A few years ago Ken Haddock, a retired social worker, discovered that a legendary folk tale of Melbourne Catholicism was false. For decades Father Wally Silvester (1919-2005), a charismatic Pallottine priest, has been treated with awe as a former U-boat commander, and hailed as a war hero who defied Hitler by saving enemy Russian sailors. Continue reading »
Culture and Religion
Half the 280 million people in Indonesia are women, though not in the 48-member ministry; just five were drafted this week by the fresh president Prabowo Subianto. It’s a Cabinet fuelled more by testosterone than talent. Continue reading »
There is no doubt that the war in Gaza has placed Australia’s multiculturalism and social cohesion under strain. Continue reading »
Until recent events, many Australians would not have realised that it could be a criminal offence to display the symbol of a terrorist organisation in public. The display of the Hezbollah flag at rallies, by a minority of protestors, has now become a political football, with politicians across the spectrum calling for prosecution. The Opposition Continue reading »
I am a cultural Jew because I am an atheist. I cannot celebrate the Jewish New Year because of the continuing horror in Gaza, and now in Lebanon. A genocide is being perpetrated by Netanyahu and his government which is destroying Jewish humanist traditions. Netanyahu, Ben-Gevir, Smotrich and other Kahanites have hijacked the Jewish masses Continue reading »
The daily witness of horrors in Gaza has provoked moral dilemmas for us all. How do we face these monstrous events, and not turn our hearts to stone? An Australian historian showed us how in 1998. Continue reading »
That question above is both meaningful – and meaningless. A paltry “Day of Peace” — this year, Saturday 21 September — insults the efforts of those who work year-round for something approximating “peace”. Or, at least, who work in multiple ways to promote more intelligent evidence-based possibilities to contain, if not resolve, conflict, and to Continue reading »
Why didn’t the Sydney Morning Herald mention the Pope’s visit to the region? Continue reading »
China’s traditional culture has contributed greatly to the country’s modernisation. Yet it is not the only factor that has advanced Chinese modernisation. The process of modernisation has been driven by factors such as industrialisation and greater equality brought about by socialism, which have been provided by the leadership of the Communist Party of China. The Continue reading »
Israel and Zionists try to confuse the public by conflating Judaism with Zionism; they commit their crimes and hide behind the Jewish people. Palestinians, on the other hand, distinguish between Jews, Judaism and Zionism and hold the Zionists responsible for the crimes they commit against them, not the Jews. While the Zionists say, “Every Jew Continue reading »