer: Lecturer at USyd. Legend has it that the NSW Government was persuaded to invest in the development of the Carriageworks site when the then Premier, Bob Carr, was lobbied by the famous French theatre director, Ariane Mnouchkine. Her company, the Thtre du Soleil, was one of the headline acts of the Sydney Festival in 2002 and Carr (who was also the Arts Minister) took Mnouchkine on a helicopter ride over the city. She apparently told him that Australia needed to look after its artists better and that a space should be found where innovative, interdisciplinary, experimental practices could be fostered. I gather Mnouchkine had been primed by local artists to mention the Carriageworks site. At any rate, I think Carr saw himself as a bit of a Louis XIV and decreed that it should happen.There is always, of course, a risk that turning an industrial heritage site like Carriageworks into a cultural precinct simply plays into the nastier aspects of the gentrification of an inner-city area like Redfern/Erskineville: property values go up; rents go up; people whove lived in the area for years are forced out, etc. That said, I think the redevelopment of Carriageworks does honour the working-class history of the site and there has been some very important, socially-inclusive arts programming. Carriageworks provides a home for Moogahlin Performing Arts, the First Peoples company thats going from strength to strength. Performance Space, one of the other resident companies, is also working with emerging and established artists, including many people of colour and those who identify as queer or trans. The Liveworks Festival, curated by Performance Space, offers a context for really significant interactions between Australian artists and their peers right across the Asia-Pacific. And then there is the way that Carriageworks links in with events like Sydney Festival or the Biennale: Ive seen, heard, experienced so many amazing installation works for free in the stunning foyer and gallery spaces.Carriageworks is unique in its capacity to host both works of great scale and smaller, intimate shows. A personal highlight for me was working on Tribunal, a production by PYT Fairfield that Sydney Festival picked up and presented in 2018. Led by Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor, this theatrical imagining of what a truth commission into Australias treatment of asylum-seekers might look like was beautifully accommodated in Track 8 and warmly received. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With our social lives now almost completely substituted by digital interaction, the limitations of forming connections over cyberspace are more pronounced than ever. Gone are the times where we could make small talk with familiar faces in tutorials, weave our way through parties to bond with someone new, or stoke the flames of newly formed friendships by running into each other on Eastern Avenue. These acquaintances and casual friends are all still there, within virtual reach, yet it feels impossible to remedy the loss of body language cues and spontaneity that make our conversations feel unforced. When regular contact in digital spaces has formerly been preserved for communication between already close friends, how do we prepare for the potentially ongoing digitisation of our relationships into the future?Overshadowing every messenger conversation, video call and Instagram story, the likelihood that everything we do online will be permanently recorded already limits how open we are with others. Before social distancing, the panopticon-like surveillance of digital technology was enough to cause anxiety, but as we now attend classes and socialise mostly online it penetrates further into our lives. Unless we choose to keep in touch by writing letters, our interactions must necessarily take place within a profit-oriented algorithm that sells our data to advertising companies. Not only is privacy a concern when interacting online, but our ability to express meaning is restricted. There are fewer audio-visual cues such as facial expression and tone of voice to help us understand intent when messaging. Video calls might allow us to read facial expressions, but body language is far more polyphonic than what can fit within a screens window-like frame. The internet is hostile to embodimentit chops our voices into uncanny robotic sounds and dissolves our faces into pixelated fragments.One of the greatest drawbacks of social video calls is that there is no potential for movement and proximity, for walking around a room and talking in smaller groups, making spontaneous conversation. In Roland Barthes A Lovers Discourse, his reflections on the telephone resonate with the anxiety of Zoom calls, the other is always in a state of departure; the other departs twice over, by voice and by silence: whose turn is it to speak? We fall silent in unison: crowding of two voids. The simultaneous absence and presence felt during Zoom calls is exhausting and results in frequent silences. We feel so strongly the need to connect, but are at a loss for what to say and how to express it through the language of digitality.Surprisingly, while social media dominates our lives it is not often written as such in films. We need new artworks to make sense of the complete transferral of our interpersonal connections into cyberspace, to help us understand the potential and the danger of the surrogate worlds we have created online. Part of why film has yet to seriously take on the language of social media is that it requires collapsing the idea of a narrative into a tele-communicative scenario time unfolding in a single space that brings together multiple spaces. Film theorist Bla Balzs wrote that we should turn to the cinema so as to compile a lexicon of gestures and facial expressions on a par with our dictionaries of words. If film functions as a social toolbox and cultural machine showing what to desire, it needs to update its vocabulary for the new modes of interaction brought on by digitality.What can now be considered a gesture or non-verbal expression in online spaces disrupts conventional ideas of the body, and though the way we use our devices as extensions of our bodies bears significance, its meaning is often nebulous. For Balzs, embodied gestures and facial expressions dont signify concepts, but are the direct expressions of our non-rational selves. There are some things that we cannot bring to light through words, likes, images or reacts which dominate our interactions on social media but that arise unconsciously through our faces and movements.Since it is likely that future disasters will lead to further instances of physical separation, we need to seriously interrogate how to open up fissures for non-rational expression and refuse the encoding of offline hierarchies onto the online world. We need to transform these spaces so that they affirm our humanity and allow for genuine moments of connection. In the 1930s, Balzs argued that the nature of film contradicts capitalist culture because it expresses the yearning for the concrete, non-conceptual, immediate experience of things. Presently, the tendency of mass commercial films is to reduce our attention spans through frenzied cutting and full sensory immersion. There is radical possibility in reimagining digital spaces to embrace an alternate logic of slowness and stillness.Playing off our anxieties about the digital ether, the horror and thriller genres have found strong interest in the language of social media. The 2018 Netflix original Cam explores the dangers and stigmas faced by sex workers as the protagonists identity is mysteriously stolen by a virtual doppelganger. The action takes place both offline, which is shown through traditional film techniques, and online where the actions of a mouse, sounds of message notifications, and error messages are used to communicate meaning. Cam draws on our collective anxiety about having our accounts hacked and losing the ability to control what happens to our image, while also bringing to light camgirls experiences of stalking and harassment. The replacement of real people by digital doubles has occurred quite literally in the use of CGI to resurrect the deceased James Dean for the upcoming film Finding Jack. This is a disturbing symptom of how digital technology, and by extension, commercial cinema, is used under capitalism not to expand on creative possibility but to remix pre-existing material for profit.Recognising the limitations of digital love, Spike Jonzes 2013 film Her resonates with our collective nostalgia for a return to physical contact. The lonely protagonist Theodore falls in love with Samantha, an artificially intelligent voice assistant installed in his computers operating system. Her suggests another way that the existing social order is encoded into new technology; the Siris, Alexas and Cortanas of our time may not be programmed to understand themselves as gendered, but they perform services that are traditionally associated with women and have therefore been given a feminine voice. In Her, Samanthas voice is always sympathetic with Theodore up to a certain point where she begins to assert her agency. Like Theodore, we evoke a hallucinatory mental image of those we interact with in bodiless, digital space. According to Paola Golinelli, the virtual excludes and gets us used to the absence of direct contact between bodies, with the complexities, limits, fragilities and consistency that physical co-presence carries with it. When Samantha finds someone willing to act as a surrogate body to unite them in flesh and blood, we realise the perversity of the perception of bodies as interchangeable. The film leads us to conclude that digitality frustrates love because it eludes carnal, non-rational knowledge by excluding the body.Virtual reality is an outcome of the evolution of cinematic language as it expands the aspect ratio to encompass an entire field of view. Steven Spielbergs 2018 Ready Player One depicts both a playful fantasy of life occurring in a video game-like virtual world and a dystopic vision of the transferral of existing repressive structures into that world. The major corporation (IOI) seeking to take control of the virtual Oasis has its own carceral system where people in debt are kept in small chambers and forced into virtual labour. Though the protagonists defeat the evil corporation, the film doesnt gesture to any further possibilities of transformation aside from the fantasy of escaping working-class conditions through Oasis which has its own form of currency and ownership. Though Ready Player Ones haptic cyberspace equipped with physical touch and facial expression are a far throw from the present, its depiction of the freedom to manipulate ones appearance through avatars resonates with the issue of curating social media presence and catfishing. More hopefully however, Ready Player One gestures toward the liberatory potential of transcending somatic boundaries and biological determinism through the ease with which avatars change genders in the example of the character Helen. Eventually realising the limitations of the fast-moving virtual world, the film ends with a message advocating the return to authentic reality as a way of maintaining physical connections, something which is impossible for us now.In Arundhati Roys words, the pandemic is a portal. We can take this opportunity to rethink the baggage that has been codified in existing iterations of cyberspace and imagine new possibilitiesfor slowness, for openness, for transforming the multiple worlds we inhabit. This doesnt mean we stop being critical of our relation to the land we are on as we access online spaces and nor does it mean we unquestionably accept that everything will stay digital post-COVID. As we have seen in our own lives and the films discussed here, the desire for connection is often stifled by the language of the digital and it may never live up to the concreteness of physical co-presence. Still, the imaginative activity of striving to make the spaces we retreat to in times like these as accommodating as possible is an act of love. More is to be done in arts challenge to the notion that the world is static; the future of cinema needs to re-invent the language of the digital and virtual through its form. If we dont interrogate how existing systems have mutated with the evolution of technology, we risk accepting the fracturing of our relationships online as the only possibility there is. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Since Venice established its first biennial exhibition of Italian art in 1893, we have seen many different iterations of biennial exhibitions of national art forms, in the form of the biennale. A biennale is an international art festival which occurs every two years, and curates artworks that culminate in a showcase of the diversity of the region it is exhibited in. With the Venice Biennale as a blueprint, the biennales goal is to provide a platform for contemporary art practices which are underrepresented in museums and galleries. This has meant that many other instances of biennales have deviated from the Venetian model which has become the same institution it used to offer an alternative to. For instance, the establishment of the Havana Biennale in 1984 was an expression of the amount of art being made in the Global South that had gone unrecognised.Today, the hundreds of biennales around the world function in many different ways, meaning the relation and artistic exchange between them has evolved in very political forms. A biennale, as Peter Sloterdijk would argue, has the ability to reproduce different nations and their socio-political relations in a gallery space. This political nature of course brings with it the states economic position to the arts; as a market, as patronage, and as something for economic gain. The Biennale of Sydney, first established in 1973, came under fire in 2014 when artists boycotted the 19th iteration of the Asia-Pacific regions longest running international art festival due to such controversial economic ties.In 2014, Libia Castro, lafur lafsson, Charlie Sofo, Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide, Nicoline van Harskamp, Nathan Gray, Gabrielle de Vietri and Ahmet gt withdrew their work from the festival due to the Biennale of Sydneys ties to Transfield Holdings, a company that held an investment in Transfield Services. These six artists withdrew their work due to Transfield Services contract with the Australian Department of Immigration to work on the detention centres on Manus and Nauru. An additional 41 artists wrote an open letter to the Biennale of Sydney urging them to reconsider their partnership with the company embroiled in the human rights violations of the Australian Government. While the boycott was successful and ties were cut with Transfield Holdings, this incident calls into question the true function of the Biennale internationally. Can it truly be a platform for artists to present subversive art forms and meaningfully critique borders and the idea of the nation?In 2018, under the Artistic Directorship of Mami Kataoka, the 21st Biennale of Sydney: SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement did not centre on any one theme, but instead attempted to present a variety of different concerns. Borrowing the term superposition from quantum mechanics, its goal was to elaborate the duality and paradoxical ways that humans inhabit Earth through the artworks of 69 artists from 35 different countries. One such artist was Ai Weiwei, whose practice focuses on social injustices with specific attention given to refugee rights. The work of Weiwei fit within the overarching theme of the biennale but in an incredibly troubling way. The works seem to be at odds with both the international art festivals partnership history and the general problem with biennales: these biennial exhibitions seem to uphold the idea of the nation through mimicking its borders rather than offering a platform to deconstruct them.Law of the Journey (2017) featured a 60 metre-long boat filled with refugees made from rubber manufactured in a Chinese factory which also constructs vessels used by refugees seeking asylum in other countries. The work is certainly dual and paradoxical. On the one hand, the larger than life piece, meant to make the viewer feel the monumental scale of the global refugee crisis, is troublingly haunted by the biennales prior complacency on cruel mandatory detention. On the other hand, its positioning in the biennale is also troubling, as the exhibition focuses on going against Euro-American centric visions of contemporary art while acting within the Euro-American centric visions of nations and how they should be divided. In its attempt to draw Australian artists into the cultural stream, the schematic system of the Biennale of Sydney is admirable, but the festivals own role in the nation building project of Australia is rarely critiqued and the works that are exhibited in them seem to be superpositions; dualistic and paradoxical, critical and yet complacent, outside of the nation and within it.In another work, 4,992 Photos Relating to Refugees, which lines the gallerys walls with photos taken by Weiwei on his iPhone during the filming of his documentary Human Flow. What does it serve to plaster the faces of people who have been or would be denied access to our country in an exhibition which has both been literally tied with the forces that prevent them from seeking safety in the past and fundamentally tied to the idea of the nation? The inclusion of this artwork may seem like a protest levelled against the government, and while it does make a statement, why cant art go even further in critiquing the borders that colonialism has so verdantly drawn? Why cant it go beyond established arts institutions and exhibitions and instead find its voice in interregional conversations? Art has a real possibility to be a tool for change, a tool that is not being used to its full potential. Ai Weiwei, 4,992 Photos Relating to Refugees, wallpaper, dimensions variable; installation view of the 21st Biennale of Sydney. Photograph: Silversalt Photography.Perhaps the thing that prevents the work from successfully critiquing social injustices is the sense of fixed place that is inherent in the Biennale structure. Kataoka asserts in her post-curatorial statement that the significance of a biennale does not merely consist of gathering existing artworks in one place. While it is true that the artworks exhibited in a biennale are made precisely for the biennale, the argument that they are not made for one place is not necessarily true. If this were true, the idea of the biennale would not be so rooted in the idea of the nation. Would the art works of Ai Weiwei not function better as political critique through a more collaborative, independent and interregional exhibition?Perhaps the name SUPERPOSITION is more accurate than I give it credit. All future iterations of the international art festival will have to grapple with the paradoxical idea of a biennale, which at surface level, seems to be an encouragement of international exchange of art and ideas but, when interrogated, is exposed for its unbreakable link with the idea of the nation. As governments profit from the subversive ideas of artists in national displays of difference and diversity, one could say that the biennale plays a very vital role in nation-building, a role that artists should critique from the outside of the biennale, rather than within it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> During the late 18th to early 20th century, when Western artists and travellers saw a landscape that pleased them, they would turn their backs from the scene to observe it through a pocket-sized mirror. One of the first users of the Claude glass fell backwards and broke his knuckles, unwilling to tear his eyes from the beauty he saw in the reflection. This anthropocentric use of the senses where looking and listening have the effect of separating us from the world is quintessential to Western relations to nature. By reducing landscapes to a picturesque scene subdued in the palm of an onlookers hand, the Claude glass provided precedent to the ecological emergencies of today. The illusion that humans are central to existence stems from a form of sensory perception that is manifest in the Claude glass; nature is perceived to be dominated for our own use. This has led to what is called the Anthropocene, a word that comes from the Ancient Greek anthropo, meaning human; it proposes that the most recent period in earths geological history has been shaped primarily by human activity. Some argue that this began during the Industrial Revolution, others say with the testing of the first atomic bombs. What is resoundingly clear is that human activities have accelerated species extinction, left an irreversible trace on the geological record, and catastrophically increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Anthropocene might implicate all of humankind in one sweep, but it is not all humans who are damaging the planet. It is fossil fuel companies and capitalisms constant drive for accumulation and growth. Adani, for example, has been violating the ancestral lands of the Wangan and Jagalingou people for coal mining profit. These companies want you to believe your carbon footprint is causing the climate crisis rather than their exploitative practices. We must remember that Indigenous people protect 80% of the worlds biodiversity even though they make up less than 5% of the population. Recognising that it is not merely human activity but a profit-oriented structure that is leaving a mark on the earth, Jason Moore has proposed the alternative term Capitalocene, emphasising capitalism as a way of organising nature. Furthermore, Donna Haraway has argued for a third term, the Chthulucene, to signify how the human and non-human are linked in tentacular practices, urging us to seek multi-species kinship. Whichever term we may use, the destructive effects of human activities is a sensory phenomenon, perceptible in the experience of living in an increasingly diminished and dangerous world. During the black summer, it was the unavoidable presence of smoke around us; the heaviness and itchiness of our lungs served a constant reminder of unimaginable loss. For those living in areas where the fires tore through, this was followed by an anxious silence that of birdsong. While some birds were able to escape the fires, much of their habitat and the insects they feed on were destroyed. The lyrebird which has survived for 15 million years, with its distinct song and ability to imitate almost any sound, is now under threat of becoming permanently silent. The Anthropocene has a profound influence on the mix of sounds that can be heard. Different natural environments have evolved their own acoustic ecologies where all the sounds of different species fit together harmoniously like an orchestra. Sound-making is a way of forming relations with other living creatures and territorialising space. It is a type of symbolic communication that has been dismissed by the narrative of human exceptionalism. In the Western philosophical tradition, our supposedly singular possession of language places us on a pedestal, and this has had perilous consequences. Human activities cause disruptions to avian soundscapes both by submerging natures orchestra beneath the noise of machinery and by driving species extinctions. The resultant absence of birdsong a sound that flitters between human and non-human worlds leads to feelings of anxiety and loss. The encroaching silence of the non-human is symptomatic of the epoch we live in, where catastrophic blazes can wipe out more living beings than we have the ability to conceive of. Listening to the sounds and silences of natures orchestra, without intruding, is a way of reconfiguring human ecological relations, of seeking out multi-species kinship. The spiritual way of deep listening and still awareness is embodied in Dadirri, a word from the Ngangikurungkurr language. Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr, an Elder from the Nauiyu Community, Daly River, Northern Territory, articulates that :Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. This is the gift that Australia is thirsting forOur people have passed on this way of listening for over 40,000 yearsTo be still brings peace and it brings understanding. There is a responsibility learnt from listening deeply with the intention to act. Instead of turning our backs to nature and looking at it through a mirror of our own, we must listen and look closely at how human activities on this continent, since colonialism, have disrupted the environment. Then, we must transform this knowledge gained through our senses into an imperative for collective action. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When my editor asked me to do a review of Sydney Unis vloggers, I did not hesitate: a free swing at some neolib grifters and the ability to publicly assert my own cultural superiority the perfect Honi article! Open up the thesaurus, throw in a few screenshots and some suitably spiteful similes, and wed be doing numbers. However, after spending a concerning amount of time in the vlogging vortex, it appears, dear Honi reader, that the joke is on us. Wittingly or not, USyds vloggers, in their extraordinary dullness, have successfully exploited a medium well adapted to the zeitgeist.Oscar Wilde wrote that the only [youtubers] I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad [youtubers]A really great [youtuber] is the most unpoetical of all creatures, perfectly uninteresting. Tediousness must thus be regarded as the principal tenet of the personal vlogging form. The Academic Hacker (763 subscribers) reveals that he is going home to eat some leftovers. Now we see our protagonist microwaving his duck. The eating perhaps could have been implied, but we are treated to a time lapse, just to be on the safe side. Sebastian Pirie (21k subscribers) gives us an exclusive insight into his morning routine. If you wish to avoid spoilers, look away it involves weet-bix and teeth-brushing. Ginny (173 subscribers) makes the vital cultural contribution of a lengthy PoV shot of a turkey sandwich as it is carried through the law library. The inanity goes on interminably, but it will suffice to say that I am now intimately acquainted with the advanced principles of desk organisation. The vloggers make few stylistic commitments their only editing tricks are the slap-the-camera cut and the eating-a-sandwich-while-studying timelapse. The music is always that anonymous upbeat tropical pop which only appears elsewhere as the backing to dodgy youtube sports highlights. Unless, of course, you are the ex-Pauline Dylan Reeves-Fellows (41k subscribers), who utilises his self-described clean, crisp and fresh voice to deliver rambling monologues on topics such as I Failed a Third Year Economics Exam and Beef with my Supervisor. It is easy to poke fun these vloggers, but they are racking up thousands of views (and probably a few bucks) for turkey sandwich sequences they have clearly tapped into something.Exquisite.Lying in the youtube borehole, the daily vlog operates on the same principles as social medias Infinite Scroll, Netflix, online polemic and pornography: they are essentially numbing, providing a means to pass the time safe from the intrusions of thought, action and unpleasant emotion. Ross Douthat identifies polemic and pornography as genres which dominate online.because both are ideally suited for a click-here-then-there medium, in which the important thing is to be titillated, stimulated, get your spasm of pleasure, and move on. However, in gravitating towards polemic and pornography, it is not titillation and pleasure which is sought, rather it is an avoidance of pain and embarrassment. Pornography never dished up heartbreak or humiliation. Online polemic is a safe version of actual debate the satisfaction of winning over a physical audience can be replaced with push notifications, and one is insulated from humiliation in the face of rebuttal by a phalanx of like-minded followers.We can take this theme of emotional avoidance further. The Netflix binge is not pleasurable, but it distracts us and safely passes the time. It does, however, require some investment in plot and character. The social media scroll is more numbing, but ones social life can make unfortunate intrusions here. Finally, we arrive at the humble vlog. It demands no emotional investment in character, there is no plot to follow, and, crucially, nothing at all happens. Hours can be whiled away without the intrusion of any thought, let alone dangerous ones, as one substitutes the complexities of ones own real life for the ordered and logical structure of the vlog, which does not permit emotion to enter in its endless repetition of eating, commuting and studying scenes. Thus, we come back to Wilde: the greatest [youtubers] are the most uninteresting. Witness classics such as Real Time Study with Me for Eight Hours and Eight Hour Study with Me: Medical Student Edition.The genius of USyds vloggers is that they combine tedium with aspiration. As one lies in bed at two in the afternoon eating a sandwich (no timelapse) and watching vloggers opine on the benefits of the Pomodoro Method, we can convince ourselves that, yes, we will wake up earlier next time, we will organise our desk and we will start studying right after this vlog. Or perhaps the next one. By projecting an image of organisation, efficiency and academic competence without the intrusion of lifes complexities and complications, our vloggers have wedded our desire to be numbed with the impulse to grift and grind which is so prevalent in contemporary student culture. For a student population which has rejected the titillation, stimulation and pleasure spasms of Manning in favour of Ritalin and cereal cafes, the vlog, in all its tediousness, is an ideal form of expression.Thus, we should not be so quick to cringe and laugh at our vloggers. After all, Ive just written this rather overwrought opus for free, while others are out there making dollars by filming their turkey sandwiches. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Art by Michael Lotsaris.I absolutely had the feeling that I was shut up in Ward 6 myself! Vladimir LeninSuffering what had been dubbed by a friend of mine as the Corona Blues, that dreaded boredom of having nothing but time with which to fill with nothing I turned to my bookshelf, one of those cubic Ikea ones, and told myself I would read through one whole cube in the coming weeks. I landed on the cube that contained all of the Russian fiction I had studied in Year 12 and decided to begin with the short stories of Chekhov, my favourite author. In the pages of his 1892 short story, Ward No. 6, Chekhov lays out what I considered to be an intriguing antidote to the Corona Blues.The Russians have never been strangers to isolation, and Chekhovs story sees characters experience it in droves. Set in an unnamed rural town and inspired by the authors journey two years prior to the desolate prison isle of Sakhalin, off the coast of far Siberia, Ward No. 6 is a companion to his non-fiction memoir named after that island, and it feels strikingly real. The story follows two men and the circumstances that have them placed in a mental asylum. There are many interesting things that could be said of the story like that it provides a radically progressive understanding of justice and punishment but what enamoured me most was the relationship shared between its protagonists, Ivan and Andrey. I was especially drawn to their attempts, in one of the worlds most isolated situations, to alleviate their own suffering.Probably in no other place is life so monotonous as in this ward.Early in the piece, Chekhov provides his readers with the notion that he will test over the remaining fifteen chapters; it appears as a description of the intelligent Ivans train of thought in the weeks prior to the paranoid incident that lands him in the asylum:Facts and common sense persuaded him that all these terrors were nonsense and morbidity, that if one looked at the matter more broadly there was nothing really terrible in arrest and imprisonment so long as the conscience is at ease.As the story unfolds, Chekhov continues a conversation that has been in the Russian consciousness since Dostoevsky wrote on his exile, and a host of essays could be written on the contributions given by Tolstoy, Lenin, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, to name a few. When we are trapped against our will, can our conscience be put to ease? This question is one that has become apparent to all of us in recent times, and Chekhovs answer is a softly spoken yes.Unlike Ivan, who begins the story in the asylum and whose arrest is told in temporally isolated chapters, Andreys incarceration is experienced by the reader in the relative present tense. Chekhovs early narration is coy, and it feels as if these events were described to him as he passed through just another town on his way to Sakhalin and what a trepidation the lunatics are always thrown into by the arrival of the drunken, smiling barber, we will not describe This has the effect of engendering Andrey, a doctor, who is described by Chekhov as clinically as his profession, with a sobering, critical presence. It is no coincidence that Andrey, our protagonist and Anton, our author, are both medical practitioners by trade, and we are invited to diagnose this patient of Ward No. 6.Through Andrey we judged Ivan, in fact its by Andrey Yefimichs orders that he ended up in Ward No. 6 in the first place. We engage in the pairs conversations as Andrey, a free man, visits the ward and befriends Ivan. The doctor, ever a cynic, is unconvinced by Ivans approach to the meaning found in suffering, which he rattles off in a rebuttal to Andreys half-hearted endorsement of the Stoics:to despise suffering would mean despising life itself, since the whole existence of man is made up of the sensations of hunger, cold, injury, and a Hamlet-like dread of death. The whole of life lies in these sensations; one may be oppressed by it, one may hate it, but one cannot despise it Have you ever suffered? Have you any idea of suffering?Andreys scepticism comes from his own self-pity, believing his life and his work as a doctor meaningless, seeing as all paths lead to our deaths. Ivan is left believing that Andrey is unconvinced because the doctor has never truly suffered, and as such he is incapable of empathy and the attitude that guides Ivans kindness toward the other inmates. It isnt difficult to see Chekhov grappling with these thoughts as he writes, and in a cruel twist of fate, the author would be struck down at 44 by tuberculosis.As Andrey, and the reader, become convinced of Ivans sanity, it becomes clear that Chekhov has flipped the existential script on us that it is the trapped, sorry Ivan who has learnt from his isolation that his suffering renders him alive, and that the free doctor remains restless, unable to appreciate his freedoms. When Andrey, who the townsfolk worry is losing his mind from spending too much time in the ward, is sent on holiday, he convinces himself he is happy, How pleasant to lie motionless on the sofa and to know that one is alone in the room! Real happiness is impossible without solitude, before his mind slips back to his earlier conversations with Ivan, This is what I get from the real life Ivan Dmitrich talked about Its of no consequence, though. I shall go home, and everything will go on as before.Yet, as Andrey returns from his holiday to finds himself broke and unemployed, he realises the townsfolk, who believed all along that he had gone mad, have tricked him. Unable to care for himself, he begins a downward spiral that lands him in Ward No. 6, beside his friend.Trapped inside the ward, Ivans belief that Andrey could only find value once he understood suffering is proven true.Andrey Yefimich assured himself that there was nothing special about the moon or the prison, that even sane persons wear orders, and that everything in time will decay and turn to earth, but he was suddenly overcome with desire; he clutched at the grating with both hands and shook it with all his might. The strong grating did not yield.Unable to bear the realisation that this new suffering had allowed him to value the life he had lived, only now unable to live it from inside the asylum, Andrey has an apoplectic stroke that night, and dies. Chekhovs conclusion is fantastically Russian: once we know what it is to be isolated from the world, we can learn to live with empathy and kindness towards each other, in spite of our inevitable demises.Through Andrey, we can learn to value the experience of entrapment, yet in Ivan, Chekhov insists that we neednt end up like Andrey, and that it is possible to remain optimistic in the face of our own incarceration. Chekhov offers his readers the luxury of understanding Ivan without having to be Ivan. Our isolation, unlike his, will some months from now be at an end.We can learn to be at peace with our isolation because it reminds us that we have desires, that in our longing to be free of our solitude can be found a tapestry of the things we care about. As Andrey passes away, dreaming of the outside, Chekhov writes that he sees A herd of deer, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, a romantic image the author would not use lightly to teach us that the isolation-driven dreams we have of the future hold the keys to living a life in accordance with the pursuit of what we find truly valuable.The Translation of Ward No. 6 used in this piece has been freely provided by Project Gutenburg, under the Project Gutenburg License available at www.gutenberg.net. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The exotic is no stranger to classical music. Whether its the Arabic scales and Indonesian folk melodies throughout Claude Debussys Estampes suite for solo piano, or Giuseppe Verdis Aida, a story of an Ethiopian princess set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the concept of otherness has always been alluring to composers. Cross-cultural influence is inevitable, but several composers throughout history have sought to sonically capture the essence of a foreign world, sometimes even inventing their own idiom to represent the other. Exotic inspiration is consistently filtered through western ideals, and we hear this throughout classical music history.Typically, classical music is used as a blanket term regarding the western art music tradition, which spans from Medieval plainchant sung by monks in the sixth century to Vivaldis The Four Seasons in the 18th century; Beethovens Symphony No.5 all the way to avant-garde atonalism in the 1900s; even sometimes used to describe film music scored for orchestra. But more specifically, Classical music with a capital C refers to music written between roughly 1730 and 1820. All issues of periodisation aside, music from the Classical era had simpler, lighter textures than the complex polyphony of Baroque music and the dense expression of Romantic music to comethe music is marked by cantabile (song-like) melodies, homophonic chordal accompaniment, fixed forms, and a general air of elegance. To refer back to classical music in its broader sense, the term is simply too all-encompassing to produce any definitive understanding of what it actually is. But generally, there is one thing in common between all eras: systems of notation.In Medieval to Baroque music, scores merely gave indications to performersit was expected that performers know how to fill in the rest, usually through improvisation. Scores from the Classical era onwards were increasingly prescriptive in their directions to performers, who were expected to follow the composers markings for speeds, dynamics, articulations, and expressions. And notation is, of course, an issue when it comes to expressing non-western music, much of which relies on aural traditions, through western systems. This is exacerbated by general connotations of superiority regarding western traditions, and score-based performances in general.A parallel example can be made with the issue of notating spirituals, deeply rooted in aural traditions and often created spontaneously. Philadelphia musicologist and piano teacher Lucy McKim Garrison wrote in 1862:It is difficult to express the entire character of these negro ballads by mere musical notes and signs. The odd turns made in the throat; the curious rhythmic effect produced by single voices chiming in at different irregular intervals, seem almost impossible to place on score.On another note, musical thoughts often have their genesis in notation. But notation can also limit and misrepresent the music that exists outside these predetermined systems.Exotic inspiration exists in music of all eras, but it was especially popular in the nineteenth century. At this time, Europe was fast becoming an interconnected and cosmopolitan continent with increased travel between countries and, on a darker note, expanding colonialism. The world beyond Western Europe became even more seductive, representing fantasy, mystery, and even danger and sexual freedom. An especially popular image was that of the Middle Eastern woman, with her darker beauty and serpentine dancing. Opera was an especially large proponent of exoticism, presenting on stage colourful sets and extravagant costumes. And the music itself often became more suggestiveGeorges Bizets opera Carmen, for example, explores pulsating rhythms and tantalising melodies. Carmen spends much of the time entertaining those on stage, rather than expressing her emotions through song, as was typical of operatic heroines. The suggestiveness of the music itself represented female sexuality unhinged, something perhaps even more foreign to audiences.In his thesis Romantic Exoticism: The Music of Elsewhere in the Nineteenth Century, Josiah Raiche defines exoticism as the evocation of distance to create a sound perceived by the listener as belonging to another music tradition. He goes on to identify three ways that composers conveyed otherness in music.The first way of expressing the exotic was to utilise extra-musical elements to create interest, such as costumes or sets in dramatic works, while still relying on Western forms and melodic elements. Exoticism was attractive and marketable, and the oriental grandeur of foreign places drew crowds. For example, Mozarts opera The Abduction from the Seraglio is set in a Turkish harem. Yet the libretto is German, and the opera itself adheres quite closely to the Singspiel genre in three acts.The second method is through romantic exoticism, which relied on how the audience perceived a place. For example, the second piece in Debussys Estampes, titled La soire dans Grenade mimics guitar strumming to evoke images of Granada, Spain. At the time, Debussy had only spent a few hours in Spain and was largely unfamiliar with the folk music. Yet Spanish composer Manuel de Falla said of this movement, There is not even one measure of this music borrowed from the Spanish folklore, and yet the entire composition in its most minute details conveys admirably Spain. Debussy delivers the sonic image that we might have already constructed in our minds, playing on the audiences collective (and romantic) imagination of Spain.The third and final way of conveying otherness was through realistic exoticism, in which gestures and extra-musical features are borrowed, or represented with as much accuracy as possible. Think Bla Bartk, Hungarian composer and musicologist, who travelled around Eastern Europe with a phonograph, collecting the folk songs of gypsies and peasants. As opposed to the stylised idioms of Johannes Brahms Hungarian music, Bartk aimed for highly detailed transcriptions of Eastern European music. In his 1921 journal he wrote:The study of all this peasant music was of decisive meaning to me, because it opened the door to the liberation from the former tyranny of the major and minor systems. while also containing the greatest variety of the most liberated rhythmic patterns and meter changes, in both a kind of rubato [roughly, expressive freedom] as well as tempo giusto [in exact time] performances.The problem with defining and exploring the exotic, however, is that it is rarely possible to understand it on its own. Identified as other, it exists in constant opposition to us. The exotic is the reduced and totalised other against which we construct our understanding of ourselves. Musical orientalism is all too often a matter not of authenticity but of conventions, most of which are invented. Bizets Carmen, for example, is the work of a musician born in Paris, based on the novel of a Parisian author, and adapted for the Opra-Comique by Meilhac and Halvy. The opera was thought to be quintessentially Spanish, and yet Bizet had never travelled to Spainfor Spanish flavour, he sought out folk songs written by Spanish composers. Foreign music was to be used in palatable doses. As Jonathon Bellman writes in The Exotic in Western Music, The exotic equation is a balance of the familiar and unfamiliar: just enough there to spice the here but remain comprehensible in making the point.In September last year, a book was released called The Other Classical Musics: Fifteen Great Traditions. Promisingly, European music is but one chapter, and brought level with the rest. The book surveys the classical music of south-east Asia to North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, from North American jazz to Chinese opera, all analysed according to the same framework. Each music is described in terms of modes, scales, theoretical systems, instruments, forms and aesthetic goals. The authors, almost all schooled in the western tradition of musicology, but some accomplished performers in their music of study, resolve to a broader meaning of classical music, irrelevant of geographical location:A classical music will have evolved in a political-economic environment with built-in continuity where a wealthy class of connoisseurs has stimulated its creation by a quasi-priesthood of professionals; it will have enjoyed high social esteem. It will also have had the time and space to develop rules of composition and performance, and to allow the evolution of a canon of works, or forms; indeed, the concept of a canon, validated by a system of music theory, is a defining feature of all classical music.Furthermore, the authors dispel the notion that classical music is elitist, since almost all classical music has vernacular roots, and there is no hierarchy of superiority ascribed to any one classical music. Just as the authors themselves demonstrate, a western education can equip us with the tools to study other musical cultures, and without constant reference to our own. We can view exotic influences as gateways to understanding musical worlds beyond our own. Or it is hopeful to think so, anyway. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last year, I volunteered for the University of Sydneys (USyd) LINK program, which connects low socio-economic (low-SES), regional, and First Nations high school students with tertiary education opportunities. On one day, I was giving a campus tour of USyd to students from Chifley College, a school in Mt Druitt, Western SydneyIts enrolment comprises 80% of students who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and 17% First Nations students.The boys had been jovial throughout the tour. When we were opposite the Law Lawns, the group stopped me. A few nudged each other, and one spoke up. Where are all the people who look like us?I was immediately embarrassed and surprised. Had he noticed, based on our measly 30 minute tour, that USyds First Nations enrolment amounted to less than 1%? It is undeniable that USyd has a reputation for being uppity. In an online survey taken by current HSC students, USyds reputation oscillates between good and snobby. The term elitism appears ten times, pretentious three times, and conservative/traditional seven times.A student from a school in Parramatta described USyd as full of private school pricks, one from Bardwell Park associated it with arrogant people. A student from Seaforth acutely summarised the default critique: I have heard it is not an ideal university as it is where people go to show off their wealth and [is] marketed to people with a higher income/standard especially those attending private schools.Private school students primarily labelled USyd a prestigious University. This label is contentious considering how many low-SES students criticised USyd for only servicing high-status students.Statistically, USyd has above average numbers of high-SES students, whilst below average numbers of low-SES students. Dr Melissa Hardie, Associate Dean for the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, and Dr Kieryn McKay, Project Manager of LINK, argue that [USyd] has historically been the preserve of an elite body of students, largely derived from private schools and Sydneys selective schools.The rumors that USyd was a high-SES haven were verified in the 2008 Bradley Review. This federal investigation into higher education found that Group of Eight (Go8) universities such as USyd were under-representing low-SES, regional, and First Nations students. The Report recommended governmental intervention to raise the proportion of low-SES students by 20% for 2020. Despite this, government funding for programs which enhance low-SES students participation in tertiary education such as LINK was reduced under the Abbott Liberal government in 2013.Since the report, universities have only made slow improvements. In 2016, USyds student body was made up of only 7.36% of low-SES students and 7.15% of regional students.The highest withdrawal rates are among First Nations students, mature age students, regional students and followed by low-SES students. It begs the question: why do the most underrepresented demographics drop out?The Bradley Review admitted more research is required to explain why certain minority groups fail to complete their studies. One explanation may be the idea of sociocultural incongruity, where low-SES students are exposed to discourses and norms of tertiary education which are incongruous with what is familiar or comfortable. In other words, when minorities mix with the blue-blooded culture on campus, they curdle.Environmental factors do tend to favor high-SES students. Teachers often presume that conditions common to private and selective school students, such as supportive home environments and social well-being, also apply to low-SES students, and conduct their classes with these things in mind. In doing this, they rarely centralise minorities needs, as it can upset the majority and disrupt productivity. Low-SES and high-SES students are also socialised differently. Both are subject to similar academic obstaclesNAPLAN, for example. However, financial advantage differentiates their scores. Through private tutoring, the purchasing of additional textbooks, quiet study spaces and shorter commutes to places of education, the high-SES student has a better chance at academic success. Studies have argued that although private school students are accustomed to privileging University over work, many low-SES students cannot and their performance suffers as a result. High-SES students struggle to recognise that through the lens of a boy from Chifley, USyd is white and privileged. There is a need for better retention programs, more funding for outreach programs and more volunteers willing to exit their bubble and assist programs like LINK.More must be done to erase cultures of class-based oppression. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Were no newcomer to species-wide extinctions: the Tasmanian Tiger, the Quagga and, infamously, the Dodo. With the onset of rampant climate destruction, weve moved onto the next level: the mass extinction of 40% of the worlds insect species.Comprehensive new research co-authored by scientists from The University of Sydney (USyd)and the University of Queensland (UQ) focuses on 73 reports of insect mass extinction from around the world. Through a systematic analysis of the underlying reasons for declining insect populations common to these studies, the researchers highlight the threat to the biodiversity of insect species worldwide. The message is clear: were approaching the planets sixth mass extinction.How has this gone unnoticed for so long? The study claims that conservation studies disproportionately focus on the loss of charismatic vertebrates (read: cute, fluffy animals) and routinely overlook alarming rates of insect population decline. All major insect groupings are being threatened, including butterflies, moths, bees and dung beetles. Whats concerning is that these creepy-crawlies are crucial to the functioning of most of our global ecosystems, and the impact of their disappearance is proving severe.Its a little known that humble butterflies and moths provide us with direct measures of habitat quality. Unfortunately, theyre the most vulnerable to habitat deterioration. Their disappearance affects the delivery of key ecosystem services, pollination and natural pest control. Without these, entire food-chains collapse . The decline of the bee population has equally severe effects. Bees play central roles in food development for humans and their reduced number worldwide directly correlates to the decreased economic value of the areas they frequent. Dung beetles have a unique ecological function that is difficult to replicate. These critters are irreplaceable inthe livestock sector because they assist in decomposing animal waste. Man-made agricultural practices have intensified the work of dung beetles to the point where such practices are accelerating the beetles demise. The catastrophe extends to other animals, where insects are fundamental to their food chains. Insects play an essential role in the diets of most vertebrates such as fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Its no surprise that vertebrates are declining at around half the rate of insects. Nearly 50% of studies point to habitat changesuch as the introduction of invasive species, or city expansion for housingas the leading factor in insect population decline. Beyond this, pollution, climate change and man-made biological factors like disease-ridden microorganisms are the culprits. Climate-change deniers have no counter-argument against the complicity of humans in the decline of insect populations: the science, as per this report, proves it. From untenable rising global temperatures to chemical pesticides, we have been instrumental in creating the calamity.We are witness to the largest extinction on the planet in 250 million years. Its clear that we need radical changes in our agricultural practices. But what remains unclear is whether we will ever actually make any changes, and rationally plan our way out of this crisis. The study argues that ignorance of 70 000-year-old Indigenous farming methods is a driving factor in insect decline in Australia. Given the sophistication of Indigenous practices in maintaining food surpluses for tens of thousands of years, perhaps we ought to look back to a tried-and-tested method of saving our planet. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A conservationists conundrum: lantana and fairy wrens. Lantana, once an ornamental flowering shrub, is a noxious, invasive weed, which competes with native understory plants. Inconveniently for efforts to remove the weed, it also provides valuable shelter to small native birds like fairy wrens, and its removal leaves them vulnerable to threats from predators. This problem means the process of protecting and preserving native flora and fauna populations is no simple enterprise. Pristine ecosystems inevitably require a significant amount of human involvement. This is something of a paradox: the most pristine natural areas today may be the results of vastly more human interference than environs choked with weeds and facing erosion. What is natural, pristine and wild is constructed and up for debate. Social, cultural, and political processes shape what we see as pristine. Western imagery of the noble savage frames Indigenous people as nomadic wanderers who lived without impacting the land, suggesting that nature pre-colonisation was untamed and untouched; this is very clearly a construction when we understand how significantly Aboriginal people altered the landscape upon which they lived, controlling forest ecosystems to their advantage, sustainable through fire and cultivating productive plant species. Wealthy white conservationists living in cities see environmental damage as a tarnishing of a nature previously unscathed; this ignores both the history of land management present in that environment, and that ecosystems are constantly changing. Conservation, in this construction, is the practice of creating stasis in nature, of freezing it at a set point in time. Secondly, natural places themselves are constructed, set aside and protected through the creation of national parks, trails, regulations of their use, entry fees, and so on. The nature that we see has been shaped by efforts to preserve it. If nature is constructed, it complicates conservation efforts and makes us ask, what are we actually trying to conserve? It might be tempting to conclude that human impacts on the environment are inevitable and irreversible, so theres no point in dedicating time and resources to conservation. We could take the classic Western conservationist route of struggling to keep ecosystems static and pristine, despite overwhelming natural and human-induced forces of change. Alternatively, we might conclude that biodiversity does matter, at least in some respect, because humans can extract value from it: diverse ecosystems have a huge range of benefits, from the pharmacological to the environmental or agricultural. Perhaps putting a price tag on nature might finally compel humans to protect it. None of these options seem ideal.Writing off the project of protecting biodiversity altogether is clearly inappropriate. The desire to conserve the ecosystems of the past as we remember them might be futile, but losing diversity in species is very tragic. Quite apart from the many benefits that the environment offers to humans, species have a moral right to exist. We should want to safeguard endemic species and mitigate the damage humans cause to their ecosystems purely because extinctions represent a loss to the world that goes beyond human needs. For the same reason we might protect artefacts of ancient human civilisations, its important to ensure relics of the natural world live on. Flora and fauna add profoundly to earths beauty and diversity, making their loss decidedly something to mourn. Sacrificing the complexity and functionality, as well as the more intangible value of our ecosystems for humanitys material interests is unjust.So we have to do something but what something? The desire to capture nature at one point in time and defend it (probably futilely) against change is based in unrealistic and colonialist understandings of nature. This ideal of pristine wilderness is a mirage, fetishising something which has never existed: some pre-civilisation, perfectly stable vision of nature, untouched. It misconstrues history, framing pre-1788 Australia as untarnished by human machinations. But in reality, the Australian landscape which European invaders surveyed when they arrived on the continent was the product of extensive management. Aboriginal science had developed effective land management mechanisms which delivered what early colonists like Elizabeth Macarthur described as an English parkcommonly attached to the habitations of peopleof fortune. Not such an untamed wilderness after all. Land management as stewardship, then, is a necessity. Some conservationists engage with this need by pointing to market-based solutions as the way to save biodiversity, believing that putting a price tag on the natural world might incentivise preserving it to capitalism-addled humans. This is still not quite right. Although it is correct to point to the undeniable human detriments of environmental destruction (we need only look to the way water shortages in the Murray Darling Basin have simultaneously threatened both natural and human inhabitants), and true that land management should not sacrifice human interests entirely (especially the needs of marginalised groups). But putting a price tag on the natural world is reductive of systems which are colourful, multifaceted, and not just there to serve human interests. Our ways of valuing ecosystems generally prioritise the immediate desires of humans; it is easy to see neoliberal corporations choosing to value short-term profits over long-term environmental conditions. And imperial capitalism doesnt have a great track record with promoting biodiversity: looking at early colonial records suggests our planet has about 10% of the natural abundance and diversity it had before the dominance of capitalism. So its unprincipled to neglect ecosystems altogether, its unviable to revert to a non-existent past, and its unrealistic to expect neoliberal capitalism to deliver radically different environmental results than it usually does. What now? The answer is decolonisation. Ultimately, capitalising on nature puts a price tag on something which isnt ours to value. We dont have to look back to the pre-colonial world as a benchmark for the pristine Eden to which we should return; rather, we should hope to create new abundance like that prior to the ecological impoverishment caused by capitalism. Rejecting corporate bodies and prioritising Indigenous knowledge of the land will allow us to manage natural systems both actively and responsibly. Its important to defend the autonomy of original peoples and counteract the colonial erasure of their scientific processes.In the end, our attitudes towards nature and biodiversity need to change. The idea of the rambunctious garden is a pleasing one, which permits us to actively manage nature (like a garden) to safeguard endangered species and create broader social and environmental benefits. However, the rambunctiousness of nature as a garden means we are allowed to accept flux in nature and let natural systems adapt to change. As constructed as nature is, its occupants deserve considered, passionate conservation from the human world. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> No matter where you stand on the political circumstances developing in Venezuela, the situation is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis. However, in this political maelstrom, the international community has focussed on the insurgencies vying for power, allowing concerns for the day-to-day lives of Venezuelans to fall to the wayside. The selective empathy exhibited by actors within the Venezuelan plight is symptomatic of the larger trend of callous ignorance which saturates US-related conflicts.At a glance, Venezuelas political landscape is volatile, littered with power conflicts. President Nicolas Maduro struggles to maintain power as he stares down challenges of leadership from self-proclaimed President Juan Guido, who leads with the shadowy hand of the US on his shoulder. While this discord is at the crux of contemporary media concerns, the painful scars of external intervention have long been etched into Venezuelas core. The Obama administration played a significant role in such interventionism, declaring Venezuela a national security threat and imposing on it an illegal, non-United Nations backed sanction. Venezuela has adapted to fighting a war on two fronts: one against external malice masquerading as smiling suits of diplomacy, and one against itself.The Guarimbas Protests are a key case study in the Venezuelan crisis. Like many threats to the states stability, these insurgencies are masked as peaceful protests which have harmful ripple effects in reality, blocking off key supply and food routes, and choking out the population. These instabilities have persisted on a backdrop defined by an overwhelming lack of empathy. The West, instrumentalising the suffering of Venezuelans, paints the nation as a poster boy for the failings of socialism. The rest of the international order, albeit more sympathetic to Maduros cause, has given little concern to Venezuelas citizenry.The trickle down effects of this callous strain of political indifference are echoed in the quiet apathy of the USyd microcosm, which mirrors the selective empathy of the global community through Right and Left student discourses. Naturally, the Right echoes Western sentiments, only really expounding the topic as a case study to undermine the factions of the left in debate. This ignores fundamental systemic injustices which contribute to the instability of Venezuelan politics and the anguish of its people. The Right have weaponised the pain of the Venezuelan people to further their own political crusade against the left.This is not to say that the left are immaculate in their engagement with the crisis. The left, although critically supporting Maduros regime and promoting the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial positions, remain blinded to the struggle of the people by providing only a nominal pat on the back to the Maduro administration, for the large part leaving the people of Venezuela as bystanders to their own struggle.Amidst these political struggles and uneven media coverage, the global audience has overlooked the true victims of this political turmoil. The victims are not the figureheads of the movement, nor the Western imperialists who ultimately risk nothing in their meddling. The victims are the people of Venezuela who have the most to lose: and have for the most part already lost. They are the tragic collateral damage of a war that they did not ask for or want and have been reduced to no more than statistics. We overlook not only their agony but their fundamental humanity and rights. If we are to call ourselves humanitarians, we must remain vigilant and sympathetic to the people of Venezuela, who have been torn and broken by the political friction of their home. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last weeks Welcome Festival saw a serious departure from 2016s infamous O-Week heatwave and the drier weather of previous orientation weeks. Those that attended the festival were, however, undeterred by the relentless torrent. Flocks of wide-eyed first years waited in long lines, stocking up on free merchandise, collecting tote bags filled with stationery and other mementos.Honican now reveal who was behind the most popular tote bags at the 2019 Welcome Festival.Over one hour,Honitallied the brands and quantity of tote bags which passed theHonistall on the centre of Eastern Avenue. The total sample size was 300.There were, of course, limitations to this sample. The total dataset may not be entirely representative, capturing students who traversed Eastern Avenue, but not the Gadigal walkway. No measures were taken to ensure students would not be counted twice.In addition, the quantity of tote bags given out is not exactly an exhaustive illustration of a clubs popularity. Several of campus largest clubs, including the Sydney University Law Society (SULS) and Sydney Arts Students Society (SASS) did not provide totes in 2019.This years Welcome Festival played host t0 56 corporate stalls. Among them, fresh off the heels of the Banking Royal Commission and a recent history of exploiting low youth financial literacy during the Dollarmites scandal, was the Commonwealth Bank (CBA). CBA took the lead amongst all the corporate stalls with 35% of tote bags bearing the CBAs trademark yellow.Westpac and the Bank of China as well as a foreign exchange investment and trading organisation, ECN Trade, were also in attendance, no doubt to provide students with the necessary funds to own property by talking to the suited ambassadors at the PW Realty and Landstar Australia stalls.Taking the bronze in the pool of corporate tote bag providers was Student Super, an organisation headed by Andrew Maloney, who also runs StudentVIP and the Lost on Campus app.Across the Manning Road divide, and on Eastern Avenue, student representative organisations including the SRC passed out the most tote bags with 91, far exceeding the USUs 27.Behind the SRC was USyd Women, a group recently formed by Gabi Stricker-Phelps (Shake Up) and Crystal Xu (Panda) who were both elected Wom*ns Officers in a historic breach of the Wom*ns Collectives autonomy.China is the largest source of the Universitys international student community. Naturally there has been a commensurate rise in Chinese student services. Amongst the corporate stalls were the Australian Chinese Overseas Student Association, Australian Chinese Student Association and the Australian Federation of Chinese International Students.With Welcome Week now over, it remains to be seen whether these clubs and corporates will continue to resonate with first-years or whether the pressures of semester will reduce these mementos to memories of a stress-free, pre-semester dream.Heres the full breakdown:Most popular club totesSRC 91, 46%USyd Women 63, 31%SUPRA 11, 6%FMAA 8, 4%UNIT 5, 3%SUBSKI 4, 2%Medsoc 4, 2%Greeksoc 4, 2%Evangelical Union 3, 1%Wildlife Society 2, 1%Most popular corporate totesCBA 174, 35%First Day / Gao Jia Ma Gua 76, 15%Student Super 51, 10%IKEA 44, 9%Unilodge 43, 9%One Stop Online Chinese Shop 33, 7%USU 27, 6%U Sleep U Die 18, 4%Compass Global Education and Immigration 15, 3%Central Park Mall 11, 2% <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In March 2016, the University of Sydneys 2016-2020 Strategic Plan was released, a document introducing the Universitys direction for the next five years. Details of the curriculum changes which took place at the beginning of last year were enclosed and with them, the first mention of the Open Learning Environment (OLE) a program providing units of study designed to teach students generic skills. These skills were to include entrepreneurship, cultural competence, and digital literacy among others. It was also announced that students completing Arts, Science, Economics, and Commerce degrees would be mandated to complete 12 credit points from the OLE pool which could be up to six different units. That means some OLEs are merely two credit points a third of of a full unit load. Whats more, these OLEs would never be counted towards a students major, rendering them a sort of mandated elective, if such an oxymoron can be used. All this puts doubt into their effectiveness. To justify this radical change in the way students organise their degrees, the Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence appealed to maintaining the relevance of university qualifications, a word which seems to have driven every change in educational curricula for the last few decades if not beyond. An op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald from 1987 notes a responsibility being imposed upon educators to form a relevant curriculum through open learning environments.What was so irrelevant about the Universitys graduate qualifications pre-2018, was our lack of employability. According to the Strategic Plan, OLE units will offer skills which contemporary employers require. While a laudable aim, this process reflects a growing belief that it is up to educational institutions to teach skills that were previously gained in extra-curricular experiences through structured coursework. Before, a graduate might have learned public speaking through involvement in debating or student politics. Volunteering work done during their degree might have improved said graduates cultural competence, ethics, or even business skills. Now, OLET2138 will teach you public speaking and OLET2111 teaches ethics, regardless of whether you already have or want these skills.Prudence Wilkins-Wheat, a 3rd-year student, fell into the OLE programme because she transferred to a Law degree in 2018. Wilkins-Wheat was forced to give up on her film studies minor in place of OLE units. She says that OLEs have taken up space in my degree I could be using to advance myself in an area where I actually want to establish myself. While the importance of contemporary professional skills in graduates can be argued for, a further look at some other OLE units weakens the claim that these skills are being taught. Some units appear more like crash courses in topics of cultural interest rather than professional skills, such as OLET1105 Cultures of Food: Europe and OLET1137 Australian Perspectives: Rugby League.Furthermore, the mode of delivery for the more serious OLE units presents a problem in its own right. Some OLEs are completed almost exclusively through online quizzes and online discussion, which can hardly be an effective way of discussing intricate issues such as global ethics. While online and in-person learning is largely mixed in most OLE units, they are structurally very different to a traditional university course, relying on only five hours of face-to-face learning for the whole semester in some instances. Gen Couvret, a 2018 Arts/Law transfer, found her OLE units so short [that the courses werent] a genuine exploration of the subject.Indeed it is hard to believe that students can gain an understanding of the Arab world, for example, that is anything but superficial if they only study it online and at the intensity of one-twelfth of a full time semester load. The Open Learning Environment offers this reality: students are forced to sacrifice 12 credit points of academic coursework from subjects ranging from genetics to criminology. Individuals who never intend to become entrepreneurs or public speakers are coerced into learning such skills. Students who do need and want such an education are only able to do so through brief and shallow courses whose educational effectiveness is yet to be proved to match that of regular full-time teaching. In either case, students agency and opportunity to participate in academic study is reduced, while the proposed aims of the Open Learning Environment are still far from being achieved. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Along with ever-increasing materialism and scientific veneration, the word dogma has taken on a pejorative edge. Where identifiable, an incontrovertible truth simply means an unprovable truth, and an unprovable truth is no truth at all.Society imagines a binary between rational secularism and irrational religion. But in reality, even those who dont follow a religion live their lives aspiring to overarching social narratives, like the family breadwinner or first in the family university student. In many ways, these narratives are very similar in form to religious dogma.Religion involves more than being a supplicant for a deity. At its core, it serves as the highest actionable force. From religion flows the dogma upon which meaning and motivation is moored. A god, or some force approximating and supplanting one, provides the endpoint of an otherwise infinite regress of meaning entrenching a foundation from which the evaluation of importance is made simple and predictable. On the flipside, atheistic ideas have championed rationality and autonomy, seeking verifiable knowledge and freedom from an overarching teleology. God is dead, and the actioning force of religion, at first glance, is conspicuously absent. Atheism may imply an absence of faith, but even the secular world is not free from archetypal, quasi-religious stock stories requiring faith and belief. These stories are promulgated, constantly iterated as they are taught to the next generation. When rigidly applied and accepted as dogmatic truth, these stories result in prescriptive ideas of success and career paths.Social stock stories are born as reflections of a broader cultural fabric, and consequently become self-evident.In a Western, middle-class context, there is almost transcendent aspiration, materially underpinned by capitalist desires for wealth generation and ideologically entrenched through the liberal value of the individual based in work and merit.Societal narratives revere those able to create the highest levels of personal advancement, forging concrete tales of expectation and desirability, like the unspoken expectation that each generation moves up from the social or economic station of the preceding. This fundamental expectation becomes the yardstick of what is worthwhile and is carried down through each generation; value is placed on things like education, hard work and income, and the specific means of achieving each are promoted and enforced within families. These tales take on a life of their own by becoming common to specific groups in society. Take the suburban nature of many middle-class families. To the uninitiated, the appearance of monotonous repetition from each household leaves little room for unique individuality. These commonalities range from similar houses, general family structures, and similar employment prospects and incomes. When parents pursue the subconscious desire to abrogate this conformed structure to differentiate the self, and fail, the hope for future generations to improve the standard of living pulsates through parental expectations, reframing success along the action-guiding lines of education. Desires for further education are prompted and departure from the previous generations shortcomings are promoted. The stock story of the first-in-family university student is created. Once actualised, these stories are only affirmed by intergenerational influence, repeated as time passes and taking on an ever-growing popularity amongst certain communities, these tales lose their artificial nature and are entrenched as dogma. When hearing rags-to-riches tales, or seeing those around fulfilling the narrative and achieving success, the story becomes all the more real; not only is it possible, but it is also desirable to follow it. The road to success shrinks into a single, tried-and-tested lane which is rigidly enforced. The realisation of stock stories of success imposes strict lessons like the apparent fact that a service-based occupation trumps manual labour the rule that tertiary education must be undertaken for success or that long hours are inevitable when seeking career progression. These decisions may seem autonomous but all are the product of conceptualisations of success rooted in dogma and packaged in common sense. The actualisation of these stories only perpetuates further dogma. These secular stories exist ad infinitum, guiding every member of society, affirming or rejecting their convictions and actions, in individualised ways. Society may despise dogma, but it loves a good story. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The effects of an ecstasy pill materialise anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes after consumption. Most will begin to sense a euphoria, a reduction in inhibitions and appetite, and feelings of closeness, love and empathy. In societies which criminalise this experience, another likely side effect is contempt for the law. This contempt is driven by the unsolicited and unaccountable attempts by police to control not only peoples diets but even civil liberties as basic as public congregation.Public debate around drug policy, especially amid festival cancellations, including Mountain Sounds and Psyfarim this month, consistently fails to question whether lawmakers have the rightlet alone the aptitudeto legislate a Puritan ethic for the entire population.Respectable discourse has focused on health and pragmatic concerns: those amenable to state compulsion, interspersed with expedient concoctions of drug epidemics plaguing poor and minority communities. Lessons from previous prohibition experiments are forgotten, and cycles of public fear and outrage predictably continue.The Berejiklian governments bugbears are not unprecedented. For the 20th century Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, alcoholism was not one of Frances three grands flaux but actually the whole social problem. Clemenceau oversaw record-breaking increases in arrests for public drunkenness during periods of working-class agitation. For decades prior, French doctors were cataloguing the effects of alcoholism with growing alarm a gateway to inevitable violence, criminality, and death or institutionalisation. In the 1930s the American Bureau of Narcotics circulated a pamphlet describing Marihuana as a killer drug.Even if one generously waives all past abuse of state power, citizens still possess no right to proscribe hobbies that cause no injury to others. As the patron saint of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill, wrote in On Liberty: the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. Of all the political organisations one might expect to defend drug use on these grounds, especially given their constitutional ratification of the freedom of citizens to choose their own way of living and of life, subject to the rights of others, the Liberal Party is easily the most tragic case.This charge of hypocrisy usually inspires two deflections a resort to technical definitions and a taxpayer argument, both recycled in a recent op-ed in Quadrant by Peter OBrien. OBriens core argument is premised on a selective quotation of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of condone, the insight being that pill testing condones risky or offensive behaviour. One might similarly argue that by mandating the testing of reserve parachutes, governments champion jumping from planes.OBrien also employs another reactionary banalitythe helpless taxpayer plea by refusing to consider subsidising ecstasy-induced hospitalizations, even though evidence from all over the world indicates that significant numbers of people maintain controlled patterns of drug use over long periods while upholding the obligations of normal life, according to Dr Cameron Duff at Curtin Universitys National Drug Research Institute. Youthful ecstasy users are peculiarly burdensome, suggests OBrien, compared to long-term smokers, who by virtue of the punitive excise on [their] favoured vice, have already paid society for the services they may eventually withdraw. Yet OBrien makes no comparable case for abolishing sport, which injured one in 17 Australians and cost the country $1.5 billion in 2003, according to a Medibank report with sportspersons between the ages 15 to 29 twice as likely to contribute to the burden laid upon the taxpayer.Once these extremely basic incongruencies in Australian drug law are admitted, one is inevitably led to the conclusion that the Berejikian government is desperately trying to rationalize an illiberal and ultimately petty tyranny. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This year, both the University of Sydney (USyd) and the University of Sydney Union (USU) have changed the name of Orientation Week (O-Week) to Welcome Week, reasoning that the term O-Week has become too deeply associated with instances of sexual assault. Ever since these decisions of the University and USU became public knowledge, debate as to the efficacy of such a change was sparked on the most prestigious of forums, USyd Rants. Online opponents of the change have broadly stated that changing the name of orientation week will do little to stop sexual assault on campus. Less publicised is the fact that the idea for changing the name was recommended in the now infamous Broderick Review into residential college culture. This recommendation was not aimed at the University or USU, though both institutions have latched onto it. The question remains as to whether the target demographic of the Reviews recommendation, USyds residential colleges, have followed suit.In a 53 page action plan released on its website, St Pauls College outlined how it would implement each of the recommendations of the Review, including . One action point involves changing the name of O-Week to Welcome Week. Bizarrely, another action point centres around having one or more alcohol free days in the orientation programme. Beyond the fact that intoxication cant excuse sexual misconduct, the notion of limiting consumption in a model that resembles a concentrated form of 1920s U.S. style prohibition is unlikely to bode well, as 18 year olds tend to get their hands on alcohol even under the most trying circumstances. Apart from this strange prescription, and despite the name change, most of the changes in St Pauls orientation week practices appear vague.The action plan notes that students will be educated about hazing, but does not specify by whom or in what capacity, with little to no consultation with feminist groups on campus as to the most effective programs available. Its prudent to question how effective any such education on hazing would be, when student hierarchies are maintained through a concentration of power in student orientation leaders, who will oversee orientation activities.Most problematically, it is ambiguously described that investigations will continue to be conducted by the Sub-Warden, meaning investigations into hazing and sexual assault will transpire internally. The fact that the majority of decision making happens behind closed doors is the very thing that has invoked significant of criticism of college culture. Processes of accountability remain covert and hidden from the public eye, leading many to believe that perpetrators of sexual assault are let off to maintain the reputation of their particular college. Its apparent that any sentiment of change is undermined by the fact that the Collegesas a separate entity to the Universitylack sufficient oversight, despite efforts by the Broderick Review to encourage increased cooperation between the two institutions.Not that this secrecy is particular to St Pauls. Other colleges at USyd have not publicly released any action plan to implement the recommendations of the Broderick Review. Honi reported in December 2018 that St Johns College went so far as to withhold its internal review into allegations of sexual assault made in the Red Zone Report, which was released by advocacy group End Rape On Campus during orientation week last year and outlined 40 years of hazing and sexual assault in Australian residential colleges. Walkley award winning journalist and author of the Red Zone Report, Nina Funnell told Honi that a mere name change is a superficial fix to a deeply ingrained structural problem. One in eight sexual assaults which happen this year will likely happen this week. When some behaviour is so entrenched in specific institutions, to the extent that it is hailed as tradition, its unlikely that any name change will reduce sexual violence at USyd this weekat least so long as residential college procedures and accountability mechanisms remain clandestine. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A Chinese translationof this appears hereSince 2017, Australian universities have raised tuition fees, particularly for international students, in efforts to contend with the Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS), whose pool of funds is sinking.Changes made to the CGS in 2017 were predicted to save the federal government $2.8 billion in funding over the next four years. As a result, funding provision was made contingent on particular universities student admissions and levels of financial transparency. In 2019, more thresholds have been added, such as the individual success rates of each eligible student.This would explain the 54% increase of international student enrolments over the past five years.According to the NSW Audit Office 2017 annual report, universities have dealt with decreased funding provision by substituting in overseas students tuition fees. These fees have increased by 23% across NSW, resulting in $2.8 billion for its universities. Overseas student tuition payments contributed $6 billion to federal university revenue.Imaginably, international students are bearing the brunt of increased tuition fees which appear to serve universities financial interests over their own.Amanda Suslio, a USyd Medical Science student, told Honi that the cost of each unit goes up by not hundreds, but thousands of dollars. She explained that an international student studying mechanical engineering at USyd commented that the need for extra money to be put aside for course fees has caused daily spending restrictions for their family.RMIT University academic Jenny Weight has argued that limited access to the GGS necessitates universities viewing international students as huge cash cows in a cash poor sector theyre almost desperately dependent on international student income.Beyond financial difficulties, international students face additional hurdles. It is often put forward that overseas students speaking English as a second language are expected to sink or swim when keeping up with tertiary level material.The ABC noted in 2018 that English language standards are often too low, or can be sidestepped via loopholes.Indeed, almost 25% of international students in Australia can now enrol in university courses through the English Language Intensive course for Overseas Students (ELICOS). ELICLOS involves 10 to 20 weeks of intensive English lessons and assessments, allowing direct entry without needing to take more prevailing exams such as IELTS.The lowering of English language standards is no doubt linked to universities need for international student tuition fee revenue, despite the fact that language barriers would inevitably cause international students to become disadvantaged in tertiary studies.The combination of increased tuition fees alongside lowered language standards has some international students ability to engage in campus life. Amaris Jiang, an international student studying Education at the USyd, commented that she was overloaded with additional self-taught English courses during her first semester whilst completing other units of study. In addition, she became increasingly stressed about the idea of failing a unit, considering the substantial cost of tuition fees for each subject. The unfortunate outcome was her decreased involvement in university life in efforts to distribute time for studying.Universities hoarding of cash cows has allowed them to increase their funding at the expense of international student wellbeing. As alternative avenues of university funding beyond the CSG appear hazy, maybe a more practical immediate option is the introduction of ad-hoc English speaking programs on campuses. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> University staff and students are facing the fight of our lives to defend higher education against rabid cuts, job losses and restructuring precipitated by the COVID-19 crisis. We must not accept any compromise with university management and the government, and instead demand that they shoulder the burden of bailing out higher education. This is the only way to preserve the quality of our education whilst defending staff jobs, wages and conditions in the sector.For decades the university system has operated by hyper-exploiting international students, who are forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in exorbitant annual fees. This model has been destroyed by the COVID-19 crisis and will be unsalvageable in its aftermath. Grappling with a catastrophic collapse in revenue, which modest estimates from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) put at a minimum of $5 billion in losses nationally for this year, vice chancellors are out for blood. In this context, only an immediate transition away from a user-pays model to full public funding and the abolition of fees can defend staff and students alike. The bosses alternative is savage cuts and stratospheric fee hikes.University managements are vicious at the best of times, but this crisis has taken their actions to new lows. Almost as soon as the semester began, vice chancellors had already started implementing austerity measures on staff and students to try and recover lost revenue. At Sydney University, this has seen a series of attacks including mass layoffs of casual staff, a freeze on new hiring, increased workloads for admin staff, teachers forced to rewrite entire courses for online consumption in a matter of days, and attempts to introduce labour hire in student admin services to undercut wages. The response of the University of Tasmania, which has culled the number of available courses from 514 to 120, with only the most profitable remaining, is a worrying signal of future trends.As the crisis drags on, managements are now waging a nationally coordinated, full-frontal attack on staff across the sector. Universities Australia, the organisation which represents university bosses, is already threatening mass sackings, claiming that at least 21,000 workers will lose their jobs. One possible solution that has been thrown around in discussions to recoup the shortfall could be that staff only work 0.8 FTE hours, something which would result in a net 20% reduction in take-home pay. Hardly a solution for staff. Over the last few years, universities have been battlegrounds for a systematic neoliberal offensive. The current breakneck acceleration of this process threatens to irreparably damage higher education unless we stop it in its tracks.In the face of these unprecedented attacks, the national leadership of the NTEU has rolled over with barely a whimper of protest. In an email sent to the national membership by NTEU National Secretary Matt McGowan, the union unveiled their strategy: trading away pay rates and conditions won over generations of battles, in exchange for job security. McGowans email neglects to mention casual workers, tens of thousands of whom have already been laid off across the sector. The failure to even mention the most precarious workers in the sector suggests that the rationale of job security simply obscures a far deeper-seated reluctance to fight on the part of the national leadership, a surrender that would spell disaster for higher education.Within the union, this strategy of throwing away hard-won wages and conditions has sparked fury from members, who see the strategy outlined by McGowan as both defeatist and undemocratic, due to the lack of consultation with members before concessions were made. Summarising the anger, Sydney University NTEU activist Alma Torlakovic wrote: The NTEU National Office have responded in a highly undemocratic and defeatist way. They have flagged they are willing to sacrifice our hard-won pay and conditions during secret negotiations with government and university bosses, in exchange for job security, something the bosses and the sector cannot be kept to. This strategy has been decided on without any fight and without any member input. It is a disgrace.But anger is being turned into action. Drawing on a healthy tradition of union activism that saw strike campaigns in 2013 and 2017, the Sydney University branch of the NTEU censured the national leadership and pledged to fight on, in a landmark motion voted up by members 117 to 2. The motion condemned the politics of giving up without a fight, Torlakovic said. It was rank and file members taking initiative and calling out the national leadership. Following the Sydney University staffs lead, the censure motion is now being moved in union branches across the country, and hundreds nationwide have signed on to a defiant public statement rejecting the national leaderships approach. Members are preparing a campaign to vote no to any compromise deal that the union leaders try to garner approval for.Students have a direct stake in supporting this staff campaign. As the slogan goes, staff working conditions are student learning conditions. This is as true as it has ever been. In the short term, honours students have already seen supervisors laid off overnight. Weve had classes rushed online with totally inadequate preparation, and we are expected to pay the same fees. Student services are totally overrun, and staff shortages mean an increasingly dysfunctional bureaucracy for students to navigate. International students have been particularly hard hit, and face very difficult circumstances without any social safety net. In the long term, we can only expect this to get worse. And theres certainly no reason that the same logic that argues staff should work harder for less pay wont be applied to students, in the form of paying higher fees for a degraded education.The package announced by Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan over the weekend is a farce in comparison. Even the bosses acknowledge this, with Universities Australia chair Deborah Terry claiming that there is nowhere near enough in it to cover gaping revenue losses, qualifying this by saying that the bosses were doing their bit by already cutting costs across the board. So pathetic is the scope of this rescue package that under the scheme, one in six staff will still lose their job. Universities remain excluded from the JobKeeper program, which despite serious flaws could help keep workers paid through the health crisis.Its not as if theres no money in the system for higher education. In a few short weeks weve seen Scott Morrison throw hundreds of billions at corporations. Theres no reason this couldnt go to bailing out staff and students instead. Even short of this, universities are wealthy institutions in their own rights. In 2017, Sydney University had $432million in reserves and according to the 2018 annual report, the University holds more than $1.5 billion in investments, that bring in an annual income of over $135 million. In the short term, university managements can and should be forced to pay for this crisis out of their own pocket.Rather than rolling over, students and staff must refuse to pay a single cent to bail out the bosses. Any concession made to management or the government, be it on jobs, wages, conditions or fees, will hurt the quality of education and mean that ordinary students and staff shoulder the burden of this crisis. Instead, we must demand that the bosses pay, and squarely lay the blame on the exploitative user-pays model that has made them hundreds of millions in profits over the last few decades.If you wish to get involved in the campaign, NTEU activists have asked for union members to support them by signing this statement. You can also follow the Education Action Group page. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I originally pitched this article, I had anticipated that COVID-19 would present new challenges that called for entirely new approaches to organising workplaces. For instance, organising a workplace is usually more productive when you can have political conversations in person in order to create collective demands to level against your employer. Living in a time of self-isolation has meant that the use of online avenues to organise have been necessary in the face of the current issues posed by the pandemic, which workers have bore the brunt of. What I did not anticipate was the more critical engagements with unionism that would arise and the surge in rank and file organising that has ensued. COVID-19 is not the specific reason we need a Young Workers Centre in New South Wales it has merely rendered existing unfair structures such as the casualisation of the workforce that affects young workers more visible. The importance of young workers being able to access resources that truly engage them in the union movement is now more fully realised.The goal of a Young Workers Centre, at its core, is to recognise the necessity of providing specific resources on organising the workplace, legal advice and tailored education to young workers. On top of this, a Young Workers Centre can reach out to the next generation of workers through visiting schools in order to empower them against exploitation. Currently in Australia, Young Workers Centres have been established in Victoria, South Australia and most recently in the Australian Capital Territory. With the 2016 launch of the Victorian Young Workers Centre, then coordinator, Keelia Fitzpatrick stated that the centre would address a gap in support available for young workers, citing an analysis undertaken, which indicated that more than half of young people seeking legal assistance about their workplace were being turned away due to lack of dedicated services.In NSW, just as any other state in Australia, young workers make up a large percentage of the hospitality and retail industries. Just this year, it was reported that hospitality giant, Merivale, had underpaid a largely young workforce to the tune of $126 million. Merivales exploitation of workers does not exhaust the problems that young workers face. Indeed, many hospitality and retail groups have been embroiled in similar court claims and there are also those smaller groups who slip under the radar. The young people who work in these industries in NSW have not been provided adequate and dedicated resources or platforms to organise their workplace. Court claims against businesses who underpay or mistreat their staff are effective to a point but there must be particular avenues in place in order to affect meaningful change for young workers. There is also the issue of the disproportionate exploitation that young apprentices in all industries face which has not received proper, tailored attention thus far.This is not to say that the current model of existing Young Workers Centres around Australia do not need improving themselves. As NSW does not have one yet, we are in a unique position to demand an effective model, reshaping them to better support young workers. There is a tendency for these centres to follow a model that focuses on recruitment and individual servicing. While it is important that young people join their union, the focus on recruitment and individual servicing ignores the question of why young people should join their union. We want young people to be critically and ideologically engaged in the union movement, so we should be emphasising the importance of rank and file activity in unions over the unions own activity. Ultimately, the main goal of a union is not what it can do for its members individually but rather what it can allow its members to do through collective organising. A Young Workers Centre in NSW has the opportunity to provide a very unique and crucial engagement with young workers that could really change the way unions operate in NSW.So this leaves a very important question: what should a Young Workers Centre in NSW look like? The Young Workers Centre in the ACT, which first launched in 2019, provides an excellent case study for a centre that NSW should be striving for. Crucially, they are largely campaign based. In one of their first campaigns, they discovered that 77% of students who worked on campus were not getting paid the correct wage. It was through having conversations with students about the importance of organising and giving them the tools to do so that allowed these young workers to level demands against their employers. Just last week, they set up Young Workers COVID-19 Response, a weekly online discussion group aimed at developing strategies to call for an evictions ban at the Australian National University and the University of Canberra for students living in residential halls. It is this deep connection with what union organising is all about that I want for NSW. It is this emphasis on connecting young workers that I imagine a Young Workers Centre in NSW would have to centre in its work for it to be a meaningful contribution to the union movement. What a Young Workers Centre in NSW should centre in its mission is facilitating the empowerment of rank and file organisers in the struggle against exploitation and engaging young workers with specific resources that are tailored for them. However, it must also realise the importance of a generation of union minded young workers to the entirety of the union movement. Most importantly, a Young Workers Centre in NSW should be focused on the way young workers can contribute to the strategic direction of unions. An ideal Young Workers Centre should be training and educating young people, but ultimately following their lead. A new Young Workers Centre in a time where people are becoming more critical of the way unions currently operate has the possibility to create a new generation of unionists who are not just simply members of their unions but are more actively involved in organising workplaces. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Friends, brothers, sisters, and of course most importantly, our enemies. Allow me to begin with a basic question; why are we truly here?Do we honestly believe that the Australian government will condemn, in the harshest possible terms, the actions of the Indian regime? Of course not. How could they? Not two months ago, our Prime Minister was willing to abandon this country during one of its worst climate crises, to lick the boots of the Butcher of Gujarat in India. And, if its not that sycophants free will that impels him to cosy up to Indias fascists, his American masters have just announced their love for India and a desire to strengthen ties with the Asian superpower.Do we think that the Australian government will open its borders to the thousands of Muslims, likely to be rendered stateless and stripped of their rights in the face of a violent nationalist government? Of course not. This is the government that puts Rohingyan children in off-shore prisons. The government which turns a blind eye, as children on Manus set themselves on fire. The government which exists on stolen land, subjecting first nations communities to domination, subjugation and every other type of malicious ation one could possibly imagine. Make no mistake. There is no delusion amongst us, that Australia will develop a set of morals today.Why then are we here? Standing outside the consulate of India few and far between demanding an end to the system of Hindutva that takes the lives of our Muslims brothers and sisters daily. The answer is simple. For those of us who wish to take a stand, who wish to challenge the fascist government in Delhi, there is nowhere left for us to go. What do I mean by that?I mean that we face a media, who have a tendency to align themselves with the conservative and sinister interests of the state. Which, as Malcolm X told us, has a tendency not to place the proper importance upon what they hear, especially when theyre hearing it from persons they cant control. Which will have you believe that the price of toilet paper, should be of greater importance to you than the millions of Muslims in India, being hosed down daily with the gagging perfume of fascism.I mean that we face a state that will have you believe that they are the moral arbiters of justice. All the while smiling and shaking the hands of genocidal maniacs around the world in the pursuit of their unjustified economic wars. Who put their hubris and commitment to fighting communism ahead of the obligations they owe to the worlds most persecuted communities. Who were happy to peddle a policy of divide and conquer while they bankrolled their colonies from stolen wealth, only to then turn a blind eye to its effects when they had taken everything we had left to give.In the face of those factors, we cannot rely on any traditional methods of communicating our message. The time has come for us to speak directly to our comrades in India. To let our friends on the front lines know that we will no longer remain in blissful oblivion to the harsh realities of their true condition. To let them know that we stand here, before the Indian government, declaring in no uncertain terms that we support the emancipation of Indias Muslim communities. That we are willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to fulfil that cause. And that, around the world, people like us will take to the streets to ensure our voices are heard.I see amongst the host of communities in this crowd, a lot of students much like myself. Take for a second, the opportunity to place yourselves in the shoes of those calling for justice in India. Many of them, youths and university students just like us. Shahid Khan Alvi, an auto-rickshaw driver shot in the stomach. Mehtab, a 22-year-old, the same age as me and many of my friends burnt to death. The hundreds of students at Jamia, sitting in a library, as Indian police officers stormed their campus and beat them mercilessly. The 9-month old baby, burnt alive in her house, as the Indian government sadistically watched on. What was the India she would have grown up in?Indias Muslim community has been pushed to their limits for far too long. Theyve been subjected to every possible atrocity imaginable and told to be thankful that theyre living in a secular state. These protesters are not anti-Indian. They have every right to be, but they are not. The BJP government should thank their Hindu gods that the 200 million Muslims in India have not become anti-Indian. But do not blindly demand peace from the protesters. Not when you have burnt them alive. When you have robbed them of their brothers, sisters, parents and children; of an entire generation of thinkers, mentors and cultural leaders. When you have given them every reason to turn violent. This is a community that is ready to define freedom on its own terms. A community that has the desire for revolution in their hearts. A community that is ready to test the strength in their executioners arms. A community that, after 73 years of subjugation will no longer remain silent. You have reduced their houses down to rubble. There is nowhere left for them to go but the streets. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> William Wright: Yes3,900 is not a small number. It makes up almost 12% of the USyd undergraduate population, and it is an unambiguous mandate for a pass/fail grading system to be implemented this semester at USyd.In the past 72 hours, 3,900 people have signed our petition demanding the Vice-Chancellor move to a pass/fail system for grading given the unprecedented circumstances being experienced by all USyd stakeholders during COVID-19.The need is clear: a fair and reliable method of learning and assessment cannot be maintained without a pass/fail system.Online learning is an inadequate substitute for our regular system of learning. It unfairly disadvantages kinaesthetic learners, giving an advantage to visual and auditory learners. For domestic students, the instability of the NBN makes meaningful engagement with complex course content nearly impossible. Patchy connections, feedback loops, echoes and other issues arise from using applications such as Zoom.The inadequacies in the current USyd system of online learning makes the playing field uneven. Those from more affluent backgrounds will be able to gain better access to the online learning environment, whether that be a result of a better internet connection, better living conditions, no need to look for new jobs, no need to care for others, etc. Better access means better information, and that usually means better grades. That is not how university is supposed to work. This is not to mention those in regional/rural areas or international students who have to deal with the unreliability of VPNs.And many of us still face the prospect of ProctorU supervised online exams. This is reasonably causing widespread consternation as a result of its apparent invasion of privacy. I will not go into it further in this article, but an online search yields troubling results.USyd prides itself on being ranked amongst the best universities in the world. While I do not advocate that we simply follow what others are doing, the fact that universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Columbia have moved to a pass/fail system is telling. For students of those universities, as of ours, the threat of poor or atypical grade performance is a real one for future job prospects. This should be the last worry in the minds of students who face the challenges of finding substitute employment, housing or even meals during this difficult and unprecedented period.The main criticism of our proposal has apparently come from Honours students or those who wish to boost their WAM. We should not let the tail wag the dog. A simple and effective method of addressing this issue is to make pass/fail an opt-in system. This will have the effect of addressing the concerns of the student population. At the same time, this will give a reprieve to teachers who are struggling under the current circumstances.This is not an easy time for any of us: thousands of students have lost casual employment, thousands dont know where their next rent cheque is coming from, and all of us are terrified for our health and wellbeing. The last thing we need to worry about is our grades. It is now more than ever that we need our University to support us. This is a semester unprecedented in the history of this University, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Its time to ease the burgeoning stress on our students.We ask the Vice-Chancellor to please reconsider our proposal. To individual faculties, we ask you to consider this proposal yourselves, like the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW.To those who havent yet signed the petition, the link is here: Petition Move to a Pass/Fail grading system for USyd during COVID-19.Lauren Lancaster: NoThis week the UNSW Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering became the first Australian university faculty to transition to a coronavirus-prompted pass/fail grading system. On Friday 27 March, the Vice-Chancellor sent a University-wide email clarifying that the University of Sydney would not follow suit.When multiple Ivy Leagues have taken the same route as UNSW in adopting this system, it raises the question did Spence make the right call? At least in this instance, it would appear he did.The case against pass-fail emerges from consideration of the initial goals of the system, its devolution to the present day and the implications it would have on future performance and student welfare.The pass/fail system emerged as a response to the 1960s American college protests, focused not only on civil rights and war but also on a transformation of teaching and learning. As Mario Savio (of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement) stated in 1964, universities had become machines and students bodies upon the gears capitalist servants rather than emboldened thinkers capable of moral and intellectual revolt.The pass/fail system allowed students to explore subjects outside their core degree without fear of a GPA drop. The scientists could take a poetry course, and the poets could venture into physics. However, by the 70s the pass/fail system became corrupted and students used it to game university, to achieve their degree with the minimum amount of work.Thats the situation we find ourselves in now pass/fail grading is a numbing exercise that will demotivate students and leave those struggling even further behind. It is not an appropriate remedy to the distress and displacement caused by COVID-19.Psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Decis theory of self-determination helps explain why the pass/fail system is problematic. The two of the pillars of the theory are purpose and mastery: purpose is the intrinsic or extrinsic shaping of our need to do something, while mastery is the autonomous pursuit of a greater understanding of that which gives us purpose.A students purpose is to, simplistically, do well in their subjects so that they can achieve their degree. Achievement of purpose is quantified using the metric of marks. The grading system allows progress to be tracked and future study optimised committing to a goal for an assessment is a simple and effective way to push ourselves to achieve, even if we may fall short.Abolishing a nuanced grading system in favour of a pass/fail system diminishes purpose. This in turn impacts directly on the pursuit of mastery. It does not incentivise a student to seek to excel. And by the same token, it demotivates more able students why would you try hard in a subject if you will be lumped in with 50% of your cohort who do not necessarily share your passion for it?In such bizarre times, it is a small but meaningful comfort to have a number motivating you to roll out of bed and do something other than disappear into a black hole of existential dread and three-day-old hot cross buns.Marks are also necessary for scholarship students, honours courses or transfers that require WAMs and achievement details to maintain high-quality programs. Even if there are exclusions that protect these students, the discretion should be in the hands of students as to whether they receive a mark for each unit, or opt for pass-fail. Autonomy is key and far preferable to a blanket decision made in the shadowy halls of the University administration.Further, a pass/fail system is just another way for universities to absolve themselves of responsibility for student welfare. Changing the grading system does nothing to meaningfully assist students struggling with at-home study, online assessment or the drastic loss of connection to friends and family. Instead, the University must fund better student support services (Student Centre wait times, looking at you), remove barriers to special consideration and increase mental health service support.Should Spence revisit the Universitys decision, it should only be with optional pass/fail in mind. However, we must not overhaul our grading system prematurely in reaction to a pandemic that will end.Stay positive, stay connected and we will get through this! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As I sit at home studying during the coronavirus crisis because I cant go into university, I hear Scott Morrisons voice. His latest announcement is that select welfare recipients will be given an additional $550 per fortnight for the next 6 months, bringing the total fortnightly payment per recipient to above $1,000. With industry grinding to a halt and the economic burden already being felt most viciously by precarious workers (who make up a staggering 40% of Australias workforce) my initial reaction is relief. A closer look at this second stimulus package, however, reveals more of the same pro-capital agenda that the Federal Government has been peddling since their first day in parliament, and its not good for students.I could wax lyrical about the billions of dollars the government is directly and indirectly handing over to the big banks (who by all accounts should still be reeling from reputational damage caused by the banking royal commission) to prop up the financial system, but I wont. What I want to focus on is the unjust binary the government has drawn between students and workers, and the way this has been deployed to deny students economic security in this period of radical uncertainty.Students who are on Youth Allowance (excluding those on Youth Allowance for Job Seekers), Austudy or ABStudy will not receive the additional payment support. The very term student has been used to obscure the fact that, except for a minority who receive private financial support, students are workers who study.Lets think about what exclusion from this stimulus package means for most students. Students are much more likely to work in insecure, casual jobs, due to the competing demands of study, and a lack of qualifications. If, because of this crisis, a student is let go from their insecure employment, they will not receive any government support. The government has not ensured that employers of students have any responsibility to support them either. This means that the most that students like me will have left to survive on is $300 (including the rental assistance payment) per week. This is before rent, which at a conservative estimate costs Sydney students at least $200 per week. In the context of a necessary transition from face-to-face to online learning, university fees remain unchanged and it is once again students who are at a loss.The potential impacts of this crisis on student welfare are hard to overstate. The instability of the coronavirus inherently generates anxiety about the future. Add to this a government that refuses to provide security and you are left with students who are feeling physically and mentally exhausted, and unable to focus on their studies.What students need now more than ever is security. The government should take this opportunity to provide us with assurance that we are valued, and that our education still matters. The most obvious way to do this would be to double its woefully low student payment schemes. They could also offer free university throughout this period or significantly decrease student fees, but they have chosen not to.In the absence of student support from the government, the same old message is loud and clear if we cannot afford to study without working then we are not deserving of the privilege of tertiary education. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Social movements have been instrumental in shaping our legal landscape. Yet it seems that the word activism has become a dirty word in the law student community. For those in the legal field, activism is often perceived to be an unproductive pursuit, with community and pro bono work or law reform considered the primary means of change. I think that we need to reconsider this rigid view of the relationship between law, politics, and activism. Ultimately, more law students and lawyers should be standing on the front lines of our social movements.While it is not within the scope of this article to give a detailed account of what activism means, I will address two common misconceptions. Firstly, that activism consists only of public demonstrations or civil disobedience. While these do play an important role, activism also encompasses acts of self-education, lifestyle choices, and conversation, all with a mind to improving the system. Essentially, its about building a movement of people that care about a particular cause. Secondly, that activism exists in binary; you either devote all your time to it or you dont do anything at all. Such a way of thinking is prohibitive and makes getting involved seem insurmountable. You can support and promote action on social issues while going about your day.Law students aversion to activism largely stems from the way we are taught. Because of how curriculums are structured, we tend to view the law with an instrumental, technocratic and doctrinal mindset. We spend most of our degree focusing on vocational skills, learning to extract legal principles from court decisions and applying them to hypothetical scenarios, leaving very little room to meaningfully discuss policy considerations or normative arguments. In other words, we examine what the law is, but rarely what the law should be. While this equips students with practical and technical skills, it restricts us from asking critical questions about how the law interacts with broader structures of gender, race, and class, and results in an arbitrary distinction between legal problems and societal problems.Further, the social and political forces that have impacted legal developments are invisible within the law school. We are cautioned against excessive politicisation of the courts and judicial activism, and are instructed to read pages upon pages of landmark court judgements completely devoid of their historical contexts. This skews our collective perspective on the value of activism, leading many to believe that social movements have little to do with the law. On the contrary, many doctrines that now define the Australian legal system were responses to social movements.The Mabo decision, which overturned the long-standing legal fiction of terra nullius, was a pivotal moment in the Aboriginal land rights movement. It came after decades of protests by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples beginning in the 60s the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the Wave Hill Walk Off and a subsequent string of legislative reform. The judgement in the Tasmania Dam case, which enabled the Federal Parliament to give effect to Australias international treaties, was handed down after a blockade by environmental activists and the Hawke government promising to stop the construction of the Franklin Dam.What, then, should we do as aspiring lawyers to meaningfully contribute to social change? Pro bono and community legal work are an important means of assisting people experiencing disadvantage and the organisations that support them. Further, participating in law reform campaigns will allow you to play a critical role in shaping the development of law in Australia, and is vital to ensuring that legislative changes are backed by consultation and sound research. Many people choose to draw the line here; indeed, there is a growing ideology within the legal community that favours such practical forms of action over activism. However, I would argue the natural next step is activism for two reasons.Firstly, while community legal work can effectively solve individual problems, one must go deeper in order to address broader systemic issues that produce such individual problems in the first place. This is precisely what activism purports to do. A pro bono lawyer will be able to help an Aboriginal person secure housing, whereas an Indigenous rights activist will be able to raise public awareness about discrimination Aboriginal tenants face in the rental market; the starting point for reducing homelessness in Aboriginal populations altogether.Secondly, there is only so much we can do by simply changing the law. It is not possible to achieve structural change through a top-down mandate, as entrenched practices do not easily lend themselves to codification and statutory restrictions. Instead, it requires concerted and consistent efforts by citizens, government and corporations to transform our political culture and effectuate such change. Recent efforts to ensure genuine compliance with existing environmental legislation, for example, have all been obstructed by a lack of public and political will to prioritise climate action.This is not to undermine the importance of community legal work and law reform, but rather to say that service, politics, and activism should not be compartmentalised. Positioning lawyers, judges, or legislators as the primary agents of change ignores valuable opportunities for movement building, tends to disempower affected communities, and makes any prospect of successful collective action impossible.Law students should aspire to be more than neutral service providers. As gatekeepers of complex legal knowledge, as future lawmakers and as administrators of justice, we hold important institutional power that can radically shape the outcomes of our society. We should use that power to strengthen our social movements, and proactively fight for a more just society alongside our fellow activists. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I first started university, as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Arts student back in 2016, I did so with hopes that my tertiary education would be a far more accessible experience than my high school one had been. Gone were the stringencies of the HSC, with its archaic Special Provisions system and rigid assessment methods that hadnt changed since the 1950s. I imagined university to be a disabled students utopia: the freedom to choose my own courses (favouring those without exams, of course!), design my own timetable, and adequate resources to support my learning needs. And yet, when I arrived on campus, I soon found that academic life for disabled students was not as rosy as I had been led to believe by the shiny pamphlets distributed by my schools career counsellor.What I discovered over the course of my four years at the University of Sydney was a hodgepodge of contradictory policies and procedures concerning accessible education. There were lecturers who refused to record lectures out of fear that their intellectual property would be stolen, course convenors who believed that uploading class materials to Canvas would encourage laziness amongst the cohort, and tutors who enforced mandatory attendance with an iron fist and very little clemency for those too ill or too busy to attend.For the most part, I bore the brunt of these ableist policies alone, learning the precise words to include within a Special Considerations application so that your chronic illness doesnt cost you a cool 25% of your grade when you happen to submit that English essay a few days late, mastering the art of sounding forceful but not too forceful when you request that your Monday morning, 8am psychology lecture is recorded, and occasionally cutting your losses and copping that Absent Fail because showing up to class when your debilitating social anxiety flares up just isnt worth the suffering it would entail. Of course, Disability Services exists to support disabled students in navigating this woefully inaccessible system. But what happens when everyone runs the risk of falling ill? How are our educational institutions meant to cope with widespread disease and panic, when they cant even cater to students with on-going, well-documented medical conditions?Such is the position we find ourselves in with the recent outbreak of COVID-19. As the University scrambles to find online solutions to the novel challenges wrought by the coronavirus, the cracks in its institutional design become glaringly obvious. While we might laugh at the lag times on Zoom classrooms and the absurd alternatives to assessments that some academics have proposed, I believe that this crisis exposes something far more pernicious about the Ivory Tower: that it was never built to cater to the most vulnerable amongst us. No longer is accessibility a fringe concern for a small number of students, but an urgent principle that we must enact if we wish to survive the coming months with minimal interruptions to our education.I believe that the coronavirus pandemic presents us with an opportunity to exercise our moral imaginations to cultivate empathy for those of us who do not share the privileges of good health and economic stability. To demand that our universities do better in redesigning their institutional policies, rather than simply slapping a band-aid on a wound that has been weeping for decades. And to envision what a truly just educational experience one that caters to all students looks like and to begin to fight for it. After all, our lives might just depend on it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Yesterday, the Reserve Bank of Australia announced that it would commence Quantitative Easing (QE), an unconventional monetary policy which hopes to stimulate the economy by printing money and purchasing government bonds. Putting aside technicalities, the commencement of QE which was first pioneered by Americas Federal Reserve in response to the GFC (to questionable effect) seems a significant indication that the government, or at least the wonks running the bureaucracy, are scared about the economic implications of the COVID-19 outbreak.They have every reason to be worried. The past few months have already brought about significant economic decline, with the outbreak seriously affecting production and consumption in the Peoples Republic of China and, thanks to globalisation, the entire world. Alongside declining demand for products and a corresponding decrease in trade, supply decreases have increased costs, particularly of goods essential to global supply chains, which has created a vicious feedback loop where demand and net output have declined in turn. Australia is about to experience a similar dent in production and consumption, with workplaces and shops preparing to close down indefinitely, and an end to our 28 years of uninterrupted economic growth seems certain.But as bad as general economic malaise may be, words like output and statistics like Gross Domestic Product dont really mean anything. Indeed, whats bad is not the scoreboard, but what it reflects about the lives caught up in the system it tallies. And there are countless people who are now staring down the barrel of a chaotic recession which may well bring about permanent and fatal deteriorations in our quality of life.I think, in particular, of people who work in demand-driven industries, whose entire business models depend on willing consumers participating in commercial exchanges. I think, in particular, of casual workers, employed by businesses with no reason to roster them on and with neither the savings nor selflessness to compensate them for lost shifts. I think, in particular, of people who do sex work, who work in retail, or hospitality, or who tutor people in-person from time-to-time. I think, therefore, of students, who overwhelmingly work demand-driven, casual jobs, and who are likely to be without income for an indefinite period of time.Stimulus measures announced so far do little to reassure or provide for these students and workers. Sure, support for business investment and cash flow assistance for businesses might theoretically trickle down, but, aside from measures to maintain the employment and wages of apprentices, there is nothing in the specific policies which seem all that helpful to those hit hardest by this crisis. Grants to businesses will help their owners stay afloat, but theres nothing requiring them to use the extra money to pay workers wages. Incentives to invest make no sense when theres no captive audience willing to spend on and provide a return to investments. And, in general, the failure of trickle down mechanisms is so well-established that I wont bother canvassing them.Stimulus payments to households also leave a lot to be desired. Putting aside the obvious problem that a $750 payment to Newstart recipients already living under the poverty line simply isnt enough the one-off stimulus payments also arent going to find their way to many of those who really need it. While the usual Liberal favourites pensioners and veterans get a handout, students and casual shift workers have been totally overlooked. The Commonwealth has not announced a single policy so far for those on Youth Allowance, and, even if they do, eligibility is already so constrained that only full-time, domestic students would stand to benefit anyway. The strict eligibility criteria means that very few students even receive Youth Allowance to begin with, and the inherently invasive, bureaucratic, and slow process means its unlikely payments will be increased or updated in time to make up for decreases in shifts and projected income. And, as if all that werent enough, students considering dropping to part-time study, or dropping out altogether, will lose this vital income stream, forcing them to decide between an income or being a guinea pig in an overpriced online learning trial.In sum, the governments stimulus provides a lifeline to business owners and pensioners but absolutely nothing for people whose income is at serious threat. Even without the price increases and supply shocks were likely to see, this spells serious trouble for many. While the impacts this has on study and willingness to undertake higher education may seem distant, an inability to purchase essential goods and services is an obvious and immediate threat. How are shift-less retail workers going to get groceries? How are sex workers going to pay rent? How the fuck are people who work pay cheque to pay cheque going to look their children in the eye to tell them theres no money left?Without pressure, future stimulus measures wont make much of a difference either. If were lucky, the keepers of the purse might throw some scraps our way; a one-off payment to Youth Allowance recipients would at least show that they have about the same contempt for students as they do for the elderly and unemployed. But in reality, the Liberal government like every Labor government since Hawke cannot move past fallacious neo-liberal economic assumptions, making a genuine response unfathomable. The economic and biological crisis didnt start today, or last week, or even in January; it started decades ago, when the Right won (an element of) the culture war and successfully structured the economy around an obsessive focus on minimising government spending. We have long suffered the consequences of this broken system, but sadly it seems that suffering is about to be more acute and obvious than ever before.With some estimating that up to 60 percent of the population might be affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, the impact on hospital resources could well prove catastrophic. We simply dont have the space in our Intensive Care Units, or beds in our wards, to deal with the estimated 5% of those cases which would be critical. We dont have the ventilators to deal with the thousands of people who will be choking on their last breath in waiting rooms. We dont have the staff to manage the chaos. We can talk about flattening the curve as much as we want, but were going to have to turn the curve into a pancake if we want to keep it within our present capacities, an outcome which seems impossible now that (as of yesterday) NSW is experiencing exponential contagion.Of course, it didnt have to be this way. Activists have protested and bemoaned every cent cut from health funding, but the government and their monied supporters simply didnt care. Doctors warned the government that our system was already in crisis, that we already were failing the sick and vulnerable, but they simply did not listen. And smart economists, not taken in by the ideological tricks of neoliberalism, told them that they could increase investments in essential services and still have plenty left over to sustain a generous social security system for all who needed it, but they simply choose to do otherwise so they could prioritise their economic agenda and class interests. Indeed, the government certainly has the capacity for a comprehensive and sufficient response to this emergency, for instance by printing money to pay off debts which funds these schemes (or QE, but directed to programs which help people, rather than shareholders).We still have a chance to reverse this legacy and secure our material and biological interests for the next few months. The University of Sydney Students Representative Council has started a petition which demands the government implement a number of essential policies and programs; anything short of those policies and programs will lead to either a large outbreak or significant economic decline or both. These demands implore the government to:Drastically increase funding for hospitals and medical response, including by:Significantly increasing our supply of essential resources like ventilators, testing kits, and antiviral medications,Underwriting all staff expenses at hospitals (including significant overtime for doctors, nurses, etc.), so that doctors / hospital directors do not feel constrained by costs and can respond as effectively as possible.Establishing make-shift testing centres in public areasEstablishing distribution centres for medicines, masks, soaps, sanitiser, etc.Developing plans to repurpose hotels and other centres as quarantine and hospital bedsImmediately commencing construction of new hospitals and expanding existing hospital areas.Providing free flu shots to all.Establish distribution centres across the country which provide free food, sanitary items, etc.Require and subsidise paid special leave for all workers in all industries.Immediately relax eligibility criteria for Youth Allowance so part-time and deferred students are eligible.Significantly increase all welfare payments, including Newstart, Youth Allowance, and Rent Assist payments, and devise other strategies for ensuring casuals and other economically precarious people have access to an income, can pay rent / secure accommodation, and acquire essential goods and services.Undertake urgent reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme so that people with disabilities have assurances of care and medical suppliesImmediately increase funding to tertiary education institutions so they have the liquidity to bear any costs incurred while responding comprehensively to biological concerns, compensating students for displacement, and securing learning quality and staff conditions.Extend / remove the Census date for semester 1 2020, and waive HECS fees for any students who cancel semester 1 enrollment.Freeze all rent increases and put a moratorium on rental evictions.Abandon their commitment to a budget surplus in the next 2-3 years, and undertake significant money printing and borrowing so they can fund significant stimulus and subsistence strategies.Reallocate all staff and resources in private hospitals to the public system, including by opening access to wards and bed-space in private hospitals.Deploy significant staff and resources to enable home nursing care, and ensure rural areas, Indigenous communities, and nursing homes have capacity to help the most vulnerable.Institute social distancing as much as possible, including by closing schools and government workplaces, but without utilising the military, police, or authoritarian / punitive responses in so doing.I urge all students to sign the petition and join our broader campaign to achieve these health and economic responses. The fate of countless people depends on us defeating the right-wing belief that people are expendable and that money is a scarce, sacred entity to which only the powerful should have access. This is not a new fact, and this is not a new challenge, but it has never been more stark or critical than now. Rising to this challenge will not only secure our immediate future, but our entire lives, bringing about the paradigm shift needed to solve the myriad existential threats faced by our generation. We dont just have a world to win, we have a world to save.Liam Donohoe is the President of the University of Sydney Students Representative Council. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For decades sleazy pick up artists have relied on the tried and true method of peacocking: dressing in something so outlandish and offensive that women have no choice but to ask them about it. Though perhaps the trick has gone out of vogue as the pick up industry moves on to darker strategies, it remains at the heart of one fashion brands business model: Gorman.The model is simple. First, take a woman devoid of taste and dress her in something so garish, so deeply offensive, that other women are forced to comment on it. Second, (because womens social interactions are reliant on small compliments and confrontation is rare) another woman will feel obliged to compliment her hideous outfit. Third, the wearer, incapable of creating her own sense of style, mistakes these prompted comments for affirmation shes dressing well. Fourth, the misguided, and now validated designers create even more horrifying prints for the woman to consume in a depressing race to the bottom.What is so horrifying about Gorman? Most obviously, the prints. A purple snake print, technicolour plaid and mismatched stripes and spots (featuring on an incredibly unattractive piece titled the Hotpotch Jacket) are particularly offensive additions this season. The staples of Gormans prints are illustrated patterns and cartoons, often created in collaboration with emerging Australian artists. On their own, many are quite pretty. You could imagine them being sold as mass-produced IKEA prints that end up tastefully decorating Annandale rentals. But many are psychotic collaged stripes, cartoon animals and flowers are mixed together in a bewildering mess. More importantly, neither type has any place on clothing. An inoffensive purple floral print is ruined by being blown up and forced to cover a two-piece suit.The cuts though, are not much better. One is given the impression that the designers have, at most, only a loose approximation of what a human body looks like. Gorman sells tapered cropped, tapered, pleated jeans: for the woman who wants to look shorter, bow-legged and accentuate her cankles. The paradigmatic printed Gorman sack dress bears special mention. Market research must have indicated to the brand that women object to highlighting their waist or curves. Coupled with the brands prints, it gives the effect of an Amish acid trip.Clothes tell a story. This dress says Im fucking unhinged, cunt.A technicolour sack thatll leave him thinking, is there a human body under there?.If women are paying $600 to look like this, feminism has a long way to go.But of course, one cannot go past the raincoats. Despite the fact that the raincoats are ugly, unflattering, not long enough to keep one dry in a downpour, not insulated enough to keep one warm in lieu of an ordinary jacket and made of a sweat-inducing plastic, they are somehow now acceptable as stylish and practical outerwear.The sack dresses, infantile prints and (fucking) raincoats create the overall aesthetic of an overdressed toddler. In fact, in a savvy business move, Gorman recently expanded to include a childs line. If you didnt know this, youd assume it had expanded from a childs line to include an adults line.Gorman carries an oversized presence in the fashion of young professionals. Frumpy enough to fit into an office setting but garish enough to appear quirky and therefore substitute as a personality, Gorman dominates the wardrobes of young media professionals. In a disturbing anecdote, a friend tells me that shed been encouraged by a MeCo professor to invest in Gorman. Its what everyones wearing!This highlights the central contradiction of Gorman. Though its aesthetic is centred on prints that appear hand drawn and one-off, this is a mirage. Meander down King Street during the Sunday brunch rush and you will realise its a strict uniform. There is about as much original thought that goes into wearing head-to-toe Gorman as there is for tweens in General Pants uniforms. There is a small army of women throughout the Inner West ruthlessly committed to looking terrible, and looking the same. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The University of Sydney Students Representative Council convenes a number of different collectives, activist organising spaces centred on particular issues. Though some of these are open to anyone of any identity, such as the Environment Collective or the Education Action Group, others are autonomous, only allowing membership for particular identities. They are namely, the Wom*ns Collective (WoCo), the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR), the Queer Action Collective (QuAC), the International Students Collective, the Indigenous Collective and the Disabilities Collective. I think that autonomy in regards to membership should be scrapped.This argument hinges on a specific vision of collectives as the primary organising spaces for feminist, anti-queerphobia, anti-racist, Indigenous or disability-rights movements on campus. Thats because collectives are affiliated to the SRC, which is an activist union, because this has been the historic purpose and because, for many of them, its literally in their name (e.g. Queer Action Collective, Autonomous Collective Against Racism). But even if it werent the case, Id argue it should be: there are alternative spaces for a-political identity-based socialising (like clubs and societies) and itd be an affront to the activist history of these groups to transform them into social groups (compare the networking-minded USyd Women group to WoCo).Id also like to specify the modesty of my argument in two ways. First, this isnt an argument against autonomous spaces or safe spaces generally: one could easily continue, for example, to have the campus Queer Space exclude cis-gendered straight people while making anyone welcome in the Queer Action Collective. Second, this is not an argument against identity politics (too nebulous a term to even define here) or identity-based socialising generally.So, what are the arguments for autonomous collectives? As I see them, they are the following: first, that people who belong to a particular oppressed identity group have a greater stake in fighting for the interests and rights of that group. Second, that it is important that this activism excludes other people because they dont have the lived experience to truly understand or have a stake in these struggles. Third, if included in these spaces, currently excluded people men, non-Indigenous people, white people, straight cis-gender people or domestic students might, at worst, dominate in ways harmful for other members and for the broader struggle, or at best, require other members to perform the labour of explaining their experiences to them.One could agree with the premise of the first and second arguments without agreeing with autonomy itself. It seems to me instead, that collectives should require members to respect the experiences and accompanying knowledge of people of the relevant identity and understand they should, in almost all instances, lead these struggles. The rise of identity politics in contemporary left-wing organising has meant that I think activists would be adequately deferential, and where they were not, would be a minority that would wield little power in the collective. Much of off-campus refugee organising, for example, is already open to people of any background, but often defers to refugee leadership and direction in organising. If you accept that, then you also have to recognise that the likelihood of these spaces becoming unsafe were their membership open, is small.Im also sceptical of the objection, then, that members would be unfairly saddled with the burden of educating these new additions of their experiences, for a few reasons. First, I just do think that it is the role of an activist is to educate people, to build movements and to explain the ways in which your struggle may not be too different from their own. Others have far more eloquently noted the troubling neoliberal development that frames simple things like explaining some type oppression as labour requiring remuneration. Second, this is a very different form of education than trying to convince the average punter of your goals. For example, cis-men entering WoCo, presumably, would already be feminists, likely open to education on the finer points of rape culture or subtle forms of misogyny. Third, collectives could retain the discretion they already exercise over people joining, to prevent stacking or influxes of trolls. That someone, regardless of gender, has feminist politics and has attended feminist rallies could be a condition of entry into WoCo, for example. Fourth, because everyone has multiple types of identities, this sort of thing happens already. Women of colour in WoCo, for example, have had to deliver this sort of education to white women. The conclusion thus far hasnt been that we should make hundreds of small collectives catered to specific intersections of identities. Fourth, other types of educating and persuading occurs in collectives all the time not all members of WoCo always object to the existence of colleges, not all members of QuAC believe we shouldnt have corporate sponsors in Mardi Gras but these collectives continue to function and organise across political cleavages.Given that, I think autonomy poses several problems for collectives.First, and most obviously, it shrinks the pool of people who are able to be part of movements. That of itself is a problem for activism which seeks to build mass movements based on solidarity between peoples oppressed on the basis of class, gender, sexual orientation or race. But collectives face the additional difficulty of a very small membership pool: people of the particular identity group, who are politically active and engaged, who have heard of the existence of said collective (most students, I suspect, havent heard of collectives at all) and whose work, classes or other responsibilities does not coincide with the collectives weekly meeting time. Note that, for some collectives, the pool is even smaller: the best estimates mean that only about 10% of students on campus are queer, and Indigenous students at USyd, on some accounts, remain in the double-digits.Where membership is already small, it becomes difficult for collectives to sustain themselves. Too few people are members to promote the collectives existence to new students, and as existing members graduate, they disappear. At the moment, for example, the Indigenous Collective at USyd does not functionally exist, meaning an important basis for student organising has disappeared.Moreover, it just means there are less people to do the unglamorous behind the scenes work of political activism. Even for the largest collectives, the number of people turning up to rallies, banner paints and reading groups is incredibly small. Its unclear to me why one would want to make that even smaller.Second, many activists already recognise the limitations of autonomous organising, and do organise inclusively: Ive accompanied cis-men on WoCo poster runs, and last Wednesdays travel ban protest was organised by domestic and international students. Where this is already happening, the relevance of collectives is undermined.Third, it removes one barrier to the involvement of privileged groups in these movements. Activists will often argue that the burden to create change should not be placed solely on the oppressed, so it seems odd others are excluded from spaces they can actively join this fight.Fourth, autonomous collectives create the intractable problem of defining who should be part of these spaces. I struggle to see how whether asexual people are queer or if Ashkenazi Jews are oppressed by white supremacy is directly relevant to the work at hand of fighting against queerphobia or white supremacy. Though some of these arguments are worthwhile, most are unproductive, reflecting the problem of basing membership on nebulous social concepts whose meanings have changed over time and context, many of which were invented to justify the otherisation and oppression of groups of people.What might a non-autonomous collective look like then? Choosing leadership could, and I think should, remain in the hands of members of the relevant identity group. Meetings could also be structured such that planning and goals are led by that group, perhaps involving autonomous caucusing before meetings beginning, or where only people of that identity could speak for a short period at the beginning of meetings. In many cases, I doubt they would be very different at all: I would be surprised if white people suddenly overcame their indifference en masse to anti-racist struggles and comprised most of ACARs membership. For most collectives it would mean a few more hands on deck, more people promoting these collectives. For groups focused on enacting change on-campus, that small difference can mean a lot. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Keep cups, carbon offsets and emissions trading schemes, they all sound great but do they actually do anything to further climate justice? The short answer is no. Yet, as a society we seem all too keen to embrace the ideas of green capitalism without any suspicion or critique. We often blindly believe that the system that profits off our demise and has found a way to commodify everything will carry us in its arms and save us from the burning wreckage that our Earth is becoming. While there are many actors to blame for our blind faith and obedience in gimmicks and green surcharges, from NGOs, to advertising firms, it is up to the environmental movement to define itself and its politics.Too often the general public have become beholden to the ideas of sustainability and green consumerism presented in the mainstream media and politics. It is only within the past five years that we have seen a genuine challenge to these ideas and the mainstream promotion of systemic alternatives that could lay the basis for changes that will divert humanitys course away from catastrophe. While the some of the policies presented within the Green New Deal policy platform, championed in the US by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, are contestable, the idea of reframing climate action away from shutting the doors of industries that employ working class people is fairly new to mainstream discourses.Working class solidarityFighting for a just transition away from the fossil fuel industry should not be taken for granted, but much rather should be a demand of the environmental movement that is constantly reiterated and championed. Too often, we have seen the movement allow for the discourse of jobs vs. climate, that you cannot possibly support working people and the planet. Dangerous rhetoric around the immediate abolition of the fossil fuel industry, stokes the fears of years past whereby middle-class, liberal environmentalists pit themselves against the working class and unionised. Glimpses of this past hit the spotlight during the 2019 Federal Election Campaign, whereby Bob Brown and his Stop Adani Convoy did nothing but alienate the working class mining communities of Queensland and consolidate public support for the LNP.Given the tumultuous relationship between mainstream environmentalism and the working class, it is pivotal that those who do engage in modern climate politics do so in solidarity with workers. Workers have a unique power, they have the ability to withhold their labour through strike action, which is important in driving disruptive activism that will force governments and corporations to adopt our demands. It is up to us as environmentalists to form strong relationships with the unions and working class communities. It is a non-negotiable that we have to demand a just transition away from fossil fuels that can accommodate the livelihoods of those working in industries attached to fossil fuels. It is no longer good enough to be able to mobilise the Inner West of Sydney; in order to build a movement that can sustain itself, we must form connections across Sydney, building bridges with communities that are often neglected by mainstream politics. Our key alliances cant be with politicians but with organised communities that represent the makeup of Greater Sydney. When we move away from this, the movement can be easily divided.First Nations justiceOur alliances must also extend to First Nations People. Globally, BIPOC are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and pollution. It is often in communities of colour that heavily polluting infrastructure is erected and operated, it is Pacific Islanders that will be the first to bear the brunt of rising sea levels and catastrophic weather events, and in the Australian context, it is First Nations Peoples that have had their traditional lands pillaged and degraded. It is imperative that environmentalists recognise the injustices inherent to the current colonialist system and work with First Nations Peoples to achieve Indigenous sovereignty and autonomy. Indigenous Australians have lived in harmony with this land for 10,000s of years, attaining knowledge that is pivotal to maintaining the Australian environment, and thus as environmental activists we have much to learn. This is why we must always fight for Indigenous Justice within our movement, platform First Nations Peoples and listen.Corporations and NGOsWhile we must champion our alliances with the working class and First Nations Peoples, we must also end some of the relationships of convenience that have formed over the duration of the movement thus far. The first place to look is corporations and NGOs. For corporations and NGOs politics are negotiable and morals are non-existent. Greenwashing wont solve climate change and neither will corporate social responsibility (if such a thing actually exists). Our first point of reference should be the fact that since 1988 the top 100 global polluters have accounted for 71% of carbon emissions. Corporations, specifically those attached to heavy-polluting industries have done nothing more than individualise what is a systematic crisis. It was British Petroleum that popularised the concept of the carbon footprint, it was the NGO Keep America Beautiful, funded by beverage and packaging conglomerates (i.e. the likes of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola), that launched the award-winning advertising campaign with the slogan People start pollution. People can stop it. Entwined within this notion of the corporate enemy we must include the supposed climate saviours, the billionaire CEOs with good PR teams. They have neither the incentives or skill sets to actually solve change, and have often funded and patented alternative solutions that they can then implement to further their net wealth. Bill Gates has long advocated for a simple solution, controlling overpopulation (which neglects the fact that the rich pollute significantly more than the poor), while Elon Musk has openly supported a coup against the democratically elected Bolivian government. For as long as there has been significant evidence to suggest that climate change was a man made issue caused by the burning of fossil fuels, corporations have been passing the buck on to individuals, often given cover by environmental NGOs. NGOs have often been quick to endorse unfounded gimmicks and propaganda and even big polluters. Conservationgroups specifically have had a troublingly close relationship with the fossil fuel industry in the past, with some accepting millions in donations from big polluters (The Nature Conservancy group even took it upon themselves to undertake gas extraction and exploration). Many have advocated for the easy solutions to climate change, fighting for clean fossil fuels and market-based solutions. NGOs have also involved themselves in extremely problematic carbon offset schemes, choosing to give cover to polluting corporations through the schemes themselves, but also engaging in practices like the forced displacement of local Indigenous peoples in order to protect newly classified carbon sinks from human activity.As environmentalism and climate action reach mainstream politics once again it is pivotal that not only we keep in mind our allies and stay true to our politics, but also identify the enemy. We must point out at every turn that corporations and NGOs will not deliver us from climate catastrophe, but strong unified partnerships with the working class and First Nations Peoples will. Recognising this and then developing these relationships is the key next step for mainstream environmentalism, which will allow for the development and implementation of Climate Justice and a better future.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This May is a big month for the climate movement. Not only will thousands of students go on strike on the 21st demanding climate action, May Day also saw an historic action in support of the green ban on the Willow Grove site in Parramatta. But where should the climate movement go after May? How are we going to win our radical demands for climate justice and a just transition for workers?As international concern for climate change continues to increase and the scales of the market tip further towards renewable energy, its clear that the question is not if we shift to renewable energy, but when, how fast, and in whose interests this shift will be. Coal and gas are dying industries, and renewable energy will soon replace it, but preventing a climate crisis wont simply involve moving to renewable energy; it demands the fundamental restructuring of our economic, political, and social systems that currently abuse our environment as a source of profit. Renewable energy will mean little if our forests and wildlife disappear in the process, or if we continue to ignore the land rights of Indigenous peoples, on whose land this infrastructure will be built. Uncontrolled climate change will also wreak untold havoc on our environment and workers alike: cleaners, teachers, builders, nurses, firefighters and other workers will all be forced onto the frontlines of a growing environmental crisis, with their wages and conditions cut to pay for the damage while the rich shelter in climate controlled homes and offices. That is why we call for climate justice, not simply climate action, and why the ruling class has worked for decades to try and cleave the climate and workers movements apart. Without the united strength and revolutionary vision of organised, radical, democratic workers unions, simply shifting to renewable energy will not create a sustainable future for anyone.How do we, as workers, students, and communities, make sure that these imminent changes to the energy system are in our interests, and not just the interests of bosses and businesses? For decades people have placed their hope in a legislative path to climate justice by voting for or lobbying sympathetic MPs, but this strategy fails to see that the interests of those in parliament are inherently different to those of the working class. The parliamentary system exists specifically to suppress and mediate conflict between workers and capitalists to the benefit of the capitalist class. Both Labor and Liberal are bound to the interests of the fossil fuel bosses and the capitalist class as a whole, not only as most are of this class themselves, but because capitalists use their wealth and influence within and without the parties to prevent changes against their interests. This is why even the Labor partys policy platform includes only meagre references to renewables, and backed the subsidisation and expansion of the dying coal industry beyond 2050. Many activists believe that fighting in parliament is simply the most realistic way to achieve political power, yet it is entirely unrealistic to hope that either of the major political parties will suddenly abandon their long-held commitment to neoliberalism and work against the rich and powerful people that allow them to stay in power. Even social democratic forces like the Greens, who certainly offer a supportable alternative, must be supported critically. The class character of the Greens is indeed quite different to Labor or the Liberals, but simply supporting their parliamentary push will eventually reach a dead end. To achieve change through purely legislative means would mean that the Greens would need to form an opportunistic alliance with Labor (and thereby sacrifice their principles and credibility as a party of resistance) or they would need to capitulate to the interests of the capitalist class, who already work to suppress even the most meagre of their reforms.Fundamentally though, legislative strategies fail because the parliament does not respond to the threat of votes, it responds to the threat of revolt: protest in the street and strikes in our workplaces. This is why we need direct action to realise our goal of climate justice, by demanding, striking, and organising ourselves, rather than waiting for the go-ahead from parliament or our union bureaucrats. This principle of direct action is a response and an alternative to the inherent inadequacies of parliamentary change. It is based on the idea that the kinds of political action you dedicate your time to inherently shape the outcomes of this political action; in other words, the means that we use to achieve change determine the end result of this change.This is why our strategic choices must also consider the kinds of transformations that we wish to create in ourselves as revolutionaries. When we adopt strategies and tactics that reflect the goals of our revolutionary vision, we undergo a fundamental transformation: we take power from capital, and from the state, and can affect significant change in society beyond just the demand for better conditions. The act of organising together to directly challenge oppression and exploitation teaches us crucial lessons that no electoral campaign ever could.This is why direct action is a particularly important principle to bring to the climate movement. We cannot afford to sit and wait while the ruling class flip to a renewable energy system at the last minute, pillaging the land, closing down fossil fuel energy production without a just transition for workers, and creating a renewable energy system that will merely give more power and influence to the rich. The strike is the ultimate form of direct action and the most powerful tool of the working class, and it is the only tool that will successfully win and defend the goals of the climate justice movement. The May 21 Climate Strike is a start, but now is the time to begin organising ourselves as workers and not just students, individuals, or party members, so that we can begin agitating for a general strike for climate in the May Days to come.There is much work to be done to organise and strengthen our capacity to act together as workers, to bring us to a position where we might go on strike for climate justice. We cannot be distracted by politicians who would seek to dictate our own interests to us, we must begin immediately the hard work of organising and agitating amongst our fellow workers!This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In recent years, the conversation around waste-free fashion consumption has pivoted around the second hand market. Platforms like Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube have remarketed charity shops like Vinnies, Red Cross and Goodwill as trendy for a younger market, fueled by thrift-hauls and come thrift with me videos. In 2019, around 40% of Gen Z-ers were buying second-hand, compared to less than 30% in 2016 (according to a report by resale service ThredUp). In the next ten years, the second-hand industry is predicted to almost double, according to the same ThredUp report.It comes at a time when fast fashion companies are scrambling to respond to greater environmental concerns around consumption behaviours in younger buyers; Mckinseys The State of Fashion 2019 report states Nine in ten Generation Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues. But the rise of thrifting is not the solution to our fast fashion problem. In fact, the second-hand trend often falsely reframes mass-consumption of resale items as a sustainable, guilt-free fantasy separate from the fast fashion world.The fast fashion industry is well-known as a nefarious pollutant. In the production stages, the textile industry is responsible for 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions, producing more than the airline and maritime industries combined. It also uses 93 billion cubic meters of water enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people.On the consumption end, mounds of clothing at landfill stations create a grim backdrop to catwalks and brightly-lit H&M and Zara signs, where greenwashing abounds in the form of waste free tote bags, andgarments made of so-calledorganic cotton. In Australia,people dump 15 tonnes of clothing and fabric waste every 10minutes, according to Clean Up. Australians also buy an average of 27kg of textiles each year (including leather and homewares) and then discard 23kg into landfill, despite the fact they are mostly non-biodegradable.Its not surprising then that thriftingscircular consumption modelhas been lauded.Yet second-hand fashion is not totally separate from fast fashion. Today, second-hand store owners must work harder to retrieve items appropriate to resell in second hand stores due to the poor quality of donated fast fashion items. Australian Red Cross Head of Retail Richard Wood says the rise of fast fashion has led to a recent rise in donations, but a drop in quality. Only about 10 15% of donated items get sold in the stores, the rest transferred to landfill or exported to low-income countries, where their low prices undercut new clothes produced locally in those countries.For some Australian Lifeline stores, A-grade section items, or the best quality, dropped to 20% of all donations in 2020, from 50% years ago, according to a paid clothing sorter. In 2018, the Salvation Army charity op shop spent $6 million dollars in landfill fees for rubbish dumped on its site. Moreover, many clothing swaps ban fast fashion for this reason, only contributing to the problem. Thrifting also feeds off the instability and unsustainability of the fast-fashion industry, according to Anna Fitzpatrick, a Ph.D. student and project coordinator at the London College of Fashions Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Without that, there wouldnt be such a massive second-hand market, she says; second-hand fashion, like any business, still operates within a capitalist economy. This is supported by the fact that many resale stores, particularly on Depop, encourage the on-selling of unwanted brand- new fast fashion items, thus fuelling the careless mass-consumption that drives the fast fashion industry.In addition, the so-called sustainability of second-hand clothing excludes many. The gentrification of thrift-stores and Depop has made fast fashion the main affordable clothing source for many less socio-economically privileged individuals. This is evidenced by escalating prices, with the resale market becoming a $20 billion dollar industry in its own right. Walking down King Street in Newtown, its almost impossible to not pass a resale store. The majority areboutique curatedcollections where oldT-shirts are priced upwardsof $40 though even charitystores have upped their pricesin response to the influx ofpotential customers.The same goes for onlinestores like Depop, where thriftstore items are often resold for far higher prices, and new fast fashion is rebranded and upsold as 90s or y2k vintage stock. (Exacerbated by the fact that brands like Brandy Melville emulate the y2k style with their new fast fashion products). This generates an elitist culture of shaming those who cannot afford to shop second-hand. The bottom line is that sustainability with a price tag is no longer sustainable.In such a fashion market, does a sustainable and affordable model of fashion consumption exist?Sustainably made clothing is nearly impossible to produce, particularly at an accessible price for the average consumer. More than 60% of fabrics are now synthetic blends, meaning they are non-biodegradable and harder to recycle, since different fibres need to be sorted through by hand, and their dyes must also be stripped. Resultantly, less than 1% of materials used to make clothing are currently recycled to make new clothing. Pioneering textiles company Bold Threads Microsilk is one sustainable yet unaffordable material option; an artificially- produced, biodegradable spider silk. One Microsilk neck tie costs $314 AUD.Perhaps a shift in mindset is needed to break the cycle of obsolescence in fashion. According to Fashion Revolutions coordinator, Melinda Tually: Older generations grew up considering what value is which is longevity and high-quality materials and something you could keep season after season, she says. Now for millennials growing up, cheap fashion to them is the definition of value. If you can get a T-shirt for under $10, thats value.With the resale market set to outpace the fast fashion industry by 2024, it is time we considered whether our thrifting consumption habits are really just a redirection of the mass-consumerism instilled in us by fast fashion. The next time we donate our clothes to a charity store, we should consider if we are just offloading our rubbish for someone else to deal with, and whether that shirt or pair of jeans is going to end up in landfill in a few months time.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Theres a narrative by this stage familiar to anyone who has followed the climate wars. The media rolls footage of the dusty mining regions of Australia its hard-scrabble men and women, usually to camouflage visiting politicians in a hi-vis cosplay of populist virtue. Counterposed to them are the woke capital-city greenies, fighting tooth and nail to destroy regional mining communities, blinded by their privileges. Recently, this dichotomy has been challenged through the mainstream promotion and appeal of Green New Deal policies that seek to unite environmentalism and working-class politics once again. Though, in the Australian context, policymakers are seeking to transition back towards fossil fuels, not away from them. Recently the Hunter Valley has increased its coal production by 25% in 10 years while Australia has quintupled its liquified natural gas exports.We know well enough the impact on the planet of all this. However, in my own trips to the Hunter Valley and Narrabri Shire, what struck me most was how such an expansion of extraction is directly impacting the very communities held up as the defenders of fossil fuels. Its not hard to find people who want a different future for their regions.Dr Merran Auland and her partner Phil Kennedy are farmers in the strikingly beautiful Bylong Valley. They have been fighting the Korea Electric Power Corporations plans for an open cut and underground thermal coal mine for three years, but they note those who have been fighting it for a decade. KEPCO has suffered far greater resistance than most mining projects, being knocked back at the Gateway Certificate Process, the Independent Planning Commission, and the Land & Environment Court. More than anything it has been the land itself that has protected Bylong. Its valleys like this that feed people in the city says Merran this valley is in the top 3% of agricultural land in NSW, why would we ever let a mine happen here?.Yet without a single tonne of coal dug it is striking the social impact Kepco has already had. Family farms have had their names torn off and replaced with signs listing BV01, BV02. They bought about 30,000 acres of property says a cross-armed Phil virtually emptied the valleys, theres half a dozen landholders left and theyre the only thing standing in twwwwheir way.Phil bemoans how Australians have sat on our arse and let somebody manage it and rape and pillage us to our eyeballs, and all we get is a job. Whoop-de-bloody-do!. Merran talks about how she dreams of bringing the community back to Bylong, with new farming families to see this valley come back to what it was 10, 15 years ago. But so long as KEPCO carries on its legal campaign, so too will the shadow that prevents a new harvest growing in the valley. Three hundred kilometres north of Bylong is the Narrabri shire. Sally Hunter is a farmer in the area with her husband Geoff and three sons. Coal isnt what terrifies Sally. She hails originally from Roma in South West Queensland, a region where coal seam gas mining (CSG) has expanded without restraint. It takes no prisoners, it just moves across the land no matter whats in its path.wSally is particularly concerned with what will happen to the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), through which the Narrabri Gas Project (NGP) will drill. The GAB is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, its bores being the sole source of water for 22% of Australia. Drilling will draw 4 megalitres of water a day from the basin as well as reducing the pressure needed for water to rise in bores across the region. Secondly, drilling brings chemicals and toxic salts from deep in the earth upwards, and risks contaminating the GAB.The threat to the GAB is not just a scientific problem for Sally, but an emotional one. Its quite hard to explain the disempowerment if you dont have access to that water and you start to see your bores going dry. Its not a good feeling. She isnt alone. 98% of submissions to the IPC hearings were in opposition to the project, including two thirds of locals. Yet the NGP was approved by the IPC in 2020 and is a key component of the Federal Governments plans for a Gas-Fired Recovery. You just sort of wonder is this really a democracy? Geoff laments when that incredible level of opposition was shown and then given complete disregard.Little about the NGP surprises Tameeka Tighe, a Gomeroi woman and local activist against the NGP. She had a telling answer for how it felt when the project was approved. Its the life of a Black person in this country that your voice is never heard Tameeka said thats nothing new, our country has been destroyed for 250 years, its only now that its affecting white people that its an issueYet the impact of the NGP and the climate crisis is a trauma like little else on Tameeka and her mob. As a Gomeroi person and a Gomeroi woman, the destruction of my country is heart-breaking because its literally who we are. So as the country is destroyed, as the animals are destroyed, our spirituality, our livelihood, our laws and our practices are being destroyed with it. Green jobs in renewable energy and new industries are no doubt key to winning a coalition for climate action. Yet in our focus on the future, we cannot ignore the ruination of our regions unfolding in the present. New regional industries in renewables and sustainable agriculture are threatened if we despoil our land for fossil fuels, and pollute the water and air where future workforces are expected to live. Worst of all, we will continue to destroy the greatest heritage the land holds, that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders cultural and spiritual heritage. Its not about pleasing the climate concerned in the cities. Its not even strictly about climate change. Its about protecting the existing wealth and health of regional Australia.That means keeping fossil fuels in the ground.***This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Broadly, capitalism refers to an economic and political system in which industry the means of production is controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state, or the people. What the dictionary doesnt note, however, is that at the rotten core of capitalism lies exploitation and inequality. Anti-capitalism is essential not just for arresting the destruction of our planet but also in terms of addressing the systemic inequalities and exploitations that plague our society. Anti-capitalism must, therefore, be one of the pillars of the climate movement and anti-capitalist behaviour must form the basis of any approach to climate justice.The nature of capitalism and how it got us into this messThe nature of capitalism is to accumulate capital and generate profit at all costs, even if this has devastating impacts on the environment. First Nations people lived sustainably with the land in Australia for at least 60,000 years before the introduction of capitalism through British invasion. Since then, the natural landscapes and environments of Australia have been degraded to mere inputs for production as we see deforestation, mining, fracking and other equally damaging processes take place for the extraction of singular resources. Over the last 20 years in Malaysia and Indonesia, over 3.5 million hectares of forest have been destroyed in the name of palm oil, reducing viable Orangutan habitat by up to 80%. Agriculture and industry are polluting our natural bodies of water with manure, chemicals and pesticides, and more than 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year. Mining and fossil fuel giants such as Rio Tinto and BP continue to plunder fossil fuels from the ground, desecrating sacred, unceded, Indigenous land, polluting the air and water, acidifying oceans, and producing astronomical carbon emissions. In its search for resources to generate profit, capitalism allows for nature to fall by the wayside.Capitalism does not think big picture and so despite the general consensus of climate experts who say fossil fuels will eventually drive the planet, and thereby humanity, to extinction, we quite unbelievably continue to allow for them to be used. Scott Morrison refused as recently as April to commit to net zero emissions targets by 2050 when the experts say we need to do so by 2030. Labor has recently announced that they too will continue to support coal mining in a bid to win over voters in contested seats like the Upper Hunter, further entrenching the contrived wedge between jobs and climate justice.There is no profit to be made on a dead planet but the nature of capitalism demands competition between companies, and so without massive government subsidies, companies that have the desire to reduce emissions remain massively handicapped. A freighting company that tried to reduce emissions by running electric vehicles with a high start-up cost, rather than those fuelled by fossil fuels, would quickly go out of business as they would have to compete with the already established fossil fuel powered companies. This market competition means it is supremely difficult to produce quality, sustainable goods without marking up consumer prices drastically, meaning in turn that sustainable living can become a way of life that is out of reach for many of those living paycheck to paycheck. This kind of sustainability gatekeeping alienates large sections of the working class, at a time when we desperately need to unite and strike against the climate criminals at the top of the economic food chain. It also destroys working class solidarity for the climate movement when initiatives such as the 2012 Gillard governments carbon tax, which was also supported by The Greens and much of the climate movement, result in ordinary people bearing the brunt of the cost of increasing electricity prices, etc. In an indictment on reformism and corporate greenwashing, Government climate adviser Ross Garnaut admitted: Every dollar of revenue from carbon pricing is collected from people, in the end mostly households, ordinary Australians. Most of the costs will eventually be passed on to ordinary Australians. This allowed Tony Abbott and the Liberals to campaign around scrapping the tax, ostensibly defending workers rights in the process. Workers rights need to be at the centre of the climate movement both because we need their power and because an anti-capitalist revolution is about recentering the working class, not the 1%, as the basis of society.Capitalism is not equipped to deal with the scale and the immediacy of the issueRestructuring society and dismantling the fossil fuel industry means massive economic losses for fossil fuel companies who have vast sunk costs in their industries. It means that gas and coal plants, that were invested in on the basis that they would remain profitable and that otherwise would in fact remain profitable for decades to come, are retired, thus becoming stranded assets. It means massive investment in long-term, renewable energy options, likely with no profits for many decades a notion antithetical to capitalism. It means nationalising things like our electricity system and placing the quilt of privatisation that it has become back into public hands. We cannot rely on private investors who are motivated by profit and restricted in their ability to engage in sustainable practices by market competition. Besides, it is only if these new renewable energy power stations are publicly owned that we can ensure a just transition for the workers impacted by the dismantling of the fossil fuel system, guaranteeing them the new, green jobs.Moreover, the fossil fuel industry has proven over the last few centuries that it does not care even one iota for the environment, in fact it continues to actively accelerate its destruction. It has been almost 200 years since 1856, when American scientist Eunice Foote discovered that carbon dioxide can absorb warmth and suggested the environmental implications of this. For almost 200 years the government has done nothing with this climate science and the fossil fuel industry has grown exponentially listed among the worlds ten biggest companies in 2018 according to Fortune magazine were 5 oil companies and a power company. Between 1998 and 2015, just 100 companies were responsible for 71% of global carbon emissions, these being companies that either traded in fossil fuels or that were indelibly tied to them through their reliance on their power. In Australia, we are still hugely reliant on fossil fuels coal providing 60% of our power and gas a further 20%. Scott Morrisons Covid-19 economic recovery plan is known as the gas-fired recovery plan. Recently greenlighting $56 billion of new gas pipelines in the Narrabri, ScoMo has proven once again his apathy for all things environmental and for what the people demand. Covid has provided us with a golden opportunity to redesign the economy around renewables after it briefly grinded to a halt, but his solution was instead to further invest in that which threatens our very existence.If we want real climate justice in the immediate future we need to organise the power of the working class around these climate injustices. This power comes from the fact that it is the working class, not the capitalists, that keep the economy running. Despite low union density at the moment, organised sections of the working class have shown that they can exercise real power. Recent May Day demonstrations continued the proud history of Green Bans in NSW that started with the Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s. The Save Willow Grove campaign saw strong student contingents alongside CFMEU walk offs and other trade union contingents. Taking a stand against the destruction of heritage buildings and green areas, Green Bans show the power that the organised working class has to strike against government and industry dictates. Governments and their capitalist cronies may not care about the environment, but they sure as anything care about profits. It is only through continued mass demonstrations and worker strikes that threaten to cripple production and economic function, that change will be realised. The workers, united, will never be defeated.The mirage of green capitalismRecently, a trend of companies that actively support renewable energies and net zero policies has emerged and inspired hope in green capitalism a progression of capitalism that aims to solve the climate crisis largely without disrupting existing political and economic systems. One such company is Atlassian, an Australian software company that committed to running on 100% renewable energy by 2025 and instead reached this goal last year, 5 years ahead of schedule. Theyve also committed to moving themselves, as well as companies they work with. towards net zero emissions. Other companies engage in greener business models such as cost/price integration and equipment service-leasing both of which are fascinating steps in a positive direction. The issue however is not with the green of green capitalism, but with the capitalism. Green capitalism does seek, albeit without real conviction and far too slowly, to account for the environmental issues caused by capitalism, but it ignores every other social issue that is rooted in capitalism. The evils of capitalism do not start, and nor do they end, with the environment and so a progression of capitalism that only counters environmental issues will not combat things like wealth inequality, exploitation of workers, racism, imperialism, sexism, etc.An Oxfam Australia report in 2014 detailed how the richest 1% of Australians own the equivalent wealth of the poorest 60%, with economic inequality only skyrocketing further during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Washington Post reported that Jeff Bezos made $70 billion dollars over the last year, taking his estimated net worth to $186 billion and that Elon Musk grew his wealth by a mind boggling 500%, vaulting him to second among the worlds richest. Such brutal inequality cannot be justified in the name of an innovation incentive, free-market rational decision making, hard work or any other pro-capitalist nonsense. The nature of capitalism means that all the profits go straight to the bosses, either to be pocketed or reinvested in the business workers never see the profits of their labour. Green capitalism is not pro-worker, it is, as its name suggests, geared in favour of the capitalists and so while some environmental damage may be mitigated it provides a solution not even a good one to just one of the problems caused by capitalism.The Covid-19 crisis has provided us with many irrefutable examples of the deadly nature of capitalism and the necessity of anti-capitalism. Covid is currently raging through India with up to 400,000 new cases every day and yet the West continues to gatekeep vaccines in the name of intellectual property and patent law. Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel wrote: The covid catastrophe thats engulfing India and other Global South countries could have been significantly mitigated had the US, UK and Europe not repeatedly refused to suspend vaccine-related patents. People are being sacrificed on the altar of intellectual property. Other tweets described the situation as a vaccine apartheid and one user tweeted: The idea that a working vaccine is anyones exclusive intellectual property is so utterly anti-life in the name of capitalism.Nor does green capitalism provide any solution to the massive exploitation of workers that would hypothetically worsen if businesses made workers bear the cost of the more expensive green technologies inan effort to mitigate higher production costs. The defining feature of capitalism is the profit motive and so of course businesses aim to maximise profit through a multitude of anti-worker strategies. Capitalists minimise production costs by cutting wages or allowing them to stagnate behind inflation. They move labour offshore where less well-regulated countries of the Global South allow for easier exploitation of workers and cheaper labour. They attempt to boost the productivity of labour by intensifying work, lengthening the work day etc. Capitalism is therefore antithetical to a pro-worker state and so whilst green capitalism may attempt (an unfortunately accurate word) to minimise environmental damages, it will never account for the inequality, exploitation and host of other evils engendered by any and every form of capitalism.For our climate and for our people, for our survival and for our liberation, capitalism must be dismantled.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the midst of an unprecedented ecological crisis Australia is feeling the heat.The Great Barrier Reef has been destroyed and with the expected 1.5 degree increase in global temperature it will not be the only victim. Frequent extreme weather, deadly heat waves, mass biodiversity loss, and extinction are on the horizon and it will only get worse. By the end of the century, we will see a further increase between 3.5 and 5 degrees, an increase that will facilitate mass carnageTo rub salt in the wound, this will skyrocket the already present inequality, economic crisis, racism, and austerity- a deadly combination which will spiral us even further towards complete social, economic, and ecological collapse.The perpetrators? A tiny number of giant companies: 71% of global emissions since 1988 have been caused by just 100 companies. Criminals who have trillions of dollars worth of investment sunk in fossil fuels. Without interference, these companies will continue down this path of destruction.The recent election of Joe Biden as the President of the United States brings hope for genuine action. With a pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half in less than a decade, its understandable. However, this isnt enough. We not only need to zero out all emissions by the middle of the century, we need to withdraw them from the atmosphere altogether. Bidens plan would still see the U.S. remain the second biggest emitter in the world by the end of the decade.Even with this glimmer of hope, there is a strong reason to be sceptical whether the targets will even be achieved.The plan itself relies on the use of carbon capture technology which does not actually exist, and is yet another non-binding pledge. As the New York Times put it If such non-binding pledges were a reliable currency, U.S. CO2 emissions would have peaked in the late 1990s.With rising emissions and a heavy reliance on gas, Bidens approach fails to match the scale and urgency required.In comparison, Morrison cant even pretend to be anywhere near reducing emissions. Following last years slump, his key economic policy brings support for a whole new series of catastrophic gas projects.Morrisons reliance on fossil fuels as a solution to the real issues of joblessness, skyrocketing electricity prices, and economic uncertainty in the form of the Liberals so-called Gas-led recovery will not deliver. The lack of competitiveness of Australian gas both locally and in international markets means that unless the climate movement poses its own solutions to these issues we will once again play into Morrisons hands.The vast majority of emissions ever released have been since the first international climate summit in 1991. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, emissions have increased under a carbon tax. Other mechanisms such as the EU emissions trading scheme also failed to have any meaningful impact on emissions, and in some EU countries emissions also went up due to manipulation of the carbon credits system.Market mechanisms like these have been implemented and embraced across the world as the solution to the climate crisis yet they categorically fail to dent global emissions. Through higher fuel prices, electricity bills and a race to the bottom in wages and conditions for workers, they make the worlds poor pay for the ecological destruction of the rich. Despite this, governments globally have sought to embrace these policies.A recent study of the 2019 election produced by the Australian National University found that while 80% of voters thought more action was required to tackle climate change, voters were more concerned with issues of economic security. The Liberals won the climate election by relentlessly posing climate action as a threat to jobs and the climate movement had no serious response.Genuine climate action would require a rapid rollout of renewable energy, public transport and more something that only the government could do. A transition to renewables directly built and run by the government would generate hundreds of thousands of good paying, secure jobs.This is why we must insist that the climate movement must put public renewables and climate jobs front and centre. We need to mobilise the power to force genuine change, and we need to do this through the workers who have the power to bring this fossil fuel addicted system to a halt.We saw a small glimpse of this when Wharfies at Port Botany walked off the job to join the 2019 September 20 climate strike. To see this kind of action on a wide enough scale to even begin to force change, we will need to show workers across the country that climate action means addressing the unemployment crisis, lowering electricity prices, and a more secure future economically.So what can we do as students? We can shut down our university with a mass strike, showing in practice that mass strikes are possible, and that we can achieve them with demands that put workers first. This could provide the inspiration needed to spark strikes by workers, and build real strength on our side.This begins with mass organising in the here and now; Activists brought nearly 300 people to the recent Student General Meeting by meeting students, doing announcements in our lectures, convincing every student to become an activist for the campaign.We need this again on a much larger scale for the climate strike on the 21st of May. A serious strike of university students behind the banner of public renewables and climate jobs could pierce through the divisions between environmentalists and workers that the Liberals have exploited, and promote a credible alternative to this escalating catastrophe.But ultimately, strikes alone will not be enough to force the most powerful corporations in the world to simply abandon trillions of dollars of investment. The existing system subordinates our very existence on this planet to their profits and the whole of industry is tied to this setup by thousands of strings. Mass strikes can pose the question of who makes society run. But to answer it, we need the majority to not just refuse to work, but to choose on what basis they will go back to work taking production into their own hands to run it themselves on a democratic basis.Only then can we have a society that puts people, and the planet, first and bring runaway climate change to a halt.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Over a year on, the 2019 September 20th School Strike 4 Climate is regarded as something of an apotheosis of climate mass mobilisation in contemporary Australia. 80,000 students, workers, and families poured into Djarrbarrgalli, also known as the Domain, armed with placards, forming a puissant display of democratic power, and I somehow found myself in the press pen, not knowing how to act next to Craig Reucassel.Since that day in 2019, the School Strike 4 Climate movement has undergone a process of evolution partly organic, and partly catalysed by the disruption of COVID-19. Many organisers have aged out of the movement and newer faces, no less earnest in their activism, have taken up the mantle, bringing with them new visions, new strategies, and new theories of change. I sat down with three former and current SS4C organisers to gain some perspective on the evolution of the movement and their approach to the upcoming May 21st climate strike.Varsha Yajman, a graduated striker, was one of the key organisers behind September 20, and a dear friend of mine before she became a law student. She described the strike as one of the best experiences she ever had, and as a time of learning and growing by speaking to unions, Indigenous peoples, and climate deniers. I make the assumption that one of those demographics was less edifying to engage with than the others. Varsha noted that there was a definite loss of engagement throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but pointed to SS4Cs online strikes as evidence that there are still avenues to advocate for justice.I think SS4C has come back stronger than ever with a much more diverse group of people being given the opportunity to share their story, to work towards changing the narrative that this isnt just climate change but a climate emergency, Varsha opined. Although she has aged out of School Strike 4 Climate, she still holds high hopes for the movements future, I would love to see SS4C highlight the intersectionality of the climate movement even more. She pointed to the action SS4C co-led to stop the State Bank of Indias proposed $1bn loan to Adani, identifying it as an amazing step. Kayla Hill, a sixteen year old organiser, joined SS4Cs ranks mid-2019. Kayla spoke to the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted School Strikes organising, but also offered an opportunity for reflection Before COVID-19 we had so much momentum with the bushfire crisis and September 20, but we were able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and see how we can make realistic and effective change. She identified the pandemic as a crucial intergenerational opportunity to make change. We would otherwise never have this opportunity to rebuild our economy and shift the way its going.In our conversation, her determination to make the climate movement more accessible shone through. She spoke to her experience navigating the climate movement as a person of colour, and the growth she has undergone through that experience I think its necessary to keep addressing the issues that people of colour face within the climate movement. Ive definitely brought out my voice more, Ive been able to call people out and make sure they are held accountable. Kayla emphasised the importance of centering the First Nations peoples on the front lines of the governments expansion of gas projects. Intersectional activism is something which seems to be in Kaylas blood. She spoke fondly of her maternal grandfather who was involved in climate and land rights movements in Indonesia, citing him as an inspiration for her activism and following in his footsteps and following his legacy.Seventeen year old striker Nabilah Chowdhury will be taking to the stage on May 21st as an MC. Her nervous excitement was evident as she spoke about the prospect of chairing her first rally, but there is no doubt to be had that Nabilah, along with her co-MC, will exceed the expectations left through SS4Cs notably strong crop of orators. Nabilah addressed the logistical challenges of putting together a mass strike, pointing to the fact that many organisers are currently in year 11 and 12, and the task of promoting and organising a rally is something they juggle on top of school work and other extracurriculars. Nabilah herself is a fencer and volunteers at Taronga Zoo. Her plans to work in wildlife conservation after high school are undoubtedly borne of the same environmental conscience which led her to getting involved in SS4C in June 2019.Nabilah talked me through her process of getting involved in climate activism, I went to the strikes before I joined the team, and I always thought I should do that, I want to do something. I saw joining as a way to do something about the climate crisis because I felt like, for me, just standing there wasnt enough.Nabilah also spoke of the adaptations SS4C had to undergo through COVID, We had a planning day for the May 15th (2020) rally, wed planned most of it. We didnt buy anything thank goodness, but we planned a whole bunch of things and a whole bunch of speakers for an in-person rally in Sydney. While hopes of holding an in-person rally had declined slowly over a longer period, the definitive call by the Sydney team to move the rally online was only made a week beforehand. There were technical issues but I think we did alright, Nabilah chuckled.On May 21st, people will pour into Town Hall, the memories of September 20 still in their mind. School kids will show up, a little taller than they were then, bringing with them chants, witty placards, and an empowered belief in their ability to affect change.In the months since my cursory involvement in School Strike 4 Climate, the movement has been an instrumental catalyst in the development and growth of my own personal politics and advocacy. With an acknowledgement that their political standing can be a topic of contention within the wider environmental movement, I believe there is something to be said about the power these young people hold within the acolytic hope they possess in a better world.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Walking across campus is both a charm and a chore of campus life. For most students, navigation involves following obvious and well-trodden campus footpaths. But for some, the buildings of the University are not obstacles, but enticing trailheads. When being late to class is a matter of seconds, finding the optimal route between two points becomes useful, as well as entertainment that gives purpose to campus exploration, and leads to discoveries you would otherwise never make.The many names of campus roads and buildings can be confusing. I recommend taking this guide with you on your first forays through these routes. The time invested in learning them by heart will be repaid many times over. All timings were measured at a consistent walking pace of 4.8 kilometres per hour.The Graffiti Tunnel GriftFew campus falsehoods are so galling as the Graffiti Tunnel. The tunnel is a classic of supposed campus shortcuts, purportedly offering a convenient route from the Parramatta Road footbridge to Manning Road and beyond. This, dear readers, is a lie. There is almost no circumstance in which the Graffiti Tunnel is the optimal route between Science and Manning roads.If walking towards Eastern Avenue from the Parramatta Road Footbridge, enter the main entrance of the Pharmacy Building, and walk to the end of the old corridor, turning left at the glass firehose cabinet. Go down to the first landing in the stairwell, then right into the Level 3 New Wing, and immediately exit left out into the garden. Turn right down the stone stairs, then through both sets of glass sliding doors in the Brennan MacCallum Building, and out onto Manning Road.The time saved, compared to using the Graffiti Tunnel to reach the same point, is ten seconds. It is also a faster method than the popular Vice-Chancellors Garden route through the Quadrangle, since it allows you to take the diagonal down Fisher Road, and chain further shortcuts.An alternate method also exists. Between the Bank and Pharmacy buildings, there is a set of outdoor stairs on Science Road which lead down to a set of occasionally-open fire doors. Walk through these doors, turn left at the end, then right through the brick archway. Go up the small set of stairs, then immediately down the longer flight. Turn right in the corridor, then left outside S238B Microscope Room. Proceed all the way to the emergency exit double doors, and through them into the laneway. Turn left, and then right through the Brennan MacCallum doors, as above. Though this method is four seconds slower than the Pharmacy walkthrough, it is elegant in its use of the subterranean Pharmacy/Bank honeycomb. I recommend it for the campus explorer who is slightly less pressed for time.The Badham BypassA complement to the Graffiti Tunnel alternatives, the Badham Bypass is an unorthodox, but effective, means of reaching upper Manning Road from lower Science Road. The traditional student will walk downhill from the Russell Place carpark (next to the John Wooley building) to the Education Building, before turning left and walking uphill along Manning Road. Instead, walk through the open double fire doors into the bowels of the Badham Building (the doors are beneath a small Hazchem sign, and give out onto the carpark). Take the first right, out into Technology Lane, past the picnic benches and through the Brennan MacCallum underpass that would normally take you to the Graffiti Tunnel. Go straight through to Manning and save six seconds, or (if heading uphill) turn left at the top of the stairs and walk across the top of the Learning Hub to save a further five seconds.The Anderson Stuart TraverseA simple ten-second time save. If walking up Manning Road to reach upper Eastern Avenue, walk through the buildings north entrance, and traverse the courtyard past the small fountain, into the corridor, and out the front door onto Eastern Avenue. The Traverse is a relatively fringe case, and useful for reaching only a small number of destinations. Shortcuts further down Fisher Road will usually serve you better.The SLAM DunkA popular method of walking between Manning House and Physics Road (or the lower half of Eastern Avenue) involves using the pathway between the tennis courts and the sports field in front of the Physics Building; a foolish endeavour. Instead, when exiting out the back of Manning Food Court, turn left, then right through the portico of the Lawn Tennis Club (next to the Squash Court entrance). This will take you on a path between the tennis courts and the RC Mills Building, home of SLAM (School of Literature, Art and Media), delivering you to the corner of Physics and Fisher roads forty-one seconds faster than the usual route.The Edward Ford Fast-TrackA further time save exists on Physics Road. If walking uphill, and intending to turn right onto Fisher Road, veer right through the gates of the Edward Ford carpark (immediately uphill from the Physics Building). Walk through the carpark and underneath the sandstone archway, then turn left through the doors next to the tiny zebra crossing. Go up the stairs in the atrium area, then exit the building onto Fisher Road on the next floor; an entertaining four-second time save.The Chem Cut-ThroughsThe Chemistry Building is a pathway to many routes some consider to be unnatural. To access Eastern Avenue from Fisher Road, students commonly walk around the Chemistry lawns, before turning up Chemistry Lane and going up the stairs next to the liquid nitrogen tank between Chemistry and Madsen; but not you, dear readers. You walk over the grass of the Chemistry lawns, across the tree-filled courtyard behind Chemistry, and enter through the sliding doors next to the bike cage. You then walk forward up to the bathrooms, and turn right, exiting the building at the end of the corridor, next to the liquid nitrogen tank, saving eleven seconds in the process.Alas, this is only useful if your destination is Carslaw, or somewhere east of the Wentworth Building across City Road. If heading to ABS or Merewether, stay on Fisher Road up to the lights. If heading to Taste or New Law, cross the Chemistry lawns but cut left across the courtyard, past the huge drinking fountain, to the glass door at the base of a staircase. Go up the stairs and then straight out the front door to a Taste-y lunch. Finally, if heading to mid-Eastern Avenue from Manning Road, the standard outdoor route between Anderson Stuart and Chemistry on the outdoor stairs will remain fastest, as it allows you to take the diagonal down Eastern Avenue.The Engo ExpressThe Engo Express is the optimal route between Eastern Avenue and the Engineering buildings south of City Road. It begins on Barff Road, the small laneway that runs behind Carslaw and New Law. From the top of Eastern Avenue, cut diagonally down the stairs behind the New Law lawns, and follow Barff Road to the City Road intersection. After crossing the lights, go straight up the stairs, past the Catholic Student Centre and down the next flight of stairs ahead of you. Traverse Cadigal Green to the left of the Old School Building. Including the New Law diagonal, this can save you up to ninety seconds over the typical footbridge route, depending on your luck with the light cycle.The Redfern RushThe traditional Redfern Run is not the fastest way to Redfern Station. The Redfern Rush is an extension of the Engo Express that can deliver you to the station almost a minute and a half ahead of the Run. As many a Redfern Runner knows, this could mean the difference between catching your train, or a long, desultory wait on the platform. Complete the Engo Express, but cross Maze Crescent and continue straight, past the PNR Learning Hub. Cross the lawn, the carpark, and Shepherd Street, before continuing up Calder Road. Turn right on Ivy Street, cross the lights to Lawson Street, and complete the Run as normal. From after the Barff Road lights, the time saved is about eighty seconds. However, depending on where you start on Eastern Avenue, total time saved could extend up to three minutes.The only wildcard is the Barff Road lights at the beginning of the Rush. Much like waiting for a bus, arriving early in a cycle will save you no time compared to arriving just as the lights turn green. However, the potential time saves are so great, that even if RNG provides you the longest possible light cycle, you should still be no worse off.The Footbridge QuestionA matter of some contention among students who frequent the SRC or Wentworth Food Court is whether the City Road footbridge or the Butlin Avenue pedestrian crossing is faster. Evidence suggests the footbridge is superior in both cases. The City Road lights at Butlin Avenue operate on a cycle of fifty-three seconds of stop signals, followed by thirty seconds of walk signals. If you manage to arrive at the crossing at a frame-perfect light cycle, just as the walk signal begins, the time to the SRC or food court is identical to taking the footbridge from the same start position. However, the likelihood of reaching the crossing on a stop signal makes the footbridge the smart choice for the efficiency-minded student.Bonus: The Eastern AvenuesThe Eastern Avenues are two routes that run parallel to Eastern Avenue. Their advantage is that they are almost entirely under cover, making them ideal in rain, on windy days, or for avoiding stupol walk-and-talkers in campaign season. Though not shortcuts, they are useful backups for any campus walker to know.If walking northwards along Eastern Avenue from the City Road Footbridge, enter the Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences (LEES) building through the sliding door adjoining the footbridge (before the ramp goes down). Go down the stairs and through to the Carslaw Learning Hub, straight ahead and up one flight of stairs in the Eastern Avenue Lecture Theatre complex, down the corridor and push through the fire doors at the end. Walk across the glass air bridge into New Law, down two floors, straight ahead to the garden in the glass lightwell, then turn left towards the exit. Just before walking out the glass doors, turn right through the sliding doors (past the sandstone heads), and down another level into the Law Library. Turn right, and walk through into Fisher Library and beyond.Unfortunately, the fire doors between the Eastern Avenue Lecture Theatre complex and the glass air bridge are one-way. Thus, heading southwards requires an alternate, regrettably less elegant, route. Enter the northern Anderson Stuart door (next to the jacarandas on Manning Road), cross through the courtyard but turn right, rather than left, at the corridor that leads to Eastern Avenue. Leave through the southern exit facing Chemistry, and go up the outdoor stairs. Enter Chemistry and walk over the bridge, past the lockers, down the next staircase and then straight down the corridor and out next to the liquid nitrogen tank. Go up the stairs and enter the Madsen side door. If youre desperate enough to arrange swipe access with the Sydney Analytical lab, you can head downstairs and out the southeast corner of the building under the protective eaves of F23. Otherwise, youll have to turn left out the Madsen front door and onto the windswept wasteland of Eastern Avenue with the rest of us.ExtrasTake every opportunity to cross the sports field between the Education and Physics buildings on diagonals. This is one of the largest, yet most under-utilised, campus time saves, and is useful for many routes. Separately, reaching Broadway or the Parramatta Road bus stop in Victoria Park depends greatly on your starting position, but many optimal lines harness the less-commonly used gap in the Victoria Park fence, behind New Law.There are doubtless also time saves to be found between the buildings south of City Road. Not being an Engineering or Business student, I am unfamiliar with the most common destinations a field for further research. Speedrunning is an iterative process, and improvements can always be found. Get out there and explore. Quickly. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While Australias swift response to COVID-19 has allowed us to largely elude the levels of physical illness in many countries, it has also exacerbated an equally devastating mental health epidemic.University students, who have been disproportionately affected by pandemic-related economic downturns, tertiary funding cuts, and social fragmentation, have had more mental health issues resulting from the pandemic. Troublingly, Headspace found in early 2020 that half of young people were struggling to perform everyday tasks.This has translated into increased demand for mental health care services. At the height of lockdown, Beyond Blue reported a 63% increase in calls to their services.But even before COVID-19, the state of youth mental health was precarious. A 2019 Headspace report noted a rising tide of need for mental health and suicide prevention services, and that young peoples mental health issues were becoming more complex and acute. The gravity of these statistics cannot be understated.Young people face significant barriers to mental health care access. Even under a Medicare-subsidised Mental Health Care Plan, the standard gap fee for a psychological consultation is around $130, and doctors can only prescribe up to 10 sessions. For many students, paying $130 an hour is financially unsustainable. Moreover, students from lower socio-economic suburbs might not even be able to access services in their local area. Even for those who can access bulk-billing practices, which reduces the cost of consultations, many students report waiting around 6 months for an initial consultation, thanks to COVID-19.To address the mental health crisis, universities need to be more actively involved in introducing new models. While USyd does offer some services intended to support student wellbeing (including an after-hours helpline and online webinars), Professor Ian Hickie, Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at USyd, says that we have fallen behind other institutions. USyds counselling program, CAPS, has been described by students as inadequate, due to its six-session limit. Hickie agrees, saying that CAPS is a very small part of a much bigger health system. Despite student-driven initiatives from around 2010 which placed USyd at the forefront of conversations around universities and mental health, USyd has since been relatively slow to develop a system-wide response.Instead of expanding CAPS, Hickie is in favour of universities taking a facilitatory approach. He believes the role of universities is not to provide mental health care directly, but to assist students in connecting to community services and then continue to support students through their education while receiving help.In March, USyd made a promising announcement to help fund Dr Isabella Chois development of e-health services to improve the wellbeing of Chinese international students an important move, given the particular barriers they might face in terms of language, social stigma and being excluded from Medicare. Hickie is optimistic at the potential for digital technologies in supporting student wellbeing, saying that these areas have seen more change in the last few months than the previous 10 years.USyds Wellbeing Strategy, released in August 2020, details promising but vague declarations to embed mental wellbeing in all aspects of student life, in response to COVID-19. There was little discussion of facilitating student access to external health services beyond the nondescript building effective relationships with external service providers.Although I was a student last semester, I was not made aware of peer-support services or wellbeing literacy workshops that were implemented. There seems to be a disconnect between a well-meaning administration and the acute needs of student populations, compounded by confusing communication (see USyds complex website) about those services that are available. It also seems nave to assume that this strategy will result in a concrete change, where others have not.USyd has a wealth of mental health experts on staff, and bargaining power that comes from representing 70,000 people. As such, it is uniquely situated to advocate for increased government funding for community mental health services for students, and to create access pathways for students who might otherwise fall under the radar of the public health care system, and to prevent some of them dropping out.COVID-19 shouldnt be an excuse to halt new mental health initiatives; in fact, now is when they are needed most.Hickie is clear that it will take more than hope to move USyd on these issues, saying that the institution should take the lead by implementing a clear strategynot leaving it up to students to sort out where they go next and what they do.Acknowledging tremendous pressures that funding cuts have placed on universities, Hickie nonetheless insisted that USyds administration needs to acknowledge that its going to cost money, its going to take time, and theyre going to have to treat it seriously.If the university is going to do anything substantive about these issues, now is the time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Summer break, 2020. I had planned to visit my family in Perth but a new crop of COVID cases had spawned out of Avalon, leading to a hard border between WA and NSW. Bored and alone, I kept revisiting WA Premier Mark McGowans Facebook posts, specifically the well-produced colour-coded infographic maps of Australia: WA is always shaded neutral white, very low risk states are cautionary yellow, low risk states are hazardous orange, and medium risk states (i.e. NSW) are danger red. As I combed through the numerous geopolitical projections, I struggled to rationalise my fascination until I saw it. Underneath McGowans awkward but eternally endearing dad smile, there was a small but recognisable gap in-between WA and the other states, a moat that separates it from the rest of the country.Growing up in WA, that separation is palpable. You are constantly reminded that (by some very narrow measures) Perth is the most isolated city in the world, nestled in the ugly duckling of states. Its a place of greedy mining magnates, disproportionate GST redistribution, and wide-open spaces; the Wild West that Canberra forgot. From the jump, WA was hesitant about joining the new country of Australia, and after 22 years of unhappy marriage, filed for divorce. A divorce which Westminster (as the judge in this jumbled analogy) subsequently stonewalled. Possibly as delayed retribution, it has been said although probably exaggerated that during the Second World War, the federal government planned to sacrifice everything west of the imaginary line between Brisbane and Adelaide if the Japanese Army invaded. My Year 9 geography teacher would routinely decry the (dubious) betrayal each semester, demanding that we never forget the dastardly deeds of the evil eastern elites.Still, the yearning for independence persevered and the state became a Mecca for sovereign citizenry. Prior to its collapse, Australias most famous secession success story was the product of a wheat farmer who decided that he didnt want to follow the directives of the Department of Agriculture and formed his own principality, the Hutt River Province, one hour north of Geraldton. After bestowing himself the title of Prince Leonard I, he began bankrolling his new state by issuing his own currency and stamps sometimes with peculiar commemorative themes: birds of Antarctica and his 1979 holiday (ahem, official state visit) to the Vatican.But that was not the only time the Holy See got a callout from West Australian secessionists. In June 2020, four insurgents from the New Westralia movement live streamed their storming of the historic courthouse in York, declaring New Westralias independence not only from the Commonwealth, but the auspices of the Bishop of Rome, as well (as if Pope Francis cared about a town of 2,500 people in rural WA). Despite their arrest, the Westralian movement continues to fester. A few weeks ago, a sovereign citizen refused to say her name when asked in court and yelled We object when allegations of speeding were read against her. Despite being convicted, she thanked a New Westralian seperatist for their sound legal advice.The New Westralia movement is undoubtedly fringe, but their ethos is anything but. Deep rooted in the collective consciousness of West Australians at home, and in the diaspora, is a disdain for the eastern states that wronged us, spanning from the premiers infographics, to a WAxit meme page (formerly administered by the Universitys own Director of Debates), to my grandmothers declaration that shes always been a secessionist. Roughly one third of the state supports WAxit and the Microbusiness Party rebranded itself to the WAxit Party to capitalise on the political moment. Its ironic, however, that the entire secessionist discourse belies the fact that Western Australia was built on top of land that was never ceded, let alone given the opportunity to secede.But just to be safe, it might be wise for us sandgropers to start saving for international tuition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In evaluating the success of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, a particular reactionary caricature comes to mind that decolonisation means historical erasure. Liberal and right-wing critics doubled down, with The Telegraphs Harry Mount calling protestors hypersensitive, unsophisticated, uneducated.The goal is precisely the opposite of historical erasure its historical recovery. Recovery of histories of people slaughtered on mass people whose memories are barely a footnote in Western mythology. While we cant recover the millions of voices silenced by murder and systematic discrimination, we can set the facts straight.William Charles Wentworth was a politician, journalist and very notably, a coloniser. In 1813 he rose from his aristocratic upbringing to popular prominence by discovering a crossing over the Blue Mountains. This route into central and western New South Wales ignited the flames of settler-colonial violence, facilitating the frontier conflicts that led to the death of tens of thousands of First Nations people. The discovery as expected was fraud the path was used by Wiradjuri, Gundungura and Dharug people for tens of thousands of years preceding it. For Wentworth, this actualised in personal wealth and political power an influence which helped establish The University of Sydney.What results is the Wentworth Must Fall Campaign. Our immediate goals are simple: rename the Wentworth building and tear down the Wentworth statue in the Great Hall. We seek to decolonise at large, and platform the colonialism Wentworth represented. Its a process of historical rediscovery.A Sinhalese man and a Koori woman walked into a bar. The following conversation is an attempt to document what the Wentworth Must Fall movement hopes to unravel.Georgia: We started this campaign in 2017 when a friend of mine was reading a book on him [Wentworth] and came to me saying Georgia this guy is fucked.I think this UniversityUniversity could turn around and name [the building] after an Indigenous Warrior and think that theyre doing good stuff but nothing will have changed. The immediate aims are symbolic but there is power in symbolism. That was what was so exciting about the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa. It began with fuck this guy lets get him off our campus and went further to Fees Must Fall because the colonial legacy he instated is immanent in things like African access to tertiary education, wealth disparity and so on. And thats decolonisation. It is something to get people talking about colonisation and colonies but its never a means to an end. Theres work to be done.Himath: I think thats entirely correct. With the decolonisation movement, youre platforming what colonialism actually was. I think one of colonisations biggest functions is to rewrite the history of an entire nation.Georgia: Everybody knows Wentworths name, but knows nothing about what he actually did. To me, thats rewriting history. Surely its more historically accurate than putting someone up on a pedestal when they dont deserve it. A lot of people bite into the post-racism myth of the Australian state because of the so-called multiculturalism of Australia. But any idea of multiculturalism is built on the idea of assimilation. Decolonisation challenges this very idea.Himath: In the wake of the Christchurch shooting, theres so much to reflect on especially with with the shooter being an Australian. In his manifesto, although claiming that nationalism and fascism acknowledge the sovereignty of different people over their nation-state he completely overlooks that the white ethnostate he admires requiress/d the destruction of national sovereignty of the non-white world. To him, Australia always was white land. To me, thats why decolonisation plays a necessary role in the struggle against fascism. How do you see the decolonisation movement mixing in with the fight against the alt-right?Georgia: Yeah, absolutely. The decolonisation movement counters at its very core the assertion that fascism and the alt-right have. That is, in Australia, we need to reclaim a White Australia. Any rigorous notion of sovereignty would contradict the claim that the White Australia to be returned to was not a legitimate government. And while the target of fascist movements in Australia is Muslims and immigrants, its important to remember that so many people come from countries that are targets of Western Imperialism. We cant be separating things in an identity politics way. Like you are the victims now, we were the victims then. The relationship goes both ways. We cant focus on racial identities in isolation. I think Frantz Fanon speaks to this when he talks about being aware of the person who is anti-semitic, they will feel the same towards you[a][b][c]. This is what makes decolonisation invariably a part of anti-racist movements. Theres no point in isolating them when were fighting against fascism.Himath: I think that proves that our [migrant] voices are silenced by the same structures that silence colonised voices. The big threat of decolonial movements to the status quo and to the people who hold nationalist views is that it delegitimizes them, and it delegitimizes them in the most intellectually honest way by uncovering the reality of the historical past they glorified with myths. Its the same reality that White supremacists forget when they hold Western Civilisation to standards it doesnt deserve like it wasnt built off the labour and natural resources in Sri Lanka and India; like it wasnt built off slave labour from the Africas.Georgia: Theres this really cool Lebanese-Australian anthropologist, Ghassan Hage. He makes this really cool point that a lot of the reasons why white fascists are really afraid of a foreign invasion is because they know its possible to take over a country the same way they did. I think something you brought up about wage-labour and capital is that a lot of people regard pre-colonial Indigenous ways of being and knowing as somehow not successful. Theyll look at things like theres not mass production, theres no agriculture which if you read Bruce Pascoes Dark Emu youll know is untrue. What there isnt evidence of is a system of exploitation on the scale of capitalism. What I think is successful is that Indigenous people have been here since time immemorial and havent created a fucked-up system that is tearing the planet apart. When we talk about this idea of Western Civilisation, what are we talking about? Systems of exploitation, slavery, ecocide?.Himath: As we discussed earlier there is no one who erases the past like colonisersGeorgia: Its like that quote, history is written by the victors.[a]Fanon: When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you. And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content Warning: Article makes reference to transphobiaand sexual violencefearnounan unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harmSynonyms: terror, fright, dread, distress, trepidation, etc.Cisgender people quite often say that they are fearful of transgender people. Cisgender people say that we are unstable or unpredictable. Cisgender people say that we are dangerous or are confusing.In response, Ill tell you a bit about me: my name is Lukas, and Im almost 21. Im a fairly short person, who like reading, writing, Dungeons and Dragons, Pokmon, nature/animals, and I want to be a vet, which is why Im studying here. I have several great friends in Sydney who I am beyond grateful that I was lucky enough to meet. I am also a transgender man.There are many cisgender people who just read that last sentence and are now suddenly disgusted or repulsed by me, no matter what else we may share in common. Some cisgender people would hate to be near me, for fear of me exposing them or others to the confusion that is a transgender man living his life. Some think that I deserve to be attacked, assaulted, raped, abused, and even murdered because I am transgender. Others will ignore a situation where a someone is being yelled at, attacked, or discriminated against because they are transgender.Im lucky I have yet to face transphobia like that. However, that is only because I have started to truly live as myself just this year, even though I have known for years that Im transgender. I also plan to start hormone replacement therapy this year, as well as coming out as transgender to more and more people. The more I transition, the more Ill become even more androgynous, and eventually masculine, than I currently am. And of course, talk of transition raises perhaps one of the most-discussed controversies regarding transgender people: bathrooms.Cisgender people get very strange about bathrooms. For example: I was at a Christmas Carols concert last December, and the portable toilets had male and female signs on them, signs which cisgender people were actually largely obeying. I ended up picking a random toilet that was free, because I was not waiting in line for 10 minutes due to arbitrary signs. These portable toilets were all exactly the same. They were all small, all had bad toilet paper, and all had a not-so-faint stench, yet they were still divided into male and female portable toilets. I still cant figure out why.Moving onto public bathrooms, ever since Ive started to look more androgynous/masculine, the idea of using public bathrooms has filled me with fear and anxiety. Do I use the mens bathroom because Im a man? But what if a cisgender man takes offence to a transgender man using the same bathroom as him, and decides to harass me, intimidate me, or even assault me? Ill tell you what happens, thanks to Hayden Moon offering to share his experiences.While using the public bathrooms that are on campus at USyd, Hayden tells me that he has been verbally harassed, by being called a tr*nny and a f*ggot by other students. He tells me that other students at this university have also threatened him with rape and murder, all because he dared to use a public bathroom as a transgender person. He has also told me about seeing violently transphobic graffiti in at least several of the public bathrooms on campus. Given all of this and more, the mens bathroom is off-limits to me unless I want gamble with my safety every single time I just need to pee.So then, do I use the womens bathroom? Sometimes, if I really cant wait until I get home. But I also look too unlike a girl to not raise eyebrows and often get looks, whispers, and snide remarks. What if Im on my period (which is a unique hell as a transgender man) and need to change my pad or tampon? The womens bathroom is the only one thats 100% guaranteed to have sanitary bins, so heres what I do: I wait outside the womens bathroom until there arent many people in there. Then I rush in, head for the first cubicle I see, take care of things, and then I wait, again, for silence. Then I wash my hands as fast as I can and leave as fast as I can. If I dont have time to wash my hands, I have to use hand sanitiser that I keep with me.More recently, I have started to use what is often the only unisex bathroom available, and also what is probably the safest option available to me: the accessible bathroom. I experience chronic pain, and my mental illnesses would also qualify me as disabled. However, since I dont look disabled, I still get passive-aggressive why-the-hell-were-you-in-there glares, or just confused staring as people try to figure out what my disability is.And what about the transphobic graffiti that is literal writing on the wall? Its proof of just how hated us trans folk are just for existing. On this campus alone, transphobic cisgender people have scrawled on bathroom walls that transgender people should be gassed, should be exterminated, and should commit suicide. Other transphobic cisgender people have torn down and scratched up stickers that were put up in USyds bathrooms with a simple slogan of We all need to pee.This is what trans people face with just using a public bathroom. I havent even begun to talk about anything else. If I did, this article would be many more pages long. We have to endure a much higher risk of rape, murder, assault, abuse of all kinds, suicide, mental illness, and so many more challenges than any cisgender person will ever face solely for being cisgender. You will never be treated as less than human, or have your human rights be debated solely because you are cisgender.Now, rewind.Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm. Cisgender people like to claim that they are scared of transgender people. But how can they be scared? I am legitimately fearful of cisgender people, especially those who are not queer, because any one of them could possibly decide to harass, assault, or even murder me just because Im transgender. You, likely-cisgender reader, are not scared of transgender people.We do not scare you. It is the other way around. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> To newly identify as bisexual, to me, is to be in a perpetual state of transition. Constantly slipping into different pockets of my emerging self with no control over my trajectory. Existing in a state of fluidity that seems to evoke a need to justify every action, every moment. To be everything at once.I am overwhelmed by a looming pressure to choose where I fit. There is a dual narrative running at overtime in the forefront of my brain, policing how I dress, speak, walk, think. I weave through life accompanied by a quiet voice, simply saying not gay enough a phrase Ive learned to hate, but nevertheless feel deep in my chest. And I can never seem to tell; am I a misfit puzzle piece of the heterosexual world, or am I a member of the queer community?It is hard enough to grapple with my bisexuality, only to have an extra layer of doubt weighing over it like a strange straight cloud. And especially being someone who came out late already aware of their adult self, confident in their sexuality, only to have a queer curveball thrown into the works.I find that much of my time is spent attaining a heterosexual pretence. I do not feel a right to be anything else, especially when it is the way of existing I have blindly accepted until recent discoveries of myself.But this is what true invisibility feels like. How can you exist as a whole and human person when you feel invisible? It is a state of chaos, of being in consistent and unrelenting conflict with yourself.It is exhausting. Which is an especially important thing to acknowledge when the mental health of my bisexual peers is so heartbreakingly dire in our current political climate.It is feeling as if there is nowhere you are fully yourself.It is living with one foot in the closet, because your heart does not belong inside, but your whole does not feel welcome in the queer sphere, even with the sea of the welcoming voices calling out from within it.It all adds up to an inability to fit. An inability to step outside with a rainbow badge on my shirt, because I do not feel real enough. A hesitance of coming out to those I know are queer, in case they share a knowing look of disapproval. And a never-ceasing fear of not being believed.When you exist in a margin between, it is phenomenally hard to believe yourself. If you feel queer, you are queer, I hear over and over, but I still feel fraudulent in the rainbow colours. I feel as if I have not earnt the right to be loud or the right to be proud. That I have not suffered enough to deserve it.But what I have learnt in my short time exploring this world is that queerness is no longer a competition of pain. It is a beautiful, liberating thing that I am allowed to wear as little or as loudly I like.So maybe bisexuality is messy. Maybe I will forever be caught in this tug of war, or maybe I will find a way to settle. But I am done denying myself queerness; labels do not have to be limiting, and I wish to claim this one as mine. I am done loathing being in between. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Fantasy has been a treacherous place for me. Recently, Ive had this recurring fascination with the possibility of my being adopted; that my parents, who have raised me over these past twenty years, who have fed me, clothed me, done everything in their power to love me and make me a better person, that these people are not my real parents. And I love it. I love this weird fantasy, this Shakespearean drama. Id take some DNA test and discover that my real father was a Frenchman named Jean-Jacques Deschamps, and that he was the dream father I had always wanted. Every day, he would venture out from his apartment in the heart of the Neuilly-sur-Seine district of Paris on his chic bicycle, transporting himself toward the heart of the city where he would lecture at the Sorbonne, of course. Discoursing fluently in three different languages, he would teach the greatest French literature known to man Flaubert, Moliere, Voltaire to the best minds on earth. They would converge together, huddling over old-leather bound texts to debate the peculiar meaning of a parsed French verb, its meaning lost to the march of linguistic change.I spend hours imagining this person, Mr Jean-Jacques Deschamps, and the active role he would play in my life. Hed invite me to come live with him in Paris, and every day, after he finished lecturing we would venture into the well-worn streets of Paris. We would pass from Notre Dame to the Latin Quarter, pausing to sip coffee and eat fresh bread from some artisanal boulangerie perched on the corner of a grand boulevard. The shops striped awning would sprawl out over the pavement, providing shade from the stark sun above. Wed sit there for hours, discussing everything from the realism of Madame Bovary to the changing politics of the world around us, and then to the mundanities which fill our days and make them grander than the tragedies of theatre. Jean-Jacques would be gay too, a seasoned veteran in all matters pertaining to homosexuality from the history of LGBTQ+ rights to the desire to find the one, the right one, hed know it all. Hed be there for me, helping it through me all, showing me what he knew of the world.Fantasies are fun like that. You can get lost in them, let them to grow into grand illustrations. They can be canvases which encompass great spaces filled with the bright luminescence of colour, a kaleidoscope of intricate brilliance, a detailed image which mesmerises the viewer. I like to get lost in my fantasies, to create the detailed life of Jean-Jacques Deschamps, and of course, to fit myself into the grand journey. The fantasy may seem to focus on Mr Deschamps, but really it is about me: my interference into his life as his long-lost son, a faded but not-forgotten remnant of his past that has grown and matured in the far isle of Australia before finally returning. The prodigal son embraces his father, the childrens tale of separation and reunification I would be, naturally the axis around which the fantasy revolves. The grand tapestry of my imagination would portray Jean-Jacques Deschamps not in isolation, but in unity, with me, there in a candid polaroid of a father and son. We would be smiling, joyful, content, laughing carefreely as the traffic of the Parisian streets continued to march on.I cant stay in my fantasy forever. Jean-Jacques Deschamps does not exist. I am not an adopted child. I am my fathers son. I am just me. My reality is my current existence. My father isnt the literature-loving, gay French man of my hearts desire. My father doesnt read the classics, or any novel for that matter, preferring the buzzing solace of television to the comfort a book. My father is not a trilingual Frenchman, cycling his way to a university to deliver thought-provoking lectures but rather a monolingual accountant who guzzles his way through a tank of petrol every three days. My father is no all-knowing gay man, but a man who would prefer that gay people werent real, or at least that his son wasnt one. My father is the exact opposite of my grand fantasies, for he is not my grand tapestry of my luminescent illusions, but rather he is my stark reality. He is the truth of eyesight, through glasses smudged and scratched, a vision abundant with ever-present imperfections.But he is my father. He is my true father and the only father Ill ever have. I must learn to love him, even when he may not love me. I must incorporate him into my grand tapestry, allowing our imperfections to blend together in hopes of creating a masterpiece to hang in the gallery of our reality. It wont be easy. The truth reality, our existence never is. Reality has always been a treacherous place for me. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With over 15,300 followers, USyd Love Letters Revived (USyd LLR) is a source of entertainment for many students, a place where the innermost desires of classmates are externalised and a site for the odd shout out, and joke letter to a friend. As a place which enables people to anonymously submit letters without fear of judgement, it is unsurprising, then, that the page provides a relatively stable dataset of the types of people USyd students love and how they describe or sell themselves as potential suitors.Despite anonymous spaces being technically judgement-free spaces, they can be monopolised or hijacked by exclusive, but not necessarily discriminatory, discourses which deter the participation of certain people like myself, highlighting preconceived expectations and influencing our sense of belonging.The first post of USyd LLR is a pinned admin post dating back to 24 October 2018. Despite the good intentions of the author, it unwittingly reinforces heteronormative stereotypes by explicitly giving advice to guys who like girls (for the guyswith the girl/s) and vice versa (for the girlsif there is a guy), in turn, entrenching an expectation that readers are straight and monogamous, while also assuming gender roles to a degree.Though it remains arguable that there are more straight people at USyd, it is possible to give advice which is inclusive to everyone. Doing this is far from difficult. In fact, the admin does manage to do this by not assuming the gender of peoples partners in their further advice in the comments section.Going down the page, other posts reveal varying expectations underlying stereotypes manifested in the requirements and characteristics people demand in a potential suitor. While some desired characteristics are arguably petty, like the degrees people study, ethnic and cultural preferences subtly influence the letters on the page and the big debate remains whether it is acceptable to have a monoracial or monocultural preference.While there are definitely open love letters, you often find letters which require someone to be of a particular racial or cultural background. Out of a randomly selected set of 30 letters, 13 were open and 17 had an obvious ethnic preference. However, while it may be easy to accuse those with such requirements as racist, and there are undoubtedly some who are, familial and cultural expectations permeate such requirements.Indeed, some letters often jokingly mention these underlying influences. A recent letter laments the difficulties of finding the perfect person, within constraints defined by parents who would much rather have you marry in the same race/religion. Another letter mentions after making a ethnic preference, Were all kidding ourselves if we think theres not a point where were going to ditch our parents requirements.Akin to these racial and cultural preferences, the manner in which people describe themselves online can also highlight preconceived expectations. Racial and cultural identity is a tricky area to navigate in online spaces. While personal identity is meant to be something we own and something we should be proud of, that does not mean they are immune to preconceived expectations.For example, religious identity can involve moral beliefs on how people should behave. In that sense, a queer and affirming person of faith can be harmed (and very much excluded) when someone else is proud of their religious identity and assume all others of that identity should act in a certain way. This extends to cultures where monocultural relationships are ingrained.In these cultures, individuals are subtly geared towards an expectation, a performance consistent with those around them, such that they ought to like a specific type of person and a failure to do so results in the risk of social isolation. Cultural expectations ultimately explain the preferences of some letters in USyd LLR.On a daily basis, I experience the wrath of both racial/cultural and heteronormative expectations. As a gay man who is typically masculine-presenting, I often feel an expectation that I am supposed to be straight or that I am straight-acting. Because I choose not to conform to the stereotypically gay image, I am expected to conform to typically masculine gender roles. As someone who lives in Australia and comes from a Chinese cultural background, I feel like I am being judged as inauthentic or simply white-washed because I dont conform to stereotypical Asian ideals, and values such as being hardworking, socially conservative and family-orientated.These expectations, in turn, weaken my sense of belonging. More often than not, I wonder if someone will ever love me.Yet, while USyd LLR and other university love letter platforms are generally light-hearted sources of entertainment, we can all aspire to be more inclusive when we talk about love. Though I am not suggesting that USyd LLR is an exclusionary platform, it remains paramount that we dont make assumptions of people because of their racial or cultural background, nor that people are straight unless said otherwise. For example, writing public love letters addressed to the boys, the girls, or your love interest expecting theyre straight may be unremarkable to you, but it can negatively affect queer peoples sense of belonging. For most of us, the public sphere is an exclusionary space, and online love letters platforms which confer the protection of anonymity, are some of the few spaces we have routine access to.Equally, the onus is on us to take care to understand our attraction without assuming anything on the basis of someones background. I dont expect that we will be perfect, but we can all do our part in making our online spaces more inclusive. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Christchurch, 26th January 2014Theres a crack splitting the ceiling outside the room Im staying in. We drove to Waltham in the rain today, I saw the shipping containers a sign of the slow recovery of this city.Sydney, 15th March 20192:00PMIm out at lunch. My phone buzzes with a breaking news alert: theres an unfolding situation in Christchurch. The alert mentions Hagley Park and I recall having Christs College pointed out to me from the car as we passed Hagley on our way to Waltham that day, five years ago. I try to remember if we drove past Al-Noor too.3:30PMIm home now, on my laptop. Facebook recounts the shootings to me repeatedly as national, then international media, pick up the story. The death toll rises with each link I click on. I ring my parents. I realise we dont know how to talk about something like this happening in our home. Weve never had to.7:00PMI message my friend in Auckland to check in. It was my friends mosque. Hes devastated. I hope hes okay and I begin to wonder how one comforts a stranger from 2000km away.7:15PMIm on the phone with another friend now. I tell her the death toll is at 40. We both fall silent. I try to imagine a room of 40 people, their lives, and their families. The death toll later rises to 50.7:35PMControlled detonation by a bomb squad at Britomart Train Station. Thats 3km from my parents house. I come through that station multiple times a week when I return home, rushing up the escalators to meet old faces in the atrium or at Amano across the square. Those memories are briefly suspended in time as the area is quickly closed off, and then reopened.7:40PMI ring my mum. Shes shocked and confused. How did something like this happen here? Maybe I dont know this place as well as I thought I did. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> One.Step onto the worn, familiar carpet of your high school. Your backpack is surprisingly light. You left your prescribed and related texts on your desk at home, and have resigned to studying tomorrow and daydreaming today in class. He greets you at the door of your roll call. Give him a quick kiss hes just so attractive in his blazer and set your bag down. This is a time of hands clasped during walks down hallways at recess and lunch, of teasing approval from peers and staff, of being surrounded constantly by girls chattering about formal dresses. A warm haze seems to enclose everything even your least favourite teacher, the centuries of gum pasted on the underside of desks, and most of all, That Boy, looking so magnificent even as he participates in the sweaty pre-graduation tradition of handball. At this point, your late-night texting sessions have kept you from your writing and your adventures with Bilbo and Sam for two months. You ignore the gnawing feeling in your gut and promise yourself that you will make time for them when the HSC is over.Two.Get That Boy to don a tuxedo and a pair of starstruck eyes, you a midnight blue dress. Do everything right the gasp of mock surprise as he places a corsage on your wrist, posing for the fructose-corn-syrup-sweet photographs of you on the staircase. Smile when he mouths the lyrics as you dance to Ed Sheeran and Beyoncs Perfect, and grant each other the title love of my life. Since there is no doubt that you will win the Cutest Couple award, receive it with zero chagrin, to the unanimous shrieking of Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! from the crowd (which includes your Deputy Principal, by the way). Create a personal, handwritten journal entry for the evening that says, It was a magical night beyond wordsThree.October. Set a countdown to D-Day on the HSC Discussion Group. Google How to preserve a corsage, apply the internets wisdom, and then turn into a practice-essay-producing machine. Allow the back of his head to melt into hundreds of others during English Paper 1. You snap in the last week of exams, finally resenting That Boy, but mostly yourself, because he has just taken too much. Watch as That Boys constant messages become muted nuisances, his repetitive jokes and the endless heart emojis suddenly feeling far less urgent than the list of things you will do once the HSC is over. To him, your plans for the future are cool, and you are uneasy but unwilling to admit that what he knows about you is limited to the few square inches that are your lips.Four.Leave the school hall after your final exam and step over the threshold that bears the school insignia, a long-awaited initiation into the ever-evasive real world. Relish the sound of everything that bears the label high school crashing violently into the bottom of a garbage bin, from your stiff uniforms to report cards and handwritten notes. You find great joy in stalking the USyd website and Honi Soit, changing your UAC preferences every two days. Your schedule is filled with detailed travel plans, lists of books to read, live music to listen to, and trails to hike, none of which he is a fan of. The fan in your room keeps on blowing away the photographs blu-tacked to your mirror of you and That Boy.Five.Promise yourself that this relationship will finally be revived, but get carried along by the currents of the universe, that through numerous timely flight promos relocates you suddenly into the window seat of an aeroplane headed to your hometown, Dumaguete City in the Philippines.Attempt the infamous long distance relationship for a month, until you come to terms with the fact that scheduled I love yous, a lack of stimulating conversation, an apathy towards life in general, and forgetting your birthday hardly constitute a relationship. Admit to your lifelong friends that you feel as if That Boy has no place in the life you want to live when you return, to which they will reply, You know what you have to do.Journal furiously on the plane ride back to Sydney with a newfound clarity of mind achieved by your long absence from the making-out bubble. Go on one last date, during which the conversation grates like sandpaper. Wake up the next morning to begin your latest, most difficult piece a truthful, handwritten letter. Give it to That Boy to read on a rainy day on a park bench four days later. Become speechless as all he says is I understand and I have to get to work, rushing past your backup friend who hides behind a tree.Six.Aim to celebrate your newfound singleness, but end up weeping in your room for two weeks, watching The Notebook five times and forgetting what a shower is. Find out that he has blocked you on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Remove Perfect from your Spotify playlist. Create a 118-item long list of why you were not meant for each other, as advised by a psychologist on a Ted Talk (because youre just too broke for therapy), and read this whenever you miss him. Realise that it is the 18th of February and you must, must, must make it to Welcome Week. Join 15 societies. Reclaim your late-night adventures with hobbits and dragons and pen and paper. Move and live and breathe, until you realise, as you are drinking gin and playing pool with strangers in the Lansdowne Hotel, that had you still been together, he would not have found a place in your new life after all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content Warning: thisarticle mentionsBulimia.I went overseas in January and naturally, its the first thing I get probed about at cafe tables. I always say that the biggest highlight for me was the cuisine; that the Pad Thai here doesnt hold a flame. But the ironic truth is: I didnt eat for most of those three weeks.My brain functions in a peculiar way. At every waking moment, Im frantically calculating how much glucose is in my body; how many fat cells I am burning in a state of ketosis; how much metabolic water my body is producing. When I eat, I can feel these processes spiralling out of control, and it becomes impossible for me to track. Because of this obsession, I go through extended periods of starvation, sometimes without even drinking water, for this allows me to gain a phantasm of absolute control over what my body is doing. This is then followed by vicious relapses of binge eating when my body and mind inevitably yield.These eating cycles maintain a firm grip over every single facet of my existence. My starvation periods are when I am most productive to suppress my hunger, I pile on work so I dont have time to even contemplate food. Many call me a workaholic, but I object to that sentiment since I am not driven by the work itself, but rather the aversion of eating. Because my subconscious is constantly thinking about food, I spend a lot of time cooking and watching cooking television shows. Though it doesnt sound terrible, during these periods I am miserable and completely devoid of energy.When I binge, I feel euphoric. Like a desert traveller stumbling upon an oasis, my body finally receives the sustenance it has been yearning for after days of hunger and dehydration. These fervent binges can last up to a week, a period where I am incredibly radiant, happy, and (dare I say) potent. Interestingly, my senses are heightened, so even a sterile piece of lettuce can taste like sugar. But after that comes the slump, where I feel physically nauseous and drown in acute feelings of paranoia. Rinse, lather, repeat.The curious thing is that my friends and family all know about my eating patterns. In fact, most people point out that I never eat, to which I always answer Im just not hungry. This is enough for people to suppose that everything is fine. While I dont blame anyone, acquiescence certainly doesnt help. There are so many times where I wish someone had spoken to me privately and simply said if theres anything I can do to help, let me know.When thinking about an eating disorder, many conjure up an image of a person emaciated, insecure, and volatile. Yet it certainly doesnt represent everyone. I feel good about my body. I sit within the average weight range for a person my height and age. I carefully plan out the days and times in which I have my strategic binges. But when you look at my patterns of behaviour, it would be absurd not to conclude that something is gravely awry.The reality is that eating disorders are incredibly complex and manifold. We come in all different shapes and sizes, at all stages of body acceptance, with different habits and pathologies. Not all people with bulimia purge. Collective ignorance, masked in hyper-awareness, has created very narrow definitions that serve to exclude and delegitimise people who are indeed suffering from genuine mental health issues. We start to believe that were not sick enough or thin enough for treatment, even though we torture our bodies physically and mentally every day.I decided it was time to share my experiences, because in order to demystify the eating disorder and all its nuances, its important that we tell our stories. This is but one of many. Though, admittedly, Im only at the first yellow brick on the road to recovery, Ive come to accept that just one day of struggling in the darkness of an eating disorder is enough to warrant proper attention and help. I have hope that this will catch on, and that more people will have these conversations.If you are worried about yourself or someone else, the best thing you can do is talk to someone. The Butterfly Foundation for eating disorders National Helpline can be reached at 1800 33 4673, 7 days a week from 8am to midnight. In a crisis, please call 000 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I. FridaysFridays are a combination of chaos and serenity in our home. Lining up for the shower as the hot water supply scrambles to keep up. Frantically ironing babas shalwar kameez with clear-cut precision so the guys at the mosque dont make a comment. Its the fragrance of ittar wafting through the hallway as baba does the head count. We all run out single file, hoping we make it before the first call.Fridays are can the brother with the white Camry please clear the driveway, young boys shoving expensive sneakers at the top of the shoe cupboard so they dont get trampled on or worse yet, stolen. Fridays are aunties blocking narrow hallways with stories about someone elses daughter getting married, while uncles wage debates on world affairs and cricket. It is little girls clutching at their fathers legs, haphazardly trying to keep the hijabs from slipping off their heads, again.Fridays begin with the nervous teenage boy, clearing his throat as he tries to begin the athaan. The clamour of voices begins to subside and huddles assemble into lines, packed like sardines from shoulder to shoulder. The elderly set up their chairs near the back. The children sprawl themselves in their parents laps.Jummah begins with pin drop silence. We reflect on our misgivings and ask for forgiveness, we pray for our brothers and sisters in unison and we thank our Lord for all that we have been given.Friday is the best of days.There is no day more virtuous than Friday. Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)-xx-II. MourningWe dont get to mourn like normal people. Sadness comes in waves; it rolls in as the numbers increase, it rolls in when the numbers are given faces, names, stories, identities a Muslim identity.Despair strikes as we realise they are family, they are our kin. It could have been us. It is personal. The pain escapes from their souls and spreads itself through every one of us.It is an assault on our identities and our existence, and we are scared. We wont stop rebelling by continuing to exist, we will occupy spaces, we will wear our hijabs yet now I feel my head wont be held up as high. This is the first time I have truly felt unsafe because of my Muslim identity; before it was words, now it is physical. Now, it feels like someone may actually hit the target.But in truth, I am mostly exhausted. I am not privileged with only sadness to process. I carry the burden of fear for my safety, helplessness that our voices arent being heard, anger that I am told to defend my existence every other day but when my existence is being violated, no one is defending me.We are told that verily with hardship comes ease. Our brothers and sisters went to greet their creator and have returned to him. They have gone as martyrs and I try to take comfort in that. I see forgiveness and serenity in the faces of widows, children, parents and friends who begin to lay their loved ones to rest, and pray that they will reunite with them again.We will stand shoulder to shoulder with them on this Friday and the Fridays to come.-xx-III. SpeakPoliticians used Islamophobia as bargaining chips. The media profited from us by normalising it. We consumed it, we ignored it, we got used to it. White supremacy weaponised it under the banner of freedom of speech and yet no one believed us when we called it a threat, because we were the threat.Weve both been put in the spotlight and kept out of it. Spoken on, for and about, but never to. So I speak and I write out of rebellion, protest and healing. I need you to listen.Do not tell me this was shocking, isolated or unexpected. Do not tell me to calm down. Do not tell me to stay strong. Do not watch as we get berated on buses. Do not dismiss us when we call out white supremacy. Do not turn the page and forget this happened. This is a cycle perpetuating itself with othering linked together by complicity.Your words matterYour actions matterYour silence matters tooI can hear it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Casula as a suburb can be described as the runt of the litter. Its significance in the Western Suburbs is often dwarfed by its more renowned, older siblings Liverpool, Glenfield and Cabramatta. Liverpool is often stereotyped frequently for its extraordinary number of welfare recipients, Glenfield for having a large, multi-platform train station, and Cabramatta, the once crime capital of Sydney in the late 70s and 80s, has reformed into a bustling Pan-Asian cultural hub. Casula, however, has nothing to offer. When peers at university question where I live, responding simply with Casula all too often elicits a completely blank face, followed by a wheres that? My usual response is to mention the more famous or rather infamous suburbs in my vicinity until they formulate a rough idea of where Casula is. Throughout my four years on campus and the hundreds of people I have met and conversed with on campus, I can count the number of people who knew where Casula is right off the bat on one hand.My StreetMuch of my childhood was spent on the stretch of asphalt road immediately in front of my house. I played soccer and tips with the Croatian kids next door until the sun went down. Over time, my parents gradually limited the amount of time I was allowed to play outside in order to shift my focus to studying, first for the OC test and then the selective test. My failure to be admitted into either made all that work seem fruitless to me.Casula Public SchoolRacial divisions in my primary school were interesting. If you were white, you were Australian. If you had brown skin, you were Indian (even if you werent). If you were Asian, then you were Chinese. Any nuances were totally thrown out the window. Kids would often run up to me and ask in an overly sarcastic tone as if they already knew the answer what does dolma [ m] mean? Puzzled I would reply, I dont know, that doesnt sound like Chinese to me. They would then reply with absolute certainty, Well it means fuck you. I would reflect on my Chinese vocabulary thinking to myself, Ive spoken Chinese since birth and Ive never heard of this term. This issue plagued me until high school that I discovered it wasnt a Chinese phrase, but a Vietnamese one.Casula High SchoolA high school of apparent ill repute. My mum was shocked to learn that during my Year 6 orientation at the school I had seen cigarettes, syringes and beer bottles all within the school toilets. See, unlike most other Asians in my cohort who successfully secured placements in selective schools, I failed to gain admission into any selective school. My local high school became a very viable option, or perhaps, my only viable option. After the orientation, however, my mum promptly enrolled me in the local catholic school, fearing that sending her son to the local school would doom his future.Casula MallThe only shopping mall that was within walking distance of my high school. Unlike many other high schools located within the Inner city or near huge shopping malls, Casula mall only had a handful of shops, Coles, Aldi, the local Butcher and a food court. I never realised just how small it was until I began attending Uni. It seemed perfectly sufficient for the after school hangouts that we had back then. Once school ended at 3.05, large troupes of students would leave school located inside a residential suburb and begin the daily pilgrimage to Casula Mall.Casula stationWhen I was little, my local station was notorious for muggings, stabbings and shady dealings. Before the advent of the Opal card system, you had to purchase a ticket either from a ticket machine or a ticket vendor. Casula Station, however, was so shady that it had neither there was no way to purchase a ticket at the station. Whenever we had to go there to take the train, my mum would always tell me to hold her hand tightly and stick by her side or else I would be kidnapped. I did not have fond memories there to say the least.Hume HighwayThree lanes wide, the Hume is lined with used car dealerships and shopfronts on the left, whilst the right features an extensive sea of residential houses and the occasional motel. My first driving lesson happened here, with my mum screaming at me in the front seat on the stretch of highway heading home. Due to the deficiencies of public transport infrastructure in Casula, most people at my school obtained their ps in Year 11 or 12. I was amongst the last of my friends to get my Ps, only obtaining it at the ripe old age of 18.Casula WoolworthsCasula Woolworths features a return-and-earn bottle recycling station that gives you ten cents for every bottle or can recycled. Families are always queueing up in front of it with giant plastic bags, each filled to the brim with reeking soda cans and beer bottles. The teamwork really is quite extraordinary; one person is responsible for depositing the cans into the machine, whilst the other will be heaving additional bags off their vehicles and dragging them over so they wont lose their place in the line. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I came to Sydney three years ago as an international student and first learnt about the concept of intersectionality in a sociology class. After writing a paper on the topic, I was sure that I had swallowed the whole concept. It was after my friends sent me different links and memes around intersectionality that I knew I was quite wrong. What I learned in that class began to seem outdated; intersectionality as it currently exists and is broadly understood isnt so much an academic concept as it is an element of pop culture.I was dazed by the numerous representations of intersectionality online. Organisations and individuals use it as a slogan or motto to flag their progressiveness; others take it as a source of reverse discrimination, believing it to be an unfair catch-all for lifting up marginalised people. People are divided by being either for or against intersectionality, each side evolving into their own echo chamber. From opinion pieces to activist organisations, many treat intersectionality as being either orthodoxy or heresy, without mentioning one point: what exactly is the intersectionality which is being talked about? I believe that there has never been a better time than now for us to step back and revise the trajectory of intersectionalixqty as a concept; where did it start, and what does it look like today?Intersectionality as a concept was first introduced to the canon by Kimberl Crenshaw in 1989 as an explanatory framework to examine the nuances of the oppression that African American women face. This concept then became a useful analytical tool for examining power dynamics and oppression in everyday life. Cutting to the present tense, the notion of intersectionality is, in short, that subjectivity, which can be defined as the sum of an individuals identities, motives, and social relations, is constituted of the intersected power implementations of different vectors, including race, class, gender and sexuality. As Crenshaw wrote, (it) is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.It is no wonder that today intersectionality is so attractive to ordinary people and mass media. It provides a framework of political discourse which simultaneously centres individuals and connects them to the bigger picture. It is a project of inclusion that seems to consider everyone, suitable for any situations circumstances. I would argue however, that viewing intersectionality in this light misappropriates the core of what Crenshaw was initially proposing. It would be ahistorical to invoke intersectionality without knowing how it has gotten to be where it is today.Intersectionality finds its roots in the second-wave feminist movement of the 60s and 70s. With these movements seeking to recognise womens experiences in public and academic discussions, the notions of subjectivity and genuine lived experiences gradually became credible sources of knowledge. This was an epistemological revolution as well as signalling a fundamental change in the meaning attributed to womens everyday lives. Womens lives became a site for the cultivation of knowledge which, under a Foucauldian reading, represents a manifestation of power. As the status of subjectivity became validated as a genuine part of knowledge production, how it then interacted with other more conventional sources of knowledge (i.e. social reality or social facts) became the new question. Intersectionality was brought up within this context.Resonating with its activist origins, intersectionality claims the unsettling tension between the self and its social context and emphasis on actions. Ones own worldview, standpoint and action patterns are by no means a complete system. They are constantly being changed, both passively, through our interactions with the world around us, and consciously. Action here becomes day-to-day activism, which manifests in the establishing and bonding together of local communities. In this way, these communities construct collective voices and memories, which then go on to strengthen and shape individuals. In the 1990s, feminist epistemology shifted its focus from individual knowers to the perspectives of groups and communities, and their interactions with the various institutions of power.However, as theories of intersectionality developed, a question emerged: when we talk about ideas like the experience of marginalised peoples and African American womens thoughts, who is representing these groups, and who is being denied a voice? Chela Sandoval talks about the self-conscious mobility of Women of Colour. In different settings, we move between and among our different identities, using elements like our varied relationships to race, gender, class and kinship, to make sense of the world we live in, culminating in a unique experience based on the multiple overlapping identities we inhabit.This pioneering viewpoint widened individuals agency in the intersectional terrain and also allowed feminists to engage in activism more fluidly and freely. The concept of self-conscious mobility can also be applied to other forms of feminism, like third world feminism and migrant feminism, as the foundation of unifying different marginalised groups. The acceptance and utilising of this concept shows the recognition of each individuals nuanced identities. One has multiple identities, which are the result of simultaneous social relations. Both those identities and relations are also changing in perpetuity.Reflecting on the history of intersectionality, it is clear that this concept is not only a project of inclusion, but also a new mindset of reflecting differences, categories and everyday life. Surely it does not mean that we have to give up differences in order to unify. Still, it also rejects that we recognise differences as inborn and static, and it denies that we cannot understand and resonate with people unless we share the same skin colour, sexuality or class status. However, this latter interpretation is rarely explored or manifested in practice. Intersectionality, like feminism itself, is a contested field, and also a highly controversial topic. Heated public discussions shroud the concept with a mist of ambivalence. Now is the time for us to take a step back and scrutinise the concept itself, as there are still enormous potentials that we need to explore before intersectionality is worn out as a hashtag. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While the world anxiously watches on, news of COVID-19 saturates television networks and media outlets. We are told to stay isolated at home to avoid the risk of infection. But one forgotten group of society, whose members cannot simply stay at home, face an increased risk of physical and mental illness: pregnant people.Australia has a history of poor and misinformed treatment of pregnant people. Up until the 1970s, Australian hospitals would isolate and sedate people because it was thought that they couldnt cope with the emotional and physical burden of childbirth. In the late 20th century, pregnancy was even categorised as a medical illness.As the normative experience of childbirth shifted from being a reproductive activity located in the home to a medical activity located in a hospital, those pregnant were increasingly thought of as guests and were expected to cooperate with the house rules of the hospital. The period between 1920 and 1970 was known as the golden age of the medical dominance of pregnant people in Anglo-American societies, during which the medical profession enjoyed full state support largely at the expense of womens autonomy and wellbeing.Since then, Australias modernised health-care services have been increasingly concerned with delivering a positive childbirth experience in line with the World Health Organizations (WHOs) guidelines. The WHO has emphasized the importance of improving patient-centered outcomes, acknowledging that the process of childbirth requires continued care and support of the birthing person. There are typically two or three non-medical support people present during labour and delivery. However, the current risk of parents, babies or medical staff contracting COVID-19 has made access to this level of support unattainable for birthing patients.Since the outbreak of pandemic-induced panic, the childbirth norm of hospital delivery has been reversed. The Australian College of Midwives has reported a spike in the number of calls regarding home births; it is clear that Australians dont feel safe at hospital, and that this will add further stress and uncertainty to their pregnancies.For those with low-risk pregnancies it may be possible to avoid hospital birth altogether, however many people require medical attention during labour and some births can only occur by caesarian section. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, almost 30% of those giving birth for the first time had a caesarian section in 2017. Undergoing in-hospital procedures such as these during the time of COVID-19 further compounds stress during what is already an intense and often traumatic ordeal.While exposure to COVID-19 poses a threat to the physical safety of pregnant people, there is also a threat to their mental health that has been largely ignored by the media. This threat to mental health is the complete ban on support people from hospital delivery rooms in certain countries.The Midlands Regional hospital in Ireland has barred support persons from being present in the room during labour due to concerns about COVID-19. Other hospitals in Ireland are considering following suit. Implementing a zero-support-person policy directly contradicts WHO guidelines, which confirm the importance of having a support person present in order to achieve positive birth outcomes.In March, New York City Presbyterian hospitals introduced one of the most restrictive visitor policies for maternity wards: barring spouses, partners, family and friends from the delivery room. In an attempt to protect the physical health of parents and babies, these hospitals inadvertently caused widespread anguish and despair.A New York City doula, Jesse Pournaras, started a petition to review the restrictive visitors policy which has since received over 600,000 signatures. In response to public backlash, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order allowing pregnant patients at least one support person in the delivery room with them. He tweeted, in no hospital in New York will a woman be forced to be alone when she gives birth. Not now, not ever.The Cochrane Review found that people who received continuous labour support were less likely to require a caesarian section, less likely to use pain medication, had shorter labours, and were more likely to be satisfied with their birth experience. The review also found evidence that parents who are satisfied with their birth experience have a lower risk of postpartum depression and anxiety. Having support persons present can also bridge the communication gap between laboring people and hospital staff in order to provide increased comfort to laboring people.In response to COVID-19, Australian and New Zealand hospitals have limited the time of antenatal visits, replaced in-person visits with telehealth consultations, limited visitors while in hospital, and considered the early discharge of mothers and babies from hospital. These measures are in line with a directive issued by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG).I interviewed Professor Kirsten Black, Joint Head of the Discipline of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Neonatology at the University of Sydney, to talk further about the way maternity care has changed since the outbreak of Coronavirus. In her opinion, the focus is now on delivering quality care in a different way so that less women are exposed to less risk. What pregnant women need right now, she says, is reassurance that in-hospital care wont be compromised because of COVID-19. Professor Black also went on to note that the definition of positive maternal care is continual care care for women before, during and after childbirth. Thus, it is imperative that we recognise how COVID-19 may not only isolate pregnant people during their labour experience, but could also strip them of their support networks both prior to and following childbirth.Australian hospitals will still allow one support person to accompany pregnant people through labour and delivery during COVID-19: a move that strikes the right balance between provision of safety and provision of care. We cant yet know the long-term repercussions of restrictions on support services during childbirth for parents and families until we see them surface in the future. Allowing continuous support in a time of crisis recognises that pregnant people are entitled to a dignified birth experience, wherein both their mental and physical needs are met by hospitals. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the occupied Palestinian Territories, a myriad of crises have unfolded over time as five million Palestinians have been living under Israeli military occupation since 1967. It is a known fact that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza do not have access to adequate healthcare services and facilities. This, combined with the history of intergenerational violence, as well as socio-economic issues, has impacted their overall health. Unsurprisingly, women are disproportionately affected by this.Health in conflict zones is often talked about within the context of war, but there is rarely any focus on the structural issues that may underpin them. Living standards in the West Bank and Gaza have been gradually deteriorating since it was first occupied and even more so now. This, coupled with ongoing violence and military occupation with seemingly no end in sight has produced a dire humanitarian crisis which is amplified through Israels control over electricity, affecting the provision of essential health services, especially in Gaza where two million Palestinians live under siege, 40% of them refugees.Violence by Israeli forces on Palestinian civilians is placing pressure on Gazas health system and according to the World Health Organisation, there is a chronic shortage of medicines and medical equipment in Gaza. Furthermore, limited self-determination afforded to Palestinians has effectively made it difficult for the Palestinian Authority to provide and fund proper services and infrastructure to Palestinians, often relying on aid from UN organisations such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Two crises inevitably have collided to exacerbate each other in unfortunately preventable ways.Gender is rarely addressed in discussions about health unless it specifically concerns maternal health, despite the fact that health challenges present themselves differently in men and women. Poor health conditions combined with a lack of access to adequate health services often means that Palestinian women face a number of barriers to optimal health. These barriers include inadequate health education and training, insufficient health infrastructure, combined with fragile political and socio-economic circumstances. The inadequacy of healthcare services and facilities that are available to women leads their overall health to be impacted as a result, and they are more prone to illnesses and diseases.Within the Palestinian territories, there is an inadequacy in education around health. Whilst many educated women may be knowledgeable about general healthcare, there are often misconceptions surrounding certain womens health issues, such as contraception, due to their stigmatisation and absence of accessible information. A 2019 study conducted by the Palestinian Medical Relief Society found that there was a lack of educational materials for adolescents on sexual and reproductive health. The lack of materials available inevitably means that young women do not have proper access to information regarding sexual and reproductive health which further impacts their physical and general well-being.When it comes to reproductive health, Palestinian women face complex and intertwined barriers. Living in a society that is ruled by tradition, patriarchy, and conservative norms, it is difficult to advocate for not only funding, but for general access to the many aspects of reproductive health. The issue of accessibility, partnered alongside fragile economic and political circumstances, have rendered reproductive health a lower priority amongst wider Palestinian society.Access to abortion is quite limited as Palestinian law only permits a woman to get an abortion if the mothers life is in danger, and even then it must be approved by two physicians, as well as the woman herself and her husband or a guardian. Many women are forced to look to other avenues, such as expensive private Palestinian clinics, Israeli hospitals, or self-induced termination. While Palestinian women in Jerusalem can access Israeli hospitals, and those in the West Bank can access clinics, women in Gaza have virtually no access to abortion services. This is made further difficult, as women who may be seeking an abortion in Gaza would require undergoing a lengthy bureaucratic process in order to obtain an exit permit, which Israel routinely denies.Israeli-enforced restrictions on mobility have made it difficult for civilians in need of medical care and hospital staff to move freely. Freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians is restricted due to the many military checkpoints throughout the West Bank as well as the blockade placed on Gaza with Palestinians often requiring permits that allow them to leave. This has resulted in decreasing access to postpartum and gynaecological care, leading to an increase in women giving birth at home and at military checkpoints.The exposure to toxins and radioactive materials as a result of weapons, has presented a hazardous environment for the millions of Palestinian who live in Gaza. According to a report by Conscience Organisation for Human Rights published in 2014, babies born with birth defects have risen greatly. This report attributes exposure to these chemicals as a cause of these defects.The lack of exit permits provided by Israel means that Palestinian patients cannot seek general treatment in Israeli hospitals. This is similar to the way in which patients from Gaza cannot seek treatment in the West Bank or Jerusalem. Since 2013, there have been increasing restrictions on medical permits justified under the pretext of security. This has resulted in only 54% of applications having been approved in 2017, compared to 92% in 2012.Aside from regularly calling for an end to both the occupation and the siege, the World Health Organisation, alongside NGOs, Palestinian organisations and the United Nations, have devised strategies and implemented programs in an attempt to solve some of these crises which have arisen. The Palestinian Medical Relief Society has made several recommendations in order to promote and improve womens health in the Palestinian territories. They recognise that improvement must come from clinics that are decentralised and made easily accessible. Furthermore, there must be an increase in medical supplies, and an increase in womens health education that not only inludes training to medical and health professions, but to broader Palestinian society. In understanding issues relating to womens health and what must be done to solve them, it is imperative to contextualise them as solutions cannot be made without taking into account the factors that play a role in exacerbating said problems.In her book Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Lila Abu-Lughod acknowledges that Western feminists often love to propagate the myth of black and brown women who need to be saved from their own culture, whilst failing to acknowledge some of the structural causes behind the oppression of women, such as war, colonialism and imperialism.There is no argument that the liberation of Palestinian women is connected to the struggles of women everywhere else. It is, thus, imperative to recognise the circumstances that undermine health in the Palestinian territories, and to advocate for better health infrastructure in order to provide greater access to present and future generations of women.This is why standing in solidarity with Palestine, and calling for an end to Israels occupation, is integral in the fight for womens rights. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ernesto Cardenal, my favourite poet and a Nicaraguan revolutionary priest, writes in Mystical Vision of the Letters FSLN:For a year now from many Managua streetsinstead of those letters on the hill we see others: FSLNand I many times also recall the childs words with joy.It was a Sunday at noon with an overcast sky. And there are days when one asks for a sign.Very intimate solitudes. Likewhen Theresa of Lisieux upon her deathbedwould feel doubts about whether God existed.Then from the car I looked at the large letters on the hilland from within God spoke to me:Behold what I did for you, for your people that is.Behold those letters, and never doubt me, have faithman of so little faithYou jerk.The poem refers to the Sandinista revolutionaries placement of the letters FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) on a Managua hillside after unseating dictator Anastasio Samoza. Cardenal, whose poetry frequently blends his faith and his revolutionary politics, frames the Sandinista victory as a spiritual experience; he sees the revolution as a revelation of Gods love. Cardenal accepts and admits to doubt in God. He does not present the divine as oppressive or predeterministic, so much as a force on the side of the people. The mystical vision of the letters on the hill connects both political and spiritual yearnings for liberation.On March 2nd, I stood on Platform 25 at Central Station, holding back tears. Cardenal had died, aged 95. Why was I so sad about the death of this man, who was old before I was born, who lived in a different hemisphere and lived through times I can hardly imagine?Cardenal helped me navigate a contradiction that many young, left-wing religious people face: How can religious faith coexist with the strong desire to radically change the world, including the corrupt hierarchies and the conservative teachings of many religions. At some point, when you get feminist enough, when you realise youre queer, when you become an avid science student, the two beliefs become hard to reconcile. I vividly remember sitting in Mass in 2017, fury rising as the priest turned his Fathers Day homily into a lecture about the ills of equal marriage.You might ask, then, why dont you just stop believing? A fair question; it seems so simple. Why would anyone believe in something they view as so deeply problematic?This question misses the point. Religion is not just a matter of belief: its intricately connected with your culture, your family, your sense of self and your worldview. Escaping religion while possible and very fair, of course isnt necessarily just rejecting deities or religious stories. It can also feel like rejecting rituals that youve grown up with, the beliefs of your grandparents, the religious stories that you have always loved. Beyond that, secular progressivism can feel spiritually devoid. Religion is an escape from a frenzied, consumerist world. The calm you feel in a quiet religious space, the meditative experience of saying prayers (I still say the rosary when I cant sleep), the sense of community provided by shared meals these are important experiences and ones that are hard to leave behind. Its unreasonable to demand people abandon these beliefs and traditions; there must be a way for our politics and our faith to not just coexist, but be symbiotic.For me, my Grandpa has always demonstrated this balancing act. He is a devout Catholic and a devout unionist. He is consummately dedicated to his community, and always has been: a defender of workers rights; a citizen member of the Wollongong Hospital Board; a routine visitor of the elderly; a staunch protector of local heritage and the environment. This ethos is entirely consistent with his religious belief, the embodiment of Jesus commandment that you must love one another (John 13:34). Care for ones comrades and ones community is a powerful expression of this love; this is also the argument made by Cardenal.Importantly, left-wing religious movements rarely receive much attention. They are often actively suppressed by religious hierarchies whose power and politics they threaten. Because they are often motivated by state oppression, they are usually marginalised within their own societies, too. Radical expressions of religion are a threat to both conservative religious organisations and conservative societies.Looking to the Catholic tradition of liberation theology gives me hope and reassurance. Liberation theologians emerged in Latin America, where imperialist American forces, sadistic right-wing dictators and rampant poverty could not help but radicalise priests and other religious thinkers. They were met, too, with resistance from the Church, often being excommunicated or disrobed for their association with Communism. Nonetheless, they compellingly connected socialism and Christianity, thereby fuelling revolutionary politics and activism. They argued that throughout the Bible, there exists a preferential option for the poor, where God, Jesus and various prophets routinely stand against greed, against poverty and with the most vulnerable members of society.Liberation theology transcends insipid calls for peace (i.e. social order), calling for the radical application of religious teaching against capitalist accumulation and the oppressive state. The revolutionary Colombian priest Camilo Torres Restrepo wrote about amor eficaz (effective love), the idea that Christian love for ones neighbour should not be a matter of empty words nor insufficient charity, but rather meaningfully emancipatory. He wrote: Revolution not only is permitted, but is obligatory for Christians who see in it the only way to achieve the broad outcome: love for all.Dorothy Day is another figure who encapsulates the blending of left-wing and religious thought. Having rejected and then re-embraced religion, she illustrates the complex relationships many of us have with doubt and faith. She was a suffragette, faced incarceration, and survived an illegal abortion. She founded the Catholic Worker Movement during the Great Depression, organising hospitality houses which distributed free essentials to households according to their needs. The organisation passionately campaigned against war and in support of unions. Day wrote beautifully and prolifically about left-wing causes and ideas.The fact remains, sadly, that these kinds of movements are the exception, not the rule. The Church is overwhelmingly a conservative institution containing a myriad of abuses and crimes lurking in its history. Many people are undeniably excluded within Catholicism and it has frequently been a reactionary global force, from working with fascists to opposing the provision of contraception. It is also impossible to ignore the role of the Church in justifying and enacting colonialism. Similar criticisms can be made of other religious traditions.But this is why fighting to change these religions is so important: excluding religious people from left-wing politics is an unviable prospect. Religion can, however, be adapted and moulded in progressive ways; we can reframe religious teachings to be radical.I recently saw in the excellent Geez magazine a suggestion that the Lords Prayer could be rephrased, from forgive us our trespasses to forgive us our debts to represent a shifted approach to property rights and economic wealth. Given Jesus is a figure who vehemently opposed profiteering, boldly stood in solidarity with sex workers and lepers, subversively mocked Roman military parades on Palm Sunday, and who told rich people they wouldnt get into heaven, Id argue this is what he would expect.My favourite podcast, The Magnificast, said on a recent episode: If Christianity does anything, it definitely teaches you how to imagine things that arent visible. Hoping for things that you cant see If we want this world to be different, then were going to have to organise for it. Doing so is now more important than ever. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In early February, my father flew the last evacuation flight out of Wuhan. After a few hours in the air from Hong Kong, he spent seven hours of the night waiting in his cockpit while the evacuees underwent medical tests and boarded, before flying another seven hours to Darwin, where the evacuees were quarantined.Upon his return, he was invited to a ceremony with QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce where Scott Morrison was to present medals to the pilots and crew of the evacuation flights. He didnt attend.In current discourse, the financial health of (usually large) businesses such as QANTAS, which employs 30 000 Australians, is one of the gravest concerns during economic crises. This crisis is no different. QANTAS and airlines everywhere are in enormous trouble, as the demand for their services is effectively non-existent and will continue to be so for a few months at best.Accordingly, an amnesty on airline fees to the value of $715 million (backdated to 1 February, which guarantees at least $159 million cash to domestic airlines already) was hastily granted by the Morrison government in mid-March.The most common justification for this public largesse to the corporate sector is the fear of job losses. If thousands rely on the corporation as their benefactor, then the loss of a corporation results in the loss of livelihoods for thousands of citizens.Regardless of the issues with a system that thus renders employees economically dependent on the corporate behemoth, loss of livelihood is a serious issue which must be guarded against in times of crisis.We must ask, then, how effective the company really is as a guardian of its employees, when, merely a day after receiving this financial boon from the public purse, QANTAS (followed closely by Virgin and the rest of Australias airlines) decided to stand down 20 000 employees (two-thirds of its workforce) without pay.Indeed, if the government were serious about guaranteeing the livelihoods of workers, it would have directly covered their wages (or part thereof). Instead, the money has been filtered through the airlines themselves, without any guarantee or assurance that it will be used for the good of the worker. As such, at least $159 million (with up to $556 million more in the future, if the airlines use the full amount of the fee amnesty) has disappeared into the corporate world, in a bad case of trickle-down economics, never to be seen in the hands of the employees for whom it was (allegedly) intended. Indeed, given that Virgin Australia is 95% owned by foreign shareholders (the majority holdings belonging to Chinese, Singaporean, and Emirati state-owned enterprises), much of this money has effectively disappeared overseas.At best this was a bungling waste of funds, where public money was granted to companies that have used all legal avenues to pay no tax and yet maintain healthy executive remuneration and dividends to shareholders. At worst it was collusion between members of the government and airline executives to maintain the latters lavish wages which, like the remuneration of most of the executive class, have increased at a rate much higher than those of other wage-earners in the last few decades. Perhaps when Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said, Ive been speaking with Australian airline executives every day and will continue to work with them to make sure they receive the support they need, he really did just mean the airline executives themselves. Meanwhile, union leaders such as ETU Secretary Allen Hicks, who said that any federal monetary aid [should] go directly to those experiencing loss of work and income, were never consulted on how best to implement the aviation relief package. Of course, no less than 55 Coalition MPs, from the Prime Minister himself to junior members such as Jason Falinski, have been granted access to Virgins exclusive The Club, a luxury airline lounge whose membership is hand-picked by Virgins CEO.The governments approach belies the issue with neoliberal conceptions of the company as the alma mater or nourishing mother of its employees. Even before Milton Friedman handed down his infamous economic commandment, that the one and only social responsibility of business [is] to increase its profits, the financial health of a company has been misaligned with and sometimes (as in the case of redundancies to free up cash) inversely proportional to the financial health of its employees. As such, a company will pay its workers as little as it can against the power of unionised labour, in order to maximise profits to its owners, i.e. its shareholders, while also reserving healthy bonuses for the executive class.Consequently, 20 000 workers were abruptly cut off from the totality of their income, allegedly to save QANTAS. However, the benefit of keeping a company afloat is supposedly the retention of livelihoods, which has not occurred in this case.Short of the government completely covering all QANTAS employees wages, some pay cuts proportionate to the loss in revenue is evidently needed. What must be examined, however, is who sacrifices how much and why.In QANTAS case, there has been a sacrifice of the many for the sake of the few. To much glowing praise, Alan Joyce forewent the remainder of his pay for the rest of the financial year, which turned out to be just over a measly eighth of his total remuneration of $23.8m, thanks to him not including bonuses and other compensations in this humble gift. Meanwhile, employees, many of whose work is essential to the daily operation of the airline, have suffered not a pay cut of 13%, but of 100%. Indeed, QANTAS executives were so zealous in standing down their employees that the engineer based in Santiago who was to carry out the safety check on the last commercial QANTAS international flight was mistakenly stood down shortly before take-off, leading to a delay of several hours before he could be temporarily reinstated.These are the baggage handlers and highly-skilled engineers who spend hours on tarmac that can reach up to 60 in summer, and pilots and crew who spend hours awake on long-haul flights. 50 of them have already contracted COVID-19 while continuing to work through the crisis. They are the workers who created the $1 billion which was paid to shareholders last financial year and without whom QANTAS would be nothing but the name of an airline lounge and a Woolworths rewards programme. Yet, it is their pay which is sacrificed first and sacrificed entirely.While it is debatable how best government intervention in the airline industry might have been harnessed to the benefit of the workers (whether through renationalisation, direct payments to the workers themselves, wage subsidies, or employees taking over direction of the company as a whole), this failed bailout has exposed two faults in capitalism: that those whose labour creates the most wealth for a company are the least rewarded and that to guarantee workers livelihoods the company is inadequate at best, and negligent at worstMy dad usually stays awake for about 36 hours (due to changes in time zones and his insomnia a curse of the job) each trip he does. He is slightly deaf in one ear, due to the sound of the airflow going supersonic over the hump of the cockpit for the thousands of hours he spent there before noise-cancelling headphones were mandated some twenty years ago.As the sun rose for the last Friday of March, my Dad flew low over Sydney Harbour, taking the second last commercial flight of the 747-400 ER aeroplane home from Tokyo. A few hours later, when he arrived at his front door, he was stood down indefinitely without pay.While he and my family will be much better off than many others who have been stood down or made redundant all over the world, he is one example of the tens of thousands of hard-working aviation workers who look out at a future without a livelihood, discarded by the very companies for whom they gave their labour and for whom they created so much profit. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With the Australian government announcing its first and second stimuluspackage in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in mid-March 2020, internationalstudents and temporary working visa holders have not been included in theresponse of the current government. This leaves 2.17 million temporary workingvisa holders in unsupported realm during the COVID-19 outbreak. Previously forinternational students who have been affected by travel ban from multiplecountries, are now facing further lack of institutional support. Many temporary migrants have been left with no optionbut to remain in Australia due to international travel restrictions. In the FederalGovernment press conference held in the afternoon of April 3, Scott Morrisonannounced it is time to go home for international students. Under currentpolicy framework of complicated international travel arrangements for allcountries and mass suspension of international airline services, it isnegligent for government not to provide support or advice to the community inan early manner. With the development of current pandemic, it has becomedangerous to travel internationally. This unactionable advice by government hasmade many international students with financial difficulty face furtherdistress and complication. Without guarantee of social security and proper access to Medicaresystem, students who are on a visa face incredible amount of emotional andfinancial distress in the face of pandemic happening in the nation, especiallyfor working students who lost their jobs. Under current regulation,international student must pay for Overseas Student Health Cover provided byprivate insurers to ensure the validity of their visa. But this does not equateto access to proper and immediate medical assistance with insurance coveragedue to the deliberately-designed complicated nature of some private insurers. Lostin the navigation to proper advice from the private insurer, internationalstudents are left in a void cared by few. Some students are even hesitated to getemergency support in hospital when experiencing high fever due to economicdistress and non-coverage of private insurance. It is urgent for government to recognise that international students arealso worker and are entitled to working rights in the community. Manyinternational students pay income tax in Australia, fulfilling their civic andlegal duty in compliance with tax residency regulation. They volunteer tocommunity organisations, donate from their own pockets at the time of bushfirecrisis. However, for the past decade the government have been neglecting the underrepresentedand exploited status of temporary visa holder community, offering few tonon-existing support from institutional level. International students have beenhistorically exposed to wage exploitation, unsafe working environment andunstable employment. For the working international students who remain tocommit themselves to be working in supermarkets, agedcare, medical, delivery and other industry, they are putting themselves at risk in thecombat with a pandemic. More than 60% have lost their employment due toCoronavirus outbreak, and nearly 95% have had their employment status affected and are temporarily suspended from their job with informal notices. Over the pastdecades there have been a massive trend of Australian university funded throughinternational student tuition fees in the education sector, but in the timeswhen international students need the government assistance the most, the leastsupport they get in return.At the time now under Federal GovernmentsJobKeeper welfare scheme, the government neglects the temporary visa holdercommunity as part of working community in total. The JobKeeper scheme are onlyavailable to Australian PR and Citizens, leaving workers on temporary visabehind. The impact does not only effect employee, but also the small businessowners, whose business model survive on employing international students andtemporary visa holders as their part-time or casual staff, leaving business inhazard of claiming permanent closure or even bankruptcy. Employers or entities,who are unable to claim JobKeeper on the behalf their international studentsand temporary visa holder employees, are on a tied interest chain with workers.Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, many thrive in migrant community and contributeto diversity and economic vitality.Internationally, some countries do not leave workers behind in a situationsimilar to Australia. In Canada, for temporary visa holders who have beenresided in Canada that lost their employment are provided with financial aid ofCAD$2000 per month for up to 4 months (approx. AUD $2347/month). In Ireland, Students,non-EEA nationals and part-time workers can apply for COVID-19 PandemicUnemployment Payment for 350 a week, whichequates to 1400 per month (approx. AUD $2522/month). A recent survey conducted by Union NSW hasunveiled the statistic support in the international student and temporaryworking visa holder condition: 66 per cent of migrant workers have lost theirjob in the economic shutdown to COVID-19; One quarter cant afford rent; 43 percent are now forced to skip meals to manage their finances. According to the numbers provided by the Department of Home Affairs here are around 2.17million temporary visa holders in Australia. It means millions are quietlysuffer from systematic discrimination as part of labour forces, bear hunger andare encouraged to leave Australia in the middle of a pandemic despite thegiven international travel condition and their intention to stay in Australia, contributeto society with their labour, build a home and mutually supportive community. On April 8, the Federal Parliament will voteon a new legislation for support on wage subsidy policy. It leaves a questionmark in the air as if the proposed bill will include temporary visa holders.The hidden crisis for international students is still happening. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected every aspect of daily life. Having already reached 203 countries, the number of cases of COVID-19 continues to grow by the minute. Following the outbreak in Australia, the federal government imposed strict travel rules limiting both inbound and outbound travel in an effort to stop the spread. States across Australia have responded to the crisis by imposing lockdown measures to prevent interstate travel and gathering of people. As a result of these measures, international students studying in Australia have been especially affected.When the initial travel ban from China was imposed right before the beginning of the new semester, many students were unable to return to Australia to continue their studies. At the beginning of the ban, it was reported that approximately 100 000 international students were stranded in China. The travel ban quickly extended to the rest of the world , effectively blocking all international students from returning to Australia.Despite the university moving all courses online on the 23rd of March, many international students who are taking their courses remotely still face many painstaking issues. At the same time, the outbreak in Australia has posed new threats for international students who are onshore. The article will briefly outline some of the biggest challenges faced by international students as a whole in this crisis.Day-to-day issuesIn many faculties, some courses are only offered in one of the two semesters each year. If international students with a course structure requiring prerequisites decide to suspend for a semester, they will have to suspend a year due to the semester-specific nature of classes. For some of us, the purpose of studying in Australia is to one day apply for skilled immigration to work and live here. While for others, Australia might not be the destination in the long-term. Having all these plans delayed for an entire year may be very difficult in that it will incur an extra year of temporal and financial costs. This extra year of loss will not be compensated in any way and this has driven many international students to continue their online study despite not physically being in Australia.Many international students chose to enter a private rental agreement or shared rental agreements with friends, and this gives rise to a situation where the student outside Australia having to pay an occupancy fee over the period without actual occupation. There are no financial remedies to this issue and the temporary solution to this is to negotiate with the landlord. Arthur, an international student who is currently overseas, has told us that in an attempt to sublease his room to reduce loss, he has reduced the lease price to half of the original, and yet no one is willing to take the offer.Students who are living in colleges and have already paid for the semester are also suffering financially. Out of the concern that the outbreak will happen in Australia, many international students in Australia chose to return home. Galahad, a student currently living in one of the residential colleges, has told us that in returning home, he was not allowed a refund of the rent already paid since moving out is a personal decision.A few weeks ago, the sudden increase in the number of cases has caused many people to stock up large amounts of daily necessities. This made the lives of international students in Australia particularly difficult as many of us do not own a vehicle that can ensure smooth transportation of groceries back home. Having to purchase groceries without a vehicle also increases the chance of contact, making international students particularly vulnerable.Social wellbeingAs a result of the lockdown in multiple countries, the social wellbeing of international students may be impacted in many ways. Being far away from home and family, many international students are very socially reliant on friends and tend to share a very deep emotional connection with them. The lockdown policies can potentially affect students social wellbeing in that it limits this sole source of consolation for international students who are still in Australia. Gareth, an international student currently in Australia, has proposed that the physical distance has also opened up a psychological distance, which may harm interpersonal relationships.When sharing the experience of personal life, Tristan, an international student who is particularly fond of sports, has told us that the restrictions made it impossible to attend the sports he usually played. Having no recreational activity may also cause international students to be more stressed and further affect their mental wellbeing.Additionally, the rising tide of racism again threatens the social wellbeing and personal safety of many international students in Australia. In the past few weeks, there have been many reports of racially fuelled violence specifically targeting people of a certain ethnicity. Last week, there was also an incident where a lecturer at our university spilled racial comments about certain ethnic groups. This may potentially harm the social wellbeing of international students.Online course deliveryRegardless of the geographic location, all students are facing the issue of online teaching. There has been a lot of contention, from both international and domestic student communities, about the quality of online teaching. From our understanding, students satisfaction in their courses depends very much on the course content. For students who are in science, medicine or engineering degrees, there has been great dissatisfaction with the online materials delivered. What these courses have in common is that they all have laboratory sessions where students have first-hand experiments with the equipment provided by the university. These opportunities are now deprived and instead replaced with videos of the experiment or online simulation, which significantly degrades the quality of teaching. Guinevere, an international student in veterinary science, has said that having videos online has limited the opportunity to communicate with classmates. Having English as our second language, this is particularly stressful as we may need more clarification than domestic students. This downgrade impacts international students particularly because international students pay so much more for these experiences compared to a domestic student. Many international students chose to go to a third country to return to Australia just so they can ensure that they can ensure the teaching quality is up to standard. However, by moving all courses online, many students came back to Australia for no purpose. Although the university has offered financial hardship support, most are still being processed and this made international students who have applied for the support very anxious about the result.International students currently in countries requiring a VPN to access university materials also complained that the VPN that the university has provided is malfunctioning, making them unable to access the material. Lancelot, a student currently in China, has provided that the VPN server is sometimes unreachable in China. He has also said when there are a lot of users using the same page at the same time, the server gets so crowded that it takes a very long time to even access a page with VPN. This can be particularly stressful for international students overseas especially in the middle of examinations.Speaking of the exams, there have also been ongoing debates around the use of ProctorU, which is now widely used for online examination purposes. Mordred, a science student, has expressed his concern that having a program that takes full control of your computer poses significant harm to personal information. He also raised that being monitored by software during an exam can be very stressful and can affect performance. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Australia has a long history of relying on international students for revenue and for a variety of reasons, is one of the most popular destinations for studying abroad. As of 2017, NSW alone had 350 000 international students enrolled in the higher education sector, making up 20% of the total Australian student population . Within the University of Sydney, the international student population accounts for two-fifth of all students enrolled. Regardless of nationality or financial capability, each international student pays an annual tuition fee of $40 000, equivalent to the amount paid by roughly 4 domestic students. International students however, are not able to access study loans, and must pay the fees up-front.. To say that international students have helped the growth of the education sector into one of the largest industries in Australia is an understatement we play a core role in the Australian higher education sector as it exists today.So why did we choose Australia? Some chose to study here because of the belief that Australia provides quality education, that Australia fosters a multicultural environment where they will not be alienated or that Australia has advanced infrastructure. However, these stereotypical understandings of Australia come with great costs, and it is because of these ideas that international students time and time again have passed their money over to universities and nurtured the unfathomable appetite of institutions and governments. Despite paying so much for tuition, international students in NSW are also subject to forms of inequality in society, one of the most noticeable being public transport.The history of activismNSW, being home to the largest international student population in Australia, is one of the only two states currently not offering student concession to international students. As early as 1989, the NSW government stopped issuing travel concessions to international students. The debate around this topic kept building, and finally a movement towards a fair fare system emerged in 2006. The Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) brought the matter to the courts. Unexpectedly, the NSW government decided to pass the Travel Administration Amendment (Travel Concession) Bill 2006 to legalise the discrimination against international students, and which gave travel concession only to certain scholarship holders. In 2015 however, the government decided to revoke even the travel concession offered to scholarship students.In 2017, the Student Council at Western Sydney University, along with a number of university student bodies including the USyd SRC, organized a campaign to collect thousands of signatures in an effort to change the policies. While this issue attracted the attention of the state parliament on a few occasions, the matter has largely died down due to the lack of follow-up campaigns and petitions. As the situation sits right now, the law remains intact after some two years of inaction.The basis for changeExcluding international students from the travel concession scheme is incorrect in many aspects. In fact, the foundational bill upon which the travel concession was passed in 2006 had a very irrational explanation. At the time, the justification given by the former deputy premier John Watkins was that these resources are to be given to those considered most in need. He added that being able to pay $40 000 every year for tuition is a gesture to the government that international students are fully self-sufficient and able to meet their own living expenses.First of all, saying that all international students are wealthy is an ignorant generalisation. Being able to pay the tuition fee does not mean we are capable of covering the enormous living expenses that we must incur to live here. An investigation done by Destination NSW in 2017 showed that an international student visitor spends on average $15,837 every year in addition to the notoriously high tuition fee. For students living further away from campus, this figure could be even higher since they have to commute across Sydney a few times a week. In order to pay the tuition fee, many international student families had to make great sacrifices and are barely meeting the fee demand. Furthermore, it fails to account for international students with poor financial backgrounds that are supported by scholarship programs. Some students have tried to survive through working, but the requirements that come with a student visa limits the hours an international student can work to only 20 hours per week, making it impracticable for us to sustain living and studying expenses without family assistance. If anyone is considered most in need of travel concessions, it would be the international students who sacrifice so much and yet have negligible returns.Secondly, international students enrolled in a course that is longer than six months will be considered an Australian resident for tax purposes, meaning that we will be taxed at the same rate as Australians. As we know, one of the primary purposes behind taxation is to use this revenue to generate public services for the taxpayers. However, as taxpayers, international students are deprived of these basic public services. This alone is outrageous and discriminatory. In 2018, the NSW government had a budget surplus of $1.2 billion dollars. The amount required to cover all international student concessions is but a fraction of this enormous income. What this tells us is that the government has the capacity to include international students in the concession scheme, but that it cannot care less about helping international students.Future actionsWhile the outbreak of COVID-19 has effectively put a pause on all forms of physical activism, online activism may still be an option. At this time of crisis, the top priority is taking extra care to protect our health, but we should not forget the rights we have been deprived of. Once the outbreak is under control and society is restored to the way it was before, the government will continue to exploit the rights of international students, as they are doing nowTo build a fair Australia, it is by no means righteous to take from certain groups of people just because of their nationality and not expect to give anything in return. For too long, international students have been treated as cash cows and exploited at the governments will. This has to end. ts time to give international students a fair go at fares. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In recent years, the graduate job market is becoming increasingly competitive. According to the Graduate Outcomes Survey, the proportion of graduates securing full time employment after finishing their degree has plummeted from 85.2 percent in 2008 to 72.9 percent recently. It is a tough market out there for fresh graduates, especially international students. In the beginning of their job search, new graduates are often confronted with the tough paradox of entry level jobs demanding at least two years of experience. An international student graduate may soon discover that lurking under the hustling and bustling streets of Sydneys CBD, the lawbreakers of the Fair Work Act run wild.There are employers who attempt to utilise free labour and exploit fresh graduates. Some even have the audacity to post fake job ads online, or even in the University job portal. These employers will advertise along the lines of a paid full time job promising a $50,000-$60,000 starting salary but when the candidate turns up to the interview and the employer realises they are just a fresh international graduate, the employer will use various excuses such as being inexperienced, verbally re-framing the role as a three-month unpaid internship or an unpaid probationary period. Only after passing this probationary period or unpaid internship will the candidate will start getting paid.Unfortunately, a lot of these job offers are done verbally without signing a formal agreement. Being inexperienced, some students are willing to accept these opportunities as useful work experience. However, towards the end of the 3-month period, the employer will use various excuses such as underperformance, not meeting expectations or make claims that the company has insufficient funds to pay them the promised wage. The candidate is then fired, leaving the candidate with no pay, and no reference.This experience often triggers a negative downward spiral for the candidate, as they are left with no verifiable work experience to find another better job. According to Fair Work, this scenario is a breach of Fair Work legislation, as there is an established employment relationship. Fair Works website states that:Any period beyond what is reasonably required to demonstrate the skills required for the job must be paid at the appropriate minimum rate of pay.Moreover, unpaid internships which act as a probationary period are not legal, as it is not part of the vocational course requirement to perform such internships or unpaid probationary period hence, it is deemed as illegal.Sue* was a victim of such a situation. Newly graduated, she applied to a company as a Marketing and Administration assistant. The role was advertised online as a paid position but when Sue arrived at her interview, she was told that since she was a fresh graduate, she would have to work three months for free and that if her performance exceeded the employers expectation, they would start paying her at the end of the three-month period and confirm her as permanent staff. For the first three months, Sue worked extremely hard, going above and beyond in handling everything from administration enquiries to marketing tasks such as graphic design and copywriting. However, towards the end of the 3-month tenure, the employer claimed the company was unable to employ additional staff as they werent performing well financially. Sue was dismissed without reason. She also found it hard to fight back, as initially, the employer only verbally offered employment without signing any contract. As a result, this outrageous employment scam left her with no pay, despite working hard for almost three months.Another victim to this scenario is John*. Achieving stellar results throughout his Finance degree in University and successfully completing internships at various coveted firms, John applied for a full-time paid role in a financial company. In the interview, John was informed that the role was unpaid for the first three months and, provided that he passed the probation, he would then start getting paid. Knowing his rights as an employee and that unpaid trials for a prolonged period are against Fair Work regulations, John refused the job offer. He reported this company, which had advertised unlawfully on the University careers site. As a result, the employer was banned from posting any further job ads on the University website.Another insidious element to Sydneys employment market for graduates is the common situation of being overworked and underpaid. Bob* works in an educational institution as a graphic designer. Despite his excellent work ethic and skills, the owner is not willing to pay him more than $120 per day, and he is expected to work at least 10-12 hours a day and even overtime on weekends. As Bob is not a permanent resident of Australia and under a temporary work visa, it is difficult for him to find a job elsewhere. The majority of job ads require candidates to be Australian Citizens or Permanent Residents. With few established networks, Bob felt he had little choice but to continue working for this exploitative company just to gain experience. He could only hope to secure a better job with less exploitative working conditions once he was granted Permanent Residency.The emerging reality is that many international graduates find themselves caught in similarly distressing employment binds, ironically unable to secure work upon graduation without the unreasonable additional requirement of work experience. Many will, sadly, continue being exploited by these types of unethical companies. Small companies, in particular some Chinese-owned businesses are guilty of performing such vile acts in the labour market, deliberately exploiting fresh graduates, especially international students.The remedy to this situation is to understand your rights as an employee and job seeker. Be confident of your rights and report to the appropriate channels such as your University career centre, University legal service and Fair Work Ombudsman should you find any employer breaching employment legislation. As international students, we must not be afraid of exposing these unacceptable practices, so that these employers do not continue to operate lawlessly, thinking themselves invulnerable and invisible. They must understand they can be exposed and by the very people they seek to exploit.*To protect their identities, all names of persons interviewed for this article are fictional. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I have a long held fascination with the rhetoric of the pro-life. From their church services to their clinic protests, the zeal with which they hold and express their views is unlike anything else.In Sydney, the pro-life community is large, well-organised, and well connected. They are primarily faith oriented, though they would have you believe otherwise, and they boast substantial political and financial backing. The introduction of Safe Access Zones in 2018 did little to quell their commitment to the unborn: they simply changed form, mobilising their significant base to focus on lobbying in the lead up to the campaign for abortion decriminalisation in 2019.****They come together each year on the Sunday nearest to the Feast of the Annunciation to pray and protest at St Marys Cathedral. A fascinating study into the intersection of faith and politics within the movement, The Day of The Unborn Child has persisted through Safe Access Zones and decriminalisation, growing larger with each year. Until COVID-19.The Day of The Unborn Child was officially cancelled on the 17th of March. God bless you and be assured of our ongoing prayers in this time of crisis concluded a post in the Facebook event, after detailing suggestions for interested Catholics to observe the date in the absence of the church service and protest. Before this, only a single post was made by the organisers a link to a youtube video of last years events.In previous years, attendees and organisers have been decidedly more vocal in their promotion of the march. This is largely due to the presence of a counter protest from the University of Sydney Womens Collective, of which public promotion was absent this year. Without any notion of a publicly organised counter protest, there was nothing for them to post about for all intents and purposes, they could safely assume that their event would go on without interruption.This is not to say that they dislike the attention of a counter protest. Id wager that they rather enjoy it ever image conscious, the presence of a counter protest allows them to rally their followers with a fervour that would otherwise seem out of place. A visible and vocal enemy inspires a sense of righteousness, a reminder that the fight is still to be won.Anyone can attend The Day of The Unborn Child. It is held in St Marys Cathedral, which is as much a tourist attraction as a place of worship. Despite this, it still feels out of reach. For one, it is exceptionally busy, as attendees from across the archdiocese forsake their usual Sunday service to take part. Its highly attended by all leagues of the movement, from the Reverend Fred Nile to lesser known fascists and right-wing agitators. Its also a day in observance of all unborn, not just the aborted ones so the presence of a sceptical observer seems an intrusion. Despite this, I attended in 2019.The 2018 University of Sydney Womens Collective counter-protest. Image: VertigoThe experience was unnerving, to say the least. I had a male friend attend with me, hoping to project the air of a young, church-going couple. It was almost certainly obvious that we were a pair of inner-west interlopers. After the initial unease of walking into the middle of a pro-life church service wore off, I was satisfied. It was everything I had expected it to be: overtly political, well attended, and a little ominous. We left to join the protest across the road.With the advent of COVID-19 and the Churchs move online, I looked forward to attending again this year. The lack of a counter protest had already lulled them into a sense of security. Surely, given the circumstances, the service would continue as planned, broadcasted online for all to see. The livestream would allow me a closer study, uninhibited by the risk of being recognised by one of the many unsavoury characters that would usually attend the church service.The 2017 Day of the Unborn Child. Image: Family Life International I was wrong. To put it bluntly, I felt robbed. In place of the usual fire and brimstone was a perfectly pleasant introduction and homily on the persistence of faith through COVID-19. Amidst the panic-buying and hoarding, we must also remember to store up treasure in heaven more than toilet paper on earth! Archbishop Anthony Fisher intoned to his empty cathedral, live-streamed to thousands of parishioners. Just two years earlier, the same Archbishop had addressed the same mass of those who dispose of embryos, or have abortions, or drop bombs, or are part of a system that neglects children to death.Was the presence of a global pandemic more important than the unborn? Or was this a conscious decision, a pivot in branding from a church well versed in the practice of political respectability?As they cancelled The Day of The Unborn Child, The Life and Family Institute implored attendees to hold their own events after Sunday service, in the form of processions, benedictions or rosaries. They also pointed to the presence of a lesser known, monthly procession and vigil in Surry Hills, due to take place on the Saturday before the now cancelled event.This procession was once an important feature of the monthly calendar of the Helpers of Gods Precious Infants, the Sydney chapter of an international network of pro-life Catholics founded in 1989. Prior to the introduction of Safe Access Zones in 2018, they could be found outside the abortion clinic on Devonshire Street thrice weekly maintining a prayerful presence that often ended in violence.With such activity outlawed, the Helpers have been reduced to a single, monthly procession, starting at St Peters Catholic Church and making its way around the 150m perimeter of the clinic. It draws a sizable crowd, though nothing near the thousands that attend the Day of The Unborn Child.Its visually arresting, ritualistic in a manner that is not often seen outside of the physical structure of the church. The Helpers may claim that it is done in the name of faith, of prayer in reparation for the sin of abortion, but the true purpose is to intimidate. The function of such an event in the absence of pro-life sidewalk counselling is to remind the patients and staff of the clinic of their ever-watchful presence, that they are constantly mobilising to remove the reproductive rights recently won.The procession through Surry Hills. Image: Family Life International That the Life and Family Institute would direct the thousands of Unborn Child attendees to the monthly protest is significant. It would be a mistake to assign it to a matter of practicality, of directing the crowd to a smaller event with a lesser chance of being shut down by COVID-19 restrictions. This is an example of the sophistication of the pro-life movement in Sydney. By preemptively cancelling their protest, they were able to divert their supporters toward a more immediate show of strength, one that is more relevant as the advent of COVID-19 further limits access to abortion. In doing so, they allow the church to affect a public face of respectability in the wake of the pandemic so that Archbishop Anthony Fisher can jest about toilet paper, as the anti-abortion project continues out of view.In between Facebook posts decrying the closure of churches in response to COVID-19, Family Life International advertised the spiritual replacement for the Day of The Unborn Child. Organised by the Life and Family Institute, the event instructs interested Catholics to adopt an unborn child through prayer. The unborn child in question is one that is in danger of abortion, with whom the person praying is spiritually linked after an initial prayer.A spiritual adoption is an individual practice, a far cry from the clinic vigils and parliamentary processions of the Day of the Unborn Child. Nonetheless, it provides an interesting insight into the way that contemporary pro-life Catholics observe the Feast of the Annunciation the date that the Virgin Mary was visited by the Angel Gabriel, and conceived Jesus Christ.The Day of The Unborn Child and The Feast of The Annunciation are not inextricably linked. The former is a modern political invention, emerging in the late 1990s under the pontificate of John Paul II. The latter has been celebrated since the 5th century AD. Their relationship, particularly the way that both are observed in Australia, is indicative of the Churchs attitude towards abortion at large. Though motivated by faith, it is ultimately political. In 2020, without the show and media attention of a mass procession to parliament, where is the strategic sense in continuing the Day of the Unborn Child? By delegating it to organisations such as the Life and Family Institute and Family Life International, the Archdiocese is able to wash its hands of any controversy.The Day of The Unborn Child will continue in 2021, unblemished by the advent of COVID-19. If anything, the pandemic will inspire new vigour amongst the pro-life right. With a global health crisis straining our already fraught health system, our reproductive freedoms are more at risk than ever. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I distinctly remember the few weeks before my now-passed grandfathers, (to me, Ron) 80th birthday party. My mum, his daughter, had agreed to hold the celebration in our house. A vast majority of Mums efforts went into the slideshow and speech to be delivered on the evening. For over a fortnight, my 8-year-old self watched herpore through album after album of old photos. In essence, she relived her childhood, before placing those recollections into a presentation for us all to share. I still experience the same swell of joy she shared with us all when re-listening to the songs she played time and time again as she practiced presenting the slideshow.A mainstay of the memories was their car; a setting for distant family holidays, trips to schools, even just simple but intimate moments with each other. Having not experienced any of those moments myself, their car became a fixed point to understand how Mum, her three brothers, and their parents, navigated the ins and outs of childhood and beyond.Earlier this year, I found out that Toyota had discontinued production of the Tarago after 36 years.I first met our Tarago outside my grandparents house. My Dad pulled it up slowly out the front, and we all hurried down up the path to say hello. From the outside, our Tarago sat proudly, bearing a whopping-eight seats (a feature that never fails to impress), dressed in a sleek silver-metallic paint job, welcoming us inside. I clambered in, sitting in the middle row next to Ron, seriously impressed by the automatic window button that replaced our old Mitsubishi Magnas window hand-crank. This will take some getting used to, I proclaimed to Ron, and then again to everyone for safe measure. The seven of us drove around that night, simply taking in our new car, just as I imagine thousands of young families have in 1983 with their Taragos.Since then, my Tarago has borne witness to countless new experiences. I learnt to drive under Dads guidance, slowly coming to appreciate its cumbersome frame as something wonderful. It size makes it accessible, allowing our weekly ritual of visiting my grandma and taking her and her walker to the shops to do her groceries. It was with the Tarago that my dad picked my friend and me up from Year 11 Afters. We tried (in vain) to hide the faint scent of alcohol from Dads watchful nose. Only the following year, it was in the Tarago that I drove to pick up my formal date to crash en route.Its roomy enclosure has been a backdrop to moments of enormous emotional significance. I picked up both of my boxer dogs in it, getting to meet them on the large back seats, traversing giddy excitement with the faint worry that a two-hour drive may prove too challenging for a young puppys bladder. I also said goodbye to my first dog, Ruby, as the Tarago quietly carried her to be put down. For me, saying goodbye to my dog a moment any young child will struggle to forget is inseparable from the Tarago.The NUMTOT in me says I should resist venerating a car so highly; climate changes looming shadow should have us encouraging sustainable practices wherever possible. To be sure, I have neither an intimate knowledge of cars, nor much of an interest in car subcultures. And yet, the family car prevails. They are a distinct object for personal history to organise around, and in many ways, seem to take on their own agency as characters themselves in your younger years. Sitting in my car, I always feel safe, at ease. Sure, on occasion Im met with throwaway comments about my overly-domestic appearance arriving to an event in the quintessential familys people mover. And yet, without fail, friends and family always come around to the Tarago: a facilitator of road-trips, a tool for carrying equipment in student elections, or a convenient trip for eight to the station after a late night in the SRC.My Taragos odometer will hit 200 000 kilometers in the coming year. As the futuristic, metallic glean of my Tarago begins to fade, Im reassured to know my own will likely keep on chugging for many more years to come. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> CONTENT WARNING: SELF-HARM, MENTAL HEALTHI discover mashup artist DJ Earworm late on a Sunday night, and plunge abruptly back into the buried life of the child I had once been. The wind is brutal as I wait for the Nightrider, and in my ear 25 different artists sing 25 disparate songs. Images splash across my cracked phone screen Pitbull first in a half-second snatch, then Lady Gaga, followed by will.i.am and Kelly Clarkson and Kanye and countless more.Blame it on the Pop is a sonic collage of nostalgia, a time capsule of half-remembered melodies from my childhood. In his most acclaimed entry of the United States of Pop oeuvre, DJ Earworm strings together musical samples from the 25 top Billboard hits of 2009 to form Blame it on the Pop. No sample lasts longer than a few seconds a snatched word or phrase, ending as immediately as it begins and bleeding right into the next. Theres Jay Sean, then Fergie, then Miley serenading us with The Climb, Taylor Swift from the Love Story days, Soulja Boy, Jason Mraz, a few sped-up lines from the All-American Rejects. Somehow, DJ Earworm threads morsels of 25 disparate melodies into one holistic song. Its an impressive display of technical prowess. Yet despite its patchwork nature, Blame it on the Pop nevertheless proffers a cohesive lyrical narrative a feel-good message about getting back up when youre down, and making it out of this mess.This year in the charts, so many of the pop song seem to tell the same story, DJ Earworm writes in a song note on his website. Yeah, weve been through a lot, but right now were gonna celebrate with music and dance, and its gonna be ok.2009 was a strange and formative year for me. That old me is dead and gone, but I still remember shards of her. Several of her friends spoke animatedly about killing themselves, and many of them found themselves fascinated with sharp objects. Once during language class, she and a friend pulled scissors from our pencil cases and dragged the blades along their forearms until the skin reddened and tore. For the rest of the day, she carried the incision like a bright and bold accessory. The only vocabulary she had to describe these events back then was teen angst.But as Blame it on the Pop loops through my mind, its familiar chord progressions conjure up more joyful filaments of the kid I was in 2009. The kid who heard those songs first. She bopped to them in the car every Friday evening on the way to piano lessons in Allawah. In Visual Arts classes, she hummed along to Nova 96.9FM with her classmates, mucking around drawing ugly charcoal portraits behind the teachers back. On train rides home, she and her friends blared Flo Rida and Taylor Swift from their tinny brick Nokias and Sony Ericcsons, annoying all the other passengers as they laughed and tried pathetically to harmonise. She stole songs off the G Drive of the schools shared server, where girls buried their contraband material torrented movies and pirated pop songs. She lay sprawled on the couch on bad days with her eyes closed and shitty earphones in, letting Jay Sean assure her that there was no need to worry, even if the sky was falling down.It is these sweeter parts of 2009 that I think of now, as I press play on Blame it on the Pop once more and take another nostalgic trip through my decade-old, rose-coloured recollections. Truth be told, I despised many of the songs that feature in this mashup when I first heard them as a child. Only now, aged like wine, do they at last sound rather lovely to me. Perhaps it takes a decade to appreciate how well the Kings of Leon meld with Jason Mraz. I guess it really is gonna be okay, isnt it? Even if the sky is tumbling down. Isnt this easyfeeling love, love, love? Well make it out of this mess. Change your mind. Baby just say yes. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A pink shirt. A Max Brenner drink. A sweater, a music box, and an anthropology of poems.Miscellaneous objects, from miscellaneous persons. Dwelling on dusty bookshelves, in the backs of drawers and ones memories, these items linger on, way past their expiry date.What unites them, besides the fact that they seem insignificant to most, is that they were all poignantly central to a faded, gone by relationship.Beyond the standard remnants that need to be swept aside after a relationship is over (socks, hair ties, plans which never came to fruition), items with a history and a story are a lot harder to discard. We all know that itll be easier for us to move on if these objects arent in the space we live and breathe in, and yet, most of us dont throw them away. We file them away, out of sight, until we stumble upon them one day and somehow, though months or even years have elapsed, they still have this ability to halt us in our tracks.In choosing to keep these precious nothings, there is a thin line between sentimentality and self-sabotage that can be hard to tread.There is a Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Going inside, one experiences a plethora of emotions weve all experienced. Theyre messy, absurd and beautiful. The idea of the museum is simple personal mementos from relationships are displayed with a narrative from the donor, filled with snarky remarks or wistful lamentations. But behind these quirky objects lurks a complexity of emotions, capturing the most intense moments of ones relationship.This museum has held temporary exhibitions all around the world, with two permanent museums in Los Angeles and Zagreb. While it was never originally intended to be a permanent museum, the owners found an unexpectedly large audience in the heartbroken, the curious and the emotional. And across the displays, a general sense of catharsis exudes; by donating personally significant items to a public domain, the donors undergo the final stage of loss acceptance, as they say goodbyes to objects they have lugged around for too long.In many ways, we have our own museum of broken relationships on campus.Most of its installations are not physical, but dwell in the stories quietly hidden under the expressionless faces of students who trudge in and out of class each day. And perhaps, many of these stories are best told through a physical object.* * *A short sleeve button down, worn on the third date and the first kiss, became representative of more than just the memory of the date. That night I fell asleep wearing the shirt. I was lulled to sleep by the smell of her and was so over the moon. It was such a lesbian couple thing swapping shirts and sharing thingsBeing able to share clothes is so intimate for me, something I never considered Id be able to do with a partner.The idea of a shared experience is unique to same-sex relationships. Yet, the tendency to attribute meanings onto otherwise meaningless physical objects is something more universal. Projecting feelings onto things perhaps makes us feel closer to the person, like they are with us, even when they are gone.That shirt, however, also came to symbolise the differences between the couple. She was very butch I, on the other hand have always been feminine, straight passing While we could share the shirt it was never my fashion. It was me dipping into her world.Indeed, whilst you can hold a physical object that reminds you of the other in your hands, it is important to realise that you can never fully have another person in the sum of their spirituality. But for some, the projection of meaning onto objects seems altogether melodramatic.It felt like a very constructed attempt at a movie moment. someone tells me, referring to a music box, given during a potential breaking point in a relationship.The music box played a song that her ex-boyfriends dad used to sing when he was a child. It was a source of comfort for him, and he gave it to her as a memento to take through life and comfort her whenever she was upset. While that was what he said, she felt differently. I literally have no emotion attached to it.Perhaps you cant force a piece of yourself into an object and into someone elses life; meaning has to come from the receiver themselves. You can offer parts of yourself to the other, but whether youre allowed to stay, as a wistful bygone memory or otherwise, is entirely out of your control.And of course, there are the mementos from first dates. A sweater, stolen off ones boyfriend on the first date during ice-skating, now sits at the bottom of a chest of drawers, never to be worn again. A Max Brenner drink, ordered on the first date and subsequently every time they walked past Max Brenner, has never been ordered since the relationship ended.I cant order it anymore without feeling sad and guilty.There is a whimsical magic around items from the first date. These objects capture a snapshot of two people unaware of the emotional journey they are about to undergo, while also representing a sort of naivety and untainted beauty that becomes even more poignant when the relationship ends.Finally, these physical manifestations of emotions can sometimes be one-sided, created after emerging from unrequited romances. An anthology of poems which came into fruition, even though hopes of ever-lasting love did not.It was a vague, thing that started at 12, with years of back and forth, until he became her first love when she was not his. Only after years of midnight poetry and self-healing was she finally able to attain full closure at 22.There is a lot of lingering power in ones first love. A concoction of whimsical naivety and nervous energy, the experience of letting someone into your life so intimately for the first time can really change a persons perspective. And when its all over, the process of writing and creating for years afterwards can give some sense of control over the otherwise uncontainable flood of emotions. With every word written, a small part heals, even if it feels only temporary.Loss has no linear timeline. Although condensed into five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, the stages can realistically repeat, overlap or feel never-ending. And although we most likely experience the same basic human emotions after a breakup, how we cope varies from person to person.I think time is the only thing that can give you closure. You can talk to friends and everything but it is always time to think and be alone that does it.But isnt time just another word for forgetting? Closure can be romanticised as simply the act of letting go, without recognising the necessary role of confrontation. Humans have terrible memories, always clouded by emotions and weathered by time.Perhaps its sometimes better to forget. When confrontation becomes too painful, or resentment continually resurfaces, forgetting maybe is the next best option.And for others, donating objects to the public domain for others to ruminate upon seems to be the final step in achieving that ever-elusive closure. Whatever that means. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I heard their voices first, a murmur predicating a crowd whose footsteps and loudspeaker chants intensified as they sprawled over Eastern Avenue. Spearheaded by a banner held barely unfurled between six students, I watched the 2000-strong contingent of USyds staff and students as they turned onto City Road, awestruck by its size and the collective excitement that engulfed my hesitation at skipping class.Just before the march I met with Professor Dee Carter, the Head of Microbiology, whose faculty had cancelled all its classes for the strike, to discuss the impact of the climate crisis on human health. She highlighted how the rising global temperature and increasing number of natural disasters would leave us much more vulnerable to fungal, bacterial and parasitic infections.In her field of fungal biology specifically, fungi are learning to adapt to warmer temperatures, such that our body temperatures could become insufficient to inhibit their growth. Combined with the challenge of developing new drugs to bolster the few available for treating fungal infections, this could lead to higher rates of infection and mortality. Already, a case of the multi-drug-resistant fungus Candida auris has emerged in Victoria, with a 30-day mortality rate of over 35.2%.Theres a desperate need for new drugs, and theres not enough research and funding going on to bring them into the mainstream pipelines, Professor Carter said. We are running out of existing drugs and options.But other microbiological advances could play an important role in mitigating the crisis. Research on renewable algae-based biofuels is underway, as algae can remove carbon dioxide, a major contributor to climate change, and convert it into lipids and oils to be used as fuel. There is also interest in using fungi to break down and convert wood into fuels.Professor Carter expressed concern about climate change sceptics, particularly in governments. Parts of the world are listening to us, and parts of the world arent, thats the problem. She advised arguing for change from a values base rather than an evidence base as its quite difficult, actually, to persuade people with evidence. People will just get more and more entrenched in their views once you start arguing with them.As a professor, she hopes to teach students to think critically, analyse the data, and think for themselves, and her advice for science students was to get out there and tell the government what you think. Youre young people, its your future. Youve got to act now.With her words in mind, I joined the crowd, comprising people of all ages and backgrounds, which swelled at its convergence point in front of UTS. As we walked through Sydney, I wove between chant leaders, bearers of irreverent placards, and even the elusive yeti. On passing a lone counter-protester, whose slogan was, CO2 is plant food! The more CO2, the healthier our plants, even high schoolers shook their heads in disbelief. Upon arrival at The Domain, I was again shocked by just how many people had shown up; the area surrounding the stage looked like a fishbowl brimming with people, and the speeches given by the student activists drew roars of support and galvanised the crowd. I left feeling elated that I had been there, expressed my views and seen the force of the student-led movement.But my following interview with Professor Manfred Lenzen from the Integrated Sustainability Analysis Team at USyd was much more sobering. His work on consumption-based accounting of greenhouse gas emissions, which allows people to see the carbon footprint of the food and products they consume, has highlighted the need for high-income countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to even lower levels than those recommended by international agencies, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).Emissions cannot be halved uniformly by 2030. Some nations already emit half of the target, and we cannot ask them to halve that this global, uniform 50% reduction target actually translates in Australia and [other high-emission countries] not to reduce by 50%, but by 80%.But what would an 80% reduction look like? Energy consumption went down by 5% during the Global Financial Crisis, by 30% during the Great Depression, and by 50% in Japan and Germany at the end of WWII. All of this doesnt come close to the 80% reduction [which would result in] such fundamental changes to [our] lives that [we] cannot imagine.Additionally, there are psychological and political complications behind making these changes; Professor Lenzen stresses that it is easier for people to shut down than to process the extent of the personal sacrifices needed, and politically, no government could enforce these. While supportive of the climate strikes demand for a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030, he cautioned against creat[ing] a false sense of security that doing this is all it takes in order not to overwhelm people, you [would fall] woefully short of what is really needed to deal with the problem.While the scale of the problem and our personal responsibility to resolve it may be incomprehensible to us, perhaps we should direct our attention to what we can comprehend; to more urgently cut back on our greenhouse gas emissions, pursue new technological means of removing and reducing them, and better prepare for natural disasters and their associated health challenges ahead. Even if all we can do is to delay experiencing the full effects of the climate crisis, we could at least say that we tried.Raising my voice and hearing it amongst thousands of others at the strike made me realise the unifying potential of the climate change issue, and how its resolution would only be possible with a widespread commitment to action, larger than the act of protest I was participating in. Whether this personal, social and political commitment can be made globally and enacted before we bear the brunt of the climate crisis is something we should not wait to find out.Coco Huangis a second yearBachelor of Science/Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Medical Science) student. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I am legally blind. Vision Australia defines legal blindness as being unable to see at six metres what someone with normal vision can see at 60 metres or if a persons field of vision is less than 20 degrees in diameter. People with blindness and vision loss all have a unique experience of the condition. My experience of blindness is such that I have no peripheral vision, no night vision, no depth perception and I have limited forward facing vision even with my glasses. The glasses I wear are the strongest prescription they can make for me, though they cant correct my eyesight to what a normal person can see.The thing about being blind is that people expect you to not have any vision at all. This is a common misconception. There is absolute vision loss,partially sighted, legally blind, visually impaired andsighted. Blindness is a spectrum; it doesnt just refer to people who have no vision at all. In fact, 90% of blind people have some functional vision. My glasses can correct my field of vision enough that it allows me to type, walk, and dance. Beyond three meters they allow me to see miniscule portions of what I may be looking directly at,so I can work out what people or objects are by their shape, colour, movement or sound.Another common misconception is that, where you dont have vision, you see blackness. This is also not the case. I dont have peripheral vision I dont see blackness I just dont see anything. The way I describe this is, if you stand facing forward and I ask you to tell me whats behind you, you cant. Its not black its just not there. You cant see anything behind you, theres nothing there. Thats what its like to be blind, thats what its like in those areas that my eyesight does not extend.I have two white canes, one used for navigation and one used for identification. My identification cane is named Ethel and my navigation cane is named Bruce.A common experience I have when using my cane in public is this: I use my cane to help me onto the bus, I sit in the accessible seating. I get my phone out to track the buss movements. Someone points at me and says, If youre blind why are you using a phone? At this point I once again find myself explaining that blindness is a spectrum. I explain that I actually need my phone to see where Im going and to know when to get off the bus, as I cant see out of the windows. I show them the enlarged text and screen-reader on my phone some of the assistive technology that helps me to navigate with limited vision. This is education I have to perform on a near daily basis. It is exhausting to have to continuously deal with the ignorance of strangers who feel entitled to an explanation of my disability.Ignorant questions are frustrating but there are also some awful comments I receive from people when I tell them Im blind or if I use my white cane in public. Actually a lot of blind/partially sighted people experience accusatory comments from people when they witness us using the remaining vision that we do have. Its for this reason that I dont use Ethel and Bruce (my white canes) very often. I would rather not use my canes when I need them and end up injuring myself than to use them in public and risk public recrimination.Just because I can type doesnt mean Im not blind. Just because I dance competitively, doesnt mean Im not blind. Just because Im at uni, doesnt mean Im not blind. Just because I walk without a guide dog doesnt make me not blind. Just because I can hold eye contact in the daytime or go clubbing with my friends, doesnt mean that I am not blind.Should I take photos every time I break skin by walking into or tripping over something, or knock over a table, or run into a person, to prove that I cant see? I didnt realise that me trying to be confident and strong with dealing with my vision loss would cause people to question my authenticity.Im legally blind, but society is a different kind of blind society is blind to the varied experience of blind people. Society needs to accept blindness as a varied experience and, rather than treat blind people with suspicion for having remaining vision, support us so that we can use our white canes in public without fear. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When I talk about disability pride people are confused and sometimes a little indignant. Isnt that disrespecting or glamorising a painful reality? Why would you be proud of that?Well, why would I be proud of this wonky body? It hurts to live in. I am in pain every day. I am slow to do some things, and incapable of doing other things. There are a truly ridiculous number of buildings that I cant get into. I am steadily becoming more misanthropic than I would like to be, because apparently when abled people meet a disabled person all social niceties and conventions of basic decency fly out the window.Most of what I hate about being disabled is the fault of living in an ableist world. It is not an accident that I cant get into most buildings; they were built only for certain bodies. Its not my wonky bodys fault that strangers refuse services because I am disabled, grab my wheelchair and push me around without my consent, ask me intrusive questions, or insist on talking to the nearest biped instead of me; its the fault of a society that isolates and marginalises disabled people and teaches fear and pity to abled people. It is not my bodys fault that accessing adequate pain treatment in this country is nightmarishly difficult. It is not my bodys fault that disabled people are disproportionately unemployed, uneducated, and underrepresented; nor is it my bodys fault that we are more likely to live near or below the poverty line, more likely to experience housing crisis, and more likely to experience sexual violence.For me, disability pride isnt about pretending that there is no suffering involved in my life. Its about rejecting shame. I dont have to love everything about my body to feel that I shouldnt be required to hate it.Being a wheelchair user in a society built by and for bipeds definitely sucks, but there is a great deal about the physical reality of being a wheelchair user that I genuinely love. Zooming down Science Road really fast is the absolute highlight of my day. The structural oppression is widespread and overwhelming, but disability pride gives me the strength to fight back and make good change. Dehumanising interactions with abled people are depressing, but there are abled people in my life who get it and who I can commiserate and laugh off the bullshit with. And I have found so much happiness and love amongst other disabled people.Pride means acknowledging that I am part of a huge and wonderful marginalised community, that is endlessly diverse and found in every corner of the planet. I am proud of my community and of disability culture. I am proud of disability literature and poetry. I am proud of disability activists and the hard work they put into fighting for the rights of people like me.Pride means reclaiming the possibility of joy over my body, my life, and the way I move through the world. There is more to my life than pain. I am a whole and complete human living a full life, and its a life that Im proud and happy to be living. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I have never spoken to my grandmother. Not because she lives overseas, nor because she is dead. I have never spoken to my grandmother because we do not speak the same language. I could not tell you one thing about her life, or her interests, or her passions. I could not tell you why she is sick today. And I could not tell you how she felt when she buried my grandfather. We speak in the language of hugs, kisses, and laughter. But, after twenty years, hugs from a grandson who cannot begin to explain why he loves you surely start to lose their warmth.Throughout my life, I have been present for many of the tragedies my family has faced. I have seen parents bury their children, and I have witnessed women kiss their husbands for the last time. I have felt the room grow humid with the moisture of despair, and listened carefully to the lamentations of todays widow or widower. I try, and try, and try, to hear what they are begging God for. It may as well fall on deaf ears. If I could speak Arabic, I would right my wrongs. I would tell my grandmother I love her. I would comfort the grieving. Maybe it is a fantasy, but one day I hope that they know Lebanon is not lost. I hope that one day they know there are Lebanese people here: not the imposter I declare as myself, but feasible Lebanese people who exist as more than simple parodies of their lost loves.Both of my parents speak English. They also speak Arabic. They speak Arabic when they dont want me to know what they are saying. They speak Arabic when they are speaking critically of me. They speak Arabic when they dont want my input or recognition. Sometimes they lapse into English, or I catch on the Arabic word for teacher or school, and they are forced to confront the mess. Those moments are anything but clarifying: guilt swarms my mind and accuses me of the trespass I knowingly committed.They were meant to teach me Arabic. It is hard not to feel betrayed by their heedlessness. It is harder, still, not to interpret their actions as malicious. A barrier has been cast between my generation and the rest, drawn by the ones who can now choose what they let through. They decide what I know of my grandparents, and they craft the likeness my grandparents see of me. For me, family gatherings are a helpless cacophony of anxiety. Where I am a fugitive in the masters house, my name, actions, and sentiments are at the disposal of the masters tools: worked however they see fit.Here, I feel guilt, shame, and fear. To most readers, I whine too much. To the sympathetic listener, its bad luck. Why dont I do more? Why didnt Mum and Dad do more? In part, we must come to grips with our own laziness, and I promise the critics that for that, I am eternally ashamed. But, I should also be fairer on my parents. Arabic, in this country, is the language of terrorism. It seems, a perennial beauty, spanning continents, has been arrested, too, in the waters off Indonesia. When Australian sons and daughters slaughter Arab children, the world should shudder. We dont. If we were to hear their pleas for life, the average Australian probably feels justified in their violence, for they know that they are extinguishing the sounds of terror. Say shit, fuck, and cunt, as many times as you want in this country, because every single Arabic word will always supersede your pejorative. And no one wants to raise the child who swears too much in school.I write to try and see past my own anger. There has to be a set of reasons why children unable to speak their ancestors language feel a failure. For me, it begins with a responsibility to ameliorate the oppression members of the Arab world experience. We heard from Audre Lorde that no woman is free whilst any woman remains unfree. The same is true here: there is no freedom in my privileged life as long as those left behind continue to endure never-ending war. Undoubtedly, I feel I have an obligation to enhance the lives of all Arabs, in whatever way I can.This obligation, one I hold dear to my heart, is another cause of the angst surrounding my inability to speak Arabic. How can I be a representative of the community when I share so little with them? When I cannot understand their cries or prayers? A Brown man speaking English is only a stones throw from a White man speaking English. It would be criminal to blindly speak on their behalf. It would, too, be criminal to stand by and see our homeland devastated for another hundred years.A larger sensation also burdens me. I will be the first of my family not to speak Arabic. Thousands of years of lineage ends with me. This is an evil not imposed by settlers or colonists, but rendered by my inaction. No child of immigrants want to be their parents Uncle Tom. The guilt of this reality is tricky to comprehend, and compounds our failing obligations to the wider community mentioned prior.I dont know how to feel better.There is, of course, a timer on this discourse. One day, my family will die. I will have to ask the priest for a bilingual funeral, and I will need to read my eulogy in English. I will have failed. I hope my throat catches on the last words I speak to them. I hope that my voice trembles and my eyes water as I sing for their memory to be eternal. That way, at least, my actions might speak louder than the words I never knew. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When fondly looking back on the TV shows that made my childhood, I often find myself thinking about Robbie Rotten, the antagonist of Nickelodeon show LazyTown. Reapproaching childrens shows years later with an analytical lens is always a disorientating and slightly uncomfortable task, but the case of Robbie Rotten is one that I take on gladly.We grow up watching villain-hero dichotomies on-screen, offhandedly sticky noting certain habits, behaviours and appearances as good or bad. This is how we come to understand our world, in black and white; the plurality of the grey areas come as we grow older. Having now grown up, I can see that Robbie Rotten was wrongfully villainised on the small screen.Firstly, Id like to address Rottens caricaturised physical stature, conflating villainy with a non-standard body. LazyTown is a show premised on encouraging sports and healthier lifestyles set in a town of lazy people, who are saved from the grasps of the evil Rotten by the ever-athletic Sportacus. Next to Sportacus sublime figure, Rottens pronounced slouch and protruding belly make him look like a chicken Twistie, and a disappointment to movements of body positivity. If it is not already abundantly clear, I have to expose an obvious fact; shockingly, most of us arent in Peak Physical Form, as Sportacus would have us believe. Now while I understand the intentions of the show, must we do so by creating a scapegoat in Rotten? While we mock Rotten for his horrible posture (which, while were on the topic, is something that most of us suffer from) and his generous body fat percentage, let me pose this question; are we actively contributing to cultures of shame that body positivity movements were specifically founded to combat and destroy? Discuss.When so much of our mockery of Rotten lies in his physical stature, we actually overlook a very important detail of his representation: his outfits! Lets quickly establish an OOTD (outfit of the day): Rotten exudes mystery when rocking pinstripes and a dark colour scheme of royal purple, maroon and navy with gold accents, or disguises himself with glittery purple cat-eye sunglasses. Forgive me for my boldness, but Rotten has the energy of someone who could single-handedly bring suspenders back into popular fashion. Objectively, Rotten with his snazzy pinstripes, and flare pants, is a fashion god (e-people community rise up!). And personally, I wouldnt be caught dead in anything that Sportacus has ever worn Take your goggles and whisker-stache away from here, sir!In an age where our social media feeds are flooding with quirky statements that preach homebody habits (Netflix and Chill? x) over #fitspo, it is antithetical and antiquated for us to mock Rotten for his love of the comforts of home. Everyone needs a day off sometimes, and perhaps the representation of Rotten was not the best in this respect. The villainisation of Rotten for his over-exaggerated homebody habits likely left young audiences with the impression that self-care and taking a day to yourself is unacceptable and selfish.But now, a serious note, all jokes aside. Memes of Robbie Rotten and his iconic pinstripes have unwittingly become a haven for youth to identify with homebody behaviours. And though it seems untenable, even ridiculous, to look at a childrens show and criticise the undertones of body shaming, I am of the opinion that looking back on the past, and being able to draw out the problematic rhetoric that lies behind it, is a marker of personal growth.In the months before his tragic death on 21 August 2018, the actor Stefan Karl received floods of praise and gratitude for the lightheartedness and joy that he brought (and continues to bring) to kids. Sometimes our childhood villains become, in their own right, heroes in our adulthood. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Growing up, I saw myself as varying configurations of different identities. For the first decade of my life I was an Australian who incidentally happened to have parents from India. At various points I was an Indian-Australian, an Indian and somewhere in between. Above all that though, I was a Hindu. For me, being Indian and being Hindu were culturally synonymous: Hindu festivals were Indian festivals, Hindu rituals were Indian rituals etc. And yet, somewhere in my conflation of Hinduism with my amorphous Indian identity, the fact that I was a Brahmin was lost. For the most part, this is an experience common to upper-caste diaspora.To those immigrant families that have never borne the mark of caste oppression, it is a long-forgotten concern; a preserve of the old country with little applicability to their present lives. In light of my own experiences, I must interrogate why caste is so easily left out of the immigrant experience.It is hard to provide an authoritative definition of caste. It varies in nature across India, and castes that are forward in one area are deeply disadvantaged in others. Broadly speaking, it is a hierarchical and hereditary division of labour comprised of four varnas: Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaishya (merchant) and Shudra (labourer). Within these broad categories are a multitude of jati, often overlapping between varna and reflecting highly specialised job functions. Outside the boundaries of Varna are dalits, formerly known as untouchables.Caste has a divine normativity and deviation from ones divinely ordained path (dharma) is purported to lead to social anarchy. This unquestionable spiritual authority, alongside notions of ritual purity, mean that those of backward castes and Dalits are excluded from all manner of social life. In many places, Dalits were forced to tie brooms to their backs to wipe away their impure footsteps. In other cases Dalits were attacked by mobs for using the same crockery as Brahmins. Despite the introduction of corrective measures such as reservations in the Indian constitution, Dalits still face crippling poverty, social exclusion and violence.My experience of caste was far removed from the crippling reality of exclusion, marginalisation and oppression. My Brahminness was subsumed under my Indian or Hindu culture. Vegetarianism and sacred rites this is what I thought was the universal Indian experience. References to caste were vague and esoteric, briefly mentioned in religious stories and invoked by elders, but never critically considered or explained in a broader social context. There was never any cognisance of the fact that my experience was not universal. It was especially anathema to me that outside Australia, where I was a victim of racialisation, I personally could be an oppressor. This appears to reflect the experiences of most diaspora kids who are woefully unaware of caste. At best they are ambivalent, at worst they inherit a reactionary disdain for backward castes, disguised as an egalitarian objection to scheduled caste affirmative action.A few factors can explain this general ignorance of caste in the diaspora. The first and most prominent is material. In light of the fact that resources and capital are overwhelmingly centralised in the hands of savarna elites, it is not surprising that it is overwhelmingly higher castes that had the means to immigrate. These communities, even if not by malicious intent, reproduced their caste-based cultural practices in the diaspora. But the desire for a homogenous, cultural identity in foreign and hostile environments meant that these practices were generalised as Indian or Hindu, such that caste was obscured from their origin. On the other end of the spectrum, a tenuous balance between cultural preservation and assimilation meant that Indian immigrant families were eager to leave behind practices that were deemed unsuitable for their new homes. Chief amongst these was caste, and again caste-specific cultural practices are subsumed under a broader Indian identity.The task for the emerging progressive section of the diaspora is to confront the indignity of caste, both internally and in the mother country. It is only through grappling with the complexity and brutality of caste can diaspora truly facilitate social justice. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I could never imagine identifying myself as Australian without mentioning that Im half Japanese, because to me, thats what being a halfie is. To be of two. A question of identity seems to be on the lips of everyone I meet. Are you Latino?, Are you French?, Are you mixed? But then my name gives it away. I wait for the collective ahhh moment people seem to experience when I explain that my name is Japanese, a nod to my mums heritage. Then comes the next question, like clockwork, Are you half or full Japanese? Ive never understood this question. Would a fraction, a whole number or a decimal truly change their perception of me? Or perhaps Im vain to think theyre so invested in me when really, theyre just asking me out of curiosity. This experience isnt unique to me, in fact its a shared experience I have with many of my other halfie friends. Australia has never had as many bicultural, bilingual and biracial peoples as it does now so why is there a need to force an identity onto them?Despite having an Australian father, I dont have much memory of ever speaking English at home. After he passed away when I was nine years old, our bilingual household quickly became monolingual. My mum raised my brother and I as Japanese children. Being a Japanese teacher herself, she taught us to read, write and speak Japanese before we ever learnt to read the alphabet. My first love has always been for my Japanese heritage. I think its an integral part of my identity. I could never imagine identifying myself as Australian without mentioning that Im half Japanese, because to me, thats what being a halfie is. To be of two.Ive spent much time in Japan since I was born. My first trip to Japan was when I was just six months old, now I annually visit. When I was seven, my mum enrolled me at the local elementary school in Toyonaka, Osaka, over their winter term. It was the school that she went to as a child and fondly remembered. It was now rundown and a bluish-grey in the dimming winter light, with frost that snapped at your heels between your socks and slippers as you walked down the hall. Before enrolling me, she took my hand and walked me around the school, familiar yet unfamiliar to her. We stopped outside on the dirt oval, under a tall metal structure pasted with paper. It was browned and rusted, but you could tell it was once colourful. My mum seemed surprised, wistful almost. She revealed that it was her class artwork, group 5B from 1977, that they had made to decorate the school, still standing 29 years later. Years later, I asked her why she decided to enrol me. I wanted you to have that memory and experience of being a Japanese child, she said. But she was wrong.Each memory whispered youll never be a Japanese child to me. I was only half, and I couldnt pretend I was full.I made friends quickly, as they saw me as an anomaly in a mundane city like Toyonaka. I spent my recess break on the rusted jungle gym, surrounded by curious peers. They asked questions from what Australia was like, to whether my grandma would be picking me up in the afternoon. On one particular day, I sat a second grade kanji test with the rest of my classmates. Although I had gone to Saturday school in Ultimo, I could barely answer three of the ten questions. My teacher was kind to me. This was unusual in a Japanese school setting, known for its academic rigour and disciplinary practices. She corrected my attempts, but didnt give me a grade something I saw as a merciful act. Maybe she thought she was protecting me, or perhaps protecting me from my peers? Either way, I was thankful. The other day, I found a photo that my mum took of our class. I was unusually tall, unusually white and unusually western-looking compared to my classmates. I stood out, easily.Despite my experiences, theres been a long history of discrimination against halfies in Japan. For a country that still remains largely homogeneous, a person of mixed race was perceived as a threat to the pure breed of Japanese people. They quickly became part of a lower social class, and derogatory terms, such as ainoco and kinketsuji were used to describe them as only being half blooded.In the past few decades, there has been a shift in attitude towards halfies, as they have become idolised in popular culture for their hybrid western and eastern looks. Halfies are highly visible in Japanese media, often featured on variety shows, with successful careers in acting and modelling. Personally, I wonder whether this is a result of a more accepting society, or something closer to fetishisation. Mixed race people in Japan are often perceived as exotic and sexually appealing. I had experienced this on the train in busy city centres around Osaka. Whispers on trains, shared glances and if people were forward enough, requests to have their photo taken with me. Although, I was surprised to have once experienced this down at the local laundromat with my obaachan. I was waiting on a small bench with her, watching our sheets rotate to the low hum of the machine. Suddenly, a stranger came up to me. Are you famous? she asked. Startled, I let out a nervous laugh and replied No. Oh but you could be, she insisted, Such a pretty halfie. My obaachan beamed with pride, pulling me closer to her whilst detailing my biracial life to the shopkeeper.Curious, I decided to ask my mum whether she deliberately raised me in Australia somewhere I could blend in a little more easily. She paused, To be honest, no. I just knew I wanted to move to a foreign country and marry a gaijin.Gaijin. I had a complicated relationship with that word.In Japanese, it means foreigner, although to me it meant but. You speak Japanese well but you have a gaijin face or, You have a Japanese name but you look like a gaijin. It was a way of telling me that I was almost Japanese, but I wasnt quite there. Gaijins were the ones who didnt take off their shoes when they entered a Japanese home, the ones who talked loudly on the train in a quiet carriage or the ones who struggled with their chopsticks when eating udon. That wasnt me. And I hated being grouped into it.When I was young, strangers often thought I was adopted: I looked like neither of my parents. My round face and flat nose a hint of my Japanese heritage, my pale face and thin brows a nod to my British roots. When combined, I looked foreign. Often when wed queue at the supermarket checkout, the cashier would mistake my mother and I to be separate customers. Shes with me, my mum would quickly say. When wed walk out shed make the same comment each time, Wow, they didnt think we were related. I think she subconsciously considered believed in it herself.The last days of December were spent cooking and preparing our osechi for hours in my obaachans cramped kitchen. It could look like chaos preparing for oshougatsu. There is so much anticipation and preparation leading up to the day. It captured the nuances of Japanese people and culture I could never explicitly explain simply by telling someone what the experience is like. But nothing could take away from the specialty of creating osechi during oshougatsu: it was ultimately an art. It takes precision and an eye for detail to create beautiful arrangements in an osechi box.All the names read like a poem datemaki for auspicious days, konbu for joy and kamaboko, reminiscent of Japans rising sun.I loved being my obaachans taste tester. Try these kuromame and let me know if theyre sweet enough, shed say. They were always too sweet, but I loved them that way. On the morning of oshougatsu, my ojiichan would wake up before sunrise to enjoy mochitsuki, rice cake making, with others from our neighbourhood. Its an intensive process, particularly for an 83 year old like my ojiichan, as it requires you to pummel rice and boiling water with a wooden mallet. Too slow and it hardens, too fast and you could lose a hand, but my ojiichan does it anyway for good luck. By 11 oclock my extended family would be cramped into the meek and unassuming apartment, now clustered with more people than trinkets. It was a challenge that I enjoyed, setting the table for twelve people when a maximum of five people could fit in the living room. Wed unhinge the paper doors that separated the dining room and bedroom to turn it into a larger room. There, my cousins, great cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles, would all sit, gathered and eating, elbow to elbow. Here, it didnt matter if you were half, you were Japanese.This moment was always special to me, so I was particularly excited when my boyfriend, Nick, was able to join us this year. I knew that inviting him meant he would see a completely different side to me, one where I was immersed in being a Japanese person I wasnt sure how he would react. He reflected on this moment, saying, I think the feeling of seeing you land [in Japan] was not necessarily one of surprise as much as it was curiosity and interest. There was a connection, to see this part of your life that I may not have considered as being integral to your living experience when I first met you. His words summed up perfectly how I felt being Japanese was a part of my identity. Being a Malay-Chinese and Australian halfie himself, he told me that he was surprised at how in touch I was with my Japanese side. He said,I always thought that there was some kind of a trade off.Nick was raised as an Australian, heavily assimilated into Australian culture. Nicks experience was completely separate from mine, to the point where we could never understand the others experience. And Ive come to learn now that thats okay. He didnt speak, read or write Hokkien and he had never visited his family in his mother country. Nicks experience was also common for my other halfie friends, as many could not speak or write in their language.In the past, we had a few arguments about how most halfies were turning into bananas, yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I remember challenging him on numerous occasions, saying that he was out of touch with his Malaysian culture and that he wasnt a true halfie because of this. But what did that even mean?Thinking back, there is no way to define being a halfie, the term is elastic, as are the meanings derived from it.I had no right to deny him of being a halfie simply because his experience wasnt the same as mine. Nick brought up the very valid point that being able to read, write or speak your second language shouldnt be used as a measurement of how white or Asian you are. He argued that the halfie experience is Organic simply by interacting with my relatives. There are subtle ways of interactions, mainly mannerisms, negotiation styles, hidden biases, that you can only really extract if youve spent a prolonged amount of time with people who have grown up in that environment.I could see this, having spent time with Nicks Malaysian grandparents. Prior to spending Chinese New Year with his grandparents and extended family, Nick had warned me of his familys complicated relationship with Japanese people and culture, since the happenings of World War II. I was wary of meeting them, but Nicks mother had kindly prepared a New Years gift I was to present to them, earning me some brownie points. His grandfather, Kong Kong, was cold and spoke few words, but his grandmother, Mahmah, was more warm, clasping her hands around mine, smiling. We all sat together, eating, with Nick explainingthe significance of each food. He pushed a plate of lo hei, a raw fish salad, towards me. You need to toss the salad with your chopsticks, for good luck! I did so, warmed by his inclusion of me in his culture. Later, I was taken by surprise when I was offered a red envelope by Nicks auntie I was unsure whether to accept or decline it, considering I had only just met her for the first time. As I was about to decline out of what I thought was courtesy, Nick swooped in, thanking his auntie and prodding me to do the same. Never decline, he whispered Its rude not to accept. I smiled. He had helped me navigate his culture, just as I had helped him with mine.Revisiting my own memories and finding their place in the Eurasian experience has made for an interesting reflection. Perhaps, it was more than reflecting it was learning. The biracial experience is diverse and unique to each person, whether that be learning to speak, write and read the language or a subconscious learning through immersion in a culture. Either way, cultural heritage is inherent in each being. There is no parting from it. It is what moulds your attitudes, shapes your features and provokes every thought in your mind. Embracing this whilst constructing your own identity is to me, the biracial experience.* * *kanji Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing systemobaachan grandmaoshougatsu New Years Dayosechi Japanese New Years fooddatemaki sweet egg rollkonbu a type of seaweedkamaboko pink and white fish cake cut in semi-circleskuromame sweet black beansojiichan grandpa <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Healers truly are the most downtrodden of the video game classes. The backbone of our dear virtual society, yet treated with disdain by so many. Every day, thousands of Mercys, and Lucios toil away to make sure damage can be done and tanking can be taken. Truly the unsung heroes of every match.And yet theyre thanked with insults and disrespect. I say this as I weave through a number of online multiplayer games, passing out pamphlets to support classes asking them to unionise. You have strength in numbers! I say. But they do not listen. Their DPS (damage per second) and Tank masters are already shooing me away.This has long been an observed phenomenon in online gaming. Healers are held to unreasonably high standards, blamed for the mistakes of others, and their input to victories not fully recognised. But why?Well, there are many theories. Firstly, its much more difficult to perceptively quantify a healers contribution to a victory. While a DPS character might secure the final blow, a healer just heals. An important role, but not flashy or, in many ways, active. Another, and to me quite convincing, reason is that of feminisation. For eons now, scholars within the field of gaming have observed a trend often dubbed the feminisation of healing. While DPS and tank roles are coded and read as masculine, the role of healer has long been considered feminine. This is due to the socialised expectation that feminine bodies are a source of nurturing and maternal care. Playing as a healer is often met with disrespect or dismissal, as players project their personal bigotry onto those who play them. But the treatment of support classes is just a fraction of what women experience in these spaces.Healing isnt the only thing thats been consistently feminised, though. Magic has long been gated as a female art within many games. Hit Chinese fantasy-RPG Genshin Impact has a roster of magic users identified exclusively as women. Black Desert Online, on the other hand, gender locks certain classes so that when creating a custom character, users are only able to select certain classes if they choose the female customisation option. Many of these classes reflect the trends Ive already discussed in this article. But magic is in many ways the same as healing (at least for the purposes of this discussion). Both have historically been considered female arts (often practised by the same person) and both lack a certain physical agency. Magic, and its results, is separate from the body of its user in a way that say a sword or bow and arrow could never be. Magic is feminised because it puts as much distance between women and the action of a gaming environment. Its feminised for the very same reason that healing is.These practices have become second nature to so many in the gaming industry. While games like Overwatch are making meaningful strides to make their rosters more inclusive and reflective, with classes having reasonably even gender compositions, the attitudes and perceptions remain the same. Disrespect, toxicity and harassment often hurled at women in online gaming spaces are transposed onto support players. With much of the technical side of gaming coming into line with modern demographics, but attitudes are miles behind. Gaming will never be an open space to female players if characters are gated and archaic conceptions of gender imposed on multiplayer classes.And give our healers some goddamn respect! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This article contains spoilers for Stardew Valley.It was the summer of 2021. The winds of January carried with them a lingering sense of malaise, a reminder of last January, which dumped a litany of horrors at our door: the stirrings of an unprecedented pandemic, unrelenting thoughts of bushland aflame, and the looming threat of capitalist-induced climate catastrophe ever-present in my mind. Yet, as the weeks wore on, this January rang with new, golden promise. I had discovered Stardew Valley.I was gifted Stardew Valley, an indie farming game, on Steam by some friends for Christmas. It was, in short, a revelation. It is impossible to spend time in this desktop countryside without feeling intimately drawn to its green splendor. This kind of deep connection is muted by the everyday humdrum of life in a rapidly-moving capitalist society; as students and workers, we are robbed of leisure time to experience nature and reconnect with our planet. We forget that we have the capacity to shape our world with our actions and choices, and with such a deficit of time and energy as our spirits are constantly sapped by capitalism, it is understandable to feel the urge to escape.In Stardew Valley, the player, disillusioned with their dreary 9-to-5 desk job at Joja Corp, quits and moves to the idyllic countryside after inheriting a dilapidated farm in the heart of the magical Stardew Valley. The farm is located on the outskirts of the quiet Pelican Town, populated by an eclectic community of characters. You spend your days growing crops, fishing, foraging and raising livestock as you rotate through the four seasons, exploring the monster-infested mines and chopping wood in the Cindersap Forest.The beauty of Stardew Valley is that there is no end goal, no final destination at which to close your laptop for the last time. It is a wonderfully open-ended game, punctuated by quests and directed by a coherent narrative flow as you explore the valley and uncover its secrets. The player finds peace in the undefined possibilities of directly shaping and caring for this world.It was a warm afternoon when I started playing and in two shakes of a lambs tail, I had racked up over 100 hours of gameplay. My farm, affectionately named Fairywren Farm, quickly grew to house chickens and cows. I set up little cabins so that my friends could join me on my first steps towards my dream commune. Venturing into town, I befriended the lilac-locked Abigail, the aspiring seamstress Emily, the tent-dwelling Linus, and even the eccentric wizard Rasmodius, who lived alone in a tower on the edge of Cindersap Forest. I fell back in love with digital gameplay, in this valley of peace and possibility. I was a troubled student no longer, becoming instead a budding farmer aspiring to be besties with pretty girls in the village.There are lessons to be gleaned from this tiny digital world. Id point out that simulation games often appeal to players as vessels through which we can create the world of our dreams. Indeed, Stardew Valley has the power to make us keenly aware of a modern yearning for an alternative to capitalism, and reconciles this yearning with its community-based gameplay, in which you can give and receive gifts from the townspeople that you befriend and work to improve the town through the Community Centre (that is, if you dont join forces with Joja Corp, which is in my opinion the wrong way to play the game). If Joja Corp is a metaphor for the callous behemoth of capitalism, Stardew Valley and its inhabitants are a glittering epitome of a world structured around strong communities and respect for the environment; a world just beyond our reach.In addition, I would argue that Stardew Valley can also be a site of queer awakening and self-actualisation. In the game, there are a diverse range of characters that the player is able to court and marry, regardless of their gender identity. Video games today are heavily saturated with cis-heteronormativity, and it is refreshing to have queerness so naturally integrated into Stardew Valleys gameplay. Within the confines of my screen, I am allowed to explore what in my reality seems like a sapphic pipe-dream. The game understands that queerness is as intrinsic to the world as the air that we breathe; that in itself is a gift and a potent antidote to heteronormativity.The magic of Stardew Valley is quite plain to me. It allows me to imagine a place beyond capitalism, and encourages me to find peace in human connection and community. It is a world punctuated by undefined horizons of possibility, and the capacity for queer self-actualisation. I love that I can grow crops in my greenhouse, raise cows and chickens and sheep, and marry a girl with purple hair and an affinity for adventure. I love my little house, I love Pelican Town, and I love the little digital life that I have built for myself. That is more than enough. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I am obsessed with collecting DVDs. I have accumulated 500 so far; they sit in monolithic piles in the corner of my room. Ushering in memories of my time as a child wandering the aisles of my local video store, I can spend hours staring at my collection, struggling to decide what to watch, with my fingers slowly tracing down the spines of the DVDs and taking in every title.Its hard to say when the obsession started. Perhaps it was when I first started working at my local op shop. As the resident movie buff, they entrusted me to sort, stack, price and organise the vast collection of donated DVDs they had accumulated in the backroom. Every shift I would go through boxes of DVDs, throwing away any of the undesirables bootleg copies of films shot on a camcorder, multiple rereleases of public domain shlock. Anyone else who is in the business of DVD collecting and op shop bargain hunting will recognise these familiar titles.But every so often, there would be little gems that would shine through, like diamonds in the rough. For every Zulu, thered be a Chungking Express; for every Honey, thered be a Cinema Paradiso; and for every Night of the Living Dead, thered be a Autumn Sonata. From there I was off to the races, buying bucketloads of any vaguely highly rated film I could. I would use databases such as Letterboxd to determine whether or not the DVDs I was purchasing were of high value, with the 5 star rating system serving as my guide for what to buy and what not to buy. Ill admit, theres an air of elitism in buying only films that rate highly, and perhaps putting my opinion in the hands of random online strangers wouldnt serve me well. But nevertheless, I was hooked on the movie drug and nothing was going to stop me from buying 12, 20, or 40 DVDs!As uni has recommenced, I am spending more time away from the DVDs, and spending less money on them. Now I stalk the aisles of Fisher Librarys 7th floor, sitting on the floor with stacks of movies surrounding me, deciding which ones to borrow. I dont know what it is about DVDs in particular theres something satisfying about cracking open the case, pressing your finger in the hole and having the disc pop out in your hand. The smell of a newly pressed disc, the soft plastic casing; its a sensorium that adds to the viewing experience a return of cinemas ill-fated Smell-O-Vision, perhaps? Flipping the disc over, a colourful collage of psychedelic light shines off its surface, like a rainbow leading viewers to a pot of gold. The spines stand to attention along my shelves, colour coded so they bleed into one another.It seems others share my passion, In a world of streaming services, there is some deeper yearning to own, collect and possess DVDs. Companies such as the Criterion Collection do masterful home releases of classic or oft-forgotten films, with 4K restorations and a plethora of commentary tracks, behind the scenes info and critical analysis. In a way, DVDs are the closest we can come to resolving one of the biggest philosophical issues plaguing film scholars, the fact that film is, as Raymond Bellour suggests, unattainable. Film is unquotable, and does not lend itself to the same tactility as literature, music or visual art. One could argue that you could hold or take possession of the film reel, but these are mere individual images, not set in motion by the projector. Once wrung through the machine, we cannot hold the abstract formations of light that dart above our heads. On Netflix and other streaming services, they are mere lines of code. Only the DVD, which we can hold, evokes the surreal nature of film not as individual 24 frames a second but an abstract pool of images. We flip the DVD upside down and we can see the whole film all at once. Albeit flattened and compressed, but its all there before our very own eyes. The senses of smell and touch that we feel as we caress the case and eject the disc those belong to the film as well. By collecting them, I am taking possession, and engaging these films in a bodily way that is wholly unique to any other mode of consuming cinema. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Since its inception in 2009, RuPauls Drag Race has been ground-breaking in popularising drag as an art form. The series has continued to play a seminal role in shifting queer culture from the fringes of society into the crux of mainstream pop culture, commercialising the previously underground anti-capitalist art form and engraining terms like yas, queen!, spill the tea, shade and slay in contemporary vernacular. Whilst the show touts itself to be a progressive platform which spotlights the queer community and celebrates queerness, the issue of transgender inclusion has been contentious among fans, Drag Race alumni and RuPaul Charles himself for years. Despite its success the show somewhat ironically has continually fostered cis-normativity by explicitly degrading, trivialising and excluding transgender and nonbinary people.RuPaul has exhibited his indifference towards the history of violence associated with derogatory transphobic slurs, releasing songs such as Tranny Chaser and Lady Boy in the mid-2000s and using similar transphobic language over the course of his show. In 2014, trans activists led by Drag Race alumni and transgender model Carmen Carrera lobbied against the shows weekly usage of the slur she-male, with RuPaul announcing youve got she-mail! every time contestants received a challenge. RuPaul then claimed that those who took issue with the term are fringe people who are looking for storylines to strengthen their identity as victims. In 2015, Season 7 reluctantly retired the term just in time for the first openly nonbinary contestant Violet Chachki to win the crown.The notable absence of gender diverse casting choices in Drag Race has been a point of criticism amongst viewers for years; particularly in regards to the possibility of including drag kings, as well as transgender, non-binary, gender-fluid and Assigned Female at Birth (AFAB) performers. Such scrutiny heightened drastically after a 2018 interview with The Guardian where RuPaul stated that he wouldnt allow trans queens on his show if they had begun medically transitioning, and signalled that female-identifying performers have no place in drag. He doubled down on Twitter by analogising drag queens undergoing gender reassignment surgery to athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs, before half-heartedly apologising amidst backlash from prominent Drag Race alumni, such as transgender queens Peppermint and Gia Gunn, as well as Sasha Velour, BenDeLaCreme, Courtney Act and Willam. We work with trans women every night side by side, Willam noted, and for them to be denied the opportunities because of someones narrow-minded view on what they call drag is fucked.These sentiments enable transphobia at a time where trans people are experiencing unprecedented rates of violence, rape, and homicide. 2020 saw a record-high number of trans and non-binary murders globally, with one in two transgender people having been sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives. Regardless of ongoing improvements, its impossible to ignore that Drag Races history has been mired in a bedrock of trans-exclusionary ideology, imbued with its creators parochially narrow definition of what constitutes valid drag.As Drag Race has grown in popularity, it has signalled a willingness to highlight trans issues. For example, Season 9 in 2017 aired a scene where Peppermint came out as transgender to her castmates. In particular, 2021 signifies a turning point for trans and non-binary representation with two concurrent series. The long-awaited Season 13 line-up drew praise from viewers and trans advocates when Gottmik, the shows first AFAB transgender man, was announced as a contestant. Gottmik who remains a front-runner in the currently-airing series has proudly championed their own trans journey at every turn, from taking pride in their top surgery scars on the runway to opening a self-written song verse with Gottmik was born a girl, baby/Was told that I cant do drag/Knew I had something to prove. Whilst Gottmiks portrayal appeared tokenistic at first, each successive episode seems to complexify the depth of their emotional narrative and idiosyncratic journey as a drag queen.Episode 10 saw Gottmik discussing their depression prior to transitioning and described using drag as a mask to conceal and alleviate their gender dysphoria. In expressing this, Gottmik echoed how drag has existed long before Drag Race as a safe space for trans people to express their gender through performance, and even as a mechanism for some to discover their own gender identity, as it was for Gottmik. In fact, the very concept of drag has thought to be borne of trans experiences. In light of Drag Races history of erasing trans folk and exhibiting an ironically exclusionary attitude towards gender norms, its fair for viewers to be wary of whether this represents a meaningful shift in trans representation. To invalidate or erase the existence of transgender and non-binary drag queens is to erase decades of drag history and the boundary-pushing, gender non-conforming queer people who conceived and shaped the art form.On the other side of the world, the recently concluded Season 2 of Drag Race UK was noted for its moving conversation about non-binarism between Bimini Bon Boulash and Ginny Lemon. Its basically just someone who doesnt feel like they are either masculine or feminine, they float between the two, Bimini explained, whilst they and Ginny engaged in a conversation about the lonely confusion and melancholic hardships of growing up without identifying with either gender. Bimini tweeted after the episode How nice was it to hear two gender non-conforming people discuss identity politics without Piers Morgan? The moment was a rare vestige of calmness in a sea of socio-cultural discourse which commonly reduces gender politics to a culture war. And the fact it was aired on the BBC represents a cautious improvement of the shows trend of ambivalence towards non-binary contestants, whilst properly educating mainstream audiences on their hardships.Its important to note as well that representational politics may not solve all of Drag Races ills, especially as the shows burst of popularity leads to the rapidly increasing commercialisation of drag. Drag Race has created a colossal business empire with numerous spinoff series, thrice-yearly DragCon fan conventions, smartphone apps, a slew of chart-topping iTunes songs and franchised versions in the UK, Canada, Thailand and Holland. Over the years, Drag Race has arguably become a demonstration of rainbow capitalism, shifting away from its anti-capitalist roots and instead prioritising profit above the needs of disempowered groups. Resultantly, trans and non-binary representation in the show will always be considered a product of RuPauls economic interests and to keep the franchise aligning with the tides of social progression to avoid obsolescence. The show has historically done the bare minimum to keep up with advancements in gender discourse, including normalising terms such as non-binary and genderqueer. The crumbs of transgender representation over the shows lifetime have done little to outweigh how it has stigmatised gender non-conforming communities.Whilst the recent discourses of gender representation are steps in the right direction, they dont erase or compensate for the years of exclusion RuPauls Drag Race has enacted towards transgender and non-binary communities. To omit trans drag queens is to omit a world of flourishing talent in an artform intertwined with their own culture. Entrenching the narrative that only cisgender men can partake in drag is holistically harmful for all queer people as it reinforces the restrictive patriarchal gender binary that has constricted queer people for centuries. With the recent announcement of the Drag Race Down Under cast at Mardi Gras, which features queer, non-binary, and First Nations performers, we can only hope the show continues its positive evolution of intersectional representation to properly celebrate homegrown Aussie talent in all its glory. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If you hadnt heard of director Shaka King before his bombastic entrance onto screens after Sundance, youre probably not alone. With nothing more than a handful of short films and a stoner comedy to his name, he may not seem like the best pick to handle the biopic of a figure as divisive and powerful as Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. However, armed with explosive performances from LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya, Kings Judas and the Black Messiah packs a punch that will hopefully define Kings blossoming style: heavy, unflinching and utterly electric.Judas and the Black Messiah also positions itself as an incredibly timely piece, the lack of recognition for Black Cinema in Hollywood having been heavily scrutinised in recent years. More importantly, the film takes a head-on approach to tackling issues of police brutality and institutional racism. This choice, relevant to both the context of the film and our contemporary context, hits with a sharp salience and authenticity. While many monumental figures of black history have been ideologically deflated to suit the needs status quo, Shaka King strives for historical honesty. For King, Fred Hamptons identity as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary is not something to be ashamed of.Judas and the Black Messiah is, from the very beginning, a very crisp and streamlined project. King splices historical footage with the establishing scene in a way that helps his audience understand the background without having to spoon-feed. For many biopics, historical footage can become an overused crutch, but Kings use is thankfully sparing. The cinematography and score are similar to a noir-style murder mystery at many points, a decision that really helps Judas and the Black Messiah stand out in a sea of boringly realistic historical films.Beyond this, the films strongest aspect is by far the performances. LaKeith Stanfield keeps his cards close to his chest in his portrayal of FBI informant Bill ONeal, distancing his audience from any real emotional attachment. While this may undercut the meaning of his ultimate betrayal for some viewers, it certainly increases the weight of the scenes in which Stanfield opens up. In contrast, Daniel Kaluuyas charisma as Fred Hampton demands the audiences attention every time he appears on screen. At many points, particularly in the second act of the film, it feels like King is restricted by the actual history of events, and so, fills in the gaps with some fluffy scenes of characters chatting aimlessly. Unfortunately this does begin to drag for a while, but Kaluuyas energy should be enough to keep most audiences invested.The most powerful scene in the film is, without question, the assassination of Fred Hampton. A killing that was at the time declared a justifiable homicide, King makes certain his audience knows who the villains were. While the scenes that follow arent necessarily useless, the film could easily have ended with Hamptons murder, and left the rest for the audience to find out themselves. The mere fact that King gives Hampton such a flattering image, and his death a feeling of injustice, speaks to his unflinching historical dedication. Hampton was, after all, a revolutionary Marxist, something that Hollywood has steered clear of glorifying in the past.Many influential figures in the Civil Rights Movement have since been watered-down, so to speak, chief among them Martin Luther King Jr., the face of the movement. Dr King was, of course, a radical socialist who condemned the evils of capitalism being as real as the evils of militarism and racism. You wouldnt know this from Dr Kings growing conservative fan base however, lead by conservative thinkers such as Candace Owens, who claims that contemporary civil rights movements are moving further away from MLKs dream, and Dinesh DSouza comparing his own incarceration with Dr Kings. The ability of conservative speakers to claim Dr King as one of their own speaks to how far to the right his image has been pushed. The fact that Shaka King had the opportunity to breeze over the more radical positions of Fred Hampton makes it all the more interesting that he didnt. Instead, King opens with one of Hamptons most radical quotes: Were going to fight racism not with racism, but were going to fight with solidarity. We say were not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but were going to fight it with socialism.In a cultural and social atmosphere where paying tribute to socialist agitators is frowned upon and discouraged, Shaka Kings portrait of Fred Hampton tells you all that you need to know about his approach to filmmaking. While Judas and the Black Messiah doesnt earn its length, its powerful cast should be enough to keep audiences invested, and hopefully excited for what Shaka King works on in the future. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the world of reality TV, the Bachelor franchise occupies a particular space of unreality. The shows premise approximately 30 suitors getting chucked into a mansion and vying for the attention of one man or woman feels oddly antiquated, like a medieval courtship. It sometimes smacks the viewer with its absurd earnestness; more than other shows, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette ask you to suspend disbelief for the idea that two strangers who have spent minimal time alone can, through the power of love and incessant product placement, commit to an enduring relationship.Perhaps its this wretched commitment to fairytale-like love stories that explains why fans of the US franchise have been stunned by its recent racism scandal, which centres around Rachael Kirkconnell, the winner of the latest season, attending an Antebellum-themed party in 2018. (The word Antebellum is sometimes used when glorifying the pre-Civil War Old South, while ignoring its reliance on slavery and plantations.)The franchise became further engulfed when host Chris Harrison, on a podcast with the first Black Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay, defended Kirkconnells actions, saying there was a big difference between whether Kirkconnell attended the party in 2018 compared to 2021. In mere weeks, the other contestants released a statement denouncing Kirkconnell, Harrison temporarily stepped aside as host, and Matt James, this seasons Bachelor, dumped Kirkconnell.All of this happened after James was touted as the first Black Bachelor, following calls for diversity after Junes Black Lives Matter protests. Its telling, but not surprising, how it was James season which exposed the franchises deep problem with race.The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are interesting because they venerate the lead as a perfect romantic ideal. Theyre presented simultaneously as a Greek god/goddess-like sex symbol, and a demure partner who just wants to settle down with someone whos here for the right reasons. More specifically, the show is designed, mostly, to protect the leads interests; the events of the season, including drama between contestants, are framed as part of our heros journey.And so, when Kirkconnells racist past directly conflicted with James identity as a Black man, the show could no longer choose to ignore its current and historical whiteness. Sure, viewing figures for Lindsays season dropped 10% on the year before and Lindsays involvement with the franchise after her season quickly morphed into her becoming the shows Black Friend, proof that The Bachelor simply couldnt be racist but Lindsay is still married to her winner, so the narrative remains intact.On home soil, the Bachelor franchise in Australia has been consistently criticised for casting predominantly white men and women (and coincidentally sending people of colour home in the early weeks), while only choosing two POC as leads out of sixteen in the franchises history. A Network Ten executive blamed this lack of representation on certain cultural groups not wanting to be on the show.But apart from this questionable generalisation which recuses production of responsibility, POC have simply never seen how they could stand a chance. The Bachelor franchise is made through a white gaze the default assumption that the viewer is white evidenced by POC contestants being rendered invisible (see Niranga, a Sri Lankan man, whose 2020 Bachelor in Paradise storyline was how he was constantly friendzoned), pitted against each other (see Sogand and Danushs rivalry in 2019 because they were both Persian) or exoticised (see Tahitian contestant Elora in 2017 was characterised as a mysterious island dancer). Its important to see POC be both the object of genuine affection and capable of giving that affection, on a nationwide platform, and to be protected from harm when they are vulnerable, which is where viewers argue The Bachelor failed James.There are limits to how effectively representation within the fictitious environment of a TV show can change the world outside of it (James received racist abuse from fans after dumping Kirkconnell). Recognising this, the Bachelor Diversity Campaign, after successfully pushing for a Black Bachelor, is advocating for more POC producers and mental health support for contestants. Nevertheless, there is cause for cautious optimism; the latest US Bachelorette aired a widely-praised conversation about Black Lives Matter with Tayshia Adams, who is half-Black, and Ivan, a Black contestant and Tayshias runner-up. And the newest NZ Bachelor, Moses Mackay, demanded a racially and size-diverse cast before signing on. Its by following their leads, and telling POC stories authentically, that The Bachelor can have a chance of embracing the present. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If I feel a whisper of queer subtext in the silky depths of ambiguity, I grasp that gossamer wing and hold it close. It goes into my proverbial cabinet of curiosities, where I keep all the scraps, relics and potentialities of queerness in soft, velvet-lined drawers.In the cabinet there is a drawer which holds a downy yellow peach; a goblin globe fresh and dew-speckled. Along the stem, a spider has spun her web. I open this drawer often and admire the scene. It is a reminder to myself when I feel that Ive succumbed to critical theory; to the belief that some arguments just are more plausible than others.Christina Rosettis 1862 poem Goblin Market is an erratic, glimmering fretwork of fairy tale, gothic and allegorical elements. Two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, are hounded by the temptation of luscious fruits pandered by wily, zoomorphic goblins. The cascading stanzas mimic their seductive cries:Swart-headed mulberries,Wild free-born cranberries,Crab-apples, dewberries,Pine-apples, blackberriesLaura, inevitably, falls prey, and sucks until her lips are sore. No more does she hear the goblins call, yet all she desires in the world is to taste once more; peaches with a velvet nap, / pellucid grapes without one seed. She begins to wither away, but is saved by Laura, who is able to obtain some of the precious goblin fruit without tasting it herself. Lizzie sucks for a second time, and the spell is broken. The poem concludes on a jarringly moral note. Both sisters have married, had children, and put their wild youth safely in the realm of didactic allegory.Scholars have had their erudite knickers in a twist for a long time. What is the metaphorical relationship between these sensuous, perilous temptations and Rosettis Victorian London context? There are papers arguing allusions to drug addiction, the biblical fallen woman, even the transgressive desire to be a female artist. Their names attempt to be as wily as the poem itself, papers like A Punishment Required: Pleasure of Pain inGoblin Market by Aijun Seneha, or my personal favourite; Absinthe Makes the Tart Grow Fonder: A Note on Wormwood in Goblin Market by Shelley OReilly. Rosetti actually wrote the poem in 1859 whilst volunteering in Highgate at a home for fallen women. The rather uncommon conviction of those who ran St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary was that these women primarily sex workers could be rehabilitated and reformed. Assuming this was front of mind for Rosetti, it follows that the sinful path of tasting goblin fruit is akin to sex work, with a sweet moral about sisterhood driving the pro-convent message home. A good scholar would argue their case, with evidence from the poem and context, and boldly claim to have unwound the web and framed the prey.What I have neglected to emphasise is that the poem oozes with sexuality. It is also very, very gay. When Lizzie brings home the fruit for Laura she cries:Come and kiss me.Never mind my bruises,Hug me, kiss me, suck my juicesSqueezed from goblin fruits for youGoblin pulp and goblin dew.Eat me, drink me, love meAnd later:Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.Screw the evidence, I wanted to proclaim, this poem is unequivocally sapphic! Of course, this meant warping some of the finer points of the story. The sisterly incest? Of minor consequence. The entire ending of the poem? Dont read that far! Yet, the good English student in me, perpetually in search of a thesis, dismissed my fervent love for the poem as merely personal fantasy. Besides, I couldnt stop hearing that all-too familiar voice, telling me to stop making everything gay.And then I stumbled across a Playboy magazine from 1973. It was the first copy on the stack in a dusty corner of an antique bookstore in rural NSW. On the cover, a naked woman was squatting, her red snakeskin platforms complete with gold Playboy logo buckles and the proclamation; Entertainment for Men. Ill admit this was enticing, but what I discovered inside was more tempting still. The five-page spread on my favourite poem opened with an interpretation of a kind. The unnamed author claimed that Goblin Market was borne from poor dear Christina suffering the collapse of a turbulent love affair. Indeed, how really sinister and scary it is, given just a Freudian glance, has never been openly discussed. Thankfully Playboy would provide the long overdue recognition of the lurid sexual fantasies that raged in Miss Rosettis unconscious. I was simultaneously horrified and amused. I couldnt help but admire the sticky, lacquered writing. The all-time hardcore pornographic classic for tiny tots, the author opined, Adult readers of todaywill doubtless be shockedit is a lewd goblin that rises dripping out of the dark depths of the Victorian psyche. The accompanying paintings by iconic Playboy artist Kinuko Y. Craft revel in this lush, camp excess. Salivating goblins, explicitly yonic and phallic fruit and a comparatively prudish depiction of Lizzie presumably tasting Lauras fruit; all composed in gorgeously pulpy detail.In a single article, Rosetti had been reduced to a lovelorn, decidedly un-self-aware childrens author and her sweet sisters fate into titillating smut. I wasnt so keen on the misogyny of the former, nor the lesbian performance for the male gaze of the latter. It seemed to eschew all ambiguity for the satisfaction of the male reader, to whom my connection to the text would be seen only as yet more Entertainment for Men.Yet, in my hands, the poem feels like a kind of delicious subversion. I shamelessly take Goblin Market as a sign of my kind of love existing within the fleshy, enigmatic folds of the Victorian gothic. I have no desire for more evidence or argument. I admire the glistening web, wink at the tightly spun centre and close the drawer softly, until next time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Youve finished up with a series. Be it a final book, a resounding last season, or the close to a decade-long franchise saga. All things must end, and that includes media. But for many fans (myself included), the end never quite comes. The life of a fictional world can be extended, preserved, and even rearranged. Through foul necromancy and dark magic, fiction can take on a new life a cursed life. To the uninitiated, this is known as fanfiction.But what fanfiction giveth, it also taketh away. Anything that subverts the natural order must extract a price. And the price of fanfiction is dissonance.Weve all had that moment where we come back to an original text after ruthlessly devouring non-canon content for months on end, only to find that things arent exactly as we remember them. Maybe a ship isnt quite as explicit as you recall, it could be that there never was a coffee shop AU in the first book, or perhaps, much to your horror, not everyone is gay. This is what happens when authorial intent comes crashing into the world of fanon.Its a disappointing and often drearily nostalgic process, which forces a reader to audit their mental archives and bring them in line with whats canon. But this is an ongoing struggle. Eventually youll reread or rewatch, and the cycle will begin anew once more. This is the plight of fan dissonance. So here are some tips to separate fiction from different fiction.If you remember someone as queer, thats probably from fanfiction.If a plot point either makes too much or too little sense, thats probably from fanfiction.If you remember a side character having more dialogue, thats probably from fanfiction.If you thought the protagonist had any sort of common sense, thats probably from fanfiction.But dissonance isnt necessarily a bad thing, as it only reinforces the value of fan made content. If non-authorial texts have the power to complement or even supplant authorial texts, then we really need to assess the value of canon itself. Sometimes the author isnt the best judge of whats best for their world. While Im not fully convinced the author is dead, theyre definitely asleep at the wheel at the best of times. For those who know it, fanfiction has always been a mixed bag. For every 500k modern AU theres a poorly spelt, 10k power fantasy. But thats what happens when there are zero barriers to entry. It may feel weird to revisit a text with false memories, but that dissonance isnt so bad. After all, all it really means is that someone did it better. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When speaking of favourite artists, I often tend towards hyperbole to convey my excitement and passion towards their music. Most times, the overstatement is not entirely warranted perhaps the more I deify the creative figure, the more likely my friends will be to check them out. With that being said, I am not exaggerating at all when I say that the first time I heard BIPP, the A-Side of SOPHIEs sophomore single, it felt as if the horizons of sound had been set on fire.2013 was a strange time for commercial electronic music. It was only a couple of years after Skrillexs seminal Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP, and everyone and their grandmothers had fostered an entrenched hatred for bass-heavy synthesised sounds and chipmunked vocals. Driven to a frenzy by the mainstream music press, the is pop electronic even music debate gained more traction than such an irrelevant question ever deserved. Never before had it been more contrarian to enjoy trance leads and acid basslines.To say SOPHIE merely changed the game in 2013 is to use a phrase so often applied to producers whose output is consistently good; it is more accurate to say she completely crumbled the assumed boundaries of sound design and revealed a new sky. Almost an entire decade later, BIPP still feels like a miraculous artifact from a distant utopic future, revealing more of its impossibly intricate details on every spin. With textures and timbres gloriously contradictory in their construction metallic clangs that evoked rubber, rubbery slaps reminiscent of aluminium sheets listening to SOPHIE felt like the industry being shaken awake from a deep creative slumber. With every trypophobic pop and bubbly whoosh, SOPHIE posed two blunt questions to the music world: Did you know things could sound like this? And doesnt it sound so good?One of the most entertaining forum threads Ive ever had the pleasure of visiting and revisiting is the now 100-reply long SOPHIE sound design post on Elektronauts a discussion website for users of instruments by Elektron, a Swedish synthesiser company. Throughout her career, SOPHIE employed the Elektron Monomachine almost exclusively as her creative tool of choice: an early 2000s groovebox that, for the most part, was considered fairly impenetrable and difficult to operate. By 2013, the Monomachine was more or less a long-forgotten memory for most producers; its most famous cameo was its presence on early Autechre records and its most famous feature being able to sound like early Autechre records.The thread opens innocently enough. With reference to the track L.O.V.E., user Mnroe asks: How do I get her glassy and polished high frequency sounds? Pseldolux quickly replies: Ive tried to replicate her sounds on the Monomachine but its difficult. Xidnpnlss adds: Shes wonderful, but shes been at it for 20 years and works hard. Thats probably why its so hard to get those sounds on your Monomachine. Psyclone001 wastes no time in trying to shut everyone else down: That sound should have never existed in the first place. Terrible sound and it just keeps going through the whole track. I think that may go down as the most annoying sound I have ever heard.A quick flick through the myriad of reviews online available for SOPHIEs 2015 debut compilation PRODUCT will reveal that it polarised critics more than any other electronic release that year. Pitchfork, everyones least favourite music publication, described it both as a cluster of neon-coloured balloons ready to pop and depressingly skippable within paragraphs of the same article. But a propensity to generate extreme reactions means that at least some of those reactions will be ones of awe, love and inspiration.Despite the weak critical reception, the impact PRODUCT has had on artists is beyond seminal. Try as you might, its almost impossible to name any genre or movement in music over the past eight years that hasnt been deeply affected by SOPHIEs music in some way. Even if you just consider her direct collaborations and production work, SOPHIE has been responsible for the synthetic sonic landscape of tracks from both the worlds biggest pop-stars and hip-hop artists Madonna, Rhianna, Charli XCX, Kendrick Lamar, Vince Staples and the most cult, underground producers like Jimmy Edgar and Doss.Analysing her broader cultural influence, her indelible thumbprint on production characteristics is difficult to miss: a fervent embrace of experimental sounds in pop instrumentals, the re-popularisation of complex synthesis techniques like Frequency Modulation, a trend towards more artificial and clinically-clean timbres and textures, and a refreshing new perspective on techniques considered deeply uncool like extreme autotune, chipmunk-esque pitch-shifting and sparse stereo imaging.With the release of her debut studio album Oil of Every Pearls Un-Insides in 2018, SOPHIE cemented herself as a mainstream force to be reckoned with. Could we have ever imagined that songs as abrasive and challenging as Ponyboy and Faceshopping would have been charting successes? Or that an artist that so deliberately and unashamedly broke every rule in the pop playbook could be nominated for an award as industry-shilling as a Grammy? But even more impressive than how popular the record was, was how it was able to afford a kind of earnestness to avant-garde electronic music which so often comes off as misanthropic, dark and stand-offish. The core message of Un-Insides is one of love and defiance: a genuine and unabashed championing of human beings regardless of how they identify. Though I could never speak for, and dont claim to be speaking for, the trans and non-binary experience, I could not even begin to name the countless number of artists and creatives that reacted in ecstasy towards the release of the albums debut music video Its Okay to Cry. With SOPHIE cast against an ethereal and heavenly blue-pink sky, every dramatic supersaw chord and glittery trance arpeggio punctuated her lyrics with violent happiness: Cause weve all got a dark place / Maybe if we shine some light there / It wont be so hard / I want to know those parts of you. It should come as no surprise that the albums title is, in fact, an almost-homophone for the phrase I love every persons insides.A truly unique artist probably only comes around a few times every decade. And when these artists disappear from our lives, its so easy to spiral into unqualified and doomed mourning. No one could disagree that SOPHIE was just getting started, that she had so much left to do: her most recent large-scale release, the HEAV3N SUSPENDED livestream, set from late 2020, opened a window to a rawer, more minimal shade of production that promised big things to come. But when I think back over SOPHIEs tragically brief career, it is ultimately a feeling of celebration that I land on.Is it possible to be vulnerable through the artificial, man-made and fake? SOPHIE did not so much answer that question as make it totally irrelevant. She built the foundations for a brighter vision of pop futurism that artists today are still struggling to replicate and live up to. She crumbled the false dichotomies between the mainstream and the avant-garde world, inspiring reverie from almost every corner and walk of life artists and fans alike. She showed that it was still possible to truly express yourself in an original way without enduring the terror of representation and comparison. And she did it all with such honesty and joy, in a way that never once felt contrived.When I listen to BIPP in 2021, I still feel that rush of awe that I first felt when I was just 13. Perhaps the thing that I appreciate SOPHIE for the most is the optimism that her music inherently presents: that there are in fact sounds that we have not discovered yet, textures yet to be uncovered behind the knobs and faders of synthesisers that we thought we comprehensively understood, timbres that have not been imagined but that we can craft through fearless exploration. Every time I wake up and boot into Ableton, or turn on my instruments in the morning, its that optimism that drives me the most to create, and never stop creating. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I love anime.Ive been watching it for a long time and have hundreds of episodes and shows under my belt. That being said, Ill say that 2016 was a pretty good year for anime. The Shonen Jump bestseller My Hero Academia started airing, cult-classic Jojos Bizarre Adventure was in its 4th season, and most importantly to this article: the ice-skating anime Yuri on Ice became an unexpected smash-hit.And it doesnt take a genius to understand why.Contrary to popular belief, quite a large number of anime-watchers are women, and so many shows are made with this in mindt. In the early 2010s, shows like Kuroko no Basuke and Free! became exceedingly popular with young women in both Japan and the West. Both featured casts of pretty-boys and enough sexual tension to make you question if you read the anime description right. More recently, shows like Haikyu!! and Sk8 the Infinity have grown their own sizable fan bases through similar uses of attractive characters and queerbaiting.Queerbaiting has existed in the industry for a long time and has shown to be a very effective strategy to gain viewers. Shows garner fans and a following by teasing the possibility of a gay relationship but never actually following through.Admittedly, as the years have gone by, the anime industry has improved in this regard and we have gotten more mainstream shows with canon queer characters I look to Banana Fish and Given as examples of this but its nowhere near becoming a norm.Having said this, Yuri on Ice exists in a sort of limbo between these two categories.Its no stretch to say that Yuri on Ices success was culturally significant. It normalised depictions of male characters and male relationships that werent overtly sexual or fetishised. The characters were well-written and the romantic aspects were all very compelling and genuinely touching; but only if you wanted them to be there.And that is where Yuri on Ice fails in its representation.While it is one of the better examples of queerbaiting, it is still queerbaiting. Nothing in the show is established as explicitly canon. Yuri on Ice straddles the line between being just queer enough that viewers who want romance will be satisfied, and being not quite queer enough that viewers who dont could easily brush it off as platonic.For those who have never seen Yuri on Ice before, let me explain to you the basic premise. Our central character is Yuuri Katsuki, a Japanese competitive figure skater who has hit a low-point in his career. After a wild series of events he is offered to be coached by Viktor Nikiforov, a top Russian figure skater and Yuuris longtime idol. The show follows both the blossoming relationship between the men and Yuuris journey as a skater.I previously mentioned the shows tendency to hint towards a canon queer relationship but never actually go ahead with it. Examples of this include extremely intimate bathhouse scenes, Yuuri performing an Eros (a Greek word for passionate or sensual love) themed skate routine for Viktor, and Yuuri and Viktor buying matching promise rings. All platonically of course. Arguably the most notable moment of queerbaiting in the show and one that had fans raving the most was a kiss between Yuuri and Viktor that was somehow drawn in such a way that it could still be considered platonic.Now as much as I love the show and despite its attempts to portray a beautiful and genuine relationship between Yuuri and Viktor, its obstinant refusal to present a canonically queer romance dampens any sort of progress the writers and producers may have hoped to make.But this was in 2016, right? Surely now producers have realised that their audiences are smart and wont fall for such tricks anymore. And furthermore, surely audiences have realised that by continuing to consume this content, we are further encouraging companies to keep producing queerbaiting content, right?Well, flashforward to 2021 and the release of Sk8 the Infinity; a skateboarding anime featuring a cast of lovable pretty-boys and enough sexual tension to make you question if skateboarding is simply a metaphor for a very different physical activity.I wont lie, even with the show still currently airing and having only about 10 episodes out, I love it. But as an older viewer now and a queer woman myself, I can see it coming from a mile away.Its history repeating itself.And thats whats really the most frustrating. I love anime, I really do, but part of that love is to address and acknowledge the problems with the industry. No amount of fanservice can wash the bitter taste out of my mouth whenever I fall for the ol queer and switch.Still, forever the optimist, I do have hope. Society is progressing and hopefully, the anime industry will follow. Until then, I guess Ill continue to take the bait. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Of the 68,673 students who took the NSW Higher School Certificate in 2020, only 688 sat the Music 2 course and 400 took Music Extension. Studying music in school is rare to begin with, let alone in regional towns. According to the University of Melbourne, rural and remote communities have less access to specialist music tuition than students in cities, which limits their musical careers. In such a limiting environment, regional musicians have, out of necessity, developed a wide array of powerful learning methods to help carry themselves through to higher education. Whether they relish or resent the time they spent under these limitations growing up, many say that theyre proud of the resourcefulness, hunger for knowledge and resilience they had to draw on which they still, either consciously or subconsciously, draw upon today.Interested in this phenomenon as a regional musician myself, I decided to interview three regional conservatorium students. Emma Russell, a second year, first began learning classical trumpet in Bathurst, NSW at the age of 10. Estelle Shircore Barker, who grew up in Apollo Bay, VIC is a third year studying classical piano. Oscar Eager is a fourth-year jazz trumpet player from Bellingen, NSW.Tell me about the country town you grew up in.Emma: Bathurst is a rural town approximately three hours away from Sydney. The majority of residents are agricultural experts or car racing enthusiasts, so a passion for the arts hasnt really developed there. Educational resources are limited, which results in a higher education system that excludes any students looking to study anything niche.Estelle: Apollo Bay is a beautiful little beachside town with a population of about 1500. About a three-hour drive from Melbourne, it is quite isolated, but an idyllic spot and somewhere I love to return to.Oscar: Bellingens high school had an amazing music teacher who ran several ensembles, including a town orchestra. We had a yearly jazz festival and local musicians would happily mentor anyone.What was your experience like growing up in the country as a musician?Emma: I didnt have a very good experience. I had to do all of my music subjects through distance education. I also had virtually no opportunities in Bathurst to perform because I didnt have guidance, I had to resort to picking apart every aspect of my playing myself. Although this helped me progress, it also formed a perfectionist outlook which still affects me today. I had no like minded peers at school and none of them understood what I did. However, it pushed me even more and gave me a goal to get to the Sydney Conservatorium.Estelle: I grew up in a small and supportive community, but it was difficult at times as I was the only one doing classical music. I was very fortunate to have parents who would drive me to eisteddfods and lessons hours away; without them I dont think pursuing music would have been viable .Oscar: I was very lucky to grow up in a town that heavily embraced the arts, although I feel that I missed out on the city gig scene. I wouldve thrived off being exposed to a variety of musical niches, genres and ideas, which is much broader in bigger cities.Would you say overall that you enjoyed growing up in the country as a musician?Emma: I think that it gave me a lot of resilience, however in terms of opportunities and experiences it is very lacking. Musicians from cities have so many more advantages in regard to teachers, ensembles and also just having like-minded musicians to talk to and grow with.Estelle: I did, in the sense that growing up in the country gave me a broader set of life experiences from which I have been able to draw from to add to my music. I didnt, in that it was much harder to access opportunities.Oscar: Yes, I definitely got a lot out of it and was gladly humbled moving to the city. I think in a country town you have to be more self-motivated and have a deep connection to music. I also think having to search for opportunities in a new place is very rewarding, and maybe living in the same city your whole life might not be as thrilling or inspiring you need new experiences to grow as a musician.Do you think that musical opportunities in the country are generally smaller in number and value than the city?Emma: Yes, I do. I certainly wouldnt have gotten as far as I have if it wasnt for having extremely supportive parents who would often drive me to Sydney for lessons. They also supported me when applying to higher level youth orchestras from around the state.Estelle: Yes. In a way though, some of my small-town music experiences were really beneficial. I was able to hold full-house solo recitals fairly regularly growing up. They helped me become a much more confident soloist today.Oscar: I have spoken to a few Sydney people who have had fewer musical opportunities for being in a certain school or suburb. Its definitely still a lottery about which particular area you end up in.Do you think the lack (or abundance) of opportunities in your country town led to a sense of opportunism in your work ethic today?Emma: The lack of opportunities definitely led to me becoming proactive and taking as many opportunities as I can get.Estelle: I think so. I am definitely much more aware of grabbing any opportunity that presents itself now, as they were so much harder to access when I was beginning my musical journey.Oscar: Sadly, this is something that I dont think I really got out of my town, although I still did create a lot of opportunities for myself by forming bands and playing gigs at festivals and restaurants.Would you call yourself a jack of all trades or a master of one? Which do you think is more important for the modern musician?Emma: I definitely specialise in orchestral music. However, I am always open for other experiences as I think it is important to be flexible.Estelle: I think its too early in my career to say. I believe the modern musician needs to have a diverse skill set, but not where you compromise other aspects of your playing. There is such a thing as spreading oneself too thin, and I think its something to be conscious of, especially if you find yourself leaping at every single possibility that goes by.Oscar: Definitely a jack of all trades, although Ive been specialising a bit more since my degree only focuses on jazz and not so much classical music or music of other cultures other than African-American music.Overall, do you think growing up in the country has helped your learning style and motivation levels?Emma: It was great for motivation and has made me eager to learn. However, I dont have many positive feelings towards the country and I much prefer the city.Estelle: Early on I knew I needed a serious work ethic to achieve anything from where I was. This has had a positive impact on the musician and student that I am now.Oscar: I think definitely positive. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Schools stratify us, generating division and comparison in an environment where competition shouldnt and doesnt need to exist. From a young age weve been sorted into categories such as high achieving and low achieving students, well behaved and naughty, essentially good and bad. These comparisons have been reinforced by reward systems and teacher treatment. Because of this, curiosity and creativity has been lost and competition thrives. We need to fundamentally look at the way our schools are structured and ask what purpose theyre serving. Brazilian pedagogue and philosopher Paulo Freire reflects on current educational models within his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968).Paulo Freire developed the Banking model of education as a way to theorise how education presently functions. The first aspect of this model is that the student is seen as an empty receptacle, to be filled with knowledge from the teacher. In this way the student becomes a reproducer of recieved. It strips them of their own reality and understanding of the world and binds them to their teachers perspectives and goals. This is reflected through the ongoing focus of attaining high marks, an internal impulse many of us have developed from the conditioning we experienced in primary and high school. Sticker charts, merit awards and school ranks instilled in us an idea of what was valuable. I remember receiving merit awards for colouring in a picture or neatly copying the letter a over and over again in kindergarten. In both of these actions I remember being bored out of my mind wishing we could be doing or learning about something more exciting. But we were encouraged to be neat, to all produce the same thing, and this behaviour was rewarded.Between the ages of 5-12, the last thing I wanted to do was sit down for most of the day and re-write the letters of the alphabet. At a time when our minds and spirits are firing in so many different directions, we were bound by the rigidity of school bells and school rules. Constructing imaginary worlds at lunch time with my friends was far more interesting than the books we were reading in year 2. Anyone could join in and we were all a part of creating this make-believe narrative. This type of imaginative play was so beneficial to my development, I only wish we had more time for it. In Rutger Bregmans book Humankind, he says that according to the World Health Organisation depression is now the number one global disease. Our biggest shortfall isnt in a bank account or budget sheet but inside ourselves. Its a shortage of what makes life meaningful. Its a shortage of play. I believe that we are all innately curious beings and seek to understand the world around us through play. But I think this desire has been suppressed as our goals were based on graded numbers. The question I often grappled with in school was whether I was learning to achieve a mark or because I was driven by natural interest in the subject. Often it was both, I just wish it was more of the latter.In school we didnt get a say over what or how we learnt things, instead, information was presented to us with an expectation that we would immediately believe it. In response to this, Freire advocates a new model called the Problem Posing education model which accepts neither a well-behaved past or a predetermined future but roots itself in the dynamic present and becomes revolutionary. Freire describes how from the outset; the teachers efforts must coincide with those of the students in order to engage in critical thinking and the pursuit for mutual humanization. Their efforts must be imbued with a profound trust in people and their creative power. There is nothing more powerful than people pursuing something because they want to pursue it and not because theyve been told to. When there are no assessment guidelines or rules, students can take their own path of understanding.There is a school in the Netherlands called Agora which is doing just this. There is no hierarchy, no Vice-Principals or faculty heads (only coaches), no homework or marks and no classes or classrooms. The students have autonomy over their own learning. Agora was created in 2014 when Drummen decided to create a new type of school. Crucially in the design process it was students who were consulted about what the school would look like and how it would be run. Philosopher and economist Rutger Bregman visited the school and described the schools interior mentioning the colourful chaos of improvised desks, an aquarium, a replica of Tutankhamuns tomb, Greek columns, a bunk bed and the front half of a sky-blue 69 Cadillac. There are no typical classrooms in the school and there are no year levels. Instead, students, with the help of a coach, come up with their own individual plans of what they want to study, explore or work on that day. Every student can pick their own unique project to work on. Rafael, a fourteen-year-old boy at the school, loves computer programming. Hes been doing work for a company website. When asked whether he should be getting paid for this kind of work he replied what and lose my motivation?. The students at this school are driven by an intrinsic sense of purpose as they are able to follow their own lines of thought and passions. The coaches help students create their own daily maps but then it is up to the student to follow through with them. Sjef Drummen tells his staff dont ask me if this is a good idea. Do it for a week and ask the children if its a good idea. Because what I dont do is manage people, they can do that themselves. This radical model of schooling flips the power to the students, giving them the tools and sense of independence to trust their own thoughts and curiosity.A strong sense of community and collaboration is integral to the school, with Drummen reporting that cases of bullying are low. Some people may think that bullying is just an ugly yet innate part of human behaviour and that we need rules and punishments to prevent it in schools. However, sociologists have found that bullying is most likely to arise in total institutions. Sociologist Erving Goffman described the features of total institutions which include: a system of formal rules which are enacted by an authority; rigidly scheduled activities; activities are carried out by everybody at the same time; and everyone in that institution is subject to a single authority.It is these very characteristics which are present in many state run systems today. If we can build environments that are free from rigidity and conformity, we can create a more collaborative and happier world. Which is what Agora sets out to do.This type of schooling is preparing kids for a society where creative, engaged and autonomous thought is the priority. It sits in opposition with the way the system is currently modelled which prescribes standardised testing requirements in order to receive government funds. So were challenged to ask the question, what is the purpose of schools? Have we become obsessed with school rankings, good grades, a good job and ultimately a good paycheck ? Schools like Agora oppose this concept as they focus on a students personal freedom trusting the child to pursue and learn what they want. Children and young adults have the capacity to direct their own learning with the right guidance. So, we should endeavor to rethink the way our education system works. Is it pushing and pressuring students to pursue a certain set path, in the pursuit of a good salary? Or could it focus on the sense of purpose and joy that arises out of following our own curiosity? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On Tuesday, the second day back at university, I saw my abuser in Fisher Library. I was walking up from the second floor, and he was strolling by. He stopped. Stared at me. I ran and had a panic attack right outside the caf. I hadnt seen him for the entire summer and had hoped that I would never have to again.The Womens Collective had an incredibly brave protest against sexual assault on campus the next day. On Thursday, my mother told me about Christian Porter, and by the end of the week I had spent most of my time in bed. I was paralysed. I still am. We study the same degree, so I ask my friends to look out for me. They pick me up from the bus stop, walk me to and from classes, check guests lists before events, and always see if the coast is clear before I walk in. I leave in the middle of my classes and this constant vigilance leaves me exhausted all the time.I spent the summer on the phone and with my face buried into my laptop, talking to the University. The first contact I had with the university was my attempt to regain boundaries, and hopefully secure the expulsion of my abuser from a society we were both in. The report I filedwas juggled between departments it was too complicated. I was asked to provide evidence. It was forwarded to a supervisor, and then a coordinator, and then I had to wait.The second part of attempting to make myself feel safer was changing my timetable. But I had to wait for two weeks at the very least. During that time, I ended up in the emergency room at the Prince of Wales hospital, bleeding and crying in a grey room. It was the first time I was offered any professional help.My best friends had given me an ultimatum. I either went to the hospital with her the next morning, or emergency services would be called. Two young women saved my life. They did more than any of the institutions that were supposed to protect and support me ever could.When I was finally home, I received a call from the university. To expel him from attending clubs and society events in the USU, I needed to open an investigation within the university, and in order to accomplish that, I had to fit into a certain criteria. A lady in a monotone voice asked me if the incident had happened on university grounds or an official event. I told her the truth, it had happened five minutes away from campus. She used a lot of pretty words to say there was nothing they could do. I tried to plead and explain. He had no remorse, and I believe he would do it again if given the chance. He was too dangerous to be around women, especially vulnerable women that deserved to feel safe and protected at USU events or during their classes, not surrounded by a predator. There was still nothing they could do.Now the friend who encouraged me to go to the police sits besides my abuser in their tutorial, reliving her own personal trauma.The university claims they cannot do much because it didnt happen on campus and the police have denied me a restraining order. I explained to the detective that he would text me, then text my friends to see how I was and to send me messages from him, including wanting to know where I would be. But it was not enough for a restraining order. He had to be physically harassing me. I had to be abused and traumatised further to be granted any type of protection.After weeks of e-mailing, calling, and re-traumatising myself at every step of the way, the abuser was suspended for only 8 weeks from the society I was in. Before the suspension, he threatened to discredit me to everyone we knew if I made anything awkward between us. The manipulative tactics he used varied. Firstly, he was a nice, worried guy, stating I just hope I havent done anything to hurt her. He became angry and frustrated. Shes emotionally guarded, he said. Fuck her. I dont care as long as she doesnt cause me any trouble in the future. The abuser referred to me as that girl, a learning experience and a stupid petty uni drama. He told his friend he wasnt worried in the slightest. If there were any allegations to be made, they would have already been made and broadcasted but I know that they werent because I know for a fact that I didnt do anything wrong. This article, my police report, his suspension are allegations being made and broadcasted.Nonetheless, the police and law seem to be set up in a way that defends and protects rapists. I had to beg a detective to believe me about the worst moment of my life and the abuser could just exist in his own little bubble. However, I call myself lucky due to the mere fact that my friends believe in me and I am alive.Then Christian Porter came along, and I knew the system didnt just seem to be set up this way, but it was. I realised it was not just the police and the university. It was the private all-boys schools that raised him with no respect for the consequences. It was the media that nurtured him into seeing women not as individual people, deserving of respect and understanding, but as something to want and take. It was his own ego that made him think if he was nice enough, it was his right to take whatever he wanted from me.Recently, the case of Sarah Everard shocked the world because she did everything right. She wore bright clothes, comfortable shoes, left early, called her boyfriend, and was still murdered by someone that was supposed to protect her: a police officer. Women always do everything right. The problem has always been men and their violence their egocentric need to take.I did everything right too. I did as my mother had told me when I was fourteen, going on my first date to the movies. I wore jeans, not a skirt no easy access. I went to a friends house, fifteen minutes by Uber to my place, surrounded by people I knew and trusted. I wore sneakers, easy to run, easy to maintain balance. I communicated with my friends that I was sick and needed the toilet. All the time he was lingering around my barely conscious self, everyone was unsuspecting. He was my friend, someone I trusted.Eventually, I received support. I was assigned a Student Liaison Officer that communicates with my facultys departments about my timetable and class changes. They found me a place at the RPA Sexual Assault Clinic for more specialised support. There is hope, and there is a community to welcome and offer support to people who need it. There is a need, however, for transparency and more accessibility to the community and the help available. Theres always a need to speak out because there will be someone to listen to you and help guide you. Women all know the experience either first- hand or from a friend, sister, or cousin who has gone through the same thing.If this article has caused distress, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Counselling Service at 1800 737 732 or NSW Rape Crisis Counselling Service at 1800 424 017.To receive support, you can contact a Student Liaison Officer any time through email atsafer-communities.officer@sydney.edu.auor by phone between 8:30am and 5:30pm on weekdays at 02 8627 6808. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If I close my eyes, breathe deeply and extract myself from the corporeal world I can just for a moment imagine that I am eleven. I am a storybook kid from the sleepy white middle class: a sporty state gymnast who plays musical instruments, reads fantasy books and does well in the gifted class. I am unbelievably, unimaginably happy. It quickly becomes too painful to conjure as I imagine how adolescence would forever destroy that naive, trusting boy.First, he realises that the bodies of other boys are far more interesting than they should be and learns that this must be concealed at all costs. Next, his own body starts to mature into that of a stocky, broad-shouldered six foot man; this ends his gymnastics career unceremoniously. He fails to perform acceptable masculinity in an all-male school and is relentlessly bullied; he learns to cope by sitting under a blanket alone and eating comfort food. He withdraws from trying in school or sport. He stops reading, maintains few friends, is deeply unhappy and blames himself.In the three years Ive been at university I have sought, with only partial success, to heal his wounds. I have become a fully realised homosexual who convenes the Queer Action Collective and does drag at Mardi Gras. I have surrounded myself with friends and family who offer me explicit, unconditional support. I have fallen back in love with words and with gymnastics, but not, as yet, myself.Living in a body that is queer and plus size is a tremendous humiliation that is neither sufficiently discussed nor appreciated. Today, aged twenty, it is the greatest issue in my life. The queer community, especially the subset that grew up as men, amplifies social injustices prominently including fatphobia. Gay men are ten times more likely to have an eating disorder and report dissatisfaction with their bodies. In many senses, this is predictable: queer men are able to weaponise the male gaze against others and against themselves to punish overweight people more viciously than even cisgender, heterosexual counterparts.The culture of body shaming amongst queer men is well known, as is its codification in terms like twink, twunk, bear and otter. I have always felt alienated and marginalised by these terms, the betrayal by other queer people stinging more than the straight people I eventually learned to distrust. These casual labels are applied flexibly but usually with a common purpose to punish and humiliate those outside of fatphobic masculine beauty norms. Sometimes I am a disgusting fat bear, other times Im too feminine and I can quickly become an annoying twink who makes my whole personality about being gay. Either way I am undesirable.In saying this, the world has improved drastically for some queer people in the last few decades. For some time now, a preoccupation of the gay rights movement has been assimilation with and acceptance from heteronormative society. In this new social equation, thin cisgender gay men, the apex of intersectional privilege in the queer community, have easily been able to trade conventional attractiveness for the social currency of acceptance and validation. This development has been obvious in recent years as RuPauls Drag Race has exposed straight audiences to the narratives of marginalised queer people that play out in a culture that was pioneered by gender diverse people of colour. Despite this supposed progress in queer representation, a plus size queen has never won any of the shows iterations, in which they are usually represented as untalented, bitchy or both. I am filled with terrible bitterness when someone points out this supposed progress to me. This progress has never made space for people with bodies like mine and has consistently pushed them down to uplift thin queer people.Queer youth are usually told that in order to actualise themselves they must come out, perform pride in their identity and accept that they cannot change who they are. Fat youth are told the opposite: their bodies are the result of gluttony and are hence unacceptable. To win acceptance from society they must undergo rigorous physical changes in order to conform and be taken seriously. It is unimportant to fatphobes that this is virtually impossible, not to mention incredibly harmful. Medical consensus holds that the vast majority of dieters fail to maintain long term weight loss, that rapid weight loss and regain can be more unhealthy than remaining overweight and that moderate, slow weight loss can produce major health benefits.Despite this obvious contradiction, queer fat youth are taught to be less ashamed of being queer and more ashamed of their weight. The most surprising thing to me is that many of the people who consider themselves politically woke and fluent in the language of university identity politics hold this belief. The same circles that have enshrined norms like pronoun rounds still regard gaining weight as a shameful admission couched in moralism about laziness. Radical left wing politics, at its best, is a subversive spotlight. Fatphobia, like homophobia, sexism and racism is an oppressive assumption that capitalism makes to sustain economic and social hierarchies; we must expose this and undermine it. Virtually no conversations are had about the political origins of fatphobia, among them colonialism and racism. This urgently needs to change. Fat bodies must be liberated and to do so we must identify, question and promote sedition against the colonial system of beauty in which we are engrained.My laptop screensaver is a strange picture. It is a picture of my four year old self on my first day of school. I have a bucket hat on my head, a sparkly turtle tattoo on my cheek and a joyful smile from ear to ear. The best way you can tell its me is the big, kind eyes that have carried through with me to adulthood. You see, while my political diagnosis is resolute, I know that tomorrow I will still grimace at my fading adolescent stretch marks and pull at my shirt in the hopes those around me dont realise that I am fat. I will still reflexively hate photos taken of me. Ive saved this photo in the hopes that someday I can be that carefree again and see myself as inherently, naively beautiful. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> For as long as I can remember, there are two things which I have been sure of: firstly, that life is uncertain; and secondly, that the one certainty in life is death. My acute awareness of my finitude naturally set in motion larger questions about how we measure a good life amidst this uncertainty, questions which sometimes recur for me like the oscillations of a pendulum.I think I subconsciously set about answering these questions from a young age. As a ten-year-old, my favourite books were the My Story series. Though I now realise the stories were fictional, I felt like I was entering the minds of characters who were trying to answer those same questions of how to live.The most poignant character was young Marie Antoinette, a fourteen-year-old girl launched into the treacherous, extravagant spectacle that was politics and royalty. She was the envy of France, but secretly aspired for a far-off dream of simple happiness. In many ways, her story led me to believe that the path to happiness was uncomplicated.My perception of happiness developed when I reached adolescence. A selective school student born to immigrant parents, I was submerged in a world of unrealistic expectations. Academic achievement was placed on a pedestal, and it was as if achieving a certain ATAR or being accepted into a certain degree was the crowning accomplishment. Not only would I be able to prove to myself that I was more exceptional than others, but I would be proving to my parents that moving to a foreign country for me was not in vain.This was reinforced in my past degree, in the cultures of the Business and Law Schools, except now the goal was employment at a certain company or a position in a society. I felt like people would project images of success and prestige and defend it at all costs, where certain relationships could become increasingly transactional and a tournament of status.There was a certain level of delayed gratification as well you would think these achievements are useful not necessarily because they make you happier in the moment, but because it sets you up for future success, often narrowly defined as financial stability, or inculcates you against misery.Looking back, I realise that my beliefs were a result of continually internalising other peoples values and expectations of how I should define and pursue happiness. Not knowing any better, I conformed to these expectations I aimed hopelessly to be loveable to the world around me, refusing to accept that the worlds goodness was not a contradiction, nor a threat to my own. I struggled to independently pursue meaning without the approval of others.It was not until recently that I fully grasped that flaw in logic. I think that came through a culmination of factors: I had achieved relative success in my academic life marks which gave me freedom to choose my degree and in my working life, where I was made a project manager at my company. But when it was all said and done, there was no wave of relief which washed over me. As I embarked on what was sold to me as a prestigious journey, one in which pure achievement would be rewarded, I never felt complete. Rather, I was happier when my friends and I received poor grades and we would comfort each other, share our resentment on the harsh marking criteria, and joke about how our life is now ruined and no company would ever hire us.I soon realised that happiness was no longer a linear concept. Its not like how youre told that if you can simply get through a degree and find a high-paying corporate job, happiness would soon follow after. Happiness is not a steady stream of water which naturally flows out after you put enough effort into turning the tap.Ive realised that a good life is driven by love. Not necessarily grand, sweeping displays of love, but in seemingly insignificant moments when I feel present and content like when my dad celebrates wildly when we watch sport on the TV, or when my friends faces crinkle into laughter over the silliest things. I think that its the fact of having people who will provide you with unwavering support when it matters most and with them, you never need or want more.Unfortunately, experiencing and giving this type of love freely goes against a lot of our social norms of individualism and competition. It is hard to love something or someone, because it means that you have to surrender your ego and give yourself wholly to it. During my first year of university, I was told that it was necessary to take advantage of others to succeed in the corporate world. I was told that no person in the working world has your best interests at heart. They wouldnt gain anything from it, and it wouldnt be rational, so why would they? In our present-day transactional culture, seemingly dominated by cost-benefit analyses and motivated by a race to the top, giving love is not only demanding, but dangerous.The thing we tend to forget is that love is not finite. Its not something we can necessarily place a value on, or that should be given when we are guaranteed of its reciprocity. You dont need to be shown love first in order to love something or someone else, which takes a degree of vulnerability and courage. It is that eternal and revolutionary force which governs the stars of our interior lives.Indeed, a lot of modern-day motivations for activism are based around love for not just ourselves, but for others. Those who fight for social change often express how they have a deep love for nature and humanity which motivates them to fight for oppressed communities. In a way, they are showing a kind of love which is rooted in justice and righteousness, a kind which is not often shown to the people and causes they fight for.Now, as I look back to my earliest days, remembering how Marie Antoinette gazed out of the Palace of Versailles wanting a simpler life, I understand that wealth and achievement can be someones sources of contentment, but theyre not mine. My source of contentment was always there, in the company of those I loved. I had just been concentrating too much on other things to realise it. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I am a sucker for handmade gifts. The thought of them makes me feel like a star collapsing in on itself, vibrating with a kind of longing that can create new worlds from its abundance of nervous energy. This applies to both the act of receiving and giving, though I personally feel more of a rush when partaking in the latter; as it is one of the states at which I feel most vulnerable.In the past, I have gifted loved ones necklaces made out of shell and craft-store leather cord, woven bracelets and embroidery, innocently rotund stuffed toys, scarves fumbled over, knotted and unravelled again and again. I have chipped off pieces of myself and woven them into the fibres of these finished products, bled, from needles digging into my fingertips, viscera wiped across the back of my hand so it doesnt stain the efforts I cradle in my hands. I have worked into the late hours of the morning, dark spots of vision crawling across my vision like vermin that I dont quite understand arent real until I realise Ive been swatting fruitlessly at the projections of them across my work desk, to no avail. Maybe the exhaustion was unavoidable, because Ive never been one for exemplary time management skills. But its not a process that is ever truly scrutinised. Rather, its the effect that is focused on, the ceremony. Its the light in someone elses eyes bursting like fireworks and sunrises and red lights that turn green just as you drive up to them, as you tuck your bandaged hands into your pockets, bashful and warm. The act of creation has always been one of the most celebrated ways to bleed for someone.Its kind of creepy, when you think about it. The intensity that goes into creating fugly, misshapen shapes that are meant to adorn the bodies and abodes of others. Saccharinely unsettling to the point its been picked up on by generations of those subscribed to the art of knitting. They say well, about fifteen percent of them say, really that to gift a loved one a sweater, or to even have the intention to, means that loved one will leave them, cold and bitter and broken and alone and cursing the memory of the lovers that were once their muses. Or something like that. Its been dubbed the sweater curse.Knitted goods, bringers of curses, breakers of hearts.I dont think I have the sweater curse. Ive never made a sweater, since I dont have the patience for them. I guess Ive still been cursed, though. Not many of the people Ive given handmade gifts have stayed in my life, to the point that Ive started giving them out as means of farewell. Final goodbyes, vessels for hopes and dreams, of what-could-have-beens, as I think of those I care for, softly. I sit there with thread knotted in my hands, trying too hard to make the stitches even and then I sit there for several hours more, numb, as I wonder for how long the little homunculus Im piecing together will sit in a bottom-shelf drawer, stagnant and unloved, until it is taken out for the first and last time to be discarded. I package the monstrosity that Ive pulled out of my chest, bleeding, and try to keep the gore from seeping out into the packaging, or into my expression. I hand it over. I watch my loved ones face, desperate for approval. I breathe out in relief at the twitch of a smile. Look at me, I want to say, Look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me and miss me and think of me and please come back to me one day.And then I remember they owe me nothing, so I turn away and curl in on myself and I wait for the next burst of inspiration, and I convince myself that the smile I have been honoured with is enough for me. They are worth a whole world, and I have never forgotten a single one; I hold a galaxy in myself, mine alone, and in this moment I am God.To all those I have given handmade gifts to: take part of my heart with you, and do what you will with it. Let it sit on your shelf beside your childhood toys, or in your bed to watch over you whilst you sleep, a guardian over you at your most vulnerable. Wear it like armour, like chainmail. Throw it away, use it as a washrag. Give it to your children, and tell them stories about the person you once knew. Know I loved you with everything, and this is the evidence, and allowing you to do what you will with what I gave you does not make me weak. Ill just miss you forever, and thats okay.Its not that sweaters knit the most twisted of curses, really. I think its all to do with love. Love, love, love. Thats all that were left with, really. Thats all that there ever really is. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Youre an introvert? I responded with shock and surprise whilst having dinner with two of my good friends. They were the type of people I would have described as outgoing, sociable in big groups, and intently engaged when there is company. I confidently assumed that they would feel energised in a stimulating social environment, rather than being alone.As a disclaimer, I am an extrovert, and I think I could easily tell you who my extroverted friends are. Yet, it dawned upon me that I did not know many people who openly and willingly proclaimed themselves as introverts unless prompted. This got me thinking: why did I act so confused that my friends were introverts? Did I even implicitly see extroverts as superior?One of the most common misconceptions of introverts (which I subconsciously held) is that theyre reserved and are not usually outgoing in social situations. In her book Quiet, the leading academic Susan Cain defines an introvert as someone who prefers a quieter, more minimally stimulating environment. Introverts definitely feel comfortable in solitude, as it allows them to recharge their energy, whilst extroverts require stimulation, which produces energy for them but its not about how energetic you are, but where you get your energy from.In fact, the traits of introversion and extroversion lie on a spectrum, and very few people are ever extreme introverts quiet and antisocial or extroverts very loud and rely heavily on social interaction. However, popular culture portrays these labels as a strict binary. The introverts are the studious, lonely and quiet Sheldon Coopers, Alex Dunphys and Rory Gilmores of the world, while the extroverts tend to be the popular and outgoing characters like Blair Wardolf, Phoebe Buffay and Michael Scott. However, in reality, introverts are not confined to these stereotypes. A range of celebrities, such as Emma Watson, Bill Gates, Meryl Steep and Barack Obama all identify as introverts. The binary ignores that many people can be found somewhere around the centre (as an ambivert), and that people can identify as an outgoing introvert or a more reserved extrovert.The spectrum challenges the stereotype that all introverts have a fear of social judgment. Shyness is not synonymous with an individual preferring to work independently or be in solitude. Introverts can still enjoy being surrounded by others, and have the same ease as extroverts when it comes to high-intensity social situations, and this does not make them any less of an introvert.At the end of the day, introverts value their time in a more minimally stimulating environment to feel grounded. It helps them be more creative and reflective, giving themselves time to ponder and be comfortable with just themselves. According to Susan Cains Quiet, an estimated 50% of Americans identify as being introverted and according to an informal poll I conducted, up to 49% of my friends on Instagram would too, many of whom I would not have identified as introverts based on their personality. This is exactly why I think the introvert-extrovert spectrum is an incredible tool to understand people. It celebrates that people gain their energy in different ways, through solitude or company, and within varying degrees.Ultimately, we live in a society where we are constantly stimulated. As students, we are regularly pushed to demonstrate extroverted traits, such as being awarded participation marks. Introverted traits are considered less valuable in society, which further the undesirable characterisation of introverts for example, that they cant be inspiring leaders, popular entertainers or decisive characters. The stereotype we have around introverts is narrow and harmful, because it fails to value the power of being in a quieter, calmer environment. Having friends who gain energy in different ways and value solitude creates the very traits of reflection and creativity that makes them interesting and fun to hang out with. I hope that more people will appreciate and value the importance of introversion for themselves and others. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A few weeks ago, I stood in line at my local newsagency behind an elderly lady as she was being served by the storekeeper. The storekeeper addressed her directly with a clear, but not patronising, air to his voice. Her words were pronounced slowly, but they eventually came together and arrived where they needed to be. At that moment, I was unsure why their ordinary exchange about the price of a lottery ticket had managed to catch my attention.In hindsight, I realised that the reason was simple. I recognised and understood the language they were speaking in: my mother tongue. To others in the vicinity, it was just some foreign speech. For me, though, I had permission to listen in on their public, but also entirely private, conversation.After the elderly lady left, I reached the front of the counter and declared to the storekeeper that I had a package to collect in Vietnamese. A polite degree of disbelief arose in his eyes. He responded in English, with an accent that resembled an Aussies but was not exactly there.You know how to speak Vietnamese?This familiar churning in my stomach gave rise to a nervous laugh. I was not sure whether to say yes or d. Neither was wrong, but neither was right either. Both options were wrapped further in an entanglement of questions. Did he not expect it of me? Did I mispronounce something? Did I not look like someone who could speak Vietnamese? It was as if I was being tugged by two halves of myself, two different voices that commanded me to yield to only one of them. Even though I wanted to say something, the feeling of wanting to run away grew stronger.I settled for a nod.My relationship with my mother tongue has been a complex struggle. I never presented my surname in its actual form with the dip and rise in tone, the nasal beauty. Nguyn was reduced to win, new-in and new-yen or whatever worked best for the person I was introducing myself to. Whenever I would eat at a ph restaurant, I rehearsed the orders, letting them glide from my mind to mouth, ready to impress my friends, only to be met with a Hi, how can I help you? I should have been thankful that their service was adjusted for my convenience but instead, I was upset, frustrated, lost. Even my parents continue to be surprised when they hear me belting out Vietnamese songs in the car. Their shock admittedly was warranted at first, considering I spent most of my youth opting out with a pair of headphones to listen to anything and everything else. Yet each instance repelled me further away from singing what I deemed their music at family karaoke nights.For a long time, I avoided any situation where I would need to utter a single syllable of Vietnamese. It was not out of protest, nor out of ignorance that I muted myself. It was because I was uncertain. I never felt qualified enough to call it my mother tongue. Although my fluency was cultivated from my childhood, my Vietnamese vocabulary existed solely to communicate with my family. Beyond the walls of my home, my mother tongue only manifested itself in whispers, ranging from covert complaints and curses about the rowdiness of others in the same train carriage, to detailed translations for my parents about the prices, policies and promises that retail sales assistants would offer in stores. I restricted my use of my mother tongue and did not think it could be anything more.But now, I refuse to set Vietnamese aside, to simply label it my second language. After all, I had learnt it before English. I had attended a school to strengthen my proficiency in it and when I travelled overseas to visit my relatives, I spoke it exclusively. Placing it within a hierarchy of languages meant it would have to reside on a runner-up podium, perhaps gracious on the surface but harbouring a secret resentment for the victor. It is seeking equality. It is calling to me and more than ever, I feel compelled to respond. It is slowly, but surely, becoming something more.My desire is to embrace Vietnamese as a partner language, all its idiosyncrasies, mysteries and wonders. Rather than resorting to English when confronted with the limits of my mother tongue, I resolve to consult my family, relatives and community for the right words, expressions and phrases to elevate the dialogue I am having with others in it. Most of all, when I summon the words of my mother tongue, I no longer want to feel sadness. I wish to assert, find pride in and transcend barriers with it. I want to exercise Vietnamese, claim it as my own, over and over again until it becomes mine.I could not remember the details of what happened that day at the newsagency except the hasty passing of coins from my hand into his, and the pockets of silence that demanded to be filled but remained empty. What stayed in my memory after the incident was his reply to my shaky cm n, my thank you.I wish my daughter could also speak as well as you. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Cooks River holds a special place in my heart. I grew up alongside its cluttered depths; elusively beautiful. Sometimes it glittered blue and other times it smelt like rubbish. I used to roll down the miniature hills of Ewen Park, its playground and soccer fields located in the largely overlooked suburb of Hurlstone Park which cocoons the river I still live there today. I celebrated many birthday parties at the wooden picnic benches that are dotted along the waterway and made some of my first childhood friends on the swing sets that are grounded amongst brown mulch chips.My relationship with the Cooks River slowly waned as I grew older. Although I still had fond memories of the hours spent in Ewen Park, I now viewed the river as a space for recreation to ride my bike or walk my dog and I think a lot of other people are similar. This understanding of the Cooks River has also been fuelled by the recent experience of COVID-19, which drove people out to explore their local parks and green spaces, as they realised that staying inside had its limits.However, this has not always been the rivers main narrative. An enduring collective memory recognised by those who live in Sydney is one of floating shopping trolleys, an overpowering stench and murky brown depths. The Cooks River has an indisputable history of pollution. It has been dammed (and damned), used as a dump for toxic waste from the nearby factories and developed upon with the expansion of Mascot Airport and surrounding neighbourhoods built along the river.Art by Dmitry Kuznichenko.I only began to learn more about the rivers secret past last year when I undertook a public history project with the Cooks River Alliance. I learnt that the Cooks River first and foremost belongs to the Gadigal, Wangal and Darug Peoples of the Eora nation, as well as the Gameygal people, who lived by the river and relied on it for sustenance and survival almost 20,000 years ago. Gum from different trees alongside the river was eaten at any time of the year. Medicines were made from plant oils of Eucalyptus, Boronia and mint.With European invasion in the 1790s, the river became a place for recreation and sport. The idea of trading the dirtiness and sin of the city for the tranquillity of nature was fulfilled at the bank of the Cooks River. Illegal boxing matches took place in the new pubs that popped up along the river in the 1850s. Hunting of deer and kangaroo was a popular sport, and hordes of young people swam, picnicked and skinny-dipped at bathing spots in the suburbs along the river (one bath was aptly named Starkeys Corner). Annette Kellerman, a professional swimmer in the early 20th Century, frequented the river and was one of the first women to wear a swimming costume rather than pantaloons!The little historical stories I read left me spellbound. From how limestone was discovered by burning oyster middens in the 1800s, a resource not previously available in Sydney, to the fact that the river was once so clean that visitors used its water to make tea.I feel that the Cooks River deserves to have these stories told and to be heralded as an important place within Sydneys history. As historian Anna Clarks states, place literally locates our individual and collective historical consciousness in the world around us. These mementos shine a light on Sydneys historical depth and provide a stronger connection to place and belonging. Its something I feel that anchors my own identity and that I hope one day will be felt by all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Seeing is believing goes the age-old adage. This July, when confronted with drone footage of shackled and blindfolded Uighur men being loaded onto trains, even the Chinese Ambassador to the UK had nowhere to hide except behind the statecraft formality of his words. Since 2017, in response to sporadically leaked reports and videos exposing the involuntary detention of Uighur men, women, children and Turkic speaking Muslim minorities, the Chinese government has asserted the public relations front of implementing an aggressive counter-extremism model.Despite the suppression of foreign journalists investigating the region, a chilling string of testimonies by previous detainees has culminated in a vastly different revelation: a forced assimilation program, in which Uighurs with virtually no ideological convictions are arbitrarily detained on religious and ethnic grounds. Despite a distance of 10 000 km, Australians cannot evade their connection to this gruesome reality.In 2017, anthropologist Adrian Zenz exposed a network of involuntary labour camps across the region, revealing a practical purpose behind the vocational centres that went beyond political and cultural indoctrination. Since then, it is estimated that 80 000 Uighur people and other minorities have been transferred to factories throughout China. Gulzira Auelkhan, who fled to Kazakhstan, is not alone in recalling that, police check your phones and conduct body searches as you enter and leave the factory. Even while working, police observe.In March this year, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) released a damning report that identified 83 companies that benefited from Uighur labour at one or more stages in their supply chain, particularly in textile production. Xinjiang produces a modest estimate of 80% of Chinas cotton output, with China itself being the worlds biggest supplier of cotton products and sourcing to key garment manufacturing countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. GAP, Adidas, Muji, Zara and H&M were amongst the fast fashion brands cited in the report. A number of the companies have since responded to the accusations, often falling back on the reactive and elusive we are reviewing our cotton and yarn supply sources. Certain brands, such as Adidas, have offered more concrete assurance that they do not source goods from Xinjiang and have similarly instructed their suppliers to do the same. Prima facie, this seems a prompt and noble response to mounting pressure from human rights activists, but a deeper interrogation reveals a microcosm of the unscrupulous fast fashion industry.Cast your minds back to the eco-friendly fashion trend that emerged a decade ago. In 2015, Adidas partnered with the NGO Parley, to promote the recycling of plastics in the sports apparel sector. Again, on the surface, a noble action. However, Adidas is one of the largest culprits of using sweatshop workers in the fast fashion industry. Zaras Join Life collection, and H&Ms CONSCIOUS collection boast an ethical branch of fast fashion, using organic cotton to satisfy the growing consumer consciousness in the wake of the environmental crisis. However, the brands fail to account for their exploitation of Indonesian and Bangladeshi child labour to spin, dye, print and sew this organic cotton to produce the final product. Left: Zaras Join Life collection. Right: H&Ms CONSCIOUS collection. The release of both collections was shrouded in eco-friendly, sustainable and ethical rhetoric. These paradoxes remind us that shopping with an environmental consciousness and a social consciousness are not mutually exclusive. The ethics of fast fashion operations must go beyond using sustainable materials. In GAPs 2019 Global Sustainability Report, they boasted a significant percentage increase in their use of recycled raw materials. However, investigations by ASPI and the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China have confirmed GAP to be implicated in supply chains using large-scale Uighur labour. The inconsistency is glaring, and speaks to the slacktivism imbued in the fast fashion industry. Clothing is the second-highest product at risk of being produced by modern slaves, and whilst moving towards biodegradable materials is a step in the right direction, that is only one step within the fast fashion global supply chain.In 2018, G20 countries (including Australia) imported $127 billion worth of fashion garments identified as at-risk products of modern slavery. Amidst the helplessness often felt by young Westerners when peering out into the distant world, we find our power in choices. Lucrative relationships between fast fashion brands and Chinese corporations exploiting Uighur labour are no longer lucrative without avid consumers. It is a matter of elimination, a simple avoidance of the fast fashion brands refusing to act when UN human rights experts, independent journalists and government commissions consistently expose grave human rights abuses.Dilys Williams, the director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, recalled a time when you always knew somebody who was in the garment industry a cousin or a neighbour. So you had a person related to what you were wearing, and you thought about them. Though this is no longer the case for many of us, Uighur workers are still somebodys cousin or neighbour. 10 000 kilometres away, somebody is thinking of them. We choose not to buy caged eggs, we choose reusable water bottles, and now we must choose to shop conscious of the dignity of the people living in the threads on our skin. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sexualised men in video games have always been a rarity. An exotic treat every once in a while which you chalked up to a systems error or a rendering malfunction. There were certainly exceptions and there were certainly many instances of attractive male characters, but they were almost always framed through the creative lense of a primarily straight, primarily male development team.As such, male character designs were not developed with the intention to titillate the player but rather act as a masculine vessel for them. Certainly many of them displayed sexually appealing qualities, but these qualities were intended to appeal to the users personal conception of the perfect male hero rather than the perfect male specimen. While Kratos from God of War or Nathan Drake from The Uncharted Series both display these qualities, nothing about them is intended to invoke sexual excitement in the player.Many argue that male video game characters cannot be sexualised because the games design is so aggressively heteronormative that even if a male character is read as sexualised by the player it most certainly wasnt designed with that in mind. This is also why women are so often hyper-sexualised in video games. As games are developed in an environment where appeal to the straight, male gaze is prioritised, female characters tend to become sexualised and objectified. In 2018, the International Games Development Association found that 74% of workers in the games industry were cis males and an even greater 81% were heterosexual. Its no surprise then that video games, like many industries, produce content intended to appeal to heterosexual men.While this is all broadly true, there are some examples of hyper-sexualised female characters done well. An oft cited example is that of Bayonetta. Many have argued that Bayonetta uses her overt sexuality and femininity as a weapon, as she quite literally uses her body to battle enemies. This argument is fraught with problems. Is Bayonetta empowered through her own purposeful sexualisation or are her choices simply a design decision made by a predominately straight male development team? Where do the choices of a fictional character begin and those of the designers end?Can an industry which is so often focused on delivering an experience appealing to the straight male fantasy actually offer a female character meaningful sexual empowerment? Probably not. But things are certainly changing. While the figures cited earlier are grim, theyre an improvement on years before. And while AAA games and mainstream game development studios have failed to deliver in these areas, indie development is filling a lot of gaps.To see your own sexual and romantic desires reflected in a video game is an empowering feeling. Because the world of a video game reflects the mind of the protagonist, if a world is exclusively populated by hyper-sexualised female characters and the games protagonist is a male, the sexuality of that world can feel claustrophobic. This is the case with many games and this frequently creates a dissonance. For games that offer player choice, RPG elements, and romance, to then offer the player a purely heterosexual selection dispels any illusion of user interaction.What this really comes down to is the fact that I want to see more sexy men in video games. This is evident in my play through of Spiderman PS4. To unlock the aptly titled Undies suit you have to essentially 100% the base game. This was my motivator, my driving force, my light at the end of the tunnel. While I loved the game itself, I kept having to reassure myself with the knowledge that soon I would have my hands on semi-naked Peter Parker. Was this a noble goal? Certainly not. Im not proud of it in any way and I wished I slogged through the endless city activities and side missions for a less crass reason. But this goes to show the power of male sexualisation. The industry must and is in the process of coming to grips with the diversity of its player base. Video games are not male media, nor are they straight media. They are media enjoyed by millions of people every year from every conceivable background. And many of those people are heavily invested in naked Spiderman. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> No work of art, history, academia, or public storytelling could better capture the deep vacuum of public life in the 2000s than Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007). The anodyne tale of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, crisply contained to a tight ninety-minute timeframe, managed to turn a $60 million budget into a healthy $360 million box office take the 14th highest in the world for 2007. Its three squeakuels have only grown the pie 2011, the year of Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwreckeds release, saw the franchise take in $300 million on merchandise alone. The numbers expose the brilliance of the Chipmunks grift. Alvin and his brothers on-screen antics exist, functionally, as a ninety-minute advertisement for the Alvin and the Chipmunks brand. But the Chipmunk juggernaut did not come from nowhere; it exists as a symptom of the 2000s cultural cringe.The cultural cringe of the noughties was a chiefly American phenomenon. Americans were promised the end of history, and the dominance of their nation and ideology on the world stage. Instead, they were given the national trauma of 9/11, seemingly endless wars abroad, economic collapse at home, and a rapidly deteriorating political consensus. The idea of what it meant to be American changed, and their national confidence was brought into doubt. This nationwide ennui, fused with the market logic of neoliberalism, led to a fairly straightforward formula for commercial success in film: provide people some respite from the world they live in, set up a merchandising line, and keep it G-rated. Meaning, joy, and humour, all became secondary to creating as inoffensive a cinematic experience as possible. Moviegoers could trust that their ticket at the box office would buy them an hour and a half of scorching nothingness, leaving them untroubled, and with a burning desire to purchase Alvin and the Chipmunks merchandise for their friends and family.What made Alvin and the Chipmunks such a trailblazer in this field was its advent of soft, cuddly heroes. The character design of the CGI chipmunks is seemingly made for their future franchising as soft toys. Theodore, in particular, has little to offer to the film than a huggable-ness suited to a future as a cheap stocking-stuffer present from an unloving parent. This form of movie mascot, that comedian Conner OMalley describes as irresistible to toddlers, to want to watch and hold and put in their mouth was created with Alvin and the Chipmunks, but perfected by Despicable Mes Minions. Soft, cuddly, visually distinctive, and endlessly marketable, Minions carried the cuddly mascot banner into the 2010s. While Alvins star has begun to fall (the most recent film, The Road Chip, released in 2015, saw a box-office take of only $234 million the lowest yet), the Despicable Me franchise has only risen in popularity. Minions, the spin-off film that dispatches entirely with any semblance of character, cracked $1 billion at the box office alone.With a sequel to Minions slated for a 2021 release, and the recently-spawned Trolls franchise setting several streaming records with its second film this year, it looks like the legacy of sterile, joyless, childrens toy film franchises is set to continue. Of course, there are worse things to happen. Theres nothing particularly offensive or off-putting about these films I actually quite enjoy Despicable Me and even those who are looking for more substantive content can find it elsewhere. But still, watching David Cross flatly talk to CGI chipmunks, one cant help but hope for something a little more daring, something a little less profit-minded. But sadly, a reprieve from the market dominance of the soft cuddly mascots does not seem near.While the 2000s brought American self-confidence into doubt, the successive traumas of 2020 have shaken far deeper, foundational assumptions about American society. As the traditional film release-to-lunchbox decoration pipeline grows less and less profitable due to a contracting economy and social distancing restrictions, the ongoing viability of the formula grows less and less certain. A shift to new media as source for entertainment seems on the horizon; perhaps it wont be long before we see Minion TikToks, or an Alvin Netflix series. However far we may move culturally and technologically from the 2000s, we can be sure that the cultural cringe is far from over. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Live music, for many women and non-cis male people, is a fiercely love-hate relationship.Its the rush of your favourite band, the feeling of your sweaty mate crashing into you, the camaraderie of being in a room full of people all there for the same reason.Its also the hurt of knowing youre often not included in the lawless white boys club that controls it. Thats why theres been a strong conversation brewing about toxic masculinity in Australias live music industry.Over the last few weeks Ive brought up this article with a lot of women I know. The first words to come out of most of their mouths were stories about being treated like shit at gigs. The next ones were:Oh God, talk about Sticky Fingers.In December 2016, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Dylan Frost, the bands frontman, had racially abused Indigenous singer-songwriter Thelma Plum. Allegedly, he was verbally abusive and spat on her in an event in which Plum described she had never felt so unsafe. He was later accused of further racial taunts against Indigenous band Dispossessed, in response to them speaking about the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre on stage.The most telling part about Sticky Fingers and their fall out is not just the incidents themselves; its Frosts response. He never apologised for being racist, denied that the Dispossessed event occured, and blamed bad behaviour on mental health issues.He had the opportunity to set a precedent for apology and self growth, yet instead he deflected. However, hes not the only one. Sticky Fingers are only a symptom of the pattern: abuse, get called out, deflect, move on.Sticky Fingers are still given airplay, and in March this year featured on Triple Js hottest 100 of the decade.In February 2019 Smith Street Band lead singer, Will Wagner, was publicly accused of emotional abuse by his ex-girlfriend, Camp Cope lead singer Georgia McDonald. McDonald aired a number of text messages and emails detailing manipulative abuse from Wagner. Some of his threats included killing both himself and her.In Wagners public response, he said the texts and emails had been selectively shown out of context accompanied by one-sided statements.This culture of unaccountability flows right into the way women are treated at gigs.I spoke to Maisie from Melbourne bands Clamm and The Belair Lip Bombs about mansplaining, toxic masculinity and her experience of being a young woman in the live music scene.Ive been mansplained to a lot at gigs, by punters in the crowd or even venue workers one time at a gig I was having trouble hooking up my bass to the DI box and I asked the sound guy for some help. He got kinda passive aggressive at me and said I feel like Im your teacher After wed played the set he came up to me all sheepish and was like hey youre really good, did you study music or something? He had treated my male band mates with respect from the very start. Little things like that that are hardly even memorable and are so subtle, but they can wear you down a lot of the time.This culture of mansplaining is no surprise when women occupy a slither of sound technician and production positions.On a weird flip side sometimes I have been overly praised for my set. The whole, youre so good for a girl concept is still very much alive and that is something I want to see squashed, I just wanna see men and women as equal in the music scene and both treated with the same amount of genuine respect.Its starting to look like thats happening.According to Triple J Hacks annual report into the representation of women in Australian music, women and non-binary people now study music in high school at the same rate as men. And due to strong conversations about the lack of gender-parity in festival lineups, festivals like Groovin the Moo and Falls are starting to listen, with 43% of Groovin acts having at least one woman and Falls closing its gender gap completely in 2018.Of course, however, fairness is not trickle-down, and theres a lot of work to be done in the space between diverse acts and safe gigs.The longer men live in a lawless kingdom where they can abuse women and minorities and still get played on supposedly progressive stations like Triple J, the longer women will feel unsafe and unwelcome.Dune Rats are a Queensland band with thick accents and masculinity to show for it. They are one of many young all male groups who confuse nostalgia and Australianism with abusive behaviour. Blokes being blokes.In 2014 they posted a status to Facebook and Twitter which read do you guys want to make a Dune Rats Tinder and just gang bang chicks. It has thousands of likes, and is still online.Two years later, in 2016, one of their band members was accused of sexual assault online. They responded with a laughing eyes emoji. The same year, they dedicated a song at the Tivoli to all the sexy ugly chicks.In 2017, Triple J described Dune Rats as a a super-fun, mega-hot mess, and we wouldnt have it any other way.In 2019 they successfully toured Australia.Its hard to see hope in all of this, but its there. Its in classrooms full of girls studying music, its in conversations at pubs between women building solidarity and strength, and its starting to be in the industry.When Will Wagners behaviour became public, The Beths and Sweater Curse, who were supposed to be opening for the Smith Street Band on their tour, announced they were pulling out.We dont want to stand with the abuser and we stand with the victims involved, The Beths said in a statement.Its going to take a long time for women to stop being pushed around in crowds, but moves like that make it seem more possible.Maisie spoke to me about this, saying she thinks the Melbourne scene at least is progressing really well in terms of gender equality in music and its great. Theres heaps more female led bands and musicians popping up and playing gigs and getting the recognition they deserve, and having bad experiences at gigs is generally pretty few and far between for me anyway.Change will take time to translate from classrooms to gigs, but if we keep pushing to the front of crowds, well get there. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Discovering Nick Caves Red Hand Files was a lifeline as I sat, buried in spreadsheets at work, mechanically replying to a never ending supply of mind-numbingly boring emails. The Red Hand Files is a website launched in 2018 where the artist Nick Cave engages in one-to-one correspondence with fans from across the globe. Questions range from simple curiosities like the meaning of a song lyric to universal inquiries such as What is mercy?, Why do you write?, and asking Cave how losing his son has impacted his songwriting. After reading about 70 of Caves carefully constructed replies I became aware of a sense of intimacy not easily found on the internet, a fellowship amongst people eager to engage in alternative ways of thinking about all matters of things creative.At the core of The Red Hand Files is the idea of the pre-eminence of creativity, as in his thirtieth issue Cave describes that to create [is] an act of largesse that has the capacity to redeem the world. Caves endorsement of musics sacred quality is a welcome point of view for songwriters, such as myself, struggling to think artistically in an industry dominated by a commercial mindset. There is a sense of hope that amid the clutter and over abundance of commercial music meant for simple entertainment, songwriters and musicians can create music that surpasses the realm of the spectacle and into the domain of the sacred.Ultimately, to most people music is and always will be a form of simple entertainment, an outlet from the mundane, something unpretentious that makes you forget about your shitty day or makes you appreciate your amazing one. Its not that Cave discounts this inherently simple quality of music but rather challenges songwriters and artists of all creative disciplines to move past what they think they know and create beyond convention and acceptability without losing oneself. Understanding the limitless potential of music in Caves opinion is what will keep music advancing; beyond what is heard on Triple J, The Voice, curated Spotify playlists and other all too familiar platforms that perpetuate the cycle of uninspired commercially driven music.In Sydneys music scene, while not always obvious, there is definitely a hunger to reach this artistic space in which both artist and audience are challenged. After being in the fortunate position to be surrounded by like minded musicians studying at the Conservatorium you become aware of the fact that there is a community, much like the one reading Nick Caves Red Hand Files, that is constantly in search for a refreshing view on what it means to make music.After playing a gig with my band last week a friend of mine was telling me that if I could make 33.3% of my income come from my music then I could call myself and Artist, all I had to do was write some songs that could be played on Triple J so that we could get more of a following. All the while he was imparting this wisdom onto me I was thinking back to something I had read in the Red Hand Files: Challenging music, by its very nature, alienates some fans whilst inspiring others, but without that dissonance, there is no conversation, there is no risk, there are no tears and there are no smiles, and nobody is moved and nobody is affected! <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Musical eras in history have often been defined by theproduction techniques or compositional approaches that cemented themselves asthe sound of the times due to their sheer ubiquity. The grunge bands of thelate 90s went haywire on low-wattage amps and cheap Boss distortion pedals.Late 00s hip-hop was dominated by Antares Auto-Tune 5, a plugin sohorrendously janky that it changed the musical landscape of vocal processingforever. There was a period of time in the 60s and 70s when Phil Spectorsover-compressed mixing style was on every big rock record from England and theUnited States. Sometime around the turn of the century, however,between the inception of Friends and the apocalyptic inauguration ofGeorge Bush Jr., one particular sound dominated the dancefloor, providing thesoundtrack to ecciez binges so great youd probably cry if you remembered them.But unlike other era-defining sonic features, it wasnt an arrangement style, apiece of gear or a combination of effects. It was something far simpler, andfar more fundamental than any of the above. It was a waveform. A certain wigglyarrangement of air amongst all the possible wiggles. The JP-8000 was first introduced by Japaneseinstrument manufacturer Roland in the late 1990s a digital synthesiser meantto emulate the fat and exorbitantly expensive analogue keyboards from Americantitans Moog and Oberheim, but which failed miserably at achieving the same warmtones. Instead, the synth produced a wide array of raspy and buzzy farts that,conventionally speaking, were musically unusable. After fading largely intoobscurity for several years, one particular setting caught the attention ofelectronic producers across Europe, exploding the instruments popularityalmost overnight. Take a sawtooth wave piercing and sharp andmultiply it a few times, stacking the waves one on top of the other. Detunethese copies slightly, and pan them across the stereo field. The resultingwaveform is warm and rounded, fuzzy yet comforting, visceral but with a kind of3D depth. It is somehow equally evocative of a reedy woodwind instrument as itis a swarm of bees. Its name screams gravitas and superiority, which is all butunjustified: the supersaw.I would hesitate to describe anything on this planet as a religious experience, but the opening 30 seconds of Gigi DAgostinos LAmours Toujours, blasted through a speaker stack and listened whilst extremely un-sober, gets quite close. The highlight of the track by far is the supersaw riff: melody aside, the timbre of the motif feels like an embrace it somehow blooms to fill the entire sonic space without ever feeling offensive or overdone. When Italians in open balconies begun blasting this song during lockdown earlier in the year, it wasnt the vocal line that was chanted and echoed across entire apartment blocks, but the anthemic supersaw lead.The sheer number of global mega-hits that utilise the waveform as a central musical component is almost unimaginable when you realise how many genres and electronic styles are built solely on this one timbre. Everything from Darudes iconic Sandstorm, to Madonnas vocal house discography, to the most Ibiza-rinsed of Armin van Bauen tracks, to the greatest song of all time (Caramelladansen, of course) are filled to the brim with gooey supersaw goodness.Outside of campy and nostalgic Eurobeat hits from theearly 2000s, the waveform has found enduring relevance and popularity in themodern day, being a secret weapon of producers when they want to evoke intenseand cathartic emotion. Trap producers like Dylan Brady have employed washedout supersaw passages to punctuate blood curdling Bones verses and melodicchoruses alike. PC Music, the record label that has now stamped its syntheticand bouncy sound signature on artists as big as Charli XCX and Carly RaeJepsen, is more or less a supersaw worship cult wrapped up in a shiny aluminiumbow. Even the material coming out of underground local rave outfits likeEternal and Ultravirus dont shy away from the supersaws thick detuned chaos. In my dreams, I hear glittery trance arps and punchy chord stabs echo between my ears. They speak without words and in an algorithmic tongue. When Im down, supersaws pick me up. When Im happy, supersaws launch me into the stratosphere.I have often considered what it would be like to surgically replace my vocal cords with a Roland JP-8000, and communicate entirely in Lorenzo Senni songs. I think it would a fairly euphoric life. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The psychiatric ward has always been portrayed in film as a scary place. Whilst hardly the ideal place to be, films fascination with the insides of its characters minds and the psychiatrists that try to get inside effectively others the world of mental illness. The problems with the depiction of mental illness in film are extensive, but tracking historical and recent portrayals of psychiatry in film are useful in highlighting the particularly problematic attitudes towards mental illness and psychiatry as a whole.Psychiatrists dont like to use the word crazy, but they are themselves often portrayed as such.The demonisation of psychiatrists as individual characters feeds off a stigma that they are manipulative, themselves unstable, intimidating or something to be afraid of. These range from professional indiscretions, such as having inappropriate relationships with patients or prescribing untested medication, to going mad and becoming diagnosed psychopaths themselves. The invocation of psychiatry as imbuing some sort of character depth or darkness is as harmful and reductive as assigning a nondescript mental illness to a morally ambiguous character, like the Joker.Psychiatry occupies a space in the collective cultural imagination adjacent to mental illness and psychosis, because these concepts are inherently part of its discipline. But their conflation instils fear and entrenches a preconceived resistance many may already have. Hannibal Lecter scares us. Harley Quinn amuses us. From the highest to the lowest brow of cinema, the idea of a psychopathic psychiatrist is ripe for exposing our internal contradictions. But juxtaposition should not be mistaken for complexity, and filmmakers should be careful with how they invoke and incite fear or parody in their portrayal of psychiatrists.In Side Effects, starring Channing Tatum, Jude Law and Rooney Mara, Dr Banks prescribes an experimental drug that leads to side effects including stabbing someone to death whilst apparently sleepwalking. Throughout the film, characters are threatened with electric shock treatment or incarceration in the mental ward, psychiatrists commit securities fraud to manipulate stock prices via the prescription of medication and there are discussions of how to fake psychiatric disorders. Whilst it is interesting to explore how perverse incentives operate in the medical profession and look into the personal lives of our doctors and their patients, if it is not done well, what filters into the mainstream can infect perceptions negatively.Further, a depiction of outdated practices can deepen clinical distrust amongst everyday audiences. From Freuds avid cocaine addiction and the concept of penis envy, to Jungs theories of the unconscious and the propagation of electroshock conversion therapy in the mid-20th century, suffice to say that psychiatry is an imperfect discipline. But since One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, psychiatry has developed. Lobotomies are no longer performed. Even the depiction of electroconvulsive shock therapy as an inherently harmful practice lacks nuance and likely makes patients less likely to opt in.Inaccurate psychological methods are also often appropriated as forming part of psychiatry in film. For example, the use of hypnotism to trap Chris in the sunken place in Get Out is performed by his girlfriends mother, a psychiatrist. Mention of her profession immediately stirs intimidation in him, and an ominousness suddenly surrounds her. This unnecessary characterisation as a psychiatrist, which bears no relation to hypnotism, plays on tropes familiar to the horror genre, a nod to The Silence of the Lambs. It is unnecessary because it delivers no commentary. It is merely designed to trigger and reinforce a negative association.Films that reframe or challenge diagnoses of established disorders as a plot point can also exacerbate distrust of clinical diagnosis and ultimately stigmatise seeking professional, often institutionalised, help. In Split, a man with dissociative identity disorder is portrayed more or less as a monster. In its follow-up, Glass (a title that directly plays on the concept of the disordered being broken), the characters that are detained for delusions of grandeur are actually revealed to be superhumans. Whilst admittedly fun to entertain, when the vindication of delusion becomes a pervasive trope rather than a unique narrative, its harms extend far beyond poor screenwriting. To give credence to a reality that is threatened by a disorder and to those suffering from intrusive thinking confuses the ways in which we should treat and perceive those who are mentally ill.In Unsane, a woman is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital by unknowingly signing a consent form and then having multiple physical altercations or attempts to alert staff of her plight. In the film, her being stalked is perceived as a delusion by the medical professionals. This framing is perhaps dangerous, because the validation of psychotic delusion leads to counterproductive questions that invite audiences to challenge the diagnosis of similar hallucinations in the real world.The notion of involuntary commitment as an insurance scheme, as a pernicious act undertaken by untrustworthy medical professionals, further cultivates distrust in the psychiatric system. However interestingly as in Side Effects, these narratives seem to intersect with problems with the healthcare system in the United States, most glaringly the financial incentives of big pharma. Whilst this kind of exploration should be foregrounded, it need not be traded-off with faith in our actual doctors.To the extent that the media significantly shapes our perceptions, it is dangerous to popularise negative depictions of a field that already suffers from stigma, even and especially if there are commercial incentives to do so. Stereotyping in popular discourse is generally quite harmful, but the commodification of mental illness in the film industry is particularly damaging where stigma is a huge barrier to seeking help. Approximately 18% of Australians received mental health-related prescriptions last year and in the wake of COVID-19, a mental health crisis, particularly amongst young people, is incredibly likely. It is paramount that psychiatrists who are also essential workers are portrayed responsibly. At the very least, characters who take on the profession should be developed in the way those they embody do their jobs; with compassion, depth and the most up to date medical knowledge. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In 1995 sports writer Joan Ryan penned Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, a nonfiction account which unflinchingly documents the abuse and trauma of young girls inherent in narratives of success in gymnastics and figure skating. Among Ryans critiques of gymnastics was the immense pressure it places on teenagers, often prepubescent gymnasts to race against time to transform themselves into perfect little machines before their bodies turn against them, swelling and rounding into a womans or simply giving out. Twenty-five years on, Ryans book has become eerily prescient in a moment of reckoning for the international gymnastics community. On 24 June, Netflix released Athlete A, a feature-length documentary focusing on the hundreds of survivors of former USA Gymnastics (USAG) team doctor, Lawrence Nassar. In particular, the documentary depicts the life of Maggie Nichols, who first reported Nassars sexual abuse in 2015 and was once known in legal paperwork by the pseudonym Athlete A.Though the details of the Nassar scandal and the negligence of USAG to bring Nichols reports to relevant authorities was well documented before its release, Athlete A focused particularly on the ongoing psychological trauma of Nassars survivors. Due to its release on Netflix, it was also afforded a far greater audience and public attention than any other work to date. In the weeks that followed, prominent elite gymnasts from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium and the Netherlands (among others) began to speak out against the exact abusive culture and training methods that Ryan had described in 1995. The gymnasts described how trusted adults stripped them of their agency and pressured them to develop disordered eating patterns and how non-compliance led to neglect or physical abuse. Though the breadth and depth of Nassars abuse has shocked the gymnastics community, it is perhaps unsurprising to find a sport that cultivated a culture of abuse in the name of success had also enabled a sexual predator for decades. Whether and how gymnastics culture will be reformed to better nurture athletes remains an open question.Amongst the current moment of reckoning, an unlikely protagonist has emerged: a 32-year old mother from Milwaukee. For over a year Chellsie Memmel, a 2008 Olympic silver medalist who officially retired in 2012, has been documenting her journey to regain fitness after giving birth to two children. In early 2020, Memmel started posting her attempts at difficult balance beam skills like a side aerial cartwheel in her judging attire to the delight of the online gymnastics community. In April, after landing a double pike dismount off the balance beam, Memmel declared that a seed [had] been planted to begin a structured training regimen with two days of physical conditioning and three days of gymnastics with an emphasis on quality execution rather than a high number of repetitions. By June, a camera crew was following her as she regained all of the skills she performed as an elite gymnast. Nevertheless, Memmel remained uncommitted to anything more than enjoying herself. The gymnastics community could not help but notice that with an additional year to train (after the Olympic postponement), Memmel had an increasingly realistic chance to return to the sport.Each week, Memmels YouTube videos document her strides towards elite calibre gymnastics as she brings difficult skills back to the four events (balance beam, floor exercise, vault and uneven bars) that make up the womens all around gymnastics event. For months though Memmel was reluctant to return to training on the uneven bars, despite the fact she was the 2003 world champion on that event. Numerous shoulder injuries held Memmel back during her career, including a major one incurred during the 2006 world championships whilst competing on the uneven bars; Memmel worried that a shoulder injury could derail her fledgling comeback. Nevertheless, in a symbolic moment this July, Memmel prepared a pair of bar grips and began a cast to handstand on the uneven bars. In a moment befitting of a scripted drama, Memmel seemed to realise that her fourth attempt at qualifying for an Olympic Games was not only possible, but inevitable. On 31 July she made the obvious official.Essentially everything about Chellsie Memmels comeback to womens gymnastics is paradigm shifting. An extremely select number of female gymnasts compete into their late twenties, let alone in their thirties after an eight year hiatus. At 32, she is nine years older than Simone Biles, the oldest member of the current US national team. Even fewer women return to the highest annals of the sport after giving birth. Memmel will be the first American gymnast to ever compete in elite gymnastics after becoming a mother and only the sixth woman in the international history of the sport.However, the most radical aspect about Memmels comeback is not simply that she is a 32 year old mother of two returning to a sport traditionally dominated by teenagers. Memmel is also a gymnastics coach and in her weekly videos, Memmel encourages young gymnasts to enjoy the sport and advocates for [taking herself] out of the equation of her athletes goals. While watching Memmels attempts at complicated skills makes for fascinating viewing for gymnastics fans, it is equally compelling to watch Memmel as an alternative model of coaching.The hours that Memmel herself trains are dwarfed by most other elite gymnasts, who usually train six days a week and repeat skills several times until they are perfected. Despite this, Memmel feels her physical condition and gymnastics ability has never been better, an observation she attributes to a more positive relationship with nutrition, physical conditioning and injury management since becoming a mother. Memmels coach and father, Andy, has also quickly become an internet favourite as he encourages her to perform the hardest skills whilst maintaining her agency in training decisions.Earlier this year, before Memmel had committed to officially returning to the sport and gymnasts had begun to share their stories of abuse, I profiled Simone Biles, the reigning Olympic all-around champion. Biles is widely regarded as the greatest gymnast of all time and I noted then that she is perhaps the true protagonist of the open-ended code of points that gymnastics adopted in 2006. If Biles is redefining excellence on the competition floor, then Memmel is fabricating the most radical blueprint for healing the toxic training culture of professional gymnastics. As coach and athlete, Memmel is guided by the principle that gymnastics should be enjoyed by all; in making this simple argument, she is dismantling every narrative at the heart of its history of child abuse.Memmels appearance at the Tokyo Olympics is by no means assured. Next year, competition for the four member gymnastics team will be fierce. One spot will almost certainly go to Biles, who has not lost an all-around competition in seven years. As many as fifteen to twenty gymnasts could feasibly fill the final three spots, including Memmel. No matter what the outcome, Biles and Memmel competing contemporaneously will be an aspirational portrait of gymnastics future. In the gymnastics world that Joan Ryan documented twenty-five years ago, Chellsie Memmel would have been labelled simply too old. In this moment though, she seems to have arrived exactly on time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the realm of modern music discourse, hot takes, and Pitchfork ratings, weve seen music commentary evolve and spread across various platforms. Weve seen algorithms designed to spoon-feed us music we are mathematically calculated to consume and enjoy. Weve seen the rise and subsequent cult-following of figures like Anthony Fantano, aka TheNeedleDrop, shaking up music discourse as we know it.Fantano, the self-proclaimed Internets Busiest Music Nerd, has acquired a loyal following over the years through his YouTube channel, as his scrupulous and sometimes provocative commentary style has gained notoriety.His album reviews follow a common structure background about an album or artist, a track by track analysis, and some conclusive musings. Harmless, right? Until the guillotine drops, and the album is branded, blessed, or tarnished with a numerical rating determining its fate of dismissal or infamy.I never had an issue with Fantanos opinions inevitably being brought up in music discussions. They were a topical point of comparison, something to grapple with, a take you can get behind or ignore entirely. However, Ive come to notice that Fantanos influence has shapeshifted from a trivial point of comparison to something more pervasive. Recently, a friend of mine was fumbling with an aux cord to show me a song she liked, but paused for a moment before she hit play. She prefaced the song with: Fantano gave it a woeful rating. But I dont mind it! A sentence soaked in self-censorship. I was struck by the fact Fantanos opinion preceded her one. How did this flannel clad, mediocre bass player become so deified, and characterised as a figure of absolute truth?Fantano culture has developed into something more monolithic, with fans beginning to possess an unquestioning loyalty to his opinions. This could possibly extend from the flavour of absoluteness to his rhetoric which seems to outweigh his attempts of maintaining a sense of subjectivity. This attitude has seemingly, in turn, permeated throughout his fanbase. It can bring one to question does an unwavering faith in someone elses opinion stifle the ability to cultivate your own?Fantanos reduction of albums to a numerical rating has become somewhat weaponised by his loyal viewers. Sharing appreciation of an artist can now immediately be nullified in the form of a swift dismissal: Fantano gave that a 4. In this culture of self-censorship, and intrusive thoughts in the form of Fantano ratings, numbers have evolved into a no-fuss substitute for a detailed opinion. It injects a sense of absolutism into a place of subjectivity.The notion of repressing ones own opinions and adopting the subjective takes of those who crowdsource credibility is dangerous. It can be deemed counterproductive within subjective disciplines like music and art. Disciplines that call for people to share their diverse perspectives rather than coil under the authority of those who dictate their opinion. Will dependency on figures like Fantano result in people malfunctioning at the request for an authentic opinion?Fantano culture has, however, had an opposite impact on some. His controversial opinions have almost set a precedent of hot takes, making others feel comfortable to share unpopular musical opinions that could leave them shunned, or perhaps socially estranged. Fantano has given critically acclaimed albums, such as Kanye Wests My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, somewhat rudimentary ratings. MBDTF was hit with a Strong 5 to a Light 6 unleashing an enduring sense of havoc amongst Fantanos fanbase. Ironically, it seems that his unpopular opinions have led to a sense of robust musical discourse for the most part. The response to Fantanos rating of MBDTF also manifested in masses of fans mindlessly bashing their keyboards, demanding a re-review. The overwhelming backlash is further proof of the grasp and influence of Fantanos singular, individual opinion.It can be argued that the problem with Fantano culture is not Anthony Fantano but the complacent commitment to his opinions by many. There are certainly organic components to the Fantano culture, where fresh ideas are exchanged rather than an echo-chamber of recycled ones. However, the culture of lazily adopting Fantanos opinions at the expense of ones own must be rectified. Absolutism in the fields of art and music is simply incongruent with their subjective nature. Conflicts of artistic opinion should be embraced rather than conquered, or slammed with a reductionist rating.On account of this, I have to give Fantano culture a light 4 out of 10. Redeeming factors include the abundance of hot takes and thought-provoking reviews. Points have been shredded off accordingly due to the lingering taste of dogmatism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are many clear parallels that can be drawn between young adult dystopian fiction and the climate justice movement. Characters often live in worlds full of violence, manipulative technology, extreme poverty, totalitarian governments and military control. A large majority of these stories attribute their repressive social structures and bleak ways of life to a catastrophic event in the past, often a war or natural disaster that completely devastated their country or continent. Memorable examples include the sun flares in James Dashners The Maze Runner series or the unspecified ecological collapse and dark days in Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games. Apocalyptic environmental disasters shape many young adult dystopian stories, creating worlds that are dangerous, oppressive and difficult to survive in. Characters regularly struggle to find food and basic living supplies or they are given barely-substantial rations by a government that subjugates and exploits them. Ecosystems are often barren; flora and fauna are extinct, leaving behind a lifeless, depressing wasteland. Extreme weather events terrorise survivors and destroy more of what little they have left. Authors paint a grievous picture of what is possible if climate change does continue unchecked, leading to many young readers understanding and fearing the results of ecological disaster. The genre often places emphasis on identity and belonging. Whether characters feel an alliance to the geographic area they are designated to live in or a personality-themed faction they were split into (such as in Veronica Roths Divergent series), the stories consistently encourage communities to unite against their enemies and resist the Orwellian states they live under. These values are often reflected in modern climate activism. Ordinary people come together to attend strikes and demand that governments and major corporations stop accelerating climate change and take action to prevent a real apocalypse. Quotes, characters and symbols from these books feature on many posters and in chants at climate strikes; enabling relatable and meaningful ways to convey messages. The influence of young adult dystopian fiction has already extended beyond entertaining slogans. The mockingjay symbol and three-fingered salute in The Hunger Games, both of which come to represent hope and rebellion in the series, are banned in Thailand for inciting political unrest. Specific films in the series are also banned in China and Vietnam and the books are banned from libraries in multiple areas of the United States. Young adult dystopian fiction dominated the market in the early to mid 2010s. Teenage readers of the time are now young adults and of university age themselves. Recent increases in student climate activism suggest that these books may have had more influence than is recognised. Perhaps the themes that characterise this style of fiction have indirectly inspired collective action against fossil fuels and climate-denying politics. As many have repeated recently, if you raise children with stories of young people taking down corrupt systems against all odds, what do you expect them to do when faced with similar threats in the real world? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the film Uncut Gems, Adam Sandler plays Howie, a frenetic jeweller on the run from debt collectors and his own impending gravitational collapse. Its an arresting watch, full of claustrophobic tension. Running under the films pulse is an orientation towards the Global South and its resources, revealing its colonialist contours the more you tap away at it. Hovering just beneath the surface, dizzying. Uncut Gems opens onto chaos at an opal mine in northeastern Ethiopias Wollo region. A man, badly injured, is carried out into a clamor of angry brown faces. The camera cuts inside the mine where two workers surreptitiously unearth a blue-green glimmer that drives the film: not a diamond, but surely bloody. Black labouring bodies become a disposable force, the weight of their physicality balanced neatly against the retrieval of capital for the West. By the time the so-called black opal winds up in Howies hands to be sold to basketballer Kevin Garnett, it carries not just the legacy of violent extraction, but also an origin narrative of mythic quasi-religiosity. (As Jordan T. McDonald motions, the fact that Garnett, a black man, buys the opal complicates the white fascinationAfrican spirituality dynamic, pointing to black diasporic desire and its complicity in colonialist flattenings of the global south; that in trying to grasp the homeland, warps it.) Salvation, granted to the West by mythic ethnic powers-that-be, is a familiar narrative: popular culture is full of black or brown figures only valuable for the wisdom they bestow onto the (white) protagonist. Watching mainstream films and TV shows becomes a running joke: Wow, [insert PoC character] is still alive? Even more dominant is the collaroy of this colonial fascination: the west as benevolent caretaker of the global south. Generous, charitable, salvationary. Together these ideals create an ideal extractive apparatus; a project of violence that erases itself. This violence flows along with capital, in ripples of harm, glimmering as though oil on still water. Kathryn Yusoff has brilliantly exposed the links between geology and systemic racism. Both carry a fundamental logic: value extracted from inert matter, be it rock or black labour. In her book A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None, Yusoff writes, White Geology makes legible a set of extractions, from particular subject positions, from black and brown bodies, and from the ecologies of place. Yusoff frames extraction as carrying a material history of colonialism: an afterlife of harm. This spans [I]ndigenous dispossession of land and sovereignty through to the ongoing petropolitics of settler colonialism; of slavery to the current incarnations of antiblackness in mining black gold; and of the racialized impacts of climate change. These afterlives are at work in the capitalist flows of resources exported out of Africa and into the west; not only imprinted with past violences, but creating new traumas in their wake. These extractive flows of oil, gold, diamonds, coal and platinum pried from African soil and rock are controlled almost entirely by private overseas corporations. African nations rarely use the products or see the profits of this extraction: a combination of tax evasion by the western corporations, lack of export taxes, and low rates of African governmental shareholding. A 2016 report by the UK organisation War on Want termed these extractive practices the new colonialism; invoking in the frantic rush to plunder, a second imperialist Scramble for Africa. Far from being new, the western profiting off exploitative extraction has always been an active element in settler-colonial state agendas. A landscape of extractive capitalism complicates our climate justice organising. The framework of environmental racism draws attention to the unequal spread of climate change across the world; harm arrives first in brown countries, first on brown skin. So too is the spread of environmental redress unequal. In calls for renewable energy, who and what will continue to bear the cost? The pitfalls of green-washing policies that leave capitalism unchecked have been laid bare by activists such as Naomi Klein. In Africa and the global south, green capitalism remains a tool for injustice: exploitative and destructive in nature. Extractive colonialism and the western imaginaries that undergird it will only be undone when we dismantle the systems that do not serve us and build new worlds in their place. Recently, Arundhati Roy conducted a teach-in, thinking through her essay The Pandemic Is A Portal. She reflected on the nature of this current pandemic as a harbinger of new, more unjust worlds: national authoritarianism is colluding with international disaster capital and data gatherers and they are preparing another world for us. Can we refuse these? I find myself turning to the world-building strategies offered by Afrofuturism; in radical PoC autonomy (in F.U.B.U. Solange sings, All my niggas in the whole wide world / Made this song to make it all yalls turn / For us, this shit is for us); and pan-African resource re-distribution and solidarity (Black Panther for one; Born in Flames if youre feeling spicy). Alternative imaginaries are powerful; they are speculative tools for environmental justice. Arundhati Roy looked deep into my web-cam and said gently yet firmly: [this new world] isnt going to be given to us like a cut fruit. Were going to have to fight for it. Thats dizzying in all the right ways; spinning me around to re-orient me towards justice. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I started tearing up thirty minutes into watching The Farewell a new, Chinese-American family drama directed by Lulu Wang. While the premise of the film a Chinese family using the pretext of a wedding to see their family matriarch one last time after she is, unbeknownst to her, diagnosed with terminal cancer naturally lends itself to emotional catharsis, thirty minutes had got to be a new record. By the end of the film, I, along with the rest of the booked out cinema (most of whom were, like me, Asian-Australian) were absolutely floored some pensively reflecting about filial piety and the diaspora (guilty), others just trying their best not to burst out into ugly sobbing (also guilty). While watching the film, I couldnt help but feel that so many of the scenes and characters were drawn directly from my own life. Unsurprisingly, The Farewell has been hailed as a triumph of meaningful representation, and rightfully so.I enjoyed the film so much that I decided to watch it a second time, this time with my parents. And though only a week had passed since I last watched it, there I was, tearing up at the exact same moments, feeling the same bittersweet tremors of emotions. But as much as I was there to rewatch the film, I was also there to watch my parents watch the film. As much as The Farewell resonated with me, I wondered how they would view it, given that the central story of the film is as much theirs as it is mine.To my disappointment, it became very clear when we left the cinemas that they had not been as taken with the film as I was.Its a movie Western audiences will like my father says.I dont think it will do well in China my mum continues, before adding how bad she thought Awkwafinas posture was.Their chief contention was that the subject matter of the film is just not something Chinese people think is worth making a film about, given that lying about death is almost as certain as death itself in the Chinese lifecycle. While the guiding tenet of this push for representation is this idea that having your own experiences reflected on the screen makes everything more relatable, maybe there is a limit to how familiar something is before it just seems banal and vapid. The underlying uniqueness of the film does assume that the viewer comes from a different cultural background. Maybe expecting them to be excited about hiding a terminal diagnosis from a parent was the same as expecting a Western audience to be excited about a white family who send their elderly parents into a nursing home.Nonetheless, I remain unconvinced at their line of reasoning. I retort that theyre applying a double standard to the film just because the director is Chinese, and that they would never have commented on how commonplace a films subject matter was if it was about another ethnicity. Indeed, the recent push for representation has unintentionally exposed the growing chasm between the Chinese diaspora and their homeland. While second generation Asians celebrated Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu being cast in Marvels Shang-chi, many Chinese Marvel fans found him not handsome enough for the role. Such was the intensity of the criticism that one cant help but think that Chinese audiences would rather the role be whitewashed than be given to an Asian without double eyelids. My parents ultimately concede that they probably would view the film differently had it been an Italian, or Russian family.But more than just an emotional response, my parents point out more tangible aspects of the film they found strange. While I found it amazing that the majority of the film was in Mandarin, my parents thought this was more to impress Western viewers than an actual commitment to linguistic realism. Supporting their argument is the casting of Tzi Ma as Billis father. Even thoughhe plays a migrant from Northern China, Tzi Ma, who is originally from Hong Kong, speaks Mandarin with a very noticeable Cantonese accent which is jarringly contrasted with the perfect Northern Chinese accents of all the other family members. English speaking actors are panned all the time for not getting an accent 100% right (just think about Emma Watson every time she plays someone who isnt Hermione Granger), so I accept that this is a fairer criticism. Indeed, even amongst the second-generation Chinese-Australians friends I first watched the film with, many of us couldnt help but note how unusual it was for the tones in Billis Mandarin to be so over the place despite her spending the first six years of her life in China (many of us had come to Australia much younger, but spoke much better Mandarin). Initially, I rationalised it as a directorial choice, but later on, I read that Awkwafina learnt to speak Mandarin specifically for the role. Nonetheless, I didnt feel as if any of this detracted from the films brilliance.Since watching it, my dad has showed me a rather biting Chinese review he found online, and one line in particular stands out.The film is plagued by one problem, and thats its awareness of its own uniqueness. It cant fully leave a Western perspective, but at the same time, insists that its sufficiently Eastern. As a result, it struggles to convey both East and West.While the writer almost certainly meant this is a criticism, ironically, its probably the most succinct explanation Ive read on what it feels like to be a second-generation Asian. Realism is, of course, an important part of meaningful representation, and for Chinese audiences, maybe The Farewell falls short of expectations. However, the purpose of cinema is not to capture reality as it is, but to speak to truths held by the audience through evoking particular emotions and thoughts. And perhaps its this ambiguity of identity that makes The Farewell, while jarringly unrealistic for some, so powerfully truthful for so many others. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Desire a combustion. A womans black frock sears ablaze. Amidst the rising cacophony of a bonfire choir, she stares to meet the gaze of a young painter. The night divulges its golden complexions, flushing upwards and betraying a hidden secret like a painting by Rembrandt. Its a gaze that provokes the other to look closer, to dare to paint the intensity of its blaze.This is the image that haunts revered French auteur Cline Sciammas scorching period romance. An immensely textured work, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a revolutionary feature that explores love through the politics of representation and the all-consuming power of the gaze. Set on an isolated coast in 18th Century Brittany, it depicts a slow but brimming romance between a young painter, Marianne (Nomie Merlant), and her unwilling subject, Hlose (Adle Haenel). Mariannes arrival marks her commission to capture Hlose through a portrait painting that would be used to sell her as a marital prospect after Hlose exhausted a previous male painter by refusing to pose. Under the guise of a walking companion, Marianne observes Hlose through a series of intense and intimate glances that would eventually be met with a tender reciprocation.Sciammas film is all about the gaze. Despite the absence of men, their power upon the formulation of female identities and behaviour remains an ever pervasive and looming presence. Here, John Bergers famous maxim Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at rings a sombre truth. There is a restraint of desire enacted out by the protagonists themselves, as if they were their own voyeurs, even when theyre away from the bustle of wider society. However, Sciamma isnt as interested in how people constrain themselves as much as how they set each other free. Is this how you see me? Hlose rebuffs at Mariannes first attempt at her portrait, forcing the painter to unravel herself from patriarchal artistic strictures and a suppression of desire that have resulted in a portrait so guarded that it lacks any presence.Interestingly, this concept can also be explored in the production of the film. When thinking of recently acclaimed lesbian cinema, its been noted that most, if not all, have been directed by men. Portrait marks the first film directed by, and starring, a (queer) woman which has won the Queer Palm, as well as bagging a Best Screenplay and nomination for the Palme dOr (out of only four female directors). Through the use of a mostly female crew, Sciamma redefines the male gaze that has been looming over the shadows of cinema, retraining it through an authentic narrative that demands for an increase in visibility and acknowledgement.At the heart of Portrait of a Lady on Fires cinematic manifesto is a desire to destroy the idea of The Muse, a concept that diminishes the participation of women in art history. To Sciamma, the muse fetishizes, silence and objectifies a woman to the point where shes inspiring only because shes beautiful. The film subverts the artist/subject dynamic born from a male artists point of view, commonly depicted in works such as Vertigo or Titanic. Posed is the question of who actually determines a painting is it the painter, the beloved subject, or the relation that is kindled between them by the act of connection? Explored is a love and creation dialogue imbued with equality; art is presented not as a vertical line between the artist and the idea. Just like in its technicalities, it is created through layers of co-creation between the artist and the subject. Hlose determines how she wants to be portrayed, and her relationship with Marianne influences that portrayal. As asserted by Hlose We are in the exact same place.Amongst its most haunting projections, each frame bearing a visual resemblance to the works of Vermeer, Friedrich, and even Bergman, the films most harrowing moment comes from its reflection on the tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.A discussion around the dinner table has the characters pondering over what motivated Orpheus to look back, knowing that in doing so his lover would die a second death. Hlose stirs an understanding that poignantly foreshadows her own end; she thinks that Eurydice has selfishly whispered for her lover to turn around, so that what remains is only the frozen permanence of love at the height of its intensity. Like that of a painting unvanquished by the cruelty of time, to exist only in a lovers memory is to always remain at her most beautiful and perfect.Portrait of a Lady on Fire brings the subtle simmers of love and its moments of desire into an incandescent end of a wild cascade. It is about regret as much as it is about remembrance. About the difference between possessing something, and treasuring it. And like a painting thats never truly finished, perhaps what are most beautiful are not the images that women project, but rather the ones they leave behind. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The original version of this article, written in Chinese, appearshere.On the 26th of April 1986, the most serious nuclear disaster in history happened. Such was its magnitude that it was rated a seven the highest severity by the International Nuclear Event Scale.The resounding boom of the explosion would forever change the fate of Ukraine and the Soviet Union, but on the night that it happened, people were still stuck in a hazy reverie of ignorance. A great mansion on the verge of collapse, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Honour of Vladimir Lenin served as a symbol of the Soviet Union at the height of its status as a superpower.At the same time, it came to mark the beginning of its downfall. The good and bad of human nature, its strengths and weaknesses, its simplicity and complexity all interweaved together in this worker and proletariat lead country. The nuclear radiation emitted by the disaster not only caused a massive economic loss of almost three hundred billion dollars, but more tragically, the deaths of around four thousand people in the former Soviet countries, and sixteen thousand in the rest of Europe.Fast forward to now: we are removed from the disaster by many years, Chernobyl has been made into an American miniseries by HBO, resonating with viewers from countries all over the world whose destinies are shared in the face of nuclear disaster. But at the same time, the validity of the series has been called into question. After glossing over and changing some historical details, some believe the series has become a cultural export which extolls the superiority of capitalism, all the while demeaning those who lived under socialism.According to a BBC interview with an operator at the power plant who survived the disaster, the series contains several unreasonable exaggerations and embellishments. One scene in particular that comes to mind is the one showing a group of miners digging up a tunnel underneath the reactor to protect the residents who live around the power station. They need to clean a space for the heat switch to prevent liquid from seeping out of the melted core of the reactor into the surface water. If the surface water becomes contaminated by nuclear pollution, then the disaster would endanger the lives and health of millions more. In this scene, the workers strip their clothes until they are fully naked due to the extreme heat of their underground surroundings. But in reality, the workers, while taking off some of their clothes, were not stark naked. This has been perceived by some as showing the miners being deliberately humiliated, and consequently, evidence of the show disparaging the imperfect state of human rights under Socialism.Indeed, this one scene was superfluous, and ultimately not necessary. But looking at it from another perspective, the show is a reflection of the directors own awareness of the issue, and many other details, such as the problem of the nuclear reactor and the symptoms of radiation sickness, were all depicted to a highly accurate degree.Unsurprisingly, in Russia, parts of this series have been cut out or outright prohibited. But if we are to talk about the degree to which the series depicts historical details, the scene with the naked miners can be interpreted in many different ways. In the scene, the reason why the miners took off their clothes was because of the blistering heat around them, and symbolises how in such an extreme environment, they do not have the luxury to bother with small trifles. Consequently, saying this scene is an example of the series, a product of Capitalism, attacking Socialism would be taking an overtly sensitive stance.In the aftermath of Chernobyl, there was the problem of government officials avoiding responsibility for the mistakes which caused the disaster. However, this cannot be said to be limited to the Soviet Union. While the corruption that plagued the Soviet bureaucracy should be criticised, these problems have arisen in any country that has experienced a nuclear disaster, such as Fukushima in Japan and Pennsylvania in America. In many ways, the disaster could be argued to be an inevitable outcome of a complex bureaucratic system.After watching Chernobyl, what we must reflect on is not only the conflict of ideology behind the scenes, but also how we deal with crises in our current system, and how we balance our own fate with that of our country. There is no doubt that political systems need to be constantly transformed and improved, and not be left to stagnate. When a single cog in a nations machinery becomes the scapegoat to conceal the failings of the system as a whole, then that national machinery is doomed to fall apart as other cogs fall apart one by one. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Slabs of sleek concrete shield part of a beauteous mansion. Its modernist sophistication sits airily on top of a high slope within the city of Seoul. The houses entrance boasts a flight of stairs that leads to a tight set of security systems. As a single door stares deridingly downwards at each of its coming guests, the message evoked could not be more clear. To enter it youll need to ascend.Thankfully, it is not here that Parasite begins.Instead, it begins underground, in a basement-turned-house where a zero-income family is living, leeching a few bars of Wi-Fi from local businesses. Consisting of the kind-natured patriarch Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), whose life advice is well-respected by his son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) and cunning daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam). Alongside their mother, Chung-sook (Jang Hyae-jin), the family earns a living by folding a restaurants cardboard pizza boxes in their bug-infested, ramshackle home.It is the exploration of this familys absurd and exploitative rise to economic stability that has earned South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho this years Palme dOr. The film, despite being labeled by Bong as a tragicomedy, flouts the narrow conventions of genre to present a narrative too preposterous to be real, too stained in satire to be sad. And yet, eliciting both a harrowing sense of social-realism and tragedy, it is all of these things. Like Bongs previous work, The Host, which carefully critiqued the conditions of South Korean society, Parasite abandons allegorical hints for a straight slap in the face about the detrimental consequences of economic insecurity. As Bong describes, it is a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains.The tragedys focus on an impoverished family unit demonstrates a thematic similarity to Hirokazu Kore-edas stirring Japanese drama, Shoplifters, which also happens to be last years winner of the Palm dOr. Both Shoplifters and Parasite belong to a rising surge of films representing those in the socially and economically marginal slates of East Asian society. Their significance resides in their exposition of the underground space a metaphorical space exhibiting the hidden ugliness that lies beneath the false faade of globalisation. In Shoplifters, these secrets are literally buried underground in the space of a shabby home, hushed between the cracks of a middle-class suburban jungle. Meanwhile, Parasite slowly unveils the underground spaces in which filthy masses of contradictions begin to accumulate, and inevitably (like the monster from The Host) emerge to the surface. This allegory is established by Bong early in the film, with the family staring up from their sunken home into a society that may not even realise they exist, and even urinates onto their windows.However, it is this same invisibility that became the catalyst for much of Parasites plot. When Ki-woos higher-class friend goes to study overseas and asks him to take over his job tutoring the teenage daughter of a wealthy businessman, the underqualified Ki-woo vehemently agrees. After the forgery of some documents, he is now pushed into the world of a marvelous concrete mansion located on the high hills of Seoul. Winning over the confidence of the naive lady of the house, Mrs Park (Cho Yeo-jeoung), the opportunistic Ki-woo quickly concocts a plan for his entire family to con their way into employment at the same mansion. Eliminating the unneeded chauffeur and nifty housekeeper, the wily mnage inserts themselves into the secured space of their money-provider, the Parks. They live in symbiosis with their hosts, and in some ways, even begin to transform into a knock-off version of them.Throughout the film, Bong does not let us forget that it is the things hidden in the depths, unexposed to the surface, that control the story. For when all seems to be well for the clan, having found stability in a marvellous space, what ugliness could this wide-open home and its transparent rows of glass possibly harbour?With careful steps like that of a chessmasters, Bong unveils the layers of dirtiness that both classes possess in an indictment of the countrys broken socio-economic system.Portrayed also is South Koreas ambivalent relationship with the United States. There are repeated motifs throughout Parasite which associate the US with validity and prestige it is through emphasising a US-based education that Ki-woo and Ki-jung both earn their respective jobs at the mansion. Whenever questioned about the reliability of an item, Mrs Park absently replies Dont worry, we got it from the US. There is also the use of English phrases by the upper class as a means of demonstrating their prestige, and the appropriation of a Native American headdress. Bong once identified his stylistic use and subversion of Hollywood conventions as a sense of schizophrenia. This reflects South Koreas half-respectful, half-cynical attitude towards the US, whose occupation during the 1960s to early 1990s is often linked to South Koreas rapid modernisation. This close alliance (critiqued by some as almost neocolonial) underpins South Koreas current position as a developed, capitalist state. But as portrayed by Bong, though the system seems grand, it offers no support to those whove been kicked down to the bottom of the stairs.The Kim family, having successfully gained a precarious sense of economic security, then find themselves having to maintain their social position through the most gruesome of means. This hanging anxiety about security can also serve as a reference to the threat of invasion by North Korea. It is these unresolved tensions that underpin the films foreboding atmosphere. For perhaps, what we fear most is the disruption of order, as well as its seeming fallibility.In Parasite, a powerful final shot points to an inescapable cycle of oppression, tragically unrecognised by its main protagonists. Here, Bongs comedy becomes a bitter reminder of our wretched reality. Intricately crafted, Parasite evinces a distant dream of social equality that eventually batters you awake. Its raw depiction of Korean society in all of its absurdities spills powerfully onto each frame of the screen. Its hilarity masks a face of anger one that rejects the fickle sentiment expressed by a character: Money is an iron, it smooths out all the wrinkles. After the rain, the wrinkles will just appear again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I own the most adorable one-year-old cat named Cassie. Shes the warm, trusting, and easygoing angel in my life. Shes always there for me no matter how frustrating my day has been and through whatever stressful situation Ive put myself through. She can magically heal me, calm me merely by licking my finger and looking into my eyes. After having been through many difficult experiences and countless dark days together, she is more than just a pet to me.Owning a pet to keep you company is an easily achievable choice for many. These furry friends bring countless joy into your life. They improve your own mental wellbeing, ease feelings of loneliness, and improve your chance of meeting new friends.For international students living away from home for the first time, owning a pet can be a crucial source of support. In Australia, many international students own cats and dogs to ward off feelings of loneliness and to lower their stress levels.However, the decision for an international student to purchase a pet can be a controversial one. Most international students leave the country after years of studying in Australia. When they go back home, their pets often remain here. It is an international students responsibility to ensure that this pet is rehomed. In some cases, particularly in the rush to return to their home countries, an international students pet is left abandoned.The process of bringing in a pet outside of Australia is expensive and exhausting. People are required to meet requirements of pet export regulations in Australia and pet import regulations in their own country at the same time. Different countries have different regulations, which also seem to change very often and can differ by point of entry. For instance, if people wish to bring pets into China, the pets need a rabies vaccination, a microchip, blood test, and a rabies titer test to meet the requirements. The huge amount of paperwork includes health certificates, China pet passports and more. People who apply will have to pay all of the fees themselves and prepare all the documents over the course of a few months. Moreover, bigger dogs and 41 specific breeds that are deemed violent are banned from China.The RSPCA, an animal welfare organisation, refuses to allow international students to adopt pets because they do not believe that international students can provide for the needs of the animal during their lifetime. This guideline partially stems from widespread public incidents like one in 2016, when footage of a stray dog, later confirmed to have been abandoned by a Chinese international student, went viral. In that same year, many Australians demanded a ban preventing foreign students and others with temporary visas from owning pets.This story is an isolated incident, however. Most students willing to adopt pets ensure that they are rehomed or are attempting to have them flown to their home country when they leave.Olivia Wang, a third year arts student at Usyd, owns a one-year-old Japanese Spitz named Milky. She enjoys Milkys company and treats her like a member of her own family. Milky has provided Olivia with the support and comfort sought by many international students. Ill try everything to bring her back to China, we are inseparable, she said.Iris Yao, another pet owner, is a second year arts student. She has a ten-month-old Blue British Shorthair named Inno. She rehomed Inno two weeks ago to a lovely local couple. As an international student, my life is changing constantly. My future is still undecided. I am busy with study, work and building networks while I am here, she said. I gave Inno to other people. It was a tough choice to make but I believe they can give Inno a better life. Fortunately, Iris has a good relationship with the family looking after Inno, and frequently visits them. Yao says she treated Inno as a son rather than just a cute animal. Inno is a symbolic sentimental object for me to maintain a good state of mind, and meanwhile relieve myself of feelings of loneliness.Due to the unavailability of pet adoption services for international students in Australia, and a steadily increasing demand for these pets, access to pet purchasing services are very limited and the price of purchasing a pet is incredibly high. Both Iris and Olivia spent more than 2000 dollars on purchasing their pet.Wang told Honi that she has spent thousands of dollars on Milky since purchasing her last year.She vomited a lot for no reason, I brought her more than ten times to the veterinary clinic but they still couldnt figure out what was wrong with her. She didnt believe there was anything wrong with the online pet shop where she brought Milky.We dont really have much information about local pet shops and we arent allowed to adopt one. So, we normally purchase pets from online pet shops that we find through WeChat. But the price of these online pet shops are very expensive and many of them sell ill animals, Wang said.Although International students often face doubt from the Australian community on whether they have the time and energy to take care of their pets, the love and care they provide to them cannot be denied.As for me, Cassie is a beam of light and she will always make me happy no matter what happens. She is home to me when I am far away from my own home. Most other international students who own a pet in a foreign country feel the same way as me. I believe international students will do everything they can to give their pet a new home before they leave, as they understand those same hard feelings of being alone. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> From the mid 90s, New South Wales was home to an abrasive, globally-respected network of hardcore techno producers with a cult following. In Newcastle, Australia, Mark Newlands founded the label Bloody Fist Records with two fortnightly dole payments. Cornered by smoke stacks, barbed wire, steelworks operations and concrete, the label became a production line of its own for a pinball machine of eclectic hardcore beats. Meanwhile, Geoff Wainwright, aka Geoff Da Chef, aka The Hardcore Fiend, pioneered Blown Records, which released similarly in-your-face tracks.With titles like Shitbeater, Fuck Anna Woods and Cunt Face, these early hardcore tracks pin you down and forcefully inject post-punk angst with a steamrolling dose of tall-poppy syndrome all while telling you to lighten up. Bloody Fistartists lurch between hip-hop, terrorcore, gabber and scratching with exhilarating speed. The music earned the nicknames amigacore and cheapcore because producers (proudly) used archaic, Amiga computers. Traces of this DIY, cut and paste mentality can be found in the production of later, Australian breakcore artists, such as Passenger of Shit and Melt Unit. What Australias east coast possessed was something distinctively Australian and a group of producers and DJs unafraid to mock the nations cultural cringe.A Thiamine Revisited poster from 2 October 1994 (Source: www.sydneyravehistory.com)In Sydney today, however, there are almost no spaces in clubs or in the underground rave scene dedicated to hardcore. Certain rave organisers caress the edges of the hardcore spectrum with their sonic brands and support hardcore artists, while promoters like Gabber Central, Noize Disorder and Nightvisions host occasional club nights. A devout group of fans keep the scene alive but there is stagnation in the quantity of events after logistical and financial obstacles arrested the momentum of the 90s and 00s.While hardstyle artists are always a safe booking for big music festivals like Midnight Mafia and Defqon, it is often risky for promoters to book an international artist whose repertoire focuses on authentic hardcore, speedcore or breakcore. The promoter behind Hex Yellow, Ivan, highlighted the difficulties in pushing boundaries when I sat down with him: You need to dangle a carrot in front of heads. The Sydney dance scene is very rigid. You really need to take people by the hands. If you negotiate, you can do it. The results can be good. Its not enough to tell someone this music will be really good in this setting, trust me. You have to give them something they know and love already. You get them comfortable, then you take them into that next space whether mentally and physically.The prohibitively high costs of licenced venues for small communities such as the breakcore scene mean that some promoters and DJs are happy for the parties to remain underground. Fans and promoters have to pool money to soften the financial blow on individuals. Utilising alternative spaces, such as warehouses and bushland, is vital. Recent police clampdowns and exorbitant fines under the guise of health and safety and fire code violations threaten Sydneys artistic growth. The Sydneysider behind Melt Unit highlighted the benefits and drawbacks of these conditions. I ran an event called Death Rave for many years, giving a platform for underground producers making experimental electronic music. There was breakcore, chiptune, acid, and all the perversions and combinations within that spectrum. Knowing there was a small audience for it, there was never a possibility of doing it in a venue that actually wanted to make money, so we found our home in other peoples warehouse venues we didnt have to worry about making it a viable business Often whole sets were in-jokes, and we revelled in our own little secret language. There were gabber and speedcore acts that were included in our parties, and there was a big crossover between the two scenes. As our scene was so small we had to crossover to survive, though that was never an intentional goal.Another local DJ I reached out to asserted, the pioneers at the fringes with darker and harder music no longer linger in clubs or licensed venues The soul of Sydney is still truly alive, although people may need to venture out from the city or inner west to find the leaders of innovation.A Hardcore Heaven 3 poster from 12 April 1997 (Source: www.sydneyravehistory.com)With rave organisers like Hex Yellow rushing to plug the gaping hole in Sydney nightlife for the darker, harder end of the techno spectrum, Ivan touches on a sense of possibility in our conversation the possibility that we may be entering a post-rave renaissance for gabber, as ownership over techno proliferates. Technos rising popularity means that long-time techno heads are trying to find new outlets that feel more private and personal. Gabber is one of them. Extreme noise and power electronics is another one. Part of this movement includes reclaiming gabber from its deformed cousin, hardstyle a genre that has discarded the relentless drive of hardcore for radio-friendly drops, cheesy samples and nursery-rhyme treble. In 2011, the Italian DJ Gabber Eleganza began to document and archive gabbers positive, early history on Tumblr. In homage to a man who has pushed forward this revival, Hex Yellow has brought Gabber Eleganza to Sydney for a show in June. Even in the very names of this rising generation of hardcore artists Gabber Eleganza, Casual Gabberz, Gabber Modus Operandi you can see the desire to distance hardcore from hardstyle.One music video for Nico Morenos new track Your Bad Company epitomises this expansion of techno into hardcore. Iconic gabber merchandise dominates. Nike Air Maxs, baggy tracksuits, shaved heads, chain necklaces, scrunchies and Energizer Bunny dancing compete for attention alongside a bouncing beat. A sound and subculture once denigrated is now a symbol of popular rebellion.While Australian hardcore artists including Geoff Da Chef and Hedonist still produce and tour (mainly in Europe where their cult following resides), they fly under the radar at home. Ivan rallies against the binary images of dance music fans in Australia. He asserts that hardcore not only deserves a place in Sydneys warehouse, rave scene but that it is particularly suited to these night-time environments.Calmness amid chaos and yanking people from their comfort zones is the goal: With my fourth event, the night grew and grew and grew in intensity. It finished with Tim Gollan playing a hard trance, gabber set. Ive never seen people leave a warehouse party so orderly. Everyone was so tired and exhausted and satisfied. Later, Ivan told me: Sure, house and disco is great during the day but putting it in an industrial space, designed for a rave, at midnight does not at all serve its purpose. What is the function of what youre doing? What is the logic?There is hope that Sydney will embrace more experimental and darker music. The success of Soft Centre a festival in western Sydney combining experimental electronic music, performance art and light installations is just one example. As Ivan explained: There is so much pent-up energy because there are not enough night-time options. When things go right in Sydney, the party can end up being one of the best parties youve been to. Thats on an international scale With the current political and social climate, there is more of a punk attitude in those that didnt necessarily have it before. More extreme music is permissible and negotiable.There is also hope that as the dance music community reclaims hardcore techno, fans, promoters and DJs can rid the genre of its past, toxic masculinity. Women such as Jemma Cole and Alice Joel part of the quartet behind Soft Centre have played a vital role in the local hard dance revival and fostering diversity within it, while on a global scale female producers like Vtss and Helena Hauff have become figureheads for a razor sharp, retro sound.Croy Broodfood, who has released music through Bloody Fist under the monikers Hedonist and Template, notes in an e-mail to me that, while there is not much of a hardcore scene in Australia, he has had a few more gig opportunities lately. There seems to be a renewed interest in those early or classic hardcore/gabber records or people making music in that vein.Many Sydney punters, tiring of techno that no longer feels revolutionary, want to be challenged, mentally and physically. Maybe, just maybe, gabber will return in force. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In an episode of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Danny DeVitos character pretends to be a high society art type named Ongo Gablogian to convince the gallery owner to visit an art exhibition at a bar. He streams into the gallery, pointing at the walls and exclaiming, Bullshit! Bullshit! Derivative! And then he stops and says ThatI love! I absolutely love! To which his companion, the gallery owner replies, Thats just the air conditioner.I want it! Its everything. I mean, look at us. Were just air conditioners. I mean, after all, were just walking around on the planet, breathing, conditioning the air. I condition it hot, that conditions it cold. I mean, its symbiotic! You know? Were just air conditioners, walking around on this planet, screwing each others brains out! he croons. The gallery owner begins nodding intently and says, Thats so true, I never thought of it like that.The world of art prides itself on its exclusivity. You can only appreciate it if youre an insider, otherwise you merely remain curious about it. Yet, even the most prestigious works of art have become public treasures, part of the collective conscious of creative history and human achievement. While we may remain ignorant to the majority of art throughout history, both traditional and modern, there does seem to be a common appreciation of it, even if its only understood in laymans terms. However, the world of contemporary art remains elusive and out of reach.In a few months time, 85 galleries will come to Carriageworks for the 2019 edition of Sydney Contemporary, Australasias International Art Fair. The website advertises the fair as five days of curated exhibitions and ambitious programming that appeals to the serious collector, art lover, and those curious about contemporary art.Since Renaissance times, art has been institutional an aspiring artist would pay to be an apprentice to a master. They would receive patronage for the arts and what they produced had great significance to its time, whether for political statement or an expression of beauty. Apart from this, their aesthetic conception of art emphasised the Greek word techne, meaning craftsmanship or art. Jump forward to modern contemporary art and art isnt as much about beauty or craftsmanship as it is about the idea behind the work. The essentially teleological model of art progression has seemingly ended, where there is now a myriad of highly individual interpretations drawn from various sources, very often beyond art itself, as we know it. Multimedia, installation, and performance art question the very nature of art and much of its meaning is what we give to it, like Danny DeVito as Ongo Gablogian, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, a readymade sculpture of a porcelain urinal, or Rene Magrittes Treachery of Images, a painting of a pipe with the writing below Ceci nest pas une pipe (This is not a pipe). It is art because we say it is. But is this enough? Famed Australian art critic Robert Hughes notoriously despised contemporary art. In his series Shock of the New, he discusses his problem with contemporary art and the significance of art as a whole: I dont think we are ever again obliged to look at a plywood box, or a row of bricks on the floor and think This is the real thing. This is the necessary art of our time. This deserves respect. Because it isnt, and it doesnt, and nobody cares.The fact is, anyone except a child can make such a thing because children have the kind of direct sensuous and complex relationships with the world around them that modernism in its declining years was trying to deny. That relationship is the lost paradise that art wants to give back to us, not as children but as adults. Its also what the modern and the old have in common: Pollock with Turner, Matisse with Rubens, Braques with Poussin.The basic project of art is to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling. And then to close the gap between you and everything that is not you and then to pass from feeling to meaning.Its in this space, where intellectualism and conceptualism take precedence, that the emotional impact of art is lost. Intellectualism and conceptualism is needed for progress in the arts but it is easy to lose sight of meaning in the name of progress. Much of the meaning of art lies in not just what is expressed but how it is expressed the message being in the medium. One of the various purposes of art is to challenge the audience, of course, but if the audience is made to feel they are inferior to understanding contemporary art forms, then we must ponder the new significance of art and to whom it is directed. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Lee Chang-Dongs Burning is, by all accounts, a Korean film. Directed by a Korean director, starring Korean actors, set in Seoul and distributed by a Korean company, it was even selected as South Koreas entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards. All of this is evident in the trailer that played during the ads at the cinema as I sat there with my friend. Despite this, when the words based on Barn Burning by Haruki Murakami appeared across the screen, my friend promptly turned to me and asked why is it Korean if its meant to be Japanese?Burning is one of a handful of Korean productions that have been adapted from foreign narratives, the other notable ones include The Handmaiden and Snowpiercer. Often, these films have been subjected to the same concerns that my friend expressed: the critique that narratives cannot travel across cultures. Park Chan-Wooks The Handmaiden was the topic of frequent debate for its ambitious goal of adapting a lesbian crime novel set in Victorian England, Sarah Waters Fingersmith, into a film set in Japanese-occupied Korea. The reactions to these films expose an underlying pre-conception that we hold about culture, particularly about non-Western narratives, that culture is immutable.But Lees adaptation proves us wrong in this sense. Burning encapsulates and critiques Korean society. At one point the protagonist Jong-Su dejectedly says there are too many Gatsbys in Korea, commenting on the extravagant and wealthy lifestyle of many in Seoul, the product of a rapid capitalist industrialisation, while he travels from his parents country home in a dilapidated truck. At Jong-Sus home, the echoes of North Korean propaganda are constantly heard in the background, amplified from across the nearby border. Even if the story itself is not about Korea, the setting is employed to supplement the human drama that plays out against it.What bars us from considering these cross-cultural shifts in the same way that we conceive of remaking old narratives or translating literature across languages? After all, reading My Brilliant Friend in English and not the original Italian is an instance of reading the text from a different cultural perspective. The film, like the short story, even points to the fact that Barn Burning takes its inspiration and title from a William Faulkner story, adding yet another nations literature to this mlange.The conventional rallying cry of social progressives on non-Western narratives in film has been, up to this point, a call for greater representation on screen. Of course, this is a necessary and positive step in diversifying the social consciousness of audiences and remedying the Euro-centric bias that has pervaded media for centuries. Recent releases such as Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians were huge achievements in this respect, but their reception exposes how we continue to conceive of representation and minority cultures only within the insular borders of their nations.Even in discussing Crazy Rich Asians, I, a Korean-New Zealander, was told I must feel excluded from a narrative which primarily featured Chinese-Singaporean characters, applying limiting labels like a homogenised Asian or a narrowly nationalised Singaporean. I could empathise with Constance Wus portrayal of an immigrant child growing up in a Western country despite our national differences, but these possible connections such as the one between mine and Wus characters narrative are often overlooked. Instead, we default to the connections that fall inside national boundaries, rather than seeing the nuances of how an individuals unique cultural situation could be relevant to a narrative, regardless of nationality.Representation is something that we should continually strive for, but treating representation as the ultimate goal for minority cultures and people of colour bars us from considering cultural complexities that transcend the insular stories contained in representation. Films like Burning supplement this discourse by crossing dogmatic national boundaries, to reveal commonalities across culture. Without actively pursuing these commonalities, the representation of Chinese-Americans in Crazy Rich Asians can easily be seen as a path only for economically elite sectors of Chinese-American culture. This, in turn, risks promoting a tribalistic and counterproductive cultural cinema without constructing any wider cross-cultural empathy.We are a more globalised, diasporic and culturally-mixed audience than cinema has ever reached before. Our current view of representation does not adequately advance minorities beyond the defined boundaries of specific cultures and nations. Taken too far, it risks becoming an anachronism to a global audience which yearns for the acceptance of a truly world cinema. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.Rachmaninoffs words float into my head whenever I am on the train in a thick sea of earbuds and headphones. An otherwise monotonous commute is sporadically broken by music leaking from them. The train is not the only place passionate music lovers thrive. USyds libraries are full of bon vivants listening whilst studying or even whilst watching lecture recordings. For most students, a good Spotify playlist is a must-have for study. But is studying whilst listening to music a WAM killer?The first answer is perhaps unsurprising: Yes, music is distracting and therefore a detriment to your primary task of studying. But this position is far from clear. A deeper examination reveals that music can be a motivator and overall net benefit rather than an interference. With a divisive academic literature, the answer might require examining student opinions on an individual level.I interviewed 23 undergraduate university students of varying ages and degrees to understand why students listen to music whilst studying. Their responses were then categorised into three common answers: students who avoided music whilst studying, students who listened for motivation, and students who listened for inspiration.More than half the interviewees said they never listened to music whilst studying, completely abandoning it on everything from simpler tasks like making notes to more complex cognitive processes like research. Their reasons for avoiding music were diverse, including that music is sleep-inducing, and deep-rooted habits towards silent study. However, what unified all 13 responses was a common belief that music is a distraction, a claim grounded in current academic literature. A 2014 Cardiff Metropolitan University study found that listening to lyrical or instrumental music whilst answering questions produced a poorer performance than completing the questions in silence. With a sample group of 30 students, they identified that background music impaired seriation (serial recall or mental arithmetic) and semantic processing (reading comprehension).For students, listening to music may lower performance when combined with study tasks like note-taking or understanding textbook content. Likewise, Sydney Universitys Counselling and Psychological Services have advised that music whilst studying is a distraction in One day at a time, one of their skills-based workshops.But for some, silence is not golden. Seven interviewees identified music as motivating them to study. In contrast to the non-listeners, music and the physical presence of earphones reduced distractions, preparing them for a study mindset. As one student said, listening to Satie reduces my anger when studying law [which is a trek]. If I didnt listen to him, I wouldnt study law. The musical range was not just limited to classical music. Other interviewees listened to lo-fi, Kpop and Western pop music, reflecting individual preferences. Music preferences plays a big part in elevating mood as discovered by Nantais and Schellenbergs 1999 study on how music affects mood. Testing a sample size of 84, they found exposure to happy music [music that listeners liked] also results in faster speed and greater persistence on various [perceptual, cognitive and motor] tasks. In saying that, the study only used classical music however it remains feasible that these effects could apply to lyrical music. Those findings were reaffirmed in a 2005 study by the University of Windsor which found that music could be a reliable cathartic outlet and improved quality of work and productivity when IT workers were allowed to listen to music whilst working.Lastly, three interviewees revealed that listening to music was a gateway to inspiration. As Jayden explained, listening to instrumental music gives a rhythm to my work and helps me do my creative writing and structure my internal monologue.Different songs make me feel different emotions and I can use those emotions to enhance what Im trying to write, Jayden said.Another student, Jared, said that music helped him time his study blocks. Often piano sonatas are usually 20-30 minutes in length so I can use my music to keep track of time. The University of Windsor study hinted at this dimension where knowledgeable music users knew with certainty which music enhanced their work. A significant correlation was then found between curiosity and positive mood suggesting that listening to music helps align a student with optimum creativity.Your WAM is the product of a combination of psychological factors like concentration, ability and motivation. As it stands, music can improve your creativity and motivation whilst also potentially hindering your concentration and memory. Given the right use, music can be a force for good. Our WAMs may well be grateful for our carefully crafted study playlists. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In early 2001, Chicago-based rock band Wilco finished recording their fourth studio album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. After being dropped from their record label, the band eventually decided to stream the album on their website, on 18 September. Eerily enough, it was originally intended to be released exactly a week before.Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would have been emerged into a world of chaos and unbearable grief. Millions mourned their losses while simultaneously trying to come to terms with the reality of an unprecedented and unexpected loss of life. as well as the shattering of their sense of safety in America. Listening to the album now, it is inexplicable how many of the songs on the album accurately capture these reactions.The records opener, I am trying to break your heart is a subdued piano-led track for the most part, but it gets increasingly off-putting as it progresses. At a melodic level, a sense of disorder arises throughout the song, specifically through the odd embellishments that clash with the mostly placid instrumentals such as the scraping of piano strings, that ultimately leads to an anarchic ending. The unruly atmosphere of this nearly musically incoherent section is overwhelming, much like the globally-felt confusion that grew out of the 9/11 attacks. There are a number of these chaotic passages throughout the album. Poor places builds into a particularly noisy ending, as waves of feedback and radio-like static overpower the serene instrumentation. During the tracks final 90 seconds, a muffled female voice is heard repeating the albums title. The words Yankee, Hotel and Foxtrot are all part of the NATO phonetic alphabet, which is used for numerous contexts involving radio communication one of which, and aptly in this case, being in-flight. Even with that haunting connection disregarded, so many disturbing themes are captured in this finale impending destruction, the decay of a sense of self, feelings of uselessness all of which are characteristic not just the few years that followed the 9/11 attacks, but of the world as we now know it. The nihilistic outlook of it all is perhaps depicted even more precisely through the bleak and fatidic lyric: it makes no difference to me / how they cried all over overseas.Lyrically, there are several other prophetic moments throughout the album. Jesus, etc contains front man Jeff Tweedys eeriest prophecy on the album: Tall buildings shake / Voices escape, singing sad sad songs. When I first heard this album in 2017, this line didnt seem like it could be referring to anything other than the 9/11 attacks. In the context it was released in, its a tragic reminder of the thousands of lives lost that day, and plays into the singers assertion that in these unpredictable times, our love is all we have.Ashes of American Flags is one of the albums most musically melancholic songs, and the lyrics contain some of its most blatant foreshadowing.I wonder why we listen to poets when nobody gives a fuck Tweedy sings, commenting on the futility of the artists abstract attempts to rationalise the world around them when rationality has vanished from the world. Though one of the closing lines, I would like to salute / The ashes of American flags, was probably intended to be read as praise of flag burnings as forms of concrete expression, its meaning would have vastly shifted upon release.Elsewhere on the album are smaller yet just as sure instances of prescience. The title of War on War, which is repeated throughout the song, in a post 9/11 world can be tied to the justifications for the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Pot kettle black calls out the double standard that belies ones critiques of other people. This draws parallels to the hypocrisy of post-9/11 patriotism and togetherness, given the racism directed towards Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Arab and South-Asians by the American government ever since the attacks.Some say a lot of these connections are a stretch, but, Tweedy himself noted the eerie echoes of 9/11 he heard on the album. Each component of the songs on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot had their own meaning well before the post-9/11 world came to be. But the unintentional predictions scattered throughout the album cannot be ignored. Sentiments of loss and confusion that make up so much of the album also define much of the attitudes and emotions that ceded the attacks and that shaped society as we know it today. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Feminist art is intrinsically activist art. While feminism is admittedly a loose term that encompasses a whole range of beliefs about our world and how to change it, all of these definitions involve reshaping the world as it stands to achieve equality of sex and gender. Activism can be just as tricky to pin down is it activist to convince your family to believe in a cause? What about convincing one hundred people, or a thousand? The line between advocacy and activism is blurry, however, activism can be as directly involved as civil disobedience, or as simple as advocating for a cause on any scale. Whilst the term activism might bring to mind protests, petitions, or policy change, these actions at their most basic level are organised and populated by individuals who believe in a cause. Art has the power to change minds and influence beliefs, which is a vital part of building any movement. Therefore, even if an artwork with a political statement does not directly contribute to reform, it must still be considered activist art through its power to bring individuals into an activist movement where they are then able to foster change.The goal of feminist art, according to artist Suzanne Lacy, is to influence cultural attitudes and transform stereotypes. In the 1960s-70s, feminist artists sought to achieve this goal within the context of second-wave feminism by fighting against social and legal inequalities such as discrimination and reproductive rights, which were at the forefront of political conversations of the time. In the style of second-wave feminist action, feminist art of this era often broke out of the context of galleries, which were criticised as restrictive and sexist institutions by many artists, activists, or both in the form of groups such as the Guerilla Girls. Artists operating in and outside of galleries sought to disrupt the status quo through taking political discourse into the public stage, posing questions to audiences to make them reconsider their beliefs. This is seen in the works of Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, artists whose works occupy spaces that vary from alleyways, trucks, and billboards to the ever-present gallery wall. Wherever an artwork exists and is able to be seen, it has the ability to influence people and the way they see the world.The public nature of Holzer and Krugers artworks are key to their effectiveness in achieving their goals, as entering into the public sphere allows artists to more effectively manipulate public discourse. Holzers Truisms series presents huge numbers of confident, high modality statements to its audience without context, prompting viewers to decide for themselves whether they agree or disagree with claims ranging in contentiousness from TORTURE IS BARBARIC and ROMANTIC LOVE WAS INVENTED TO MANIPULATE WOMEN to MURDER HAS ITS SEXUAL SIDE. The series includes claims that are arguably outright contradictory (CHILDREN ARE THE MOST CRUEL OF ALL, CHILDREN ARE THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE) in order to highlight the interpretive responsibility that Holzer places on her audience. Truisms takes care not to value one ideology or statement over another, and by doing so Holzer arguably does not privilege a directly feminist nor activist voice. However, her art reflects feminist activism regardless because of how it brings gender discourse into the public sphere. Holzer herself noted in 1986 that I do want my voice to be heard and, yes, its a womans voice.Whilst Holzers artwork can be found in galleries from Canberra to Zrich, her work comes to life when freed from gallery spaces. She created, for example, condoms with MEN DONT PROTECT YOU ANYMORE printed on them and a San Francisco stadium JumboTRON emblazoned with RAISE BOYS AND GIRLS THE SAME WAY. Holzers Truisms were replicated on shirts, LED signs, tapes, prints, and postcards, replicated for consumption and wider dissemination. Through decontextualising her text from its context, audiences are forced to constantly consider and reconsider the meanings of and our opinions on her truisms, difficult and controversial phrases such as DECENCY IS A RELATIVE THING and ANGER OR HATE CAN BE A USEFUL MOTIVATING FORCE, evaluating them based on context and our own opinions as truths, lies, or art. The highly public and exposed nature of these artworks, alongside their direct and unambiguous textual messages and gendered language make them effective in challenging dominant ideologies. Whilst these works can indeed influence beliefs and attitudes, it remains to be seen whether discourse in and of itself is able to bring about tangible change.Holzers work has become much more explicitly activist in recent years. Through her artwork IT IS GUNS (2018), she projected vivid testimonies and poems against gun violence on the facade of the Rockefeller Center, and with ANTI-GUN TRUCK (2019) she sent trucks across the United States with similar messages displayed on their sides in the wake of mass shootings. These inherently partisan messages against gun violence mark a clear departure from Holzers earlier works that tended to shy away from arguing a singular, sincere message. Holzers Inflammatory Essays (1979-82) presented the idea that YOU GET AMAZING SENSATIONS FROM GUNS. YOU GET RESULTS FROM GUNS, a sentiment that I feel she would be unlikely to replicate today, however abstracted from her own voice.Employing comparable postmodernist practices of public art and textual emphasis is the artwork of Barbara Kruger, whose iconic ouvre has formed a core part of the feminist canon. Contrasting Holzers work, Kruger often does not seek interpretation or dialogue with her audience, rather offering bold accusations against patriarchal systems. This challenge is evident in her 1981 work Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face), directly addressing the audience with a second person possessive pronoun in order to critique the male gaze and objectification of women. This accusatory text is layered over an image of a female bust in profile, strengthening the representation of a gaze through what art historian Patricia Simons describes as averted eye[s] and [a] face open to scrutiny. The use of a bust specifically creates a link between Krugers criticisms and the context of the art world.However, Kruger was concerned with more than the high art world, and made a foray into the world of public art with the creation of a silkscreen print Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) for use on a poster for the 1989 Womens March on Washington. The Womens March on Washington was a march in favour of reproductive health rights, with Roe v Wade and thus a womans right to abortion at risk of being overturned. The work depicts a black and white image of a womans face with the right half inverted, overlaid with the text YOUR BODY IS A BATTLEGROUND. The duality contained within the work through its split into left and right, positive and negative, emphasises the harsh reality of what is at stake womens bodily autonomy. Krugers work, through a combination of dominant text, high-contrast photography and public engagement, allow for her work to be highly effective in influencing public discourse on gender politics and feminism.However, we again have to ask ourselves how these artists and artworks contribute to an activist project. Each artist has been involved with radical art groups Holzer with Colab and Kruger with Artists Meeting for Cultural Change that advocated for cultural change and against issues such as Reaganism, racism, and gentrification. They achieved their goals not only through exhibiting shows in galleries or independently, but directly organising protests and boycotts and distributing resources.We must examine both Kruger and Holzers works through their direct and indirect engagement with political systems. Krugers contribution to the March on Washington is a direct engagement with policy change, but it is not fair to judge that as any more effective praxis than her criticisms of the male gaze, or her world-famous anti-capitalist works seen by millions in galleries. In regards to Holzer, we cannot say that wheat pasting her morally unaligned Truisms around New York is any less effective in inspiring change than her anti-gun trucks. Quantifying the impact of art is difficult, if not impossible. Reaching someone with socially engaged art whether within a gallery, on the streets or at a protest is valuable to activist movements, because it brings people into activist spaces by spreading awareness about the issues.Creating great activist art isnt necessarily about organising a campaign or a march, it can be as simple and accessible as convincing someone that a cause is worth fighting for. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Im seven years old. Im sitting on the floor reading a book and Grandpa is sitting on the couch, watching a Chinese opera show on our dusty box television set. The women, animated in grainy pixels, sing in keening, high pitched voices. They enchant me in their ornate gowns with flowing gossamer sleeves, their faces painted in pale white, their eyes and cheekbones dusted in scarlet rouge.Its time to get ready for school, and Grandma beckons me over. Hurry, Zizi, she calls to me in Cantonese, Its nearly 8 oclock. As I scramble to sit cross-legged on the floor at her feet, I tell her I want my hair to look like the opera maidens on the TV. Their hair is piled on their heads in elaborate braids and buns, topped with glimmering gold embellishments. They look like goddesses, I think.Grandma laughs as she brushes my hair with a pink plastic comb. We murmur to each other about the upcoming day. Her brushwork is gentle; she coaxes out every snag, every knot with precision. Zizi, your hair is so beautiful, she tells me, pinching my cheek affectionately. As Grandmas fingers weave deftly in and out of my hair, I think that my hair feels like silk. I tell her this as I turn back to the TV. She laughs, her breath tickling my ear.My little silkworm.******The songs of the opera still ring through my head, reminding me of nimble fingers and braids on a quiet school morning. Though it has been many years since Ive last seen a Chinese opera, the art form has recently revisited me in dreams.Chinese opera is a form of musical theatre with a long and intricate history, and one that has branched out into several incarnations, combining various Ancient Chinese art forms such as song and dance, martial arts, acrobatics, costume, makeup and literature to become a diverse, stunning form of theatre. While Peking opera is the most celebrated incarnation of this theatre, Cantonese opera was always a favourite of my Grandparents. There are two types of Cantonese opera; Mou and Man. Whilst Mou focuses more on martial elements, Man on the other hand is a gentler, more elegant opera; long lengths of silk known as water sleeves are used extensively in Man plays to produce flowing movements. With the tumbling movements of the acrobats, the gleam of an unsheathed blade, the ribbon-like movement of the water sleeves, it is no wonder that I thought the actresses to be goddesses.I loved to watch Chinese opera because it was a way for me to connect with my grandparents, and reach across that great, bottomless intergenerational rift. They would sit me down and patiently explain the roles of the characters, the story, and the meaning behind it. It had long been Grandmas great sorrow that I had never learned to read or write in Chinese, and so she was always overjoyed that I wanted to sit and watch the opera with her.Once I admitted my obsession with the operatic hairstyles to my Grandma. I could not tear my eyes away from the character of the young maiden, whose braids formed a delicate lattice that floated above a low bun, and Id squeal with glee and clutch at Grandmas sleeves whenever the fairies, who wore their hair long and loose, appeared onstage. I want to look beautiful like them, I would say. Youre already the most beautiful girl in my eyes, she would reply, stroking my hair tenderly.When I remember these affirmations, I am moved to think about hair as a site of political discourse, particularly when discussing the pervasiveness of patriarchy and decolonising beauty. Women of colour are told to have less, have it differently, have it longer, have it in a certain colour, in a certain style; and this is only in the most explicit sense. The hidden, subtle ways in which Western beauty standards invade our subconscious is even more nefarious, because whiteness poisons everything. It is everywhere in this world built on the ruinous legacy of colonialism.I was looking through some old photo albums with my grandparents the other day when we came across a photograph of me at eight or nine years old, sitting on the floor with my younger brother and my older cousin at some family gathering. My brother has stolen my cousins sunglasses, but they are too big for his toddler head and make him look like a beetle. Im staring into the camera, a gremlin-like expression on my face and a cheap plastic tiara on my head. The tiara pins a stretch of canary-yellow tulle to my head, a far stretch from the blonde colour that I had hoped to imitate.I have no memory of this party, or of this photo being taken, but even still I was filled with an unspeakable sorrow. I was a child who lived with one foot in my daydreams, and yet I could not imagine myself as a princess with dark Chinese hair.The fact that Ive been ensnared by this particular memory feels a little bit silly; undoubtedly, it is rooted in a generic sense of diaspora angst that many of my coloured friends know well. This incident is by no means the greatest injustice ever wrought by colonialism and whiteness. Yet, I cannot express the hurt that I feel as I rewind this memory over and over in my mind. It starts to make my fingertips ache.I dont know when I started idolising Rapunzel and Goldilocks and stopped dreaming of the water-sleeved women of Chinese opera.The contempt for non-whiteness begins like a dull ache; it begins with beauty standards and evolves into an amorphous, poisonous hate for my non-whiteness, for heritage in the colour of my hair. It took me a long time to realise that the ache was there; it became a part of me. Nowadays, I try not to think about the ache, but I know its always there; so, I cling to the fond memories of my childhood. They stick out like so many glittering islands littering the horizon, and I am a sailor lost at sea.I think that its important that we work to decolonise our bodies and our minds as we work towards a more literal decolonisation of the world. We must weed out whiteness stem and root, in every corner that it resides, because I cannot accept a world where non-white children are raised to believe that they are not enough.Looking back, the ritual of hair became a practice of love, self-care and a site of intergenerational connection for Grandma and I. With every criss-cross of the strands, she wove her love into my hair. I wish that I had those brief moments of quiet every morning, feeling her fingers run through my hair. Though fleeting, the minutes spent cross-legged on the floor, my Grandma and I whispering in each others confidence made me feel whole.******Im seven years old. Im getting off the school bus. In the distance, I see a shock of silver hair; its Grandma stepping out onto the nature strip in front of our house. She is laughing and waving at me. Clutching my school bag, I run across the road, down the grassy knoll. I run towards home, braids flying behind me like water sleeves in the wind. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In every Studio Ghibli film runs an undercurrent of socialist ideology. It is not the most perfect utterance of such ideology, nor the most complete. But it is aesthetically beautiful, emotionally engaging and extremely popular. Where it is most compelling (and most obvious) are in films concerned with the environment Princess Mononoke (2001) and Pom Poko (1994) in particular.Princess Mononoke and Pom Poko are for older fans of Ghibli, bleaker than the much beloved Totoro or Howls Moving Castle (though not nearly as bleak as Grave of the Fireflies, which is the source of much trauma). Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata respectively, they are remarkable for the way in which they establish environmentalism and workers rights as inextricably linked, or at the very least able to be understood in tandem with one another.This is most poignantly represented in the sympathetic treatment of worker characters in Mononoke. As the human and natural worlds come into conflict, we are encouraged to view the human characters of a mining settlement (Irontown) with empathy, even as their actions cause further harm to the nearby forest, and the gods and animals that dwell within.Our understanding reflects that of Ashitakas, an Emishi prince seeking a cure within the forest for his cursed arm. The earliest scenes of the film, where Ashitaka witnesses the massacre of a village as he tracks the origin of his curse to Irontown, informs our knowledge of the world that Irontown is embedded in. Their actions are easily understood in the context of this world, where their material conditions leave them little choice than to mine iron and produce weapons for the ominous #girlboss figure of Lady Eboshi.Lady Eboshi is revered by her workers, particularly the women, and this too is understandable. The women of irontown, liberated by Eboshi from their positions as sex slaves, find comfort and safety within the walls of irontown, even as they work extreme hours of manual labour for their new master. So too do the lepers that construct weapons for the lady, and the men that occupy positions within her armed guard. Though their work frequently places them at risk of physical and moral harm, the film does not assign fault to them on an individual level, rather seeing them as victims of the same forces of militarist violence (which can easily be analogised to colonial capitalism even if unintended) that drives the desecration of sacred land.Eboshi herself is a strangely sympathetic figure, seemingly motivated by both a desire for wealth and power and, at times, out of genuine concern for the workers of Irontown. Though this seems a contradiction of the socialist ethos of the film, it actually furthers it rather than directing fault at the individual, we are encouraged to view the oppressive system they act within as the ultimate enemy.Interestingly, not all human characters are afforded the same clemency, specifically the soldiers and mercenaries that enact violence upon villagers and the forest. These characters act as agents of the same system as Eboshi, and though they arent exactly sympathetic characters, none assume the role of a singular antagonist either. Jiko Bo, who seeks to decapitate the spirit of the forest and sell its head to the emperor, is perhaps the closest thing to an antagonist within Princess Mononoke but even he is acting to serve a greater, institutional evil.Pom Poko is similar in this respect, with no real singular antagonist within the narrative of the film. It too is about conflict between the human and natural worlds, as a development outside Tokyo clears masses of the forest that a number of shapeshifting tanuki (raccoon dogs) call home. In Pom Poko, it is very clear that the ultimate enemy is the New Tama development, not the humans that live and work there.Its the more explicitly political of the two films, and easier to understand as such, being set in the late 1990s. As human settlement further encroaches on their habitat, the tanuki stage a resistance effort not unlike those performed by environmental activists in real life. Using their shape-shifting powers, they carry out a series of operations to halt the development, culminating in a grand haunting of the nearby human settlement that is ultimately unsuccessful.Throughout the film, individual humans are portrayed as foolish and ignorant, rather than as malicious. Too distracted by the realities of modern life, they have forgotten the significance of the environment around them, with much of the tanukis strategy relying on reminding them of its importance (and also scaring them away). Though the tanuki take great delight in terrorising the humans working and living in the development through their pranks and hauntings, they express great remorse when three humans are killed in an early action and focus their efforts on non-violence thereafter.The Tanuki certainly resent the humans for the effects of their actions on their lives, but again, never in an individual sense they seem to understand that there is a greater force at play. By benefit of Pom Poko being set in its contemporary context, its much more obvious to audiences that this greater force is in fact capitalism, and that the Tanuki are conducting something of an anti-capitalist uprising.Pom Poko is one of the more radical releases from Ghibli, as well as (in this writers humble opinion) one of the most entertaining. Its anti-capitalist undertones are aided by its humour, as well as the fact that it is, for want of a better phrase, extremely wacky. The anti-capitalism of Pom Poko isnt even an undertone, per se the politics of the film are on display for all to engage with, forming a central part of the narrative.This is not to say that Pom Poko and Princess Mononoke are politically perfect far from it. Both are infected with the hint of liberalism that plagues all of Ghibli, as well as by Hayao Miyazakis own pacifist politics. They are also limited in some respects by their pessimistic outlook. Though both films end on something of a positive note the forest regrows, the tanuki survive there is so much compromise involved that it hardly feels that way at all. Surely, in a world where demons and gods live among mankind, we can imagine that things wont always be terrible?Really, Pom Poko and Princess Mononoke neednt be politically perfect. As far as media go, they remain an important tool in imparting some modicum of socialist values to those that watch them, which is good enough for me. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Spring arrives quietly but surely, hints of its presence collecting gently on the body and the senses. I notice it one night with T after a sunny late-August day, goose bumps not rising on our arms in the balmy air. I move house and walk home often, breathing deep in new space, and am aware of all the tree smells, musky and sweet and swirling. Outside the cafe where I work, pollen begins to rain down from huge trees yawning over the footpath, falls in coffees and adorns hair; small puffed accessories.Everyone I know creates spring-themed playlists on Spotify when September begins. While listening to my own, I watch the right-hand side of my screen, white text in motion informing me of my friends listening activity. A, Sevdaliza, 7 hours ago; C, Maggie Rogers, now.Along with the weather comes a sense of possibility despite a world of exposed breaks and fractures. I speak to M on the phone and we talk about intentions. Get shit done while having fun, I frame it at one point. The trees, outlined in sharp relief against a pale sky, seem to urge us on.To be outside in September is to be in constant interaction with all its sensory gifts. What does it mean to take pleasure in this on unceded land? Pleasure becomes a voracious form of consumption, hand in hand with a wider settler-colonial project of environmental injustice. Isnt it the nature of the settler state to consume too much, never be satiated, eat good on stolen land smile with a blood mouth? Seasonal shifts hold violence spring itself a colonial construct better described on Dharawal Land as cool weather becoming warm; Ngoonungi. How might settlers replicate this violence, breathing in heady on jasmine-scented streets?For those of us who are people of colour, theres a specific tension to finding pleasure in physical space that is often alienating. When I ask my PoC friends about their definition of home living in Australia, they reply that this land is intimate to them but lacks comfort; that in response to the displacement they frequently feel moving through white spaces, they have come to see home in feelings and people more than their physical environment.I often feel similarly. This is a country that denies justice to Tanya Day and Tane Chatfield; that has overseen 445 and counting First Nations deaths in custody since 1991. Its one built on a death-making apparatus of carceral punishment, detention and colonialism; it blinks twice and calls it justice. Wishing to disavow connection with the violence of Australias institutional infrastructure, I dream of alternate futures, ones that sometimes do away with physicality all together.And yet: I walk outside, and air rises fragrant in my nostrils, sky sizzles pink-orange at dusk, ocean glimmers hard crystals in the first cold dip of the season. This land keeps stretching and breathing, sharply beautiful. With pleasure comes accountability. PoC cant afford to turn away.In her 1992 novel Jazz, Toni Morrison describes the arrival of spring in the City, a 1920s Harlem: And when spring comes to the City people notice one another in the road; notice the strangers with whom they share aisles and tables and the space where intimate garments are laundered. Going in and out, in and out the same door, they handle the handle; on trolleys and park benches they settle thighs on a seat in which hundreds have done it too.Reading Jazz as the weather slowly warms, I savour Morrisons prose; full of small thrilling images that bubble up just like the world around me. As a writer, Morrison embeds the full scope of life in the specificity of the City. She notices that daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half; pays attention to how the right tune whistled in a doorway or lifting up from the circles and grooves of a record can change the weather. From freezing to hot to cool.Jazz is also full of grieving, aching people who act in cruel and unforgivable ways. Morrison turns her gaze on them and says, here they are, and here they are in this city, that keeps moving, through seasons and through time.Toni Morrisons writing is an act of bearing witness to the world in its fullness, both mundane and in-motion. Drawing on Morrison, Christina Sharpe writes of residence time: the residues of black bodies, trauma and ancestry continuing to cycle in the ocean. In all of Morrisons novels, time is indeed oceanic: an always-moving presence, constantly doubling back on itself, drawing the past and future multi-directionally into the present.Isnt this speculative and imaginative, precisely in its groundedness? In bearing witness to small and immediate environments, Morrison allows the creation of new worlds to crystallise in moments that we might not normally notice. She shows us that new worlds are always just below the surface; maybe one simply has to look.Being a witness as Toni Morrison offers is one way PoC settlers might engage meaningfully with living on and loving unceded land. Astrida Neimanis, whose speculative environmental feminism class I was lucky to take in 2019, tells me about care and attention as ways for settlers to contend with both pleasure and harm as operating on this land.To deeply care is to hold space for the imperfections and violences of a place: finding beauty in the ruins of the world, but still having accountability for the damages weve caused, Astrida frames it. Why wouldnt it be pleasurable and joyful to have close and meaningful relationships with bodies that arent perfect, or arent healthy, in the ways that were taught? Its a question that brings harm and beauty close, knowing that new textures spring up where they touch.Right now, queer and PoC co-conspirators are thinking deeply about how to use this moment to break open new worlds and possibilities. But a future-oriented politics doesnt occur in an online vacuum or in our heads. And burning racial capitalism to the ground will happen on just that sacred, physical, ground. Settlers with investment in both this land and in building a better world need to think about who and what we are listening to as we get organised.A politics of witnessing isnt an invitation to passivity, to let harm occur and watch on. Instead, its an opportunity for settlers to engage with unsettlement as Michael Farrell writes, unsettlement is a verb, a thing that is done. Unsettling becomes a process of slowing down, stepping back, and localising specific environments for which to care and fight for.In so-called Australia, ecological poetics ecopoetics extends the links between unsettling and witnessing through the locus of language and art. Ecopoetics positions language as inextricable from the intricacies of the physical and more-than-human. In the introductory description to the Sydney Environment Institutes 2019 symposium Unsettling Ecological Poetics, language is an always-actor in and on the world: More than merely transcribing the world, [languages and literature] collaborate with it in the makings of meaning [which] shift, shudder, and shatterIn embracing the instability of language, ecopoetry points to new futures from a localised place of witnessing. Anne Elvey describes ecopoetry as a process of engagement, a responsive poetry-in-becoming, a poetry-to-come. This reminds me of Jos Esteban Muoz, who writes on queerness as not yet here; while the here and now is a prison house, he urges the imaginative summoning of a then and there.Could an orientation towards then and there centre witnessing as a way to coalesce harm and pleasure into a collective project of transformative care? Could writing and art open such a collective witnessing that, in unsettling, becomes a world-building strategy?As I live and love and create on unceded Gadigal Land, Ill bear witness; keeping still enough to catch Muozs then and there glimmering in the small contours of the everyday, catching the light, again and again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> After the Beirut explosion in August, my friend L made an Instagram story observing how grief and trauma in marginalised communities and developing nations lasts far longer generations, eventhan the support and attention that is often paid by the Global North. I believe we cannot always bear the blame of our own ignorance but Ls post resonated with me, especially in the context of social media and how we try to use it to craft a tool for caring and community.I was reminded of Rob Dixons idea of slow violence, which I described in an Honi article last year as the normalisation of incremental violence and trauma in the absence of immediate horror and critical shock value that usually compels sympathy and brief action. Dixon writes within the context of environmental and climate catastrophe but race and technology are inextricably linked here, too. Without an immediate object of spectacle, the attention paid on social and public media is selective and often quite niche.168Spectacle is a necessary condition for white supremacy. When it does not manifest in covert forms, white supremacy is the most emphatic and twisted stage show of all. As Ashlee Marie Preston writes, the consumption of Black pain is as American as apple pie sharing images of Black death on social media wont save Black lives. Various US news reports of George Floyds arrest and murder in Minneapolis are archived on Youtube, ranging from 100 thousand to over 2 million views. With traditional television news subsumed into social media practices (and vice versa), footage of Floyds murder was inevitably threaded globally into millions of feeds, including my own. This happened immediately, alongside the massive uptick of Black Lives Matter and allyship social media posts by non-Black people. But anti-racism does not require the reproduction of Bla(c)k trauma. This especially includes visual reproductions. Henry Giroux describes this as the neolibral dystopian dream machine where war, violence, and politics have taken on a new disturbing form of urgency within image-based cultures.171Social media mandates spectral power through the way it continues to favour instant reactions, gratification and share-ability. Here, Liat Berdugo explains that spectral is as in spectrum the field of colour as wavelengths of visible light but also specter, or ghost the haunting that so often occurs when conflicts are visually recorded, and when recordings of violence, death, and ordinary complicity can be replayed, recirculated, relived, republished, haunting us as they search for a reckoning. How can we hold space for those holding hurt and trauma if we render everything a spectacle? What does it mean to be a witness via the digital sphere?108According to Lisa Nakamura, the digital sublime is created when technologies [are] mythologised as both convenient and infallible. We expect the infrastructure of the internet to be perfect or at least optimised. When our initial reactions to seeing harm and violence on the internet are negative, the digital sublime is the way this expectation spurs us towards neutralisation and normalisation, towards feeling better about the questionable ways we as a society use technology. In Franny Chois poem Catastrophe is Next to Godliness, she confesses I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. / Like Everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in, / I want an excuse to change my life. The clarity but not the catastrophe itself. It is this want for incandescence and lucidity, in the face of chaos and collapse, that seems to linger a scroll or a tap away. And when the chase for clarity over a certain event or issue becomes irrelevant, so many just move speedily onto the next thing, abandoning our responsibility to those who encounter violence. This is not sustainable and it is not, for so many of us, survivable.191Legacy Russells cyberfeminist manifesto Glitch Feminism suggests that the glitch the malfunction and mistiming of technology pushes back against the speed at which images of Black bodies and queer bodies are consumed online. The glitch is a spatial-temporal disruption that acts as an intermediary allowing for visions of joy and plenitude, beyond mere survival, to rush in. It rejects, in the words of Doreen Massey, the internalisation of the system that can potentially corrode our ability to imagine that things could be otherwise. Forming a feminism around this idea critically expands upon cyberfeminism and Black feminisms in the context of rejecting codes, rejecting binaries and interrogating visibility in society. Abolitionist in tone and practice, Russell says that the broader goal of glitch feminism is to recognise that bodies not intended to survive and exist across these current systems are the ones that will push this world to its breaking point. And thats a good thing.Recently, Ive been trying to be more intentional with what I share online, reminding myself that because the border between online and offline is now beyond blurred, ongoing care for the people and communities I love is a process that now expands onto the internet. There is productivity, and then there is pause. Anti-racism requires both from us, urgently, but then again, do take your time. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When you typically think of astrology today, the image of you excitedly flipping through the newspaper to check your daily horoscope pops up in your head. Surprisingly, astrologys rich history dates back to centuries ago across cultures and is not restricted to the millennial zodiac sign frenzy that we are acquainted with. Religious cultures are integral to the world of astrology. In particular, astrology has for a long time held an important place in Islamic history and culture.Whilst opinions differ amongst Muslim scholars whether it is a haram (forbidden) practice or not, astrology has without doubt historically played a prominent role in the Islamic tradition going all the way back to the Islamic Golden Age (800-1258 CE).During the Golden Age, both astronomy and astrology dominated much of intellectual, political, and cultural life for medieval Muslims. Early Muslims relied on celestial bodies such as the Sun and the Moon to accurately calculate the time and direction of Mecca, determine sunrise and sunset for fasting in Ramadan, and sight the phases of the moon to mark the beginning of a new month. The practice of astronomy and astrology spanned continents, drawing on ancient Greek, Indian, and Persian traditions that influenced Arabs and Muslims. Astrological doctrines such as horoscopes, zodiacal elements, and planetary influences derived from the Hellenistic astrological tradition, while the other aspects, like the cyclical guidance of universal world events, derived from India and Persia.Zodiac symbols and constellations were represented by animals in Hellenistic astrology. Islamic astronomers followed this tradition, using the same symbols, signs, and order of the zodiac signs. Muslim astronomers referred to the zodiac cycles as falak al-buruj or dairat al-buruj, both meaning zodiacal sphere. Similar to Greek astrology, Islamic astrology was less concerned with the signs themselves and more with the particular planets that ruled them, with each sign representing a different element and energy.Astrology took hold in early Islamic society, particularly during the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. It was especially revered in Shiite religious circles where, according to Ibn Tawus, it was protected. Astrology was then perceived as a tool of foreign sciences that had made its way to the Islamic sphere through the Translation Movement and contact with the heirs of the Byzantine and Persian empire. The Translation Movement involved sustained and systematic efforts to translate secular Greek texts into Arabic during the Abbasid era and was specifically known as the Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement for this reason. As a result, astrology was seen as an avenue to attack the imported foreign sciences and philosophies. Later on, however, Orthodox strains of Islam would interpret astrology to be associated with Shiism, foreign sciences, or atheism.Many nobles, including caliphs, throughout the Islamic world employed court astrologers to help rulers make strategic and important decisions or even foretell the future of their kingdom. Baghdad was founded in 762 upon advice from astrologers employed under the second caliph al-Mansur. One influential astrologer was Abu Mashar who, as Hilary Carey writes, adapted classical Aristotlian theories of change, growth and decay in the natural world to provide a powerful validating philosophy for the theory of celestial influence. Abu Mashar wrote over 40 works, including authoritative accounts of all the major branches of astrology. Astrology was also linked to medical stalwarts such as Ibn Sina, who used astrology as a part of his medical practices.Zodiac symbols were even depicted on art and objects from the 12th to 17th centuries, further reflecting their importance to Islamic culture. Tessa Sarr writes, This development and integration through art can be seen growing and changing through uses of figural representations, content of inscriptions, overall composition, and intended uses of the objects. One example was metalworks, which would reference texts, stories, and manuscripts from many periods of Islamic history.Mysticism and superstition are nothing new amongst many predominantly Islamic cultures. For instance, coffee cup readings are a common practice amongst the Arab world, while Nazar (the eye amulet) and the Hamsa (also known as the Hand of Fatima) are still worn today to ward off the evil eye. Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism which encourages introspection, ascension and developing a spiritual relationship with Allah. It is highly known for its mystical practices through poetry, romantic religious texts, rituals, and doctrines. Many Sufi works romanticise God by constantly invoking Him in their works. For example, the famous Persian poet Jallaludin al-Rumi constantly invoked Allah and the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in his poetry, presenting his connnection to God as divinealmost romantic.Unfortunately, information about the continuation of astrological practice today amongst Muslim societies is lacking. We can assume that it is not practiced as widely anymore due to its controversial position in Islamic theology and its interpretations. However, there is no doubt that it once had a significant place in Islamic societies, including amongst the Christian and Jewish segments living in the medieval Middle East, despite their ideological differences. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Psychosis is used to describe conditions that affect your mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality. When someone becomes ill in this way, it is called a psychotic episode. Psychotic episodes may cause incoherent speech, frenzied thinking, and delusions. It has also become a common trope in horror films.In August of last year, I experienced a psychotic episode. For hours, I varied between being manic with frenzied thoughts and slumping into a sleep-like state. Coming out of it, I became all-too aware of how strange my actions had been, and how I had lost control of my body during the ordeal.I was also scared at the fact that I had exhibited actions I had previously only seen on-screen. Amidst my attempt to grasp reality, I struggled with the thought that I had imitated behaviours so bound up with the horror genre.A study into the portrayal of psychosis and mental health care environments in horror films explores this common cinematic trope. Using the terms mental/psychiatric patient, psychosis/psychoses, and mental/psychiatric hospital on various film forums revealed 55 films (2000 2012), which the study then analysed for findings.It was found that a twist in the plot often involves the protagonists discovering their tormentors are in fact themselves in another form. This sensationalises psychosis; according to Goodwin, the studys author, in almost 70% of these movies, characters are labeled inappropriately as having a split personality, which is not a form of psychosis. Glass and mirrors are used to highlight their fragile nature, and to emphasize their otherness.This otherness is a feeling that I know too well, and one that has plagued me ever since my experience. I still vividly remember staring into my reflection in the mirror in a state of dissociation, terrified by how I was acting. It didnt help that this was echoed in these films, which as Goodwin points out, frequently feature the individual experiencing psychosis looking into a shattered mirror or glass object, rendering them incomplete, and highlighting the otherness, the monster-like qualities.In those scary moments, I found myself afraid of myself and this otherness, the monster-like qualities I was exhibiting. What was happening to me? I felt so crazy and unhinged I felt like I wasnt myself but a split version of me.Looking back, I realise that such thoughts stemmed from my perception of psychosis, which was largely influenced by its portrayal within popular culture and film. At this point, I have to the question: Is the shock value of psychosis in horror film really worth the stigmatising effect it has on people who actively experience it in reality?This isnt confined to psychosis, but also the stigmatising effect horror films have on mental health care environments. Even after experiencing a psychotic episode, I was adamantly against being admitted into a psychiatric hospital. It was only when I experienced a panic attack in public that I was involuntarily admitted.Goodwins study further revealed that about half of the films which feature mental health care environments feature environments that are either haunted or deal with supernatural elements, [relating] to the ancient idea of people being damned with mental ill health, painting them as either a modern incarnation of the devil, or as products of the devilWith such negative portrayals in the media, it is little wonder that mental health care environments are so stigmatised. While they certainly arent perfect, psychiatric wards differ significantly from their cinematic counterparts. The depiction of these places as spaces for the supernatural and psychopathic killers to wander make the experience of being in a psychiatric ward all the more alienating.So, what can we do to combat this stigmatisation? As such an established horror trope, its unlikely that such portrayals will disappear from such films. Additionally, horror films dont always have a negative effect on the portrayal of mental health its the act of treating it as the supernatural, the wild unknown, which contributes to the stigma. Perhaps if horror films sympathised more with those experiencing mental illness, rather than portraying them as unknowable villains, the story would be very different.The portrayal of mental health on the big screen has improved in recent years, with films such as The Silver Linings Playbook revolving around a protagonist with bipolar disorder. This allows audiences to sympathise and empathise with those with mental illness, relating to them rather than being scared of them. The depiction of mental illness within a heart-warming love story contributes to a normalisation of psychological disorders. Its something that I hope to see more in film as society becomes more familiar and comfortable with discussions around mental health and psychosis. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Constellations, written by Nick Payne, is an ode to possibility. The first SUDS show since March, the play directed by Declan Coyle and assistant directed by Pratha Nagpal explores the hundreds of ways in which life could turn out for Marianne and Roland, played by Zoe Clarke and Stuart Robinson.With social distancing measures capping The Cellar Theatres audience at fifteen, the space looked bigger and emptier than I had ever seen it. Emily Brophys set design transformed the theatres black walls into the backdrop of a galaxy, wonderfully blending glitter and minimalistic colours together.Sam Chengs sound design was essential, the music sometimes being the only clear distinguishment of a break between scenes. Chengs design substituted for the grounding in physical space the abstract set failed to provide, the immersive experience creating the illusions of crowded parks and bustling dance studios. Sophie Morrisseys lighting design was also commendable, with distinct colour palettes potraying the highs of excitement and lows of chronic illness.The script in itself is vulnerable. The play made me long for the comforting awkwardness of first conversations, ache for the accustomed unfamiliarity of a broken heart, and grieve for the helplessness one feels when faced with an unchangeable circumstance. Clarke and Robinson portrayed two lovers in infinite universes, with short scenes showcasing how life would have played out if one thing had been different. The repetition and snippets of conversations played out like an overthinkers bedtime ritual, with quick and witty dialogue instantly turning to screaming and despair.However, parts of the play that could have been truly devastating occasionally fell flat due to Robinsons lack of expression. Clarkes Marianne was energetic, but slightly inarticulate at times. Surprisingly, the scenes that were deliberately awkward were my favourite Clarkes incredulous expressions hilariously playing off Robinsons clumsy delivery.But there were certain moments whose brilliance stood out, moments that were painfully human when Roland was unable to distinguish between anger and insecurity, when Marianne sat on the floor and shook with the terror of facing her own mortality; when both of them, together, live out all of their lives in the span of an hour.A show focusing so heavily on two characters and the infinite possibilities they could have encountered during the course of their lifetime is difficult to get right. There were often times where I found the sequence of scenes to be incoherent, which was to be expected in a show so heavily focused on infinitesimal changes creating worlds of difference. But this is not to draw focus from all the things the show accomplished. In many scenes, Clarke and Robinson expertly conveyed the processing of complex emotions, such as those that come in the aftermath of an intense argument with a partner, emphasising the unexpected things we find ourselves fixating on.Constellations is about parallel universes, about people who end up in each others lives no matter what, about every what-if that two people could ever wonder about. Despite its infrequent missteps, SUDS production is an engaging and intriguing work of student theatre.Constellations will be running at the Cellar Theatre until October 24th. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As weve all spent the year sitting in our living rooms mourning the loss of simpler times, TV has served dual purposes: either as escapism to show us that not everything is terrible; or as a lovely reminder that everything is, indeed, terrible, thank you very much. Somewhere at a strange intersection between these purposes is FXs historical drama Mrs America, which dramatises the political battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the US during the 70s. The affirmative side of the debate is explored through the political activity of second-wave feminists, especially the impossibly cool Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne). Meanwhile, the conservative opposition to the amendment is mainly expressed through the character of Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett), an especially active anti-ERA activist and founder of the conservative group Eagle Forum.Mrs Americas combination of stellar performances, uplifting feminist rhetoric and a gorgeous 70s aesthetic drew critical acclaim upon its release. But amidst this praise (and a claim of historical inaccuracy by Gloria Steinem herself), came social media backlash concerning the character of Phyllis Schlafly. Many viewers felt that the emphasis placed on Schlaflys storyline, in some cases over the feminist activists she opposed, humanised her so much that she was likely to be considered a sympathetic character or an antihero by viewers. By extension of this, Schlaflys perspective was explored somewhat more thoroughly, giving her and her anti-feminist, conservative ideas an undue platform.It is true that, amongst its criticisms of her ideology, Mrs America makes a point of humanising Phyllis Schlafly, who remained a prominent conservative political figure in America until her death in 2016 (before which she published a book called The Conservative Case for Trump.). Cate Blanchetts performance is incredible, but her presence does lend Schlafly a certain campy, glamorous quality, so much so that her pastel suits and sculpted blonde hair seem almost fabulous instead of stuffy and uptight. Subtle shots of Schlaflys discomfort listening to male politicians sexualise their secretaries, or her simmering resentment of her husbands constant undermining of her ambition, also show her as being on an equal footing to her feminist counterparts. That is, as being a woman who is not so exceptional that she is immune to misogyny, no matter how much she tries to deny it. In many ways, it is valid to criticise this humanisation of a figure who opposed the very idea of women having equal rights to men, especially considering that the ERA was never ratified at least in part due to the vehement opposition of Schlafly and her associates.But is the humanisation of Phyllis Schlafly ultimately a bad thing? The main types that represent conservatives are usually reduced to the gun-toting redneck, the timid housewife, the arrogant male politician, all of whom are considered by many to be some combination of ignorant, uneducated and stupid. As much as she is undoubtedly ignorant, Schlaflys almost inconspicuous persona as a college educated, intelligent housewife contrasts the representation of these archetypes throughout the show. It is exactly this complexity in her character that made her such a formidable political figure, who could go from persuading housewives at the hair salon that the ERA would make their daughters eligible for the draft to a meeting room in the White House on the same day. The representation of such a unique conservative figure as being a human being instead of a soulless, ruthless monster should remind viewers that sometimes the most crazy, gun-loving, rights-denying conservatives are the nice middle aged lady living down the street.Mrs Americas portrayal of Phyllis Schlaflys suffering under the patriarchy despite her best efforts to reinforce it also represents the universality of misogyny. The viewers insights into Schlaflys personal life reveal her hunger for political power, using the anti-ERA campaign as her vehicle into Cold War politics. Throughout the show, the audience watches her smile through meetings with senators where she is mistaken for a secretary, walk in bikini pageants as Mrs Fred Schlafly, and be continuously repressed by her husband. But at the end of the last episode, shes sitting alone in her kitchen, having lost her political dreams, peeling apples to make an apple pie. As Elizabeth Banks character Jill Ruckelshaus said: you wanna get ahead climbing on the shoulders of men? Fine. Just know theyre looking up your skirt. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Shaun Parker & Companys In The Zone is a hypnotic piece of solo dance theatre that marks a triumphant return of live performance to the Seymour Centre. Sydneys first live major dance performance since pre-lockdown, In The Zone paves the way for the revival of the performing arts industry in New South Wales.In The Zone merges hip hop with gaming technology, inviting the audience into a virtual world of electro soundscapes, popping and locking. The piece designed specifically for young people captures an all too relatable sense of escapism through technology.With temperatures checked, masks adorned and a strict 1.5 metre social distancing in place, the lights went up on the York Theatre for the first time since March. Yet In The Zone had already had its debut that morning via live stream. This debut, attended by over 7000 people, speaks to the growing popularity of the digitisation of the performing arts. Although the essence of being an audience member is arguably lacking on a live stream, the format opens a door to increased accessibility and inclusivity within the arts industry.In The Zone is constructed around the use of Airsticks, innovative sound technology designed by Dr Alon Ilsar. The Airsticks are the centrepiece of In The Zone, immersing the audience in sound worlds where every single movement is translated into a sound effect.There are over 20 scenes, and each scene could take up to a week to create youre not just dancing, youre pressing buttons and making music cues, says the shows sole performer, Libby Montilla. During rehearsals there were times when I couldnt sleep my brain was just going over sounds and buttons.Montilla who affectionately described the show as a vibe brought a contagious energy to the stage, performing with a level of precision that was captivating to watch. Montillas ability to effortlessly transition between moods was enhanced by Shaun Parkers strong direction.Im a self-taught hip hop dancer, my family couldnt afford dance classes when I was younger so I would wake up early to watch music videos, Usher and Backstreet Boys once I got introduced to YouTube I realised how big the dance community actually was, Montilla tells Honi.At points, the production did seem one-note. The heavy reliance on sound to drive the storyline brought with it a lack of visual variation on stage. The narrative was easily lost as a result of this repetition.Regardless of the productions shortcomings, the broad intention of In The Zone is poignant. We need more people to be aware of what is happening around the world. One small action can be enough to create a wave of great effect, says Montilla.And that is exactly what In The Zone did. Interdisciplinary, experimental work is symbolic of the fact that the arts must collaborate to survive. Australian artists have spent six months in lockdown and finally, the curtains have reopened. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> He has been branded an elitist who wants to turn Australias best-known beach into a two-tier system.But Janek Gazoocki says his proposal to rope off a small section of Bondi Beach and charge visitors $80 to piss and shit right on the beach actually democratises Australias most famous stretch of sand.Its not elitist to give people an opportunity to enjoy the beach in a different way, he says. Its diversifying the use of the beach. An author, avid fisherman, polo entrepreneur and guy who likes to piss and shit, Mr Gazoocki says he will not be fobbed off by Waverley Council, which initially deemed the project unsuitable.Mr Gazoocki dismisses talk of privatising beaches and charging people for access as hysteria. Its open to everyone, he says. Its 80 bucks for food and alcohol, and the chance to just absolutely empty ya guts right on the sand cheaper than any restaurant in Bondi.A brochure for the beach club, which promises piss and shit just absolutely everywhere, says its target market are locals, who wish to experience their favourite beach like they do their bathrooms.Mr Gazoocki confirmed to Honi that turds found in the water at Redleaf Beach were part of a pilot of the club. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> NSWs queer community was shocked to discover that Premier Gladys Berejiklian has until recently been in a relationship with disgraced former Liberal MP, Daryl Maguire, who is a man.Berejiklian, whose public private life, brusque manner and immaculate bob had led her to be regarded by many as a lesbian icon, has stated that she stuffed up by deciding to be straight.I am deeply sorry to the people of NSW, but in particular the tenderqueers, the hunties and my drag sistas, who believed in me.Ellen, a 24-year-old lesbian and Marrickville local, has taken the the news particularly hard.Young queer people today need to see ourselves represented, we need to see ourselves in movies, in positions of power, and being disgraced in ICAC.I can forgive Gladys for getting entangled with a disgraced MP. I mean, what gay hasnt?But I can never forgive her for being with a dude who looks like a composite image of every dude youve ever seen on the slaps at the RSL.Berejikian chose to be with this man instead of literally any woman.For a brief period around 3pm today, queers in a group chat Honi understands to be called Ladies and Fagz were sent into overdrive when one member erroneously anointed NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay as the new gay icon.Members were disappointed to find several minutes later that she is in fact married to a man who can only be described as a composite image of every other guy youve ever seen on the slaps at the RSL.McKay (right) and her husband (left). I mean, come on.Ellen said she will not be listening to tomorrows ICAC hearings, where Daryl Maguire (this is a real name of a real person) will give evidence.Im not sure what sort of sick fuck would want to listen in detail about their sordid tryst. I can only imagine what hell say about her alleged involvement with his corruption, the way they hid it from the party, and their quiet missionary fucking.Many have worried that Berejiklians outing as straight will undermine her image as the cool, calm and calculating director of NSWs COVID-19 response.Voters strive for a strong lesbian leader, not these fickle straight women, pollster James Irwin told Honi.Now they just cant trust she wont be distracted by shoes, lipgloss or cute boys. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Ever since The Masked Singer made its way out of the bizzaro hellscape from whence it came and into Australian TV sets, fans have eagerly awaited the weekly reveals of which C-list celebrities can kind of sing while trapped in a nightmarish suit that is equal parts childlike and depraved. Here are some of our favorite unmaskings from the show!Fraser AnningWe probably should have seen this coming after his second performance, in which he started furiously denouncing immigration over the instrumental to Maroon 5s Moves Like Jagger. Still, seeing his shiny balding head emerge from his shinier panda costume was certainly a joyous, babushka doll-esque surprise. We send our sincere thanks to Channel 10 for reminding us: hey, racists can sing too!Harold HoltDespite numerous hints towards his identity, including his masked identity being The Lochness Monster, no one could have predicted that former Prime Minister Harold Holt would A) be alive, and B) have the voice of an angel! We were positively giddy with joy when his mask was taken off after a performance of Weens Ocean Man to reveal the wrinkled and thoroughly soggy PM, who had apparently grown a pair of gills since his disappearance over 50 years ago.All Seven Victims of the Backpacker MurdersIts easy to forget how much room there is in those Masked Singer suits, but the unmasking of the ghosts of all seven victims of Ivan Milats backpacker murders, who had all fit into one suit to perform as The Skeleton, was certainly a much-needed reminder. Who could forget the nation-wide chills that occurred during the 7 spectres post-unmasking performance, in which they replaced the lyrics of Ylvis The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) with a monotonous chant: We are the undead. We are vengeance. We cursed Ivan Milat with stomach cancer.Wendall, the Cactus-Human Hybrid (R.I.P.)Unfortunately, not all the reveals on this show have been met with an ecstatic response. After numerous weeks performing under the identity of the Sexy Cactus, Wendalls head was removed live on air by the now-convicted Osher Gnsberg, who thought there would be a human underneath. Australia was horrified as it quickly became apparent that Osher had just decapitated poor Wendall, a Cactus-Human Hybrid created as a result of a toxic waste dump in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Though he may be gone, the prickly fellow shall remain in our hearts forever. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In an exclusive interview with an American inmate, The Rodent received word of prison remodelling under the Biden-Harris administration.In an attempt to connect with younger voters, who were unable to understand any of Bidens speeches on the campaign trail, VP candidate Kamala Harris has committed to streamlining and integrating her two favourite pastimes: fun TikTok dances and upholding an oppressive carceral state which punishes minorities.Kamala came to visit us the other day, Juan, 12, told one of our reporters. My cell is getting fitted for three halo lights and one of them even hides the discolouration from all the times Ive been beaten up!Prison exercise equipment is also getting an update. Instead of chin-up bars and a running track, inmates will now have well-lit areas in which to group dance to Top 40 hits like 100 gecs Money Machine and Doja Cats Say So.Alcatraz Island is in the process of being renamed Hype Island and will soon be open to conducting brand deals and collaborations with other Los Angeles TikTok mansions. Prisoners will also be able to opt-in to help influencers edit clean TikTok transitions in exchange for a shorter sentence.We encountered another inmate on our way out, a young man named Hasan who was set to be deported the following week. He said: This would make a great POV TikTok. Im an immigrant and youre a vengeful Attorney-General looking to clean up the streets.The Rodent also encountered other inmates on our visit, but our reporters could not, for the life of them, figure out what oomf or stancharlie meant. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Morrison Government has announced plans to bar access to fee support for anyone submitting posts to the USyd Love Letters Revived Facebook page.In a media release, Education Minister Dan Tehan called the Governments action essential in the fight against student horniness.With many starting to filter back onto campus, we want to encourage students to continue limiting their social interactions and keep up the studying, regardless of how hot the guy who sits in the back-left corner of your International Business Strategy tutorial.Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence has praised the idea, reminding students of the classic phrase: If youre thinking about suckin and fuckin, good grades are what youll be duckin.USyd Love Letters admin Crodly McThestitude has expressed his relief at not having to indulge any more thirsty first-years looking for an exceedingly average partner for their friend.Many have questioned how it will be possible to identify these lovelorn losers, as submissions to the page are done anonymously through a Google Form.Its actually quite simple, a representative from the University told us over the phone. Thanks to the disturbingly easy-to-hack ProctorU, well be able to locate -The representative was then cut off by what sounded like a spanner to the cranium. Additionally, staff at the University have been told to observe their students carefully to catch signs of a potential Love Letter-poster: any prolonged stares, longing glances, lip-biting, whispers amongst friends while pointing to a particularly attractive individual, or flirtatious conversations with palpable chemistry that may occur during classes.Tehan has promised that those who have lost access to HECS-HELP for posting to the page will have the chance to earn back said fee support should they provide irrefutable proof of their religious celibacy. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Step 1:Identify a mild internet outrage.Step 2:Identify your target. Top points if theyre Indigenous, but well settle for ethnic or vaguely ethnic. Women are great too, but only if they have worthwhile photos (see step 3).Step 3:Ensure you dedicate hours to researching their profiles, saving their formal photos and/or bikini selfies to a folder in your laptop.Refrain from any and all self-pleasure, fuelling your darkest libidinal urges into stalking a random teenager online journalistic research.Title the folder Definitely real research, because this is definitely what it is.Step 4:Type up your article, making sure to use the approved Daily Mail style guide in finalising your piece. Here are a few handy shortcuts:Stating the truth = WhingePointing out a key problem with the world = WhineA younger generation shut out from the economic opportunities = Generation MESomeone who made a petition = Radical activistSomeone with pink hair = Militant radical activistSomeone who has eaten a vegetable, once = Militant vegan activistRemember, you can really say anything you like, so long as you attribute it to an anonymous troll. For example: Many critics have lashed out at the Daily Mail for its constant manufacturing of false outrage. One commenter stated, The best contribution the Daily Mail has had to public discourse is publishing photos of Love Island stars nip slips.Step 5:Submit your piece for rigorous editorial review and fact-checking. At this stage, all facts are identified and immediately removed.Step 6:Look in the mirror asking yourself, Did you really go to University for this? Youre supposed to be a journalist. I hate you. I hate you. Youre nothing.Muffle your crying at night into your pillow so your roommates wont hear you.Step 7:Tell yourself if you didnt do this job someone else would, and there are no other jobs in journalism right now. Maybe your editor will even let you report on that important refugee piece you keep pitching next time!Step 8:Repeat. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> One is a life simulator video game, the other the peak text in the classification of mental conditions that both are runaway successes for the queer community is no surprise. The Sims offers heathen queers a chance to play the God they rejected, while the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders spearheaded the medicalisation and stigmatisation of a range of queer identities, as well as the multitude of other mental conditions many queers enjoy today. An ironic cult hit, pages of the DSM are a favoured substitute for papers when rolling blunts. Bisexual gamer and self-described anxious little bean Dana eagerly awaits new developments in each franchise, attributing her love of each to a shared spirit Theyre both sorta creepy, she confesses. The Sims 5 is set to be released in late 2020, while the DSM does not actually have release dates: its the DSM. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Since the onset of global quarantine, wildlife have ventured into once bustling city centres all over the world, from a sea lion in Argentina, a puma in Santiago, to even the horrific human-fish Deep Ones from every coast of every sea. Taking advantage of not only the quiet streets but our densely confined human populations the Deep Ones and other Lovecraftian squid-like alien nightmares mounted a series of attacks on our species and announced an impending Cthulhu invasion. We contacted ancient winged octopus god Cthulhu for comment regarding His controversial plan to eradicate all of humanity to which He replied via slime, humanS R the ReaL diSeaSE. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Politicians once again acted as the greatest and only authority on the question of parliamentary salary increase as for, like, the 47th time in history parliamentarians voted to increase their own wages. Frenemies Liberal and Labor typically rebuke each others policy reforms, yet the floor on Tuesday saw no such division. A sense of harmony descended upon the cabinet as every single politician stood side by side, regardless of creed, and voted, with pride, to steal from us. This rare and moving scene of bipartisan cooperation came just days after parliament ruled against including migrants, casual and arts sector workers in COVID protections. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I couldnt end my study abroad without trying to strike with Thunberg four hours north in the capital.Arriving at Riksdaghuset (the Swedish Parliament) felt like announcing my respect-crush for the Swedish activist. I made my way through the labyrinth of paths and tunnels that surround the outer defence of Riksdaghuset before seeing a cluster of about 40 protesters with cardboard and calico banners. Meeting your hero is tricky business at best. Its one thing to rock up to a climate strike in Sydney, but another when you fly halfway across the world to meet the person who single handedly made flygskam (flight shame) a thing. The irony.I took photos and people-watched as I looked out for Thunberg. There were only about 50 people (mostly high schoolers) who stayed to strike throughout the day, a number in stark comparison to the hundreds who filter in throughout the day to find Thunberg, say hi, take a photo, and disappear.I made my way into the crowd and began chatting to other activists. They pointed out Thunberg and frogmarched me to her side.I started panicking again as soon as I opened my mouth. Thunbergs gaze is intense. She pretty much wore the same expression as when she spoke at the UN Climate Change COP25 Conference, and had her eyes locked on mine throughout our entire interaction. I blathered out my own introductionthen we just stared at each other. When I get nervous in social interactions, I talk a lot, so I rambled on about how grateful I am that she started striking because as a fellow young person I also got depressed about the climate. She nodded, and we stared at each other some more.She smiled when I said, You know I really wanted to strike alongside you, rather than just in solidarity like I usually do, before I asked for a photo.Thunberg only said one word to me in our entire exchange yes, when I asked if she was comfortable if I could post on social media and if I could put my arm around her. Other than that, she just nods or shakes her head.Thunberg has spoken outwardly about her selective mutism before. I dont know why I assumed that we would have a lively bubbling conversation when she only speaks when it is necessary. The media portrayal of Thunberg is somewhat deceptive. According to activists who are close to Thunberg, she often walks away and says no, or not right now, when the number of people asking for photos becomes overwhelming. Shes wiser than most of us, but its an unexpected way of interacting with, for lack of a better word, your fans.This is what makes Thunberg so magnetic: she truly doesnt care about being famous. Her demands are to listen to climate science, and act now. She doesnt like being told shes amazing, or being told that shes an inspiration and beacon of hope. Striking isnt about some abstract concept like hope. Its about action. Its a demand for action.I was frustrated though. I wanted to talk about so many things: veganism, activism, and self-care when youre fighting a system that seems impossible to change. On reflection, our interaction felt so hollow.On the train ride back to Lund, I began to think about the idolisation of Thunberg as the worlds spokesperson for change. When you separate her from the awards shes won, the books shes co-written, the speeches shes given and the protests shes led, shes just a kid. Shes shorter than me and hasnt finished high school. She shouldnt have to carry this responsibility on her shoulders. But she started the Fridays for Future movement; and now has to be the one to step up to the pedestal.I felt dirty, thinking about how this journey was all about me, and my desire to meet and strike with Thunberg. I went to Stockholm because I wanted to meet her. Just like all the other people who filter through the crowds to snap a photo before leaving.Meeting Greta changed me. Ive become a little more thoughtful, and I behave a little more cautiously in person and online around those I admire. Im pensive, and definitely more reflective. I recognise Im far more pessimistic and cynical of what could possibly make a future in the world more viable.Theres no magical green technology or scientific innovation thats going to pull humanity out of the now hollow coal mines weve dug. Thats something each and every one of us politicians, CEOs, students and Greta Thunberg are going to have to do, all by ourselves. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Are you religious?Nah, I was a Muslim up until I was like 13 though.Why did you stop?I realised I was gay.They laugh and I join in until I realise that my trauma was the punchline.But theres a grain of truth in every joke.One of the main reasons I left Islam was because I couldnt handle the internal battle between faith and desire.Did I even have a choice?My relationship with Islam is complex. I dont eat pork, I fasted during Ramadan up until last year, I pray when things get tough and I majored in Arabic in order to read the Quran.Yet, I definitely drink, I dont pray five times a day, I have premarital sex (sorry mum) and I cant remember the last time I opened, let alone read, the Quran.I didnt have a choice, right?So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be DoneWhen the question of whether queerness is compatible with Islam arises, conversations inevitably turn to the attacks committed against gender and sexual minorities in Muslim majority countries. A 2013 Pew Research Centre poll revealed the percentage of people in Muslim majority countries who oppose the social acceptance of homosexuality: Jordan (97%), Egypt (95%), Indonesia (93%) and Pakistan (87%).Numerous Islamic leaders have publically condemned homosexuality, the Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, once stating that, the spread of this depraved practice in a society disrupts the natural life pattern and makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, depriving them of decent taste, decent morals and a decent manner of living. During Australias recent marriage equality debates, President of the Australian National Imams Council Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman stated that, we oppose same-sex marriage and consider it a sin and religiously illegal Islam promotes equality; however equality itself has limits.While there are systemic problems within the Islamic community regarding the acceptance of queerness, it is also important to interrogate what Islamic scripture actually says about homosexuality. Discourse surrounding homosexuality and its prohibition in Islam is based on the story of Prophet Lut, which condemns violent sexuality and criticises men for leaving their wives in order to rape men.However, contemporary scholars such as Amreen Jamal are calling for a critical rethink of the standard interpretation of Lut. Jamal argues that the story does not render a judgement against same-sex sexuality, as the objections towards same sex-attractions are on par with the objections towards opposite sex and non-sexual indiscretions alike.This calls into question the ambiguous terminology used in the narrative such as those not producing or men who have no wiles with women, which can be interpreted as referring to eunuchs or impotent men. Islamic studies scholar Scott Kugle argues that the main focus of this narrative is therefore not about defining a correct gender for a mans sexual orientation, but rather, preaching that both men and women deserve protection from rape and humiliation.My JihadIn a study on British Muslim gay men, one participant stated that his queerness was his jihad (struggle). Another stated that, if I could choose, I wouldnt be gay. I know Im going to hell for this. I feel really ashamed, not comfortable or happy in my life.like my worlds are clashing.These statements encapsulate the internal battles encountered by many queer Muslims who are afraid of being ostracised from their own religious communities. Psychologist Rusi Jaspal explains this dilemma, arguing that the social representations of homosexuality within these communities may be stigmatising, potentially resulting in a decreased willingness to come out and a perceived conflict between their sexual and ethno-religious identities.For many queer Muslims, giving into religious or cultural pressures, such as heterosexual marriage, appears to be the only method open to them to avoid otherisation.The Muslim ClosetQueer Muslims attacked within their own communities for their queerness, and face homophobia and Islamaphobia in broader Australian society as well.In 2007 in Camden, pigs heads adorned with the Australian flag were placed at a site proposed for an Islamic school. In 2014 in Bendigo, a protester shouted outside a mosque, if youre Muslim and you want a mosque, go back to the Middle East. This is Australia. In 2017 at a Q Society fundraising dinner, Larry Pickering said that if Muslims are on the same street as me, I start shaking.they are not all bad, they do chuck pillow biters [a homophobic slur] off of buildings.Increasingly, far-right politicians use disingenuous concern for the queer community as a justification for anti-Muslim and anti-immigration policies. During the 2016 US Presidential race, for example, Donald Trump cargued that Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists to our country who suppress women, gays and anyone who doesnt share their views. For queer Muslims, their identities become weapons against their communities.Queer Muslims struggle with Islamophobia within the LGBTQ+ community as well. Within largely white queer spaces, anthropologist Niels Teunis argues,many queer Muslims feel trapped within the Muslim Closet:, too afraid to tell people about their Muslim identity because of its associations homophobic cultural values.AuthenticityOne of the primary conflicts queer Muslims face is feeling as though they are forced to adopt gender and sexuality labels that only exist in a Western context, such as lesbian or gay. This may prevent them from constructing an identity that feels authentic and aligns with their cultural background. After all, most identities within the LGBTQ+ community wereconceived in the West under the influence of postmodernism and queer theory.Commenting on this Western construction of identities, Madjid Bencheikh argues homosexuality is universal, what is not, are the forms it takes. Homosexuality was indeed openly practiced in many Muslim societies from the seventh to the twentieth century.Activist and scholar Houria Bouteldja highlights that, in the Maghreb, homoeroticism has long been tolerated until colonisation imposed the norms of the rigid binary of homo/hetero. This binary has made many queer Muslims feel threatened by members of the LGBTQ+ community, a phenomenon which Ludovich-Mohamed Zahed, an openly-gay Imam, terms as sexual imperialism attacking people they deem to be queer where it is not claimed by them as an identity. In one study on queer South Asian women a participant quippedwhite queers all emphasise coming out so muchnext time a white person tells me to come out to my parents Im going to tell them to make sure cause of death: coming out because a white person told her to is included in my obituary.Power in Resistance?Being a queer Muslim is inherently complex as they have to overcome both homophobia and Islamophobia in order to be their authentic selves. However, sociology professor Momin Raman argues that the impossibility of gay Muslims is exactly their power in resistance. The disruption of their identity comes in challenging the ontological coherence of these dominant identity narratives which exclude gay Muslims as being impossible. Whilst I sympathise with sentiment of Ramans message and I understand the liberation that one can feel by challenging social norms I personally never felt this power when I was coming to terms with my identity.I always felt weak. I always felt afraid. I always felt alone.I am grateful to see organisations such as Sydney Queer Muslims and Al-Fitrah passionately supporting and advocating for Muslims of diverse sexualities and genders. I would have loved to have seen these organisations around when I was struggling with my sexuality and religious identity.I hope to see a day when my worlds are no longer clashing.A day when they finally align. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Being deaf, gay, and Asianas if some heady intersectional cocktailI dont hesitate long in saying that whereas being gay and being Asian occurs to me only in bursts, being deaf has been a daily, extremely annoying constant.If you were to draw up a pie chart of how much these three identities have variously impacted my life (for good or ill), it would have the biggest slice. Not to say, however, that homophobia and racism, often appearing hand-in-hand, havent also popped up in my life. Or rather, popped out in the sense of ghosting since such prejudices have almost become pass, though theyve certainly not passed.But its the ableismand audism more specifically, a handy term coined in the mid-seventies to describe the discrimination against people based on hearing ability (or lack thereof in my case)that gets most of my attention. This is because of how widespread such audism still is, how almost inherent it remains in much of society from infrastructure to behaviour.Around the corner, Deaf Awareness Week is the last week of September. It would be a mistake to take my viewpoint as representative of what being deaf is like, there being no such singular experiencethere is being Deaf, for example, which means being involved in the Deaf community (hence the uppercase-D), and also usually knowing their (sign) language. Unfortunately, I am in that even more specific sub-minority category of being deaf, but not knowing Australian Sign Language (or Auslan, which SignSoc here is organising classes for!) except some expletives. So, my singular deaf experience is only one of many, but hopefully nonetheless illuminating.Whats my deafness like? Its not liking these, as follows:People who mumble. Over-enunciation. Or under-enunciation. Whatever happened to moderation? Poor sound systems at airports and train stations. Rain. Fast banter. The top parts of overhead projectors or computer monitors that lecturers and tutors sit behind, blocking their lips I cant read. Other likewise inconvenient objects at lip height. Dimly-lit places. Loud places. Full beards. Classroom tables arranged in grids. Certain accents. Certain consonant clusters. Face-masked people (I almost prefer contracting the cold or flu to not understanding what you said). Face-masked and bearded people in dimly-lit and loud places, standing behind tall things.Despite my bilateral cochlear implantsthey not being the longed-for cure-all like many, especially some hearing parents of deaf children, would like for them to beI still lip-read. Anything to reduce lip-readability, and were both going to have a bad time.What else is deafness like?Its laughing heartily at what someone said, but it was a question. Its excitedly turning on captions for a YouTube video, only to be disappointed that theyre auto-generated (accuracys usually more misses than hits, and not much better than Revenge of the Siths Chinese bootleg subtitles: The geography that I stands compares you superior). Its tilting your head at just the uncomfortably optimal angle in some lecture rooms, the better to catch the hearing-loop signal, and having neck problems afterwards.Class discussions are usually their special kind of frustration. The smaller ones pose no real trouble for me. Its typically the larger ones of more than 10 or 12 that, despite tables generously (and painstakingly because its seldom the default) moved into a horseshoe layout, I nevertheless struggle in following that larger conversation, and still more in participating in them. Imagine a tennis match with that dozen of players, playing with that many ballsmaybe an impossibility, but you pull it off effortlessly.Deafness is usually missing the full picture of any such discussion or, after finally composing it, everyones already moved onto talking about the next one (i.e., picture), and so ona recursive state of belated understanding. This brings me to probably my biggest annoyance:On occasions where I do ask for clarification, I regularly get the following responses: Never mind, Dont worry about it, It doesnt matter, and Its not important, all of which usually said in this pseudo-apologetic, faintly impatient way thats hard to miss. Seeming self-deprecation (on their part) that ultimately comes off as self-negating (on mine).Granted, it could really be trivial, and maybe knowing you made some low-effort, vaguely insulting pun (hear here!) wouldve been doubly embarrassing or self-incriminating for all involved if clarified. But its the act of knowing itself, and not knowing about anything in particular, that does matter, is important.You dont need to have read Macbeth to have picked up on that line about the sound and fury of life, signifying nothing. For me, though, its somehow both loud and quiet, signifying nothing and everything. The best thing about being deaf, then, is getting that clarification, willingly if not unasked. Its being recognised that I mind. Its being included in that collective knowingof both nothing and everything. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Living with my grandparents in Japan could feel like my second home, although at times, I felt more like a voyeur. Id watch, listen and absorb what happened in our home with an interest in domestic life that my family considered mundane.[URIS id=37722]I was fascinated with every aspect of their daily routine whether it be hanging the washing, preparing a meal or sorting the rubbish into foils, plastics and polystyrene. Reflecting on this, Ive tried to understand what the source of this interest is.Ive decided that these sentiments are most likely affiliated with my biracial being. Despite speaking, listening and comprehending all that occurred around me, I never felt as though I was living as a Japanese person. Annual visits to my second home were not enough to help me assimilate into the Japanese lifestyle, and so I was stuck in an in-between space.Over the Japanese winter last year, I documented these feelings of being a voyeur, navigating the space between belonging and longing in a domestic environment. These photos speak of the invisible and complex barriers I cant seem to describe articulately in words. 1. GenkanRMs a hint of Australia my boyfriend brought with him, an imposter amongst the precise arrangement of Japanese shoes my obchan spent every morning perfecting.2. RyriChaahan for lunch.3. HiruneMy ojchan loves routine. Six oclock, wake up, seven oclock, breakfast, eight oclock, morning walk, ten oclock, read the paper, 12 oclock, lunch time, one oclock, nap time.He goes for two walks a day, one from eight until ten in the morning and then another walk in the afternoon from two. Hes so stubborn about his routine that even when there were typhoons during the summer, he would still go for his walk, whilst my grandma shouted out the door, idiot! Youll get yourself killed!4. OchaIts rare to see my obchan so calm. If she is, its most likely because my ojchan has left the house. Theyve been married for over fifty years, where love equates to bickering and small acts of service. When I visit annually, she loves to sit down, pour me some tea and tell me stories from when she was young. I loved trawling through the many photo albums she kept in the oshiire, flicking through stunning photos of my obchan in sleek looking western clothes during the 50s. Shed repeatedly tell me, I didnt always have such a big belly.8 KazokuI have three cousins, all of whom are the first generation to pursue further education. The eldest, Miyuki, pictured drinking beer, went to an arts college, specialising in music for two years, before marrying and having a child at 22. The second, Saeka (not pictured), went to university to study art history whilst the youngest (far left) went to an arts college to study voice acting. Shes now moved to Tokyo, claiming If I dont make it big in two months, Ill come back. Its now been five months.9 ShinbunTen oclock. Time to read the paper.10 KeshMy obchan made her face every morning, outing or not. She loves wearing bright colours, whether it be fuchsia, deep red or bright purple, despite my mums wishes for her to wear more subtle clothing. Reds and pinks look good on me! shed exclaim.11 Kinjo no nekoOur neighbourhood, Minamimachi, Toyonaka, was one of the first to have apartment blocks built in Osaka. Now theyre stained grey from water residue and have cracks like veins that trail up the buildings from past earthquakes. Theyre now in the process of demolishing the 32 identical apartment blocks.12 Sentaku (washing)The hues of peach and cream fabrics infused with the sweet scent of laundry detergent made the winter feel just a little warmer. Each morning Id help my obchan hang the washing. Her arthritic hands would tense up in the cold, but she never complained. Hang the undies inside. Theres a few underwear thieves around here! shed tell me as we looked out over our second floor balcony.13 Nihyaku yon banMy grandparents have lived in this apartment complex for over 50 years. Last year was the first time they ever had to move houses. We moved to number 204 which was the building just adjacent to us. The real estate agents had started moving the elderly out from the apartment complexes to demolish them and rebuild new ones, which the elderly would be moved back into. I asked my grandma how she felt about this,Ill probably be dead by the time theyre finished. Im okay with that she replied. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As I write this piece, I am agonized and angry. I am frustrated at the years of toxic societal conditioning and observation that has made me who I am today.I sometimes wonder if I can be thirteen again, and love my country with my own heart. Not a heart that was forcibly transplanted into my body when it started transitioning to that of a woman, not the heart that does not have my beats.I reflect on this angsty piece of poetry that I wrote two years ago. I probably wrote this after my mother decided that I should not wear Western clothing again, for my father had declared that it was wrong to do so. My anger knows no bounds, and I go on to argue, but it is then announced that I should no longer dress myself in clothing that does not belong to our culture.There are not enough experiences to tell you how many women fall prey to this forced nationalism. The romantic essence of nationalism is to behold a pride in the history, culture, traditions, and ethics of your nation. An understanding of your nation comes with the vivid processes of:Exposure Learning basic facts and information about your national identity as a child. For instance national anthem, songs, flag, etc.Learning The next process is that of formal education, which includes learning the national history, culture, demographics, people, basic laws, etc.Social learning The learning that takes place at home and within society in general, where we are taught the proper way to conduct ourselves within the nation, respect the people, and respect different diversities.Forced nationalism happens at a microscopic level so that certain cultural ethics and practices (including clothing) are forced onto people, and thus a certain archetype of national identity is created. There is no objective transfer of knowledge; a constricted manual produced for the sake of following is given to us.My particular observation is that forced nationalism manifests itself greatly in the form of body policing, and that this body policing is highly gendered.How easy is it for you to say my women should not carry any form of colonial relic in what they wear, when I see men twirling their mustache clad in crisp, white shirts and pants tucked in with the comfort of a colonial royalty. How is it that your gender lets you hug something with an ease, that we are being burnt for, stopped for, silenced for, buried for, how?The act of being told to adorn myself in only a certain type of clothing is camouflaged under proud tradition and nationalism, but holds the latent presence of rape culture, misogyny, female submission, and body policing under it. Men go on to wear Western clothing without any restrictions or question of culture. Is nationalism the duty of a particular gender?It is like a womans body and choices need to be emotionally and physically policed to be respected and considered valid. Women are covertly told to cover themselves up and in several cases to cease wearing any revealing clothing after a certain age to protect their modesty, their respect, and their familial values. The effects of such policing are both psychological and physical.I have observed this as I have been subject to this policing too. While becoming more aware of this, I started to grow more aversive to my nation. I hail from an Indian Muslim family residing in a metropolitan city, and being constantly surrounded by such teachings has intensified this.Furthermore, as someone who has grown up with a body that was considered larger than average, it was imbued that I should switch to Indian clothing for it hides my flaws, is modest, and was wrapped in the paper of Indian Culture. Seeing people around me from comparatively progressive backgrounds dressed in clothes that were deemed a part of Western fashion, imbued me with a suffocating hatred towards my country. I did not care for its historical essence, its beauty, the culture, nothing. There was hardly any space for my opinions to grow, and the lack of independence to experiment with fashion made me feel further unable to be opinionated.This is the case of one urban Indian girl, who had so many complex ideas revolving around her body, leaving her with nothing but shame and an unconscious need to conceal it. I look at other women like me who were told to conceal their bodies in the name culture, and know that when they see the mirror, all they think of is shame. They think of a country which is asphyxiating, orthodox, and cannot hold their love handles. These girls are like me, and I know that we have grown up not only body conscious, but wary of taking up space. Even as of now, there is no concrete and expansive research about how many women suffer from eating disorders in the Indian subcontinent. Disordered eating has been seen a predominantly Western phenomenon, while it is a known and under researched fact that women of colour are more susceptible to it.This forced nationalism has also led to a certain hatred towards traditional clothing among Indian youth. People who choose to dress up in traditional clothing are seen as an anomaly and backward. Imagine being taught to hate your country so much that you think what people traditionally wear is something exotic and a deviance? Those who are forced into wearing traditional clothing face a double distress of being oppressed and derided, and those who wear clothing with choice are placed into a certain mould and called derogatory names.The current youth exoticize Indian clothing in a plethora of ways, primarily through social media. When a particular privileged, conventionally good looking Indian woman who usually dresses in Western clothing uploads a picture in a saree, with a caption saying Desi girl slaying, her look is applauded and revered. She is seen as a Desi icon for doing so. At the same time, women who dress traditionally on a regular basis are marginalized for the normalcy. Even the posts on social media are supposed to have a sense of Western, modern aesthetic to it. A particular college background, adorned makeup, or urbanity is expected to elude from it. Or in the cases of the diaspora, where women in non-Indian countries who wear Indian clothing in a more western way are applauded, I wonder how much of this appreciation comes for women who choose to adorn themselves in an Indian clothing on a day to day basis. How is it that their normalcy is not celebrated? We have created this archetype that whenever we dress in our traditional clothing, we have to justify it, provide a hint of westernization to it, compulsorily add an explanation, or wear a full face of makeup to uphold a certain stereotype for that.How easy is it for us to give a woman a dupatta to cover her heaving bosom,And every time she looks at it,She does not see the beauty of her country in it,She sees a well of agony and the nation is the demon, wanting to kill her,Catch her breathe in a deadly mutter,And she never looks at the nation with lovelorn eyes again. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A systematic pattern of violence against sex workers, perpetrated by men, has led to women working in the sex industry experiencing statistically higher levels of violence than women in any other industry. Violence against sex workers includes physical assault, sexual assault, and psychological trauma all of which are experienced both inside and outside of work situations at extremely high levels compared to women who do not engage in sex work. There is a myriad of reasons for this exacerbated level of targeted violence, including: a misunderstanding or disregard of what payment entitles clients to, anti-sex worker sentiment, and broader beliefs about gender, sex, race and male entitlement.On August 13, 2019, 24-year old Michaela Dunn became a victim of this systematic violence, after she was killed tragically in Sydney after meeting up with a 20-year old male for what police described as a business deal (read: sex work). The Australian medias response to the crime was mixed, but often favoured reports on the male heroes who held the attacker down with milk crates above the discussion regarding the victim. This conjured up countless questions as to how the media should or should not report on sex work, and the incompetencies of the current media landscape in creating a purposeful and restorative discussion concerning sex work and the safety of sex workers.An important distinction to be made before entering into this discourse is that sex work and sex trafficking are entirely different. Sex work is defined as activities engaged in voluntarily, and free from coercion in exchange for payment or reward. Trafficking on the other hand is exploitation involving force, intimidation and/ or deception. The two, despite their innate difference, are often confused and misrepresented (i.e. sex work being deemed as forced). As such, this mispresentation has created a culture surrounding sex work that not only encourages it to be a subject shrouded in shame and perceived illegality, but an industry that women need to be saved or rescued from. In New South Wales (where the crime cited above took place) sex work, running a sex industry business (i.e. a brothel) and being a sex worker are all legal, as long as engaged in as per state regulations. Admittedly, in Australia, NSW is the most liberal state in terms of sex work legislation, with many other states still criminalising certain aspects of the industry. However, this case exemplifies the negative discourses surrounding the sex work industry as a result of social and cultural stereotypes, rather than blatant illegality. As such, the Australian medias bias against sex work, is mostly a reflection on our nations stigma surrounding the topic.It was made clear in the wake of Michaela Dunns murder that the Australian media fosters a visible disregard of victims of assault, or crime more broadly, due to their status as both women, and as sex workers. In the case of Michaela, this meant a majority of media coverage focused on the men who restrained the perpetrator, rather than the victim herself. She was often, in fact, redacted from the narrative completely or mentioned merely as a footnote. For instance, most of the news stories cite the male perpetrator, or the men who assisted, instead of the victim(s). This point is by no means intended to undermine the heroism of these men, but it is the refusal to acknowledge a sex worker as a murder victim which exemplifies the prejudice and bigotry of the media and community against this topic. It is decades of learned stigma that has led to this point. The aforementioned discourses surrounding sex trafficking, as well as the taboo nature of sex itself and widespread beliefs around gender and female subordination, have all led to a culture specifically a media culture that does not work to effectively recognise these women as (1) victims and (2) humans.In the instances when a victim is acknowledged in the media, there is potential for the label of sex worker to be overused in reporting, especially by conservative sources, to dehumanise the subject and attach the stigma concerning their line of work. This potentially places these individuals in a position of lesser-respect from the public, as whores, or sluts, who undertake a job that is not only immoral, but actively dangerous. This focused media coverage allows audiences who maintain these views to justify to themselves the abuse or murder of sex workers, because they were, or should have been, aware that their profession was dangerous. Rose Harper, a sex worker herself, explains, When sex workers experience violence or sexual assault, theres still a widely spread view that by being a sex worker weve somehow offered ourselves up to be the punching bag of men who are sexually or physically violent. Harper describes how Australians believe that the violence within the industry is merely an unfortunate side effect. But this danger associated with the industry is not, or should not be, innate to the acts involved with the job rather it a culture of misogynistic and violent men who have the potential to instil violence into the industry. This can be through anti-sex worker sentiments, misogyny, generally aggressive behaviour, social isolation, disregard of consent etc. Violence can be particularly apparent for POC and LGBTQ+ sex workers. As intersections between male violence against women, racial violence and fetishization, and anti-queer sentiments become apparent.Although a stigmatised focus on sex work induces prejudice, failure to recognise sex work within the media at all also feeds into a larger problem becoming more obvious in Australia. We dont like talking about sex work or the dangers that stem from the profession. Media reports that redact women like Michaela from their narrative, or critiques that call on sources to not mention the role of sex work in crimes/assaults both work to limit an understanding of the dangers violent men can bring to the industry, and subsequently make it more difficult for processes of increased safety for workers to be implemented. As such, we must actively engage in conversation around sex work, not to bring shame, but to educate audiences on the fact that sex work itself should not be dangerous. It is the gendered culture surrounding the job, and the clientele, which make it a potentially dangerous industry. As we continue to see dialogue proposing that sex workers are offered to violent/incel/misogynistic men to control their urges and ensure they dont commit crimes against regular women, it is extremely necessary to publicise the role of sex workers and the need for them to be ensured safety in their job. It is important to publicly discuss the role of constant and renegotiated consent in circumstances of sex work to protect both clients and the (often neglected) worker. Additionally, we must not ignore the high levels of violence sex workers experience outside of their work environment due, in part, to the continued stigma and anti-sex worker sentiment that exists within our society. We must also confront instances of racial fetishization and subsequent violence that women of colour (WoC) experience in the industry both physically and through online forums which house disgusting threats and affirmations of violence against WoC sex workers.Michaela Dunn was killed by a violent man specifically because she was a sex worker. That is a fact that cannot continually be ignored by the media, or Australia more broadly. If so, it will continue to harm the industry and construct a culture by which sex workers are never able to be guaranteed safety from misogynists, racists, homophobes, violent and anti-sex worker men, in their job.Everyone wants to be safe at their place of work, and if the Australian media publicise conversations like this, we may be able to ensure sex workers can be too.In memory of Michaela Dunn,Wom*ns Honi offers our respect and condolences to her family, friends, and fellow members of the SW community.USYD WOCO offers both support and solidarity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> From the moment we are born, our bodies are assigned a set of gender roles. This impacts everything from how we look, dress, and style ourselves to how we act and behave. This is especially true for women.As women, our bodies are heavily policed, including by our own selves. From a young age, we are taught that our bodies are not ours and do not belong to us. It is, therefore, easy to feel like we exist outside of our bodies. Some might even say this contributes to the Other-isation of women in a patriarchal society.In this age of individualism and liberalism, it is easy to believe that the choices we make are our own. However, our choices do not exist in a vacuum. They are most often dictated or influenced by the societies and environments we live in. In Ways of Seeing, art critic John Berger wrote A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. [] And so she comes to consider herself the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet distinct elements of her identity as a woman.Several gender theorists have further analysed this idea through closely linking it to Foucaults work on power, subjectivity, and surveillance in society. Although Foucaults analysis was genderless, feminist scholars have looked at it through a feminist lens. Feminist scholars argue that the body acts as a form of social control through gendered discipline (in this case, femininity). In other words, how we discipline our own bodies is heavily impacted by the male gaze.Critical theorist Angela King argues that womens bodies are often posited as inferior yet also threatening in comparison to men. It is then that the category of woman is constructed to be condemned, and therefore controlled and disciplined.This increases twofold when it comes to women who are racialised, transgender, queer, or gender non-conforming. The rules as to what constitutes womanhood get tighter and therefore women who may not fit the mold of what the perfect woman looks like might feel a particular disconnect to womanhood. Womanhood, particularly in Western societies, is also largely constructed to suit white Western notions of cisgender womanhood.From a young age, women internalise the idea that a woman must be attractive, successful and conventional to be deemed worthy and desirable. This manifests itself through the social pressure to conform to these standards; making sure you look presentable at all times, having something to offer, and on the other side of that self-moderating so that you are not too loud, too forward, and dont take up space in any setting. Gender essentially becomes a performance and women who fail to meet the standards are punished or regarded as unnatural.It is worth examining how market ideologies capitalise on the surveillance of womanhood to sell femininity to women. Consumer culture often relies on constructing and reinforcing particular narratives. There is no doubt that fashion, beauty, and makeup are heavily marketed towards women. In a sense, womens bodies become commodified. To be a woman the right way you must watch and continuously assess yourself. Then you must constantly sell yourself both literally and figuratively.Bodies are also largely manipulated to fit the perfect form. A woman is taught to believe that her body and skin must be smooth, hairless, and soft, regardless of age. Endless amounts of money are spent on hair and weight loss treatments and cosmetic products trying to gain and maintain this form. Many women also seek out expensive plastic surgery treatments to fit patriarchal beauty standards.In the digital age, we have seen the rise of Influencer culture on platforms such as Instagram. In particular, this has been targeted towards young girls and women. Aesthetics are often repackaged for the consumption of others. More often than not, young girls and women heavily modify themselves in trade for attention and likes. In turn, the capital of the social media economy is then used to sell and endorse products for financial gain in return.It is through campaigns like these that women and their bodies are reduced to a selling point. Capitalism through choice feminism has pushed through the fallacy of empowerment however, individual empowerment has been proven to be nothing more than just a meaningless slogan to sell more beauty products. However, such advertising campaigns are harmful as it is not about who theyre trying to sell to, but also what they are trying to sell. Many influencers often advertise products such as specific weight loss products reinforcing hierarchical notions of beauty.Consumer culture ultimately positions identity in this case, gender as something to be consumed, rather than something that simply is. However, gender is deeply complex and everyone has differing individual, social, and cultural understandings of gender.Despite the fact that not all women adhere to feminine ideals, it is very evident that the social pressures of femininity are exerted onto women daily, and often by other women too. Although liberal individualism has room for varying interpretations of womanhood, it is ultimately not sufficient enough in a capitalist and patriarchal society. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Im 21 and I find myself pregnant but I dont want to be. My body feels wrong and I cant remember when my last period was. Is it late? Im not sure. But I feel a change in my body, so I take a pregnancy test. I stare down at the piss-ridden stick which holds so much power over me at that moment. Two lines. Two little blue lines stretching themselves across and onto me, wrapping themselves around my body. Your body isnt yours anymore, they scream. But society never taught me any different.I take another test which tells me Im 3+ weeks, which means little to nothing. I sigh heavily, knowing I dont want this but knowing how hard that will be to change. What do I even do? School taught us how to not get pregnant. It never told us what happens when you do. What happens when you dont want to be.I call my mum. We go to the doctors for a blood test and it comes back with what I already knew. I sit with my mum in that room, with the male doctor, with him smiling with excitement over my pregnancy. I tell him I dont want it and he gives me a number to call. Im grateful for the privilege of getting this number. Im grateful for the support of my mother there in that room. What if she wasnt there? I wonder.I cant bring myself to call the number. I dont know what to say. How was I meant to prepare for something like this? My mother calls for me and says the appointment will be in two weeks. I lay in bed for the next two weeks, unable to move from nausea and exhaustion.I have the abortion in my home state of WA where the law is blurred and abortion is legal if there is counselling and confirmation from someone outside of your body that youre making the choice best for you. Abortion is legal up to 20 weeks. There are no safe zones.After the two weeks pass, my mother drives us to a private clinic where they have locked doors and high security. No one is outside when we go in. Im told to wait until my name is called. There are other women in the room and I wonder if they are here for the same reason. Im not sure what else this service provides; school never taught us, society never told us. My name is called and a nurse pulls me into a room where I have an ultrasound to confirm the gestation. 7 weeks she says. Do you still want to go ahead with the procedure? Is she genuinely asking if Ive changed my mind or is she trying to convince me to not proceed? Its further along than I thought but of course, I still want the abortion. I knew immediately I wanted nothing else. After, we talk about contraception options and I opt for the IUD because it can be inserted at the same time. Im thankful for my privilege in having this option. Im thankful I am financially able to pay.Im lead into a small, dark room and told to change into cotton clothes with no underwear. Then a nurse escorts me into the operating theatre where there is a team of people waiting for me. The anaesthetist tells me to count backwards from 10. I do so but then cant breathe and panic. He adjusts the dose and Im gone. Not once before the abortion did anyone tell me what was going to happen. How the operation would work? What they would do to me? What would happen after? How I would feel?I wake up in a room with a row of chairs with women who I assume are just like me, waking up groggy and sore. Im offered water and crackers and told I can go. Still, no one tells me what happened or what will happen. Outside there are protesters and Im thankful for not having to face them. My mum takes me home and I lay in bed in pain, drifting in and out of sleep with a sanitary pad the size of a diaper in my underwear. I bleed and bleed and bleed. For six weeks. Im not sure if this is normal but no one told me otherwise. I have had an abortion but still, we remain silent. The receptionist. The nurse. The doctor. All are silent and if it wasnt for the pain or the bleeding, Id have no way of knowing if it really happened or not.Im so fucking thankful for being able to have the abortion safely and with so much support from my family. But not all women are that lucky. Not all women have the privilege of being able to access abortion. That needs to change. Womens bodies, womens choices fucking matter. Fuck your politics. Fuck the white men in power who have the audacity to believe that THEY have power over what women do with their bodies. Abortion is a human rights issue. We should all have the right to choose what we want to do with our own bodies. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Its no surprise that all women in todays world live under the oppressive shadow of a Western patriarchy; women of colour walk the edge of a blade between two. I struggle to love the blood of my ancestors that flows through my veins and is in every beat of my heart, because it has forced me into gilded prisons of body dysmorphia and silence.In the chaos that is unpacking each and every trauma in my writing, one question stands fundamental; how do I learn to grow, which is by definition the process of being more, when I have lived my whole life being told that I should take up less space?***I have a memory of standing naked in front of a full-length mirror. In my teenage years, hours of weekly soccer and gymnastics lent itself to a slender feminine physique corded with reliable muscle. It was a body that I could rely on; it was warm, it was healthy, it was mine. I should have been proud. But instead, I found myself breathless with terror. It is rare that I remember my thoughts in excruciating verbatim, but I remember this one: I need to gain weight to make myself less of a target to men.The problem here was more than just the passing discomfort of a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality. I live in a world where every woman that I know has experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault, where one woman in Australia dies every week at the hands of male violence. Their names are left to the sands of history, as though they are just words and were not once whole people with lives, families, and dreams. Irrefutably, the true problem is that this world is so hostile to women that a child felt that she had to damage her body to make herself undesirable and thereby safer. The safety mechanism of unattractiveness is a lie as well; we know damn well that the way that women dress or look does not determine the likelihood of being sexually assaulted. Yet, the sexuality of my sixteen-year-old body felt like a threat to my life.My sixteen-year-old body found itself as the bedrock of many repeated traumas. That sixteen-year-old understood the word anorexic to be synonymous with beautiful, a learned vernacular which was borne of the glamorisation of mental illness amongst my young, nave peers. And like all other areas of my life, race followed me in this too. My Chineseness engendered a nickname that followed me for years: anorexic panda, my schoolmates would sometimes call me.My coloured experience of gender is one fraught with gaslighting, most painfully from my close family members. Chinese beauty standards skinny, pale, demure are saturated with internalised Westernness and its exotification of my people. I did not fit comfortably into any of those expectations. When I was younger, dinners with our family friends would see my grandmother build me up with humble brags about me being too skinny. When I gained weight as I passed into adulthood, my weight became my familys silent shame. I was underweight for most of my teenage years and though I am a healthy weight now, I still struggle to see myself as anything other than chubby and undesirable. The voices of my Chinese family are always in my head, speaking to me about the shame that I bring to them, and they are joined by another voice that tells me that I would be prettier if there was less of me, if I took up less space and made people less uncomfortable.If I dig deeper into the annals of my past, there is one memory that I return to over and over, because it leaves me feeling unspeakably violated and at a loss for a nameless something that I have been missing for so long that I never even realised it was gone. If I were to try to name it, I might call it Innocence.I am maybe eight or nine years old. My parents have taken us to a family friends house, where he tells my parents that he has some clothes to gift to us; my parents accept these gifts gratefully and with humble thanks, because any new clothes were a luxury. I am told to try these clothes on to make sure that they fit. I change in the bathroom, and go out to the living room where the adults are talking in animated Cantonese. The room goes quiet when I enter, and all eyes are on me. In front of my parents in this silent room, this supposed family friend says: Wow! So sexy!My parents laughed, and the conversation moved on. I knew without a doubt that they could see the visible discomfort in my face as I stood there frozen with equal amounts of shock and learned discipline I had not been dismissed by the adults and it would embarrass my parents if I were to behave in a way that did not reflect the quiet and dutiful girl that they had raised me to be. That girl could not speak, so I will speak for her; in what horrific world would the sexualisation of an eight-year-old child be acceptable?Looking back on this moment, I am ashamed to be Chinese. To clarify, its not that I hate where I come from, the language of my proud ancestors or the rich traditions of my motherland; simply, I am ashamed that the Chinese patriarchy that raised me had inevitably betrayed me. This was a patriarchy that only understood honour and pride; it would erase me without a second thought if I compromised its perfect world. I have been terrified of intimacy, physicality, sexuality, love ever since.Ive always found it hard to distinguish where exactly the Chineseness in me stops and where the Westernness begins. I have never had the white privilege of considering gender apart from race. I am young, but my perceptions of this world are already crystal clear. This world is already unfriendly to women, non-gender-conforming people, trans people, intersex people. It is especially unfriendly to women of colour, indigenous people, non-English speaking migrants and refugees.Art by Ellie Zheng.As a woman of colour, I have been discouraged from taking up space from the moment that I began to understand gender. I have been discouraged from taking up space in conversations, on the street, on sidewalks, in classrooms, in my own home. Imagine if women of colour had the same confidence as men white men in particular. The middle-aged white man next to me is manspreading on the bus, pressing me as a result into the cold glass of the window, in stark contrast to a brown woman sitting two seats in front of me looking for all the world like she wants to shrink into herself. The likelihood is that she too, like me, has lived a life that told her to take up less space. Imagine if women of colour felt that they were able to take up space in conversations. My dad, a conservative Chinese man in every sense of the tradition, has told me on numerous occasions that I am too opinionated, too loud, too much. How different this world would be if women of colour had the confidence of white men, buoyed by the dual privileges afforded to them in an all too white world.As much as I would like to excavate the relics of my cultural past, I know that there is no way to divine the true genesis of my traumas nor is there a way to sever them from the person I am today. Yet, my takeaway from this experience is that I owe it to myself to at least attempt to understand the root of my personal gendered trauma. Only then will I be able to begin the long arduous process of healing. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Like many people in this era of social media, I often end up lost in the depths of Facebook comments sections. Its a pretty average habit, until I find myself spending hours reading the public outrage of Baby Boomers under a Sunrise, TODAY, or Sydney Morning Herald post. You know, the ones deliberately written in a way that will provoke 66 year old Sharon/John/Cheryl/Darren/etc. into an emotional and usually ill-informed rant about climate strikers, refugees, vegans, feminists, or any of the topics that these outlets love to throw around with a baiting title for engagement.I find myself here multiple times a day. I dont reply like I used to in 2016 when I used arguing with strangers as a form of excitement and procrastination during my dreary HSC days. Often, I just sit and fume about the widespread ignorance that tends to be displayed and let my thoughts spiral angrily until I hastily close my phone.On a similar and more personal scale, this tendency has weaseled its way into my other social media habits on multiple occasions, I have engaged with cishet white males from high school who have been provoked by the messages I post and share to my Instagram stories. I wont lie, I get a kick out of this particular tendency I am entertained by exposing the ignorance of the people who made me feel too Brown throughout high school. Perhaps its due to the extensive effort I once put in to bury my identity around them and keep my opinions aligned to theirs. Perhaps I perceive calling these people out to be empowering, without really understanding why. Either way, Id never comprehended the harm of doing this until my girlfriend recently pointed out: by sharing the reactions of these people, what kind of online space was I creating for myself, my loved ones, and the communities that I belong to?My younger sibling, who currently attends the high school that I graduated from, acts in a similar way, publicly shaming any backlash over the issues they speak out about, with this years notable occasions including Invasion Day and the Global Climate Strikes. Despite the 5 year age difference between our cohorts, we both seem to engage for the same reasons to educate friends and family, to retort back when people attack us, to reaffirm our opinions beyond echo chambers of like-minded views, and because, in their words I know its not my responsibility but who else is going to do it?.Its no secret that in this society, people belonging to marginalised groups are often tasked with the responsibility of educating everyone else, with this burden falling heavily on Black women. And whilst I have only occasionally been asked to educate cishet men on current affairs (easily Google-able ones, at that how hard is it to figure out why Uber drivers or school students are striking?) as a queer Asian woman, I have still managed to internalised this responsibility alongside a desire to assert my voice and political identity to the passive audience I once silenced myself for.Years after branching out from these groups and allowing myself to form an identity, I still find myself pinned beneath a white gaze evident even by the positive messages I get from other white friends commending how I speak up and thanking me for educating them, whilst refusing to act similarly and share the burden. For a matter of years, Ive taken on this role with apparent ease, and internalised it to a point that I reacted defensively when it was first brought to my attention. In a podcast by The Guardian, writer Jia Tolentino remarks, the economic model of the internet re-selling and selling data points about our identity and our search to further harden, or shape or change that identity, and importantly concludes that our selfhood was not meant to bear that kind of economic weight.And indeed, Im no longer sure that my own selfhood needs it, let alone has the ability to bear it.This leaves me at a point of disparity it is not within my nature to stay quiet on topics that I feel passionately about. How am I meant to refrain from engaging with ignorance when we next roll around to January 26th and social media becomes flooded with pictures of Southern Cross tattoos and SMH articles about political correctness gone mad? Last year on this very date, I had a photo sent directly to me of a white boy I once had a crush on holding a can of VB in one hand, and his middle finger up on the other.Perhaps its time to cleanse my online spaces to unfollow, to unlike, and to finally cut these ties. Not to stop speaking out, but to ensure that my sibling and I are able to let people take on the responsibility of educating themselves, to nurture the online spaces we inhabit, and to allow ourselves to step back and breathe. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Earlier this year, the billion dollar grooming company Gillette released a viral ad called We Believe: The best men can be, a play on the razor brands long-held motto, The best a man can get.The ad featured an emotional and carefully-spun narrative about the role models young boys see in their daily lives. It exposed bullying, sexual harassment on the streets and in the workplace, and even sexism on the big screen, by promoting kindness, humility, and responsibility. The emotional clips were woven together with a sombre, albeit hopeful, music track. The ad was supposed to demonstrate that these sexist behaviours make up a complicated and toxic form of masculinity.The ad thus aimed to revise and resolve all the normalised manifestations of masculinity that are both created and reinforced by media representation, by asking men to be constantly improving, and self-reflective. Gillette, perhaps in a faux pas, shared this ad in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and the ad itself was met with support from progressives and backlash from conservatives. As of July 2019, the ad has over 31 million views on YouTube, with less than 800, 000 likes, and more than 1.5 million dislikes.The Gillette ad, among other campaigns, is just one of many instances of the current interest in toxic masculinity. From men wearing bright pink nail polish and putting flowers behind their ears, to the camp theme of the Met Gala this year, the last few years have seen a trend in straight men wanting to destroy toxic masculinity, often citing abuse, and emotional repression as fuelling it.As a young woman of colour, I find myself personally fascinated by the discourse surrounding emotions and masculinity. To define masculinity can be quite reductionist. Often people think masculinity is that which men do, or how men act. This implies that women cannot inhabit aspects of masculinity, or that masculinity and maleness are one and the same.A single definition of masculinity is limiting, and the concept is best understood by looking into patriarchal structures and the context-specific aspects of gender. Toxic masculinity, however, is defined by an adherence to traditional male gender roles and actions. This often translates to heterosexuality, alongside social expectations in which men seek to be dominantand limit their emotional range primarily to expressions of anger.The Good Men Project, an online platform that explores the world of men and manhood, defines toxic masculinity as:A narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. Its the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measuredToxic masculinity is seen as the sole reasoning behind emotional repression in boys, impacting them even as they go into adulthood. Many commentators have framed the problem of violence against women perpetrated by men as being the result of toxic masculinity, defined by male entitlement and abuse of power. While this goes some way to identifying and labelling the problem, comparatively less work has been done to explore the way this affects women.Several problems with the discourse around toxic masculinity appear obvious.In discussions of the repression of emotions there is this idea that straight men are not allowed to be emotional in contrast to women. This comparison is not only unfair but also unequal in that it somehow assumes that women are allowed to be emotional without question or concern.This is clearly untrue, specifically in instances of the emotions of women of colour. Feminist theorist Sara Ahmed says that the angry Black woman can be described as a killjoy; she may even kill feminist joy, for example, by pointing out forms of racism within feminist politics. She might not even have to make any such point to kill joy. Ahmed points out that the emotions of women, specifically of Black women, are often racialised in that they are grossly exaggerated, ignored or misunderstood.Discussions on straight men having repressed emotions has always been linked to domestic violence, with ideas like, And then the boys who never cried became the men that beat their wives often circulating. The implication that women are allowed to be emotional is amplified in discourse surrounding domestic violence the repressed emotions of men are somehow linked to excusing domestic violence and abuse, while women continue to overly emote everything, including shock and trauma sustained from abuse.The inverse is true in that generations of women have carried trauma and pain while still carrying on and living. They do not necessarily externalise these suppressed emotions in abusive ways. So, the idea that women are allowed to be emotional in comparison to men falls flat in that yes, it can be socially acceptable for women to cry.But men, who arent allowed to cry, are then taught to project their feelings into violence.Its no surprise, then, that the discourse around toxic masculinity, and the way men adhere to traditional gendered expectations of emotions, still places a burden on women.Indeed, this new found interest in destroying toxic masculinity and allowing men to express themselves still instrumentalises women, who are expected to facilitate the social and emotional renewal processes of men. As the very nature of toxic masculinity necessitates that straight men are unable to forge intimate relationships with other men, the women in their lives are burdened by both their initial lack of emotional intelligence, as well as their evolution in unlearning emotional repression.At best, this is a form of emotional labour. But one could go so far as to say that women are somehow expected to become ad-hoc therapists.Though ads like Gillettes We Believe, alongside the trend of straight men wanting to destroy toxic masculinity, are well intentioned, there still remains a quagmire of problems.Somehow, in their plight to break traditional gender roles and standards of masculinity as a stepping stone to making the world a more equal place for all genders men still seem to be placing the burden on women. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (anti-ELAB) protests entered their seventh consecutive week in Hong Kong, the University of Queensland became the first Australian host of a student-led protest on this issue. On 24 July, a diverse group of UQ students Hongkongers, Australians, and other sympathetic parties conducted a sit-in on campus to protest. But a contingent of Mainland Chinese students staged a counter-protest, trying to disperse the crowd with intimidation.The Mainland counter-protesters surged online soon after to explain their actions. The original batch of protesters were criticising the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) involvement in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. According to the counter-protesters, the anti-CCP protesters sought to undermine Chinas unity. They called the protesters traitors and splittists [sic] who sought Hong Kong independence, a threat to Chinas ideological and territorial claim. Though the protesters had aimed their grievances towards the CCP, the counter-protesters viewed this as an attack on their nationality. Some even branded the protesters as racists. While attacks on a country can devolve into racism, the protesters primary target was the CCP as an institution. Several counter-protesters stressed patriotism, or more specifically, a desire to defend their nations name from being tarnished, as their motive for starting the fight.Such arguments are disingenuous. For one, the counter-protesters characterisation of the anti-ELAB protests as pro-Hong Kong independence betrays a failure to understand the issue. It is true that anti-ELAB protesters hold diverse views and envision different outcomes. However, the protests themselves make five demands to the Hong Kong government. They are:1. A permanent withdrawal of the extradition bill. Thus far, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has refused to use the legal term withdraw, so the bill is only suspended.2. The resignation of Carrie Lam, and implementation of full universal suffrage. Democracy is enshrined in Hong Kongs constitution (Basic Law). However, Lam herself is unelected, and a number of pro-democracy lawmakers were barred from office after their election in 2017.3. An independent investigation into police brutality. The excessive violence that police used against protesters and journalists has undermined Hongkongers faith in the force.4. The withdrawal of the label riot used to characterise the 12 June protest. Though the right to protest is enshrined in Basic Law, rioting carries a ten-year sentence.5. The release of arrested protesters without charges. The protesters fear that the arrests were made for political reasons.Independence is not on the list. Most anti-ELAB protesters would prefer that China simply respect the one country, two systems agreement. This agreement, intended as Hong Kongs decolonisation model, should have secured the citys political autonomy until 2047. But since Xi Jinpings accession in 2013, Hongkongers have sensed efforts by Beijing to prematurely erode their constitutional freedoms. The anti-ELAB protests demands are not excessive either nothing that cannot be solved without opening discussions with the people. However, Lam has long disappeared from the public eye, leaving Hong Kongs future in limbo. The only intermediary left between state and people is the increasingly violent police. Instead of soul-searching, the CCP has abdicated responsibility for Hong Kongs anger by blaming foreign influences. White House reports of Chinese forces gathering on the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border have understandably also fuelled fears of a second Tiananmen Square.As for Xinjiang, it would be insulting to pretend that nothing is happening to the Uighur population there. Satellite images show so-called re-education camps cropping up like weeds across the province. The CCP claims that they are there to rehabilitate the largely Muslim Uighurs from extremism (that is, Islam). Of course, this wording reflects international Islamophobic discourse, which condemns Islam as an inherently violent religion. Countless Uighur refugees attest to being barred from practising Islam, hounded by government agents outside of China, or tortured in camps. The CCPs furtiveness has only raised suspicion. Without evidence for the contrary, many have concluded that the CCP is carrying out the cultural genocide of Uighurs. So, the counter-protesters rationale betrays a more disturbing viewpoint. For them, love for the country means loyalty to the government. Attacks on the CCP, for that group of Mainlanders, were attacks on them as Chinese people. The CCP itself has drawn similar equivalencies between the state and individual; when anti-ELAB protesters in Hong Kong defaced the Chinese emblem with ink, a CCP spokesperson claimed that this hurt the nations feelings. Genuine love for the country should translate to love for the countrys citizens. Symbols are inanimate. Territory is impermanent. Governments can be arbitrary. The people are the beating heart of a nation. It is confounding that those counter-protesters, who claimed to be patriots, were not the first to raise their voices against the maltreatment of their compatriots. Instead, they ignored the protesters demands, which reflected fears about the rights and safety of Hongkongers and Uighurs. To re-establish unity, they mimicked on an Australian campus the CCPs modus operani against dissidents: force and intimidation. But the protest itself did not create disunity in China. The protest was symptomatic of disunity.Outside the controlled discourse of their homeland, these counter-protesters are in the perfect position to engage with those fighting against the CCP. The presence of Mainland allies in the anti-ELAB crowd reflects as much. In Australia, the counter-protesters have an opportunity to hear what Hongkongers and Uighurs think about the CCP. They can empathise with the dissenters and become conscious of their shared political struggles. Ultimately, they can learn that criticism of their government is not incompatible with their patriotism. Criticism can even express that patriotism.The UQ counter-protesters betrayed the deepest irony of their patriotism on 24 July. Attempting to drown out the protesters, they blared the Chinese national anthem on a boom box. But the first line of the anthem declares, Get up, you who refuse to be slaves. If anything, that is the call to which the anti-CCP protesters responded. The invitation is open to all. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Disclaimer: Daanyal Saeed is a member of National Labor Students (Labor Left)With the Coalitions shock victory at the 2019 election, Australia has voted to retain a government that treats marginalised communities with contempt. The question then, is how the Labor Party lost an election that was considered all but won, whilst offering the most comprehensive policy platform since the Hawke-Keating era. Given the magnitude of the loss and the fact that it came in traditionally working class seats, there are now shouts from the partys conservatives for it to return to a centrist platform for the next three years. This will result in further losses, and more people will be hurt.The Labor Party needs to commit to a genuinely left-wing policy platform in order to succeed. Party membership has dwindled to a fraction of what it was before Hawke because the labour movement has rooted its successes in championing rights for those with work, and not for those without. The Coalition has succeeded here in its pitch of jobs and growth. If the Labor Party follows Corbyns lead in the UK, it will see the revitalisation of the fabled base. Despite what the conservatives say, it is entirely possible to lead the Party back into government with an unapologetically progressive agenda. As has been mused over the past fortnight, the franking credits policy killed Labor. It was a sensible, redistributive tax policy that ultimately only affected 4% of the population: those wealthy enough to benefit from dividend imputations. However, in targeting the upper-middle classes, as opposed to multinational corporations and big business, the Labor Party chose an altogether more relatable group to focus on. This was their biggest failing the policy was incomprehensible to most, and anyone who did, could empathise with those affected. We saw through the Liberal Partys franking credits inquiry that older voters in particular were absolutely incensed; Rodney and Sue from Woollahra would get rid of their gardener and cleaner, and cancel their charity donations. Ultimately, the campaign struggled for cut-through because it lacked cohesion it bumbled through negative gearing and franking credits before moving on to schools and hospitals. It was an awfully diluted model of class warfare one that relied on the electoral equivalent of nerf guns instead of assault rifles. It simply was not strong enough.Electorally however, the biggest impact on Labors primary vote was not in affluent areas that benefit from franking credits it was in Queensland, where their primary vote dropped 4.4%. The expectation was that losses in central Queensland marginal seats would be countered by an improved vote in metropolitan areas. However, the Labor Party failed to recognise coal minings centrality to the states economy. It is not the case that central Queensland is filled with rabid climate denialists; the Greens actually improved their primary vote in the House and Senate by 1.1% and 3.3% respectively. Queenslanders voted for jobs and for certainty; not against climate action. Labors version of climate action as a less-than-enthusiastic response to a single coal mine, as opposed to a cohesive movement incorporating workers, is exactly the problem. Renewable energy is cheaper than coal, and yet not only did Labor fail to link climate action to lowered costs of living, but there was a baffling lack of focus on a just transition from fossil fuels. The franking credits policy would add $10.7 billion to the Australian economy over the next four years, according to PBO costings enough for a $67,000 per year transition fund for each of Australias 40,000 miners, who could be transitioned into jobs in sustainable industry, manufacturing or infrastructure. Whilst this is of course a reductive analysis, it demonstrates the possibilities available when parties commit themselves to climate action that considers working people. Alternatives also lie in their own state platforms; NSW Labor proposed a state-owned renewable power company at the last election, the adoption of which at national level would address both climate action and cost of living. Instead, the ALP in its introspection concluded that its the voters who are wrong. We see this with the potential new leader Anthony Albanese attributing the loss to messaging, rather than the real-world impact of Labors climate policy itself.This really was the climate election. Progressive firebrands the world over have realised that the dichotomy between environmental action and cost of living is an utter lie, most prominently seen with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs Green New Deal. Labor needs to be next. 2022 is a long way away, and many communities will be hurt under this Coalition Government. By the time we get another chance to turf them out, we will have used up a quarter of the time we have before climate change becomes irreversible. As such, the Australian Labor Party must realise the mistakes they have made this election, and not give in to the centres false cries of pragmatism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The scene is set at a recent Sydney Policy Lab discussion on the possibility of an Australian Green New Deal (GND). The dramatis personae are the elites of Sydneys left. The discussion, generally stimulating and effective in coalition-building, ultimately featured contentious issues within environmental discourses.The evening opened with an admission: no Indigenous people were present. Indigenous peoples ought to be at the centre of an Australian GND, everyone said, but the event took place in an elite, largely white academic space. Little mention was made of effective land and water management techniques of Indigenous peoples. Attendees reminded each other that climate change is a social justice issue, but that discussion lacked context. Noticeably absent was the water crisis in remote Indigenous communities in North-Western NSW, and the Victorian governments clearing of sacred Djab Wurrung trees for a highway bypass.The GND is a broad environmental and egalitarian project, Dr Amanda Tattersall told attendees, originating from social movements which survived the fall of Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign by gradually developing within and outside of the Democratic party, lately through the efforts of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Justice Democrats. The GNDs historical namesake was the Democrats New Deal, a set of extensive post-Depression public reform initiatives.As a deeply ambitious project, the GND resets numerous policy areas along with the structures of democracy and the capitalist economy itself.The next governments environmental policy is a far cry from the GND. The two policy suites are only remotely comparable in terms of breadth and in centering a just transition for workers in fossil fuel industries. Under Labors policy, geographically-specific Just Transition Authorities will prioritise community power.But Labors approach is grounded in moderating environmental policy rather than reskilling and empowering communities. Subsidising lower emissions-intensive technology leaves the door open for capitalist profiteering rather than public investment. The result is Labors policy falling concerningly short of a materialistic and social movement-driven GND.Its hard to see the GND developing from within Labor ranks, as necessary as it is for Labor to support it.The discussion often dwelled on the pedantic and post-material. Discussions questioned the form an Australian GND would take. Without an original New Deal, an Australian-branded Green and Gold New Deal needs inspiration from post-war reconstruction, the accords or last decades Global Financial Crisis bailout.A GND would, and must, look, sound and operate differently in Australia. The non-tokenistic centring of Indigenous people and their practice, relevance to people of colour and working class communities as well as the complexities of our own polity make a different GND necessary.Like Americas New Deal, Australians must confront the way equivalent programs were marred by concessions to capital and racial oppression. The clearing of Indigenous land, incarceration of Indigenous peoples and migrants, and the exploitation of migrant labour were features of both the New Deal and Australias post-war economy. Both remain pressing issues today.The New Deal took up reforestation programs, but jobs were offered to white men first as black unemployment soared and Native American practice were ignored. The New Deal made it easier for workers to organise, but excluded agricultural and domestic workers who were mostly black. Racist Southern landowners and capitalists made a killing off the New Deal. Previous laws allowing unions to exclude members on the basis of race were not overturned.In Australia, post-war reconstruction brought imperfect progress. Infrastructure development in South Australia required massive population growth. Although migration began to foster some sense of multiculturalism, the immigration debate was filled with racist hysterias tied to anti-semitic and anti-communist rhetoric. Jewish people were intentionally excluded from refugee agreements of the time. Immigration was raised out of economic necessity. White immigrants were favoured to avoid having to accept Asian immigrants.Thuy Nguyen from the progressive community coalition Sydney Alliance challenged the largely white room to include working class and migrant communities in the coalition building project. Past mistakes must not be repeated, Nguyen argued.The current challenge is significant. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently declared that human society has until 2030 to limit irreversible changes to the climate.Labors policy reaches into most areas of society and the economy, but even on these measures, it falls far short of the urgent change championed by the GND.The author is a current member of National Labor Students (NLS) and a Young Labor Left Convenor. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It still surprises me how often I can casually use the term ABC and receive a blank stare in return. Australian-born Chinese form a significant portion of our community and yet many out there remain oblivious to such cultural nuances. With this lack of cultural awareness still prevalent, you can imagine then, that when I go around introducing myself as a Third Culture Kid (TCK), most people have never heard of this term at all.A TCK is a person raised outside of their parents culture or the culture of their official nationality, who does not relate to the culture of the country they grew up in.ForTCKs like me, where are you from? is a loaded question.I will typically respond with a short Im from Hong Kong. Yet this picture is a less than accurate sketch. My struggle with my identity has been a confusing journey with no shortage of sore points.While my parents grew up in Malaysia and hold Malaysian passports, I am ethnically part Chinese and Japanese. If that wasnt a mouthful, once I add that I grew up in a predominantly expat community in Hong Kong and attended international school all my life, my cultural heritage tends to disorient most people that I meet. That invariably leads to false conceptions of my identity founded on comfortable and familiar stereotypes. TCKs are prevented from easily giving voice to their origin stories, and are severed from the roots of a precise nationality, a home.Wherever I go, I have often felt and been treated as an outsider. Comments on my accent have in the past sent me spiralling into a state of unease and insecurity with my identity. When I meet a Hong Konger for example, they label me as an overseas Chinese from Malaysia. While I was born in Hong Kong and am a permanent resident there, I have never truly felt like a local in my own home city. When I visit extended family in Malaysia, they are quick to point out my apparently British accent and consider me a guai mui (Cantonese slang for foreign girl). Comments like this, while unintentional, have been hurtful and sparked a lot of resentment and dissociation with my cultural identity.I meandered between different cultural groups throughout primary and high school. At one point, I pretended to be a K-pop, J-pop and even Canto-pop aficionado. I watched K-dramas with my friends during lunch break, while in my head I wondered why most of the actors that my friends were fangirling over just looked unattractive to me. Back in the days when cable TV was my go-to entertainment, I remember begging my parents not to unsubscribe to Disney Channel, FOX and the Travel Network. I would watch American Idol as frequently as Fawlty Towers and Little Britain.It was during high school that I first came across the term Third Culture Kid and I didnt think much of it at the time.The decision to identify as a TCK actually occurred after moving to Australia. I realised that the non-judgemental, unassuming acceptance I had received within the expat community I grew up in was something truly unique. Elsewhere, it seems that people quickly categorise a new face as either one of us or one of them, local or foreigner. I have been assumed by many to be Australian, just because I dont have an international student accent, and I share similar, westernised traits with them. But obviously, to say Im an ABC would be incorrect.To live authentically, for me, has meant accepting my roots as a TCK. While my younger self felt constantly torn between differing cultures, having the freedom to pick and choose from my own mixed bag of traditions has been the most rewarding experience. Some laugh at the notion of calling themselves global citizens, but to me, seeing myself as a TCK has allowed me the freedom to embrace my whole identity, and not yearn for what others have. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Im really cold.Not because its the middle of winter. No, its actually 26 degrees outside I should be sweating.Instead, Im bringing a cardigan and a travel mug of peppermint tea to uni today.Why? Because I know therell be Antarctic temperatures in every one of my lecture theatres and tutorial rooms today. If I dare to wander into Education or ABS, Ill have to bust out my extra-thick socks and heavy-duty woollen coat to make sure I dont get hypothermia.Id love to say Im exaggerating. But as I sit in Fisher, those seated around me are visibly shivering.I do get it. Were in Australia, its hot, weve got to make sure we dont let one millilitre of sweat drip from our bodies. USyd is also a financially well-endowed university. Naturally, we enjoy showboating our shiny air conditioning units around wherever we can.But mostly, I find this penchant for excessive air conditioning pretty confusing. Every room I enter on campus, regardless of the season, Ive felt that the level of artificial cooling is genuinely excessive. It always seems fixed at a temperature that would be entirely unwarranted unless its: a) a freakish 40 degree day or b) all of us have just run a marathon and staggered into class immediately afterwards.I just feel like everyone in Fisher would be able to enjoy studying without their snot turning to icicles, if we turned the aircon off for a second. Even used the fan. Or did something wild like, I dont know, opening a window (its pretty damn stuffy in here).Its actually unrelenting. Often when I walk into an entirely uninhabited classroom, its already freezing. Whilst some of the universitys air conditioning is centrally managed by Campus Infrastructure Services (CIS), cooling systems in older edifices are managed by teachers and students themselves where, from my experience, little attention is paid to whether the cooling is left on between classes, or even overnight.USyd does currently hold an Indoor Air Quality & Thermal Comfort guideline, developed by the Safety, Health and Wellbeing Unit twenty years ago. On perusal however, this document merely outlines the optimal indoor thermal comfort conditions for a classroom, without clarifying how these conditions are to be achieved, let alone monitored. Leading to my current, teeth-chattering writing conditions.Yet even more concerning than my current set of goosebumps, are the stats on the terrible impact this overzealous chilling has on our climate.Aircon units are the most electricity-hungry appliance in the average home. They use 10 to 20 times more electricity than a ceiling fan. They consume hefty amounts of non-renewable energy that contributes to the depletion of our ozone layer and ultimately, to global warming.Its enough to make your blood run cold when you realise that CIS switching the aircon to arctic 24/7 isnt making us cooler, but hotter.Its a damaging cycle, and its time to find an exit point.USyd has been vocal in its commitment to assist the climate, with its self-lauded Pave the Way campaign raising over $2 million for environment-related causes in 2018.However, this only left me wondering why the same commitment is barely demonstrated in its excessive air conditioning.Student Services told Honi that they are working on reducing our energy consumption and appreciate support. Additionally, they reported having a focus on energy efficiency in 2019, and are attempting to rollout a motion sensor program for air conditioning units.But improvements are still lagging behind the rate of climate damage. More monitoring systems are needed to ensure classrooms, especially those locally managed, are not ignorantly contributing to the larger movement of environmental devastation.Yes, being a tad chilly in my lecture is not a big deal and I can easily just bring a jumper. Im also aware that were not the only institution barely lifting any fingers to reduce our carbon emissions.But surely, we can lift one far enough to turn off the AC for a minute? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At 3:59 am, sleep-deprived from a train journey that began at 12am, I stood shivering amongst the streets of Basel, Switzerland. Spirits were high after witnessing an entire city shuffle down the streets in pyjamas for this UNESCO-listed cultural festival.At 4am, all the lights flicked off. The city hushed, holding its breath in the darkness.From the distance, a choir of piccolo shrieks and rumbling drumbeats could be heard. A parade of floating lanterns bobbed towards us, their carriers bodies in darkness. It was an odd sight to witness, made more curious by the incomprehensible German propaganda scrawled over the lanterns. They displayed contemporary culture, political agendas and, of course, whats a modern parade nowadays without a grossly cartoonified print of Trump.As the parade snaked its way around the city, it would pause at certain locations. Thats when you could notice details of the paraders, their head-masks morphed by shadows from the pale illumination of lanterns. Grotesquely large head-masks leered at you, disproportionate to the performers thinner frames, freakishly alien when accompanying the shrieking piccolos.The wintry night pulsed with an energy; the performers a single organism compelled to continue a 600 year old tradition that will persevere in spite of human discomforts.It was a frenzy that did not stop, even in 8am daylight. Fasnacht is a festival that begins at 4am, on the Monday after Ash Wednesday, and continues until 4am Wednesday in an ecstasy of lights, music, dancing, and drinking. Although no one is clear on how it originated, pagan festivities celebrating the expulsion of winter have been traced back to the 14th century. One of the earliest records dates back to Ash Wednesday in 1376, when a bloody revolt between citizens and knights took place during a jousting tournament. 12 citizens were executed as retribution. Although the nobility tried to abolish it over the following centuries in fear that the festival promoted systemic criticism, citizens in closed-off guilds would still play tricks to mock or protest against their rulers in the safety of their guises. During the Reformation in 1529, it was decided that the Carnival would be moved on the Monday following Ash Wednesday after the obligation to fast fell away. To this day, Fasnacht in Basel is the only Protestant carnival in the world. Its esoteric beginnings do not subdue the vibrance with which it is celebrated.As an Australian, I cannot help but reflect on differences in tradition with my settler-colonial country. My first reaction was to dismiss Australias culture as comprised only of derivatives, or second-hand traditions brought by immigrants that have slowly adapted themselves to the Australian context. In spite of Australias pride in being an intersection of international cultures, there does not appear to be any national traditions dating back more than a few hundred years to name.And yet, there are traditions dating back tens of thousands of years in Australia they are just not ubiquitously known. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities still live out rich cultural heritage, as the worlds oldest civilisation dating back at least 58,000 years. However, they have been subjected to centuries of subjugation, with a rather explicit aim of erasing their cultural identity a far cry from Basels enshrined Protestant traditions.Cultural erasure only intensifies beyond Australias borders: most Europeans Ive spoken to have little awareness of First Nations Peoples. There is an irony in the fact that Sydney has many easily locatable ethnocentric suburbs, frequented for their specific culture, and yet there is almost no cultural awareness of who the lands owners were and still are outside of their communities. As a 2nd-generation Chinese immigrant, I am proud that traditions such as the Chinese New Year are widely celebrated in Australia. Moreover, through public events, all ethnicities become aware and involved in these traditions. Conversely, I can barely name a handful of Aboriginal traditions.Ex-Prime Minister Keatings Redfern Speech recognised that as complex (as) our contemporary identity is, it cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia. This was in 1994 and although policy efforts have been made since, the very fact that in 2018, only two of the seven Closing the Gap initiatives were on track is a testament to the fact that more action needs to be taken, from top-down and bottom-up. Going to university right next to a suburb with a prominent Aboriginal community, I am ashamed that my knowledge of Aboriginal traditions hardly extends beyond the Dreamtime. Whilst attending festivals overseas is culturally broadening, I have come to realise that as Australians, we have a responsibility to also look towards our own First Peoples, learn of their traditions and celebrate them as part of our countrys culture. Until then, Australia cannot be praised as truly multicultural if it doesnt include the rightful owners of the land. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Content warning: police brutality, sexual assaultI CANT BREATHE was seen written on the clothing around the league in late 2017, as the shirts of stars including Lebron James and Kobe Bryant quoted the last words of Eric Garner during his arrest and murder by New York police officers. Their actions were lauded by the sports media, and rightfully so, as these athletes made use of their platform to support an important movement.Beyond the individual actions of players, NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, received media-wide commendation for his dramatic fining and expulsion of owner Donald Sterling for racist comments he made at LA Clippers games.He similarly received adulationafter moving the All-Star Game from North Carolina following the states passing of anti-transgender legislation.The NBA has long held the mantle of one of the worlds most progressive sports leagues. A litany of examples offer evidence of an organisation thats consistently at the forefront of issues of social justice and miles ahead of competitors like the NFL, whose owners recently blacklisted anthem protestor Colin Kaepernick.However, it appears the leagues social awareness does not extend to issues of sexual assault.Its a poorly kept secret that the NBA has had numerous instances of high-profile stars face serious sexual assault charges.Most notably, in 2004, league star Kobe Bryant was accused of rape by a 19-year-old hotel worker.The case was eventually dropped more than a year later after the victim declined to testify, an unsurprising decision considering Kobes legal teams relentless effort to publicly air her mental health and sexual history, and death-threats and hate mail from delusional Kobe fans.Kobe apologised to the victim in a public statement, and then returned the next season to adoring crowds, an MVP award, and continued stardom on leagues most popular team.He received a 7-year $136 million-dollar contract, sponsorships from Nike, Spalding, and Coke, and more than 15 years on he still holds an almost-mythical place in the basketball community.He was forgiven, embraced, and lionised by the same community that now so valiantly stands together on issues of social injustice time and time again.Kobe Bryants case does not exist in isolation.Former MVP Derrick Rose was accused of participating in a gang-rape. While found not guilty, his testimony included the admission that the alleged victim never gave consent, and that he didnt even know what consent was. He returned this season with a performance described as an inspiring resurgence by Forbes and was met with nothing but praise and adoration on fan forums and social media, including Lebron calling him a superhero. More recently, former LA Laker coach Luke Walton and Dallas Mavericks star Kristaps Porzingis have been accused of sexually problematic behaviour.Undoubtedly, the NBAs support for players taking important political stances is positive, especially relative to other sporting leagues both in America and globally. However, the fact that this support stops dead in its tracks when it comes to the sphere of sexual assault is worrying to say the least.It suggests that there may be more insidious motivations behind the NBAs seemingly progressive attitude than meets the eye. The NBA wants to be seen as the alternative for sports fans repulsed by the conservative streaks of the NFL, MLB, and NHL. This selective approach is grounded in the NBAs understanding that their profit margins are boosted by supporting only causes which have existing social capital amongst their fan base. In the case of sexual assault (where many of its stars have a deeply troubling history) this social capital doesnt exist. Cutting ties with these athletes would do intolerable damage to the bottom line, and for that reason, the NBA chooses not to extend its supposed progressivism to this sphere.Their selective support of particular social justice issues is something that continues to be problematic, and if the NBA truly wants to hold the mantle of Americas most progressive mens sports league, it needs to call out its own problem. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A common cry of the bloodthirsty right wing in the culture wars is that academia has a secret, corrosive Marxist agenda, indoctrinating the youth with leftism and producing irredeemably biased research. This claim is used to damage the credibility of academia generally, undermining its perceived authority and framing the right as under attack from elitist socialist academics. Its worth examining this pervasive claim, why its so popular, and what purpose it serves. The most puzzling aspect of accusations of left-wing bias in academia is the implication of conspiracy. The presence of lefties of various shades in universities is often framed as resulting in discrimination against conservatives, the propagation of biased viewpoints, and the pushing of particular political agendas. If a majority of academics lean left, its unclear why that should be construed as being organised or collusive. Instead, it seems plausible that as with any profession particular types of people tend to work as academics and have their own personal beliefs that remain largely separate from their work. These worries also foolishly conflate a whole spectrum of left-wing and liberal thought. There is little in common between a socially progressive centrist and a communist, but they would both likely identify as left-wing. Given that, its dubious that a biased agenda or leftist groupthink really permeates academic thought. On top of that, any education about left-wing thought is seen to be biased, while centrist and neoliberal takes are usually viewed as inherently apolitical. Where a neoliberal economics subject seems neutral, a Marxist political economy unit referentially becomes politically charged. Pro-Western Liberal Democracy standpoints are seen as default; anything else is radical. This makes it easy for conservative pundits to overstate the presence of bias within our educations. Moreover, the concern that academics are biased to the left implies that their progressive slant is unjustified. Perhaps it is reasonable for academics in particular fields to overwhelmingly reject conservatism or neo-liberalism if their work leads them to that conclusion. Claims of bias in education, then, are unconvincing on a number of levels: they assume that some statistical tendency to the left constitutes an agenda or movement; they unreasonably homogenise the left, seeking to substantiate accusations of groupthink; they refuse to give merit to justifiably left-leaning work; and they overstate the existence of radicalism in academia in the first place. Why do they persist?Promoting distrust of academia serves right-wing populists well. For one, social liberalism is correlated with higher levels of education, making it decidedly in the interests of conservatives to suggest that academics, who are by nature highly educated and often educators, are not credible. By arguing that experts cannot be trusted, their political positions however internally justified and well-researched are made suspect.Pertinently in Australia, where beliefs about climate change are anomalously polarised, and denial is an established conservative political position, its also helpful for the right to erode faith in science. While right-wingers would have us think they are the purveyors of facts and logic, evangelical Christianity and fossil fuels interests combine to incentivise opposition to scientific consensus. When universities are taken to be ivory tower hotbeds of Marxist sentiment, its far easier to present the climate crisis as a progressive talking point rather than as empirical reality. This is then used to paint climate science as oppositional to the average, common-sense person, thereby legitimising denialism. The claims of bias play another purpose: they feed into an ideological distaste for access to tertiary education. The Left has been the source of historical pushes for opening up universities to working class students, fighting to make university free and opposing moves to deregulate fees. But this threatens universities place as a home for wealthy young people to entrench their privilege and for the upper classes to dominate research, public thought, and the media. Presenting universities as overly radical and untrustworthy suggests that academias current work is value-less: simply look at rhetoric about jobless arts students being fed with a left-wing agenda. In doing so, it becomes easier if not actively popular to cut funding and other forms of support to universities work.Anti-academic rhetoric is a harmful tool of right-wing populism, used to shut down opposition and demonise expertise. Despite being unfounded, allegations of left-wing bias in academia are regrettably effective in undermining academics work. This is not by accident, but motivated by a disregard for research, critique, and democratic access to education. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In a recent tutorial in Interdisciplinary Impact, a compulsory subject under the new curriculum, this authors class was made to participate in the Marshmallow Challenge. Most commonly found at soul-crushing business conferences and in kindergarten classes, the task requires groups to construct the tallest possible tower out of spaghetti sticks and tape. A marshmallow is then impaled on the pinnacle of the tower in an apparent sacrifice to academic rigour.The new Sydney Undergraduate Experience was launched in 2017. The announcement on the University website hailing the new changes was written by a Media and PR Adviser. It was accompanied by a listicle proffering the Top 5 things to know about the Sydney Undergraduate Experience (clearly curriculum is a tired term). That an historic reworking of the undergraduate curriculum at arguably Australias most prestigious university was justified by way of listicle raises questions about the academic integrity of the new curriculum and its underlying purpose.David Palfreyman, of the UKs Office for Students, argues that true higher education is notabout engagement with some latest silly whim or obsessionit is not about feeding employers with what they may short-sightedly see as fit-for-purpose graduates. In its move away from academic disciplines with an established methodology and history of rigorous scholarship towards faddish Open-Learning Environment and Interdisciplinary units, the new curriculum sacrifices many of the traditional tenets of a university education in a quest for marketability.Sydney Universitys primary function is as an academic institution. The education provided by its academic staff should imbue its students with skills such as inquiry, curiosity and independent thought. It is these qualities which employers find attractive in university graduates.The new curriculum reverses this equation, seeking to adapt to the ever-changing desires of employers. The page for Interdisciplinary Projects, now a compulsory subject, is filed under Careers on the University website. It advertises that the subject looks great on your resume. It demonstrates your practical and collaborative skills to potential employers and will give you an advantage when applying for jobs. There is no mention of any academic requirements. In this authors own experience of an Interdisciplinary unit, a lack of reading was trumpeted as an advantage, while tutorials consisted of TedTalks, spaghetti towers and post-it note allocation. This elevation of employability over academia should be concerning for the University, whose academic instruction should be, in and of itself, attractive to employers without requiring obsequiousness to corporate sensibilities.In conversation with Honi, two academic staff from an interdisciplinary subject again used employability as justification for the new curriculum. It was argued that, as new technologies and industries emerge, universities must prepare their students for a life in which traditional academic skills are less valued. Inevitably, we are returned to the perennial debate as to the purpose of tertiary institutions. Is it to feed employers with fit-for-purpose graduates, or should it be concerned with a broader education of the mind? This calculus will change between faculties. But in a liberal arts setting, where the purpose of education is not vocational, the imposition of mandatory subjects sits uncomfortably with the freedom of inquiry that such a course of study demands.This newfound focus on employability can be seen in one of three ways: as a tacit admission of failings in the Universitys regular academic instruction, as a bow to the demands of employers or as a mere marketing exercise. Given Sydney University was rated first in Australia for graduate employability by QS before the new curriculum, we may discount the first possibility. Therefore, if the new Experience exists for reasons other than improving academic inquiry, rigour and performance, it is arguable that marketing imperatives have overtaken academic instruction as a prime motivator of undergraduate learning.Auden wrote of Oxford:O in these quadrangles where wisdom honours herselfDoes the original stone merely utter that praiseShallowly, or utter a bland hymn of comfortThe founders equivocal blessingOn all who worship successSydney University markets itself on prestige. This prestige does not derive from sandstone and quadrangles, but rather from a centuries-long academic tradition. The new Sydney Undergraduate Experience merely utters a bland hymn of comfort to that tradition, prioritising the demands of those who worship success at the expense of academic integrity. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Joining the climate movement, I truly didnt know what to expect. But after having had the opportunity to participate in different spaces like the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), School Strike for Climate (SS4C), and various groups at the University of Sydney, Ive learned many lessons about organising that Id never thought about before. Having the privilege to organise is often associated with being a leader or taking authority. However, Ive learned that the ability to build a network is much more important. Making sure that you and those around you have put in their share of effort is much more efficient when the group is comprised of a strong and non-hierarchical network of people. Networking and relational organising are key to a successful movement, more so than being a leader. Being part of a youth movement where most people are under 18 and trying to balance HSC assessments, work and social life had some limitations. We faced difficulties with filing police reports or knowing that our target audience often needed their parents permto attend our actions. Leaving high school and moving into the university space feels like an entirely new world of activism. I have met people with far more autonomy to make decisions for themselves without the weight of family pressures, and in many cases, more knowledge on the climate crisis itself. Its exciting to see so many different ideas and recognise the intersectionality of the climate movement with issues of race, gender, economics and sustainability all merging into one. Ive since realised that working together with similar movements around us and tapping into different demographics is a crucial part of mobilisation. Another important lesson which applies to any space of organising is that self-care must come first. The fight for climate action can only come from sustainable activism putting mental health above all. This can be trickier when organising in high school due to the lack of flexibility, however, in university, it fortunately exists. But ultimately in any space, burnout culture is real and prevention is certainly better than cure. In the past couple of months during this pandemic, organisers have also had to learn the hard way that flexibility is crucial. Although online activism has always existed, shifting our major actions and training online while making sure the level of engagement is the same has been difficult. On the other hand, being forced to seek alternate ways of organising has exposed the inaccessibility of activism previously done, especially to disabled communities. Those in regional and rural areas are now able to accelerate their journey in the climate movement with a simple click of the button. Its all about building new opportunities out of the many challenges we face. Finally, through organising in the climate movement, Ive learnt that its not just about fighting for climate action, but for climate justice. Its not about having a strike with a few demands for the government, but instead about showing solidarity with First Nations communities, workers and people on the frontlines of the climate crisis. While it can be overwhelming sometimes, Im excited to use these lessons to better my organisational skills as I continue on my journey in the movement. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A common piece of framing used when talking about the environment is the idea of intergenerational equity. It appears in newspaper rhetoric and formally in environmental law. The intention behind this seems reasonable; it expresses a desire to safeguard future generations, and contrasts with the selfish attitude of the ruling class and the fossil fuels industry which prioritises immediate profit. However, I argue that this is an imperfect framing, and one which can be built upon to be more meaningful.Intergenerational equity does not make sense where it claims that distributive justice between generations is possible and desirable. It implies that environmental assets today should be maintained for the future, however this wrongfully places moral value in static conditions. The world will necessarily change in a multiplicity of ways, and it is very difficult to create some objective measure for deciding the needs and conditions of future generations. This means that equity is impossible to accurately conceptualise or predict.More importantly, a conception of equal conditions between this era and future generations is limiting. This perspective neglects the importance of pursuing better lives for future generations. By focusing solely on mitigation and preservation to soften the blows of environmental destruction, though important, we miss the opportunity to build more robust and meaningful institutions which lay the groundwork for a better world.Instead, we should embrace the more holistic aspirations of the environmental justice movement. We should hold that there are certain outcomes that communities fundamentally deserve, now and in the future. These include participation and respect for intersectionality within environmental decision-making, integration of environmental outcomes with related goals such as education, healthcare and social wellbeing; incorporating solidarity with others and the establishment of accountable institutions.We owe future generations something more creative and valuable than a preservation of current conditions. We owe them an environmental movement which pursues equity in all facets of life, and a world where the cruel and exclusive excesses of our current economic system and governance are solved.It also solves the question of how much we should sacrifice to protect future generations. Emphasising the trade-off between present and future generations is an ineffective and unnecessary rhetorical move: it is immensely speculative and tends to turn people off. The environmental justice movement illustrates how we can have our cake and eat it too: by safeguarding the planet and vulnerable people in the present, we improve the environmental outcomes in the long run.Finally, the benefit of this conception is that it can be powerfully used in response to rising ecofascism. Where ecofascism manipulates the need to protect nature to justify cruelty to humans and consolidation of unjust state power, we can reply: is this solution worth it? If we believe we owe future generations something more than conservation, that we owe them democracy and community and the ability to enjoy and treasure the environment, the answer is no. If we truly care about future generations, then we should create for them something better. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There are many different reasons to fight for climate action. Some have suffered firsthand from the destruction of increasingly extreme weather events. Others feel a sense of injustice when faced with the denial and negligence of political leaders. For me, standing up for the environment is closely related to my faith.Although I grew up attending various congregations of the Uniting Church, I have not always considered myself religious. I often felt reluctant to explore my spirituality because I could not see a place for God in the modern world. While I saw the value of community, who lifted up my family in times of need, as we did for others, I was never able to reach out and start a personal relationship with God.Something that helped me open up to my faith is the idea of creation. Creation recognises that the world is a work of God, a concept I feel drawn to because it helps answer a deep curiosity within methat there must be a greater reason for the existence of myself and everything around me.Part of this creation narrative is a divine mandate to care for creation. This does not make humans superior to other forms of life, but responsible to them. My faith also calls me to love my neighbours. Whether it be rising seas threatening the homes of Pacific Islanders, or unpredictable weather straining rural farmers, climate change has devastating impacts on real people. How can I profess a love for others when I know they are suffering as a result of a government and economic system that perpetuates environmental destruction? As long as corporations burn fossil fuels for profit and our politicians are complicit in this country, I will speak up.Christian community has helped me put this calling into action. A discovery of faith is rarely an individual pursuit, and I have been blessed to be part of a congregation who sees their faith as a reason to pursue social justice. One experience in particular epitomises this fellowship of activism.Last year, I co-led a team of organisers from Christian Students Uniting who had the vision of unifying the Church for the September 20 Climate Strike. Across a span of 3 months, we organised vigorously, bonding in our common goal to protect creation, and growing under the mentorship of leaders in our community. As a result of our work, over 500 members and affiliates of the Uniting Church answered our call and we marched through the streets in support of the global environmental movement, a collective proclamation of our faith in motion.The event was not only immensely rewarding, but deeply spiritual. Mesmerised by the combined power of 80,000 voices, I felt more connected to humanity than ever before. This is religion for menot merely a system of beliefs, but a motive for action. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> War and environmental destruction are so deeply entwined it is impossible to view conflict without considering their mutual relationship. Resource wars are the most easily identified. These occur both in order to protect an abundance of fossil fuels, as well as occurring over resource scarcity which increasingly includes water. For instance, conflict in the Middle East exists largely due to the United States attempts to maintain authority over abundant oil supplies to have control over international oil prices, particularly in Iraq. By contrast, the scarcity of water is a significant cause of conflict in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. The 2007 Civil War in Darfur, Sudan was regarded as the worlds first climate change conflict and the displacement of 13 million people by the Syrian Civil War can be traced back directly to climate change: drought and agricultural difficulties. The African subcontinent is extremely vulnerable to climate change and the inevitable conflicts that arise in response, yet has contributed a miniscule percentage of global emissions. Another fundamental connection between war and the climate is the military activities. The US Department of Defence is the single biggest polluter on the planet due to their carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the US occupation of Afghanistan since 2001 has contributed tonnes of emissions to global warming along with causing deforestation and destruction of the natural environment. Ironically, US army officials are concerned about the implications of climate change on their operations and changes they will have to make as a result. Indigenous land has been under threat for centuries, with imperial colonisers disregarding true owners in the interest of expanding territory to exploit natural resources. The legacy of colonisation lives on attacks, encroachments and unlawful taking of Indigenous land continues, often driven by fossil fuel and logging companies. Contemporary examples include the Wetsuweten people, and the Kanaka Maoli of Hawaii. Attempts to take First Nations land for these purposes not only infringe upon land rights, but contribute to atmospheric warming and biospheric destruction. Israels expropriation of land and settlement building subjugates Palestinians. The system of environmental discrimination is symbolised in Israels Turning the Desert Green policy which directly funds the key infrastructure for the Israeli military, including in the Negev Desert. Naomi Klein argues that this is an example of green colonialism, a type of environmental protection involving carbon offsets and infringements on the abilities of less developed countries. Climate change will make parts of the earth uninhabitable and prompt resource wars which could displace between 25 million and one billion people by 2050. Interestingly, rhetoric directed towards protecting the planet and reversing climate change often involves war-like language. We speak of fighting climate change, destruction, and a war on climate change. Even the Green New Deal echoes inter-war history. In light of the inextricable links between war and environmental degradation, we must question our framing of protecting the planet and humanity in this way. Perhaps it should be reframed less violently; to focus on compassion, peace and Indigenous self-determination over their land. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It seems each season in Australia is characterised by a new disaster. I feel I live life too fast, spreading myself across spaces which prevent me from relating to my present context. It isnt until the perceived sense of control I have over life is shaken by crisis, that I actually stop and slow down. We have ways of carrying ourselves through the muck and grit of existence. During the crises we have faced in the last 6 months, I have seen communities respond by actively being a part of individual and collective action.The impending sense of powerlessness I feel has been diminished by joining in on existing community initiatives. Often, we look at this action as futile in light of big problems. But whos interrogating what counts and what doesnt count as action? While capitalisms main imperative is to economically rationalise individuals as consumers, rendering other needs invisible, I have found community organising to be a way to radically fight back.I have volunteered at Addi Road community-operated Food Pantry over the last month or so, which has galvanised the effectiveness of mutual aid efforts in empowering individuals and communities. Not only have practical needs been met, but emotionally and socially, vulnerable groups feel braced by the community (even if the government arent economically supporting them). Addi Road, nestled in the centre of Marrickville, has adapted in these extraordinary times by diversifying and providing Food hampers to both NGOs (such as the Asylum Seeker Centre) and individuals with growing needs in the community. They have always had two main objectives: to rescue food from landfill and to provide nourishing food to the vulnerable. It empowers me to witness the mutual aid of the community, to see others seeking environmental and social justice.Action however, can be as mundane as being present to ourselves, the people and the places we dwell in. This presence enables me to reconnect to things fundamental to my existence that is not encouraged under capitalism. Abstracted from food and material production we consequently use our supermarket shelf as a pantry. How I can simplify and foster skills in life that will reduce the burden I have on global chains of production? Shifting our focus to our homes during this time may not be a bad thing. Putting the care into growing plants or learning how to bake your own bread requires engagement in a ritual that helps relearn lost knowledge reducing our reliance on unstable systems. By no means do we all have to live off-grid or become entirely self-sufficient, but supply chains are fragile and rebuilding robust practices in the home is one way of reducing our environmental impact and helping us to withstand future changes.Post COVID-19 life will have far-reaching psycho-social and environmental effects on us. We will not go back to normal.Naturally, the suffering COVID-19 will bring is immense. But I hope that there can be silver linings that cause us to collectively shift to a different perspective on life. We have the choice every day to resist systems that created this problem. Our reliance on global supply chains is not sustainable and that governments dont always make decisions in your interest. By investing in personal resources, skill building and local, deliberate action we can reclaim power and be a part of radical action. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Inmates at Long Bay Correctional Centre in Malabar were tear gassed at midday today by the prisons Immediate Action Team (IAT) and Riot Squad police, who were called to the scene of a fight between inmates. Members of the local Malabar community took to social media to report tear gas coming from the gaol and into the surrounding suburbs. The public Maroubra Community Facebook page posted that a bunch of people [were] running from the beach and playground, lots of kids crying. All of a sudden theres this pungent smell, eyes and throat burning It was later confirmed by a Corrective Services NSW spokeswomen that the tear gas was used to control disruptive inmates.Aerial footage taken by the ABC shows prison guards releasing multiple tear gas canisters in the prison yard. It has also been reported that one man has been hospitalised with severe dog bite injuries after attack dogs were used by guards. The ABC footageshows several inmates using material found in the prison to spell out BLM in reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has seen protests across the world after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Prisons are often viewed as a necessary mechanism to keep violence from our communities; an inevitable and permanent feature of society, prisons are assumed, often totally uncritically, to be effective in stopping violence. As violence continues within our societies it is clear that prisons do not achieve their goal of ending violence. Many argue that prisons only serve to make people more violent and increase crime. These understandings of prisons as a tool to stop violence also fails to consider the violence prisons themselves produce. Prisons are a constant site of state violence, and todays tear gassing at Long Bay Gaol is just one example of this. In December 2015, Long Bay Gaol was the site of the murder of David Dungay Junr. David is one of the more than 400 Aborignal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. While cities across Australia and the world were protesting on Friday and Saturday as part of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, a 40 year old Aboriginal man died at Acacia Prison in Perth. When the weekend of protesting had ended, an Aboriginal woman was hospitalised and remains in critical condition after allegedly being body-slammed by a prison guard at Bandyup Womens Prison in Perth. This violence is not out of the ordinary but rather, an ongoing and inherent feature of the prison system. Dominant perceptions of violence as an interpersonal act hides the more dangerous and insidious violence that is sanctioned and perpetrated by the state. Todays tear gassing and prison lockdown was said to have occurred because of violence between two inmates, a physical fight. The reporting of this incident as interpersonal violence allows the state to justify its violence against those in prison. Prisons supposedly employ violence to protect, yet how can a system built upon violence protect from violence itself and seek to end it?The violence prisons produce is not just physical, and it is not always tear gas that will flow into the wider community and be noticed by those outside. It is often much more discreet, yet insidious. Prisoners are forced to endure deprivation and isolation to such an extent it can cause (and reinforce) trauma. The restrictive and controlling nature of life in prison means you are at the whim of a system you have no power in. The constant threat of violence controls people and forces them to surrender themselves to the will of the guards. Mandatory strip searches, sensory deprivation and physical and social isolation are all violent tactics that we are supposed to believe will rehabilitate people. While the violence of those entering prison and their crimes are televised and reported on, too often the violence inside prisons is hidden from the world. I wonder if the violence and lockdown seen today at Long Bay would have been reported on at all if it hadnt affected the outside community as much as it did. The common societal perception that prisoners are deserving of their punishment allows society to turn a blind eye to their treatment, considering it a necessary part of their punishment. As a society we must move beyond this punitive and carceral logic that allows for this violence against prisoners to continue. Because of the fact that we understand violence as an innate part of prisons, we must consider alternatives to carceral systems. Across the world Black Lives Matter protesters are calling for the dismantling of police and the abolition of prisons. This demand understands that there is no better or kinder prison system the only option is to abolish prisons and the capitalist and colonial systems in which such systemic violence is rooted. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> COVID-19 has presented a unique opportunity to finally overcome the political inertia surrounding climate action. And it is not just environmental activists and scientists pushing the idea this time, but a range of businesses and industry groups recognising that the shift to clean energy is not only a necessary course of action, but a smart one.The sudden and unprecedented rise in unemployment, already estimated at 6.2%, compels a reflection on how future disruptions can be best prevented. It is becoming increasingly clear, as lockdowns around the world persist, that future-proof jobs do not lie in fossil fuel industries but in renewable energy.The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a damning report for fossil fuel industries, indicating that during the pandemic, the demand for gas has dropped by 5%, and coal by 8%. Only renewable energy remained resilient to the global drop in energy demand. Renewables are already cheaper than new coal power in two-thirds of countries, whilst the cost of solar power has declined by 85% in the past decade. But what does this mean for the workers in fossil fuel industries? Regional workers particularly have expressed frustration at their marginalisation in city politics, and have taken to the streets to protest what they perceive as inner-city environmental movements.Perhaps the most well-known protest movement of this kind was the pro-coal movement in Mackay, mobilising in support for the Adani Carmichael coal mine and the jobs promised through it. The promise of job opportunities in Mackay demonstrates the persistent economic arguments underlying the advancement of renewable energy projects in regions dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Yet Tony Wood, the energy program director from the Grattan Institute, has argued that the government is cheating the nearly 100,000 Australian carbon workers by letting them think their protests against clean energy development will hold in a future predicated on renewable energy on a global scale.This is not to say that these workers will lack employment. Instead, the creation of renewable energy plants would provide masses of new job opportunities. Potential employment figures are estimated by the Clean Energy Council to be at 50,000 construction jobs and 4,000 ongoing jobs. The Grattan Institute further finds that new industrial development in green steel made with renewable hydrogen could employ 25,000 in coal-intensive regions. Beyond Zero Emissions is also developing a million jobs plan, with potentially 300,000 jobs in a national energy retrofit drive to render three million buildings more energy efficient.Australias abundant natural resources mean renewable energy is a ticket to advance Australias global standing through exports. The Australian Energy Market Operator released a ground-breaking report in April, stating that Australia has the capacity to run a power grid on 75% solar and wind energy by 2025 with technologies that are already available. Whilst environmentalists and scientists have been promoting these changes for decades, it has taken a global pandemic to meaningfully engage businesses and industry. The Business Council of Australia has argued strongly that every dollar we invest in energy, should be a dollar towards a lower carbon economy. It is government policy that is hindering this necessary and highly conceivable shift away from fossil fuels.At a surface level, state policy seems to be shifting towards clean energy development. Online summits presenting the need to frame the COVID-19 recovery around climate action were attended by representatives from each state and the ACT. For instance, Queenslands premier indicated that green hydrogen would overtake the states liquefied natural gas exports, whilst SAs energy minister hoped for SA to run on 100% clean electricity before 2030. However, these statements do not indicate a complete energy revolution; the Queensland government has announced a support package for the oil and gas industry, and the Victorian government has decided to lift the ban on onshore gas drilling. And NSW has approved an extension of coal mining under a Greater Sydney reservoirThese policies are clearly aimed at appeasing worker grievances. However, they are ultimately short-term fixes. Smarter developments in renewables are being sidelined in favour of attempts to save fossil fuel industries, with environmental goals of moving towards a zero-emissions future being sidelined. The extensive media coverage of COVID-19 has seemingly provided an opportunity to hide environmentally-damaging decisions, despite states vocalising support for clean energy. The states do appear to be ahead of federal policy change however, with the federal government not represented at either online energy summit. The federal government has instead promoted a fossil fuel-powered pandemic-recovery based on gas, despite evidence of its diminishing economic viability. Unsurprisingly, the federal government has not addressed how this sits with pursuing emissions reductions.The coal industry will not stand indefinitely, and by investing in fossil fuels in the post-pandemic stimulus, Australia would be passing up a once-in-a-generation opportunity to boost the economy and create jobs in new sectors, ensuring long-lasting economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. It is near-impossible to maintain the argument that fossil fuel jobs are future-proof; now is the best time to ensure that the Australian economy is. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The 7-Eleven wage scandal in 2015 revealed the systemic vulnerability of migrants and international students to exploitation in Australian workplaces. As one example among many, international student Pranay Alawala was underpaid more than $30,000 by a 7-Eleven franchise in Brisbane. However, when he confronted his employer about his owed wages, the franchises lawyer sent him a letter threatening to report him to immigration for working more hours than his visa allowed.For those on student visas, visa condition 8105 mandates that international students are only allowed to work up to 40 hours per fortnight while their course is in session. Whilst grappling with costly international student fees and living expenses, many international students struggle to find work due to their lack of Australian work experience, language difficulties, lack of local contacts and restricted working hours. Without other options, many students accept employers offers to work for more hours, but at below minimum wage usually cash-in-hand.Rather than occurring at big companies like 7-Eleven, the majority of this exploitation takes place in small businesses, especially in the retail and hospitality industry. In particular, employers usually speak the language and therefore are able to attract students who desire a workplace in which they can comfortably speak their native language.According to a survey conducted by Sydney University business school academic Stephen Clibborn, out of 274 international students working part-time, 60 per cent were paid less than minimum wage, with 35 per cent paid $12 an hour or less. Amongst Chinese students, 73.5 per cent were paid less than minimum wage.Its clear that international students are being exploited. But why do the majority not report their employers?Under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), it is an offence to breach a visa condition that restricts the work one can perform (s 235(1)). By working more than 40 hours a fortnight, international students have breached visa condition 8105, and are therefore liable to visa cancellation and deportation (s 116(1)(b)). For students who have undertaken the daunting journey of moving to an unfamiliar country, and who often bear the emotional burden of fulfilling the hopes of their families back home, visa cancellation is an unimaginably high risk. The tradeoff is disproportionate: whilst a student risks losing their dreams, an employer most likely faces fines. At worst, the Redfern Legal Centre notes incidents where employers have gotten away without consequence because students were deported before their claim finished. Even when students request their legal wages, employers utilise the threat of visa cancellation or deportation to silence them, as in Alawalas case. Currently, the law gives them legal backing.Furthemore, if a student reports an employer for exploitation, it doesnt only affect themselves. Employers will have to fire other employees because they cannot afford to hire, which means other international students will also lose their incomes, and probably struggle to find another job. Of course, reporting may also expose other international student workers to the risk of visa cancellation and deportation if they have also worked over the 40-hour work limit.Obviously, the exploitation of international students is a systemic issue, and targeting employers who engage in exploitative wage theft would address the root of the problem. But in order to do so, students must report their employers.To some extent, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) has recognised how the law inhibits international students from reporting, with Natalie James assuring that students can seek assistance without visa cancellation, even if they have worked more than the 40-hour limit.But international students need more than an assurance. A concrete guarantee would require providing definite deportation amnesty for students who report exploitation. Currently, the blanket policy of exposing all breaches to visa cancellation in section 116(1)(b) of the Migration Act, regardless of severity, nature or circumstance, increases students fear about reporting employers. This legislation should be reformed to reserve the penalties of visa cancellation and deportation only for serious breaches of visa conditions.Furthermore, successful case examples have not been publicised by the FWO, increasing the fear that international students may have. Following a recommendation put forward by the University of Adelaide, the FWO should post examples of successful stories on its website and social media platforms to raise awareness about the legal ability of the FWO, and encourage international students to report exploitation.Debating whether or not to remove the 40 hour working limit is another debate in itself perhaps it is interesting that the government relaxed the work limit from March to May 2020 to account for the economic downturns of COVID-19. But at the very least, international students should feel safe to report exploitative work conditions, and shouldnt have to fear losing their visa and the dreams that it enables. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The lady of the lamp, Florence Nightingale, is the gold standard who we as nursing students are made to look up to. But Nightingale worked by her own rules and ethics. This pandemic, more than anything, has shown that the Nightingale paradigm is really just there to make us feel like we have autonomy by being sacrificial and nice. Really, we arent holding any lamp as a student nurse who has been expected to embrace the pandemic as a learning opportunity, the lamp is broken.The universitys treatment of nursing students and staff has been consistently appalling in peak and downfall, as it maintains its adamance for clinical placements to be completed this semester not just for final year students, which would be understandable, but for first years too. Whilst clinical labs have rightly decreased in number and frequency, the 1.5m distance implemented by the university is impossible, because while students try their best to stand on crosses sellotaped to the carpet, teachers are doing their best to teach, so they stand closer to demonstrate skills to students, putting themselves at risk. Clinical placements also cant be justified, because while a grocery shop has been described as riskier by university staff, placements for first year students, who may rely on public transport, have been allocated at locations up to 2 hours away from their homes.The universitys justifications for these decisions have spanned from well-meaning to bizarre. A week after the census date and in the wake of the virus suspected peak, an email from the health faculty stated that as future health professionals, we are bound by professional standards to prioritise patients and the health of our community, and that the pandemic is a career learning opportunity that we may not experience in our lifetime again.At a zoom meeting for students, the nursing faculty told students that if they did not get PPE (personal protective equipment) packs during placement, it would be okay, because they were proven to be ineffective against the virus. The desperation to get students on placement and feeling safe on placement is embarrassing.But maybe Im shooting the messenger.The only believable justification the university has for making placements mandatory for all students at this time is the fact that the workforce will be severely impacted if we dont all graduate in the timeliest manner possible. The problem with this is that health services have been understaffed with nurses for years, and the government has never done anything significant to tackle this problem. Pandemic or not, the threat posed by having less nurses than already present is huge. Thats the learning opportunity that this pandemic has given me, which has not been about the pandemic itself, but about the more threatening problem of understaffing that the Australian government has done nothing significant to tackle. Nurses are fundamental to our societys functioning all the time, but they arent valued.Many nurses have quit because pay hasnt increased for years and is usually worse for essential nurses, like those in the aged care sector, who are especially important due to our aging population. In 2020, for every 1 male nurse registered under the nursing and midwifery board in Australia, there are 7 female nurses. The consistently low pay suggests a connection to the historical association with nursing as natural womens work rather than a profession which people must earn their livelihood from.Bursaries and specialised programmes to get more nursing students into universities are non-existent. Immigration policies for skilled workers from overseas to get into Australia still puts these nurses a minimum of around $5-10,000 dollars out of pocket, not including the potential costs of a solicitor to aid with applications and waiting times of at least one year for a response. Our governments stinginess makes Australia seem like a self-sufficient utopia rather than a country whose healthcare system is unnecessarily understaffed.So, this month and in the months to come, student nurses at USyd will be travelling to mandatory work they dont get paid for, when many students are not able to go to their actual workplace and earn a wage due to lockdown, having chronic conditions, or living with vulnerable people. They have been advised to wear clothes other than their nursing uniform offsite to avoid harassment, and they may potentially have to shower at their placement site after their shifts. In a classic moral guilt trip, this is apparently their duty, as future health professionals. Maybe everything will be fine, and risks have been assessed meticulously, but the absolute lack of choice students have had, regardless of what valid reasons they have to not go on placement right now, has shown how much this country relies on students and registered nurses to keep the system chugging along purely on the mythic, bounding generosity bouncing out of their chests.The problem is, I dont want to be told Im nice. I want rights.Nothing significant has been done to make being a nurse beneficial rather than sacrificial, and its because of this that theres a lack of nurses, and why student nurses are paying for government misdoings by compromising our own safety before we have even entered the workforce. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> As Sydney University, finding itself in dire financial straits, lays out plans for drastic cuts to staff conditions and course offerings, the University of Sydney Union (USU) has also quietly begun implementing austerity measures. The organisation, which runs clubs and societies as well as many campus outlets, employs over 250 staff and has a highly casualised workforce made up mostly of students. Since April 6, a large number of these staff have been left unemployed, with the USU announcing that casuals would not be receiving any further shifts. Some full-time staff have also been laid off with little warning, and remaining full-timers have been pressured to take leave, despite a media release on April 3 claiming that all staff who can feasibly work from home are now doing so and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.For an organisation which claims to be a non-profit organisation dedicated to giving students a once-in-a-lifetime university experience, the USU has shown a disgraceful contempt for the full-time employees and student casuals who actually run all of its campus outlets and programs. Any attempts to reduce hours, pay or conditions for staff must be resisted. Instead of looking after its staff, the organisation was slow to provide information about their plans for the coming months. When the information finally did come through that full-time staff, as well as casuals who had been with the organisation for more than a year, would be receiving the JobKeeper supplement, it wasnt mentioned that a number of staff who had been made redundant after the March 1 JobKeeper eligibility date would be left without any assistance. If at any point the USU decided to reinstate these staff, they would be eligible for the program.However, in multiple cases full-time staff who had been stood down simply had their positions eliminated from the organisation, and it seems that these staff are unlikely to be reinstated at the end of the health crisis either. The promises that the USU would make that payment to all eligible USU employees, including those now being stood down, have gone silently unfulfilled. In addition, a large proportion of casual staff have been employed for less than a year due to the high turnover in these roles, and are therefore not eligible for JobKeeper, meaning theyll have no support whatsoever. This includes many outlet and programs staff in particular, but also applies to the many visa workers employed by the USU who are ineligible for either JobKeeper or JobSeeker. A student-run organisation throwing such precarious workers on the scrapheap at a time that the call has gone out for no worker to be left behind highlights both the total inadequacies in welfare policy and the reprehensible behaviour of USU management.Platitudes offered by the Board are worth very little for those who were already relatively precariously employed and are now entirely out of work. While the Board issues statements claiming that the wellbeing of students and staff are their highest priorities, it becomes increasingly clear that this isnt the case the management of the USU is seemingly quite happy to place their financial position over the actual interests of the student body or their staff members. These decisions are of course, made secretly with a complete disregard for both transparency and the broader university communitys interests. The USU should ensure that no casual employee is left out of pocket as a consequence of the crisis, and guarantee their employment on the other side of the shutdowns.Students, already disappointed by recent changes which have left clubs and societies with pitiful levels of funding, should be outraged by the current actions of the USU. Austerity measures are not going to improve campus life, and it is not staff members who should be forced to bear the brunt of this crisis. The JobKeeper allowance should be applied to every staff member applicable, including those who have previously been laid off, and the USU must do more to support those who arent eligible for JobKeeper. With Board elections and the Annual General Meeting fast approaching, the USU needs to face up to its shameful treatment of staff and actually prioritise them in their plans for the future.As SRC Education Officer, I will be moving a motion at the Wednesday May 6 meeting of the SRC to call on student members of the USU Board to move a motion to this effect on the Board. The motion already has the support of current and prospective student Board members, including Honorary Treasurer Maya Eswaran and Honorary Secretary Decheng Sun, and calls for:All staff who have been made redundant due to COVID-19 to be reinstated.All eligible staff to be given access to JobKeeper.All staff ineligible for JobKeeper to have their employment protected.The fight to prevent our campuses from becoming wastelands of neoliberal attacks doesnt stop at the university itself. It must extend to student organisations, outlets and every corner of campus where students or staff are being shouldered with the burden of the COVID-19 crisis. As with the broader issue of university funding, the crisis has brought to the fore the fundamentally anti-worker and anti-student structure of user-pays, corporate institutions. Fighting back now is the first step to overhauling the whole rotten neoliberal model. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> It wasnt until this year that I discovered Haruki Murakamis luminous literary oeuvre. In March, I read Norwegian Wood and fell in love with its rendering of late 1960s and 70s Japan its jazzy soundscapes, textural characters and dynamic urban and natural environments, swimming between Tokyo, Kyoto and the mountains.When I completed the novel, UNIQLO happened to release a new clothing collection Murakami Radio. I was surprised for two reasons. The first was enmeshed with an appreciation of serendipity that UNIQLO had released a literary-themed clothing line about Murakami, parallel to my introduction to him. The second was more profound, built upon the surprise that a clothing brand, one that Id encountered and knew, had created a collection with a literary theme at all.The collection infuses Murakamis notorious jazzy bravado and intellectual quirkiness into a series of shirts paying homage to each of his central novels. UNIQLOs interpretation of Norwegian Wood a simple, forest green shirt with scarlet writing emblazoning the novels title across its chest stood out to me for its stark simplicity. Compared to the other shirts in the collection, like the anthropomorphic, jazzy feline headlining a Murakami Radio shirt, and Kafka on the Shores intricate Japanese calligraphy winged along a stencil of a nightingale, UNIQLOs interpretation of Norwegian Wood reminded me of the seamlessness of the relationship between fashion and literature.This seamlessness has been echoed elsewhere in 2021. In February, Maison Valentino established their Writers Campaign. With contributors including Ocean Vuong, Elif Shafak, and Donna Tart, Valentinos 2021 Fall/Winter Collection has allowed these authors to create literary vignettes capturing particular pieces from the Collection. Each vignette intimately engages with ones emotional response to and relationship with fashion. Vuongs piece chases Leonardo Da Vinci and Gian Giacomo Caprotti, his apprentice, across streets lit with dawns bluest seconds, built along carefully enjambed lines leading to the sea, her black dress a stitch in the shore. Tart captures a woman waiting for a date, all Valentino-ed up, and Shafak uses the blank space of the page to cross-stitch protest, literature and fashion into a kind of Valentino Red textual bodice.My initial surprise at UNIQLOs Murakami Radio Collection, which doubled upon encountering Valentinos Writers Campaign, reflects something interesting. Prior to my encounter with these two campaigns, I had not seriously reflected, as a lover of literature, on its influence upon fashion. In an age where social media dominates the generation of new clothing and fashion trends, UNIQLO and Valentino are reviving literature as a focal point of inspiration in the fashion sphere. Although we thought that the pervasiveness of the Instagram hashtag and the boistrousness of TikTok had eclipsed the influence of literature on fashion, maybe it is time to reconsider what is truly in vogue.Seminal authors like Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf emphasised the centrality of fashion to understanding their own work. In his The Philosophy of Dress, Wilde argued that fashion, and the representation of it within literature and other art forms, allows for a deeper engagement with art itself. His famous adage from this essay; Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal, solidifies the continuous and intertwined relationship that both had, and continue to have, on each other.Think of the opening line that Woolf had originally given to her novel Mrs Dalloway: Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself. Even though the novel in its published form did not use this line as its opening, it gestures towards the significance of fashion, of appearances, as markers of historical progression and how people understand themselves.Woolf in Orlando also observes that there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them. We may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. Literatures self-reflectivity and reflexivity is best understood through its relationship with fashion. Although the magnetic pull of alternative influences appear to stand as more contemporary and relevant, literature can rest on the arguably perpetual, yet dynamic, relationship it has with fashion, and by extension, with how we understand ourselves and the world.Midori, one love interest of Norwegian Woods protagonist Watanabe, is deliberately named so. Midori means green in Japanese: a colour central to the novels diaphanous, spectral colour palette. When they initially meet, Midori cant help but notice the Humphrey Bogart sophistication of his green polo. She notes that green looks terrible on me Im cursed. Later in the novel, after a sustained period of silence blooming out of certain events distorting Watanabes relationship Midori, he spots her in a lecture theatre, wearing a deep green pullover and the dark sunglasses she had often warn all summer.It is in fashion, that signifier, that conduit facilitating the evolution of our relationships and self-understanding, that literature finds a seemingly unlikely companion. Murakami, like so many authors, constructs moments where his characters struggle with this dynamic. But, by the novels end, Murakami re-positions his characters and audience in the mirror of fashions relationship with literature, enabling them to achieve self-apotheosis and comfort in who they are, and how they interact with others.If, in the words of Coco Chanel, where fashion changes, style endures, we can be sure of at least one thing that literature will continue to breathe life and weave inspiration into fashion. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A great selling point of science fiction, whether a novel, film, or television series, is that it presents worlds distorted in structure and ideology. The very best of the genre, the utopias and dystopias that resonate most strongly with readers and viewers, are not, however, stories that merely invent marvels of tomorrow, but the science fiction that also comments on todays social issues. Science fiction has a habit of surrounding hot-button topics with aliens, spaceships, and time-travel, where insights and conclusions can be drawn from these subjects that are perhaps not possible in a more traditional debate setting.Is the commentary intentional? Or are they merely inferences overly ambitious writers such as myself are creating by delving too deep into the machinations of the novelists mind? There has been much discussion on the topic, Jack Mackenzie similarly querying how much of this message is deliberately inserted into modern science fiction as a form of propaganda and how much of it occurs naturally, an unavoidable by-product of writers who are keenly aware of our contemporary societys ills and wish to provide commentary on such, if not prescribing their so-called remedies?Classics, Mary Shelleys Frankenstein for instance, adopted the language of change without commenting specifically on any single events coinciding with the publication of the novel. The scientist Victor Frankenstein turns to still-modern experiments to make discoveries that will challenge Gods power of creation. Here, Shelley makes the point that technology has the power to facilitate advancements of mankind, but also has the potential to change humans on an ideological level. Indeed, when Frankenstein rejects his creation at the point where he realises radical change creates monsters, he comes to not embrace change on a structural level, being the existence of his monster in society.There are obvious examples of science fiction works that carry the social commentary tag. George Orwells 1984 and Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 clearly warn of the dangers of totalitarian regimes, and Aldous Huxleys Brave New World considers the fallacies of utopias. Films too have not-so subtly addressed issues of growing populations and environmental disasters: Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and Logans Run to name a few. There are less obvious examples as well Star Trek is about the pursuit of a better world and way of being, the characters not looking to fight the new species they encounter but befriend them in the pursuit of social justice. Star Wars represents, and in places mocks, the rise and fall of a fascist Empire, the stormtroopers deriving their name from German soldiers, and are frequently chastised by fans for their inability to fire a laser rifle accurately.So how intentional social commentary is in science fiction? A comparison of two of the renowned author Robert Heinleins works provides some direction. Starship Troopers is perhaps one of the most overt novels I have ever read when it comes to commentary. On the surface, it follows a man named Johnny Rico through his military service in the Mobile Infantry, participating in an interstellar war between humans and an alien species known as the Bugs. However, scratch the surface and find social commentary woven throughout: suffrage, civic virtues, and war. The society it describes, in which only military veterans have the right to vote, is fundamentally fascist, and is satirised in the 1997 film of the same name. The novel has also been criticised for its depiction of the aliens, their treatment arguably an example, and criticism of, racial epithets.In stark contrast, Heinleins short story All You Zombies is devoid of such commentary. The story involves several paradoxes caused by time travel and is revered as one of the most perfectly consistent time travel stories ever written, one that astronomer Carl Sagan notes forces the reader into contemplations of the nature of causality and the arrow of time. The story follows a man, who is revealed to be intersex, taken back in time by a temporal agent and is tricked into impregnating his younger, female self (before he underwent gender reassignment surgery). The man is revealed to be the offspring of the relationship, resulting in himself being his own mother and father. The female child is taken to an orphanage in the past, who eventually becomes the intersex man. In the present day, the man is recruited by, and consequently becomes the temporal agent, working to prevent disasters across different time periods, until it becomes time for him to repeat the cycle.In its nine pages, the story encounters issues of gender equality and perspective, sexual identity, and consent, yet focuses narrative-wise on the mechanics of time-travel. Perhaps the relatively short length of the story did not allow for such discussion. Yet, even unintentionally, there are hints. The story details the mans childhood and early adult years as a woman, as marred by superficial standards of beauty, and limited capacities for women to work and support themselves. After becoming a man, the film highlights the difficulties of being a man without having supposed manly qualities; a ruined woman in Heinleins words. The issues feel very current and relevant, without having any contemporary parallels.A more recent example, The Expanse, a television series based on novels of the same name, similarly makes comment on current political and social events without clear links to specific events. Daniel Abraham, who is one of the authors novel and an executive producer for the show, has stated the themes that arise throughout the show are part of being alive in the time we are now and having that access to the zeitgeist that we all share and reading enough history to draw from situations refugee crises, social and economic inequality, multivalent political struggles that are kind of evergreen Theres no conversation about trying to make any of it topical. That some of it is speaks more to the zeitgeist than to any intentionality on our part.Science fiction remains a critical genre of literature, for its innate ability to provide an engaging and sophisticated backdrop for stories to easily talk about current issues. Arguably, it is so inextricably tied to the commentary process that it is almost impossible to write without at least making some remark about modern social issues. Whether intentional or not, it seems even without effort, science fiction and social commentary are part and parcel in their discussion of todays world. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> At an outdoor theatre in Broome, a dancer paces around a restraining chair in a lifelike prison cell. CCTV video projections paint the stage, evoking harrowing images of Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.Jurrungu Ngan-ga a Yawuru kinship concept meaning Straight Talk is a hybrid work of contemporary dance, spoken word and multimedia. Through its chilling performances, it defiantly confronts Australias crises of Indigenous incarceration and offshore detention.We wanted to create a conversation about Australias incredible capacity to lock up that which it fears, says Director Rachael Swain.Having completed a Master of Arts in 1999 at the University of Sydney, Rachael is one of many alumni of the Theatre and Performance Studies department, which is currently in danger of closure.Studying performance was an absolutely critical moment for me as an artist, she says.I was exposed to a whole lot of writing which allowed me to connect our work to Indigenous scholarship, and to help understand my own position as a settler working in this space.Rachael took her newfound knowledge back to her dance company Marrugeku, which platforms Indigenous and intercultural performance and explores ways of decolonising contemporary art practices.With Yawuru/Bardi woman Dalisa Pigram standing beside her at the helm, Jurrungu Ngan-ga is the latest of their many works.We had a lot of conversations about how we could embody cruelty on stage not through a position of victimhood but through imagination and inquiry, Rachael says.Pictured: Emmanuel James Brown in Jurrungu Ngan-ga. Courtesy of Abby Murray.Rather than asking performers to be afraid, they were asked to improvise that which they are afraid of, allowing them to present their own explanations of fear.By being responsive to the dancers, audiences, and the political context of the performance, Rachael says their work challenges the objectivity of modern dance.The dance company also embraces an experimental art-making process one involving close collaboration with Indigenous people who have cultural authority over the content explored.Working closely with cultural custodians enables freedom in the exchange of knowledge systems and the meeting of traditional and contemporary understandings about performance, Rachael says.Some of the people the company has worked with include Elder and artist Thompson Yulidjirri, as well as Yawuru man and former Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Patrick Dodson.Audiences arent just seeing the end product they are feeling the intercultural processes involved in the making of that work.For Rachael, it is precisely this social impact that necessitates the survival of the Theatre and Performance Studies department and the creative industries more broadly.Performance allows us to interrogate the world we live in, she says. Because of its ability to reach a wide range of audiences, it often moves faster than activism or political rationalising.I really feel it can cross all sorts of boundaries politically, both within this country and around the world.Pictured: A group number in Jurrungu Ngan-ga. Courtesy of Abby Murray.Jurrungu Ngan-ga will be showing at Carriageworks in August. Check the website for more details. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> So, youve moved out of home and are feeling lonely, but youre still 5-10 years away from getting a dog or a child. This is what demographers call the houseplant bracket, and right now you are a prime sucker for that oh-so-tempting modern trinket: the terrarium. From total newbies to the greenest thumbs, I believe that everyone can buy, build and kill a terrarium with confidence!1. Set up your jarThe first step is picking a suitable container. You want something that goes with the furniture, bonus points if it can sustain life. Specialty stores draw you in with sparkling, expensive glass though you can find something similar for $10 at the Reject Shop. Are these different? Wouldnt you like to know.Container in hand, you can start filling it with dirt sorry, substrate. The terrariums you see in the shop have lots of substrate layers, which probably helps with drainage or something like that. I usually opt for a base layer of gravel, then activated charcoal, before capping with organic potting soil. If you cant get these, dont worry! Your neglect will kill the plants just as fast with any other combination.2. Buy your plantsYou could, gauche as you are, buy any old plant and stick it in. Or, you could buy the specialised terrarium-friendly seedlings. These are the smaller pots at the front of any nursery, with more delicate and colourful specimens. While they may look like regular plants, there is one major difference: theyre more expensive.Choosing plants can be a confusing and complex process. My advice? Dont overthink it. Technically, species like mosses and succulents come from complete opposite environments and dont overlap at all in their light, water or fertiliser requirements. But this ignores the fact that youve got a biosphere, which is actually more biological? And dont even worry, the sill of your south-facing bedroom window is totally full sun. We live in a shell be right nation, extend the same courtesy to your leafy friends.3. Design the terrariumWhen planting, its important to think about how the setup will look in three months, not how it looks today. As the plants grow, your terrarium will change drastically, so be sure to reflect on and question your initial design choices. For example, will a silvery, wilted fern frond clash against the richer brown of a dying peperomia? Will any desiccated stems reveal dirt speckled with unsightly mould?It takes a while to get your artistic eye in, but youll get there. After all, the master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.4. Add the accoutrementsThis is where the design comes together. No terrarium is complete without that final drop of individual flair, just like everyone elses. Colourful gravel, a miniature figurine these are both fine, if a little played out. Experienced players favour a loop of red and white twine, laid around the containers mouth. That said, you shouldnt limit yourself, so blue or green twine are also acceptable.Congratulations! You have just transformed your plant in a jar (street value $15) into a bona fide, one of a kind, terrarium (street value $200). Plus, that twine adds an extra splash of colour and brings the whole design to life. In a few months, itll be the only splash of colour.5. Maintain your setupOnce the terrarium is built, the journey is pretty much over. But theres still the final, crucial ritual of maintenance, which plays out roughly as follows. Once every three weeks, youll remember that the terrarium still exists. After frantically rotating it or moving it to a different spot on the windowsill, you must now drown your plans in water, haphazardly poured from your tea-ringed mug.And there you go! Congratulations on your first terrarium, fingers crossed itll decay smoothly! Of course, you could also give it to someone as a present, and let them take the fall for a project doomed from the start. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The farmboy stands at the edge of the world he knows. A wide vista stretches before him. He turns for a last look at home. He could be safe there, happy even but that is not what he was made for. He gulps and takes the step.Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D) has occupied a number of positions in the public imagination since it was first published in 1974. At times, it has been a source of moral panic, the supernatural elements of the game at odds with the insurgent Reaganite evangelical conservatism of the 1980s. Seeming to represent a manifestation of the various forms of moral dissolution feared by suburbanites at the time, D&D was described by Patricia Pulling, the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons as a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings. More recently, it has operated as a useful punchline, acting as a signifier of a certain type of person: a 35-year-old with pallid skin and gamer spine, putting on a wizard hat and talking about trolls in their mothers basement.Today, D&D enjoys a relatively good run in terms of public image. Likely aided by popular media such as Critical Role, tabletop roleplaying games have grown more mainstream, with the CEO of Wizards of the Coast (the company behind D&D) estimating current tabletop player numbers of its 5th edition at 9.5 million worldwide.The farmboy sidesteps the ogres hammer, as three fletched arrows fly into the beasts thick hide. He turns to see the ranger, cape flowing in the wind. They grin at each other, and the farmboy returns to the fray.While these periods in the public imagination are all indicative of Dungeons and Dragons social, cultural, and even political impact, they are secondary to what it is. Attempts to describe D&D can struggle to do it justice: describing it as a fantasy roleplaying game captures the narrative feel, but ignores the rules and processes that make up the game. Describing in detail the games rules and procedures may provide a better idea of what it entails, but can fail to capture the spirit of the game.At its most basic element, D&D like all other tabletop roleplaying games is a group of people working together to tell a story. That process is mediated by the rules of the game, and refereed by the Dungeon Master (or Game Master, or Keeper, or Master of Ceremonies, or Big Mack Daddy it seems almost like a requirement now that independent games come up with their own twist on the DM). At the core of any good tabletop roleplaying game, however, is the story. Whether its a search for answers in a city shrouded by mist, a quest to slay a dragon, or the passage of a ship through dangerous waters, the mechanics of gameplay exist to service the story.They enter the tavern, full of old smoke and creaking floorboards. The dwarf makes his way to the bar. The ranger makes her way to a man in the corner with a face worn soft by age. The farmboy follows.In one campaign I played, we were tasked with killing a giant snake that resided in a nearby cave. Soon into the combat we found that giant snakes are less easy to kill than advertised, but collapsing a cave on a snake is actually rather simple. So we did that.Every D&D player will have some story like this: an eventful adventure or a particularly memorable character. What can be striking is just how similar many of the stories are if not in content, then in the form the stories follow. This is because tabletop roleplaying games are not just sets of rules or patterns of cliches. They are a narrative form in and of themselves. It would be easy to dismiss this out of hand, to claim that tabletop RPGs, acting as the dumping ground of every trope imaginable, are simply the detritus of fantasy literature. This fundamentally misunderstands the nature of narrative form. Narrative form is not determined by substance (that is, the story that is told) but rather by means through which that substance is created and conveyed. Examined through this lens, we can see that tabletop roleplaying games are a unique narrative form as distinct as poetry, or prose (though admittedly less developed). The stories developed in a tabletop roleplaying game are done so collaboratively, improvisationally, and are mediated by a set of rules. None of these are unique features to the form on their own. Virtually any form of film or theatre requires the creative collaboration of a number of artists, improvisational theatre and comedy are widespread narrative forms, and video games are also mediated by a set of rules albeit digitally. Taken as a whole, however, these aspects make up the unique narrative form of tabletop roleplaying games.They creep through the echoing halls of the tomb. The old man had told them of treasure hidden in its depths treasure guarded by a lich. The dwarf carries a torch and leads the band, forcing its light into every nook and cranny as if to edge out any spirits hiding there. The farmboy stays back, and keeps his hand on his sword.These distinct aspects make up a type of story that can be exceptionally thrilling. The improvisational, collaborative nature of tabletop roleplaying games means that the beats of their plot are genuinely unpredictable. Player characters apparently have a universal desire to seduce and/or kill every creature they come across, which usually tends to interfere with the games story structure. While the Game Master may have an idea of where the story will go, the influence of the players and the referee nature of the games rules means that the actual direction of the plot is impossible to determine. Through the outcome of a die roll, a player can change the direction of a campaign entirely. This creates stories that are unlike those of any other narrative form yet often similar to each other.Like any distinct narrative form, tabletop roleplaying games contain tropes, like that of Chaotic Stupid, a character whose Chaotic Neutral alignment expresses itself in tedious wacky hijinks (in my first session of D&D I tried to set fire to another characters hair for this reason). Most of these tropes emerge from the collaborative nature of the storytelling. With advancing the plot the responsibility of every participant in the game, its easy for the story to get bogged down by players impulse to pursue the freedom that a tabletop roleplaying game provides. This can lead to the habit affectionately known as murderhoboing where player characters devolve into itinerant criminals who kill, maim, and thieve their way across the game world with little regard for the story, setting, or NPCs they come across. While some people see this as a predictable outcome of any tabletop RPG systems design, others have aspired to design RPGs differently.The lich bats the dwarf to the side with a casual drift of its hand. The ranger nocks an arrow, letting it fly into the lichs wretched frame. The lich turns to the ranger with a hiss cut short by a wild swing of the farmboys sword.The Forge was an online community of tabletop RPG creators and players, focused on creating narrativist games. Narrativist systems are tabletop games where the fun of the game emerges from telling a shared story. These are distinct from gamist systems based on the fun of competition with other players and the DM and simulationist systems based on the fun of following a game worlds internal logic. While these may seem like small distinctions that can be tweaked within the existing processes of a games system, the structure of a games rules provides an important framework to emphasise or de-emphasise certain aspects of play.The game systems created by the Forge community reflect this attempt to centre narrative in game design. Forge games have a wide range of genres, themes, and mechanics, but have some common characteristics: methods of conflict resolution that rely on the logic of the games story, not external dice rolls; a greater degree of narrative control afforded to players; and an emphasis of improvisation and collaboration in gameplay. Much like a piece of improvisational theatre, Forge games build on offers between players and GM to build the games story.From a narrativist standpoint, the resulting game is exceptional. Players are incentivised to lean into their characters emotions and arcs, and the aim of the game seems to shift from lets-see-who-can-kill-the-most-goblins to coaxing a sincere, moving story out of the minds of a few people and some dice. Some of the stories these games create can rival serious works of fiction for their complexity and depth. If you were trying to assess tabletop games based on their ability to facilitate quality art, narrativist games would certainly be the most successful. The question remains, however, as to whether that is how we should measure a games success.The farmboy sidesteps the sickly beam of light that has burst forth from the lichs fingertips, seeing the ground it hits start to rot. The elf and dwarf lie on the ground dying.The farmboy summons his last reserve of strength. It is now or never. He steps forward, darting his sword to the lichs gleaming phylactery, the blade travelling true and straight towards the amulet.He rolls a 1, trips, and falls.The truth is, much of the charm of tabletop roleplaying games come from how hackneyed they are. Murderhoboing may be an easy pattern of play to fall into, but thats because its fun. I wont pretend that compelling, emotional, and thoughtful stories usually come from a game that largely centres around dick jokes and carnage but I also wont pretend that playing that type of game isnt a joyful experience.One of my fondest memories in my time playing D&D comes from one dungeon that caused every member of my party to die, several sessions in a row. In terms of narrative, this was obviously not ideal. The repeated strain on both the players patience and the suspension of disbelief required to justify all of our new characters meeting again each week began to wear the story thin. But despite this, there was some satisfaction in coming back each week with a ridiculous new character, raising the stakes on what was acceptable.One week, I came back with a foppish rogue; the next, with a barely disguised expy of a hardboiled detective. Finally, the party agreed to play only wizards (mine was a gnome illusionist). From the perspective of a Forge designer, with the emphasis they place on quickly between important moments in the story, this weeks-long stalling on a perpetual meat grinder of a dungeon was not what a tabletop game should be. But it was fun.The farmboy lies bleeding out on the dungeon floor. Thoughts go through his head of his ma and pa, his dreams of glory, and how far he made it from the world he once knew. His eyes glaze over, and he breathes his last.This tension, between the desire for a quality narrative and a quality game, is difficult to resolve. This is not to say that either of these aims is correct, or even that they are mutually exclusive great joy can be found in a narrativist game, and a moving story can be found in any game. But the question of which gets emphasised the story or the game is central to the game design process.Realistically, the question comes down to that of the audience. The vast majority of games audience will be contained to the people that play them. This puts tabletop RPG players in the unique position of being both the creators of a story, and its primary audience and critic. In a way, this means there is a pretty simple answer: play the way you and your friends agree is fun. But I cant help but feel like tabletop games can aspire to be better, to make the most of a unique form of storytelling and create beautiful art thats also fun to play. Playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time as a pale, sweaty teen was the first time I had a captive audience to my imagination. It was the first time I really felt like I had the agency to create a story that moved, that entertained myself and others. Having that experience mattered to me. I hope it could matter to others as well.A new farmboy stands at the edge of the world again. Many more have stood where he stands. Many will again. In a way, it offers him comfort, that there will always be another one. He smiles at the thought and takes the step into a new story. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Bront Sisters grew up in an era of technological innovation and upheaval. From steam engines to the telephone, the 19th century birthed some of the most progressive inventions humanity had ever seen, one such invention was photography and by extension, film. The 1800s were also filled with a strange and incessant obsession with the macabre and grotesque, with morgues being open for exhibition and seances and fortune tellers booming in popularity.Within this context of technological progression and morbid curiosity, it is no wonder that photography and film have been intrinsically tied to abstract notions of presencing and the supernatural since their inception. Emily Bront was no doubt influenced by these pervasive ideas when she wrote her novel Wuthering Heights in 1847, as the book perfectly reflects this convergence of cultures.Partway through the novel, a character named Catherine Earnshaw passes away, and proceeds to haunt the protagonist Heathcliff from then on. However, her haunting doesnt take place through the traditional spectral apparitions or pervasive flashbacks, but rather in a liminal, abstract presencing. Due to the oblong nature of Catherines presencing, filmmakers attempting to adapt Emily Bronts text have had a difficult hurdle to overcome, as they must imagine new ways to represent life after death that are not reminiscent of archetypal presentations conjured up by practitioners in the past. Taking on this hefty challenge, filmmakers such as William Wyler and Andrea Arnold have taken Catherines presencing and translated the untranslatable, rendering it visual for movie watching audiences.Since its inception, photography has been interested in the presentation of abstract presencing. Arriving in early 1830s France, photography was developed by Joseph Nicphore Nipce and began as mere shapes of light transfixed to metal plates via a camera obscura. Already with this primitive technology there is a separation from the realm of the physical and a sense of the ethereal, as a capturing of someones image deforms and morphs them into something which they are not, emancipating them onto a flat pewter surface, beyond traditional reality.The below photograph is the first to capture a human being. While at first the photographer had attempted to capture the bustling city street outside his window, due to the long exposure time, the roaring cars and thronging crowds were transformed into a single solitary figure. The reason this figure was able to be captured was because his shoes were being shined, making him the only subject stationary long enough for the cameras exposure time to capture him. From this, the first photograph of a human, we can see themes of abstract presencing start to emerge and weave their silken threads throughout photographys developing technological narrative .The figure stands isolated, temporally separated from the world around them, not quite a ghost, not quite a remnant of the past, but a spectral presence nonetheless, outside of the traditional realm of temporal and spatial normality. Due to the long exposure time, we may have multiple versions of the one person within the same shot, each captured at different temporal intervals within the time frame of Daguerre taking his photograph. These multiple people are separate yet connected, all inhabiting the one body, reinforcing the strange and liminal nature of early photography to capture the lucid presences of individuals.Theorists have often tackled this intersection between the afterlife and photography, the strange sense of spirituality and spectral emancipation from ones body that the technology allows. Andr Bazin spoke of how the plastic arts is the process of embalming the dead, a mummy complex, inferring an intrinsic relation between photography and the liminal nature of life after death. For Roland Barthes, he uses evocative language to describe the photographed subject as decomposed and existing dialectically as both present and non-present. Referring to an analogous photo of his mother, he describes her as both within the image while also absent from it, tapping into the strange, abstract presencing of subjects, within time and out of it, living whilst dead.With the development of double exposure techniques, and an interest in the macabre that dominated Victorian society amid the 1800s, photographers began experimenting with the idea of capturing the dead, or a life beyond death. Melander and Bros The Haunted Lane from 1889 is an example of photographers attempts to conjure the spirit world and is one of the more archetypal representations of spectral presencing. Here, it is clear that the practitioners were attempting to conjure up images of the dead, with signifiers of ghostly embodiment such as a pale white robe and transparent appearance dominating the frame and setting the benchmark for future apparition photos in the decades to come.Catherines presencing in Wuthering Heights, however, does not follow the conventional images of haunting that The Haunted Lane established and has been reinforced through media such as Casper the Friendly Ghost or David Lowrys A Ghost Story. Catherines spectrality is more akin to the abstract existence of the subject in early photography and film.Begging her to haunt him at the moment of her death, Heathcliff is followed by Catherines presence during the second half of the book. Describing, in one moment, a sigh with warm breath that displaced the sleet-laden wind, Heathcliff experiences his first encounter with Catherine post-mortem. However, much like the photographed figure, he cannot exactly point to her existence. Much like Barthes, he is unable to discern her bodily sigh from the wind, he is unable to have that cathartic reverie of saying there she is, as her presence is abstracted and disappears in the folds of something else. This is confirmed when he asserts that he knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by.William Wylers film adaptation is probably the most well known adaptation of Heights, despite the fact that it only adapts half of the book. The film concludes right after Catherines death, so while viewers are not given access to Heathcliffs interactions with the abstract presencing of Catherine, we are given a small preview of it in her final moments on screen. As Emily Bronts vision of Catherine is rendered in a way that departs from the norm, so too must Wyler in his conjuring of her ghostly visage.As Heathcliff mourns Catherines death, the camera cuts to a long shot of the whole room, capturing him bent over her bed, with the window on the other side of the scene. The windows curtains blow forward, pushed by the wind and towards the bed, as if a spectral presence is ushering them toward the body of Catherine, or towards Heathcliff himself, fulfilling his demands for her to haunt him.The mise-en-scene also features a heavy motif of frames within frames, hinting at the self reflexivity of the film as it attempts to replicate Catherines presencing from the book that was distinctly filmic in nature.Andrea Arnolds film adaptation continues this trend of Catherines presence being embodied in natural elements of the world, rather than any physical embodiment as a spirit or spectre. In the case for Arnolds 2011 adaptation, it was in a series of abstract light formations that occur throughout the film, forgoing any need to depict an embodied spectral presence by Catherine.Early on in the film, following Heathcliffs arrival at the Heights as a young boy, the audience is given a glimpse at a strange light formation that appears on the wall. The film barely lingers on it, but it catches our eye nonetheless.Later on in the film, after Catherine has passed away, this same light formation rears its oblong head once again. I argue that this light is evocative of Catherines strange presence post-mortem, able to transcend time and embodied space as the light is stretched across past, present and future. This mirrors the temporality of the earliest photo of a man, with his frozen figure evoking multiple bodies stretched out over a long period of time. What we witness, then, is a Bazinian embalming of the dead, with Catherines presencing preserved and mummified throughout the film.In this way, each of the filmmakers are drawing on what makes the filmic medium different from other art forms that would make an adaptation of Wuthering Heights in any other context impossible, and one Im arguing Emily Bront was aware of and engaging with: its eerie spectrality. While an adaptation to the stage could yield some praise, its inability to capture Catherines unique post-mortem existence is due largely because of the mediums lack of connection with the afterlife, and any notion of liminal presencing. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The daydreams we conjure are often escapist, attempting to actualise what we subconsciously recognise to be missing.The first time I read Donna Tartts The Secret History, my daydreams were haunted by the woollen plaid blazers and wire-rimmed spectacles of dark academia for some time afterwards. What interested me was not just the colour palette and textures, but the base thirst for knowledge free of concern for employment prospects or grades. It was so contrary to my own studies, dictated by exams and assignments where it seemed my marks would determine both my future and my personal worth. But reading Norse mythology in library books and scribbling unremarkable poetry in my Notes app without the daunting awareness of an upcoming exam, I found I didnt actually hate studying I hated the anxiety that surrounded it. In its romanticisation of study, learning, and academic culture, dark academia had exposed the emaciated corpse of modern institutions of education.The shutdown of in-person teaching and shift to online learning models saw a marked rise in fascination with dark academia not just as a visual aesthetic, but as a subculture with its own core beliefs. There was renewed passion for seeking knowledge and learning just for the sake of it. Therein lies the reason for its current prevalence in popular culture while coronavirus-safety measures may have been unavoidable, a recent wider assault on education has resulted in the devaluation of knowledge unless it can be used to generate profit. The steady blossoming of dark academia in the student imagination reveals a deep disillusionment with these models, and a longing for a space free to learn unencumbered by a neoliberal agenda.The adoption of neoliberal models in universities prioritises profit and seeks to churn out job-ready graduates who can contribute to economic growth nevermind being centres of knowledge for self-enrichment or fulfilment. Systemic wage theft and the increased casualisation of academic staff undercuts the quality of teaching to protect the bottom line, while the recently instated Job-ready Graduates Package pits students against each other as products in the marketplace. This new legislation only institutionalised the condescension Arts students have been subject to for a long time. We are looked down upon because our degrees dont appear to prioritise the generation of capital post-graduation; if I had a dollar for every time Ive been asked what my English major is for Id earn more in a fiscal year than former Vice Chancellor Michael Spence. Subjects central to the dark academia preoccupation like literature, languages, theatre, and philosophy are also at the centre of a war waged against education: the proposed restructuring of the School of Literature, Art and Media that would potentially see the Departments of Theatre and Performance Studies and the Department of Studies of Religion axed here at USyd; the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS also faces similar threats of restructuring; and Macquarie Universitys Gender Studies Program was only narrowly saved after student outcry. These disciplines are crucial to critiquing the epistemologies that underpin systems of oppression in society, and they are prized in dark academia for their ability to enlighten their students, empowering them to critique these structures and aid their abolition.The main critique of dark academia is its centralisation of cultural and economic privilege. Visually speaking, it is distinctly European and is interested in Victorian or Classical literature, higher learning institutions historically being only available for the affluent. But the fundamental ideals it embodies namely passion for learning and the pursuit of knowledge for knowledges sake are not inaccessible. The structures that dark academia revolts against contribute heavily to the inaccessibility and elitism in universities and wider academia that it is often criticised for idolising. Deeply entrenched racism analyses subjects through the lens of whiteness and favours the work of white academics. Australian universities are no longer free to attend and HECS-HELP leaves graduates in debt, while courses traditionally less viable in the post-graduation job market become more expensive to pursue and publishers hide papers behind paywalls, privileging knowledge to those who can afford it.These systems are not idolised by dark academia. Though Gothic architecture may be pleasing to the eye, the visual aesthetic of dark academia is not its sole component. Its foundational beauty is that learning for learnings sake, for self-enrichment, can be applied to any discipline. You neednt feign interest in Classical literature and Shakespeare, nor subscribe to the institutions of classism, racism, and colonialism that universities are historically built upon to be a dark academic immerse yourself in the formal innovations of Indigenous poetry, pour over histories of cultures less studied, devour well-thumbed novels from the public library, and let your ink-stained fingers smudge the pristine blankness of a Spirax notebook as you hastily transcribe your thoughts. There is nothing but you and the page. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There we are again in the middle of the nightWere dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light.And just like that, Taylor Swift marries raw emotions to succinct poetic images that, to this day, have me enchanted. In All Too Well the ballad to rule all ballads Taylor succeeds in capturing an intimate remembrance of the past with all the bitterness and tragic what-ifs that accompany it. The song is a 2012 masterpiece that has wrapped around me with age, as if I am entangled in the old scarf Taylor left behind. Taylors ex-lover has kept that scarf, and it reminds them of innocence. Its something that smells familiar, that cant be gotten rid of, that lingers.From the days of Red to the re-release of Fearless, Taylors music has grappled with the complexities of innocence, harkening back to a simpler All-American youth. Shes constantly remembering old times, whether thats in the form of a past love or forgotten facets of her younger self. Shes lost that wide-eyed, bushy haired girl who first took the country music world by storm with Tim McGraw. Now, Taylors image is often closer to a crude wax figurine (courtesy of the USU) who has schemed her way to the top, and who desperately deserves to be toppled. But her music holds a reverence, a longing, a yearning for the simpler times, for clueless authenticity, for innocence. Yearning? Sappho, eat your heart out.There is nothing quite like queer yearning: Long gazes, the crush of dancing bodies, a whirlwind friendship with your exs exs ex. And an adolescent girl realising shes queer? Its an awakening from innocence to understanding, often involving a not-so-pleasant realisation of exactly how much the world wants to knock you down. As shes grown up, Taylors lyrics have opened into stories about other people, and the possibility of queer interpretation. Im not saying the rumours that surround Taylor and a certain Victorias Secret Angel are true; to me, that matters far less than the ability for queer exploration to take place within some of Taylors best lyrics.I see queer girls in songs that reflect a troubled nostalgia for youth. It is captured in seven, with its fairytale images of seven-year-old girls playing together. Taylor sings of the tenuous aspect of memory, where she cant recall her friends face, though she still loves her. She then brings us directly into the mind of her imagined seven-year-old self, moving from past tense into the present to tell childrens stories of haunted houses and pirates. But its a haunting melody: there are monsters outside. Her friends dad is always mad, and they have to hide in the closet. Taylor imagines her friend into a space free from the monsters of reality, instead making a home in a folk song.In Taylors remembrances of friendships past, the lines between friendship and love are often blurry. I find myself skimming between songs, scattering myself to the wind of Taylors lyrics in order to find the connections. If I pair tis the damn season and dorothea together, I see two girls singing to each other, one who made it big in L. A. and one who finds herself stuck in the same small town, fondly remembering her friend or crush, skipping prom and meeting under the bleachers. tis the damn season captures the specific kind of gloom which hangs around the festive season like boughs of holly: A homeward return from Los Angeles, wondering about what could have been, where two people sleep in half the day just for old times sake. The old times are found within one of Taylors most underrated songs, Its Nice To Have A Friend, where the two friends/lovers stay in bed the whole weekend. The song has a sneaking delicacy to it there is something gloriously tender about the lyrics something gave you the nerve to touch my hand. Its a song with an innocent face that has so much more to say if you dig a little deeper; a song about teenage connection.In Fearless (Taylors Version), we get to grasp at our memories of the original album and our lives surrounding it with the added wisdom of hindsight. In giving us room to be queer, Taylor also opens Fearless to re-interpretation and as I listen to Fifteen, I reflect on friendship, high-school innocence, and simply not knowing who youre supposed to be. Fifteen ends with a classic Taylor move: finishing a song with the same lyrics as the first line, as though reflecting on the truth of her words, on times past, on the circularity of it all. With time, words and moments have changed their implications, and something impenetrably sweet is lost.Take a deep breath as you walk through the doors.God, I love Taylor Swift. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> If, as Joan Didion said, we tell ourselves stories in order to live, then we tell the stories of others in order to better know how to die. How to leave a legacy.The biography is one such device. Last month, publisher W. W. Norton permanently halted distribution of Blake Baileys recent biography of American novelist Philip Roth after allegations surfaced that Bailey had groomed, harassed, and raped multiple women. Its hard not to relate these revelations to one of the main criticisms from which his biography suffered that he was uncritical of Roths misogyny, claims of which soured and followed Roth for much of his career. In fact, Ross Millers very frankness about Roths misogyny led Roth to end an agreement with Miller to initially write his biography. But any poetic justice in the mistreatment of women befalling the publication of Roths own biography is still deeply unsatisfying.This is because its unclear what will happen to Roths legacy in the wake of this incident. Bailey was granted exclusive access to archives and materials about Roths life, which may be unavailable to future scholars in light of his passing in 2018. Perhaps there are pages still left unturned in his personal history, now mired in Baileys prose, between which more about Roth could be discovered. Despite everything, why does this feel like a loss? Why is it so unfair that even just a moment of insight could be snared by Baileys crimes? These events serve as context for larger questions about what it means to us as readers to preserve the legacy of great writers in a certain way.Posthumous accounts of famous novelists in the Western tradition often serve to illustrate that great public works are made in spite of, or perhaps because of, private immorality. The collective history of many prolific white, male authors has invariably been one of mental anguish, narcissism, and chauvinism. When reading, it is important to historicise and put these men into context. But more than that, in the dialectic between author and reader that is shaping a legacy, we must learn how to reconcile the value of their literature, the truth of the person behind it, and the irredeemable fact of their death.This need not be wholly a question of cancel culture, of separating the art from the artist; yet another way the storm of the individual washes away rivers of manifold experience. Roland Barthes most deftly maligned how literary critics inflect the meaning of a text with aspects of an authors identity in his 1967 essay The Death of the Author. Barthes argued that readers must separate literary work from their creator in order to liberate that text from interpretative tyranny, where the experiences of the author serve as an explanation of some ultimate meaning of the work, handed down by the Author as God.Underpinning the need to sever this relationship is the fascination we have with it in the first place. Quite apart from how many writers blur the relationship between themselves and their characters apparent in much fiction particularly auto-fiction of writers like Proust there is an anterior question, and we ask it not of the abstract, critical reader but of you and me: many men of dubious character, whose private lives were charged and broken and mythicized, create the conditions for questioning not just whether and how this influenced their work, but why it even matters to us if it did. At the heart of all this tension, in the tangle of our understanding, is that it seems to matter a very great deal to us who is behind the stories we tell, both irrespective of and because of what their stories might mean to us.Consider how there is a scramble to publish a biography, make a tribute and publicise condolences after a famous persons death. As soon as someone dies we have to ascribe meaning to it. Our fascination is not even entirely with the individual, but with mortality. Why do we need to understand someone to bury them? It is because they cannot be redeemed. It is because all we have is what we can become until we are no longer. Understanding the person who has died is thus an end in itself. It does not excuse them, but it helps us to forgive ourselves for seeing ourselves reflected on the page.Although biographies are non-fiction, they invent. Lucasta Miller, the author of The Bront Myth, is mistrustful of biographies in her own account of the Bront sisters. She considers biographies a form of myth creation: what biographies invent they also reproduce for market consumption. This is another way that we reduce the reputation of particularly famous novelists into cultural objects which are sold as ideas or signifiers of genre or style or identity in a digestible form: read Jane Austen if youre a woman into classics and romance, read James Baldwin or Toni Morrison if you want to learn about race in America, read Jack Kerouac if youre cultivating your identity as a softboi. And while this is all true, in doing so we fail to appreciate what books do how fiction transmutes ideas into people and how those people become us. We instead materialise and thereby minimise what they merely are as products of the people that wrote them. It works, too personal branding infects a literary legacy. Just consider how unread copies of Infinite Jest tend to signal a kind of literary chauvinism; the ability to intellectually grasp male privilege, manifesting in performative displays of wokeness, because of how Wallace captures the disenfranchised white male in his work. It makes the rest of us deeply sceptical of these texts. To idealise, just like to hate, is to reduce someone to ideas about them. Fortunately for the writing itself, Didion suggests that fiction is in most ways hostile to ideology.Ernest Hemingways life is a fitting example of the idealisation of our favourite authors a man heralded as being at the forefront of war, surrounded by women and friends and bullfighting, whose sparse prose sparked a reckoning in American literature, pared back unto itself. The fact of his suicide is a lump in the throat when swallowing his personal history. Biographers continue to ask why, to decipher it as if it is some mystery, lest our ideal of Hemingway disintegrates. But it is no mystery a familial and personal history of severe mental illness, alcoholism, and complex childhood trauma scream the answer. Some would say that knowledge of his suicide requires reading something new into his work: an identity crisis, an obsession with mortality, trails of wounded women, won wars and lost bullfights. The darkness of his life discovered after his death now casts shadows across his pages.It may not even be controversial, merely disappointing, but it still shatters the illusion. To read Sofia Tolstoys journals and discover that her husband was cruel, critical, and inflicted much pain on her throughout the life she dedicated to him is to remind us that love, marriage and family may be no more than concepts in books. It is to render them unreal. In her words, I devote so much love and care to him, and his heart is so icy. To read T. S. Eliots love letters to Emily Hale during his first unhappy marriage, only to discover that he never married her after his first wife died and married Valerie instead. To think about how Hemingway dumped his first wife and child in Paris. Similarly, D. T. Maxs biography of David Foster-Wallace uncovers a portrait of a complex man surprisingly disinterred in the real-life concerns of many women he slept with. We ask, how can he write such exquisite prose and demonstrate such acute awareness of feeling and society, but be so inconsiderate of the people in his own life? Maybe sometimes people like the poetry of what they say more than they mean it or can ever put it into action.To discover bad things, especially after death, simply hurts. The question, always the question, is why does it hurt so much? The metaphorical death of the author is clearly made more difficult by their real-life passing. Jonathan Franzen provided his own account of David Foster-Wallaces suicide in The New Yorker. He described the suicide as performed in a way calculated to inflict maximum pain on those he loved most, demonstrating infantile rage and homicidal impulses. He felt that Wallace betray[ed] as hideously as possible those who loved him best. The brutality of imbuing selfishness into a suicide seeks to undermine any martyrdom Wallace achieved in death. The searing need to be honest about someone who has died, the bleak portrait of being hurt by someone that you loved, captures a much deeper kind of betrayal. But rippling on the surface is the same kind of suffering we, as readers, face when we grapple with the reality of who a writer becomes after and by virtue of dying. The pain may come precisely from the fact that we do not know them personally and we can only know them as a representation or projection of themselves. The lines across the pages are like those on the back of our hand, but we still seem unable to grasp or reach anything with it.In On Beauty, a novel itself about aesthetics and how the personal is always more real than the political, Zadie Smith remarks that the greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free. We are captured by the writers we love because they make real and legitimate what we are going through. To fall in love with a book is to be rewritten, in a slight and subtle way we may not even notice. There is no technology on Earth that can achieve what the novel can, no engineer like the author, no science like words. Because we emotionally invest in a writers work, our hearts get broken when we realise our captors have deceived us into thinking we were free to love them. Perhaps we cant anymore, because the pedestal on which they sit has been lowered, and in our culture we find it impossible to love and pity simultaneously, to revere and condemn at the same time.This is because we become complicit in elevating certain writers. We give cultural capital, money, time, respect, and literary status to those who have channelled the worst of themselves into fiction. In Franzens own words, Foster Wallaces fiction is populated with dissemblers and manipulators and emotional isolates. Roths work was similarly rife with constant self-reference, sexual perversion, and vindicatory portrayals of raw masculinity. Compounding those feelings of complicity, we are often guilty of romanticising the relationship between the beauty of a text and the sordid reality of the person who wrote it to make up for who the man was by what he created. Maybe he was just a bad guy. How can that change things?George Orwell explores similar notions in his review of Salvador Dals autobiography, Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dal. Dal recounts incidents of severely harming children and women; his grave sexual perversity and necrophilia also manifest in his work. In spite of this, Orwell refuses to fail to see any merit in him. Against the facts of his life is the recognition that he had very exceptional gifts, was a very hard worker and has fifty times more talent than most of the people who would denounce his morals. Although Dal was a visual artist, not a writer, the principle operates in the same way: one ought to be able to hold in ones head simultaneously the two facts that Dal is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other.But there is cognitive dissonance in holding these two thoughts in ones head that is not one of logic, principles, or aesthetics. Indeed, as Orwell notes, what is morally degraded can be aesthetically right. It is emotional. It is a kind of love. Sometimes it hurts too much to accept that both those things are that they must be true. But novels should neither be reduced to the aspects which best reflect the person who wrote it, nor entirely removed from them. In Orwells words, these two fallacies presuppose a false binary: either a piece of art is intrinsically a reflection of the artist, or it bears no relation because its meaning belongs to its audience. The relationship between psychology and art is not so simple as to fall on either side of this dichotomy. People are not the sum of their parts. Authors give us the best and worst of themselves. They might be one terrible moment. They might be a thousand ambiguities.Lets not pretend that we can ever be objective or innocent about art. We taint a piece of writing as soon as we begin to read it because it is not the first story we have ever been told. As Barthes explained, a work is eternally written here and now because the origin of its essential meaning is exclusively in the language and its impressions on the reader. What applies to literary criticism also applies to our modes of appreciation Milan Kundera speaks of poetic memory, the way we lodge into our minds and ascribe significance to that which we find beautiful and meaningful. It may be pretentious. It is certainly self-dramatising. But regardless of the significance you place on it, the process of reading, like remembering, like forgetting, is an act of interpretation.According to German philosopher Immanuel Kant, aesthetics is a retreat from everyday life and its ethical questions. It requires a stance of disinterestedness, a space of moral freedom. Art is singular, without comparison and non-purposive. We must let art be possible. This does not mean it has to stay in print, that it should ever escape necessary criticism or that its sales can be abstracted from the finances of the person who created it. The artist is not exempt from what they are morally culpable for in their personal lives by virtue of their talent. If the facts demand it, by all means, be appalled! As per Orwell, people are too frightened either of seeming to be shocked or of seeming not to be shocked, to be able to define the relationship between art and morals. Define that relationship for yourself, as we all must define our own morals. Nothing is worth admiring unreservedly. But we must not take away its capacity for meaning. Letting yourself be upset may be precisely a part of that. After all, as Wallace said, you get to decide what to worship.F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Nick Carraway, tells us that reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope. Why then feel the need to eulogise a writer when their work lives on to preserve what perseveres anyway, to make an ending out of theirs? When we do so, we attempt to pull together the strings of a persons life into some coherent narrative but it is fiction that there is such a thing. Lives do not end like plotlines. Resolution does not happen with time sometimes it never does. People do not experience arcs like characters they go through things. Sometimes they go forward, sometimes they regress and fall back upon themselves like waves. Adrift. Sometimes they dont go anywhere at all, except inwards and onto the page. Could that be enough?The most simple and morbid answer to why a legacy is important is that there is no answer. The answer is always oblivion. But as Sandra Newman said in her extraordinary novel The Heavens, as the character of Shakespeare, I am a fool, and my greatness is the mumbling of fools; a paper greatness that will burn and be naught. But there is no greatness else.Let it be enough. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Bureaucracy and magic dont at all seem compatible. One is stringent, ordered, and cold, while the other is wild, chaotic, and glowing with an unknown warmth (or the warmth of the unknown). Or so I thought, until the day I noticed that fantasy literature hadnt really got the memo. Throughout the canon, there are numerous examples of bureaucracies regulating magic and magical bureaucracies. They vary from efficient to horribly incompetent, but theyre all, in one way or another, some form of bureaucracy.One of the most obvious examples of this might be the Ministry of Magic from the Harry Potter series. To this day, the Ministry remains one of the most magical pieces of worldbuilding to come from the franchise. The creaking flaws of the state are exaggerated and transformed to themselves become magical. If magic is an amplifier, then the Ministry of Magic is a truly amplified version of the British Civil Service. It is delightfully undemocratic, with a Minister for Magic selected by a body of unelected nobles. Enchanted paper aeroplanes carry memos from department to department. Theres an agency for everything, from the Ludicrous Patents Office to the Broom Regulatory Control. A ban on flying carpets exemplifies this marriage of magic and bureaucracy. Is there anything more magical than a world where magic carpets not only exist, but are banned for some arbitrary and nonsensical reason? Regulations make the Wizarding World less, and thus more, magical. The Ministry makes the world of Harry Potter more magical by allowing the reader to fathom how something as chaotic and powerful as magic can possibly be tamed by the traditional trappings of bureaucratic regulation.A similar state of affairs exists in the Thursday Next saga. The BookWorld is where every single piece of literature exists. Their characters, settings, and plots are very real and while they present on the pages of books, magazines, and novellas, they inhabit a world of their very own. The series effortlessly weaves the conventions of literature and publishing into the bureaucracy of the BookWorld. The Council of Genres is the main governing body of the BookWorld and its rules and regulations are enforced by Jurisfiction. Their office is in the ballroom of Sense and Sensibilitys Norland Park and they work tirelessly, with the help of literatures best investigative minds, to maintain the integrity of plots and narratives throughout the BookWorld. In Thursday Next, the bureaucracy is the very premise upon which it is built. This premise appeals to people because it makes a great deal of sense. A magical universe of books and their contents is a perfect fit for the micro-managing, bean counting precision of a heaving bureaucratic apparatus. There is something magical about imagining a hidden world filled with your favourite characters and settings, then logically concluding that, like any world, it needs something to hold it together. In Discworld, the Auditors of Reality are semi-corporeal celestial bureaucrats, whose main aim is to bring absolute order to the universe. Their schemes are often foiled because they simply lack the imagination to be truly evil. Not only do they enforce the rules of the celestial dance (e.g. gravity and chemical reactions), but they ARE the rules: they are the living embodiment of order and bureaucratic red tape. Pratchett explores how mindless bureaucracy can be arbitrarily cruel and creatively effective as the rules of the auditors collapse in a self-consuming, double negative bonanza.Magic is not just flashing lights and powerful zaps, magic is whatever is unexplained, unnecessary, and uninhibited. A universe of myth and legend bound by the rules and regulations of contemporary bureaucracy is immensely magical. When bureaucracy is put in the context of the fantasy genre, it reveals to the reader the inherent impotence of such a system. The Ministry of Magics attempts to maintain a semblance of order, in a society which itself is inherently chaotic are a farce. While it may not seem a perfect match for fantasy literature, bureaucracy is itself a fantasy. It relies on trust, faith, and absolute belief. Just like magic, its inner workings and final results are often a mystery. While we may not have magic in the real world, the magic of red tape may be the closest we get. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Share bikes have had it rough.Since first gracing the streets of Sydney in 2017, these vibrant visions of a car-less future have been often found atop trees, perched on fences, or piled up by the side of the road. The first time I saw one, it was precariously balanced on the railing of a pedestrian bridge over a canal somewhere in Annandale.To recall the image of the bright green, graffiti-covered bike sitting there, literally teetering on the brink of becoming urban detritus, brings to mind a great debate around the bikes themselves: Theyre a novel and environmentally-friendly alternative to the drudgery of public transport and the fuel consumption of cars, but at what cost?The uptake of dockless share bikes has presented numerous challenges since the beginning. In mid-2018, share bike operator Ofo (bright yellow) decided to cease operating in Australia, after widespread vandalism and little oversight from the company brought widespread public outcry, with some Councils left responsible for impounding abandoned bikes. Despite suggestions that the problem with dockless share bikes was merely the lack of parking infrastructure to support them, the supply of bikes continued to dwindle and they had inconspicuously vanished by the start of the pandemic. However, the last quarter of 2020 saw them re-emerge with a vengeance. Across Inner Sydney, the major players are now Lime (bright red with smatterings of green), Mobike/Onyahbike (silver and orange), and Beam (violet). Predictably, their return again brought the ire of various local governments, who condemned their haphazard distribution and maintenance as doomed to once more dot the urban landscape like obtrusive, un-commissioned art installations.Art by Nandini Dhir.This post-pandemic renaissance marked the first time I actually rode one and I found myself instantly sold. My first voyage was atop a Lime bike. In the spur of the moment I had downloaded the app while at work and planned to ride the nearest bike home. I punched in my card details and scurried down the road as the app instructed, spotting the Lime on a dimly-lit street corner. It beckoned. There I was, hurtling down the footpath along Parramatta Road late at night in a flagrant breach of numerous cycling regulations. The experience was freeing, but the price of this euphoria? A dollar to unlock it via QR code and a further 45 cents per minute, amounting to a hefty $6.85 for a 13-minute trip. This was only mildly cheaper than an Uber over the same distance of about two and a half kilometres, more than three times as expensive than catching the bus, and more time-consuming than either. While the effortless mobility of soaring around on a pedal assisted bike is undeniable, and spotting one sitting stationary in the street is akin to the excitement of running into a good friend in public, their expense in Sydney prevents them from becoming an everyday convenience. This begs the question: with cheaper alternatives available, who exactly are these bikes for?On March 30, the NSW Government published the Future Transport Technology Roadmap 2021-2024, a 50 page document envisioning the bright and ambitious future of customer-focused transport technology in NSW. Among its six priority programs is a plan to fully integrate public transport with on-demand ride-share and micro mobility services like share bikes via a digital Opal card, with a $3 credit for commuters who use multiple modes of transport within an hour. While investing in the potential of share bikes is promising, a narrow-sighted view of them as but a link in the chain of an interconnected transport utopia has its own issues. In other cities that have embraced bike share schemes like San Francisco, London, and Amsterdam, the bikes have quickly become a symbol of gentrification. A fun, forward-looking service, but only for those that can afford it. Less a cause and more of a symptom, these other cities have shown that where gentrification goes, cycling infrastructure and share bikes seem to follow. Arguably, the solution lies in share bike schemes being publicly-run. Hangzhou Public Bicycle, a docked bike scheme operated by the citys Public Transport Corporation, has seen widespread adoption since its launch in 2006. Although it still faces the same logistical issues, theres no credit incentive necessary since the first hour of use is free.Im not saying that share bikes cause gentrification. But the path to half-baked urban renewal is paved with well-intended bike share schemes. As urban development in Sydney continues towards the Metropolis of Three Cities vision for the latter half of the century, it is incumbent on the NSW Government and the private companies it seeks to partner with to factor the affordability and distribution of micromobility into their view of transport innovation. Lest they forever remain the way I occasionally get home when buses have stopped running for the night. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Frederic Jameson attributes to postmodernism the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past. We exist in a perpetual present; each day sees us bombarded with a host of new atrocities and scandals that were unforeseeable the previous day. As such, we are struck with an unshakeable sense of reaction. All action must be immediate, and self-reflection is a nuisance for no tragedy can be left unexposed. I would say that we havent forgotten history, weve forgotten its lessons. We can all recall the Gulf of Tonkin, the Nayirah Testimony and Iraqs WMDs. But what was wrong here: was it the lie or the purpose of the lie? That is to say, would it have been right for the First Fleet to colonise Australia if the Aboriginal people were savage people?Perhaps you think thats a non-sequitur, but imperial conflict is inherently based on a lie; the lie that military intervention can, or will, liberate oppressed peoples. Many people appear to be less offended at the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis than they are at the possibility the President of the United States might dare lie to them.Last Sunday, a March For Myanmar rally was held at Town Hall. Many gathered to show solidarity with the Burmese fighting the military junta and condemn violent crackdowns against unarmed civilians. However, the rally also sought to demonstrate a united front in a desperate call to action from the Australian Government. An organiser with connections to NextGen Myanmar told one student that their first demand for the Federal Government was to [a]pply targeted sanctions to military leaders of the coup and family members who are benefitting from the coup. This could include comprehensive economic sanctions and revoking visas of family members residing in Australia. On the Parliament of Australia website, a petition calling for targeted sanctions has received 13,681 signatures.Targeted sanctions are an illusion: sanctions against individuals and industry have proven repeatedly to have the same effect as sanctions against a government at large.A 2019 report by the Centre for Economics and Policy found that US sanctions on Venezuela caused upwards of 40,000 deaths from 2017-2018, reducing the population to starvation and massively restricting access to medicines and healthcare. Venezuelas sanctions were targeted against specific individuals and industries. The Guardian reported in 2013 that Iran had some 85,000 cancer patients who could not access chemo or radiotherapy. A further 23,000 Iranians stricken with HIV/AIDs had no access to drugs needed to save their lives. This is, again, on account of US sanctions. The UN and the US will claim that they build waivers into their sanctions regimes to ensure essential food and medicine can go through, but these waivers are cancelled out by restrictions on international payment systems and banking. Further, many life-saving medications are considered dual medical and military use, thus are not ever subject to the waiver. Sanctions inexorably kill. However, what sanctions dont do is change the course of sovereign nations unsurprisingly, a death sentence doesnt tend to persuade many over to the sanctioners cause.It is recklessly naive for sections of the Burmese diaspora to call for sanctions on the junta, which would only lead thousands of the Burmese working classs deaths whilst the government would inevitably emerge unscathed. This is particularly concerning considering the rally received uncritical support from National Labour Students (NLS) and Socialist Alternative (SAlt), both before and after it transpired. It does, however, beg the question: as citizens of Australia, a state firmly situated in the imperial core, when we speak on these international injustices, do we operate as citizens of the world or as imperialist voices?In Capitalism Realism, Mark Fisher notes that capitalism does not require a top down propaganda dissemination program; rather, as Slavoj Zizek argues, it requires the capitalist subjects cynicism. The overvaluing of belief over action is such that so long as we believe so deeply that we oppose capitalism, it no longer matters what our actions are, no matter how supportive of capitalism they are. It is the ironic distance we take from capital constructions such as money that allows us to engage in them as if they are in a priori truth despite our knowledge that it is an abstraction. Perhaps the greatest failing in the modern left has been the proliferation of the belief that the individual capitalist subject has no power but for subordination.Postmodernism and the internet have fragmented the world. As one might read from Gramsci or Chomsky, an elitist capitalist hegemony no longer can dictate societal narratives, nor do they need to. Once again, it comes down to the cynical capitalist subject; when the bourgeois and proletarian class are forced to interact in the same realm that being social media consent and propaganda now draws from the bottom up.Francis Fukuyama has been widely mocked ever since he declared the end of history, but he wasnt necessarily wrong. Certainly, he was correct to say that capitalism requires that it set the social conditions in which it is so ubiquitous that there are no conceivable alternatives. According to a Lowy Institute poll last year, only 23% of Australians trust the Chinese Government to act responsibly in the world. In a February Gallup poll, 45% of Americans believed China to be the United States greatest enemy, more than double that of 2020. The most significant agent in maintaining neoliberal hegemony is the working class. On social media, mention of states such as China, North Korea and Cuba as anything other than a genocidal, imperialist regime is met with complete condemnation. The lack of alternative views means that anything that could constitute a change is worse than our present condition and is impossible to praise amongst respectable company.On Wednesday, Robert Aaron Long shot dead eight people in Atlanta, 6 of whom were Asian women. His Facebook is filled with anti-China ranting and conspiracy theories. Many will claim that the COVID-19 pandemic was what inflamed tensions towards Asians in Australia over the last year, but China was only blamed for this because of the neo-Yellow Peril panic that posits China and its citizens are a foreign threat set on destroying the West. Every day you can read a think piece somewhere about the inevitable war with China, Chinas quest for world domination and the inhumane atrocities being committed by the Chinese. Alongside the belief that anyone tangentially connected to China is an uncritical supporter of the CPCs constructed aims, this is the cause of the rise of sinophobia and the rise of hate crimes against Asians in the West. Imperialism requires that we know that no matter how bad Australia is, China is always worse. It justifies the hundreds of billions in military spending, it explains the hawkish foreign policy, and above all else, it upholds imperialism. Capitalism is a hammer, to it everything is a nail; any denouncement of foreign nations not aligned with the Australian Government will enter into the cultural conversation as cover for imperialism. We do not speak as independent international subjects, we speak as Australians. You need not support China, North Korea, Iran, whatever nation it may be but if war with, say, China started today, where would you stand? If it is against the war, then you should know that there is no Marxist critique of China from the imperial core. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the past week, against the backdrop of a national conversation about consent, the historic rape allegation against Attorney-General Christian Porter and Brittany Higgins allegation of rape in Parliament House have been splayed across the media. In response to allegations of sexual assault, particularly those unreported or that do not meet evidentiary or criminal thresholds, a specific claim often emerges. This is the idea that believing women without evidence sets a dangerous precedent that anyone can say anything about anyone.You hear it in the back of your mind, you say it in front of the press pool, you turn it over in your mind at every sharp headline now anyone can make a baseless accusation about you. Outside the walls of Parliament House and into the halls of every high school, college, workplace and house party are the projections of men who fear that women theyve slept with, or even ones they havent, can and will say something about them. But what are you actually afraid of?The idea that women are incentivised to fabricate an instance of assault and victimisation is tired and should quickly be discarded. The notion that a victim has something to gain from media attention (which is certainly outside the scope of arguments surrounding Porter, given the alleged victims death) completely denies the tremendous burden on a womans personal life, mental health, and career prospects to identify herself as a victim of trauma, to potentially antagonise often well-established institutions (a corporate workplace, Parliament House, a private boys school) and to make it clear in a mans world that she will not stay silent. Suppose we accept that women do not level these accusations because they have ulterior motives or something to gain outside of justice, catharsis, and all they rightfully deserve. In that case, we must also accept it is unintuitive that a woman would make something like this up for the fun of it. This is irrational, unfair, and suggests malice on an alleged victims part, which is less plausible than the malice imputed to the accused perpetrator, whose innocence we are expected to presume.I believe there is something far more pervasive and pernicious in the minds of young men which belies the claim that women who make such accusations may not be telling the truth. The fear from which it stems is more complex than simply not believing women. If you follow the thread of logic far enough, what it invariably comes down to is that women making these allegations are less likely to be considered to be making things up entirely, but much more likely to be perceived as having remembered their own experience incorrectly. This reflects a key issue within our rape culture, especially concerning assaults in the context of dating, relationships or between people who know one another. Men relate to and remember their sexual experiences differently from the women they have assaulted. This is not because victims change their minds or regret it afterwards, but because perpetrators dont consider their experience through the lens of a womans consent, comfort or pleasure. There are obvious nuances based on the nature and severity of each assault which this recognition should never undermine. At the very least, this reflects the importance of comprehensive consent education and continuing the conversation.Thats why you dont believe her, or thats what you mean when you say that you dont. You dont believe how she felt, how she could have felt that way, because thats not what it was like for you. But its neither for you nor me, nor anyone except the survivor, to decide.The male perspective is foregrounded in representations of sex, cultural conditioning, and even criminal standards, which are based on a legal conception of reasonableness and are the product of an inherently patriarchal system. These same narratives manifest across the spectrum of sexism. Women are blamed for not being able to laugh off sexist jokes. Sexual harassment is a misunderstanding, a flirtation, or a compliment rather than at best deeply discomfiting and incredibly damaging behaviour. New York Mayor Andrew Cuomo has levelled such arguments in relation to sexual allegations made against him in the last fortnight. Additionally, there is evidence that many men accused of assault dont identify themselves within the traditional characterisation of a violent, malicious rapist. Many young men who may disrespect women in more unconscious, casual ways from objectification to disregard for personal space scarcely offer themselves or their peers up to the idea of being capable of being a rapist.Between the perception of the word rapist and its reality lies the problem. Citing attitudes or actions as unconscious should never excuse the profound damage that they have. Identifying what it means when men fear baseless accusations speaks to a narrower truth about how they perceive sex. This truth exists outside the structures and preconceptions embedded in our culture, and doesnt in any way mean that they shouldnt know better. But it should enliven us to understand that the root of the problem is so deep within us that it takes more than the promise or expectation of doing better to make it so. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The recent petition, started by Chanel Contos, has generated 31,00 signatures over two weeks. It shares the graphic, personal stories of over 2900 survivors of sexual assault, and names a wealth of NSW and Victorian private schools. Most recently, a second petition targeting parliament, has again gone viral. Its causing a conversation and generating important changes in the sexual education of students. You know what it isnt doing? Creating accountability.The statistics are dire, and the lived experiences are even worse. 1 in 6 women experience sexual assault, and of those, 8 out of 10 cases are perpetrated by someone known to the victim. Stories in Chantels petition support these statistics. They describe the grey area of feeling unsure as to whether you have been assaulted because the acts are committed by people considered friends. Worse still are the statistics of how few rapes go reported. In a 2020 government report, it was revealed that of the women who have been sexually assaulted over the last ten years, 87% didnt contact the police. This is in part, due to the lack of knowledge around consent and what constitutes assault. Its also, in larger part, due to the cultural norms that govern our relationships.Our current perception of sexuality is the by-product of at least 2,500 years within which sexual valueshave favoured the maleand repressed the sexual rights and expressions of women. Particularly when combined with the rising culture of narcissism and hedonism, female sexuality being defined in relation to the masculine has taught us to demand and expect instant gratification at the same time that it makes satisfaction impossible. The ongoing illicit nature of sexuality discourages open dialogue around sex, and contributes to the lack of education around pleasure. This encourages a culture that sees sex as a prize to be won, and something to be done to another person, rather than an intersubjective experience between two people.As individuals, this impacts our lives as we are discouraged from violating any norms due to the threat of social disapproval. This plays out every time an assault isnt reported, or is dismissed by peers. When someone is told that avoiding sexual assault is their own responsibility, and that cases can be stopped by managing how much one drinks, what they wear, or who they know, it contributes to the feelings of guilt and shame. In our context, the individual raped is objectified, a means to an end, rather than an end to themselvesprecluding the person from moral concern. It is this culture, where friends mistreat each other, that leads to the use of young sexual experimentation and ignorance as an excuse for sexual assault.There is no how-to guide to approach being assaulted by someone you know. There is no easy way to report it, to own it, to hold them accountable. One of the biggest contributors to this silence and self-denial is this context in which, unfortunately, sex is unable to be divorced from social realities. If everyone has a story similar to the ones shared in Chantels petition, that means that everyone also has a friend who lived through it. It also means we all know people who have perpetrated crimes similar to those in the personal testimonies, probably even unbeknownst to the assaulters.To really tackle Australias sexual assault problem, there needs to be more than just an education overhaul. There needs to be cultural change, starting with people being willing to call each other out. We all need to know what is permissible and what isnt. There can be no reliance on structural change or waiting for the legal system to hold assaulters accountable, particularly when only 2 out of every 5 accused rapists are convicted in Australia.As the petition gains traction and the conversation continues to dominate, its important to recognise the significance of actively living our principles. Its easy to share an Instagram post or sign a petition. But how, in our day to day lives, are we actively supporting our friends? Do you still invite your mate, who everyone knows gets a little too touchy on the piss, out for drinks? Do you still see your friends rapists for fear of social groups unravelling? Do you still put your friends in situations where they have to hang out with their rapist? <|endtext|> <|starttext|> There was once a time when politicians cared little for war commemoration. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, for example, reflected that In my time as prime minister if Id gone to Anzac Cove for Anzac Day, people would have said What on earth is Fraser doing?Nowadays of course, it is a completely different story. Politicians on both sides routinely get emotional about our military history, subscribe wholeheartedly to the Anzac legend and pour millions of taxpayer dollars into the Australian War Memorial (AWM).This perhaps explains why the AWM has so much cultural capital. Indeed, the museums director, Matt Anderson, describes the building as the soul of the nation. Prime Minister Scott Morrison also has the audacity to say Australians will always be Australian so long as they remember this place.Unfortunately, the AWM is not using its political influence for good. Instead of educating us on our military history like it is supposed to, its primary objectives seem to be to glorify recent conflicts and minimise the fallout from the Brereton report.Under the current board, the AWMs role has changed from museum, shrine and archive to public relations firm for disgraced soldiers.The AWM is about to construct a new exhibition centre dedicated entirely to Australias recent conflicts. The institution is set to receive $500 million dollars of government funding to do so, at a time when other museums are having their funding cut. According to billionaire AWM Chairman Kerry Stokes, this project is in the national interest.Stokes has also taken the liberty to cover the legal costs of all nineteen soldiers implicated in the Brereton report. With prosecutors already facing the difficult task of proving that the soldiers knew the Afghans were non-combatants before deciding to kill them anyway, Stokes intervention will likely help the defendants escape conviction.Stokes is also financing alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smiths defamation lawsuit against Nine newspapers. Roberts-Smith was reported as being one of the worst offending soldiers implicated in the Brereton Report, with an investigation by Nine newspapers alleging he killed seven non-combatants.Less Roberts-Smith is found innocent, which a litany of evidence suggests otherwise, this lawsuit is a brazen act of intimidation against a free press. Roberts-Smith wrongly claimed a media tip-off led to his criminal investigation, when he was actually referred to the police by the Australian Defence Force.The Brereton Report was a four-year inquiry led by Army Reserve Major-General and NSW Court of Appeal judge Paul Brereton. It investigated alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan and interviewed over 400 people. The report concluded that members of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment committed 39 potential murders from 2005-2016.Now, why the AWM board thinks its appropriate to make a museum exhibit on an ongoing conflict, especially in light of such a controversy, is beyond me.Even if the redevelopment is driven by the noble intention of commemorating the service of living veterans, the current AWM board cannot be the ones entrusted to educate us on our military history. They have clear agendas.For example, board member and former prime-minister Tony Abbot, was a staunch enthusiast for Australias involvement in the Middle East. He also saw the war in Afghanistan entirely as a matter of good versus evil. Additionally, AWM director Matt Anderson was the former Australian ambassador to Afghanistan.Both these men featured prominently in the conflict and are inclined to twist the narrative. The rest of the AWM board, which consists mainly of former defence personnel, will likely do the same.I say this because already, the board has shown a complete lack of taste and a blatantly partisan agenda. One example is the proposed redevelopment including a display on Operation Sovereign Borders, hardly a military campaign and one of Tony Abbots own policies.Matt Anderson has also indicated he wants the Brereton report to be thought of as a minor blimp in an otherwise honourable campaign.Finally there is Kerry Stokes, who seems to be doing everything in his power to ensure none of the Brereton reports findings are ever proven true. Its like he wants future generations to think it never happened.Commemorating Afghanistan in its rightful historical context is a mammoth task. It should not be entrusted to a group of ardent right wingers and former armed-force personnel with no historical background.The sacrifice of the Australians who served needs to be told in the context of the American-led coalition failing to defeat the Taliban after twenty years of fighting. It needs to be told in light of the fact that for much of the war, elements of the unit at the forefront of the Australian campaign, the SASR, exhibited a toxic warrior culture fixated on demonstrating power and bending the rules. It needs to be told in light of the fact that we struggled to win hearts and minds.When contacted for comment, the AWM said it always has been, and will remain, an apolitical institution. This legacy is in jeopardy. If the current board gets its way, we will end up with an overfunded propaganda centre disguised as a museum. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> When play was suspended at the SCG test earlier this year, it seemed as though a familiar scene was replaying itself before our eyes. As Australia was accelerating towards a win, Indian fast bowler Mohammad Siraj walked up to the umpires to halt play. He claimed he was called a brown dog by Australian fans while fielding on the boundary line, and play was suspended while the umpires investigated. It later emerged that Siraj and teammate Jasprit Bumrah had also reported racist abuse the day before, but as it was well after play had finished, nothing could be done.As swiftly as security removed the alleged perpetrators, the social media backlash started. Cricket hashtags were flooded with people saying how the Indians simply cried racism because they were losing the match, how they couldnt take a joke, how nothing was actually said and of course, that if they didnt like it, they should go back to where they came from. This was a scene we had seen many times in Australian sport, from Adam Goodes to Lance Franklin.Most striking was the press coverage, which often negated the racist abuse in the headline but linked a video where the words brown dog could clearly be heard. Editors often pointed to accounts suggesting that nothing racist was actually said, without mentioning first-hand accounts suggesting the opposite.Following this, the media coverage of the Indian cricket team changed in Australia. Articles appeared about how the Indian team were unhappy with their quarantine in Brisbane and wanted to return home. There was little mention of the fact that the team had been on the road for almost four months, or that Siraj stayed in Australia to make his test debut, despite his father passing away during the series. The most fervent anti-vax COVID deniers suddenly became the biggest supporters of restrictions the country had ever seen. The team was portrayed as ungrateful and all the while, the racist taunts continued.This was not the first Australia-India racism furore. In 2008, Harbhajan Singh was suspended for allegedly calling Andrew Symonds a monkey. Eventually, the allegations were dropped but not before tension between the teams reached a boiling point, with India threatening to return home.But theres another dimension to this story which must be considered, and which mainstream media has so far ignored. Cricket Australia immediately released a strong statement condemning racism which was backed up by many former players. The media interpreted this as a purely altruistic gesture. Without wanting to question intentions, it should be noted that India is the global powerhouse of cricket. The strength and size of their Board means that they essentially control the International Cricket Council (ICC). Indeed, the first words of Lord Woolfs independent review into the governance of the ICC said Cricket is a great game. It deserves to have governance, including management and ethics, worthy of the sport. This is not the position at the present time. When any board has that level of power there are always going to be problems.In addition, international players flock to the Indian Premier League. The money is astronomical. In 2021, South African Chris Morris (who is not a regular in their national team) will be paid $2.88 million for six weeks of work. Given the ICC does not operate on an equitable funding model and TV rights and money directly determine the financial stability of international cricket boards no one wants to anger Indias cricket board.Indias tour was like gold for Cricket Australia, which was struggling with COVID-related financial issues, as well as a lawsuit from Channel 7. The TV revenue that an Indian series brings into any country is astounding. For the Indian Premier League (a domestic competition), Star Sports India bought the rights to the tournament for over half a billion dollars annually. Indias tour went a long way towards financially saving Australian cricket therefore there was no way that Cricket Australia was going to do anything to displease India.So we cant definitively view Cricket Australias statement as proof that Australian cricket owns up to racism. We certainly cant look to the media for that either. So what did that incident really show? The most obvious thing is that Australia still has a long way to go in confronting racism in sport. One look at Indian media will also tell a completely different story to Australian media. But theres more at play than simply racism. At the end of the day, money talks in cricket and the strength of financial motives will obscure any desire for real social change. In doing so, racism will be forgotten in Australian cricket and seen to be resolved. To summarise, we should look to Waleed Alys words about Adam Goodes:There is no mystery about this at all. And its not as simple as it being about race Its about the fact that Australia is generally a very tolerant society until its minorities demonstrate that they dont know their place. And at that moment, the minute someone in a minority position acts as though theyre not a mere supplicant, then we lose our minds. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Golf is losing a war against its own image. The prominence of elite private clubs is hurting the chances of public courses defending their worth in a society that is ageing and increasingly obsessed with finding the best return on investment.At the end of 2020, Councillor Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney, announced plans to halve the length of the famous public golf course at Moore Park from eighteen to nine holes to create more parkland space for local residents. Somewhat unfortunately, the loudest voice in opposition came from a Liberal Councillor Christine Forster arguably more famous as younger sister to Tony Abbott.This war over golf is often characterised as pitting the needs of the many for open space against the luxury leisure pursuit of the few. It is true that there is a long history of private clubs excluding female or culturally diverse members. Indeed, many today continue to exclude those of low socio-economic status through fees into the tens of thousands of dollars clearly uninterested in providing for the greater community.However, the portrayal of public golf courses as land that is somehow not as accessible as any other sporting facility is absurd. Sydneys 58 public golf courses are open all year, weather permitting, to anyone who wants to play. They are far more accessible than cricket grounds with turf wickets where the large pitch square in the centre of the field is roped off to prevent public use. Some public courses such as Marrickville are open to the public for walking, a proposal now considered for Moore Park.Another common criticism of golf is that the great expense of playing makes it a game only able to be enjoyed by a wealthy few. While new golf equipment can be very expensive, a full set of used golf clubs can cost considerably less than a new cricket bat which can go for up to $1500. Even football, Australias most popular participation sport, can cost upwards of $350 a year for registration plus football boots and other expenses for only an hour and a half a week. The typical round of golf takes about four hours and costs around $30 at many public courses.Also absurd is the belief among many that golf is exclusively enjoyed by white upper and middle-class Australians. As a keen golfer who plays at many of Western Sydneys public offerings, any casual observation will show that golf is extremely culturally diverse. Golf is particularly popular with migrants from an East Asian background. In terms of socio-economic background, most of the golfers I play with are retired public servants or small business owners and staff.Amateur golf by its nature is a sport that equalises the playing field between participants. The handicap system means that disadvantages such as time spent working rather than playing or even slightly inadequate equipment compared with those who have the means to access it does not diminish the value of the competition.For many working-class retirees there are few public resources available for sporting activity. The typical round of golf will involve walking around six kilometres over four hours. For many older people, they will play at least three times a week. This level of exercise and social cohesion is extraordinarily important for a generation that becomes increasingly sedentary.But its not only old people who benefit from golf. Even if you dont play, golf clubs are incredibly important economically for young people. Golf clubhouses attached to both public and private courses employ hundreds of young people across the state and are important fundraising entities. There are over 20,000 greenkeepers in Australia who benefit from public infrastructure such as golf courses to remain employed.The key issue with Councillor Moores argument is that she is making a distinction between golf courses and parkland in terms of public accessibility. Yes, there is a small fee associated with using a public golf course and golf courses are not big money-spinners for a local council. But, perhaps she should have worried about planning green space for her growing communities before they had built them, rather than trying to take away a vital publicly owned asset so important to Australias growing working-class elderly. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The Peter Nicol Russel library, usually occupied by students from the Faculty of Engineering, became a biohazard drenched in human urine on Wednesday night.It may come as a surprise to some readers that facilities could reach such a decrepit and unsafe state within The University of Sydney, a higher education institution that regularly ranks among the greatest in the world. To engineering students, it isnt a surprise at all but why is this?Because its not the first time. The engineering precinct is regularly neglected by Campus Infrastructure Services (CIS). They were previously alerted to problems with the restrooms on the 10th of November 2020, the 13th of January 2021, and the 22nd of February 2021. On one occasion, every single male urinal and cubicle overflowed with discharge. On each of those occasions, no serious improvements or renovations were made to the restroom facilities.These incidents speak to a more significant issue: the dilapidation of an entire precinct that is in dire need of renovation. Air-conditioners regularly leak fluid upon students. Doors to enter the library have been broken for months at a time and continue to fail when CIS sends staff to fix them. Additionally, after being fixed by CIS, one door began oscillating between open and closed on a whim of its own, creating disruptively loud sounds for hours on end.Over the most recent holiday period, a corridor along the library was closed for asbestos removal. A University of Sydney spokesperson assured Honi that the University had every possible aspect in place to ensure that the material from the ETP site was removed safely. Students were not notified that they had been in the presence of asbestos for years.When asked why no long-term improvements had been made to the facilities, the University claimed that buildings were inspected on a regular program and that where safety issues are identified [they] are rectified according to risk assessment. The Universitys spokesperson also blamed the issue upon hand wipes that had been flushed down the toilet pans, claiming that additional signage has been placed in the area.The library was closed immediately due to the overwhelming smell and safety risk. A team of plumbers and cleaners were deployed overnight, and the library re-opened the next morning.This incident cannot be allowed to become normalised, humorous, or unimportant. It is unsafe for students to be allowed to stew in the fumes of human waste. The fact that the Peter Nicol Russel building is invisible from the majority of the campus, and always broken anyway as many students seem to claim to the extent that there is a large Facebook page documenting breakages cannot trivialise this warm, yellow, bubbling Watergate. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The three-month summer break, for most students, is usually a time spent hanging out in the sun with mates or, more importantly, watching cricket. However, as someone unemployed since the early days of the lockdown last year, I had the misfortune of being mutually obligated to participate in the new Employability Skills Training course: a 3-week intensive course aimed at young jobseekers under the age of 25. Although being forced to participate in the program was a rather grim prospect, I maintained a cautious optimism that I might learn something useful. The training I ended up receiving was anything but.The EST is part of the new Employment Services Trial, a massive bureaucratic overhaul of the current JobSeeker system. Under the new model, the government is substantially increasing funding for private third-party job providers and training organisations, for providing their services to job seekers. On the flip side, job seekers like me are forced to participate in intensifying mutual obligation requirements, including training programs such as the EST.The course content itself involved teaching basic common knowledge, such as communicating clearly, and following a procedure properly. Participants had to demonstrate such skills as being able to write a mock email requesting leave, and washing the sink safely. The low bar for assessing participants on their prior understanding and ability to perform basic tasks was extraordinarily demeaning it was frustrating to be treated as though we were incompetent or overly inexperienced. The pressure heaped onto participants by the overworked trainer made breezing through the content impossible. Deciphering and repeating poorly written assessments made simple tasks laborious, while the constant threat of having ones payments cut amplified the stress present in the learning environment.The trainers attitude only heightened feelings of humiliation. They consistently pounced on any mistakes that participants made, condescendingly querying how anyone could ever get a question wrong. However, seemingly irrelevant to the course (as though they kept running out of material), most interactions with the trainer involved them providing faux self-help psychology advice. This advice was deeply patronising, pathologising our joblessness as a consequence of merely being depressed or disheartened. They claimed that simply being positive and doing things to get ourselves into good moods, like listening to music or going for walks, could fix these issues and increase our productivity. Being patronised in this way had the opposite effect.Clearly, dominant attitudes towards unemployed people had permeated into the courses content and the instructors attitude. But further to that, the courses problems were indicative of further government policy failures addressing youth unemployment. Years of propaganda stigmatising unemployed people have fostered harmful attitudes, which were reproduced in the course. These attitudes have allowed the government a platform to enact similarly harmful policies.Forcing job seekers into arbitrary and unhelpful training courses while maintaining payment rates below the poverty line is not only cruel, but fails to take stock of the current state of the labour market: young people are intelligent and knowledgeable, and jobs simply arent available. At present, according to ABS data comparing job vacancies to unemployment rates, there is one job available for every nine job seekers. When considering factors such as youth unemployment, or disparities in job vacancies across different industries, the situation appears even grimmer. The government has failed to take differences between job seekers and within industries into account.Furthermore, both the government and job providers have failed to adequately inform young people that access to more suitable, free training is currently available. At present, job seekers have fee-free access to a wide range of TAFE courses through the JobTrainer program, as well as training programs for qualifications such as RSA or White Card, free of charge through their job provider. Forcing job seekers into redundant training programs without publicising other more useful options defeats the purpose of the JobTrainer policy. It demonstrates a desire to patronise rather than trust young people to obtain practical training for themselves.The drastic increases in the JobSeeker rate during the pandemic period of mid-2020 showed that the government could eradicate poverty. However, by funnelling resources into redundant and inadequate training programs and punitive surveillance bureaucracy, the government maintains the cruel welfare apparatus keeping young jobseekers in poverty. The recent meagre increase to the JobSeeker payment, along with the employer dob-in line (an all-new mechanism of punishment and surveillance for jobseekers) reflect this ethos.Putting full faith and stock in young peoples autonomy involves allowing them access to training programs that will suit their skills and experience, instead of forcing them to participate in degrading and patronising courses. It also involves properly increasing the JobSeeker rate, so that young people can provide themselves with the tools and equipment they need to create support structures for themselves and their community. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> On 3 February 2021, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) handed down their interim decision to not down-schedule psilocybin and MDMA to Schedule 8 (Controlled Drug) when used clinically with psychotherapy. Currently, both drugs are found on Schedule 9 (Prohibited Substance) which heavily restricts their supply and use in Australia. In their decision, the Secretarys Delegate determined that both drugs had a high potential for misuse and not enough research to back their efficacy and safety. I will argue that this assessment is misguided.Many natural psychedelics, including psilocybin, commonly known as magic mushrooms, have been used extensively in many cultural and religious settings for their healing benefits. Thus, whilst there is generally limited but promising research in the form of clinical trials concerning the use of natural psychedelics and MDMA, there is plentiful anecdotal and survey-based evidence that speaks to the efficacy and safety of natural psychedelics. For example, previous studies have found that ayahuasca use including in shamanic and religious settings resulted in a higher reported quality of life and clinical improvement especially of minor psychiatric symptoms.In relation to their safety specifically, both drugs have been shown to be safer than many other currently prohibited drugs, and even controlled pharmaceuticals. According to the The Australian drug harms ranking study in 2019, almost all other drugs listed, including cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis and prescription opioids, had significantly higher instances of harm to both the user and others. While MDMA (as ecstasy) is known to have significant risks and harms in non-clinical settings, these harms tend to increase when partnered with other drugs. Moreover, psilocybin is generally considered to be safe having a high therapeutic index. According to James J H Rucker, a UK psychiatrist, psilocybin has a therapeutic index of around 1000 compared to cocaine (15) and heroin (6).Given this, it seems that there is prima facie evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of psilocybin and MDMA that warrants potential down-scheduling in spite of the Delegates claims.Yet, the Delegate and Mind Medicine Australia, who applied for the schedule changes, seem to contradict each other with regards to what exactly the current research says about the clinical use and safety of these drugs. In a media alert, Mind Medicine Australia contested the RANZCP Clinical Memorandum (CM) on psychedelic drugs which formed a basis of the Delegates interim decision. The RANZCP which is currently opposed to the down-scheduling of both drugs, claimed safety concerns and unknowns in the CM, which was critiqued as being misinformed and outdated. This contention, I argue, is rooted in stigma that still prominently influences the science and policy of psychedelic drugs.Part of the reason for the limited body of clinical research on the potential effects of psilocybin and MDMA is decades of restrictive drug policies rooted in conservative moral panic and the war on drugs. This, in turn, led to the scapegoating of many drugs which were and are still labelled as particularly susceptible to being abused rather than credited for their potential medical uses. Even today, many of the positions taken by medical organisations in relation to both Oregon Measure 109, which regulated and legalised psilocybin service centres, and the proposed down-scheduling continue to claim opposition to these changes by using the guises of limited research and unknown/high risks of abuse. This raises questions about the substantive that is used to back up these claims.Ultimately, I firmly believe that both drugs, particularly psilocybin, should be down-scheduled for controlled medical use. In reality, this is a modest change from the status quo, but one that attempts to break down the stigma that has persistently painted these drugs in a negative light. According to AOD Media Watch, the only practical effect of down-scheduling these drugs would be an increased ease of access through a Special Access Scheme Category B (SAS-B) application, a system that is presently overly complex despite already being possible under the current schedule. However, most importantly, down-scheduling would show that the medical community and the TGA are ready to move on from the unwarranted stigmatisation of psychedelic drugs.Submissions to the TGAs interim decision on psilocybin and MDMA are still open on their website until 4 March 2021. Please see Mind Medicine Australias Submission Guide if you would like some assistance. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> My fellow contributors to the Embers publication have rightfully articulated the inadequacies of post-Cold-War capitalism in the fight to mitigate climate change. I understand the fear of moving away from what has largely been a stable economic ideology, however, we are now confronted by a terror that is so completely outside of the collective knowledge. Without quantitative change to the four major contributing factors of; population growth, consumption of resources, carbon emissions and the mass extinction of species, we will reach the point of the end times. And as Holmes Rolston aptly points out to us: a general pattern of behaviour among threatened human societies is, to become more blinkered rather than more focused on the crisis, and fail. We are bombarded with information about this looming and irreversible catastrophe and yet we do nothing the time to act is quickly running out.Capitalism is still moving in completely the wrong direction, as big businesses seize on new opportunities for economic growth, not seeming to comprehend that a world post climate change will not exist. This includes things such as using the opportunity of the melting ice caps in the Arctic to reduce fuel consumption, creating a new northern route. This is capitalism at its core, using every change in the world to create economic growth without a care for the consequences. This inequality is no more evident than in Adani hiding the oil spill of 2017, amassing 4.7 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, which not only broke Queensland government pollution laws but also devastated the world heritage site of the Great Barrier Reef. Adani shows the true nature of capitalism: it seizes on opportunities, not only contributing to climate change but planning to profit from it. Naomi Klein explains in The Shock Doctrine that these forthcoming ecological crises, far from undermine capitalism, but further its cause.Profit is being weighed against human life, and human life is coming out the loser. The end times are finally here. Climate change isnt like anything we have seen before, it is a disaster that is born from the unintended consequences of human action. This threat encompasses all of humanity; it is against our very existence and yet most of us are still more interested in the latest graphic tee from General Pants. The most significant issue in my eyes is the shrug of normalisation, like in 2008 when a CNN reporter explained the new economic opportunity brought about by the greening of Greenland, what an absurd reaction to a very serious ecological disaster. To pretend that this minor benefit of a major catastrophe is somehow a win for humanity because we can plant more vegetables is ridiculous but plainly shows the problem of normalisation. We are constantly surrounded by the effects of global warming and the fact that we look for opportunity in calamity, isnt indicative of human resourcefulness, but rather, the power of ideology.This article was published in Embers, a pullout in Honis Semester 1, Week 11 edition. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A recent report by Deloitte estimated that inaction on climate change could cost the Australian economy $3.4 trillion, and nearly a million jobs, in the lead up to 2070. By 2050, inaction on climate change could cause Australia to experience economic losses equivalent to those suffered because of Covid-19 every single year. By contrast, action on climate change could result in the addition of $700 billion to our economy, and the creation of 250,000 jobs.Its increasingly clear that refusing to act on climate change is economically illogical. Yet climate denial remains an accepted political position and one which studies show is overwhelmingly held by white politically conservative males. Why? At a basic level, white privilege can manifest itself in a general ease with high levels of risk, breeding apathy towards environmental issues. But more than that, the fossil fuel industry has deep cultural resonance for some men.Over the course of the 20th century, fossil fuels adopted cultural meaning, signifying imperialism, development and Western growth. At the same time, masculine ideals entrenched notions of consumption, aggression and expansion in Western politics. Traditionally, this has manifested through waged economic labour, where men occupy roles in industries that are often propped up by fossil fuels, requiring strong associations with public life and high levels of travel. Meanwhile, traditionally feminised industries such as teaching, caring and secretarial roles are often devalued or unpaid, and are usually stationary with many women relegated to the home.In this way, the consumption of fossil fuels has become critical to maintaining the existing social hierarchy. Challenges to the fossil fuel system as a result of climate change are seen as threats to white patriarchal rule, and increasingly fragile notions of Western-hypermasculinity. In her seminal study, American academic Cara Daggett coined this phenomenon petro-masculinity.Daggett describes how, from the privileged standpoint of a petro-masculine identity, the suggestion of climate change and subsequent calls to reduce fuel consumption, are essentially akin to the supposed threat to masculinity posed by feminists attempting to dismantle hetero-normative assumptions of the traditional state and family.Not only does adopting a position of climate denial help to preserve the status of the white conservative male in the overall hierarchy and economic system, from which he continues to benefit, but it is also consistent with the masculine ideal of being invincible and able to overcome any challenge. This was epitomised by Trumps calls to Make America Great Again which was essentially a form of petro-nostalgia, calling for a reinstatement of the cheap energy which typified the American Dream.If youre ever interested in laughing and crying at the same time, google Rolling Coal. What youll find is a collection of photos and videos of white, politically conservative men who have altered their truck and car engines in order to consume more fuel, so that they can intimidate pedestrians and other drivers by loudly producing black smoke. Some have labelled this performative consumption of fossil fuels as pollution porn. It is difficult to see it as anything else. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians. Nelson MandelaThe Palestinian people have been subjected to the Nakba for the past 73 years. Nakba is an Arabic term meaning the catastrophe and marks 15 May, 1948 as the beginning of Palestinian oppression via ethnic cleansing, dispossession of land and living in constant fear for the lives of their families at the hands of the Israeli government. It also marks the beginning of the worlds passive response to the violation of Palestinian human rights.This passive response to the Palestinian crisis is evident in the careful rhetoric utilised to describe the events that are occurring. One of the most insidious examples of subconscious priming used by governments and media outlets is the language of killed vs murdered. A linguist neednt tell you how the words evoke two different sets of emotive responses. Palestinians are killed, while Hamas/Palestine murders Israeli citizens. Palestinian fatalities are followed by vague descriptors and justifications; Israeli deaths are followed by particulars of gender, age, and perhaps even a name and occuptation. The dichotomy leads to a subtle, yet very clear, distinction between the bad guys and the good guys.One side is dehumanised and converted into statistics; the other is conceptualised as individuals with identities. With the use of the word killed, the media and politicians implore us to be objective in receiving this information. Killed does not imply malicious intent it simply conveys a controlled performative action that is unfortunate, yet justified. This strips away the ongoing violence and human right violations that contextualise the death of Palestinian victims at the hands of the Israeli government. On the other hand, using the word murdered to describe the fate of Israeli citizens asserts the existence of inexcusable, malicious Palestinian intent. Murder is not objective it alludes to the necessity of premeditation prior to committing the act. It is a word that conjures imagery of senseless acts of violence.Furthermore, the rhetoric used by politicians and media plays into the narrative that the Palestinian humanitarian crisis is a religious conflict. Palestinians are not a homogenous religious group of people. Contrary to media reports and images, not all Palestinians are Muslims. By constructing the Palestinian crisis as a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews, the identities and struggles of Palestinian Christians and Jews are ignored. The heterogenity of Palestinians disproves the assertion that there is something inherently religious about the Palestinian resistance. Palestinians are fighting for basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to democratically elect their own government (and have it recognised and respected), the freedom to physically move within the land of Palestine and the freedom to trade with other nations. The universal human need for dignity and respect, which is denied to Palestinians, is the driving force behind their resistance, not some terrorist Islam.Moreover, the use of the word conflict implies that both groups of people involved are on an even playing field. There is no equal power between Palestine and Israel Israel has an army, nuclear weapons and billions of American dollars in funding that go toward expanding Israeli defense infrastructure. Palestinians have no army, no navy and no nuclear weapons they resist Israeli occupation of their land by firing rockets at a nuclear superpower. To place equal blame on both parties is absurd when the nation of Palestine is being oppressed and subject to apartheid laws which Israel enforces to favour its own citizens.Such criticism is often construed as being anti-semitic and encouraging bigotry. Yet the critiquing of Israels zionist movement and its policies, which actively restrict the movement and freedoms of Palestinian people, is not anti-semitic. I do not associate Israels war crimes with the entire Jewish community because I recognise that the beliefs, practices and experiences of the Jewish community are being grossly misconstrued to justify the continued perpetration of human right violations in Palestine. Living in a secular society, I had hoped that by now, people would be able to separate politics and religion the politics of a government is not a reflection of any religion with which it may choose to affiliate itself. By extension, criticism of a governments policies and actions is not an attack on the religion with which it claims to be affiliated.I implore you to support and fight for the basic human dignity and respect to which the Palestinian people have a right. A free Palestine must be the end goal. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Clashes, tensions, Israel-Hamas conflict. These are just some of the key words currently permeating media headlines worldwide.Palestinians and their allies have criticised mainstream establishment media outlets the world over for employing passive and neutral language to describe recent events in Palestine. When Palestine is covered in the media, it is usually done so using neutral language that absolves Israel of any responsibility or portrays it as two equal sides fighting. Palestinians die but Israelis are killed. If Palestinian death tolls are mentioned, they are reduced to a footnote or are skimmed over a few paragraphs down.The New York Times was recently criticised on social media for its headline, lede, and skewing of events to frame the story in a euphemistic angle. The Times framed the story through its title as a new wave of violence following rockets from Gaza and protests by Palestinians in Jerusalem, thus obscuring the everyday violence Palestinians face. This framing also infers that the protests and the rockets were two separate events rather than connected events.In Australia, our own media has either been silent or equally complicit in peddling the Israeli narrative of victimhood. The ABC especially has been challenged on its silence, publishing and broadcasting very few news pieces since Palestinian protests against home evictions in Sheikh Jarrah began a few weeks ago. The lack of news stories was especially noticeable after Israel began its most recent assault on Gaza, despite the buildup of events over weeks that led to it.In particular, Schwartz Media, which owns outlets such as The Saturday Paper, 7am Podcast, Black Inc. Publishing, has been widely called out for its silence on Palestine. While its flagship publication, The Saturday Paper, is known for publishing pieces on a range of progressive and social justice issues from Indigenous rights to climate action, many journalists and writers have noted its lack of pieces on Palestine, with calls for writers and journalists to withdraw pieces and cancel their subscriptions to the paper.Media silence and lack of coverage often obscures the whole story, removing the victims from the narrative, and providing tacit support for Israels actions against Palestinians while deeming it as not newsworthy.The media often portrays these events as a two-sided conflict, this could not be further from the truth. While Palestinians in Gaza search for those who died under the rubble, Israelis go to the beach and enjoy brunch. As Palestinians commemorated the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba on May 15, it remains a stark reminder that the Nakba was not a one-time event, but is an ongoing occurrence.Since early May, Palestinians in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem have been protesting the planned forced evictions from their homes. The state-sanctioned evictions are part of a large plan to Judaise Jerusalem, expelling its Palestinian inhabitants to make room for an increase in Jewish settlers. This is not the first time residents of Sheikh Jarrah have faced eviction or had their homes stolen by settlers; in 2002 and 2009 the Israeli Supreme Court evicted Palestinian families after ruling that the property was owned by Jewish settlers according to Israeli law.A few days after the protests in Sheikh Jarrah began, Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, attacking Palestinian Muslim worshippers with stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. As a response to events on the ground in Jerusalem, militant group Hamas vowed to launch rockets if Israel did not stop its violent attacks on Palestinians and Muslims in Jerusalem. Since then, Israel has rained down airstrikes on Gaza which have killed over two hundred civilians.If there are any doubts that Israel maintains an apartheid regime, one should only look to the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip has been under siege for the past 14 years, enduring Israeli military assaults in 2008, 2012, and 2014. Unfortunately, many Palestinians in Gaza cannot leave without exit permits as both border crossings are controlled by Egypt and Israel. Half of Gazas population live in abject poverty as Israels occupation and siege has destroyed the local economy, leaving many Palestinians unemployed. Due to Israels constant assaults, many Palestinians in Gaza also face homelessness as they struggle to rebuild. As a result of the recent bombardment, almost 40, 000 have been internally displaced.Since Israel escalated its attacks on Gaza two weeks ago, 232 Palestinians have been killed, including 65 children, at the time of writing. Israel has additionally killed 29 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem protesting against Israels attacks on Gaza.In its recent round of strikes, Israel has destroyed residential buildings, a clinic housing Gazas only coronavirus testing lab, also hitting the Health Ministry and offices of the Red Crescent. Reports also mention that roads leading to Al Shifa hospital have been destroyed, further restricting Palestinian access to basic health services. Additionally, on Saturday May 15, Israel leveled a building hosting the offices of many international media outlets, including Al Jazeera, and the Associated Press. This is not the first time Israel has attacked media offices in Gaza, raising significant concerns regarding press freedom.A ceasefire was recently called between Hamas and Israel which came into effect yesterday. As Palestinians in Gaza get a brief moment to breathe, Gaza remains under siege and occupation, and Palestinians continue to face the brunt of Israeli brutality in all its forms.Hundreds of Australian journalists, writers, media workers, and commentators, including Honi Soit, have signed an open letter demanding an improvement in coverage on Palestine. These demands call for fair coverage on Palestine that doesnt resort to both-sides and makes space for Palestinian perspectives without repercussions for journalists that express solidarity with Palestine.Palestinians have long been silenced by the media and powerful institutions. Although the narrative is slowly shifting as more Palestinian perspectives are showcased in mainstream publications and on mainstream television channels, it is clear that the media must do better. Expressing solidarity with Palestine and reporting truthfully is a moral imperative that is not up for debate. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> With only a month left until I finish my undergraduate degree, the Studies in Religion department which made my experience at the University of Sydney what it was is at risk of closure, and its worrying and anger-inducing.The idea that every department in the University needs to be constantly turning over a profit to be worth keeping is utterly ridiculous. It is the small departments dealing with niche subjects, particularly in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, that make the University what it is. Arts is the draw-card to USyd and there isnt another university in New South Wales that offers such a comprehensive academic and historic look at religion. Theological departments have never been at risk of disbandment, because theyve always been profitable, but if we continue along this trajectory and end up at a place where the only kind of study of religion available at universities is theology, well be forced to deal with social problems that cant be easily addressed or reversed. If the academic literature we produce loses the benefit of the secular, outsider perspective, our ability to fight against misinformation and misinformed beliefs is made more difficult, and the class of religious people in power grows stronger.The weaponisation of religion by our federal leaders sets a dangerous precedent and the way it informs our parliamentary decisions is worrying. A video of Scott Morrison telling the Australian Christian Churches conference that he believes he was chosen to do Gods work, and the potential for Mark Lathams Parental Rights Education Bill to be ratified, are just a couple of recent examples that show religions paramount role in our supposedly secular society. There is such a dissonance between the people who can decide what is worth learning at school and university, and those who teach and study it.After first year, my Studies in Religion courses never had more than 15 people in them, and this is part of what made them so valuable. Intensely interactive lectures and tutorials happened in the same classroom, one after the other. When I studied witchcraft and paganism, my classmates brought in their crystal balls, tarot cards and Ouija boards. In my subject this semester on the birth of Christianity, we have debates about whether Manichaeism was the first world religion. My classmates on Zoom actually have their cameras on every week, and contribute to discussion, because its one of the most interesting and worthwhile majors that the University offers, and we have so much to learn from each other. In the last four years Ive learned about the importance of Australian secular and civil religion like ANZAC Day, about postcolonial critiques of Western Esotericism; I was taught about how Harry Potter was demonised by conservative American Christians long before everyone realised J. K. Rowling was a transphobe and how the Bhagavad Gita problematises Upanishadic thought.Agnostics and atheists do these courses to attempt to understand the ways religion operates around the world, to learn how it has grown to occupy and influence every aspect of our legal system and our lives. Religious people do these courses to learn more about their own religions, to challenge themselves in their faith, and to come out stronger on the other side.When I went on exchange to London, I was taught by some of the best historical Jesus and historical Paul scholars in the world. My lecturer told us that this course had made people lose their faith, and warned against doing it if you werent ready to be challenged. I remember bristling with excitement at this; as an annoyingly atheist second year student, I wanted to learn what didnt add up so I could win the arguments against my religious friends. But that isnt what happened, and my understanding of religion became so much more holistic. Youre forced to think about why religion impacts society in such a broad way, what historical events have entwined to give us the religious landscape we have, how it changes lives, how it gives people hope. I entered my Studies in Religion major with an awfully patronising view of religious people, thinking that I would be validated in that, and I came out with a far more nuanced perspective.With the budget this week came the announcement that university funding will decrease by 9.3% over the next four years, a move which was as horrifying as it was unsurprising. Its just another chink in the armour of a university system that doesnt value any form of education that challenges capitalist structures, and it aligns with the hostility that university management has shown towards its staff and students throughout the pandemic. It shows how far Australian universities have strayed from the idea of learning for learnings sake, where the pursuit and sharing of knowledge was worthwhile, and where academics and students could together conceive and work towards a better educated, more open society. Studies in Religion is one of the most unique and interesting departments at the University of Sydney, and it is imperative that it is not shut down. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I remember my heart sinking when I read that on the degree handbook. I was prepared for a unit of boring tasks and mind-draining lectures. I imagined sitting through classes which, on paper, seemed useful, but in reality, were tedious and ultimately worthless.But instead, I found myself pleasantly invited into a world of the critical: critical thinking, critical reading, critical feeling. A world in which everything was up for questioning, examining, overturning. So to future first-year Arts students, heres a reassuring outline of what to actually expect from this single compulsory unit across all FASS degrees.The unit began by reflecting on why the Arts and Social Sciences matter. Other than allowing for perfect comebacks at students and unforgiving parents who smirk at your useless degree choice, and justifying your massive student debt (made larger by fee increases this year), understanding how the Arts and Social Science disciplines are interdisciplinary is remarkably comforting. In the first podcast of the unit (yes, this unit has podcasts) Sarah Barnett, a graduate of USYD, explained how she worked in the health industry with a communications degree, demonstrating how arts and social sciences can take a person into any field they want to delve into. There is no matter that the Arts and Social Sciences cant be used for and I will bet on that.The unit then critically examined critical thinking. Can one think through their emotions? What does it mean to read critically? Can creativity be critical?We then used these critical skills to deeply explore issues that are plaguing our world right now. What should be done with historical statues that perpetuate colonial narratives? Is cancel culture helpful or hurtful? Should Universal Basic Income become universal?Its not often we get to step back and consider how we think. Especially in what has been dubbed an unprecedented era, with the emergence of a post-truth world, knowing how to think critically, and applying that to the world, is an invaluable skill.The unit coordinators, Alix Thoeming and Bruce Isaacs, said that FASS started this year as the result of a long-term discussion. They wanted to provide a supportive unit for new students in the arts and social sciences disciplines, helping them navigate university life and discover how their discipline can be applied in the wider contemporary world.Of course, there are some downsides with FASS1000; it is a new, untested unit after all. Although fascinating, sometimes the nicheness of the topics chosen prompted students to ask how theyre ever going to use this specific knowledge in the future. In a way, its refreshing that course content is for once not about a career, and one could argue that the most directly useful aspect of the course is the skills gained along the way, rather than the content itself. Nonetheless, according to the unit coordinators, the student response to the unit thus far has been positive, and they have promised to consider any critiques that are identified from Semester 1. Ive thoroughly enjoyed FASS1000, and its nice to see a core unit feel like something more than a compulsory barrier to what students want to study. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In the last ten days weve seen a chilling escalation of the murderous apartheid violence Israel inflicts on Palestinians. In the West Bank, Palestinians already live under Israels illegal military occupation. Those in Gaza are subject to a vicious blockade. Now, Zionist settlers, with the backing of the Israeli state, have been home-invading Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem in order to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the city. In Israel, extremist mobs are lynching Palestinians and firebombing their property. Palestinians have been attacked and tear-gassed while praying at Jerusalems Al Aqsa mosque. Israeli bombs are flattening Gaza into rubble, forcing 10000 people out of their homes. Amidst this horror, people of good conscience in universities, whether students or staff, are likely to be wondering if theres anything effective they can do.An answer isnt hard to find. In 2005, 173 organisations from the breadth of Palestinian society appealed to the world to support BDS the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign and boycott the forces that continue to rob Palestinians of their land and freedom. There are many ways to implement the boycott. For consumers, boycotting Israel means refusing to buy goods from Israeli and other companies, like HP and Puma, that support Israeli crimes. For students, it means not participating in university exchange programs with Israel, like the ones Sydney University has with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For academics, boycotting means rejecting collaboration with the official activities of Israeli academia.Israeli universities deserve to be boycotted because they play a central role in the maintenance, planning and justification of Israels permanent anti-Palestinianism. Israeli academia is joined at the hip to the countrys military which, on Saturday, had already killed more than 130 Gazans and maimed and wounded almost 1000 others. Through their collaboration with the Israeli Defence Force and weapons manufacturers, and their political support for Zionism, Israeli universities are responsible for the destruction of Palestinian lives. They should be made accountable, yet most Israeli academics are silent. This silence is especially serious given that Israel is crippling Palestinian universities in Gaza and the West Bank. Yet, a few years ago, the Israeli academic Chen Misgav wrote that it seems oppression and the egregious violation of the freedom of Palestinian academics produce mainly yawns from his colleagues.When Palestinians ask academics and students to boycott Israel, theyre not asking us to do anything unusual. Political boycotts are a regular feature of university life, like the popular boycott of panels and conferences which underrepresent women. There are many other examples. Following Trumps election in 2016, thousands of academics called for a boycott of international conferences held in the US. In 2018, UCLA declared a travel boycott for its employees on the state of Oklahoma after it passed anti-LGBTQ adoption laws. In 2021, the World Health Organisation refused to fund research at the University of Melbourne in other words, boycotted UoM because of Melbournes collaboration with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. If these are reasons to boycott, then Israeli universities should be boycotted too.Palestinian society is among the most strangulated and oppressed on the planet. When an oppressed political community asks for solidarity and tells its supporters what it wants them to do, theres every reason to do exactly as it asks. Thats especially true if, as is the case with the boycott, theres no alternative strategy remotely on the horizon thats as effective. Boycotting is strategically effective because it pressures Israel and Zionists, and directly undermines institutions Israeli universities which facilitate crimes against Palestinians. The fact Israel spends millions of dollars annually countering boycott efforts is an indication of the power BDS has. People who reject it are turning their backs on the unison request of Palestinian civil society.At the University of Sydney, more than seventy staff members have signed a pledge to uphold the academic boycott until justice for Palestinians is restored. Many more need to join us.Nick Riemer is a senior lecturer in the English and Linguistics Departments at the University of Sydney. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Most weeks, as barely more than a dozen scrawny students gather outside Fisher Library to hear speeches against the latest malady to hit higher education, down the extreme opposite end of Eastern Avenue, the F23 Administration Building goes into lockdown, completely halting access to that foreboding monument to management.The Universitys reflex to lock itself away in its Camperdown keep at the slightest sign of student dissent is concerning in itself, casting aggrieved students as security threats rather than equally invested members of the USyd community. But such an attitude is also evident in other aspects of the University, and the broader trend of staff separation from students warrants examination.In the very first scene of the 1997 documentary Uni, Charles Firth strides into a building in hope of obtaining a very questionable extension. Finding his lecturer out of office, he casually consults another staff member before finding assistance at a well-staffed administration desk. Such a scene of interaction with living, breathing staff members outside of class is one foreign to many undergraduate students today. After faculty administration desks were closed in a 2016 cost-cutting measure, all administrative inquiries have been centralised and channeled through the black hole of the 1800 SYD UNI phone line, where an inevitable months-long chain of email referrals awaits.While admin staff are sacked and centralised, academics have become segregated from students in the name of security. The New Law Building, completed in 2009, was Camperdowns first secure building, with staff separated from students by not merely doors and floors, but also an impenetrable swipe-access barrier. The concept has since proliferated throughout the campus, with academics in the new FASS building, for example, sequestered from students by a glass barricade. When not locked down for fear of being overrun by students, F23 staff are guarded by a campus security detail and an array of electronic locking mechanisms. This cloistering of staff is not a belated return to the monastic academic tradition, but rather signifies the sacrifice of an essential aspect of the university community for a corporate aesthetic.University has its origins in the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium (roughly, a community of masters and scholars), implying, according to William Schonfeld, a company of persons, a community, a bodyorganised for the sake of its protection from hostile outsiders. While this detachment from society is clearly unsustainable in the modern age, there is a necessary insularity in the scholarly business of the university concerned with knowledge production rather than economic production which should separate it from other organisations. The co-location of masters and scholars of old and young in the campus is a necessary aspect of the university, encouraging learning and debate in both casual and formal settings, and allowing the knowledge transfer which sustains academia. By sequestering academic staff behind locked doors, something of this shared community is lost, and masters and scholars come to exist as two distinctly separate communities which rarely interact with each other outside of formal settings. Simply having the opportunity to drop by and speak to academics or faculty in person encourages a sense of belonging and investment in the university. By contrast, the present system of call centres, online forms and email-only communication merely furthers the atomisation felt by the contemporary student. How can one feel attached to an institution that treats its students in the same way a corporation treats its customers in the cheapest and most efficient way possible?.By the same token, the anonymity and media-managed pronouncements of University management contribute to this ever-widening distinction between masters and scholars. While universities will always need management to make difficult and unpopular decisions, the distinction between principles of corporate management and university governance are that decision-makers, at USyd at least, are generally high-achieving academics who have forged careers through frank and open discussion, clear communication, and consideration of, and engagement with, pertinent debates.Against this background, the existence of a PR-driven University spokesperson seemsanomalous. Among the core principles of PR are obfuscation, damage minimisation and image protection. These are principles which should be anathema to an academic institution which ostensibly prioritises academic freedom and honest debate. Delegating communication with student media to a reputation-focused anonymous spokesperson evinces a willingness to avoid honest engagement with the university community, especially students. The empty corporate prose of Pip Pattisons Honi op-ed shows that, even when given the opportunity to justify their actions and engage with debate, management are unwilling to do so. The appointment of Mark Scott as Vice-Chancellor a non-academic corporate operator is evidence of a further acceleration away from academic community and towards corporate goals.Certainly, the University deserves some modicum of sympathy in dealing with a hostile government and strained financial circumstances. However, such problems should not be dealt with by abandoning the honest engagement in debate which is inherent in academia for a corporate communications strategy which prioritises image over honesty, and anonymity over responsibility, treating students with an attitude bordering on disdain.A university does not have shareholders or customers to whom it must sell itself. Its whole being is centred on academic production opinions on the purposes of which may differ and such production rests on interaction between masters and scholars. Reducing interaction between these groups, and segregating students, staff and management through architectural and communications choices, does a disservice to the university, atomising the sense of community upon which it relies. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Politics has been, and always will be, a struggle composed of a diverse ideological marketplace of ideas. It is such struggle wherein we popularise ideas, seize genuine political power and then exercise that power for the advancement of a better world. It is fundamentally illegitimate to abstain from the work of politics on the grounds that the world is presently imperfect or challenging. This claim is merely a hopeless response in the face of powerlessness. Honi Soit recently published an op-ed arguing that left-wing people ought to abstain on principle from the USU election. We are three left wing students who oppose this perspective on the strongest possible grounds.The primary claim made is that the left stands to gain nothing from participating in the USU election, as the USU is a corporation. This argument conflates form with function, arguing that simply because the USU often operates against the interests of students, it must be a corporation. However the USU, like the SRC, is an unincorporated association, and definitionally cannot be a corporation. Presumably then organisational critiques made of the USU must apply, at least in principle, equally to the SRC. While the USU and SRC are obviously dissimilar in the sense that the latter invests more in activist priorities, the assertion that the USU could never function in a more activist or student-oriented manner has no material basis. In the counterfactual scenario where the SRC was persistently controlled by the right-wing and its activist priorities were eroded, would the abstentionists argue that running in SRC elections constituted corporate participation?Suggesting that abstention is harmless is prima facie untrue. If the left ceased contesting the USU election, the board would be filled entirely with cynical right-wing careerists who have no qualms with its present organisational culture. In this world, cutting staff wages would be done with impunity and without any left-wing opposition. In the best case, the left could win and sustain a board majority, transforming its institutional culture and employing its $5 million budget for key amenities aligned with student interest. But even in the worst case, the participation of left-wing people frustrates, in some way, the agenda of these people. Insofar as the left has a moral duty to protect staff and students, we ought carry out this duty and prevent significant harms from being inflicted on those we claim to support. This is not left wing cover, it is simply left wing power.The final, and perhaps strongest argument, is a strategic appeal to the opportunity cost of contesting the USU election compared to organising directly for left wing causes. Firstly, the claim that participation in the USU elections detracts resources from activist campaigns is empirically untrue. As recently as this week, whilst two of us were managing multiple USU campaigns, we played significant parts in defeating the move to 12 week semesters and restoring medical science students to their building and their honours projects. But even if there was some implicit opportunity cost, the USU election is far from an apolitical act. Students, who otherwise would not be, are exposed to left-wing rhetoric, and activist causes are trumpeted in interviews and campaign materials. To the extent that those invested in USU elections are a distinct set from those invested in SRC elections, we ought to bring these messages to that distinct group. Given that the lefts primary justification for electoral ventures is access to resources, surely the prospect of controlling the USU is an important consideration. The USU is endowed with a much larger budget than the SRC, meaning that important projects such as Radical Sex and Consent Week could receive adequate funding. The USU could support the SRC in numerous concrete ways: advocating concurrently against harmful proposals, continuing to support initiatives such as the FoodHub and striking in solidarity with staff.The world we wish to see may not manifest in a year, a generation or even our lifetime. To suggest that these political projects and participation are intractable is to reject every left-wing thinker who, like us, believed that in the struggle for justice, the last page is never written. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Twice every year Eastern Avenue is littered with A-frames and people leafleting in coloured t-shirts. Its for two different elections one for people to be elected to the Students Representative Council and one for the University Sydney Union (USU).Some people on the left will say that we should run in both. Those people would be wrong. Fundamentally, the USU is a corporation and the best thing left-wing people can do is boycott it.To justify participating in the USU elections, left-wing tickets have to argue that 1) the USU is a union and 2) by being elected to its board they can push it to do left-wing things.So to address these arguments:Firstly, the USU is not a union.Unions are designed to protect workers interests and fight against the bosses. Or, in the case of student unions like the SRC, they are designed to help students out, getting funding to organise on campus and fight for students rights.Does the USU do this?Absolutely not. The USU receives millions of our SSAF money (over $5.1m to be precise), which is vastly more than the $1.9m the SRC receives. Not to mention the revenue they get from ACCESS sign ups, charging the SRC and clubs for venue bookings and the profits of their many food outlets. They are a multi-million dollar institution and they make business decisions.Last year, in the face of COVID and classes moving online, they closed down their outlets and forced through a pay cut of 40% for workers, despite being eligible for JobKeeper. Much like the University at large, recently it was announced that they have an operating surplus of $55,000, proving their cuts to be completely unnecessary.This is the behaviour of a for-profit corporation and not a union.Some left-wing people respond to this by saying of course it is a corporation but surely by getting elected we will have the power to at least make some left-wing impact?This is also untrue.The elections to the USU are for its board, but the main decision-making body is corporate management. As a single board member you do not have power. The most you can do is vote against anti-worker motions and disclose classified information. For the left-wing candidates who have been elected in recent history making this bold move is deemed too risky. And with good reason Tom Raue, the last Grassroots member who attempted to disclose classified information, was taken to court by the USU and slapped with $50,000 of legal fees.By being elected to this board all you are doing is providing the USU with left-wing cover. They need credibility so that when they do something egregious they are not in the firing line and are instead protected by the people who should be the ones protesting against them.The only principled thing to do is to boycott USU elections and turn our energies to real unions and activism. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Meet QUART-ED, an electrifying string quartet featuring violinists Sarah and Caitlin, violist Connor and cellist Karen. Trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, they use interactive performances to entertain and enlighten their audiences whether they are primary school children to seasoned concert-goers. QUART-ED believes in making music accessible and enjoyable for all, embracing a diverse repertoire of music that ranges from Vivaldis Summer to Moanas How Far Ill Go.In this interview, QUART-ED share some of their eclectic experiences as emerging performers, professional educators and lifelong students themselves.How did you all meet and what made you decide to form QUART-ED?Karen: It started at the Con when we were having instrumental lessons and classroom training. At some point, we just wondered why dont we do those things at the same time? and thats how we got together coming out of our first primary school placement. We also wanted to broaden views on string performance. We are trained in a pluralist style, which is a framework that looks at blending and embracing a variety of approaches and experiences. We thought it would be worth applying to our instruments repertoires and expanding the ideas on the music they can play.Sarah: Another part that plays in our story is that we are education students. Playing a Beethoven string quartet was not going to be our forte. With pluralism, we know how important it is to branch out, not box ourselves in and see what other music there is out there to play.What opportunities have you been involved in over the last year or so and what were your highlights?Karen: One of our biggest hurdles was performing as part of VIVIDs Konzertprojekt series. We were asked to perform eighty minutes of repertoire which was not something we were used to doing but it was perhaps what made it the most memorable experience to me. The program consisted of Australian musical works because we wanted to showcase local, contemporary talent and workshopped closely with the composers we chose.Sarah: It was a huge experience juggling university with this concert program and the responsibilities that came with it behind the scenes with tech. At the end of the day, it was intense but incredibly rewarding.Connor: We also did a gig for the Con at the end of last year at the International Towers which was fun. I found it interesting because it wasnt directed to our usual audience. They were caught a little by surprise because of how interactive our performance was, especially compared to the other musicians they had seen around.Karen: It was really fun just watching adults play with the activities we usually give ten-year-olds and unlocking that since they presumably dont utilise much in a regular working day.How does the kind of music QUART-ED perform align with your philosophy as educators?Connor: Our overarching philosophy is very much driven by the belief that we should make performing interesting, engaging and activity-based as you would do in the classroom.Caitlin: We really like to push ourselves as musicians and educators. When Karen introduced us to the idea of singing and playing simultaneously, and integrating Connors beatboxing skills, it made sense to put these into practice with this with our program. Our performances definitely mirrors pluralism, with all of us exploring different ways of music-making, incorporating a variety of styles, and with me also composing a piece Something About the Ocean where we get the audience joining us in the performance too.How has what QUART-ED has done been influenced by your studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music?Sarah: I do think how we learnt in the degree which is all about experimental learning and hands-on involvement within the classroom influenced a great part of how we do things with QUART-ED.Caitlin: We definitely have the Music Ed staff to thank for introducing us to the idea of pluralism officially. I think my development of a musician holistically influenced my support for pluralism and constructivism that were introduced to me in the degree.Connor: I could almost argue that we wouldve still done this if we had gone to any other institution. I think Id like to credit myself and the others for just wanting to do something different and fun to learn more; that being said, the Con was and still is extremely open to validating, rewarding and giving us a space to do it.What are QUART-EDs plans for 2020?Karen: Im finishing my last year in Music Ed and QUART-ED will be involved in my Honours study. Im researching what we as an ensemble can offer to teachers and how music educations impact can continue past our visits to the schools. We are also hoping to perform more frequent public concerts.Sarah: Another regional schools tour is hopefully happening. Weve had good feedback and its something that really benefits the schools that we visit so fingers crossed for another eventful year. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A crepe sized hole has been left in the heart of the Jane Foss Russell Plaza, with Azzuri shutting up and moving out over the summer break. After a history spanning two campus locations and over 20 years, Azzuri faithfuls have been left bereft.Azzuri was more than your average campus crepe place. The no mans land between the SRC and the the offices of the Student Affairs Unit, Azzurri was a place where student activists and university management could mingle as they waited for their crepes and coffee. As the primary source of coffee for SRC staff and office bearers, it seemed as much a part of the organisation as we were. At all times up to date with the latest gossip and scandal, its staff provided de-facto emotional support through the most turbulent times of the year. It was also the only cafe open on weekends on the SRC side of City road.Azzuri spent its later years embroiled in various controversies. In 2014, the Sydney Local Health District found that a batch of chicken liver pt from the pork roll section of the business had caused 21 confirmed cases of salmonella. In a comment to Honi at the time of the controversy, Azzuris owner Nick Ana said I offer my heartfelt apology to the people that fell ill. My overwhelming priority is to ensure this does not occur in my operation again. The USU ordered the closure of Bun Me until the resolution of the health district investigation, but it never reopened. Azzuri was named and shamed on the NSW food authority website, and it went on as a simple crepe cafe.In 2015 the USU threatened the cafe with eviction. Though the reasons for this were never made public, we can only assume they had something to do with the salmonella outbreak in the year prior. Azzuri took the USU to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and accused the union of rough tactics. After an urgent NCAT hearing, Azzuri was safe once more.The USU closed and locked the side door of the cafe in that same year, sparking an extended battle that was eventually resolved by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in 2017. The USU alleged that smells coming from the cooking operations of the cafe were noxious, and Azzuri complained that the locked door had resulted in a lack of business. Eventually, the doors were unlocked and Azzuri fought on.There were other fights, too. A disagreement over whether a burger could, for the purposes of complying with a lease agreement, technically be considered a sandwich. Complaints over the opening of a competing cafe in the Wentworth building. Azzuri and the USU had a tumultuous relationship, one where the USU described its crepes as must try! on their website, whilst simultaneously claiming that said crepes were the cause of noxious smells.In the end, it wasnt the salmonella or the noxious smells that dealt the fatal blow to the University of Sydneys most popular crepe cafe. It was a simple case of human error. After more than 20 years of faithful service, Azzuri forgot to renew their lease by the USU deadline. Vale. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Stories about women falling victim to the male ego are tales as old as time. It goes like this: boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl dies, boy goes through an intense transformation and seeks revenge. Mohit Suris action-packed, crime-thriller Malang employs a similar storyline, following protagonist Advait on his epic journey seeking retribution against a band of corrupt cops; though the movie is not as predictable as it seems.Malang takes advantage of crime-thriller stereotypes that are tried and tested: the nomad, the junkie, the prostitute, the good cop, the bad cop. For most of the movie, I associated the characters with their designated conventions, not expecting them to outgrow the roles they were given. Due to the nonlinear narrative structure, the murders are shown before an explanation is provided. In those scenes, the men are portrayed as sympathetic victims of a coldblooded murderer, establishing uncertainty around who the characters really are, and what their intentions might be under layers of false pretenses. It is a story about men in positions of power who wield it for personal gain while still reaping the rewards of the moral high ground.Flashbacks are used to explain why Advait decides to embark on a murder-spree, days after he is released for serving five years in prison under fabricated charges. The general storyline was not unlike that of movies Ek Villain and Kaabil; all three of them following male protagonists on their journey to defend the honor of their dead (and pregnant) lovers. As soon as I saw Disha Patanis character, Sara, the walking definition of a manic pixie dream girl, full of love, full of hope, full of potential to piece together the pieces of Advaits heart; I knew she was going to die. But what does this say about how Indian cinema represents women?The big twist is that Sara is the mastermind behind the murders. Bollywood movies are so accustomed to feeding the public the same story about helpless women over and over again; that I was genuinely surprised.Why is the woman scorned a trope that hasnt been explored as extensively? Vengeful women deviate from the norm, especially ones that spend five years plotting foolproof murder against seemingly honorable, family-oriented men. But does this plot point work as a feminist narrative? Patani sacrifices screentime surrounding the murders, only to be revealed as the real perpetrator in a supercut toward the end.It is hard to tell if the storyline was well-intentioned or written in for shock value. For a movie exploring female agency, Malang is unsurprisingly male-focused, catering to male audiences until the very end. Ultimately, I didnt find the real revelation to be that the good cop was an abuser and a murderer, or that the police force would cover up violent crimes against women; but that it was not only possible for a woman to survive the wrath of such injustices, it was possible for her to fight back and win. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Incoming SUDS Vice-President Jake Parker has been busy for about two years now. Despite his involvement with theatre only beginning in his first year, hes been involved in 24 productions at the University of Sydney (USyd) since then.His latest endeavour is a special one. Not only is he venturing outside of the realm of student theatre, but hes doing so with his own original script the first draft of which was written in just two days.This Genuine Moment or How I Learnt to Stop Loving Myself and Lie is not the first play Jake has written, but it was the first that he felt particularly connected to.I could see these characters and writing them felt natural. Thats why I think I could write it fairly quickly and thats why I wanted to stick with it.The play is being performed at The Old 505 in Newtown as part of the theatres FreshWorks season, which aims to spotlight new or experimental ideas from both younger and more experienced artists. Based around the freedom and beauty to be found in seemingly non-important interactions, the scripts primary stimulus came about during a car ride with a total stranger. One night I was just in an UberPool home from a night out and the girl and I in the Pool got talking, and there was this lovely, no pressure moment to be authentic between two, slightly tipsy, strangers that was the big spark.But the overall inspiration for the play goes back further than that. The initial themes and concepts that would go on to become its driving force were ones that he felt were missing from much of the modern queer fiction he was engaging in.I couldnt really find much that I felt related to this distinctive post-AIDS crisis, very technologically influenced queer scene when you talk to a lot of queer people, particularly male identifying, the prevalence of dating apps and social media and this insecurity about identity is such a part of gay identity for this generation.Jake notes that, as queer fiction and specifically theatre continues to move further towards the mainstream, works become more centred around the issues relating to the community, rather than the people within it.This play fundamentally wouldnt work if the relationship wasnt queer its inbuilt into the script because I think Queer writing isnt just a gay writer but works thats unpacking what it means to be queer.The description for the play on the theatres website notes that the relationship portrayed on stage isnt a grand romance, nor is it a deep pondering on society. Instead, Jakes approach to writing the script involved the circumventing of much of the melodrama traditionally seen in theatre of this kind.I really believe that you can find that grand narrative in the simple interactions, in a conversation and a brief relationship and all of that.Director Hayden Tonazzi, who studies a Masters in Directing at NIDA, was one of several people to be sent a rough version of the script for feedback, as was assistant director Margaret Thanos, who will serve as SUDS President this year. The transition from student theatre to independent theatre was made easier by the rest of the plays production team, who floored Jake with their professionalism and expertise.Everything is just on a slightly larger, more professional level. Moving beyond student theatre means that instead of being quite insular in terms of the USYD community youre trying to engage that community as well as markets a lot wider.Despite this, he sees more similarities than differences between the two theatrical worlds, and notes how this is a testament to the dedication from these teams of amazing student theatre work thats produced.Though its fundamentally a queer play, theres hope that the situation it presents, as well as its ideas and interactions, will be universally relatable.At the end of the day this is a play about relationships I would hope these big themes and buzzwords of authenticity and genuineness would be a takeaway but really, its down to you. Love it, hate it, I hope and my goal is that it makes you think something or feel something or consider something.This Genuine Moment will be performed from the 14th to the 19th of January at the Old 505 Theatre in Newtown. Tickets (which are selling quickly) can be found here. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> While to most Millennials, Midsomer Murders is little more than a melodramatic British crime series for pompous over 55s, it has a lot to offer time-rich students in search of a binge-worthy and unintentionally hilarious program. And the best part? You dont need a subscription to watch it!As the show and I both enter our 21st season this year, it seems apt to reflect upon my fervent love for this spectacularly corny series, which, to the amusement of my peers, foregrounded my formative years.The show is set in the picturesque, fictional village of Midsomer, and follows the efforts of Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby and [insert incompetent side-kick] to solve murders occurring in the town with the highest mortality rate and life-insurance premiums in the Northern Hemisphere.While this countryside village may seem like the ideal place for a tree change, Midsomer is a cesspool of affairs, corruption, sex, occasional incest, constant death, and pure lunacy hardly the innocent show you thought your Nan was watching. Did I mention the constant death?But for a show about death, its alarmingly humorous. The most iconic murder implements include a faulty microphone, a poisonous frog, a vat of soup, a stack of newspapers, and an alien abduction. Even my childhood scepticism that Mrs. Peacock could have been killed in the Dining Room with a Candlestick was proved wrong in the episode, Written in Blood, when doddery septuagenarian, Honoria Lyddiard, bludgeons her victim with this unassuming instrument. Arguably the most unorthodox murder, however, occurred when Debbie Moffett was crushed by a giant round of cheese. How provincial.Consistency is another endearing quality of the show. The same tetchy characters are continually reeled out and outraged by the disturbances police investigations cause to their daily routines of lawn bowls and village gossip. The same pair of black leather gloves seems to be shared among the towns murderers, too, attesting to Midsomers unrivalled community spirit.In a sense, Midsomer is the English equivalent of Neighbours; a platform for aspiring (white) actors to make debuts theyd rather everyone forgot. Some stars who had their break on Midsommer include Orlando Bloom, Olivia Coleman, and Henry Cavill.The enduring program boasts a portfolio of 122 episodes, which are often on high rotation on free-to-air TV. The show is also guaranteed to feature in every public library, charity store, and grandparents VCR collection in the country, leaving no conceivable reason for one to continue their Netflix subscription.Nowadays, the terms streaming platform and millennial go hand in hand. We tend to view services such as Netflix with great reverence based on the variety of content they boast, and our ability to stream to our hearts content. But theres something uniquely satisfying about embracing simpler boomer methods of entertainment, by submitting yourself to the will of the TV guide on a Sunday afternoon, or (god forbid) putting on a DVD.In a time when cutting-edge TV series relentlessly remind us of the diabolical state of our society, it may be beneficial for us Millennials to ditch the devices and refresh our palettes with a light-hearted and playful show about murder. Shut your laptops, kids, were leaving Riverdale, and heading for Midsomer. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Toni Morrison has been a presence in my life at once electric, kind, and devastating. I am still discovering the ways in which her work is making and re-making me, her visions of time and ancestry constantly and quietly transforming my thinking. I suspect this transformation will never end. Morrisons words sink below the skin like saltwater, colouring everything inky-bright and a little sharp. I see her everywhere; in fragments of music, text and images that initiate me into a dialogue with a fluid past. I remember the potential of ancestor-oriented futurities and the role language plays in this. I gain hope.I first read Beloved last year and it sat with me gently, in the way that Morrisons words do; a tide crashing quietly, with electric impact. My body of water met her endless shore. In Beloved, I was first struck by the tenderness with which Morrison imbues her characters, her refusal to let the text become a tragedy heavy with unnamed bodies. The people in Beloved, as in all her work, undergo massive suffering yet do not blur into each other. They demand recognition, and singularity. This was radical to me.Morrisons treatment of time and the past drew itself more slowly upon my consciousness. Morrison frequently employs a non-linear writing style and multiple narrator perspectives to evade a traditional sense of time and narrative development: Beloved, she my daughter. She mine. / Beloved is my sister. / I am Beloved and she is mine. This project is widened in scope when her novels are viewed in tandem, forming webs that speak to each other. Beloved forms a trilogy alongside Jazz and Paradise, texts unconnected by temporal or geographical location. When time and place cease to be significant purveyors of meaning, what remains?Here, Morrisons notion of rememory moves away from the official history of institutional stories of the past to a more personal past that is always in flux, as is characteristic of human memory. It serves as an intervention into the erasure of marginalised groups by official history. Morrison suggests that where gaps will always exist for those without adequate resources to tell their stories, and where the concept of truth is unhelpful, collective dialogue and cultural memory open spaces for the creation of imagined alternatives, and the impelling of agency.In an essay from Morrisons archives, she reflects on memory as fraught with pain and possibility: the stress of remembering, its inevitability, the chances for liberation that lie within the process. Does this gift us something in thinking through Morrison herself, the legacy she leaves and how we might go on in her absence? As with her work, learning of Morrisons passing was an experience of gradual, building emotion. I sat still in my bedroom, a little shocked by the waves of grief pressing themselves softly on me. I felt panic at the thought of moving through the world without her. I was also aware of a deep gratitude for having been touched by her work and the gaping hole left by her loss. Reading Morrisons words and the words of others about her, it was clear her presence was not diminished but pulsed stronger through multiplication of the love and joy she inspired.Doreen St. Flix, in an essay in The New Yorker, considers the age Toni Morrison was when she died, eighty-eight, as two infinity signs, straightened and snatched right-side up. If time as treated by Morrison is collapsible and expandable, divorced from Western understandings of truth and objectivity, Toni Morrison remains a tangible presence. Perhaps we can conceptualise Morrisons thinking around time to speak to her and our other ancestors, opening a line from the past to as-yet unknown futures.This sensibility of ancestral dialogue is explored by Alexis Pauline Gumbs in her book M Archive: After the End of the World. Gumbs describes the work as one of speculative documentary, which imagines and bears witness to a post-apocalyptic world through poetry and prose. She says, M is for must be and maybe and much. In creating a direct line between irrecoverable pasts and unknown futures, Gumbs work embodies Morrisons vision for a surpassing of temporal linearity.I locate a similar experience listening to music by artists such as Dev Hynes and Solange, whose songs reference history in a swelling, non-linear fashion that places it directly into the confusing rush of the present. In Augustine by Dev Hynes Blood Orange, he sings, our heads have hit the pavement / many times before. He is talking about a million forms of harm and none of them; his words, for me, are a form of time travel collapsing black experience(s) into a single, infinite, multitudinous point.In her book of essays Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Morrison talks about the act of writing as one of fabrication and fantasy. She argues that novels never indicate truth but are instead the product of the imagination [] which bears and invites rereadings, which [] implies a shareable world and an endlessly flexible language. This act of fabrication is often co-opted by a white gaze, conceptualised by Morrison as observing people of colour through a lens framed by both need and desire; fear and longing.Playing in the Dark reminds us that even with Morrisons disruption of time, bodies are still impacted by the violence of institutional racism. Against this, she provides us with a fantastical image of her own: the power of language to rectify harms by imagining new histories, telling more complete stories, and establishing ancestral lineages through openings in fluid time and space. In 1993, Morrison said, we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. In Morrisons hands, language is a tool for people of colour to continue surviving; it becomes both the blood-line and the beating heart.Morrison argues that in a racialised world, for people of colour, imagining is not merely looking or looking at; instead, it is an act of becoming. Perhaps this project of becoming through imagination is never-ending, a point never to be reached but strived for across temporal space and ancestral layers. The dialogues I have with the women of colour in my life grow us towards this space of imaginative becoming; they reignite worlds and realign realities. I want to keep moving towards openings in space for the creation of futures. In the meantime, Ill look for traces of Toni Morrison wherever I can find them; infinitely grateful for her guiding light each time it touches my skin. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?Its hard not to question the sheer intensity of the public frenzy surrounding the recent release of Joker, whose hype-cycle has eclipsed just about every other pop culture launch in recent memory, from Avengers: Endgame to the latest Grand Theft Auto. The siren bells first sounded back in September when it walked away with the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, causing cinema snobs worldwide to gag at the very thought of a film made by Todd Phillips, writer and director of mega franchises like the The Hangover film sitting alongside venerated masterpieces as Last Year at Marienbad. Now, well over a week after opening in theatres globally, it seems the festival jury must have been onto something; a brief glance at aggregate sites like Metacritic will reveal oodles of drooling critics and movie-goers alike singing high praises for the films grimy aesthetic and gritty misanthropic narrative. If Joker was just a run-of-the-mill comic book film, thats where the story would end: forever remembered as a slightly taller poppy in a crowd of superhero blockbusters that managed to market to both goths and nerds.Yet, its clear that the current state of mass hysteria arises out of something more than just its commercial success or cinematographic quality. Media outlets have been toking the flames of public outrage for weeks about the films potential to inspire violence, leading to an open letter being penned by the families of the 2012 Aurora theatre shooting victims. Scaremongering whispers have scuttled their way across Twitter warning of Jokers thematic parallels with incel ideology, alongside a barrage of gang weed and gamers rise up memes. Theatre-goers have been escorted out of screenings as a result of fake bomb threats, and Sydneys very own Ritz was the target of a rogue 4chan some of you are alright post. Even Academy Award-winning leftist filmmaker Michael Moore, who never seems to forgo an opportunity to blast his hot political takes on social media, released a lengthy review calling the film a masterpiece and an indictment on the filthy rich in Trumps America.Are any of these reactions justified? Media firestorms should hardly come as a surprise for anyone tracking the development of the Joker character over the past decade. With the release of Christopher Nolans The Dark Knight in 2008, the previously child-friendly Batman universe took a fashionable left turn into cynical social commentary and dark philosophical quandaries, at the centre of which was Heath Ledgers highly-lauded portrayal of Joker as a psychopath with an inclination for anarchy. Upon release, the film was widely criticised for its realistic violence and relatively lax age-restriction ratings, galvanising a mania not too dissimilar to the one currently occurring. While such public backlash eventually died down, the process rendered Joker somewhat of a rebellious pop culture icon, helped in no small part by the films endless supply of catchy edgeisms that fans quickly exported as shareable jpegs, bold all-caps Arial and all, saturating newsfeeds with Why so serious? for years to come. And who didnt have a friend back in the day that religiously rocked Joker merch at every social gathering?Over time, the Joker subculture has balloonedin both popularity and strangeness, with the largest Facebook group HarleyQuinn and Joker Quotes currently comprising of almost 200,000 members, withhundreds of other communities at a comparable size. Posts within this group,which have by now completely eschewed any attempt to actually quote its ownnamesakes, simply caption generic DeviantArt Jokers with hilariously edgyplatitudes like DONT EVEN HURT ME BCZ IF ITS MY TURN, YOULL GOOGLE HOW TOSTOP CRYING!!. Another immediately below even abandons the Joker iconographyfor a straight up Guy Fawkes mask, alongside the words People ask you why areyou still single? I replied because I have brain. It seems, however, that thequotes which usually garner the most positive attention are filled withblatantly misogynistic, neo-liberal garbage: a picture of Harley Quinnforegrounded with Money attracts the woman you want, struggle attracts thewoman you need received more than a thousand likes with three weeks. Unsurprisingly,the release of the recent Joker film has pushed such groups intooverdrive, with the Heath Ledger and Jared Leto posts being rapidly replacedwith Joaquin Phoenix likenesses, and unofficial T-shirts, hats and keychains available for just a small transfer on PayPal pumped out dime-a-dozen. Irregardless of how the media tries to spin Joker as some violent ideological manifesto or a bold anti-bourgeois statement, the edginess in these modern reinterpretations of Joker cannot be seen as any more than a neatly packaged bundle of counter-culture designed to put viewers in cinema seats and sell merchandise on the way out. International distributors Warner Brothers, the second largest movie studio by market share, made almost 14 billion dollars in revenue in 2017. Todd Phillips didnt make this film to draw attention to wealth inequality hes one of the richest men in one of the most exclusive industries in the world. The films content makes its own hollow conglomerate producthood doubly clear: anyone who sees Joker with even a slight lens of cynicism will immediately notice its insultingly oversimplified portrayal of class, mental illness, and political change that does more to scare people away from the idea of revolution than it does encourage any critical thought about the wealthy. Throughout the film, angry crowds riot and yell Kill the rich!, but what for? The film doesnt have time to investigate the reasons of these activists, because any screen-time divested from Joker himself means a lesser chance hell be a franchise cash cow for the foreseeable future. The most harm Joker could do is subject the general public to a few more terribly designed T-Shirts. The best it can do is give us a great Joaquin Phoenix performance for the ages. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> This one person is male; is female; is both; is neither. This one person lives for five centuries but is only 36, and thats normal. This one person loves poetry but sucks at writing it.It would be difficult to give a play as enticing of a description as Sean Landis did for Orlando, his directorial debut for SUDS. I sat down with him and designer Rosie Wylie on Friday afternoon, as the first week of auditions and interviews drew to a close.Not only does he paint a humorous and multi-faceted portrait of the plays protagonist, but he also touches on the plays immeasurable significance to the queer community. According to Landis, this production will be a breath of fresh air to Australias longest-running theatre company.With performances dating back to 1883, Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) has long been a welcoming hub for artistic expression and diversity.Many active members of the society, however, feel that there is still work to be done in ensuring the inclusion of creatives from a wider scope of backgrounds specifically, those of a non-cisgender identity.This lack of representation is what the team behind SUDS first main production of 2020 Slot 1 are hoping to rectify as they bring Sarah Ruhls stage adaptation of the seminal novel Orlando to the Cellar Theatre.Describing the play as a celebration of plurality, Landis wants the production to showcase the beauty of fluidity. People are many things, and thats fun, and thats a good thing.Written by Virginia Woolf in 1928, Orlando is a satirical biography of its eponymous character, who undergoes a sex change at the age of thirty-six and proceeds to live at the same age for several centuries.Throughout the play, Orlando encounters a number of fictional and historical figures, becoming romantically involved with several of them, all while attempting to finish a poem about an oak tree.The eccentric and larger-than-life qualities of the text are what Sean and Rosie, as well as producer Emily Henderson, want to emphasise through this production.Landis and Wylie both performed in this years Sydney University Queer Revue at the Seymour Centre. Both found it to be the best sense of queer community theyve come across and are endeavouring to create a similarly camp and exuberant atmosphere with Orlando.When reading the book, Wylie found it to be amazing to have this queer text that is fun, and shows what the queer community gave to me, with Landis adding that queer stories in the arts can often be really depressing.This aspect of the play has been a major selling point for the overwhelming amount of people who have already applied for acting and production roles.Landis finds the notable amount of people outside of the usual SUDS crowd responding to callouts to be greatly encouraging, noting that diversity is something that comes when you open up applications to a wider range of people.He and the team can see the play providing an opportunity for trans, non-binary and gender diverse people to play their own gender diverse experience on stage.Wylie wishes to continue the inclusivity encouraged through auditions/interviews throughout the building of the play by ensuring a connection between cast and crew from the very beginning of the process.I dont want there to be a disconnect where you put in so many hours of work and yet the cast dont really know you I want [the production team] to be included thats what the shows about.There was a moment during my conversation with Rosie and Sean in which the two seemed to come to a mutual realisation about the plays ending.Things will happen to you in life that are beautiful if you can see those things, Wylie noted, to which Landis soon replied ecstatically: The plays about Orlando searching for beauty, and they find it!It was an emotional moment that cemented the crux of what they had been getting at Orlando will not just bring about the inclusion of those who have not had their voices heard in SUDS, but it will strive to affirm and celebrate those voices.Orlando will be performed from the 26th of February to the 7th of March. You can find links to forms for auditions and production interviews below.Auditions: http://Bit.ly/sudsorlandoauditionsProduction: http://Bit.ly/sudsorlandoprod <|endtext|> <|starttext|> In modern society, signage throughout the world is littered with easily recognisable symbols that represent clear purposes the symbol represents radioactivity, and the symbol unequivocally represents biohazards, both without any need for context. However, there are some symbols that seem to have an ambiguous meaning with multiple interpretations. For example, the symbol also known as the spade or pike requires context to understand its meaning. Just how did this ubiquitous symbol from a pack of playing cards make its way into popular culture?The notion of a playing card game with suits is said to have come about around the 14th century as a Saracens game. The Latin suits, which came to be the modern French suits, were based on a mixture of currencies (Cups and Coins), and weaponry which represented the nobility and the military (Clubs and Swords). The suit of swords then came to be represented in the German-speaking world during the 15th century as Shields, and in the French-speaking world as Pikes, also known as Spades. The modern symbol for the Spade, , came from the French iteration of the Sword suit, which represented the head of a pike.This association with the older suit of Swords meant that the suit of Spades was also associated with nobility and military. This connection would later cement itself in 17th century Britain where, under the reign of James I, the Ace of Spades in a pack of playing cards was required to display the insignia of a member of a noble house, and later the logo of the manufacturer.As the French suits cemented themselves into modern society as a pastime and industrialisation brought playing cards to working class bars, so too did the popularity and notoriety of the suits. In particular, the aforementioned Ace of Spades was unique the only card which had a special print, not by choice but by law. It quickly became one of the more iconic cards along with the face cards, and seemingly by random chance its association with the military resurged with practical use in the Second World War. Some American soldiers had their helmets marked with the spade, as playing cards had developed a reputation for bringing good luck. In particular, the Ace of Spades became extensively used during the Vietnam War in card form, where boxes of only the Ace of Spades were shipped to American soldiers to use as morale boosters. It is also theorised, and popularised by Coppolas war epic Apocalypse Now, that the card was used as a taunt against the Vietnamese by leaving the card on a fallen Vietnamese soldier, giving birth to the notion that the Ace of Spades was the card of death.Darker yet is the use of the Ace of Spades as an insult or slur. In the 20th century piece The American Language by H. L. Mencken, a spade is considered a slur for African-American peoples, and eventually the slur black as the ace of spades became racist slang used to refer to peoples of darker complexions, as well as those who were deemed unclean by society, such as swingers. There have been attempts to reclaim the use of the term akin to other slurs, such as the 1973 sculpture Spade with Chains by artist David Hammons.On a more empowering note, the Spade has also been appropriated for more just purposes by the asexual movement. The shortening of the term asexual to ace is an intuitive contraction and has led to the adoption of the various suits of ace cards to represent varying strands of asexuality. The ace of hearts has become a symbol for romantic asexuality, while the ace of spades represents aromantic asexuality, a sardonic nod to the previously mentioned stereotype that swingers are lacking in romantic attraction.Ultimately, the history of the spade is a complex and unique one. While other notable symbols such as the radioactive symbol were carefully designed in controlled laboratories to be contextless, the spade stems from a history of nobility, war, and racism that has embroiled it into a hotbed of contextual meaning. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The director of Reefer Madness has more hemp-infused kombucha than he knows what to do with.When I walk into the PACT Centres theatre space, stagehands are putting together the set: a crooked high school sign flanked by two American flags hanging slack. I sit in the front row, joined by Robert Meek (that kombucha-happy directorthe drinks were donated to the production team) and lead actor Jayden Castle.That needs to be turned straight, Meek says of the sign, before turning to me to explain the show.Reefer Madness, a production by MUSE (Sydney University Musical Ensemble), brought a haze of smooth jazz and slick satire to the PACT Centre last weekend. The show parodies a 1936 American anti-marijuana propaganda film of the same name, which promoted fear over the encroachment of reefer (weed) from Mexico into the homes of Middle America. The film was rediscovered in the 1970s, and in 1998 Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney created the musical adaptation, which lampoons the hysteria of the war on drugs.Reefer Madness [uses] silliness as a mechanism to promote a clear message against propaganda, against government-sanctioned shifting of ideologies among the general public, Meek says.According to Meek, Reefer Madness is an edgy alternative to MUSEs usual fare of classic musicals, taking risks with its political commentary and general irreverence. Yet while it departs from the likes of, say, Gershwin, Meek thinks Reefer Madness works perfectly as a musical, since the genres over-the-top style matches the war on drugs melodrama.Meek and his creative colleagues have been challenged to strike a balance of sensitivity with the shows edgier content. Meek says the show has outdated linessome casually using rape as a kind of comedywhich a contemporary audience wouldnt accept as appropriate for satire. While Meek and his team chose to excise those lines, they did decide to keep racially charged remarks in the script, since the war of drugs has always harmed racialized communities like African Americans.Those are lines that make sense within the realm of the show to yank the audience out of the comfort of the satire, Meek says. [They] remind everyone that this silly show is all about a really awful thing thats happened in history.That said, Castle says the joys far outweigh the challenges, with the cast and crew (who range in age from 18 to 30) gaining close connections over the course of the process. As Meek notes, the cast and crew have a group chat where everyone has to send a fire emoji at 4:20 p.m. every single day within one minuteand producer Britt Spry even has a daily alarm set at 4:19 p.m. so she doesnt miss it.(Yeah, Spry says, looking over and smiling from her seat nearby.)Ultimately, Meek says, the show has something for everyone, with searing comedy, tight choreography, and virtuosic music thats way more brilliant than it needs to have been.Reefer Madness is one half of a repertory season: MUSEs production of Little Shop of Horrors is coming up on 9-16 October in the PACT Theatre. The company is currently gearing up to select its next major production, set to go up in Semester 1, 2020and its looking for new artists and performers to join the team.One of the benefits of doing small productions with a student society is you get to explore the [cutting-edge] side of musical theatre, Meek says. [In terms of coolness and emotional depth,] theres so much possible within the medium.I left PACT to kill time before the showa bottle of hemp-infused kombucha in hand. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You feel your heart being pulled in many directions, stretched until thin and taut. Maybe its toward some grand transformation of society, driven by rage at injustice and stagnation. Or perhaps, a more humble ambition. But as the breath escapes your lungs, you realise that some destinations are forever unattainable unrequited love, shattered dreams, lost journeys. Maybe the end is just the beginning.Welcome to DESTINATION, the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. We have cash prizes available for two categories: non-fiction and fiction.NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre with a clear argument. Consider what avenues and destinations we are heading towards, on scales large and small, and whether we need to change course. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words or 40 lines (depending on medium). You can write in any style, including but not limited to prose and poetry. Be imaginative with your piece the more creative, the better. Feel free to interpret the theme as broadly as you wish, while maintaining a thematic link.PRIZE MONEY: In each category:First place $1000Second place $500Third place $250Peoples choice $50JUDGES: To be announced.ELIGIBILITY: You can submit one work per category (two pieces maximum). You must be a USyd student to enter.SUBMISSIONS: Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 11 July 11:59pm. To submit your piece, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211210369060038. Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi.AWARDS NIGHT: An award presentation evening will be held in Semester 2 Week 1 to present the winners of the 2021 Honi Soit Writing Competition. More info to come. All are welcome for a night of drinks, nibbles, entertainment and celebration!2021 Competition Terms and Conditions <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Downton Abbey is a master class in sumptuous design, compelling stories and aristocratic aesthetics. But whilst one sits down to see how the Crawleys combat the Spanish flu, what one is really doing is betraying their social and economic class in order to adopt themselves into the noble house of Grantham. Not that theres anything wrong with that. Playing class dress up is a perfectly innocent pursuit that, when restricted to the privacy of your own home, has little to no effect on the world at large.Its another form of escapism, except this type is mired in a great deal more political context. While fantasy and sci fi often serve as a convenient release from the dreariness of the modern nine to five grind, shows such as Downton Abbey (and other similar prestige period dramas) offer an escape from ones social station. Everyone wants to be the 7th Earl of Grantham, the Viscount Downton, Lord Lieutenant, and Colonel of the North Riding Volunteers. And of course they do: when theyre not floundering due to a risky investment in Canadian rail, the Crawleys live a charmed life.The exact same can be said for the Windsors in The Crown, or the Queen herself in Victoria. And in Downtons case, the audience is invited to join in on the all rigidly structured, hierarchical fun. Its easy to lose yourself in the moment and drift into a catatonic state of nobility: one where you observe the narrative of Downton as a simple Earl or Baron watching from the wings. Which is good for the viewer, as much of the shows villainy tends to arise from the poor and nouveau riche.Thomas and OBrien are perfect examples of the former. No episode is complete without a close zoom on the two concocting some devilish scheme in the stairwell. Nor is it complete without us seeing some up-jumped, self made rapscallion impugning the good name of Englands rich and powerful. The nouveau riche, championed by their symbolic leader Sir Richard Carlisle, are often depicted as cruel, money-hungry, merchants of misery.With all this in mind, lets crunch the numbers. Downton Abbey invites you to masquerade as a member of the British ruling class for a crisp hour and a bit while encouraging you to go after the poor and nouveau riche like a pack of well trained hunting beagles. After crunching those numbers (which on reflection look suspiciously like letters), youre left with a whole lot of nothing.At the end of the day, everyone needs to feel like an oligarch every once in a while. Its good for the soul. Downton Abbey lures the viewer into a social structure which no longer really exists. One might argue that its going strong today but simply by another name. Which is a perfectly valid, perfectly incorrect point. The allure of Downtons fantasy is not so much the substance of aristocracy but its aesthetic. An aesthetic which is undeniably delightful. If only we could keep the velvet drapery and grand staircases of a ruling nobility without the class oppression.While at first glance it may seem like Downtons viewers are traitors to their class, its important to remember that at its peak Downton had 13.3 million viewers per week in the UK alone. Its difficult to be a traitor when everyone else is a traitor too. One can enjoy fictionalised portrayals of unjust power structures and their associated aesthetics without betraying anyone. All it really shows is that you like sandstone castles. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> You need only walk past the windows displays of Glue, or click on a junk email from ASOS to see some mini skirt or flannie covered in plaid print. The criss-cross of woven wefts always makes an appearance at this point of the year; the rain and growing chill of autumn encourages many to seek out cosy grid patterns that whisper of crackling fireplaces in a highland log cabin. However, a 90s fashion revival is seeing more and more individuals adopting a myriad of tartan plaid prints.In contemporary fashion there tends to be a general ignorance surrounding this heritage print and the historical struggles that they evolved from, prior to being assumed by the 1970s punk movement and contemporary lesbian culture. For Scottish people, tartan or plaid has been at the cornerstone of their culture and a very dark part of their history. For centuries, Scottish Highlanders used tartan and plaid as a symbolic representation of their ties to their clan, their families, their friends and their land. Each clan had their own unique pattern and their own unique colouring.However, in the 18th century, a shaky new union of Great Britain caused strong divides among Scottish Highlanders and the English. The Battle of Culloden in 1745 was the culmination of decades of violence and political instability that saw the massacre of Scottish Jacobite rebels and began a dark era in Scottish history. To quell any further uprisings, the English began a campaign of cultural genocide; they evicted many highlanders from their ancestral lands, banned their native Gaelic language and made the wearing of tartans illegal. Penalties for insubordination ranged from imprisonment without bail, conscription, or even transportation.It is easy to dismiss the experiences and hardships of Scottish culture. As a result of integration into Great Britain, Scotland has become engaged in colonialization and imperialism. However, this does not discredit the deaths at Culloden, and the erasure of ancient traditions that did occur in the Scottish Highlands. Whilst the laws were eventually appealed (after the satisfactory deconstruction of Scottish identity), plaid and tartan remain a symbol of a dark time in Scotlands past. However, this cultural significance and the fight to reclaim Scottish practices is not something that is advertised in contemporary fashion.This is not to guilt anyone away from buying those cute plaid pants. This serves only as a reminder to shop in a thoughtful and conscious manner. Within the past century, fashion has turned from a personalised experience where fit, fabric, and style were deliberately chosen with a certain individual in mind, to a constant momentum of mass producing, mass purchasing, and mass throwing away in a month or two before the process starts over. Current fast fashion sees garments flit through wardrobes before the words cultural heritage or factory conditions can be spoken. But the fashion you engage in, the clothing you wear in is a primary element of how you represent yourself. You have a duty to take a genuine look at the processes and history behind any item you pick; understand the past you represent, the industry you support. Make a conscious choice. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The news that Manning Bar had closed cast a pall over my summer. The evening I heard the news, storm clouds rolled in with the southerly buster, and it rained for five days straight. My memories of that period are largely amorphous. I took long walks. The press made it worse. Dying campus life bemoaned Honi; rigatoni and wine at Courtyard Cafe lamented the Herald; what the hell is going on! raged Albo. I dreaded the new semester.But, just days before the start of classes, salvation arrived. The party animals at the USU, who for weeks I had cursed, provided deliverance in the form of a Fun! and Cool! new venture. On Facebook, the students praised it: let me in! demanded one, !!! exclaimed many, GUUUYSSS LOOK WHAT OPENED AT UNIIIIIIII cried another. Thus, it was with vigour restored that I returned to Camperdown for another semester, looking forward to whiling away time with friends at the USUs brand new establishment: Cereal Lab: Your favourite cerealsonly $8And so, with time to kill on a dreary Tuesday, I gathered some friends to celebrate the beginning of another semester. The metal tables were deserted, so we took prime spot beside a sad-looking potted plant, with uninterrupted views of the impressive greyness of the Footbridge thoroughfare. While the new venue does not share the same vistas as Manning, one does have a front row seat to a parade of depressed students, set against the belching of trucks from Parramatta Road.Inside, only a six year old child is ahead of us in the line. From a woman in a lab coat (Cereal Lab ha ha), the boy orders Nutri-Grain with milk, yoghurt, soft-serve ice cream and honey ($8.50). I feel sick on his behalf. I lean in to try to read the menu, but it takes my eyes some time to adjust to the ecstatic colour scheme. The light from a giant Froot Loops poster refracts off the metallic laboratory-imitation furnishings, giving the unsettling impression of a fever-dream disco. Overwhelmed, I order without thought: the Healthy Start Special K with raspberries and honey. I throw $7.50 in loose change at the strange woman in the lab coat.There is something not quite right about watching somebody prepare you a bowl of cereal. Like asking someone to draw you a bath. It seems inappropriate. The lab coat woman is unnecessarily deferential as she asks me which type of milk I would like. There is a choice of seven varieties, which is more choice than Manning ever had in beer. My bafflement must have been evident, as she just served me milk which looked like, and tasted like, real milk.Of the cereal, it tasted like all cereals do of nothing. I tried to converse with my friends, but the cardboard cereal in its cardboard bowl kept drawing us in, a black hole into which all joie de vivre and other nice Romantic ideals had been sucked. With some grief, it dawned on me that I lived in a time where a breakfast cereal cafe is a more viable business proposition than a bar on a university campus. A brave new world in which I could be charged $7.50 for a single cardboard bowl of Special-K. I was rattled. The illusions and lights of my universe had gone out, and, during a brief moment of clarity as I drank the milky dregs, I think I understood the wisdom of Silenus.It would be wrong to say that I felt empty upon leaving the cereal cafe I felt, in fact, very bloated. Instead, I felt nothing. I discarded my friends and made a beeline straight for the library. For days on end, without distraction, I imbibed the dullest regulations and the most verbose judgments. I opened a stock portfolio and conspicuously checked its progress in class. I threw myself into my OLEs and came to appreciate the endless group mind-mapping exercises. By the end of that week I was, to my own surprise, eminently employable. Potentially distracting brain activity did not eventuate, for the feeling of nothingness remained concreted to the pit of my stomach, supplemented by a weeks worth of supply stuck in my molars.At first, I was skeptical of the cereal cafe. But I have realised the ills of my past ways, and embraced prudent asceticism. I know now that loss of time through sociability and idle talkis worthy of absolute moral condemnation. Thus, I have spurned the memory of the sinful Manning Bar, and now find myself a reformed dilettante. I will therefore continue to return to the Cereal Lab for my fix of the lab-produced nothingness which will see me thrive at Sydney University in 2020. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Moses Sumneys music is dizzyingly sensory. His new digital-only release gr: Part 1, the first half of his double sophomore album set to drop in full in May, is perhaps his most hypnotic yet. In its breadth of sonic layers spanning warm jazzy strings to disembodied synth pads, threaded together by the artists falsetto croon the record expands and contracts like an elastic band that never quite allows the listener to catch their breath. Sumneys body of work carries a cohesion despite its experimental nature; orbiting around a thematic core of love and isolation.This meditation on lovelessness and aloneness was first given its fullest expression on Sumneys 2017 debut album Aromanticism. In an essay posted to his Tumblr page, Sumney described Aromanticism as a concept album about lovelessness as a sonic dreamscape. Though the sonic landscape in question is certainly dreamlike, woven together through layer upon layer of synthesised vocals, it is rarely happy. At its centre is a deeply personal exploration of Sumneys experiences of aromanticism, and the doubt and suffering of failing to adhere to normative modes of love. The central track of the record Doomed sees Moses question if a life lived without romantic love holds any meaning: If lovelessness is godlessness / Will you cast me to the wayside? / Well, I feel the peeling of half-painted ceilings / Reveal the covering of a blank sky.gr: Part 1 is animated by the same troubling of Western capitalist societys deep investment in romance as a completion of the self. However, where Aromanticism feels both intimate and emotionally distant, gr is larger, warmer, and more meditative. In gr, Sumney links a lack of romantic love to a politics of multiplicity; using the experimental nature of the record to explore the grey spaces that can exist within and between people. His album, in rejecting romantic love as the pinnacle of human interaction, opens a deep consideration of how practices of love can resist any one formation. I find Sumneys record to collide with 2020s fast-moving digital culture in ways that are generative, bordering on hopeful.gr speaks to the internet era both in form and lyrics, spanning genre and atmosphere in ways that call to mind the networked chaos of digital space. The fact that gr: Part 1 has only been released on digital platforms only reinforces the distinctly internet-age feel of the record; inhabiting a disembodied, liminal pocket of space and time. This sense of digital spatiality also speaks to the transitory nature of Sumneys own life having lived between Ghana and the US as a child and young adult, and now geographically in flux as a musician creating a record that defies placement in the way that diasporic flows of bodies do.Nowhere is this clearer than on gr, whose first half opens with insula, a brooding, synth- and string-heavy minute-long track punctuated by just four lines: Isolation comes from insula which means island, three times, followed by Here we go into the grey. Borders of physical space become entangled with borders of emotional and bodily space. Sumneys counter to this isolation, and the isolation of Aromanticism, expands slowly over the album as one of multiplicity. This thesis reaches its most resolute in the spoken word, also also also and and and. The track swells with building layers of unearthly sonic groans and pops, cut through by vocals from British-American-Ghanian-Nigerian author Taiye Selasi: I insist upon my right to be multiple.The following track Neither/Nor takes this political statement and places it back alongside Sumneys confessional songwriting. Over a winding folky-soul melody that dips in and out of quiet moments and a bouncy pop pulse, Sumney is at his most honest: I fell in love with the in-between and yet: only the lonely are lukewarm.gr: Part 1 ends with Polly, a minimal lament on feeling inadequate in love. Layered vocals of Sumneys characteristic falsetto showcase the best songwriting on the record: I want to be cotton candy / In the mouth of many a lover / Saccharine and slick technicolor / Ill dissolve / I know that wont solve this. Ending abruptly as it does, the album eludes the feeling of completion. This space of disembodied incompleteness allows the album to carry Moses conceptual exploration of multiplicity into its sonic fabric. In Bloom and jill/jack are lighter, restrained tracks while Virile and Conveyor embody a frenetic energy that carries into the socio-political commentary of boxes. Even within tracks, gr refuses to ever sink into a single mode of listening.Even as the experimental nature of Moses records speaks to digital space, it requires an attentiveness and slowness that feels incongruous with the fast-paced nature of the digital age. Listening to his music is, for me, a process of taking in the layered audio and only later allowing the weight of his lyrics to hit me. This commitment to attention is one helmed by Sumney himself: in the Aromanticism essay, he described the record as not protest music, but process music. gr holds this same intentionality, and Sumneys insistence on multiplicity becomes a call to attend more deeply to complex conversations and ideas.In an essay for Real Life Mag, Alexandra Molotkov depicts the internet as a purveyor of romantic obsession; our devices allowing for the idealisation of another to be continually reframed and bolstered, via a perpetual stream of blue-lit simulation. Love online, characterised by swipe-right Tinder culture and superficial interactions, doesnt often account for non-normative interactions spaces of platonic intimacy, for example. Yet, Molotkov muses on the grey space to be found in the online: The internet, while it can cocoon you in a fixation, can also help formalize distance. It legitimizes deep attention to others at a considerate remove.Sumneys music embraces this tension and in doing so, argues for a more considered approach to love and the lack of it in digital space. This opens space for a reframing of what kinds of love we prioritise in our internet interactions, and what kinds of communities can be forged out of the online.Art historian Temi Odemosus notion of a politics of care elevates this practice of multiplicity in love to one with political potential. As part of her work with the Swedish Living Archives Research Project, Odemosu details the way that visual art by developing a practice of listening to archival content can be a decolonising force. When such a politics of care is considered alongside Sumneys work, his central concern of multiplicity in lovepoints to slowness and an embrace of grey space online as politically salient.Under a politics of care, the tensions that arise within and around Sumneys music are tools that, used in our online interactions, can be generative. Sumneys rejection of societal labels and turn towards the grey collides with the specificity of living in the world as a black man under systemic white supremacy. Such tensions open a space in which Sumneys attentive approach to grey space in love offers cohesion and solutions for the other tensions to be found in the disconnected, yet hyper-connected digital age.Experimental audio, often incorporating multiple mediums of visual and text-based content, allows for reframing of the norm by moving beyond the parameters of what music can sound like. Artists like Kelsey Lu and serpentwithfeet use similarly genreless, vocal-heavy unearthly sound to explore themes of love and isolation. These kinds of sonic formations can help us to navigate the chaos of 2020s internet culture, pointing us towards non-normative, future-facing conceptualisations of what it means to love. Moses Sumneys constructed sonic world is my new digital crush. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Last week, I stood in front of the sandstone monolith sculpture that has sat on Eastern Avenue since 2018, asking passers-by for their thoughts on it. Jayde was not mad it was there, Nathaniel said it was beautiful and Franco said it was vaguely phallic. But for Tatenda, Erika and Connor the answer was simply I dont know.For many students, including myself, the sculpture was a confusing site to behold when it first appeared on campus in December 2018. Indeed, for weeks, the accompanying Eastern Avenue installation, a piece inspired by ochre art on the exterior wall of the Carslaw Building, was mistaken by many for incomplete wall remodelling.Though the University claims that the response from the student community has been overwhelmingly positive in a popular USyd Rants post on the work, students responses were largely negative. This sculpture is a complete waste of time and money as usual one comment complains. I thought they were missing a piece of sandstone and didnt know what to do with it, and just dumped it there another reads.After hearing their first impressions, I told the onlookers that the work, Spine 2 (2018) was by Dale Harding, a Bidjara, Garingal and Ghungalu artist. In an article published by the University of Sydney, Harding says the work seeks to make connections between the University campus and the sandstone that joins cultures and communities up and down the east of the continent.Most interviewees critiqued the work as not particularly appealing, but that upon learning about the work, acknowledged that the intended meaning was important.Hearing this, it seems to fail what some argue to be the core criteria of successful public art, namely, as art historian Cher Krause Knight argues, that its messages are comprehensible to generalised audiences. Outside of the realm of the gallery and stripped of explanation and context, most audiences are left unequipped to understand the meaning of the artwork. On this view, the Universitys decision to initially display the work with minimal explanation and consultation with the university community is questionable. The piece was displayed for a year before placards explaining the works were included were displayed alongside them.Importantly, as I research Hardings works for this piece, the more I find them compelling. The juxtaposition of this sandstone with the surrounding buildings, symbols of elite Australian education, makes the familiar space of the university strange and different. It helps us interrogate what kind of space a university, particularly one built on colonised land.Moreover, the piece intervenes in the built environment of Eastern Avenue. Not all notice it, but the native plants surround the work are an element of it. The native plants are still young, some of them barely reach my kneecaps. We can speculate, however, that in the future the plants will grow higher. I can imagine them covering a good portion of the sculptureor maybe even overgrowing and overwhelming the sculpture and becoming the sculpture itself.A key part of Dales work is its integration with the landscape, says a recent article published by the University. The native planting component is a collaboration between Dale and the Universitys Grounds team.The artwork, therefore, is in a continual process of growing, struggling, and becoming. It is not a museum artefact like those living cultural objects which were plundered from Indigenous worlds and then preserved and frozen behind pristine imperial walls where they are reduced to objects of study and display. Those living cultural objects became frozen and dead when they were preserved in imperial institutions and deprived from practices of care and use by their original owners. Spine 2, however, is not preserved, it is a living object affected by the weather and time, but during its life it can be cared for by the artists own terms. For me, its potentiality to be cared for and to grow beyond what it is now makes it poetic and beautiful.For many students, Spine 2 is just another sandstone block. At best, unremarkable, and at worst an unsightly and confusing intrusion on their campus. But for students curious enough to prod further, Hardings work will make them see their campus in a new light, drawing connections between this learning institution and the culture of the Indigenous lands its built on. In either case, its a ground for debate, discussion and exploration. Love it or hate it, Hardings art provokes the viewer. And for that, I think, it must be applauded. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> I always loved reading about what drove people to create art. More often than not, I have found, unsurprisingly, that the book, painting or sculpture I was looking at was created by a man for his lover.The muse, as a symbol of inspiration, has persisted for thousands of years, dating back to classical Greek mythology. It has evolved throughout history, its manifestations providing insight into the way different cultures understand creativity. American novelist Francine Prose notes that every historical period re-creates the muse in its own image, a physical analogy by which we can define abstract concepts that encapsulate the artistic process. The female muse continues to be a romanticised preoccupation in the present day, with artists continually walking the thin line between inspiration and objectification.Although modern and historical conceptions of the muse differ due to the discursive nature of the notion, I have found that the hierarchy of attribution remains the same. The muse is always secondary, their passive contributions credited to being vessels of divine authority granted unto the author/artist. This dichotomy has led to an unbridgeable chasm opening up between artist and not artist, one that is too well established to rewrite. The duality between the two doesnt allow for speculation into the complicated relationship between a creator and their creative inspiration. In addition to this, gendered notions are inherent in the ideology of artistic production. The muse is reduced to a speechless enchantment, the epitome of all objectified women in western art. A parallel to the Solitary Male Genius, the muse is always docile, always young, always naked.A prevalent victim of the muse/artist paradigm is Zelda Sayre, better known in popular culture as Zelda Fitzgerald. She was the living prototype of the American flapper, the artists wife, the quintessential muse, the doomed woman. Her identity is immersed in the public persona her husband curated for her. The Fitzgeralds lived in a time where codes of masculinity and femininity were more defined, where gender disparities were commonplace. It was a time where Fitzgerald adored, oppressed, and victimised his wife in the name of inspiration. He used her likeness and her life for his content, took material from her letters and diaries, and forbade her from doing the same.Zeldas status as the muse prevented her from drawing on her personal and married life for inspiration in her own writing, with Fitzgerald deeming her work third-rate and her need to use her life for content an authorial weakness that stemmed from her inferior gender. She did not need to create art, he believed, because she was art.It doesnt matter how well retellings of Zeldas life perform in the present day because the modernist ideology of the times in which the Fitzgeralds lived portrayed the professional creator as a nonpareil masculine storyteller, the defender of the arts against the feminine masses. Fitzgeralds ideas of real art originated from a literary movement titled High Modernism, a masculinist project intent on eradicating intellectual laziness and other forms of popularised culture codified as feminine.French sculptor Camille Claudel was the muse, lover, and model of Auguste Rodin. An accomplished artist herself, Claudel worked closely in Paris with female sculptors Jessie Lipscomb, Amy Singer, and Emily Fawcett to create bronze sculptures still admired today.There is a photograph of Claudel from 1899 wherein she is seen sculpting Perseus and the Gorgon. Claudel believed the piece to be a self-portrait, seeing herself in the severed head of the Gorgon. Its thought to be a metaphor for her involvement with Rodin. Rodin, like Perseus, restricts her growth as an artist, as history paints the perpetrator as the hero, glorifying him for the basic act of enabling her artistic practice when art schools would not accept female students. The picture and brief write-up accompanying it are amongst a small amount of readily available information about Claudel that doesnt define her life in relation to Rodins or by her descent into madness.A new literary trend titled muse lit has recently been popularised by people who are adamant on righting historical wrongs. The genre aims to reclaim the forgotten portions of famous figures we thought we knew well, with multiple retellings and reimaginations following the lives of well-known muses such as Beatrice Portinari, Fanny Brawne, Ellen Ternan, and Maude Gonne.Such retellings distort the thin line between fact and fiction in biographical representation. The popularity of the genre proves that, despite their proliferation, we cannot quell our desire for more, for more works that offer better explanations of muses, of women, of concepts previously unexplainable. With these retellings come feminist perspectives that provide us with the benefit of hindsight; though we cannot forget that the original idea of the muse relies on the objectification of women and their position in a gendered hierarchy. We look at these women from historical vantage points, observing the staging of power fantasies rather than the rendering of the history of creation.The problem, I think, is not the concept of the muse itself or its place in the history of the world, as problematic that in itself may be. The authors of muse lit cannot erase the power dynamics that have been the building blocks of our understanding of artistic creation and pseudo-accurate representation of gender across different historical periods. Merely putting the woman at the centre of the story and having it revolve around her, but this time where she has autonomous agency, does not fix all that has been wrong in the past.This is the curse of the female muse: they are doomed forever to be viewed through the prism of the men in their lives. We live in a time where women are capable of being great artists. Still, the history of art is littered with women upon whom the status of the muse has been bestowed, the word weighing them down to the depths of alcoholism and poor mental health.A 21st century hybrid of the concept can be found in the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. The ways women are oppressed in the present day are, by comparison, subtler. Film critic Nathan Rabin, the man who coined the term, originally meant for the phrase to refer to a fantastical woman who would play into the male fantasy of being saved from depression and ennui, disappearing immediately after he is whole again, only to be seen and heard from when she is required.Women are socialised to internalise the idea of being lesser than men, of being their saviours, their muses. They do not exercise ownership over their experiences, patriarchal storytelling practices reflecting real-life customs of lopsided power dynamics. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is not only a trope, but every woman who has ever been told she has inspired third-rate poetry about heartbreak.We need to bury the figure of the muse in favour of a more honest understanding of the way women play a role in artistic creation. Being an artist does not have to be, nor has it ever genuinely been, a solitary process. Human beings are always drawing on nuanced forms of inspiration from their surroundings, their lovers, their companions. There is no need for the naked woman with a satin sheet draped loosely around her, for the manic pixie dream girl, for the depressed artists wife. Creation should not have roots in oppression and suffering, but build on healthy relationships that view all human beings as equally capable of being great. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> Sons of Steel (1988) is unlike anything Ive ever seen before. Rude, crude and obnoxious, the cult classic is currently enjoying a run of screenings at the Fantastic Film Festival. Its billed as the last great Australian post-apocalyptic/heavy metal action sci fi, a description that, if anything, sells it short. Sons of Steel is a marvel of Australian film making, a criminally forgotten treasure with a political undercurrent that is more relevant than ever.It follows the exploits of Black Alice, heavy metal superstar and violent leader of an anti-nuclear peace movement in future Sydney. Alice is turned into a hologram by the facist government ruling Australia, and awakens in the future to discover that his pro-peace movement has inadvertently caused the nuclear destruction of the world. He travels back in time to avert the disaster, with only an hour to do so.Image: Sons of Steel Sons of Steel is entirely unconcerned with good taste. By contemporary liberal standards, it would probably be considered problematic. When I speak with director Gary Keady, and tell him how delighted I was with how rude the film was, he laughs. Thats heavy metal, isnt it heavy metal tells it how it is. It says fucking stop it instead of beating around the bush. Thats what Ive been proposing all along with the character. He tells it like it is.The film has a distinct socialist undertone, one that Keady says he cant help. Black Alices aggressive personal philosophy of peace or Ill punch your lights out is one that is gradually gaining favour amongst the general public, as more people become aware of the ills of the capitalist society we live in. As Keady tells me, It speaks of things that are still apparent- in terms of its reference to the fascism that is fought against in the film and the government oppression which is still faced around the world today.Image: Sons of Steel There is an eerily familiarity to the Sydney represented in Sons of Steel, one that pushes beyond the aesthetics of the film. As locations in the film are unmistakably Sydney, the political repression in our dystopian future city is also acutely recognisable. Government surveillance and interference in the actions of Black Alice are not unlike the experiences of climate activists in our current era. Gary sympathises with this comparison. I feel that if I can say anything today, its that its time to stand up and shout it out harder than ever before that were destroying this globe and we have to do something about it. Its run by capitalist dollars trying to stop us so that they can maintain this fossil fuelled world.Image: Sons of Steel As Peter Dutton advocates for further surveillance of left-wing activists by ASIO, the plot of Sons of Steel is uncanny in its relevance. Keady has already written eight books as a follow up to the original film, books that were written in reaction to the political apathy he found when he returned to Australia after a prolonged, self-imposed banishment. Black Alice is everything we used to stand for thats just been sanitised out of the community. You can still find it in parts of Europe, where people are still angrybut here theyve been slowly brainwashed, to the point that the aggression that was our values in the 60s and 70s and 80s has gone.Sons of Steel first premiered in the latter years of the Cold War. Though comparisons of the state of world affairs between then and now are increasingly prevalent, there is also a promising similarity in the growing global resistance to oppression: no more so than in the fight against climate change. Sons of Steel has never been more relevant.Sons of Steel will be screening at the Ritz Cinemas in Randwick this Thursday at 6:30pm, followed by a post screening Q&A with the director and cast. You can purchase tickets here.For futher information, visit the films website. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> The original Cinderella, as detailed by the Brothers Grimm, is a tale of frustration and competition. One where, in being incapable of fitting her foot into the illustrious glass slipper, the eldest of the ugly step sisters is ordered by her mother to cut off her toe, swallow the pain, and shove her massacred foot into the slipper to commence her joyous limp into the sunset with the prince.Such imagery appears near analogous to the historical perception of fashion shows, which showcase the finest wares of an industry prized for the mutilation of not simply a toe, but the concept of what is physically beautiful and desirable as a whole. But although there is a tendency to associate modern fashion with the Cinderella story of aesthetic perfection, embodied by figures like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, modern fashion is not exclusively the work of fairy-tale. For woven into the fabric of celebrity models, logos and brands, is another world of haute couture to which less attention is paid. It is timely to reveal the world of haute couture that possesses a more explicit social and political consciousness, for clothes have the capacity to tell us more about the humanity of the future than any prophet, philosopher or scholar ever could.The sense that clothing is the conduit to understanding the human self is the theme to which Bernard Rudofskys 1947 essay Are Clothes Modern? most relentlessly returns. Bearing a detailed historical consciousness, Rudofsky assesses the evolution of fashion into the manifestation of that which is always artificial, often absurd, and sometimes harmful. Criticising the existence of pointless pockets in mens jackets, and outright damning the adage beauty is pain through a critique of platform heels, he hewes down fashion to its most simple and practical. Subsequently, Are Clothes Modern? has become a progressive manifesto that reconciles clothes with their original purpose; to package the body in such a manner that is functional and resourceful. His context (marked by the notable invention of the zipper) is undoubtedly a far-cry from our own. Nonetheless, the regenerative concept of modernity that informs his critique, becomes apparent, as today, the harmful Cinderella statement pieces are democratised; traded for the everyman aesthetic made popular by the high-street.At the heart of this movement, is the veneration of the incoming season of hots and nots: New York Fashion Week. An eminent fashion banquet, spanning across the last week of February and the first week of March, where the rich and famous flock to feast on the latest trends in haute couture. As the first major celebration of fashion in the new decade, the 2020 gala set a trend that Rudofsky would undoubtedly greet with a sense of glee, manifested by a transition towards social, and literal, comfort.In the depths of a shadowy basement, a runway is lined with grass. Its borders framed by a collection of plump sourdough loaves, fruit and vegetables, all from local grocers and bakers. The setting, a product of the melding of high fashion and farmers market, was the scene of Collina Stradas realist vision of the fashion of the future. A solitary woman opened the show; static, reciting facts about green matter and climate change rhythmically, like verses of poetry. A cascade of models followed; pregnant, trans, varying in height, age and cultural heritage, gliding across the runway in a wash of draping tie-dye earth tones and greens, shapeless, yet flattering. The propping up of feet on artificial heels was traded for the familiar lace-up sneaker, perfect manicures replaced by unpainted toenails in spongy slides; the VOSS water bottle pitilessly outclassed by a bedazzled, re-usable, metal alternative.In the age of fast fashion, Collina Strada detailed the inseparable bond between clothes and the everyday, making the sentiments of global climate change protests so fashionable that they could be featured in the pages of Vogue. Her staging, as much a statement as the clothes themselves, a timely reminder that the decisions that we make about our bodies, what we put on or in them, have direct effects upon the world around us. Harking back to Rudofsky, we are not only emerging from a world of uncomfortable fashion, but a world of uncomfortable acknowledgements of wrongs, from which we must start anew. The agenda of comfort woven into the pieces of Collina Strada speak not simply to the veneration of the mum jean or flat shoe, as wonderful as both those things are, but rather a sense of optimistic comfort in forward thinking, and a willingness to change now for the future.With a similar consciousness in mind, Gabriella Hearst replaced decorations made of plexiglass and plastic with large bales of shredded, recycled papers- a visual metaphor for the recycling of the old ides of fashion to produce new spectacles that are equally as marvellous, but fractionally as harmful to the planet. Pegged against this background, however, was another story that of the androgynous power woman.Women wearing suits is not a new concept. The famed Coco Chanel made waves during the first World War for eschewing corsets and dressing women in suits, the jazz age saw women wearing pants and shorts to participate in sports like horse riding and tennis, and in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt became the first woman to wear suit pants to an official function. But rather than a shocking comment on the blurring of gender barriers, the popularity of the female suit across the 2019 and 2020 fashion seasons signifies a shift wherein a suit, like the humble t-shirt and jeans, is now a fashion staple in not only mens wardrobes, but womens as well.Gabriella Hearst outwardly embraced this fashion evolution. Her pieces a combination of traditional suits, and large, male-style trench coats were fashioned from recycled cashmere yarn, Turkish kilim remnants, and regentrified pieces from past collections. These conscious choices signalling that trends are not fleeting, but rather constantly evolving; as a fad, or statement piece of the past, is reimagined to become a staple of the present.But the power woman finds her home in the line-up of Tory Burch, who from the genesis of her brand in 2004, has been adamant about empowering women in business, as a highly successful one herself. Balancing masculine lines with feminine flourishes, pastel colours and floral prints, the collection was revealed alongside the sultry jazz tones of Alice Smith singing the iconic 1960s anthem You Dont Own Me. With Edwardian-style blouses juxtaposed against slouchy, flat hippy-style boots, Burch smoothly fused two worlds that would otherwise not collide; the traditional, conservative aesthetic and the uninhibited ease of the flower-child-freedom-fighter.Like Collina Strada, her setting, scattered with ceramic sculptures of nude female bodies adorned in flowers designed by female artist Francesca DiMattio, played a central role in conveying her vision; that at the centre of fashion is the story of a singular entity- the body. Her runway told a story of liberation and development, where through the modesty of clothing, the legend of the woman underneath became more clear. Thus, when Rudofsky proposed that the fundamental role of clothes was to package the body, he did not mean it in the sense that in clothing we are hiding ourselves from the rest of the world. On the contrary, the evolutionary nature of clothes reflects a constantly evolving narrative, that reproduces the needs, wants, and dreams of those that wear them.When back in 1947, Bernard Rudofsky asked are clothes modern?, he asked a question of the imagination, enlightenment and energy of collective humanity. A question centred around the coverings that we wear every day, and the stories that they tell. The runways of New York Fashion Week are a very public chapter of that story; one that many of us watch like a fever dream; a utopian vision where money is limitless and women are no shorter than 5 ft 9. But whilst haute couture is not high street, and the products themselves still remain mostly inaccessible to those that arent seated around the runway, the message remains the same. If from the chapter of New York Fashion Week, we can find new ways of speaking about old ways of being, then we can finally see that fashion, from runway to high street, is not just modern it is transcendent.The modern Cinderella doesnt wear a ball gown, she wears a pantsuit.She doesnt wear glass slippers, she wears sneakers.And when the clock strikes midnight, and the haute couture fades, she wears the problems of a world watching on from the farmers market outside the runway. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> What makes a good villain? Is it a tragic backstory? Perhaps a sympathetic or noble aim? Surely its some quality which allows the audience to fleetingly connect with these purveyors of misery? Its none of these. Not a single one.According to the ever encroaching trend of sympathetic villainy, these are all admirable qualities to find in a villain. But this trend is simply wrong, and not just wrong in a factual sense, but also wrong in regards to basic social etiquette: this trend, to put it simply, breaches every clause of our most sacred social contract.In the mind of this writer, this trend began with the movie Frozen. A good movie by all accounts, save one. Lurking at the very heart of this family friendly tale was an oozing wound of flawed storytelling: the villain. Hans I hear you cry out in response. Nay, dear reader, tis not the Prince of the Southern Isles I refer to. Instead I refer to Princess/Queen Elsa herself. This spicy little number is an equally insidious variation of the trend of sympathetic villainy: the fake out villain.Elsa was established to engage in all sorts of dastardly, no good, hand waving. But then the writers at good ol Walt Disney pulled the officially licensed Frozen merch rug out from under us and gave us some narrative fisticuffs. Elsa is redeemed, sweet Hans turns out to be the true villain, so on and so forth.A similar crime against classic villainy is committed in the equally wonderful film Moana: Te K, the lava demon, turns out to be Tafiti, the lush-green goddess.Villainy doesnt have to entail a sneaky switcheroo every single time. Youre allowed, even encouraged, to have Te K the lava demon turn out to beTe K the bloody lava demon. Otherwise once you go down that dark, dank alleyway of villainous redemption youll soon enough find yourself bleeding out on the street, robbed of your antagonist, and stumbling into traffic in search of medical (or more advisedly, narrative) attention.Where I ask, are my flamboyant, queer coded, scheming, conniving, impeccably dressed villains? Where is Jafar? Where is Ursula? Where is Cruella, Scar, the Evil Queen? Theyre gone. Dragged into the darkest recesses of popular culture by the very institutions which first drew them into the light. Theyve been sacrificed at the altar of complexity, under the guise of creating more well rounded and three dimensional characters.A cheap excuse for a cheap shot, because villainy thrives in the 1st dimension. Archetypes, tropes, and cliches are what make me empathise with a villain. I didnt like Jafar because I approved of hypnosis or violent coups or forced marriages. I liked Jafar because he had a killer outfit and was probably gay. The very same goes for Ursula, Scar and the rest.Villains shouldnt go the way of the hero because they dont need more than one dimension. The only thing a good villain needs is more eyeliner and additional layers of robage. So knock it off Disney, or else youll be in some elaborately planned, impeccably executed and aesthetically outstanding trouble before you can say Prince Ali. <|endtext|> <|starttext|> A statement that wont blow your mind: Im a 21 year old female and a fan of Channel Nines spotlight-stealing ratings juggernaut, Married at First Sight. Im about to tell you why thats not only okay, but important.Before you ask, yes, this article did require a significant amount of research*.But lets consider why this is funny. Should I be ashamed of my entertainment tastes simply because they reflect my femininity?I do understand the criticism reality television demands pretty low level intellectual engagement in its most self-aware moments, and if were honest, theres a lot of very sexist tropes about women in there. (If I hear the phrase high maintenance one more time on MAFS and its not about a swanky fridge, I might have an aneurism.)Its not the evaluation which concerns me. Rather, it is the foundation of this humour which assigns negative connotations to the femininity of watching reality shows. It is the attitude that sees the female viewers empathy, sociability, and eye for the aesthetic, as her superficiality, shallowness, and materialism and tells us these qualities should be despised.Theres digs from concerned family members. Theres mocking remarks on social media. Theres articles which make the same, tired jokes about the same, tired women who choose to watch reality television with a glass of chardonnay. In some form, women who confess to watching the genre will experience judgement about their preference.This is no groundbreaking news when the interpretation of women in the media has historically been so problematic. Women are underrepresented and misrepresented in media spaces. Their invisibility both behind and in front of the camera has created a false assumption that the male gaze is the cultural standard and the perspective of women is inferior.Gradually, the rise of social media is changing this norm. The autonomy it provides has meant that women are able to participate in the process of critiquing and individualising their own representations. In a transforming media landscape, the misrepresentation of women through the male lens has arguably become a more visible concern. Women are continuing to be portrayed in stereotyped modes which perpetuate socially accepted views of their gender.Considering this, the framing of female traits in reality television viewers has been largely antagonistic in traditional and social media. Audiences are subjected to snide comments and memes on Twitter and Facebook about the superficiality and uselessness of the genre, with humour predicated on how this typifies their gender. I believe this response is not only incredibly sexist but also genuinely false.Reducing the enjoyment of reality shows to a girl thing which is both materialistic and ludicrous, and then demonising these terms, suggests that femininity should be associated with stupidity and shame. This is a dangerous understanding of gender that should not be allowed to continue in the public sphere.Moreover, whilst the genre exposes viewers to many of the sexist female tropes they despise, the social media engagement around these archetypes provides a unique platform through which they can be dissected and critiqued. Rather than reality shows preventing women from thinking, Id counter they allow us to develop more relevant, informed social commentary than many other genres by presenting us with a microcosm of our culture and its gender norms.With their domination in both ratings and reviews from sites like Buzzfeed and Punkee, reality shows overperform in their contribution to cultural conversations on the social issues they raise. Hashtag-based searches often reveal scathing criticism of the gender-based commentary arising from voiceovers and narrative framing. One meme following a Married at First Sight episode declared, If I hear alpha female one more time I will scream. Interactive discussions like this allow women to directly refute their antagonistic depictions on the small screen, and participate in wider discourse about their representation in contemporary media.So, go ahead. Lambast me for following a show where pretty women argue over their fake husbands at a fake dinner party under the pretense of wanting true love rather than instagram followers. Laugh at my voyeuristic pleasure in watching relationships self-destruct as their participants are utterly, despicably awful to each other in public.But dont roll your eyes at the femininity of it all. Im not ashamed to argue that its exactly what makes reality television so important.*research undertaken with the gals while wearing PJs <|endtext|>