Tag Archives: politics

Four decades in the life of the world

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It was 1978. I was a young whipper-snapper working with Community Aid Abroad (now renamed OXFAM Australia). I’d heard a stirring speech by Peter Adamson on ABC radio, and now I was excited at the prospect of meeting the man in person. I was not disappointed. His towering intellect and his ability to weave a spell-binding story combined to make his visit one of the most memorable of my life.

This remarkable man was the founding editor of the New Internationalist magazine, which had been launched five years earlier, and he was in Australia to inspire people with a vision of progress in human development, and to promote the magazine.

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Hypocrisy, Terrorism and Algeria

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Now that media coverage has died down following the tragic loss of life at the Ain Amenas natural gas complex in Algeria, it’s a good time to reflect on the way in which the story has been relayed to us by the mainstream media.  In essence we’ve been given a picture like this:
•    Good hard-working men and women from around the world have been slogging away in harsh conditions deep in the Sahara, helping to secure the world’s energy reserves at the natural gas complex in Algeria.
•    Despite the best efforts of all nations participating in the global war on terror, the attempt to contain militants linked to al-Qaida had failed.  A group of terrorists was able to storm the Ain Amenas gas complex and take a large number of hostages.
•    In order to stop the terrorists from escaping and disappearing into the Sahara, Algerian forces attacked the gas complex, resulting in the death of more than 30 hostages and at least 20 militants.
•    The US has had its hands tied in combating the rise of extremist militants in the region because few nations have been prepared to admit US forces onto their soil because of fears of loss of sovereignty.

But is there more to the story?  Heartbreaking experience shows that we need to have our hypocrisy antennae fully extended and tuned whenever the war on terror is involved.

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Letter to Hypatia of Alexandria

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Dear Hypatia,

I first got to know you in 1977, on page 365 of Bertrand Russell’s 789 page tome, ‘A History of Western Civilization’. You rated one paragraph.

There are very few women in that three thousand years of history, drawn from the annals of men. But there you were, the world’s greatest mind on mathematics, astronomy and philosophy in 400 AD.
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Who cares about equality?

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Danny Dorling, The No-Nonsense Guide to Equality,
New Internationalist, Oxford, 2012, 176 pp, www.newint.org/books/

Reviewed by Frank Stilwell

New Internationalist has published a series of small books on controversial issues such as world population, world poverty, world food, world health and women’s rights. This latest ‘No-Nonsense Guide’ focuses on equality, making a strong case for this goal to be a much higher priority in public policy and strategies for social progress.

There is a long tradition of arguing for greater equality – in income, wealth, education, social opportunities and, of course, in human rights. One thinks, for example, of classics such as Richard Tawney’s Equality, the writings of British social reformer Richard Titmuss and the more recent books by Richard Wilkinson that describe the damaging social costs that arise from extreme economic inequalities. That these three writers are all called Richard is an odd coincidence – the more important thing that they have in common is a commitment to egalitarian social reform.

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Rally for solar

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Clouds are never a good look at rallies for renewable energy. Nor is a light but constant drizzle, or the sight of a big, dirty old truck being used for a stage. Climate change activists are used to these minor ironies. They are also used – though not resigned – to continuing government inaction on an issue which enjoys massive public support for change as well as a near-complete scientific consensus.

All of these things – activists, government, a big truck, an energised public and, yes, appalling weather – came together on September 30th in Adelaide’s Rundle Park for a heartening intervention in the fight for more action on that moral challenge.
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A tale of two producers

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Two of our producer partners put Australian politics to shame.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship recently announced that Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, founder and CEO of soleRebels, has received the Foundations Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award for 2012. In announcing the award Schwab Foundation Chairman and co-founder Klaus Schwab said “Bethlehem embodies the vision and values of the global social entrepreneur community, and we are proud to honor her exemplary work in creating a highly innovative, ethical and sustainable business that continues to make a strong social impact.”

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