First Person - Democracy Wall 1979

Photograph: Daryl McCann 1979

In October 1979 I found myself, through no feat of my own, living the high life in a provincial city in the People's Republic of China. I was twenty-two years old and had just completed an honours degree in Politics at the University of Adelaide, the title of my thesis being “Micro-Computer Technology and Contemporary Capitalism”. It almost goes without saying that the conclusion to my dissertation anticipated the imminent demise of Late Capitalism. It absolutely goes without saying that I was a Marxist.

The article can be read in full at the following link:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/4/democracy-wall-beijing-1979

Britain's Muzzled Press

In the midst of the current debate about the future of free speech in Australia, an article by Myles Harris, Editor of the Salisbury Review, makes an interesting read. First published in the July-August edition of the American Spectator.

To read "Britain's Muzzled Press" by Myles Harris, click the following link:

http://www.salisburyreview.com/Americanspec.pdf

When Did The Left Renounce Liberty?

 

The outrage vented this past week by progressives against freedom of speech has left me wondering, “Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?/Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?” I thought the whole point of the Sixties Revolution was to set the people free so they could express themselves without fear of being busted by “The Man”.

To keep reading the article, click this link:

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/03/exactly-left-renounce-liberty/

Holocaust Denial & Inversion: Education Unit

Objective of unit of work: For students to understand that Holocaust Denial and Inversion are problematic subjects and the only way to evaluate an argument is to be aware that at least one counter-argument must be taken into consideration. History, therefore, is not a simple narrative that exists without contestation. 

Andrew O'Hagan Demolishes Assange

Andrew O’Hagan’s demolition job on WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, can be found in the London Review of Books (March 6, 2014). O’Hagan’s 27,00o-word piece seems more like a non-fiction novella than a garden-variety magazine article. At this very moment it is probably the hottest piece of writing in the Western world. O’Hagan, hired by a publishing company to ghost Assange’s “autobiography”, came to know his subject during 2011. His conclusion? “I’ve never been with anybody who made me feel so like an adult. And I say that as the father of a ten- year-old.”

To continue reading the article, click this link:

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/03/andrew-ohagans-demolition-julian-assange/

Deluded Tyrant In The Kremlin - Quadrant, June 2012

In December 1564, Ivan IV took himself off into exile. From the remoteness of Aleksandrova Sloboda he wrote two letters to officials in Moscow, one announcing his abdication, the other stipulating that he would return to the throne only on condition he be granted absolute power. There were positive aspects to Ivan’s rule, especially in the earlier years, and “Fearsome” rather than “Terrible” might be a better rendering of his popular designation, and yet there is something wretchedly Russian about those obtuse boyars pleading, in the end, for Ivan’s royal restitution. Masha Gessen’s The Man Without a Face and even more so David Satter’s It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway do nothing to disabuse us of the notion that Russia as a whole remains clueless when it comes to addressing the most basic principles of democracy and the rights of the individual.

To keep reading the article, click this link:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/6/deluded-tyrant-in-the-kremlin

Operation Sovereign Borders - Salisbury Review, Spring 2014

 

On December 15, 2010, Australians watched in horror the televised account of a leaky Indonesian fishing boat, with its human cargo of 89, breaking up on the rocks of Christmas Island. At 5 a.m. locals had begun hearing cries for help from those aboard. Islanders defied the treacherous swell on rocky cliffs to throw life jackets in the direction of the shipwrecked passengers while the Royal Australian Navy launched rescue boats. Their efforts were mostly in vain. Fifty souls perished at sea that morning, many of them women and children. The night before the captain had disembarked for another vessel leaving the fate of his charges in the hands of Abdul Rasjid, an Indonesia fisherman without appropriate experience or expertise. Such is the perfidy of the people smuggling trade.