FBI Radio 28 April 2010

Hey everyone...

This week on sociologic FBI Radio I looked at a couple of issues that will be affecting our lives... here they are:

1. Time for lazy kids to get off the dole

Last week, Tony Abbott announced that if his government was elected, they would make unemployment benefits subject to age requirements. This is one of the silliest policy suggestions for a long time and I explained why. The discussion on FBI Radio was based on an article I wrote for Newmatilda.com which is available here...

2. Climate change back flip

This week, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that the government would be shelving any plans for a carbon trading scheme! This is one of the great political back flips and highlights three key things:

• The first is a lack of political courage on behalf of the Rudd Government. They claimed this to be a key moral challenge of our time and pushed it as a way to split the Opposition. When the Opposition stood up to them, they backed down. This is a shame;
  
• Secondly, it highlights that there are a number of dinosaurs in the Opposition. Tony Abbott is more interested in scaring the public than discussing the issue. I have written extensively about the overwhelming evidence for human-induced climate change but the same dinosaurs that believed passive smoking was not a problem have now turned their attention to climate change; and
  
• That climate change may well be too complex an issue for our political system to deal with. If everyone waits for someone else to act, then we are in serious trouble...
  

For a great read about this political back flip check out Ben Eltham’s awesome piece.

If you want to let Kevin Rudd know this is political cowardice, then I suggest you sign up to the Get Up petition.

Thank, james

Racsim sucks: and so do policies aimed at discriminate against refugees

Hey everyone


I given some thought at all the things that have been happening around refugees. Given the new position (outrageous) by the Rudd Government, I thought it would be time for a bit of a discussion about the way we see the world and our response to refugees.


Why this blog now? Because I am looking into the issue of racism as I prepare for a trip to Stockholm that a very unfriendly volcano seems to have thwarted. What I am researching is the way that the issue of ‘race’ and ‘racism’ is treated in our popular culture. The outcomes of that research are still coming and I am in the midst of writing a paper which I will hopefully publish in the not too distant future.


The motivations for this research have two distinct directions: the first was the underlying themes that emerged in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy (that is, The girl with the dragon tattoo series, or in its original translation Men who hate women). One of these themes is the way that migrants are the target of violence and derision: ignored, violated, cheap labour and so on.


The second motivation for my research is the fact that Australian pop culture remains, essentially, colour blind. There are few positions for the non-white protagonist in Australian movies and television. Yes, there are exceptions but there is no way that the monochrome world of television reflects our multicultural society. Pop culture is such an important part of our society that we need to use it both as a mirror and as well as a significant guide towards attitudes: what does the lack of diversity tell us about Australian society.


Like I said, I will delve deeper into this at some future point - both with another blog and more formal publishing because now I want to highlight some aspects of refugees and amazing anti-racist activists that are responding to Australia’s stance on refugees – which I believe is deeply problematic and essentially racist.


To begin with, we should note that a refugee, according to the 1951 UN Convention, is:

Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.

It is surprisingly easy to identify who is a genuine refugee: it is hard for someone to pretend to speak another language or fake a religion. If someone claims that they are from somewhere, then it is quite easy to ask them some questions to confirm this.


A few facts from the Edmund Rice Centre that confirm that Australia does not have a refugee problem. Australia remains down the bottom of countries that see both refugee arrivals and those seeking asylum. Let's look at some of the statistics:

• Tanzania hosts one refugee for every 76 Tanzanian people (1:76)
• Britain hosts one refugee for every 530 British people. (1:530)
• Australia hosts one refugee for every 1583 Australian people. (1:1583)

There are many myths about refugees which there is no reason to list here but I recommend you check out the Refugee Council of Australia website where some are listed and responded to.


I can only think what I would do if that was me and my family and we were forced to leave a country or persecuted: I would do anything to protect them. What drives refugees are push factors (that is, things happening back in the home country) not pull factors, such as Australia’s policies on refugees (see http://www.smh.com.au/national/oceans-apart-over-brutal-reality-20100402-rjy2.html).


I fear that the Australian Government’s position, along with the Opposition and the trashy newspapers, radio stations and tv stations is aggravating a sense of concern and unease that Australians are feeling. This sense of unease is being used for political purposes and real leadership should be shown by the Federal Government rather than pandering to the racist posturing by the federal opposition. Both parties need to come together and take a humanitarian stance: we should not be playing with people’s lives.


This is made clear in a recent campaign undertaken by Amnesty International titled Don’t use asylum seekers as political footballs. There is a petition there that over 110,000 people had signed (including me). If you are passionate about this issue or simply want people’s rights and dignity to be respected, I encourage you to sign it.


In addition, there is a very cool group that has been set up celebrating Australia’s diversity: The anti-bogan website which states that ‘True Blue is not Skin Deep’. I like these guys – and they have an awesome facebook page! Join up and support their work through their petitions and also spreading the word.


If you want to see the human story about refugees, here is a story featuring a friend of mine. He is interviewed by the voice of America about Afghan refugee and recent Australian government policy to suspend cases of asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. You can follow watch it here.


I think this remains a key issue for Australia and we need to show everyone that tolerance, peace and humanity over rules hate and ignorance: don’t hate my friends, marinate! This week in Queensland the Hammered music festival was held and it is co-sponsored by the Southern Cross Hammer Skinheads. This is an international race-hate group banned in Germany for spreading Nazi messages! A group of activists stood up to them by holding their own peace festival.


By standing up and refusing to accept racism, we can help blunt those who use it for their own ends. We can also change the political culture of this country!

Cheers, james

Socio-logic this week - 14 April 2010

Hey everyone


This week we had a pretty big week on socio-logic with so many things happening…


The f-word conference


This conference was held in Sydney over the weekend of 10-11 April 2010 to discuss contemporary feminist issues - something we should all be interested in.


Over the years I have found that many of my students feel that feminism has become an dirty word: something that they cannot relate to or is relevant to them.


This is deeply problematic as many of the issues that have faced women remain in our society. Sure, we have a female deputy prime minister as well as a female CEO at Westpac Banking Corporation but there are some fundamental inequalities that remain that we must confront as well as new issues that have emerged.


For example, women are still the primary carers for children and elderly parents and do more housework. They tend to do this while balancing careers or simply casual/part-time work. We still have a small percentage of women in executive/senior positions and women earn about 60 percent of what men do in the same positions: these issues have been raised repeatedly by some impressive and successful women including Ann Summer, Eva Cox and Jane Caro.


There are also some new issues that need to be confronted. The rise of cosmetic surgery and the pressure on women to remain looking young is incredible.


Again, this does not dismiss the amazing achievements by many women or the changes in our society, but does return us to why feminism is so important: structural inequalities and discrimination remains in our society – and women often suffer from these.


It is for this reason that feminism is as relevant today as it has ever been.


Unfortunately the f.word conference blog has not been updated but please keep an eye out on some of the amazing things that are happening with this group and I am sure there are more to come: though this article appeard today in the SMH by Nina Funnell.



2. The decline of western civilisation?


The Sydney Morning Herald’s Phillip Coorey reported on a get together over the weekend of conservative thinkers including former Prime Minister John Howard and Arch Bishop Cardinal George Pell.


This is part of a broader trend of conservative thinkers who have been raising concerns about the ‘direction’ in which our society is heading.


I too hold some concerns – mostly to do with the fact that we seem to worship economic growth and progress ahead of everything. Authors such as Ronald Wright and Jarred Diamond have raised such issues: both authors I recommend you read.

This was not the focus of this group. Rather their concerns revolved around issues such as:

• - The collapse of Judeo-Christian values;
  - The rise of secularism;
  - The emergence of a strong green movement;
  - Loss of the family unit; and
  - The influence of Islam in our society.
  
  

These types of concerns are nothing new and have emerged throughout Europe and the USA. The issue of the direction of society is important but I found their concerns miss the mark. For example, why would a religious ethic be more important that a secular ethic? We should not dismiss one, nor the other.

Further, we are not been over run by other religions but are a multicultural society: and many young Muslims are adopting secular values as much as Christians are.

The family unit is important – but there is no reason that non-traditional family units including same sex couples are not just as important.

Rather than being concerned about these issues, these incredibly influential and bright men (and some women) should focus on tackling some fundamental structural issues in our society: poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, displacement of people, racism and so on.

If we could sort these issues out then we would live in a better world and no matter your religion, you cannot disagree with that.

Refugees

Over the last few months the Rudd Government has been under increasing pressure by the Abbott Opposition to respond to the number of refugee boast arriving in Australia. This resulted in a freeze in processing applications from those seeking refugee status from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

Australian migration has a long and problematic history based around the fear of invasion. I do not have the time to write about this now but it I worth check out Ben Eltham’s piece on this from New Matilda.

We are part of a global humanity and to take this position on the most vulnerable shames us as Australians. There are better ways to do things and we should expect more from the Rudd Government.

Screw light bulbs: real climate change solutions

Can we have a clean, green future? Yes we can! This is the message from a new nook by Dr Donna Green and Liz Minchin. Their book is being launched at Gleebooks this Thursday evening – come along if you can – as well as buy the book to see some of the solutions they offer.

That is all from me… remember to email me at askjames@fbiradio.com if you have any questions or leave a comment below.

Cheers, james

Climate change denial: who are the big hitters

As I have seen the Australian government grow indifferent about the issue of climate change, I have started to reflect on which people have been driving this trend...

The election of Tony Abbott as the leader of the Opposition coupled with the massive failure of the Copenhagen negotiations means that action on climate change lost momentum. This has been also driven by some influential figures who have helped confuse the issues...

In the NewMatilda article I recently published, I list five influential climate change deniers in Australia... it is worth a read... as well as some of the interesting comments that follow

Cheers, james