Month: March 2018

Jarvis Ryan looks at the roots of anti-Muslim racism and explains why the left must stand up against the anti-Islamic backlash FOUR YEARS into the “war on terror”, many people can see that this war is in fact a war being fought by the US and its allies for economic and imperial gain — to seize control of energy resources and territory. However it would be politically unacceptable for George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard to admit this. There are very few wars where rulers speak honestly about their motivations. Instead they make a huge effort to convince their […]

TWENTY thousand people marched through Wellington to New Zealand’s parliament on Wednesday May 5. The march was the culmination of a historic “hikoi” (march) to protest government legislation that attacks Maori rights over New Zealand’s coastline. During the hikoi’s journey from the top and bottom of Aotearoa (New Zealand), tens of thousands of people took part, making it one of the biggest protests in this country in recent times. Even more significant was that 90 per cent of the protesters were Maori, Aotearoa’s indigenous people. Like Australia’s indigenous population, they still suffer the ill-effects of colonisation and racism. Maori make […]

A MASSIVE wave of protests shook Australian cities as part of the global day of action against war. No one expected them to be so big. The weekend began with what would have been the largest anti-war demonstration ever in this country. CENTRAL MELBOURNE came to a total halt on Friday evening as a quarter of a million Victorians massed against the war. The turnout represented one in 10 adult Melburnians.  The demo easily dwarfed the largest moratorium march against the Vietnam War in 1970 and the 150,000-strong union rally against Jeff Kennett in 1992. Michele O’Neil, state secretary […]