“How will I explain this on the steps of the Mosque at Lakemba?”

Tuesday, 11 December 2012 22:18

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Back in the late ‘70s Bob Carr used to run ideological training schools for social democrats when he was an industrial officer at the NSW Trades and Labour Council. I should know. I was his first recruit from Victoria (his third was Peter Costello). Oops. Later, when Carr was a journalist with the defunct Bulletin magazine and Victorian Labor was controlled by the Hartley Socialist Left Group, Bob would joke that he felt like hooking my telephone calls to the PA system, so I could broadcast from “Soviet occupied Victoria.”

Conservatives showing their true colours

Thursday, 13 September 2012 05:59

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Euripides said: 'Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.' Surveying the conservative movement in Australia these last weeks, one recognises the truth of that ancient wisdom. We saw the astonished, angry face of Mr Jac Nasser on TV last night reacting to the surprise decision of the Queensland Premier to impose a mining tax that will be larger than the federal government's, while at the same time arrogantly grabbing the Federal Governments mining tax compensation.

Let Freedom Reign

Tuesday, 26 June 2012 00:00

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Since last year, 42 Tibetans have set themselves alight to highlight the oppression of their people. Dr Lopsang Sangay, the Kalon Tripa Prime Minister-in-exile of Tibet, said today in addressing the National Press Club that this form of protest does not involve harm to others. Self-sacrifice is characteristic of Buddhism, but the Central Tibetan Administration has counselled Tibetans not to take this extreme form of protest action despite their oppression.

For 60 years since the occupation of Tibet by China, Tibetans have faced oppression and denial of their cultural rights. In recent years, since the era of Jiang Zemin when there was a brief interlude, Chinese control has tightened. This is the most significant escalation of the conflict since the riots in Lhasa in March 2008.

1972 Olympic minute of silence

Monday, 25 June 2012 00:00

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On the night of 4 September 1972, Israeli athletes enjoyed a night out watching a performance of Fiddler on the Roof. That night the head of the delegation, Shmuel Lalkin, denied his 13-year-old son's request to stay at the athletes' apartment. His refusal saved his life. At 4.30 on the morning of 5 September, eight terrorists from Black September scaled the two-metre fence with the assistance of unsuspecting athletes and with duffel bags loaded with AKM rifles, Tokarev pistols and grenades.

What followed would be the blackest day in Olympic history, sporting event that was meant to embrace diversity and had been shaped over the years by kinship, kindness and solidarity was ripped apart with the brutal cold-blooded murder of—I want to remember them by name—Moshe Weinberg, wrestling coach; Yossef Romano, weightlifter; Ze'ev Freedman, weightlifter; David Berger, weight lifter; Yakov Springer, weightlifting judge; Eliezer Halfin, wrestler; Yossef Gutfreund, wrestling referee; Kehat Shorr, shooting coach; Mark Slavin, wrestler; Andre Spitzer, fencing coach; and Amitzur Shapira, track coach.