Bushfires: we need a more oppositional political culture

New Matilda, 7 January 2020, under the title 'Two Sides, Same Coin: It’s Not About Labor Or Liberal Anymore. It’s Too Late For That Now'. Original here. Amidst the bushfire devastation, it’s natural to hope that one saving grace pulled from the ashes might be greater public resolve to convert the desire for climate action…

Tomorrow Students Strike For Their Future. But Like Iraq in 2003, They Shouldn’t Assume They’ll Be Heard

New Matilda, 4 March 2019. Original here. Among people who care about the planet, the massive turnouts expected around the country – and the world – for tomorrow’s climate demonstrations are fueling justified excitement. It’s not just that hundreds of thousands of students will go on strike from school and demand real action on global…

Lessons from the Yellow Vests? Some thoughts on unions, ‘recruitment’ and ‘mobilisation’

If the French Yellow Vests have had such impact in the absence of any of the usual structures of organised unionism, what are the implications for how those structures might need to be rethought?

Nakba Day: The Palestinian Slaughter Goes On But A Path To Peace Is Still Possible

New Matilda, May 15, 2018. Original here. Today is Nakba (‘catastrophe’) Day, when Palestinians commemorate the cataclysm of their expulsion from their homes in 1948. The most important voices to hear today are theirs: before they read Western commentators, anyone who cares about the tragedy of the Middle East should read Palestinian ones. There could…

BDS – a global intifada for justice and peace in Palestine

Israeli Apartheid Week protest, Sydney, March 18 2018. We’re standing today with millions of people in Palestine and around the world. Our demands are modest. We’re calling for the bare minimum that anyone committed to peace and justice should be demanding: an end to apartheid in Israel – now; the release of Ahed Tamimi and…

Teachers should be an example and that means speaking their minds on refugees

Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December 2016. Read the original here. This week, hundreds of school teachers from the national Teachers for Refugees group will protest against our brutal and internationally condemned refugee policies by wearing "close the camps, bring them here" T-shirts to school. Predictably, the initiative has drawn strident criticism from the federal government…

Why ‘racist’ John Howard doesn’t deserve an honorary doctorate

Linda Connor and Nick Riemer. Sydney Morning Herald, September 29 2016. Read the original here. Sydney University's choice to award an honorary doctorate to John Howard is a decision to celebrate racism, bigotry and militarism. The award is unjustifiable in an institution claiming to serve the public good that says it is committed to rigorous…

Disruptive or productive? Two sides of the protest coin

The Australian, April 22, 2015 Last week, the University of Sydney announced formal misconduct allegations against academic Jake Lynch and five students after a campus protest in March ­interrupted an advocate for the ­Israel Defence Forces. Let’s leave aside the particulars of the allegations, the case is important because it raises vexed questions about universities’…

Why Jake Lynch was waving money around at an anti-Israel protest

Crikey, March 25 2015. Read the original here. In 2014, my colleague Jake Lynch, the distinguished peace-journalist and academic, head of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, made international news by defeating a racial discrimination lawsuit brought against him by an Israeli “lawfare” centre for his support for the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign…

Disruptive Protest And Freedom Of Speech: A User’s Guide

New Matilda, March 19 2015. Read the original here. When are protesters justified in disrupting a public event? Can they legitimately do so in the name of freedom of speech? What aspects of the context change the rights and wrongs of a disruption? These kinds of questions are among the most delicate, complicated and important…