Two significant acts invited to play WOMADelaide 2024 have been treated in vastly different ways in recent months by the Director, Ian Scobie. One head-line act, renowned reggae singer/songwriter, Ziggy Marley, has faced strong calls to be cancelled due to his support of the apartheid state of Israeli, yet his inclusion was defended by WOMADelaide’ Continue reading »
Arts and Sport
We’d cross a long rope across the street and I used to have a dozen kids skipping down there. Even Mrs Munro came out – seventeen stone and she had no shoes on. She’d come out and skip. Bernie Johnson was born in 1906, and he contributed this gem when interviewed by the National Library Continue reading »
Where are all our rock stars? The battle for your freedom is raging. Led by Australia’s own Julian Assange, from behind his grey cell walls. Day X, Julian’s final appeal (20-21st Feb 24), is just around the corner and the global community rally behind him to make sure his keepers know the whole world is Continue reading »
A while ago I was – reluctantly – watching some television footage about the catastrophe in Gaza. To my amazement, a fleeting image appeared of two little girls, about 7 or 8, playing a hand-clapping game. I don’t know what nationality the girls were, or the location of their play. They could have been Israeli Continue reading »
Ai Weiwei joins a long line of dissenters such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Liu Xiaobo who became disenchanted by the West. After criticising Israel for its scorched-earth military operation in Gaza and defending Palestinian human rights, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei had his long-planned exhibition at the famed Lisson Gallery in London abruptly cancelled in Continue reading »
Usman Khawaja played an important batting role in Australia’s recently finished demolition of Pakistan in the first Test in Perth. The ongoing controversy, however, around his writings on his cricket boots and black armband as a protest display have raised questions about the relations of sport and politics and the role of sporting and other Continue reading »
“The world looked away during the World War, and Jews, 6 million of our people, were murdered in that looking away… It is incumbent upon humanity to look at what is happening in Gaza now and to say we will not accept this. We will say no. Not in our name.” – Louise Adler The Continue reading »
A frontline medic writes of two individuals she met in Kayah State, whose stories exemplify the diverse ways Myanmar’s youth are contributing to, and sacrificing for, the revolution. As the conflict grinds on, every month brings fresh horrors. Since early last year, when I left my medical studies in Yangon and joined a team of Continue reading »
Much has been written about the International Cricket Council’s World Cup competition being played in India, but relatively few of the words have been about the incredible achievements of the Afghanistan team. Against a backdrop of poverty, war, political turbulence and natural disasters, the team performed magnificently. Afghanistan is surely one of the world’s most Continue reading »
Industrial transformation has accelerated China’s rise as a global power. In the New Era, which was officially recognised in the Chinese national constitution in 2017, the narrative of national rejuvenation is writ large: it underpins the Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and China’s various soft power campaigns. Cultural and media Continue reading »