On Dit Magazine: Volume 78, Issue 3

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n dit magazine !

STUDENT LIFE, OPIN LAIDE ION, P ADE OLI

V:

78

N:

TICS , AND

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CULTURE.

WRITE SHORT STORIES?

SUBMIT. 500-3000 WORDS FICTION OR CREATIVE NON-FICTION.

Hear S ay!

LITERARY ANNUAL

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Student Feature The Silent Agony of the International Student

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International Experiences Kenyaustralia, Serving for Singapore

12-14

Campus Feature Student Governance Fail

15-19

Photo Essay Hugh Langlands-Bell's "In the city"

20-23

Letter from Venezuela Does socialism suck?

24-26

Primer On Chinese Diplomacy

27-28

Culture Festival wrap, World music etc.

29-39

Campus Prosh, plaza, politics etc.

40-44

Columnists Strangest Place in the World

45-48

Illustrations by ChloĂŞ Langford

want to contribute?

Email: ondit@adelaide.edu.au Phone: 08 8303 5404 Web: ondit.com.au

In which an On Dit editor implores you to go talk to that Indonesian girl over there.

In late 2008, the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) audited the University of Adelaide.

The report found that “one of the most urgent matters for the University to address is the social and cultural integration of international and domestic students.”

It’s easy to see why AUQA thought this was important. While I’m sure this isn’t a problem unique to Adelaide, in my time at university I’ve seen precious little mixing between local and international students. Sure there are exceptions, but for the vast majority of people, approaching those Asians in your finance tute isn’t something you’d consider doing. Many of us don’t bother mixing far beyond our own friendship group anyway, and if there is an added language and cultural barrier, definitely wouldn’t make the effort. For international students, I’m sure the feeling is mutual.

It’s been more than a year since that AUQA report, and little has changed. Indian students are avoiding Australia due to fears of being targeted in violent acts. Despite this, international student numbers continue to grow. And in the absence of

a cultural shift in our universities, the fragmentation of the student body is only getting worse.

In this issue, we’ve tried to better understand this situation. Our first feature, by editor Connor O’Brien, tries to look at the problem broadly. Maureen Robinson, later in the issue, looks in detail at one possible solution to international student integration, and why it has failed. It’s not all doom and gloom though – we’ve also tried to showcase the writings and experiences of international students in our midst. Some of them have amazing stories to tell, and On Dit is their magazine too.

We hope you enjoy and are entertained by our third issue. And if as well as that, this magazine encourages you to smile at that nervous-looking girl in the library, or strike up a conversation with that Arabic student in your lecture (or approach that whiter-than-white jock 'local' you share a tutorial with), we’ll be very happy.

Forever yours, Myriam (and Connor & Mateo)

issue 2 APOLOGIES

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On page 41, it was erroneously implied that 2010 Sports Association membership was down on previous years.

Editors: Connor O'Brien, Myriam Robin, Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo Writers: Connor O’Brien, Lisa Catt, Joel Dignam, Maureen Robinson, Emmanuel Njuguna, ‘Bobby’ Hai Yang, Jesse Jon Doyle, Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo, Walter Marsh, Lavinia Emmett-Grey, Myriam Robin, John Dexter, Juan Legaspi, Kikonde Mwatela, Emma Marie Jones, Alexander Gordon-Smith Copy-editors: Thom Diment, Christopher Arblaster, Georgina Falster, Holly Ritson, Timothy McCarthy Photographers: Hugh Langlands-Bell,Will Ockenden, Jonathan Vdk, John Goodridge, Robert Fletcher Illustrators: Chris Harding, Chloê Langford, Louise Vodic, Connor O’Brien, Lillian Katsapis, Daniel Brookes Printed by Graphic Print group

cover Photograph courtesy Jeff Luker (www.jeffluker.com)

On Dit is an Adelaide University Union publication.

The opinions expressed within are not necessarily those of the editors, the University of Adelaide, or the Adelaide University Union.

CORRESPONDENCE!

In our editorial last issue (78.2), we looked at whether student publications should receive arts funding in order to reward contributors and deliver higher-quality content. A number of students, observers, and previous On Dit editors offered responses.

Clare Buckley (editor, 2009) This is a fabulous idea [paying contributors]. So simple and effective.

I love volunteering and enjoy being part of this community purely for my pleasure. But what about my friends who are interested in building their career portfolio from On Dit? Paid work is highly valued by potential employers and without it it's extremely hard to get work. In this society, payment is a way of showing that you value someone's work.

I've just read Ruth Park's autobiography and I enjoyed the perspective of one of Australia's greatest writers. She complained that people couldn't see what her problem is with stealing her work & denying her royalty payments. Their argument was that she should feel privileged to entertain people and feel the creative 'urge' to write such excellent pieces. Her point - your pleasure and enjoyment doesn't feed her children. She wanted to be a productive member of society - but was expected to be a lady of leisure. How does that support capitalism? People forget that being creative is HARD SLOG. And anyone who finds it easy, isn't very good (I'm looking at you Enid Blyton).

Stan Mahoney (editor, 2003-2004) My one concern is that paid writing could lead to bickering over who gets printed. I have fond memories of student media because it was motivated by fun. It was juvenile, amateurish, barely readable... but there was very little meanness, at least amongst the contributors and staff. I guess the latter need for professionalism / private funding has changed all that, huh.

Steph Walker (editor, 2009) I agree with Stan.

I think it changes the motivations behind getting published and your role as editors. The best thing about On Dit, for me,

was that it wasn't like Voiceworks. We published people that hadn't written anything before and while there's always a better piece to be found On Dit serves to give any student a voice. I'm not saying that paying people stifles that, but it changes something rather pivotal in its 78 year history, so move slowly. Voiceworks is awesome, but there's already one of them.

Jonathan Andrew Brown (Student Radio director, 2008-2009) I think this is an important discussion [government funding of media] that needs to be really investigated and discussed by this country on a much broader scale. As a volunteer in community radio and passionate advocate for a broad and diverse media I feel that the argument should be less about paying these grassroots media makers for their works, but resourcing and structuring them better - Enabling them to produce quality works as volunteers.

There are lots of parallels between these arguments and community media and even to a degree the ABC and SBS. Australia benefits from having a broad and diverse media that's why governments currently fund public or community media. Empowering people to speak for themselves and not through a commercial lens is important, because we've been consistently shown that commercial ideologies informing media creation and consumption have serious failings. The market cannot properly serve Australians in having access to quality and diverse media. Governments must support quality and diverse media because having an informed public is an essential part of democracy. Student media is a powerful part of that - enabling developing minds access to having their voice heard (and read!) and giving them the opportunity and the skills to participate in democracy on a higher level.

Sure, anyone can start a blog online and share their thoughts on pretty much anything, but are there appropriate structures and resourcing in place to allow these people to participate effectively? Government must play a part in fulfilling this need for structure and resourcing across community media and student media.

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Illustrations by Louise Vodic

The

international

situation investigative piece by

Connor O'Brien

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his is the situation: over the past ten years, the number of international students studying in Australia has more than doubled. In the last financial year alone, more than three hundred thousand student visas were granted, pushing the percentage of foreign students to somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter of the Australian university student population.

That is what we know.

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What is far less clear is why these students are choosing to study in Australia, what happens to them once they get here, and exactly what kinds of emotional baggage they’re lugging back on home once their study visas expire.

The ugly truth is that, for all extents and purposes, the Australian higher education system is segregated. Because Australian domestic students rarely socialise off-campus with nonCaucasian ‘internationals’, foreign students of African, Asian, Indian, and Middle Eastern backgrounds are led to form racial cliques that domestic students perceive as antisocial and unbreakable. The exclusion is mutual – both parties are to blame.

For some time, this distinct lack of dialogue between domestic and international students was borne as tolerable: everybody – domestic and international students, universities, the Federal government – was getting what they wanted, for the most part. It has become increasingly obvious, however, that a lack of dialogue is no longer acceptable. When Indian student Nitin Garg was stabbed to death in a park in West Footscray in early January, police were unable to explain what, exactly, motivated the killer. A recent attack on another Indian man, Jaspreet Singh, was similarly described by police as “a bit strange”. When viewed in the aggregate, however, these attacks are neither ‘strange’, nor are they inexplicable – they are the result of a longstanding failure of communication between Australian locals and the international students who study here.

Making the Effort I live a stone’s throw from Chinatown, in a little cottage around the corner from a fishmonger’s warehouse and a little Asian grocery. If I spend the day bumbling around the neighbourhood, it’s easy to forget I live in Australia at all. If I’m feeling adventurous, I’ll try my luck at the grocery, will pick something unknown off the shelves and hope to Hell it tastes good. There’s something delightfully cosmopolitan about the fact that a city

as small as Adelaide can sustain a vibrant multicultural community.

The city’s international student population hit 28,000 in 2008, and a key component of the State Strategic Plan is to double numbers by 2014, yet not everybody is comfortable with the large number of young foreign faces around Adelaide. At a recent development consultation at the University of Adelaide, a middle-aged woman named Barb took the floor and told planners, who are in the process of developing a new student hub on the North Terrace campus, that, “International students always come first and I don’t like that. We need to put local students first for once. I’m not racist – I have friends who are Asian – but internationals are killing the life of this university.” The planners placidly promised to take Barb’s points into consideration.

Shaoming Zhu, an electrical engineering PhD student who hails from Shanghai and has been living in Australia since 2004, sits on the Board of Directors of the Adelaide University Union. When I relay Barb’s comments to him, he wants me to recognise that not all international students are alike: there’s a clear difference between those ‘cut and run’ international students who “just want to study and go back home”, and those, like himself, who are interesting in staying in Australia for the long haul. Governments and universities, he argues, “really need to differentiate between the two groups and try to help those who actually want to stay here.”

Zhu has a point. There’s a world of difference between those international students who desperately want to integrate, but can’t, and those - who, admittedly, might only be stationed in Australia for a year or three - who simply don’t wish to make the effort.

For those foreign students who just want a degree, there’s a question of why Australian universities should be making concessions. For example, I’ve spoken to a Humanities tutor (who wishes to remain unnamed) at the University of Adelaide who explains to me, exasperated:

Right: Photograph of Indian students' protests in Melbourne, 2009 by Will Ockenden (flickr.com/scissorhands33)

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“A lot – not all, but a lot – of these students should be spending a year learning English intensively before beginning their studies, because they’re arriving without understanding the language. But, as tutors, we’re told – not explicitly, but implicitly – that we need to ‘go easy’ on international students because they’re the ones who are keeping us employed. It’s very, very difficult to fail underperforming international students, because if we do, we open ourselves and the university up to charges of racism or ‘unfairness’.”

Because the Australian tertiary system is supported financially by the straight-up payments provided by internationals, the argument that Australian higher education is ‘tiered’ in favour of internationals is difficult to counter.

Strangely, Australian universities, while assisting ‘cut and run’ international students by lowering academic standards, are doing little to help serious and committed international students where it really matters. A recent study in

the Journal of Studies in International Education, entitled ‘Loneliness and International Students: An Australian Study’, suggests that two thirds of international students in Australia experience feelings of chronic loneliness and isolation. Many of these students decide to study in Australia under the presumption that Australian universities provide continual social support, and numerous opportunities to develop personally and professionally fulfilling relationships with local students. The reality, of course, often turns out looking a little different – international students are provided with assistance during an initial orientation period, and are then left to fend for themselves.

Even though most universities do provide services tailored to international students, Eric Fan Yang – who serves on the Board alongside Zhu, and who travelled to Australia from China to study, in order to be closer to his mother – tells me that Chinese students will not go out of their way to access this help out of a culturallyingrained sense of ‘personal dignity’:

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“It’s part of Australian culture to think that ‘If you don’t stand up for yourself, then you must be happy’. Chinese students will not tell the university if they are having problems because they don’t know how to make complaints.” Australian universities, according to Shaoming Zhu, must “actively approach Chinese students instead of waiting for Chinese students to approach them.”

This won’t happen. Australian universities lack the funding required to provide all-encompassing social support to students, international or domestic. By the tertiary level, students are expected to be able look after themselves. Universities can’t afford to baby students.

Still, perhaps, considering the billions of dollars international students pump into to the tertiary education sector annually, universities could try a little harder to go out of their way for internationals. When, in 2005, police discovered the dead body of international student Hong Jie

Zhang in her Canberra flat, and it was revealed that her body had been lying there, decomposing, for seven months, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra, Professor Roger Dean, denied that it was the University’s responsibility to notice Zhang’s disappearance. ACT Deputy Chief Police Officer Shane Connolly, who similarly threw up his hands in a renunciation of responsibility, argued that, “The movements in and out of these [higher educations] institutions is regular, so maybe she was just simply not missed or people may have thought she'd gone home.”

What is most disturbing is that there is nothing to suggest that Zhang was in any way unusual – she was not a loner, nor were her dealings in any way suspect or dubious. Her disappearance was not noticed for seven months because her social network – comprised largely of other international students, like herself – was patchy and inadequate.

In the wake of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne, international students need to know

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that somebody is looking out for them. A system by which, at least once per semester, international students are asked to attend a compulsory counselling session could go some way to resolve matters. Because nobody else appears to give a damn, the burden falls on universities to ensure culturally-adrift internationals are faring well psychologically. The buck has to stop somewhere.

"At least they're getting employed!"

The girl makes tentative steps toward the counter, the boy a few paces behind, nudging her gently onward. The girl attempts to smile, straining her cheekbones. The boy informs me that the girl would like to hand in her application; the girl nods demurely and passes me her CV. Her résumé, which I thumb through as the two look on, suggests that she’s highly skilled and well suited to the position. She’s worked in cafés, restaurants, childcare centres, and her references are glowing. Based on qualifications alone, she’s the kind of potential employee most bosses in the service industry would poke both eyes out for.

And yet, she won’t speak. I’ll ask her a question, she’ll defer to her boyfriend. Sometimes after I ask something, she’ll tap him on the shoulder and whisper something in his ear. Finally, when the girl does speak, it’s in a whisper: “Please help me.” And, gripping her boyfriend’s arm, she leaves the store. On the cover page of the girl’s résumé, I scrawl the same sentence I’ve scrawled dozens of times over: ‘Bright and bubbly, but English second language.’

When international students make the decision to study in Australia, our country’s high level of socioeconomic wellbeing is considered a major ‘pull factor’. When these students arrive, however, many find it difficult to find employment. As employers are unwilling to hire those who cannot speak English fluently (“And why should they?

They’re not charities!” argues Eric Fan Yang), international students are forced into the hands of unscrupulous business owners, who recognise the good business sense of exploiting those too desperate to turn them down, and too naïve to

know any better.

I speak to Pranee Howland, chief employment consultant at the Adelaide University Employment Service. “In Australia, and particularly in Adelaide, it’s a mates-help-mates culture,” she tells me, despondent. “You need a job? You head down to the pub and a friend-of-a-friend will help you out. International students are locked out of that.”

Undergraduate Chinese students typically receive modest allowances from their parents, some of whom dip deep into their life savings in order to give their children the opportunity to study abroad. These parents tend to budget only for the basics – bare bones accommodation, fruit and vegetables, and perhaps enough for a nice new button-down shirt once a season.

Students are thus led to seek out jobs in Chinatown, or in workplaces where the majority of employees are Chinese, to supplement the basic parental stipend. Howland acknowledges the irony in the fact that, while working can “allow international students to get into the thick of the culture, and out of their insulated groups”, most Chinese students seem to find themselves employed in workplaces where their co-workers are other Chinese students.

Speaking of some of his friends, Eric Fan Yang tells me, “They say they don’t mind getting exploited because, well, at least they’re getting employed.” The difference between Chinese and Indian students, according to Yang, is that Chinese students are generally less desperate for work, and more mindful of the conditions imposed by the student visa (international students are allowed to work 20 hours a week during semester, and full-time during holidays), while Indian students, generally lacking adequate monetary reserves, are forced to work more, and as such “are perceived taking a lot of the jobs ‘reserved’ for locals. That’s where the tension comes from.”

Several sources (who are employed by the government and, as such, cannot be named) have suggested to me that at least a sizeable minority of Indian students are consciously breaking

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their student visa conditions by receiving cashin-hand payments from employers. This may be why Indian students are less likely than Chinese students to voice concerns about exploitation in the workplace – in a strangely symbiotic relationship, employers are able to exploit Indian students precisely because Indian students are required to hide their earnings from the Australian government.

What I’ve found most confounding following the spate of attacks against Indian students over the past year is the fact that nobody seems quite able to explain exactly why Indians in particular are being targeted, and not, say, Chinese students. While Australian newspapers have devoted inches upon inches of column space to dry recounts of the incidents, media correspondents have shied away from analysing the issues in any substantial degree of depth. Soutik Biswas, online correspondent for BBC News, says the Indians he has spoken to generally “find the discourse in the Australian media on the spate of attacks superficial.” I ask a number of Australian domestic students why they believe Indian students are being targeted. Most suggest the students are victims of their situation: while most Chinese students live close to the cities, Indian students are forced into the suburban outskirts, where poverty is rife and rates of violent attacks are higher.

I pose the question to Dr. Vigya Sharma, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Institute for Social Research. Sharma arrived in Adelaide from Delhi (by way of Sweden) in 2005, and applied for permanent residency in early 2009. She similarly wants to stress to me that it’s probably not so much a case of Indian students being directly targeted, but rather a case of those students being the wrong place at the wrong time: “You have to appreciate that the situation for Indian students is quite different from that of Chinese students. Due to China's One Child Policy, most Chinese students come here for education with financial support from their parents, and therefore have much less chance of working odd hours. The

attacks [on Indian students] are largely opportunistic.”

Indian students in Australia do often have it harder than their Chinese counterparts. For one thing, I’ve been informed, over and over, that it is far easier for Indians to obtain visas to study in Australia than it is for the Chinese. In China, prospective students must demonstrate the financial ability to cover their living expenses abroad. Dr. Sharma, meanwhile, relates stories of Indians students taking out colossal loans from Indian banks to pay their academic fees to Australian tertiary institutions. These students expect to then obtain permanent residency upon graduation, and obtain high-paying professional jobs in Australia in order to pay back their monumental debts. These plans are obviously highly precarious, and Dr. Sharma is angry that the Australian government appears to be subtly pushing the concept of possible permanent residency as an incentive for Indian students to come study in Australia. [Update: several days after speaking to Dr. Sharma, the Australian government announced sweeping changes to the process by which overseas students can apply for permanent residency. Indian students enrolled in ‘low skilled’ courses, such as hairdressing and cookery courses, will now find it much more difficult to obtain permanent residence. 20,000 previously pending applications for permanent residency have been rejected.]

320,000 Points of Connection Will we ever reach a stage in which international students (particularly those of Indian and Chinese backgrounds) are fully accepted by domestics? More pertinently, will we ever reach a stage in which international students feel comfortable breaking out of their racial cliques, in order to more fully experience the wider Australian culture?

Late last year, Hieu Van Le, Chairman of the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission (SAMEAC), established the International Students Social Integration Refer-

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ence Group. Representatives from South Australian social, service, and sporting clubs, government and educational organisations, and NGOs, proposed more than seventy ‘practical actions’ which could potentially foster the development of increased social ties between internationals and locals.

As Mr. Le explains to me, the major gripe community organisations have with international students is that they’re virtually uncontactable.

“International students are very difficult to get in touch with. For example, the Adelaide United Football Club have told me that they want to invite international students to games, but who exactly are they supposed to invite?”

One idea which may be trialled involves the establishment of a ‘Narrowcasting Network’, which would provide community groups with the ability to target messages directly to international students via mobile, email, or web services. An ‘Events Pass’ program would, in conjunction with the Narrowcasting Network, allow international students to receive complimentary tickets to upcoming cultural and sporting events. (Virtually all of the remaining major initiatives – volunteer programs, a ‘homestay’ scheme – seem to rest on the establishment of a successful Narrowcasting Network).

“I’m a very strong believer in the spirit of community,” says Mr. Le. “And as a community, we have some obligation to help international students integrate. It’s very tempting to say, ‘That’s the government’s job [to assist with integration]’, but the government can’t do everything.” (It is worth noting that the state government will be essentially overseeing and bankrolling the Reference Group proposals, but will, for the most part, be leaving the execution of individual proposals to the community groups themselves).

Even if no more than a dozen of the seventy proposed actions can be properly implemented, Adelaide will become, indisputably, the nation’s premier ‘international city’. (As an aside, Mr. Le worries that “other state governments might not be doing as much as they could.”)

As a wholly migrant population (Aboriginal Australians excepted), South Australians are oddly ambivalent about new arrivals. We have a long history of fearing, rejecting, and subsequently accepting, new racial groups: first the Germans in the late nineteenth century, then the Greeks, Italians, and Eastern Europeans midcentury, Chinese from the mid-seventies, Iraqis and Afghanis from the late nineties, and more recently Sudanese, Indians, and Pakistanis. We are still nervous about international students, presumably because we still have no clear conception of where they ‘fit’ within our culture.

This will change. It has to. The future of our culture depends on understanding and embracing our role as a part of the Asia-Pacific region, as a part of the wider world.

Leaving Hieu Van Le’s office, I check my notepad. I’ve circled something, scrawled a bunch of wobbly asterisks to mark it off as important. It is this: “There are 320,000 international students in Australia right now. Think of that as 320,000 possible points of connection between us and the world. This is about an investment in human connection... imagine a world in which we have friends everywhere.”

Mr. Le is right to be optimistic. But until we can foster a workable dialogue between domestic and international students (and, goodness knows, we might be this close), we’re missing some huge opportunities. Somewhere in the vicinity of 320,000 of them.

about the writer

Connor O'Brien is currently making a whole lot of shit up for his Honours year in Creative Writing. He edits On Dit, writes weekly in the Sunday Mail, and blogs at www.connortomas.com. He's spent way too long in the office laying out this issue and longs, more than anything, for some fresh air and a comfy pillow on which to rest his head.

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International Experiences 12

Emmanuel Njuguna on having two homes

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olite conversation towards the end of second semester demands that we ask questions like, “So, what are you going to do over the summer?” For me, the answer has always been the same. I’m an international student from Kenya. Fortunately, every year I’ve

been able to take a holiday there and catch up with family and friends for a couple of months before coming back and dealing with the rigours of getting a University degree. On one occasion, a few weeks before I was due to leave for my first Christmas break back home, I remember a remark that someone made on hearing of my trip.

He said, “Kenya, why would you want to go back there?”

At the time, the remark didn’t cause me any other reaction than anger at what I perceived then as being a very insensitive thing to say.

With 3 years of reflection, the statement is still insensitive but quite justifiable. Why would I want to go back to Kenya at all?

With every year that I spend here in Australia, I become more immersed in the culture of the place and become more accustomed to the lifestyle here. As this process continues, I find myself noticing with increasing clarity, the differences between the 2 countries. As this process continues I find myself coming to the realisation that in many ways, the things I value about Kenya are not here in Australia and vice versa.

Let me explain. I preface this by conceding that Australia has amazing natural beauty that I have (so far) failed to fully appreciate. With this being said, Kenya somehow seems to mix the urban and the rural in a way that is simply unique. Nairobi is the only capital city I’m aware

Illustration by Chloê Langford

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of that has a full sized National Game park within 20 minutes of the CBD. Indeed one of the first things a visitor is likely to see on their way into town from the airport is giraffes grazing in the distance. Kenya’s appeal is not only limited to its natural beauty. There is a friendliness and openness of the people that every person that visits the country readily identifies as being unique to Africa in general. This is difficult to describe in the format of a written article but every time I go back and catch up with friends from high school, their friends, many of whom I have never met will treat me as if they’ve known me for years. In Adelaide, sadly enough, that is rare.

On the other side of the coin there are things about the land of my birth that cause me to cringe in embarrassment or even shame when I compare them with life here in Australia. The foremost of these for me is the fact that in comparison to the system here, Kenya has a barely functioning government. I find it interesting to listen to politically minded people here on campus debate, saying things like “Party X is destroying our country with their extreme [insert political ideology here] policies and our policies would be so much better.” Perhaps it would be a useful by way of mitigating their outrage to consider that Kenya over the last 30 years has been at various times a one-party state and has suffered a 24 year oneman dictatorship. Most recently, in 2007 we had a disputed election that caused much destruction and some loss of life. The other issue, related to the first, is how things like public transport and health care actually work here.

It is the balance between these considerations that makes my time here in Australia all the more interesting. They also make questions about my future all the more interesting to answer. Polite conversations often lead to the question, “So what will you do after your degree? Will you stay here or go back home?” At that point I sometimes think back to the remark I started with and answer as confidently as I can, saying “I don’t know.”

(Bobby) Hai Yang on Serving for Singapore

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resident Kennedy asked, “My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”. I sat through high school with the teacher repeating this statement over and over again, later moving into a cramped hall for weekly assembly only to hear the school principal give a mundane speech about how us Singaporeans can contribute to our little red dot. Nor was that the last of it, we had to write an essay on this sentence. It was horrible. It’s like they were training us to be bloodhounds. They made us sniff a scent and expected us to unquestioningly run off toward their target. No questions, no thinking.

Only recently did I truly come to understand what President Kennedy was talking about. I enlisted in the army at the end of 2007, for my mandatory service period of two years. It was the government’s idea, not mine. I understood the need for national service (Singapore has no

Illustrations by Lillian Katsapis

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professional army, instead we have a citizen’s army), but the heart was not willing. I forced myself, though, to understand that it would do me a whole lot of good. I forced myself to believe all the things they said about it, about how it’ll change you from a boy to a man. The toughest part about enlistment was that I would be spending almost all my time away from home, in an offshore army facility getting barked and cussed at while crawling around in mud and feeding mosquitoes.

It gradually became easier for me to accept that I was going to be in the army for a while. But I was in for a real nasty surprise. After a brief period of basic training, I was sent to an elite infantry unit. Hell, in other words. The whole process of accepting my new situation came full circle.

When I enlisted, I was overweight. Because I was able to get into shape, the government felt that I would be fit enough for my new posting. But life was not about to get easier; I was expected to fight for that khaki beret. So fight is what I did.

I rappelled out of a helicopter 15 floors up, fired a missile costing a quarter of a million dollars, learnt how to drive a combat dune buggy, and was sent to three different countries for training; the vast volcanic plateaus of New Zealand, the mountains of Taiwan and the harsh contrast of the Australian bush. I had the time of my life.

The few months since my service ended have been weird. In the army, everything is set out for you. You wear specific uniforms at certain times of the day. Even the way you wear your socks comes under close scrutiny. Finding food also becomes a new challenge. Deciding what to cook, how to cook, and when to cook now means an afternoon of aimless walking in the supermarket.

For me, military service has its good points and bad. It toughens you up. It instills discipline in most of us. It made me see the need for a defense force, and its importance to the sover-

eignty and security of a nation like Singapore.

But military service took away two years of my life. It felt like I was being put behind bars for something I did not do. My freedom taken away; I was caged like an animal. Initially, I could feel the life draining out of me. And military service brings out the worst in people.

Serving in the military also taught me several valuable lessons. Don’t expect to get what you give. While my unit was on a particularly strenuous exercise, an acquaintance of mine collapsed from heat exhaustion. I helped keep him conscious, sacrificing most of my little remaining water in the process. Not only did I not receive even a hint of an acknowledgement from this acquaintance, he then proceeded to vilify me for not doing things the way he likes it. Though I felt the need to make several rearrangements to his face, I didn’t. Discipline.

If asked whether I felt that compulsory military service was important, my reply would be that, in a country like Singapore, it goes without question. If Singapore did not have compulsory military service, then virtually any nation would be able to just walk in and annex the island. More importantly though, it has helped to open up our boyish minds and reshape them into something more mature.

I cannot say for sure if every nation in the world should adopt compulsory military service. Some would find it superfluous or immoral, while others, like South Korea, Switzerland, and Israel would benefit. Would Australia benefit? I am myself in the process of discovering the ways of this vast and dramatically beautiful continent; all I can say is that a willing soldier is more effective than ten hired guns. Serving in the military certainly has been a beneficial experience, and is definitely one of the reasons I chose to be an international student. It worked for me.

about the writers

(Bobby) Hai Yang is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts

Emmanuel Njuguna is a fourth year Law/

degree. He once blew an entire shipping container to

Commerce student from Kenya. He is currently the AUU

bits while serving in the army and loved it.

Vice President and co-hosts 'Left, Right and Centre' on Radio Adelaide (101.5FM, 11.30pm Tuesdays)

OnDitmagazine ― Features

An International Focus

Lost in translation The failure of international student governance at the University of Adelaide.

Maureen Robinson on The Overseas Students Association

T

ime is running out for the University of Adelaide’s Overseas Students Association (OSA), whose chequered history, allegations of mismanagement, and charged tensions with the Adelaide University Union (AUU) may finally signal its end as an advocacy and social group for the University’s 6,000 international students. It is expected that the March 24th meeting of the AUU Board will have seen the OSA disaffiliated from the Adelaide University Union.

According to AUU reports, the OSA has been mired with problems and poor leadership for the last three years. During that time, the OSA - which is an AUU affiliate and received annual funding of approximately $20,000 from the union until its funds were recently embargoed (kept from them unless used for legitimate purposes) - has come under fire for falsifying election results, misuse of funds, and failing to submit reports to the AUU, as well as exhibiting a general weariness for international student representation.

International students, who compose 25% of Australia’s total University enrolment (and a similar percentage of Ad-

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An International Focus

elaide’s), have been highlighted by federal and state governments as a source to fill the crucial funding gap in tertiary education. A $15.5 billion industry in Australia, international education brings thousands of students to these shores each year. Many arrive alone and face significant cultural and language barriers, as well as financial, academic, and social hardship. Overseas students’ unions serve as a lifeline to these students, offering them support, advocacy, friendship, representation, and the opportunity to interact meaningfully with domestic students. At the University of Adelaide, the OSA has historically played this role in cooperation with the AUU and the International Student Centre (ISC).

Now, concerns have been raised over the legitimacy of the OSA, whose performance in the last three years can be conservatively described as appalling.

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Interviews with campus representatives and an examination of past reports have indicated staggering incompetence and misuse of power by the past three presidents, dating back to 2007.

Documented efforts on the parts of AUU and ISC staffers to promote inclusion of internationals and encourage representation and advocacy for this faction have been met with hostility, or at best apathy, by the OSA. Emails and calls are left unanswered. The student lounge sits unused. There is confusion over the identity of the OSA president and how he got there. Frustrations and allegations falling on deaf ears. Caught in the crossfire are 6,000 international students in need of advocacy and support. How did it come to this?

A chequered history The OSA’s fall from favour began in 2007, when Sri Lankan international student Dilan Moragolle became president of the OSA. According to Lavinia Emmett-Grey, former AUU president and current undergraduate representative on University Council, she was unable to find evidence of an election or any sort of legitimate electoral procedure.

The 2007 elections also saw Moragolle elected to the AUU Board. In one tumultuous meeting in April 2008, he passionately spoke against the SRC having an International Students’ Officer.

He saw this as a direct threat to the legitimacy of the OSA, and instead of having this position elected by all students, he wanted a member of

OnDitmagazine ― Features

An International Focus

the OSA executive to serve as International Student Officer. Most of Board argued otherwise, claiming instead that as Moragolle had for that year budgeted nothing for advocacy, preferring the OSA to fulfill a social role, so it was reasonable for the SRC to advocate on behalf of international students. His suggestion that the position should be filled by the OSA executive had several Board members abstain from the vote, and eventually failed. From this point on, the antagonism between the AUU Board and the OSA only worsened.

In May 2008, the OSA was put on notice from the AUU for failing to submit reports and key performance indicators. In late 2008, the AUU expressed concerns over certain constitutional changes. The AUU was met with silence from Moragolle when asked to see valid legal documents. Moragolle was re-elected in late 2008 but resigned shortly thereafter on December 24th.

He then insisted he had not resigned, then began

exhibiting erratic behaviour. According to AUU records, Moragolle behaved in a “highly inappropriate and intimidatory fashion” at an orientation information session for international students, strong-arming his way into showing a presentation displaying “incorrect information, photos of drunk students, [and] shameless selfpromotion.” At this point the AUU had defunded the OSA, citing concerns over fraudulent electoral procedures and the lack of reports.

By this point, the OSA had clearly become a problem for the AUU. By scarcely hosting events (by all accounts, only two in 2009) and dodging affiliate responsibilities, the OSA came under close scrutiny from the university community, who became concerned that Adelaide’s international students were not being supported with the advocacy and representation they needed.

According to ISC staff, the OSA was virtually invisible at all 2009 events. Elections in April 2009 - seven months late - resulted in a new

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An International Focus

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president, Pouriya Aryan, being elected - although this election was not without its controversy, as another group of individuals threatened legal action after holding a concurrent AGM and electing a completely different OSA council. Tempers abated for a few months until Multicultural Week in September 2009, when OSA members exhibited attitudes and conduct described in AUU notes as “incredibly disappointing”. A breakdown of cooperation between the groups caused tensions to escalate. Despite outreach efforts to the problematic group by the AUU, the OSA not only left their table empty for the entire week, but also, according to the October 2009 AUU President’s Report, “harass[ed] and denigrate[d] members of the AUU staff rather than participating in a cooperative manner.

According to the ISC, there was no invitation extended to the OSA for the 2010 O’Week events, so low were the expectations of the OSA’s competency. The troubled group has again failed to provide proof of having held elections for the 2010 Executive, with Aaron Leung apparently claiming the Presidency. Details are sketchy, and until the OSA can prove that legitimate electoral procedures took place, the AUU has refused to grant funding to the group.

Lack of communication is cited as the key culprit for the breakdown of relations between the OSA executives and others on campus who are interested in improving the welfare of international students. While interviewing representatives from the AUU and the International Student Centre, this writer heard time and time again complaints about OSA presidents not responding to emails or phone calls, failing to submit regular reports - overall, evading direct questions relating to how the association is being run. Indeed, for this article, neither Aryan, Moragolle, nor Leung responded to requests for comment.

In the meantime, international students continue to receive support and representation from the ISC and AUU, who apparently have shrugged off the OSA and joined forces to provide the vital services needed to integrate international

students into the Adelaide community. It’s not as though there are no international students involved in student governance outside of the OSA. A quarter of the AUU Board is comprised of international students, and there is both an International and Ethno-Cultural officer on the Student Representative Council (SRC). Indeed, it seems that no one is missing the OSA, and with the AUU and the ISC picking up the slack, one might ask whether this OSA is worth salvaging.

The National Liaison Committee: An inappropriate bedfellow?

Another area of concern for the university community is the affiliation of the OSA with the National Liaison Committee (NLC), a group of dubious function whose undertakings in the last two years has raised eyebrows across Australia. The NLC, which claims to be the peak representative body for international students, underwent an administrative turnover in May 2008 which drastically changed the functions of the organisation. Less than a year later, in early 2009, the National Union of Students (NUS) officially disaffiliated the NLC, citing concerns over its wayward mandate and lack of internal democracy.

Since then, the group has sparked criticism and condemnation from numerous Australian universities. The Campus Review reports that all five Sydney universities had expressed concern about “difficult interactions” with Master Shang, a hard-line Chinese businessman who claims to be the NLC’s public officer. Shang has been accused of “hijacking” the former NLC, harassing university officials with aggressive tactics, threatening legal action against other student organisations, and, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, in 2009 had been thrown out of the office of the director-general of the NSW Department of Education Michael Coutts-Trotter and told not to return, after the meeting had turned sour.

In March 2009, the NLC made contact with the administration of the University of Adelaide, looking for support, but the NUS quickly fol-

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An International Focus

lowed with a warning to all Australian universities that it “did not recognise the NLC as the peak body for international students in Australia.”

“All of us are keeping our distance from the new NLC,” Dennis Murray, director of the International Education Association of Australia, said to the Australian in 2009. Why, then, does the OSA’s constitution mandate affiliation and liaison with the NLC? How does former OSA president Dilan Moragolle’s involvement with the NLC (he was the group’s South Australian convenor while serving as OSA president until April 2008) serve to benefit the international student community at Adelaide? And why won’t Aaron Leung, the alleged president, answer these questions?

Moving —but in what direction?

Staff members from the ISC have made their position clear - they want to support the OSA in any proposed incarnation, so long as international students have advocacy and services. “We would like international students to have really good representation,” said Patricia Anderson, ISC manager. “We’d like them on the [AUU] Board, on the SRC, and to have fair representation across faculty and university committees. We would like to work with and support whatever the students choose to use... There is a number of different structures that could deliver. It’s not just about the structure but about collaborative behaviour.”

“No bureaucracy is perfect,” chimed in Hedley Reberger, International Student Advisor. “But there does need to be clear and transparent accountability for representation, and for how appointments are made.” So where does the OSA go from here?

One option - which is not altogether different from the current state of affairs - is to scrap the organisation, render it defunct, and hope that the AUU and ISC will continue to collaborate in good faith. Another option is to better support international representatives on the SRC. Ashleigh Lustica, SRC president, agrees.

“From the perspective of a student and the SRC president, I want something that will work

and be the voice that international students need,” Lustica said. “I think with the current post-VSU financial climate and affiliate structure, it would be great if the SRC were the umbrella over everything… I’m only seeing that the OSA isn’t working... They haven’t received any funding. No one can find them. Do they actually exist?”

A third option may include a campus-wide information campaign to educate international students about the importance of democratic representation, in the hopes that a new team of responsible candidates will emerge from the woodwork and run for OSA council. Emmanuel Njuguna, former OSA electoral returning officer and AUU Vice-President, agrees it could be an effective measure for reforming the battered association.

“The best would be a functioning OSA,” Njuguna said, also noting the OSA has been run by “personalities” rather than as a functional organisation. “It’s just not being run well. I would prefer a system whereby it knew what it was doing, and had systems to get things done.” He also says that he believes the OSA has had a “fair go” from the AUU in recent years.

Eric Fan Yang, an AUU Board Director and international student, would like the see the OSA remain as an affiliate but with better support from the Union. “There should be better communication coming through, and the AUU should be providing technical and administrative support. Communication has really been an issue. It would be better if there were regular meetings and proper training.”

As the effects of Voluntary Student Unionism continue to force the restructuring of the AUU and its affiliates, constructive changes in international student representation can be incorporated alongside other reforms underway.

What remains to be seen is whether the international block will rise to the challenge or let it slip through their grasp, once again.

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In the City urban landscape photography by

Hugh Langlands-Bell

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For more than ten years I lived in the southwest corner of the inner city. A backdrop of sprawling steel tapestries, and sullen brick walls were the dominating aesthetic of my environment. This wash of starkness and uniformity is something I try to capture in my photographs. It's the simple intricacy of an urban backdrop that makes it so interesting to work with; everything that is bolted down is set there with a practical intention, even the trees. An environment so clearly planned and measured, the city is a bustling interactive framework, allowing us to function in the same space, and there is something beautiful about that. There is also something beautiful about the lived-in quality it develops after years of decay, street art, and impromptu urination; the practical base remains, but branded into its surface are the unplanned marks of it's human occupiers. In this particular set there is a focus on light, colour, and pattern, three elements that are uniquely presented by the engineered environment.

OnDitmagazine ― Features

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Postcard from a socialist utopia Jesse Doyle

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on Venezuela

A

s our decrepit camioneta edged its way from the Colombian Sierra toward the border, our conductor yelled in my face atop the radio: “Twenty pesos!” The frail lady sitting beside me explained that it was merely to bribe the border officials into not searching our bus.

I reluctantly asked why we should be concerned with whether they searched our bus or not. She half-heartedly lifted the pile of luggage stacked behind us. From the depths of the baggage a family of undocumented Colombians emerged. “That’s why” she explained. The heavily clad border officials seemed to accept our bribe with alarming composure. We were clear to go.

As the camioneta rolled around the corner, the family emerged from the luggage and everyone erupted in uniform applaud.

We’d made it into the world of Bolivarian Socialism.

My first destination in Venezuela was Maracaibo, the sprawling concrete jungle built on the back of the oil boom in the seventies. As you enter the city, colossal posters of Chavez

Image by Daniel Brookes

OnDitmagazine ― Features

adorn the highways plastered with the words Patria, Socialismo o Muerte, which loosely translates to Homeland, Socialism or Death? Considering the options, it became apparent why this Chavez character was all the hype.

As we arrived in Maracaibo I was knocked back by the sweltering heat. I’d fortunately been lucky enough to stumble upon a couch to surf with a gay, twenty-something engineer that worked for the state-run oil company Petroleros de Venezuela S.A (PDVSA). Orlando was a walking contradiction – he preached the ideals of the Chavez led revolution from the air-condi-

tioned comfort of his upper class family’s home.

He would talk about the wonders of Bolivarian Socialism with passion as we toured the city in his brand new sedan. Outside, there was clearly a different reality. The poverty was palpable.

Whole families lay begging on the street, asking when the empty promises were going to come their way. The electricity cut out for two to three hours each evening. I was at first irate about the shortage, but after the first night the whole situation became quite laughable. After all, I was clearly in no position to be complaining. Many others had it much worse. Retirees on life support, ice cream vendors, electrical engineers to name a few.

Nevertheless, Venezuelans appear to have become somewhat accustomed to such ordeals.

In 2002, they faced a two month oil crisis in which the management of PDVSA protested against the Chavez government by cutting off all petrol supply to the country. Without petrol the

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country effectively stopped. People couldn’t get to work, supplies couldn’t be delivered and thus the government issued emergency rations which included the standard food staples of rice, bread, cereal and amusingly enough beer. Without having to work and with a seemingly endless supply of ice-cold beer at their disposal, the people remained content. That is until big, bad Chavez had to come and ruin the party by sacking 17,000 employees and appointing a socialist driven management who even changed the company’s logo from navy blue to a revolutionary red to prove their allegiance.

For Venezuelans, the latest ordeal that left them without electricity, just like the last, was not such a big deal. The issue was that it prevented them from doing the two things they love most – watching baseball and sipping on frosty beer which was indeed a bother. So much so, that it appeared the populist support for Chavez was evaporating right before my very eyes.

That night, once the electricity had returned we hit a local reggae bar. As I mingled with Orlando’s amigos from university they talked of a counter-revolution that was stirring amongst those disenfranchised with the disillusioned leader. One even said he’d be the one to put an end to it, but he didn’t want to afford Chavez the chance of becoming a martyr. As I soaked in every word they said, the drinks kept flowing. With the fourfold devaluation of the Bolivar (local currency) I was effectively paying nine dollars per bottle of Tequila. This proved dangerous. After, countless hours of dancing to Marley classics in a tequila-induced haze, we stumbled back into Orlando’s house to find his parents glued to a Chavez address being broadcast on the state run television station. He was laying rest to the rumours of a coup d’etat that had been circulating since the electricity shortages. Fed up, with all this talk of politics I went to shower before going to sleep... I turned the tap on but nothing came out. Drunk, naked and disheartened I stumbled to bed. In the morning I was bound for a student city

nestled deep in the Andes by the name of Merída.

As our camioneta rolled into town it looked much like the set of a post-apocalyptic Hollywood film set. There were piles upon piles of rubbish, burnt out vehicles and bullet holes scattered across most building facades. A homeless man explained “it was the riots last night. Two people died. What you think you doing here gringo?” In Latin America the term gringo is applied to basically anyone that is or looks American.

Locals tell me it came about in the midst of the Mexican-American war when the Mexicanos who knew little English would shout “Green Go” telling the American troops to get out or their country. It somehow stuck and now Caucasian travellers from Paris to Perth are paying the price for American military exploits of the past. I nevertheless accepted the disparaging name bestowed upon me by the drifter and continued exploring.

I was travelling with a fellow couchsurfer that I’d met through Orlando. As we strolled the streets we saw rioters empty commuters off a bus, douse it in petrol and set it alight. We decided it’d be best to hide in hills for the day until the situation calmed. Funnily enough there were a score of bus drivers also hiding up amongst the hills in fear that their bus would pay the price for the government’s blunders. We waited until sunset to head back down to the city centre. The city was alive, locals on edge, foreigners desperately scrambling toward the border in fear of an all out coup d’etat. I decided to cut my trip short and head toward the border in fear of getting stuck in Venezuela. There was a bottle neck. People were being herded through in a cattle-like fashion by the military. The electricity suddenly cut, adding more chaos to the situation. As I was being forced across the border I stopped and asked a military official how he maintained his poise amongst all this pandemonium. The soldier looked across at me from the darkness and with a wry smile uttered “just another day in a socialist utopia, right gringo?”

OnDitmagazine ― Features

Primer: Your Introduction to the Modern World

Chinese Diplomacy

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International Analysis by

Michael Norris

Throwing its weight around Following the financial crisis of 2008, which left a dizzying number of Western economies hamstrung, China has practised a less cooperative brand of foreign policy which has garnered it few friends. China’s recent exploits, including scuttling key initiatives at the Copenhagen Climate Change summit and its non-committal stance on Iran’s nuclear programme, have been unhelpful and counter-productive. China’s presence in important international issues is welcome, yet the key challenge for the international system is to redirect China to a path of cooperation rather than antagonism and ambivalence.

‘Smile diplomacy’ Following the events of Tiananmen Square (1989), Deng Xiaoping, China’s great economic reformer,

laid out guidelines for China’s foreign policy.

Known as the six principles – ‘observe developments soberly, maintain our position, meet challenges calmly, hide our capabilities and bide our time, remain free of ambition, never claim leadership’ – the sum of the guidelines is for China to be conciliatory and maintain a low profile on the international stage. Since the 1980s, China has practised ‘smile diplomacy’, a phrase coined

by Renmin University international relations professor, Shi Yinhong. ‘Smile diplomacy’ was hugely successful, allowing China’s to secure the support of its Asian neighbours through aid, loans, and investment. China even managed to maintain cordial relations with the US, despite the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (1999) and a collision between an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet (2001) threatening to destabilise the relationship. China mostly

Illustrations by Lillian Katsapis

OnDitmagazine ― Features

stuck to Deng’s guidelines over three decades, allowing it to pursue economic development without serious foreign distractions.

Expect more, receive less

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Much has changed since the implementation of ‘smile diplomacy’ in the 1980s. China is still a developing country, but its economic clout has attracted worldwide attention. The implication of this, according to Bill Emmott (former editor of The Economist) is that ‘the low profile recommended by Deng is no longer feasible.’ As China’s economic and diplomatic interests (such as commercial and energy ties with African and South American countries) spread, international expectations on China increase. For instance, the then-President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, called on China to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system. China, however, has been quick to shrug additional responsibility. Whether over climate change, Iran’s nuclear programme, or territorial disputes with its East and South Asian neighbours, China has failed to meet rising international expectations.

Not quite ready to step up Three reasons underpin China’s refusal to commit to responsibilities befitting its status as the third largest world economy. Firstly, China is reluctant to join Western choruses calling for change in “rogue” states because of its deeplyrooted notion of sovereignty as inviolable. China refuses to tolerate external interference in its own domestic matters, including on Taiwan, Tibet, the value of Chinese currency (yuan,) and human rights abuses. By extension, it rejects interference in the domestic issues of other states, although it has made recent exceptions for humanitarian pur-

poses. Secondly, China continues to hide behind its status as a developing country, fearing that other labels may place the spotlight on its record of domestic repression, internet censorship, and environmental degradation. Indeed, China’s unhelpful stance at Copenhagen was due to its selfendorsed image as a developing country, thereby allaying responsibility to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to developed countries. Lastly, some of China’s most profitable commercial ties exist with unscrupulous international actors such as Sudan, Iran, Myanmar (Burma), Zimbabwe, and Venezuela. Consequently, China is reluctant to press for change in these countries even where it may be beneficial, lest it face commercial backlash.

What is the West to do?

China has found convenient reasons to stay out of the international spotlight and to remain uncooperative. With Sino-US relations fractious after President Obama approved arms sales to Taiwan and met the Dalai Lama, the US may face a tough task coaxing China into a more helpful stance. However, by recognising Chinese concerns and accommodating China’s insecurity, Obama can maximize his chance to improve relations. Positive steps have already been taken.

Saudi Arabia, at America’s behest, has agreed to supply China with oil if it supports economic sanctions against Iranian elites. Similar innovation is needed to turn China into a more obliging international actor.

No country is an island Deng’s six principles guided Chinese foreign relations for the best part of 30 years. Now that his principles are becoming less relevant to contemporary Chinese foreign policy, the Chinese leadership is attempting to forge its own path.

It is understandable that China’s post-six principles foreign policy has teething problems, but they could not have come at a worse time. In particular, Iran is fast becoming a flashpoint, and multilateral action is needed. To secure Chinese support, Western diplomats must state firmly what they need from China, be understanding of Chinese insecurities, and must teach China to associate cooperation with reward. These are three principles even Deng Xiaoping would have been proud of.

OnDitmagazine ― culture

Festival Wrap : Piece 1

Has

the Fringe

lost its way?

Joel Dignam on Format and the fringe

2

006 was the last year of the Fringe being a biennial event. Fifteen years old, I went to the opening night party and had a wild time, dancing with strangers, playing hackey sack, being groped in Rymill Park by a bearded, drunken man. Things were simpler then: the Garden took up a fraction of Rundle Park, Rundle Street could be traversed, and the crowd was pleasantly void of young teenagers looking to get plastered.

I have consistently attended the opening night of the Adelaide Fringe and have felt a growing sense of unease. When, in 2008, a friend of mine was attacked by a bunch of jocks, I felt concerned, not just because blood was coming out of his head, but because I knew the same thing wouldn't have happened a few years ago. As well as escorting him to the first aid tent and mustering appropriate sympathy, I found myself asking a question that I have only previously found my-

self asking of recreational handball and Peter Garrett: has the Adelaide Fringe lost its way?

2010 is the 50th anniversary of both the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Fringe. The former festival was born of a dinner attended by many well-respected businessmen who desired to overcome the tyranny of distance and bring Adelaide the culture that East Coasters already enjoyed. The Adelaide Fringe was born, one might infer, of a hazy midnight conference between two aspiring artists, bitter that the Festival Board had not seen fit to include as an exhibition their avant-garde assemblages of old appliances. That is, it would be an opportunity for local and smaller-scale artists to share their work with their world.

I think we can thus safely say that the Fringe has been consistently living up to its original intention. It is now the world's second largest Fringe Festival, no doubt due to the fact that

Photographs of Format Festival by Jonathan vdk (jonathanvdk.com)

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Festival Wrap : Piece 1

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anybody who desires can be part of it simply by paying a registration fee. The quantity of shows on these days is close to astonishing. The diversity is alarming, and things such as the Opening Night Party and the Garden of Unearthly Delights have become ritual delights during Adelaide's short-lived festival season.

However, it is inevitable that as any niche interest becomes popular enough to join the mainstream, its character changes. While the crowded opening night party this year still featured many of Adelaide's colourful cast of characters, their effect was diluted by the hordes of aspirant underagers, grateful for a smokescreen for their drunkeness. Friends of mine, for whom this night was clearly not conceptually different from any other, invited me to join them in nearby bars.

The Fringe is more popular than ever and this is a good thing. Though I can't help but feel that it is a shame that the Fringe has responded to the character of the dilettantes, and not the other way around.

Enter Format Festival. Format is to the Fringe what the Fringe is to the Adelaide Festival and currently has that luxuriously un-notable state that used to define the Fringe.

I love Format. Last year I went on a street art walking tour, which drew upon the collective knowledge of its participants to document Adelaide's impressive yet little-known street art.

Wandering afterwards through the building that was the hub of Format, I delighted not only in the art installations and the rooms ironically named after Australian bigots, but in the feeling of comradeship and community - the wacky sense that I had as much to give this festival as it had to

give me. At one point I found myself behind the bar and compelled to serve drinks to the milling crowd. I didn't object, as these licensed sales are a key component of the festival's funding.

In writing this article, I was able to speak to Chloe Langford, Visual Arts co-Coordinator for the 2010 Format Festival. While emphasizing Format's gratitude to the Fringe, which has supported its development, Chloe nonetheless made it clear that she saw Format as filling a vacuum.

From humble beginnings as a three day zine fair within the Fringe, this year, Format runs for only a week less than the Fringe itself. As an artistrun, DIY festival, it gives space to emerging artists and otherwise homeless projects. While the Fringe arguably does this too, Format does it without the $300 price tag that the Fringe requires of every registrant. Promoting not just freedom of expression and collective appreciation of grass roots art creation, Format is also a fledgling example of a potentially superior way of running an arts festival. Its democratic participatory culture means that the separation between organiser, curator and artist is much smaller than in a big scale festival such as the Fringe or the Adelaide Festival.

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of this year's Fringe is the introduction of the 'Fringe Club', a space open only to artists and Fringe volunteers. This seems to me like something Orwellian, akin to the pigs of Animal Farm granting only themselves access to Jones' house, all the while claiming to consider other animals as equals. One rainy Friday, I entered undercover, posing as a poorly dressed, underfed uni journalist. Having run past the guards and ingratiated myself amongst the Fringe's upper crust, I was treated to a night's entertainment featuring a condom-throwing cabaret performer, a short, culinary play spoken in what sounded like Simlish, and a contemporary dance performance using a concerningly unsustainable amount of glad wrap. Gathering the neglected condoms for later applications in inflation, I felt that, just perhaps,

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things were right with Adelaide's festival world.

The Fringe can't have lost its way, simply because the Fringe has no way. Putatively, the Fringe doesn't have a 12-year plan and responds anew each year to the demands of the year that has been and the one ahead. Attempts to suggest that the Fringe has strayed smack of 'sour grapes', an unwillingness to accept that the Fringe is nought but what it is, and, while it can't be everything for everyone, it can be many things to many people. Being part of the mob at the opening night party, I was very aware that many people there had ideas about what the Fringe meant that were very different to mine. But I was confident that we were united in looking for little other than good, clean, fun.

That said, I don't feel that the Fringe is any longer quintessentially Adelaidean. For me, the genius of Adelaide is in its small-town community juxtaposed with as much cosmopolitan and cultural life as befits a state capital. The Fringe is now less and less like Dairy Bell, and more and

more like Cibo: a reproducible, convenient enterprise that no longer reflects the nature of its hometown. Format, on the other hand, is organic.

The Adelaide-based Format collective is open to contributors and volunteers, and their contribution to Adelaide life extends beyond the festival season, to exhibitions, subversive wheat-pastes, and who knows what else.

I know that next year the Fringe will be bigger, that the Garden will be in the same place and still have grossly expensive drinks, and that, if I want to be part of it, I need to part with three hundred of my greasy dollars. And, while it will be substantially the same, I don't know what will have happened to its essence. But Format? I don't know. It'll be in a different place, it may be at a different time. Maybe I won't meet the friend of an ex-girlfriend out the front and act on his suggestion that I upload my photos of Neapolitan street-art to flickr for his perusal. I don't know what to expect. But nor should I.

OnDitmagazine ― culture

Festival Wrap : Piece 2

Street Spirit Lisa Catt on the changing fortunes of adelaide street artists

P

aste-ups, scribbles, tags, stickers, and stencils: they line alleyways, collage brick walls, tower on CBD rooftops, hide in warehouses. They brand car parks, peer from unsuspecting nooks, and plaster broken windows.

They are political. Territorial. Expressive.

Feminine. Masculine. Colourful. Monochromatic.

Blaring. Subtle. Romantic, even.

They are part of the world that is street art: a complex and expansive network in which Adelaide stakes a notable claim. The three-day urban art festival, Street Dreams, provided ample evidence. Curated by local art collective Format, from March 4th to 7th, when Adelaide was in festival heat, Street Dreams saw the collective's Peel Street headquarters become a hub for those keen to celebrate and embrace our city’s artistic edge. (The absence of council members was duly noted.)

Headlining the festival was Chris Tamm; an artist who once clambered the streets of Adelaide with aerosol can in hand. Nowadays, Tamm is the

33 curator of Sydney’s May’s Lane Gallery. Perhaps it does sound like he sold out – compromising his urban roots for the flair and fabulousness of the conventional art world. But May’s Lane is not your standard art institution. Its exhibitions do not consist of typical wall hangings with token sculptures scattered through out. It is an outdoor gallery space designed exclusively for displaying street art – the first of its kind in Australia.

Tamm always likes coming home. He is proud of what is on offer here: “I like Adelaide culture.

It is experimental - much more than Sydney...

I think people in Adelaide like art and are well educated.” There is much more to street art than most would know, or care to know – it is certainly more than just a few punk-arse kids sticking it to social conformities. Our streets have great potential, but it is up to the council to let street art flourish and fill our streets’ empty voids.

A street art-led urban renewal in Adelaide is a topic that Tamm is passionate about – especially now that it is casting off the negative connotations of graffiti and breaking its association

Photographs by John Goodridge (www.badjonni.com)

OnDitmagazine ― culture

Festival Wrap: Piece 2

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Festival Wrap : Piece 2

with vandalism. He feels council action is critical so that “no more empty, crappy lanes ways get fenced off to make way for minimal white cubes,” sacrificing the emergence of these creative playgrounds. There are promising signs: just recently Norwood artist Matt Stuckey received a $5,000 public arts grant from the City Council to brighten up ticket machines along Rundle and Frome Streets. “Hopefully it will help change the perception of street art, from kids with Textas to professional artists and designers who are actually interested in creating a more engaging city,” Stuckey told the City Messenger.

Furthermore, Renew Adelaide – a non-profit, artist run initiative – is proving a strong force in developing a constructive and supportive relationship between street artists, the community and the law. The biggest hurdle is still the law.

As Adelaide City councillor Stephen Yarwood has stated, “once this code of regulatory conditions is cracked, a suite of wins is to be had. Artists get edgy venues to exhibit, building owners get cleaned up property… The community gets safer streets and more places to play, and local businesses can begin to exploit an emerging nighttime economy.” This comes as good news to all involved writers, graphic designers and fashion students using street art as a medium. It is another outlet for their artistic tendencies, allowing their professional careers to develop as they experiment and articulate techniques.

In the words of Chris Tamm, "the world-wide wall scrawl is a medium in its own right, like print or television." What is most striking about street art is the paradox it presents. Street art encourages expressive freedom, artistic licence, and a subversion of institutional art. A great rivalry exists between the inner-circle of artists – or writers, as Tamm refers to himself – who

constantly try to outdo or outreach one another.

There are rules. But, as Tamm explains, they are always changing: “people are constantly making new rules”. Despite this defining feature – it is one that keeps street art in perpetual motion – respect remains paramount.

The golden rule? Do not cover work better than your own.

Images transcend borders, but then you already knew that. They have to power to connect one city to another, across the other side of the world. Street art is no exception. What started in the depths of the New York subway has spread to Berlin, London, Sao Paulo, Stavanger, and Melbourne. Adelaide is a small cog in this constantly churning machine, but it is turning.

The Street Dreams festival and the existence of local organisations such as Renew Adelaide epitomises the creditability and legitimacy that street art has gained in Adelaide and abroad.

Traditional conventions of art are being made archaic as the lines are literally being redrawn.

Even if this defunct outlook is adopted - one that narrows what art means - the legitimacy of street art still stands.

Just like an errant brushstroke on canvas does not instantly acquire art status, the same is true for street art. Abusive delinquent graffiti is still just that. But, undeniably, street art has been revived - there is a tangible momentum surrounding the medium and the people involved.

Let’s just hope Adelaide can keep up.

about the writer

lisa catt is frolicking through her Media and Commerce degrees. While studying in New York for a semester, she published in the online newspaper Brooklyn Today. Her days are now spent plotting ways in which she can score a Green Card: acquiring an LA sugar daddy or wedding her gay college neighbour are proving to be her most promising prospects.

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OnDitmagazine ― culture

Festival Wrap : Piece 3

Hear the World 36

Walter Marsh & Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo on World Music

W

orld music. What on earth does that actually mean?

Is the term patronising? Yes. Over-simplifying? Definitely. It’s a tag that encompasses afrobeat, ska, blatnyak, funk, French chanson, gypsy fusion, Chaâbi, norteño and, courtesy of DJ Dexter, “Krumping”. It’s one that often makes for a kind of gentrified, dizzying combination of dreadlocks, tie-dye and fisherman’s pants that, in many ways, does a disservice to the sheer diversity that it aims to celebrate. Nevertheless, with WOMADelaide leaving us for another year, it allows us a chance to reflect on the immense popularity of music from around the globe for those few days of the year.

Like the greatest genre tags of our time, from Rock & Roll to Adult Contemporary, “world music” as we know it was essentially christened as such by record companies in the ‘80s, as a way to fatten their bottom lines through trendy categorisation.

Womad 2010 Photographs by Robert Fletcher (flickr.com/threesongs)

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Perhaps the prime example of this synthesis between Western and non-Western popular music is Paul Simon’s seminal 1986 record Graceland, which combined the aging popster’s song-writing finesse with bold instrumentation and arrangements from a host of talented players the world over, with a particularly South African focus. That sound - the intricate multi-player percussion, the lavishing of horns, that undefinable zest for music that had somewhat faded from mainstream Western music - was a revelation. It heralded greater interest in the work of Afrobeat master Fela Kuti’s work, it popularised Johnny Clegg, and even opened Sting up to the possibility of making us cringe in genres previously unimaginable.

And, in that perfect circle of life that is the music industry, traces can now be found even (in a very watered down way) in Contra, the latest effort of four preppy, white, upper-class Brooklyn boys

with penchants for pastel polo shirts and boat shoes.

But our experiences of World Music™ are hugely selective. The absence of it being blasted from every Nova and SAFM-tuned radio in the state means we get some modicum of quality control. We will hear it in little dribs and drabs, as recommended by those in the know. Musicians, critics and weirdly obsessive friends alike will occasionally bleat at length about the latest must-have World Music™ record, not to be missed. Most treat it as a novelty, to be briefly heeded before being cast into the abyss that is the ‘World’ shelf at your local record store. A hallowed few musicians permeate mainstream consciousness, and while the best are stars in their own countries, the rest toil in obscurity.

Yes, you’re saying, but it’s like that with all musicians. Not exactly: local musicians [gross genAbove: Yamato, Japanese Drum ensemble

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Festival Wrap : Piece 3

eralisation warning] tend to ply their trade in the universally trusted guitar, bass and drums combination. The ignorant Western patronage of world music is thus a marginalisation borne from a lack of understanding, not animosity or malevolence.

There are those who attempt to break through this cultural stasis, and bring the music of the world to its English-speaking masses. By far the most prominent of these is professional hippy and one time Genesis front man Peter Gabriel. He put into place a movement and festival, to package and spread the idea of musical multiculturalism and a more vibrant and eclectic world, a World Of Music And Dance. They called it... Simba! Wait, no, WOMAD! WOMADelaide stands as a shining beacon of musical education and acceptance away from the mainstream; the yearly jamboree is the ideal place to take those first tentative steps into the world of music, as well as being one of few events where crusty-looking hippies and herbally infused backpackers can mix with regular folk without any strange looks. And though Adelaide is the first of six such festivals in 2010, artists themselves speak highly of our city and of the festival itself. George Kamikawa and Noriko Tadano, who brought their alluring blend of Western, electric blues and traditional Japanese folk to Womad in 2010, gleefully extol the virtues of Australia’s premier ‘world’ music event. “More people get to hear our music, it’s in a nice place, and we get to hear more world music. We’ve been to other cultural festivals and this is one of the best for the artists. We feel appreciated.” This final sentiment encapsulates the crux of the success that inclusive, artist-conscious festivals such as Womad and the Big Day Out (for all its

failings) have found. They tend to consider artists as more-or-less normal people who are themselves there for music, and humanise rather than commodify them. Kamikawa and Tadano even played longer sets at Womad than their stand-alone shows, defying the most common complaint of festivals. “We have actually spoken about the fact that where some festivals make you play for twenty minutes or half an hour, here you play for an hour.”

Kamikawa and Tadano are an interesting example of the blending of Western and non-Western forms of music – one that stands firmly on the other side of the fence. While those aforementioned pastel-shirt wearers have hit the dizzying heights of mainstream recognition on the back of near-equal amounts of pop smarts and Paul Simon cribbing, it is tougher going for the likes of Kamikawa and Tadano, who are less willing or able to acquiesce to the demands of the mainstream. So a festival like WOMADelaide makes for the most beautiful of compromises. A glimpse at the program heralds artists from farflung corners of the globe, playing anything from ska, to jazz-influenced flamenco, to hip hop. Yes, it is entry-level. This is entirely the point; Womad takes in its stride our widespread ignorance of the world’s music and packages it, in an artist and audience friendly package.

There’s something lovely and transcendent about seeing people young and old wearing ratty bandanas and kaftans, and dancing around like juggling imaginary baubles to the music of an ancient Ethiopian man that they would otherwise never hear. Simply because it normally exists outside our traditional sphere of comprehension, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

about the writers

Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo studies

Walter Marsh plays guitar in solo

political science, writes about music, and

project Tantivy Fair and local band We

hangs around Radio Adelaide. When he

Grow Up, and blogs at

gets the time, he occasionally edits On Dit.

prosepurple.blogspot.com.

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On Campus!

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Campus Events

Prosh After many years involved in student representation, I’ve realised that student politicians fall into various categories. There are the Fun Times People, who love O-Week and UniBar events, but don’t really care about anything else that the Union does. There are the ideologues, who once watched a documentary on Vietnam protests, decided that’s what uni is about and think that the Fun Times people are morons. There are the CV Sluts who are just looking for something to pad out their resume. There are the Hacks who are in it to recruit for [insert political party name here] and see the Union as a stepping stone to parliament. And there are the Gimps who are only there because a Hack told them to run and promised them free beer.

As a student politician, I believed in the importance of a campus culture encompassing everything from the karaoke nights where only three drunk girls end up singing Britney all night to the Ultimate Frisbee players arguing on the field; from the Dungeons and Dragons geeks hiding out in the Clubs Association to the vomitcoated lawns of O-Week. I have great respect for all the people who pour their hearts and souls into making this weird calendar of events happen.

I must confess, events were never really my thing. Sure, I was always happy to help out but a great O-Ball never thrilled me half as much as signing people up to join the Union, or encouraging students to get involved in a campaign about the accessibility of higher education. However, there was one event that has always held a special place in my heart.

Prosh is an event where students pull pranks for charity. It began at the University of Adelaide in 1905 when students paraded behind the horsedrawn trams in order to mock them. This was the first Prosh parade, the procession from which the event draws its name. When I was AUU President, I unearthed a large photograph hidden in a cupboard which was of the Prosh parade in 1917.

In faded sepia it shows Beehive Corner, between

OnDitmagazine ― on campus

Haigh’s and Darrell Lea at the end of Rundle Mall.

The Prosh parade fills the streets from edge to edge, a sea of boaters and ruffled skirts, with people peering over balconies to watch the madness below. I always think how strange and sad it must have been to be celebrating in the middle of a World War. It’s as if Prosh then held all the vitality and wonder, the capacity to wake a small city into life, that the Fringe Parade holds today.

On parade, students would take out the PROSH rag - a student publication with satirical articles - and sell it to the public to raise money.

The Prosh pranks of days gone by have all the magic of the great oral histories. In 1966, engineering students kidnapped a local radio presenter, put him in a boat, took him into international waters and made him broadcast a pirate radio station for 24 hours.

thy heels are on sale. At the University of Western Australia, Prosh raised $100 000 for charity last year.

I love Prosh for its irreverence for authority combined with a good heart. I love its sense of history that means students still pass along stories of Proshs past. Most importantly, I love that it’s fundamentally about community; a legacy of students going out into broader society with humour, hope and good will, all in the name of a good cause.

If you’re interested in keeping the Prosh tradition alive for another hundred years, get in touch.

-Lavinia Emmett-Grey

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They came back to shore, stocked up on more beer, then took him back out.

In 1973, the Engies (again) suspended an FJ Holden under the footbridge behind uni. In the 1990s, a toilet seat was glued to parliament house steps and passers-by threw coins in it. In 2002, students dressed in pig suits kidnapped the Ronald McDonald from the Myer Centre and the cops chased them onto campus.

When Voluntary Student Unionism was introduced, events were hit the hardest. In a choice between whether to fund welfare services or anything involving beer, it was an easy call to make. Prosh had started to dwindle before that though, with students forgetting the purpose of the event, seeing it as little more than a muck-up day with beer.

And that’s one of the reasons I’ve always loved Prosh over and above other events. I like purpose - I don’t go window shopping, I only shop when I know those 6-inch, red-sequinned, skanky Doro-

Hughes Plaza

Whose learning hub?

Our anti-aesthetic thoroughfare is about to undergo a massive change. To ensure this project is as ‘student-centric’ as it can be, the University is taking measures to find out what students actually want in the new building.

The University’s overarching goal in this project is to “transform student experience”.

Translated from this bureaucratic vernacular,

OnDitmagazine ― on campus

the Uni wants to improve student life on campus with a comfortable place to study, socialise and relax. The end objective, of course, is to improve your Course Experience Questionnaire results, and improve the University’s student retention rates.

In keeping with the philosophy of “studenttransforming-experience-centricity”, we have been taken on as student interns to correspond with you about the project. We’re here to inform and consult on the happenings of the development.

Our intentions in this internship

not be a litany of private enterprise on campus and force-feed you bad coffee and Nando’s chicken. We know this is a concern for many, and if it is, make sure your voice is heard.

Amongst the labyrinth of bureaucratic procedure, committees and project stakeholders, a Student Reference Group is providing direct input to the design team about what they think should go into the Hub. Anyone else keen to contribute to the project can via the new “WHAT?” consultation wall in the library, our Wordpress blog, the Facebook page, and the University’s own Hughes Plaza website.

- John Dexter & Juan Legaspi

are to gather student opinion, build trust between the student body and 42

the bureaucracy, as well as to help make sure the University doesn’t fuck up.

Before commencing the internship, we discussed what we each wanted to get out of this, as well as our general ideas and concerns for the project. One of our concerns was that the University might want to use us as mouthpieces or salesmen. For us, the best way to counter this perception is to be as open and accessible as possible to students. We both believe that genuine student participation will ultimately be a deciding factor in the development’s success.

The interior of the Learning Hub has not been finalised and is still being developed, based on the input of students and a design team. The concepts and ideas for the interior of the Hub are diverse, and include such hypotheticals as a one-stop shop for student services, audio-visual rooms, a projector wall to notify students of events, new study spaces, hammocks, and a store providing fresh produce. The Learning Hub need

Student Politics

Three Months In The previous Adelaide University Union (AUU) student elections crowned the Labor Left as the rulers of the AUU. Activate (the University’s Labor Left party) and Indy-Go, a progressive independent group headed by Lavinia Emmett-Grey, (former AUU President and girlfriend of current President, Fletcher O’Leary) now make up a controlling majority on both the AUU Board and the Student Representative Council (SRC). The new office-bearers have wasted no time in exploiting their majority to pass swathes of minor policy changes and attack their enemies.

OnDitmagazine ― on campus

What is most clear is the change of tone from the 2009 Board to this year’s. Emmett-Grey constantly had to fight both the Left and Right on just about everything when she was President last year. From the Left, Paris Dean (Activate), Jake Wishart (Greens) and Jason Virgo (also of Activate) were all keenly aware of the need to safeguard the democratic and open nature of the AUU Board. From the Right, Mark Joyce (Liberal) distrusted and questioned everything she said, and Andrew Anson (head of the Labor Right faction Innovate) proposed policy alternatives that, although almost always defeated, nonetheless prompted spirited debate during Board meetings about what the AUU was, and what its role should be.

In 2010, by contrast, most of the meetings are taken up by Office Bearer reports (which are rarely subject to intense scrutiny), and a large number of policy and rule changes. Knowing he has control of the numbers, O’Leary has been using this opportunity to enact the list of changes he and Emmett-Grey wished to make during their time on the Board last year. These changes have almost always been passed without question.

In the first quarter of 2010, the Board, instead of scrutinising those in power, appears far keener to attack its fringes.

After the bitterness of last year’s elections, it is unsurprising that deep-seated feelings of animosity exist between the Labor factions. To be honest, the Labor Right is doing little to help the matter. Tim Picton and returning Board Director Andrew Anson, both of the Labor Right ticket Innovate, failed to inform the AUU know they would be sending factional proxies to the National Union of Students (NUS) Confer-

ence, meaning the AUU spent $1,600 against the wishes of its Board. Furthermore, neither volunteered for O’Week, causing tempers to run high at the following Board meeting. After what was perceived as a smug speech (Picton claimed that, as both he and Anson had recently acquired fulltime work, volunteering was for them not a viable option), Kim Dowling of Indy-Go unleashed her fury, perceiving that Anson and Picton thought their time was so much more valuable than hers.

Eric Parsonage, the only independent elected not to run with Indy-Go, called for their resignations.

The animosity here was particularly pointed as, thanks to the new constitution passed in the recent elections, a three-quarters majority of Board is able to kick off elected AUU Board Members for perceived breaches of conduct.

The in-fighting doesn’t end there. Another tension has appeared between the Left and the AUU’s General Manager, David Coluccio. During 2009, Coluccio advocated policies such as selling UniBooks to the University and promoting professional AUU staff to greater positions of power.

Thus, it is not surprising that the Left, traditionally advocates of student control, treat him with a measure of contempt. Nevertheless, his service to the organisation and senior position makes the subtle but unmistakably rude way that he is spoken of in Board meetings somewhat surprising.

After the Febuary 24th meeting, Dowling resigned from the Board, as she has unexpectedly chosen to defer her Honours year. The AUU Constitution fills casual vacancies with the final candidate to miss out on the original ballot. As such, Dowling's seat will now pass to the student who originally came 17th, Luke Tran. An international student, he is expected to be a much-needed ally for the besieged Labor Right.

- Myriam Robin

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OnDitmagazine ― on campus

President's Column

State of the Union

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Your first term is almost over, and if you’ve been to class, then you’re more of a student than I am. Please enjoy good grades or at least food for thought, but also remember the variety of social clubs on campus who are able to provide welcome distractions to your study. If you are doing your first assignment ever – just breathe and have fun.

The University has shed a tear, and through gritted teeth has reopened Union Hall for lectures. While the space is not a good lecture theatre, when the entire University is one big construction site, it will have to do. At least the University will be on notice not to replicate this chaos in semester two, although Union Hall might not be able to save them next time.

By the time I write this, a survey should hopefully have gone out to all research postgraduate students. This survey is asking them to tell us what they think about the University and us. Postgraduate students have very individualised needs – fairly reasonable considering the fact that they are all running off doing research on something or other. Your tutor may very well be a postgraduate student. Take pity on them, because the resources that are available to students vary wildly from faculty to faculty and school to school, and they may be on the lower end of the scale. This survey will hopefully help the Adelaide University Union (AUU) argue the case for postgraduate students. If you are a research postgraduate student – please complete

this survey.

Federally, in the end the Coalition caved on the student income support legislation. Because the government is desperate to keep the measure ‘budget neutral’ (they aren’t actually spending extra money on us) this means that the first round of scholarships that are coming to a bank account near you will be smaller than originally anticipated. While this isn’t great, it’s better than not being able to buy your textbooks.

One of the worst parts of the old student income legislation, the age of independence, has been only partially fixed. According to the government, at 18 you can drink, vote and fight in far-flung corners of the world. You can enter into legally binding contracts, you can live your life as an upstanding citizen of this country – but you can’t get the independent rate of student income support. You have to wait until 25. This has the effect of denying proper support to young people in need. It’s designed to save the government money. Under the changes, the age of independence will be gradually lowered to just 22 by 2012. Only problem is that most students have finished their degrees by then! The changes are an improvement, but the government is still screwing you over.

Remember if you’re happy, angry or want to help out at events or on campaigns, contact me at auupresident@auu.org.au. I swear I answer nine and a half times out ten.

- Fletcher O'Leary

Next AUU Board meeting: 21st April, 5.30pm, Margaret Murray Room

OnDitmagazine ― columnists

Columnists

what's the strangest place in the world?

Illustrations by Chris Harding

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OnDitmagazine ― columnists

What's the strangest place in the world?

Alexander Gordon-Smith

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“We need some more drinks.”

“How much have we had to drink today?”

“We had those beers, then that bottle of Jim and then the bottle of Jack’s. You coming for a drive?”

Yes. of course I’m going for a drive. I’m so intoxicated that I can’t walk straight. On the way to the bottle shop my friend and I have an argument.

My mind rebels against reason, I can’t articulate the argument and I shut off... And then I jump out of the moving vehicle. I have no idea what I am doing. I run to the river, put my back against a tree and start weeping into my arms.

I am in the strangest place in the world. I cannot control my emotions, my thinking or my balance. It’s night time, around 11ish, during winter.

I rise and walk down Linear Park, I gaze down looking for metal objects, to no avail. I wander through the suburbs and pull the top of a letterbox off and run back to the river. For the next twenty minutes I slash at my wrists – nothing much happens so I walk to the hospital. They tell me that all the cuts are superficial, that my blood alcohol was .26 four hours after I finished drinking and that I need to talk to a psychiatrist. I give the quack the usual story. He tells me that I had alcohol psychosis. I learn nothing.

I don’t remember why we were on Hindley Street. I think we wanted to go to an op shop. It was a Sunday, around midday. It was deserted, no pedestrians at all in sight, but a film crew about 100 – 200 metres away. The op shop was closed so we walked up toward McDonalds. Out of nowhere, it seemed, came this woman on a motorised scooter and a young boy, around eleven or twelve. The woman wasn’t old, in her forties. She was fat yet not obese. It appeared as the whole reason for the scooter was simply laziness. The

boy was fat. He was walking, seemingly independent of the woman, with a chocolate ice-cream.

He had the ice cream all over his face, right up to the apples of his cheeks. The woman was aimlessly driving all over the walkway and into random stores with wheelchair access and then out again. I honestly felt as though we had stepped into limbo, and that these apparitions were demons representing the deadly sins of greed and sloth.

Same place on a Saturday night, the sidewalks are a cesspool of vomit, cigarette butts and spit. Armies of fluoro tattoos are strutting up and down pretending that steroids are numbing their brain, five bourbons deep, thinking they are gods. Girls that think they are women are dressed to limit imagination, laughing hysterically after the two jager bombs that were bought for them have hit. People have managed to perfect the vomit dump whilst walking without breaking a stride. I’ve been drinking. I am drunk. Yet I am looking at these people with disgust.

I’ve walked from home toward the Garden, escaping the fences and engine sounds. We’re policing tonight, two opposing universes are about to collide and we must do everything in our power to keep the fabric of reality from tearing into pieces. Or drink overpriced beers. The roadie consisted of wild turkey and red bull, bad proportions. It was horrendous. The Garden is still and quiet, like the eye of a storm.

OnDitmagazine ― columnists

What's the strangest place in the world?

Emma Marie Jones

The void. The black hole. The abyss. The Bermuda Triangle. Call it what you will, every communal tearoom has one. It’s always there, humming ominously. It will keep your perishables below room temperature. And it will inevitably, inescapably absorb your painstakingly prepacked lunch into its unfathomable depths.

Any workplace tearoom or high school common room will have its own repertoire of cautionary tales about the fridge. It’s a strange place.

A graveyard of ancient relics, things so old and liquefied that nobody has the courage to remove them: apples that bear resemblance to prunes, bottles of salad dressing approaching their tenth birthdays, and a mysterious package bearing the name of that lady from accounts who went on maternity leave two years ago and never came back.

The fridge isn’t just a resting place for elderly edibles, though. It’s like a time warp. Things that disappeared long ago will materialise spontaneously in various states of decay. On more than one occasion, I have injudiciously deposited my leftovers in the fridge before hitting the grindstone, only to find that, come lunchtime, they’ve vanished without a trace. Months later, some unwitting innocent will probably find the shrivelled remains of my chicken wrap in the vegetable crisper whilst hunting for butter.

Naturally, when sharing a refrigerator with a group of other hungry people, one of the biggest issues at hand is food theft. I must admit, I have, on occasion, been tempted – but the potential social alienation that would result from being caught chowing down on someone else’s wedding cake leftovers in the back corner of the staff room is usually pretty good for counteracting said temptation.

Nevertheless, food theft is both frequent and unavoidable, and to prevent the horror of opening the fridge to find an empty container where

my spag bol used to be, I’ve dabbled here and there in a little softcore theft prevention. But when the threatening post-its and the accusatory group emails fail, it’s time to bring in more drastic measures.

In high school, we had the infamous Year Twelve Food Thief, an anonymous waif who had made a habit of rummaging through our common room kitchen and feasting on the best bits of our lunches. The front office had a compensation scheme in place, whereby the missing food item was recorded in a ledger and replaced with something deemed to be of equal value from the tuckshop (needless to say, far more food was reported stolen than any teenager could realistically consume). This, however, was not enough. We were hungry. Hungry for our stolen snackfoods, and hungry for justice. One girl took the law into her own hands, and, creating the stuff of legend, deployed the decoy casserole. Quite simply, she put some rice in a takeaway container with some surprisingly edible-looking dog food, and put it in the refrigerator with the rest of our lunches.

To our collective glee, it was missing come lunchtime, and effectively put an end to all the culinary looting and plundering. The decoy casserole achieved cult status, even though, in the end, we never found out who the Food Thief was. But I often think about this unnamed kitchen klepto, and the idea of the decoy has floated around in the back of my mind since. Maybe I’ll use it someday.

Maybe I won’t. The fact remains, human intervention is just no match for the mysterious power of the tearoom fridge. Whatever you put in there is fair game. It becomes public property, and as a result, is there for the taking. And if a Food Thief doesn’t take it, the abyss will…

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OnDitmagazine ― columnists

What's the strangest place in the world?

Kikonde Mwatela

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It took us a long time to get to the destination.

The place wasn't far from where I lived, but it was a chore getting into Kibera's 'Laini Saba' on a Sunday morning. Kibera has the dishonour of being Africa's largest slum housing what some say is up to a million people. A million very busy people.

Neighbouring Kibera are Nairobi's middle-class suburbs including 'Magiwa Estate,' where I was raised.

On this particular Sunday, many years ago, my parents allowed my siblings and I the opportunity to accompany our house-help or 'Auntie' to the church she loved to attend. The place itself was dusty much like the rest of the shanties around, and the church itself was built with iron sheets. Inside was crowded and hot. The preacher was wonderfully contradictory, some points of his sermon so lively and others sombre. It was a masterful manipulation of language, both verbal and non-verbal.

During the 'sadaka' (offertories) the music began to play with the drums picking up with every chorus. The choir was flawless and the harmonies were obviously practised but so effortlessly executed. From the pews at the back, a group of dancers began a sort of dance-march to the front picking up the humble offerings of attendees. Everyone in the church was singing at this point.

The band members were swaying along with the dancers and I noticed that so too was the preacher.

Soon, it was time to go home. It had not been an entirely new experience for me, I had witnessed such fanfare in churches in the rural areas where I have my roots. It was not odd for me because of the sometimes eccentric nature of my parents and my upbringing, but I would soon come to realise how much my perceptions of that experience seemed contrary to conventional wisdom. Life with its constant exposure to the so

called 'real' world has made this experience in retrospect seem strange.

The idea that there could be such an accommodating relationship between two different classes living side by side is viewed as unnatural by political observers both at home and internationally. The general impression given particularly by Western media to African problems is, among other things, to define a narrative that easily corroborates their own postulates regarding Africa's problems. The class war is an appealing narrative generally pitting a paternalistic 'educated' class against the poorest. A narrative that feeds the international poverty movements that never run out of style. But rarely do many of these narrators attempt to understand that these relationships are complicated: for example, the help who took me to church on that Sunday was my Aunt by blood, being my mother's cousin. The relationships between the classes may be enforced by economic needs, but the dynamics of those relations are almost always deeper. The driver, cook or house-help in Kenya is very likely a relative or from the same village as their employer.

Such relationships are then not only about need or want, but also by a desire for loyalty and trust on both sides.

The second assumption is that people who live in such circumstances are often miserable.

Of course misery is ever-present in such circumstances, but joy too is there. What many people may lack in material terms, they may always find in friendships, faith and communality. It's a factor rarely captured in either international or local discussions. Strangely enough, back in Kenya, we have a saying “The state of a casket can only be known by the dead�. Only the poor can know poverty.

Do you use Ecstasy?

Researchers from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre would like to speak to ecstasy users.

Face to face interviews will be conducted between April and June.

The interview takes around one hour and is held at a convenient location for you. Interviews are anonymous and confidential.

You will be reimbursed $40 for your time.

Contact or sms details to the research team on 0403 617 309 or email saedrs@unsw.edu.au (you do not have to use your real name).

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