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Tag Archives: Intervention
Bad Behavior
In the course of my years I have periodically set myself to difficult reading assignments. At the age of seventeen, I determined to read Ulysses. Twenty years later, after numerous aborted attempts, I completed all seven volumes of Proust, followed … Continue reading
Season of the Witch
“When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see?” asked Donovan. ”Some other cat looking over his shoulder at me.” If not the season of the witch, it is the season of the Intervention, as last week’s … Continue reading
The Voice of the Homelands
During the latter half of 2007, listening to the debates about the Intervention, I often wondered (sometimes aloud) where the voice of the Aboriginal people was. Plenty of people spoke on behalf of Aboriginal communities, and on both sides of … Continue reading
Notes and Blogs
No essay this week, I confess, as I’ve happily spent the last seven days entertaining my friend Walter, down from Boston for a springtime visit, our first since we saw each other at the opening of Dreaming Their Way in Dartmouth two and … Continue reading
Rethinking the Intervention
Inside Story: current affairs and culture has just posted a new article by anthropologist Francesca Merlan of the Australian National University, author of Caging the Rainbow: places, politics and Aborigines in a North Australian town (University of Hawai’i Press, 1998). Merlan’s article, “More … Continue reading
Engagement Not Intervention
An old Aboriginal once described Europeans to me in eight words: ‘Very clever people; very hard people; plenty humbug.’ –W. E. H. Stanner, 1964 It now seems evident, indeed inarguable, that the Rudd Government is committed to continuing in the … Continue reading
Last Drinks
I’ve been waiting for Paul Toohey’s Last Drinks: the impact of the Northern Territory Intervention (Quarterly Essay no 30) to arrive on these shores since The Australianpublished a brief excerpt from it (“Life and Death of a Crisis“) on June 7. I’m still … Continue reading
A Short Coda on an Aboriginal Tragedy
In a comment on my previous post on the root of the current Aboriginal tragedy, the one that I believe the Intervention is failing to address, David Spence had the following incisive remarks to offer: We seem consumed by endless discussion about … Continue reading
The Tragedy Behind the Intervention
The eponymous protagonist of Sophocles’ drama Antigone has long defined the essence of the “tragic” for me. Her home city of Thebes was riven by a war of brother against brother who personified the doctrine of mutually assured destruction by slaying one … Continue reading
Sacred or Profane? The Australian Government’s Intervention in Aboriginal Communities
The headline for this post derives from the title of a panel discussion that took place on December 2, sponsored by the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia. Organized by curator Margo Smith, the panel was designed to raise … Continue reading
