Many Faces of Colonising Power

This issue has a focus on the Voice, with pieces by Michael Mansell, Celeste Liddle, Marilyn Lake, Brian Burkett and Alison Caddick. In an extended essay Dan Tout takes on ‘the idea of Australia’, with evident consequences for thinking through just what the Voice offers, and Andreas Pohl poses the challenging question of how genocide in Australia might be memorialised. Two pieces on the Russia-Ukraine war ask controversial questions about how it might be viewed in a less fevered way, and how it might be brought to an end. And then there are essays on capitalism and slavery, Darwin development, the Northern Rivers floods, Robobdebt, Donald Horne, sculpture and touch, and wonderful poetry.

Editorial: Many Faces of Colonialism

How will the Voice, if it comes into being, handle the further deracination of Culture in the hands of sympathetic technocrats, used as a tool itself of enlightened governance of Indigenous people and their aspirations?

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Arena Quarterly issue no. 15, 2023

Contents

TitleAuthorPagePg.
Editorial
Alison Caddick2
Voice
We Have a Voice: It's Not Listened To
Uluru has been repurposed to vote up a powerless advisory body
Michael Mansell4
The Unfinished Business of 1967
Treaty and Voice were spoken of from the moment the 1967 referendum was won
Marilyn Lake8
Still Fighting the Frontier Wars
Claims to care about ‘our First Australians’ reveal a virulent white supremacy
Brian Burkett11
A Yes vote won’t change whose constitution it is, a No vote won’t take the struggle back decades
Celeste Liddle15
World
The Government Is Criminal!
The Robodebt report is to be commended, but deeper social processes are in play
John Hinkson19
It's now pro-Putin to refer to any and all history in looking over the Russia-Ukraine disaster
Gerry Simpson24
Reflections on the Novorossiya War
A conservative and realist appraisal of Russia’s invasion and Ukraine’s chances
Gray Connolly28
Indian Rope Trick?
The US thinks India is no more than an anti- China bulwark while Modi remakes Asia
Binoy Kampmark33
Country
Settler Nationalism and Progressive Discourse
Even searching accounts of Australia’s founding can’t resist an assimilationist logic
Dan Tout36
A Culture of Remembrance?
Can Australia learn from Germany’s notion of Erinnerungskultur to confront our genocidal past?
Andreas Pohl46
Gas Town, Darwin
Greenwashing fossil fuel expansion in northern Australia
Kristy Howey52
Environment
On the Climate Frontline
Talking to survivors of the Northern Rivers catastrophe
David Ritter60
Theory
The Password Is ‘Sugar’
Atlantic chattel-slaveries and the revolution inside capital
Humphrey McQueen69
Arts and Culture
Ahmed Faraz, Poet of Love and Hope
Poetry of witness and inspiration for Pakistan’s people and beyond
Ali Shehzad Zaidi76
Reviews
The Elusiveness of Young Donald
Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country, by Ryan Cropp
Guy Rundle84
Rubbing/Loving
Do Ho Suh at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
Christian Caiconte87
Fire in the Head?
Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer
Richard King93
MARK FURLONG The Universities and Israel
Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine, by Nick Riemer
Mark Furlong95
Poetry
The Aukward Situation
Mitchell Welsh18
Words Like Small Birds
Michael Edwards68
Mushrooms / On Earth / A Song for My Granddaughter / Fish / Lullaby
Cally Conan-Davies80

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