Dircksey politics vol2 ed5

SEPTEMBER 2016

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Match the North Korean Dictator with their Haircut

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what’s on

Do you have a cool event coming up? Let us know. k.turpin@ecuguild.org.au

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER MONDAY 12

TUESDAY 13

WEDNESDAY 14

Artist talks @ Another

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Writers’ Night ML 10.307 (Free Pizza)

Guild Elections Polling Start

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THURSDAY 15

FRIDAY 16

Words Beyond Grammar @ Spectrum

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SATURDAY 17

SUNDAY 18

Perth Quidditch League September game @ Murdoch 2PM

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Writers’ Night JO 9.207 (Free Pizza) Guild Elections Polling Close

Oktoberfest@ ECU 2016 ECU JO Tav 3PM

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Outcome Unknown @ Spectrum

Exhibition Opening Heathcote Select @ Heathcote Gallery 6PM

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Writers’ Deadline

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2 Perth Quidditch League - October game @ ECU JO 2PM

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WAAPA: Rent First Night @ Roundhouse Theatre

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Artists’ Deadline

WAAPA: Starstruck @ 459 Bar

WAAPA: Starstruck @ 459 Bar

WAAPA: Dance For Two @ WAAPA Music Auditorium

Cloak & Dagger @ The Boston 8PM

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Emma Watson Tournament Location TBA

Contributors: Corey Booth Aeron Blundell-Camden Sun-Mi Clyburn Joseph De-Kock Rebecca Jensen Deb Wilson Artists: Aimee Chappel Luke Clark Marziya Mohammedali Emily Upton Shona Wong

Editor: Kitty Turpin k.turpin@ecuguild.org.au

Music Editor: Mae Anthony music.dircksey@gmail.com

dircksey.com.au

Films Editor: Sarah Stopforth film.dircksey@gmail.com Art & Literature Editor: Rhys Tarling art.dircksey@gmail.com

Special Thanks To: Cover: Hannah Schultz Logo: Sella Winadi

Next Theme: Free Mon 19 Sep 5PM Contributors Night ML Building 10.307 Thu 22 Sep 6:30PM Contributors Night JO Building 9.207

The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Dircksey Editor(s), sub-­editors/ section-­editors, Edith Cowan University or the Edith Cowan University Student Guild. Reasonable care is taken to ensure that Dircksey articles and other information are up-­to-­date and as accurate as possible, as of the time of publication– but no responsibility can or will be taken by the abovementioned entities if an issue of Dircksey has any errors or omissions contained herein.

Online print just got better.

pictondiy.com.au

CONTENTS REGULARS

ARTS & LITERATURE

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18 22 24 25

Calendar Editorial

FEATURES 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 16 17

Manus Island to Shut Four Corners Exposes Don Dale Dircksey’s Guild Elections Guide Beyond The Big Two WAEC Questions BU Guild Elections What Would Jesus Do The 2016 Turkey Military Coup PC or Not to Be Power of the US Food Lobby

Artist Feature: Marziya Mohammedali Consider Malcolm Poetry Book Reviews

MUSIC 26 28

Perth Music Spotlight: Sage Pbbbt Music Reviews

FILM 29 30

Political Filmmaking Film Reviews

Photo by Marziya Mohammedali See more at facebook.com/kikeidotnet

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

PRESIDENT’S NOTE What’s happening with the Guild:

This issue is all about politics - or at least it tried to be.

Hopefully the Special General Meeting (SGM) on the 14th of September will go ahead so that the students approve some minor adjustments to the Constitution that are really just teething problems (which are bound to happen given the constitution is quite a young document that hasn’t had each of its aspects utilised yet).

Hello Dircksey readers. Another edition scraping through with enough content to pass this student rag off as being readable. A big thank you to everyone who contributed art to the magazine - without your artworks, we surely would not have made it this issue.

One of the Guild’s headline events, Conference Week, will take place in the mid-semester break. Industry professionals will be on campus to talk to students, have workshops and breakout sessions and overall get students to be more career ready and figure out how to “Navigate their future”, which is the theme of the week.

The Guild Elections, which will be held over the 20th to 22nd of September. Three days of polling will be held across all three campuses. Students will have time to read up on the candidates, ask questions and figure out who they want to lead their Guild in the coming year.

The Guild will continue improving things internally to make the Guild more seamless year to year. We’ve undergone huge changes and these are simply integral to the Guild’s ongoing existence in years to come.

I hope to be more visible to students. I’ve been a bit of an office-monkey, seldom straying from my emails, but I have plans with our Secretary to have semi-regular stalls on campus to be visibly accessible to students. Keep an eye out!

I flew overseas for a week - I went to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). The political situation is incredibly interesting there, and I had done my research to ensure I remained safe. But given this edition’s theme is politics read up on it! It is fascinating.

Lastly, I want to thank Kitty and her team for their reminders to get me involved. I apologise for being swept away with other stuff. I care about Dircksey and love that it’s a magazine that doesn’t shy away from doing edgy things that others might not do (or think they can do).

The magazine has come so far and I look forward to more students being involved with the Guild and Dircksey as both resonate with the student body even more.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

This issue is definitely overdue, sorry to everyone waiting for it. We had lots of, to put it lightly, shit to deal with concerning the ECU Guild Elections. Lol #typicalpolitical-problems. If you’d come to the writers’ nights (thank you to everyone who did!) you’d remember that I was going to hold the issue back until we could report on the Guild Elections. Well, that plan fell through, with the campaign period spanning over one week before students hit the polling booths. Very sorry if you were looking forward to seeing who is running for the Guild elections in Dircksey, but it simply couldn’t happen this year.

Please check the ECU Guild website for all the candidates details: ecuguild.org.au/elections-2016 Don’t forget, we still have a website, and yes, we can publish your articles, reviews and creative pieces with NO word limits or stupid themes: dircksey.com.au This is the second last edition of 2016, with our last one on the looming horizon. This means that the Dircksey Squad will be handing the reigns over soon. If you’re interested in working at Dircksey make sure you get down to the last writers’ nights of the year. Hope your semester’s going well. See you at the next meeting for the last issue: Free.

DIRCKSEY

Manus Island To Shut - Our Doors Are Still Closed

by Rebecca Jensen

In April the Papua New Guinea High Court declared the mandatory detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island illegal. The decision found that hosting asylum seekers on Manus Island was unconstitutional, and it was a decision that forced Australia, once again, into the global spotlight for the abuse of human rights. Reading a bit further into it I find the most recent media surrounding offshore detention is a somewhat harrowing article on Paul Stevenson. The psychologist and Traumatologist was deployed to Manus Island to counsel the security staff in order to cope with their tasks at the centre.

Stevenson paints a bleak picture of the situation as he compares it to his previous experiences with devastated communities; he notes that unlike victims of terror attacks or natural disasters, those in detention have lost any remaining hope. Self harm and even self-immolation (the sacrifice of oneself for example by burning) is rampant.

“This is what detention does to people,” Stevenson says.

“It turns them against themselves to use themselves as currency. And that’s a very, very significant level of traumatization, when somebody does that. All they have is their own body to negotiate with. If we’re in any way supporting the development of that very mentally unstable phenomena, we need to do something about that.”

It seems fitting that since 2015 Australia has been justly chastised by the United Nations for failure to oversee that refugees are free from torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. While I’d consider it a win that PNG has ultimately taken mandatory detention off the table I can’t help but remain concerned for the 900 detainees that were housed at the center, as the circumstance outside of detention centers remains just as dire. Anyone actively seeking the information would have come across news articles of refugees breaking back into the Manus detention center after being violently beaten, robbed and left homeless following their ‘resettlement’ on PNG even prior to the High Court’s ruling. While on Nauru at least three women who have been awarded refugee status, have

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Photo by Marziya Mohammedali (facebook.com/kikeidotnet)

been raped in their resettlement communities since leaving detention. So are we taking people out of the frying pan and tossing them into the fire?

Australia’s very convincing tactic of making everything seem okay by entirely distancing us from it remains a fundamentally effective one. It’s been roughly 2 months and there remains radio silence from PNG, meanwhile more and more reports arise documenting the horrific circumstances suffered by those still in detention in Nauru. It was my intention to discover ultimately what has happened to these detainees, whether they have been shifted to Nauru or Christmas Island for processing or whether their claims had been pushed forward with the hopes of achieving some kind of fair appraisal of their refugee status. But again the information is simply not made public.

The government maintains the ability to censor any information it feels might be damaging to its image. Take for instance a report following the rape of a detainee on Manus Island by Australian guards. Under the freedom of information act, the ABC requested the official report of the incident but the document they received was essentially blank. All damning evidence in the document was redacted as it was argued that the information could damage relations between Australia and PNG if the information was made public.

The Manus Island detention centre, three months after PNG declared it unconstitutional, is finally shutting down, however Peter Dutton is adamant that none of the asylum seekers being held there will be resettled in Australia. We should remain collectively wary of the circumstances these people are released into. Without any media transparency, we move into another government that quietly skirts around Australia’s human rights abuses carefully blindfolding us while reinforcing a belief that it’s ok, they are all just illegals anyway.

FEATURE / 7

DIRCKSEY

Four Corners Exposes Don Dale, Australia Furious

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Art by Aimee Chappell (@aimeechappellstudio)

by Kitty Turpin On July 25, millions of Australians watching the Four Corners report were exposed to footage of six boys taken into custody by the state through juvenile detention, thrown across rooms, stripped naked, contained using restraints and spit hoods, even tear gassed and kept in solitary confinement.

This wasn’t an atrocity performed by ISIS or some foreign totalitarian government. This was happening right here, in Australia, to our children.

Don Dale Youth Detention Centre is located in the Northern Territory. It opened in the early 90s and is described as a maximum-security prison for male and female youths. The reputation for this centre in the nearby community has always been rough, with youths afraid to be detained or re-detained there. Of course, fear is not the best deterrent with troubled youths. Especially those who have been through juvenile detention before, who have no where left to turn but to continually revisit the prison system, this being the case for most of the six boys interviewed on the Four Corners program. However no crime these boys committed constitutes the atrocities Four Corners’ acquired CCTV footage showed them being admitted to whilst detained in Don Dale, the brunt of which was experienced by Jake Roper and Dylan Voller.

Jake Roper was arrested for stealing a car when he was homeless in 2014. He was 14 years old, and entered a Don Dale that was structurally decaying with staff struggling to maintain stability. This was his first time being held at the facility. In August he decided he wanted out, after being held in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours each day with no running water, little natural light and no air conditioning in a tiny cell. In the footage shown in the Four Corners report, you can see Roper distressed, ramming doors and smashing windows in a tiny concrete exercise yard that was just outside of his cell while guards threaten and taunt the teenager on the other side of the door to the concrete yard before tear gassing the area. All six boys being kept in solitary confinement were subjected to the tear gas for up to 8 minutes, before being taken out of the area and hosed down, one of these boys being Dylan Voller.

The extent of punishment Dylan Voller had been subjected to during his time in Don Dale, and through the juvenile detention system, can only be considered torture. I, and the rest of Australia, could also not believe the atrocities this teenager had been subjected to that had been legislated by the Northern Territory government and allowed to happen – including the use of a restraint chair, spit hood and left in solitary confinement – on a 17-year-old boy.

How could the Northern Territory government get it so wrong?

I can only imagine the kind of mental health implications these boys will suffer for the rest of their lives due to the wrongs done to them by the Northern Territory government. But what about the children held in detention centres on Naru – the conditions of which are even more appalling and secretive than Don Dale? Recently thousands of incident reports have been leaked to the Australian public documenting the alleged abuse of children from 2013 to 2015 of assaults and sexual assaults performed by Wilson Security staff that are contracted to the detention centre, and self-harm incidents. Peter Dutton, the Australian Immigration Minister, brushed these allegations off, calling them merely “hype” and “false complaints”, implying that they are just cheap attempts to try to get immigrants to Australia.

Following the Four Corners report, a Royal Commission has been set up to investigate the Northern Territory juvenile detention system. The Northern Territory Corrections Minister, John Elferink, was sacked and the use of restraint chairs and spit hoods was suspended. Will this Royal Commission produce results like the reports into child detention in Nauru and Manus Island (e.g. none)?

Will Australia still care as time passes and the Four Corners report becomes another blip in the history of exposing the atrocities our vulnerable youths experience in juvenile detention?

FEATURE / 9

Dircksey’s DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Guild Elections Guide polling times and locations

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Tuesday 20

Wednesday 21

Thursday 22

ECU Joondalup Library Foyer

10:00am - 4:00pm

10:00am - 8:00pm

10:00am - 4:00pm

ECU Mount Lawley Library Foyer

10:00am - 4:00pm

10:00am - 4:00pm

10:00am - 4:00pm

ECU Bunbury Library Foyer

10:00am - 4:00pm

10:00am - 4:00pm

10:00am - 4:00pm

Who do i vote for?

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Where do i vote?

Before rocking up to voting day make

Make sure you know where on campus

sure you check out the candidates

you can vote and at what time. Students

broadsheet where you can find all the

voting on Joondalup campus have extra

information on each candidate running.

time on Wednesday.

You can view it on the ECU Guild website: ecuguild.org.au/elections-2016

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How the f**** do i vote?

STUDENT ID

Turn up to one of the allocated polling places on campus, show your student ID card to the polling attendant. They will cross you off the list, give you two pieces of paper and explain how to fill them out.

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Two pieces of paper?

Yes, two. One is for the ECU Student Guild Senate, which is a large sheet divided into clear sections for each position being voted on, the other is for the National Union of Students (NUS) representatives. You only have to number at least 1 candidate for each position, or you can number as many as you want - cause preferential voting y’all.

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Place your vote in the box and you’ve participated in glorious democracy!

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Beyond the Big Two

by Aeron Blundell-Camden Ask any Australian what a government looks like and most would probably paint you a picture of a parliament where either the Labor Party or the Liberal Party are calling the shots. And who could blame them? With the exception of a little blip that appeared on Australia’s political radar between the years 2010 & 2013, it seems as though the Liberal & Labor parties have taken turns at forming majority government in this country since God knows when (Possibly when dinosaurs were still roaming around, but don’t quote me.)

In the lead up to the recent federal election, Green’s leader Richard Di Natale coined one of the more memorable catchphrases of the campaign when he referred to the Liberal and Labor parties as the “Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics.” Aside from any obvious differences, the parallels are certainly there. Like many Australians, you probably do both your grocery shopping & your voting on a Saturday morning, but don’t find either of these mundane tasks particularly enthralling. You may be loyal to one of them. Perhaps you and your family always have been.

Maybe you make up your mind on the basis of whichever one is offering you the better deal at the time? Or are one of a growing number of Australians who bemoan the seeming lack of competition and resent having to make a choice between two unappealing options?

But if there are other alternatives, why do so many voters feel as though they only have a choice between the big two?

Let’s take a look at some of the most common myths and misperceptions people have about voting for minor parties and independents.

It’s a wasted vote.

It’s not. Under Australia’s preferential voting system, your vote will keep passing from candidate to candidate in your chosen order until it lands with one of the highest vote getters. Voting for an independent or minor party candidate in seats which only Labor or Liberal are expected to win, essentially gets you two votes for the price of one. One for your most preferred candidate and another for whichever of the big two you like the most (or loathe the least). So if you’re unhappy with the performance of your pick of the big two, it could actually be an effective way to send them a “not happy Jan’!

I don’t want to help elect another disastrous minority government?

To be fair, the Gillard (and then Rudd) minority government certainly appeared to be more than a little prone to dysfunction and chaos, a perception fueled by having such a freakishly high turnover of PMs and a very united and effective opposition.

Nonetheless, it was still one of the most productive governments in Australia’s history.

When you calculate the productivity of each of Australia’s previous governments as a function of the number of bills parliament passed by the number of days each leader was in office, the Gillard government comes out on top! And while quantity doesn’t equal quality, among those many bills were some especially important ones: the mining tax, plain packaging for cigarettes, paid parental leave and the infamous carbon tax. In relation to the latter, legislating a price on carbon was quite an impressive achievement for the Gillard government when you consider that Kevin Rudd’s majority government couldn’t pass a similar bill even with the full support of the Coalition.

They don’t have the necessary experience and expertise.

Whilst it would be true to say that most minor parties don’t experience in government, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they lack experienced parliamentarians or that their candidates don’t have the necessary skills or expertise to cut it in parliament house. It’s a lot like the catch 22 that many job seekers find themselves in – no one will hire them because they lack experience, but how do you get experience if no one will hire you.

Their policies aren’t as good or as practical to implement as those offered by the big two.

The hard truth is that before deciding who to vote for, most people don’t spend a lot of time methodologically analyzing and comparing the policies and election promises of each of the candidates on their ballot paper. And so many voters wouldn’t necessarily be aware of the policy positions and priorities of most of the candidates. So where is the average voter getting their information from? The mainstream media. Although the mainstream media doesn’t always offer the most objective information. And not all candidates’ campaign budgets are big enough to afford giant billboard ads or prime time television commercials.

They’ll never win government, so why bother?

Not with an attitude like that they won’t! But it’s a perception that many voters hold and reinforced by major media outlets and the major parties when, for example, they explain that the Greens’ Leader Richard Di Natale shouldn’t participate in the national leaders’ debates is because the Greens “won’t win government anyway”. But unless they’re in possession of a crystal ball, surely that decision is entirely up to the voters? And given that the Greens ran candidates in every one of the 150 lower house electorates, mathematically at least, they had just as much chance forming government as either of the big two.

Let’s now return to our supermarket analogy.

After comparing the options and weighing up the factors of most importance to them - for example price, range, choice, FEATURE / 11

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convenience, location – there will be many shoppers who invariably make the informed decision to continue to provide their business to only Coles or Woolworths.

A similar principle applies to your voting habits. After considering all of the alternatives, you may well decide it to be in your best interests to continue voting for either Labor or Liberal. And that’s okay!

But as can be the case when you compare supermarket prices of comparable products, when you compare the polices on offer from the various parties and independent candidates at the next election, you may be surprised by what you find.

And just like the informed consumer is more likely to land the best bargains and avoid any nasty surprises, so too will an informed voter be more likely to back the right candidate and a lot less likely to discover they’ve been ‘sold’ a dud.

Because unlike when you take your shopping home and discover that you’d bought a mouldy can of baked beans, once it’s cast, you can’t take your vote back!

WA Electoral Commission Questions Necessity of Bunbury Guild Election Polling Booths by Kitty Turpin Due to the low number of voter turnouts in past ECU Guild elections, the Western Australian Electoral Commission (WAEC) has inquired into the necessity of having polling booths available at the ECU South West (Bunbury) campus over the ECU Guild election season.

Their first preference of action would be to run polling booths for only one day on the South West Campus, compared to the three days polling booths are available at the metro (Mount Lawley and Joondalup) campuses. They highlighted that, of course, this solution would be cheaper for the ECU Student Guild. The ECU Student Guild President, Lewis Price, saw the benefits of this, but did not agree to the change.

“The onus is on the Guild to engage as many students as possible and to increase voter turnout,” says Price. Lewis also went on to speak about the importance of polling booths being available over a longer period of time, “To be a fair and equitable election, all campuses need ample

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opportunity [to vote]. It is important to bear in mind many students are away on prac at different times, and are on campus on different days.”

Price outlines an important point: reducing the availability of the polls from three days to only one will influence voter turnout. With polling booths unavailable for students, whose days on campus vary, students simply won’t vote.

It’s vital that ECU students vote in these elections as the Guild Senate are an important body that advocate for the students of ECU. They regulate the services provided by the Guild including financial aid, legal support and the second hand book shop that many ECU students use across the duration of their degree, without a second thought to the student body behind it.

ECU Bunbury students, I urge you to vote in this election.

Show the WAEC they’re wrong and that you care about what happens on your campus.

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

“What Would Jesus Do?” A look at the division of church & state in Australia

by Sun-Mi Clyburn There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this year’s census, the biggest being the failure of the website on the night everyone in Australia was meant to fill out the form online. But leading up to that the matter of religion dominated the public discussion. The Atheist Foundation of Australia lead the “Census No Religion” campaign to convince Australians to mark “no religion” on the form if they considered themselves not actively religious.

This campaign was launched in response to the claims of far right-wing groups, that marking “no religion” on the census form will lead to Australia being declared a Muslim country (previous Census showed 2.2% of the population were Muslim; 29.4% considered themselves Catholic; 22.3% claimed no religious affiliation). Some might ask, why is it important for the government to know your religious affiliations anyway? It is important information our ministers and senators use as a guide when making decisions about policy and distribution of funds.

According to a survey conducted by IPSOS earlier this year 78% of Australians support secularism and the complete separation of the matters of religion and government.

However, the lack of that division is a lot more prevalent in Australia than most of us realise.

One obvious public discourse and area of policy making that is notorious for religious interference is marriage equality. Previous Prime Ministers, including Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbot, even Julia Gillard, cited the Bible and the necessity to uphold the Christian definition of marriage, as the reason against legalizing same-sex marriage. Interestingly enough (and much to our national embarrassment) countries that are openly religious, like Ireland and the U.S.A. have already legalized gay marriage.

This is a matter that is very much in the public eye. And when we can see that religious institutions enjoy a lot more privileges than would be considered appropriate for a secular state, it becomes even more prevalent.

The tax exemption was granted to churches centuries ago and the status quo has been maintained mostly due to the outdated assumption that religious organisations exist for the benefit of the community. However, more often than not the predominant motivation of such organisations is proselytizing and spreading their beliefs and, unlike secular charities, they don’t have to report on their activities.

The Salvation Army, known in Australia mostly for its op shops and feeding and housing the homeless, does a lot of charitable work. However, its main purpose is made very clear in its mission statement:

By the definition of secular government and division of church and state, an organisation that promotes religion of any kind should be entirely in the private sector and shouldn’t be funded by the government. However, as things stand, Salvo’s is tax exempt and receives nearly $200 million a year in government funding.

Another area where religious organisations seem to receive preferential treatment is in education. Between 2009 and 2014 government funding rose by 30.2% for Catholic schools and only 14.6% for public schools. Just the fact that private religious schools receive funding from the government means all of us tax payers are subsidizing the teaching of creationism and scripture. The Chaplaincy program is particularly worrying, as the chaplains hired in schools are appointed purely because they are religious officials, not based on their background in social or youth work, or experience in counselling. This program is also funded by the government and doesn’t include an option for secular counsellors.

Furthermore, religious institutions are exempt from antidiscrimination laws. This means a hospital run by the Catholic church has the right to refuse family planning services of any kind, because contraception and abortion go against the religious doctrine. For the same reason these institutions would have the right to discriminate against members of the LGBTI community.

What many Australians might not know is that even forprofit businesses owned by religious organisations are also tax exempt e.g. The Seventh Day Adventist Church doesn’t pay tax on their company, Sanatarium (estimated $300 million a year in revenue).

In total, the Australian government pours around $500 million into the chaplaincy program (which essentially promotes only one religion), $11 billion into faith schools and forgoes almost $20 billion in tax.

Around the world we have seen a substantial growth in people claiming no religious affiliation. Hopefully the results of the Australian 2016 Census reflect this and convince our government that it’s time to bring our country into the 21st century.

“The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in His name without discrimination.”

FEATURE / 13

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DIRCKSEY

The 2016 Turkey Military Coup – Context and Consequences

ISSUE 5: POLITICS Art by Shona Wong

by Rhys Tarling On July 15 a deadly coup de tat was attempted in Turkey against President Erdogan. The coup was carried out by a small faction within the Turkish military. The violence that erupted across Turkey, from Ankara to Istanbul, only lasted a few hours. But in those few hours 290 were killed and over a thousand more were injured.

What led to this violent eruption?

Modern Turkey’s government has been turbulent. Since the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1922, the military, through threat or force, has seized control of the government three times. The roots of the military there run deep, predating its formation as a Republic, as it was the muscle for the Ottoman Empire. Their armed forces have remained strong ever since then, in fact they’re ranked just behind the US as NATO’s strongest army and moreover, they have historically been the self-appointed guardians of Kemalism.

away at Kemal’s secularist legacy in fairly benign ways, such as lifting a longstanding ban on headscarves in public institutions, the building of 17 000 Mosques, and introducing compulsory religious education.

Naturally, an already prickly relationship between the Turkish military and the Erdogan government only grew worse and worse.

While on paper it appears to be a good thing that the recent military coup has failed, there have been some critics who have voiced concerns that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is taking advantage of the failed coup to tighten his grip on power.

Immediately following the coup, the government announced the closure of 3 news agencies, 16 television channels, 45 newspapers, and 29 publishers.

Kemalism is an ideology created by the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal.

Kemal sought for the new Turkey to be a pro Western and secularist society, to do away with the Islamism that had informed the Ottoman Empire’s identity.

The European Union has bristled at Erdogan’s talk of restoring the death penalty, a move that would kill Turkey’s long bid to join the EU. Turkish Opposition politician Ertugrul Kurkcu said, “We believe that he’s using and manipulating this aborted coup in order to reach his target of getting control of the country as the supreme power.”

Since Mr. Erdogan won the presidency in 2003, he and his Justice and Development Party have slowly chipped

Given that Erdogan once said that “democracy is a vehicle, not a goal,” these worries are not unfounded.

FEATURE / 15

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PC or Not to Be - That is the question...

Photo by Shona Wong

by Deb Wilson After a few wines at a friend’s dinner party recently, we made an observation on the sexual orientation of the attending group, which nudged the conversation towards the topic of political correctness. Our hostess’ bold response was to suggest that we attempt a game of “Cards against Humanity”. Anyone who has ever happened to partake in this experience will know that all “etiquette, integrity and correctness”, must rapidly depart the room, for a guaranteed reaction of cackles, conniption fits, and a copious amount of beverage regurgitation.

It was during this very first game of cards, that I realised the importance and impact of political correctness.

My fiendish opponents had picked my ever so slight South African accent at the beginning of the evening, and took it upon themselves to highlight my discomfort at having to read aloud, ill-suited statements of political and ethnic themes. As the game proceeded, they carefully plotted, selected and “stored” cards over several rounds, finally producing them upon my turn to read, and filling in the blanks on statements about musicals, bodily functions and school excursions, with terms such as “Apartheid” and “African children,” to prompt me to squirm as I read them out. They were horribly successful.

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Anyone growing up in South Africa before, during, and after the changes in racial, political and cultural diversity in the country, knows the challenges that faced everyone. Without placing any political agendas or personal views onto this somewhat delicate topic, I note that as I endured these changes, there was no significant shift in my perceptions or acceptance of diversity.

The one thing that was definitely shaped and brought to the forefront of my mind, is how carefully aware I now am, when navigating a conversation.

I have not returned to my country of birth in over ten years, and yet, I still find myself pausing to query which conventional terms are appropriate for the ethnic or cultural groups in which I am being entertained, since some “terminology” can be rather offensive in different countries.

I often blame the ambiguity of the English language, or sometimes my innate awkwardness. I find that political correctness is a matter of opinion, and there is always someone seemingly waiting to be offended, especially when I relay anecdotes of my own experiences whilst growing up.

Pleasing everyone is simply impossible.

Life has shown me that humour and humility go really well together, and if the one fails you, the other is there to pick you up. Words can impact

differently when placed in a different order in the same sentence. It’s all about learning how to place them.

We all make mistakes, but the difference is made when identifying these mistakes, and what they infer.

I’ve finally come to accept that if my feet are equally split between being firmly on the ground, and in my mouth, chances are that I am probably erring quite successfully, but at least at the same time I have awareness of the voice that I too am projecting.

DIRCKSEY

Power of the US Food Lobby Throughout the world the obesity epidemic is reaching a critical stage.

It’s costing people their health, lives, and billions of dollars in healthcare.

The messages we hear all around us is “a calorie is a calorie, no matter where it comes from” and “eat less/exercise more” is the fool-proof solution to weight loss.

Countless studies and statistics show that both these assertions are incorrect.

Maybe the problem lies elsewhere?

There are entire industries that exist and thrive because of the population’s overconsumption and addiction to certain products. It’s in their interest for it to stay that way, so maybe they’ve had more of an impact on our current situation than we realise; some may say it’s a pessimistic and cynical approach.

However, that’s what all the evidence points to and in the 21st century the sugar industry has just as much power and even more to lose then the tobacco lobby had 50 years ago.

When Michelle Obama started the “Let’s move” campaign, it focused on nutrition, the importance of eating wholesome food and cutting sugar, sodium and processed junk food out of our diet. As the campaign gained traction, the food lobbies and major corporations saw the First Lady’s actions as a direct threat to their business. Instead of fighting her head on, they offered a helping hand and by partnering and sponsoring “Let’s move” they gave the impression they were part of the solution (despite the obvious conflict of interest). Bringing these major corporations (including, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Mars) on board was probably the worst thing Mrs. Obama could have done. Within a

short period of time “Let’s move” completely changed its message. The focus was no longer proper nutrition, but exercise and the message of “calories in – calories out”. Even the First Lady changed her tone and said in interviews that the campaign wasn’t about demonizing any industry.

It’s such a shame that “Let’s move” brought some important matters into public discussion and then ended up neutralized under the pressure of corporations protecting their own business interests. But this is not the first time we’ve seen the American food lobbies exert their power.

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

by Sun-Mi Clyburn Art by Emily Upton

of sugar and high fructose corn syrup).

On the other hand, it regulates food industry standards, sets dietary guidelines and promotes public health.

So far the interests of the food industry have had the upper hand.

Current nutrition guidelines recommend that between 22 and 25% of our daily calorie intake can come from sugar. But, it may come as a surprise for many that this isn’t a recommendation set by the World Health Organization. It’s set by the American sugar industry. In 2002 the WHO put together a report on diet nutrition and the prevention of diseases. It claimed that sugar is a major if not the cause of chronic metabolic diseases and obesity and no more than 10% of daily calories should come from sugar; 2.5 times less than the standard set by the sugar industry.

The sugar industry put immense pressure on Washington. In response, the Bush administration claimed the report was too tough on the food industry and extorted the World Health Organization into burying the report, so the guidelines never affected the American food industry.

In 1977, Senator George McGovern issued a special committee on nutrition to put together a report on the connection between dietary habits and heart disease. The committee came to the conclusion that Americans were eating products too high in fat, cholesterol and sugar and issued the first ever dietary goals for the American population. In response, the egg, sugar, dairy and beef associations rallied together and pressured the senate to rewrite the report. The final version completely cut out the word “reduce” and instead encouraged Americans to In short, the American government is buy more lean and low fat products responsible for the weight and health (which tend to be high in sugar). problems of the American people.

One could argue that the world as Furthermore, the food lobbies well. American culture has heavily managed to pressure congress influenced the globe throughout the into completely liquidating the 20th century. The prevalence of Coca committee. The US Department of Cola and MacDonald’s in every country Agriculture absorbed the committee’s around the world is a good indication responsibilities and as a result to of that. When we look at the evidence this day possesses two conflicting the worldwide obesity epidemic seems powers. On one hand it subsidises to be more of a matter of politics than and promotes all agricultural produce anything else. (including products with high content

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DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Behind the police line, Anti–islamophobia protest, 2014

Perth’s Activism Culture Through the Lens of Marziya Mohammedali “Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.” – Alice Walker When thinking of activism, it’s easy to picture iconic images of protest: the man in Tiananmen square, or the woman with a flower facing police with guns at an antiwar demonstration in the US. There is a sense of poise in the image of the lone protestor facing off against some much larger, ominous power, and how one person can make a difference if they try. Other images involve large crowds of people shouting, waving placards, fists in the air, standing up for a cause they believe in.

However, activism is so much more than what these images portray.

Activism is a tool for social justice, and is meant to work towards social and political change. It is not limited to taking part in a large rally, shouting crowds marching down a street, or blocking off traffic. Protest can be the quiet vigils to commemorate deaths in immigration detention. Protest can be standing, silent, on the steps of Parliament house, against the abuse of children. Protest can be sitting down and blockading a road or locking on to a gate to protect the land from being destroyed. While social justice movements may involve some of these tactics, there are multiple ways of protesting – just as there is so much to protest.

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Why do people engage in activism? Why do people protest?

Sometimes it feels like there is an endless cycle of protests: Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers in detention centres; Aboriginal deaths in custody; the closure of remote Aboriginal communities; abuse of children in Don Dale and other centres; the Black Lives Matter movement; fracking and destruction of our environment; the rise of far-right groups such as the United Patriots Front and the proliferation of xenophobia and bigoted rhetoric; attacks on the LGBT+ community and the Safe Schools program… the list goes on. And these are only a few of the issues that have been the focus of protests in the last six months in Perth!

As an activist photographer, documenting the different protest actions, the moments that stand out are the unexpected ones: the ones that expose the humanity, the people behind the protest. The images I take serve to tell a story: what happens when people stand together? How do we go about creating awareness and making a change in our society? How do we say, enough is enough? How do we stand in solidarity with people whose voices are silenced?

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

A young boy at the Doctors, Teachers and Community Protest against the Border Force Act, 2015

Vigil for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, Orlando, 2016 CREATIVE / ARTS & LITERATURE / 19

DIRCKSEY

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Sometimes I’m asked, ‘why do you take photos at rallies?’.

It’s not a question that has a simple or straightforward answer – I started taking photos at protests as a way of engaging with the movements that affected me in many ways. I can’t ignore what is going on, not when it happens to any of the communities I belong to (or to anyone for that matter). I wanted to contribute something. In my case that was a skill: storytelling, documenting through images the way communities stand up against oppression. My creative work focuses on amplifying voices often from protests. I try to amplify the stories that are being told by exposing what was going on to wider audiences. Along the way, I have felt my efforts were futile. I asked myself, how much more do we have to do before we get anywhere – protest after protest after protest was happening without much change at all.

When I found that my images were being seen by people who were most affected: I started to receive messages from people in detention centres, from people in communities, saying thank you. Thank you for showing us that people care. One message I will always treasure is from Gaza, when someone messaged me after seeing my photos posted on a relative’s page. It was immensely humbling. It is something I still return to, when I wonder what the point of all this is.

Left: A young muslim woman hides her face, Black Lives Matter, 2016 Bottom: Protestors at Black Lives Matter, 2016

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DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

1st anniversary of the death in police custody of Miss Dhu, 2015

Sign posted up on the side of the Perth Immigration Detention Centre, World Refugee Day, 2015 CREATIVE / ARTS & LITERATURE / 21

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DIRCKSEY

Consider Malcolm

by Rhys Tarling

His forefinger placed just below his temple subtly completes the visage of a singularly impressive glare. Its impressiveness is due to the righteous intelligence that illuminates his countenance. Such is the power of his expression that it’s no less compelling even when adorning t-shirts and bedroom posters. It’s a photograph that holds the same cultural importance as Guerrillero Heroico, a similar picture of a steely-eyed figure who radiates the charisma of a hundred men.

The photograph depicts human rights activist Malcolm X. A black man whose father was murdered by Klansmen when he was a boy and was, along with seven siblings, left in the care of a mentally ill mother who was later institutionalised. Malcolm was a victim of systemic racism long before he was old enough to shave.

William Marable, a former professor of African-American studies at Columbia University, said of Malcolm X in 2005, “In 39 short years of life, Malcolm came to symbolise black urban America; its culture, its politics, its militancy, its outrage against structural racism, and, at the end of his life, a broad internationalist vision of emancipatory power”.

Born as Malcolm Little, he was a minister and speaker for the Nation of Islam (NOI), a Black American Muslim movement that practiced an ascetic lifestyle and preached black self-determination; NOI urged disenfranchised black Americans to set up their own schools, churches, and support networks. Malcolm was regarded as one of the most influential members of NOI, second only to the “Honourable” Elijah Muhammad. But Malcolm was the face of NOI. He was the face of it to such an extent that at the height of his infamy he couldn’t offer a comment on the headlines of the day without it becoming a headline itself.

By the power of his oratory abilities and his supernaturally relentless hustle, he elevated NOI from a small time popsicle stand to a national movement.

It began as a movement when Malcolm and fifty Muslim brothers stood in rank before a police precinct, where one of their own had been brutalised by a police officer.

Malcolm demanded to the officers that the injured brother be taken to a hospital. It was done. And then a great swell of others galvanised around Malcolm and the fifty brothers.

The officer chided to Malcolm that he had generated a potential riot. Malcolm silently pointed to the fifty who were still.

“Yes, but the others,” said the officer.

“They’re your problem,” he replied.

The officer later told the press, “No one man should have all that power.”

“Brothers and sisters, the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus! The white man has taught us to sing and shout and pray until we die, to wait until death, for some dreamy heaven in the hereafter, when we’re dead, while this white man has his milk and honey in the streets paved with

ISSUE 5: POLITICS Art by Luke Clark (@meatwavves)

golden dollars right here on this earth!” He articulated to an audience of captivated black Americans at the beginning of his ministry. He didn’t earn the moniker of “The Angriest Negro in America” for nothing.

A reporter once nervously, as if preparing for blister and bluster, asked him, “Do you consider yourself militant?”.

The Angriest Negro in America replied with an irrepressibly charming, “I consider myself Malcolm.” The gentle humour was unexpected from a man whose other iconic image is of him expertly wielding an AK-47, peeking just beyond his living room curtains for would-be assassins.

What’s not as widely known as the man’s powerful words are his equally powerful actions, like the drug rehabilitation programs he spearheaded in dope jungles like Harlem.

Under Malcolm’s instructions, members of NOI would confidently approach and aid black dope addicts by speaking to them in their language, educating the addict on the wider racial implication of their drug use (it’s just what whitey wants!) and thereby instilling an unshakable sense of brotherhood. It would only be then that the junkie would willingly endure the pain of withdrawal and, in time, be ready and willing to lift others from the mud that they had mired in. The success rate for such tactics astounded all. But none of that was documented in the papers at the time. In regards to JFK’s death when he remarked “the chickens have come home to roost”, an innocuous statement meant to articulate the climate of hate that was scorching America, it was plastered everywhere and twisted in such way that it would propagate the image of a black demagogue who was frothing at the mouth to incite a race war.

His efforts to heal the communities where he had formally roamed as a peddler of drugs and flesh, are documented The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told by his friend Alex Haley. Setting aside it’s its titanic historical importance, the book works as a compelling and accessible narrative of a lost soul who had hit the lowest depths when he was a mere 20 years old, but achieved redemption, found dignity, through his rediscovery of the history of his black ancestry.

The rediscovery imbued him with the platonic ideal of self-love – the kind that enabled him to gladden and inspire those in his presence. And there were often thousands in his presence.

If you haven’t, read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Please look beyond what a t-shirt and bedroom poster offers. Too often he’s remembered as only the militant counterpart to Martin Luther King. Or worse yet, as an angry black demagogue who only appealed to the renegade.

His commonly accepted pop culture analogue is Magneto.

Of all the pop culture analogues, Malcolm X is equated to the charismatic yet hateful and murderous supervillain – an appalling correspondence. And one, shamefully, that I thoughtlessly accepted before happening upon his biography, a biography that costs $13.50 and is readily available. Consider it.

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DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

THE MILITARY The Military, or that mighty manly fist, The crimson lust that kissed and pressed on The heart of men who pushed the bounds of Violent and frustrated dreams of Owning, and consuming the land That is here, just sitting...

Oh the softest face of Gaia trickles out The most luscious thoughts of twisted animal Minds - no peace, no absolution - within the body And the spirit of the goddess of the Living - why do such men set about Their twisted lives like angry crabby Manic hives that wish to perish and Demolish all the beautiful shapes of our Sweet mother earth? oh mother, such a precious Soil and claim, why do we struggle to Protect her and praise and submit to her Like the grateful children we are? instead we Squabble and fight for your attention like baby Twin boys, or girls, or more, so many Siblings to fill the entire map and sky, We of all the places and the faces of the human Kind...our weary eyes are testament to breadth And length at which we strive to survive the on going Surprises of life.

By D.K. Woodstock

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DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

BOOK REVIEWS Fahrenheit 451

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

Ray Bradbury, 1953 Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 remains a relevant work of fiction in 2016. The novel posits a dystopian future where firemen start the fires instead of putting them out; their job is to burn all of the books.

The story is told through the point of view of fireman Guy Montag, who seems outwardly happy with his job and living in an anti-intellectual society.

But a spark is lit in his depressingly dim inner-world after a few encounters with an intellectually vivacious 17 year old, Clarisse McClellan, a spark that threatens his comfortable existence. The prose is pure poetry (so poetic that writer Bradbury can communicate the tactile beauty of a burning book of all things) and the message – humanity’s tendency to suppress what it’s collectively challenged by – is powerfully delivered. Like all great science fiction stories, it comments on the events of its day while retaining its thematic potency through the passage of time.

Rhys Tarling

Francine Prose, 2014 Francine Prose has crafted a psychologically acute and evocative work of fiction that accounts for how one person, that person being cross-dressing French race-car driver Lou Villars (inspired by real life figure Violette Morris), can transform from a fundamentally decent person into a Nazi collaborator.

Much like her real life counterpart, Villars is made infamous in this fictionalised version of history for being the one who enabled the Germans to breach France’s defences. The life of Lou Villars is recounted by various and alternating narrators in her orbit, notably a stand-in for author Henry Miller, photographer Brassai, and a few others. Each narrator has a specific voice and philosophy that informs their own character and Lou Villars’. They’re not merely there to propel a plot, though they fulfil that function beautifully too. A seductive and haunting literary recreation of a turbulent era.

Rhys Tarling

The Castle

Slaughterhouse-Five

Franz Kafka, 1926

Kurt Vonnegut, 1969

Written during 1922, Kafka abandoned this book and ordered for it to be destroyed (amongst others) after his death; thankfully; that request was ignored. The Castle is an absurd and baffling journey through a mysterious village, as K., our protagonist, attempts to secure his position within the allusive Castle that governs it. At times hilarious, other times extremely dark and never-wracking, this has been my personal favourite book of 2016; ninety years since its publishing, it retains all of its haunting, claustrophobic surrealism right until the final sentence, left fragmentary with no closure. Perhaps that’s how Kafka intended it.

Kurt Vonnegut is one of those authors that if you’re into your literature, you need to read, and SlaughterhouseFive is one of his best. It is, in sorts, an anti-war novel and a semi-autobiographical tale with Vonnegut taking from his experiences as an American soldier who survived the bombing of Dresden in World War II. It follows Billy Pilgrim, a pacifist who is thrust into the Second World War, and captured by the Germans.

The strange thing about Billy is that he can time travel and claims to have been kept in an alien zoo. SlaughterhouseFive is a truly strange and hilarious novel written in Vonnegut’s classic style.

Joseph De-Kock

Kitty Turpin

Read a book lately? Send us your review: art.dircksey@gmail.com

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DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Perth Music Spotlight: Sage Pbbbt

By Mae Anthony Amongst having studied Fine Arts with an Honours degree in Linguistics and Cultural Studies, completing a Master’s degree, and currently being a PhD candidate at the Western Australian Academy of Arts, Sage Pbbbt is an experimental vocalist who uses improvisation to compose music. Her practice is inspired by Tuvan and Mongolian overtone singing and Inuit throat singing (both of which are branches of overtone singing, an incredible skill in which a person can produce two independent pitches from one fundamental vocal frequency i.e. one pitch), sound poetry (a fusion of literacy and musical composition whereby the components of human speech, such as phonetics, is used as the basis of a musical idea) and various “heightened” vocal techniques.

It also draws upon the areas of meditation, urban/industrial shamanism and chaos magick, and feminist, queer and trans thought mechanisms.

Photo by Cicely Binford

I got to talk to her about her musical process, and how [if at all] gender politics influences her art.

Having come from a widespread artistic and creative background, how did your musick project come about?

You are interested in feminist, queer, and trans politics. Does this stream of politics influence your music in any way?

SP: I’ve played music of various kinds for a long time.

I made music with computers for quite a while, played bass and drums and other things, and played a lot of free improvisation. But I heard some Tuvan and Mongolian music around 2007 and got a bit obsessed, listened to a lot of it and taught myself some of the techniques (or my approximation of them). But I got sick for a while and couldn’t sing. I started singing again on 7th August 2013. I decided that I would record some vocal work every day for a year as a way to motivate myself to recover the skills that I had lost. I’d tried getting back into the overtone singing on and off for a while, but had found it quite frustrating. So the ‘Daily Sketches’ project really functioned to get me back into singing. I didn’t plan to have 365 finished pieces of work at the end of the year, but to have developed my skill, and have a document of my journey. At the end of one year I just decided to keep going.

SP: I don’t often have an explicit intent to, for example, create a piece of ‘feminist free improvisation’, whatever that might mean. But I absolutely feel that an awareness of gender and sexuality informs my work in all sorts of subtle ways. Like everyone in our society, these things shape all of my interactions with other people. I perhaps feel more attuned to this process because I’ve thought about it a lot, and because I experience the world as a queer, trans woman. (Male / cis / straight) privilege functions invisibly—those with privilege usually don’t realise their privilege because of how it functions to normalize their experience.

You’re an improviser who utilises vocal experimentation to create music. How would you describe your process when you record, as opposed to when you perform live?

SP: My praxis takes a lot of inspiration from Buddhist insight-meditation and trying to really connect with whatever I experience in the present moment (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, etc.) and ‘give voice’ to them.

Improvising every day (and meditating every day) feels like a way of practicing that responsiveness and in some sense it doesn’t feel different to live performance—I have the same intent. Except that with an audience, and on a stage, I tend to feel quite different things than I do in the comfort of my own home.

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I also intend to explore the ‘performative’ aspect of gender more in my vocal performances—I have tended to really focus only on sound for quite a while in a way that, looking back, perhaps feels a bit like abstracting things away from bodies, and gender and from actually engaging with having agency in the (social) world. I feel excited and daunted by the prospect of more actively exploring these things, both in life generally as well as music.

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You are interested in the way humans interact socially, particularly with regards to the way normative social stereotypes and streams of consciousness influence our lives. How do you think this can be explored through creating music and performing your musick?

SP: I personally feel that in some sense, exploring the possible in any domain raises questions about our expectations and assumptions. So exploring the limits of the possible with my voice (and by extension ‘the voice’) might inspires others to question how they engage with their own voice and the voices of others. I don’t want to convert everyone to more ‘experimental’ types of singing, but I sometimes imagine that what I do forces people to think about their own choices about voice and how they have come to make them, and raises an awareness of other possibilities and the political consequences of all of our choices. I find it hard to not read more experimental / avant-garde / exploratory work, particularly by less empowered voices, as explicitly engaged with such questions and their corollaries in other fields—to me it seems obvious that exploratory music raises questions about heteronormativity, or racism, or any socially conditioned oppression. Other times I feel that these ‘associations’ don’t translate for other people and I feel genuinely confused (and saddened) by this.

Your upcoming research is based around using “improvisation as a way of exploring”, particularly through “the realms of shamanic chaos magick, insight meditation and, most interestingly, gender performance”. How do you think improvisation, the core of your creative production, can explore gender performance?

Photo by Cicely Binford

SP: Improvisation can sometimes function as a question about our preconceived notions, or our learned reactions— what do I do when x or y happens? Sometimes in these situations things arise that we did not expect, things that we did not know about ourselves. And sometimes these situations facilitate a (seemingly) new way of responding.

Or simply we find ourselves in a situation we have not inhabited before. When we involve more than one person, gender obviously plays a role in how we react and engage with each other. But in solo performance, gender also feels very prominent in both how I imagine the audience reading particular sounds or gestures in a gendered way (whether consciously or not) as well as how I engage with my experience in the moment as gendering myself, my voice, or my body. In part, I think of gender as one of the ways which we ‘read’ our experience. It feels like an abstraction, in a way, but a very pervasive and powerful abstraction that it feels foolish to try to ignore.

You can check out Sage’s music at http://sagepbbbt.com.au

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DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

MUSIC REVIEWS American Idiot

What’s Going On

Green Day, 2005

Marvin Gaye, 1971

American Idiot opens with what is probably one of Green Day’s most famous songs of the same name, and it’s honestly the best thing the album has to offer.

American Idiot saw the U.S. punk-rock group rise back to fame after their string of successful albums in the 1990s and one unsuccessful album in 2000. It even won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 2005. American Idiot, often described as a rock opera (a pretentious self-proclaimed title by these punk rockers), followed the story of Jesus of Suburbia – an anti-hero, young and full of rage, growing up in the George W. Bush/Iraq War era. The production quality of this album compared to their earlier releases screams “we now have money!” Though I loved the album when it was first released (when I was 9), it certainly doesn’t feel like the best depiction of the punk vs. Bush era of music, but rather a glance in through a mainstream lens.

In What’s Going On, the soul artist best known for hits like “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “Sexual Healing”, breaks away from Motown and his sex icon image to explore contentious political and societal issues.

This soul, jazz, funk and gospel influenced concept album is inspired by violent events, like the Vietnam War, the Kent State massacre and the Detroit race riots of 1967.

What’s Going On is a profound piece of story-telling from the perspective of a war veteran returning home only to be faced with hatred, violence and injustice. In his lyrics the Prince of Soul referrers to fellow citizens as brother, sister, father and mother and pleads for peace and non-violence.

He also touches on urban poverty, drug abuse, and environmental issues. The tone and subject matter remain very relevant to this day.

Kitty Turpin

Sun-Mi Clyburn

Scarlet’s Walk

War

Tori Amos, 2002

U2, 1983

Scarlet’s Walk is the seventh album by American singersongwriter Tori Amos.

Ambiguous as far as to who Scarlet is, the album is a concept album about America, a country split in a deep chasm of post-9/11 anarchy and devastation, and filled with trepidations surrounding white Americans colonisation and racism towards traditional indigenous people and other immigrants. A woman scouts the American terrain, and comments on what she sees. “Even a glamorous bitch can be in need”. Somehow Amos gives us insights into the lives of a variety of people, and in doing so, reminds us of the vastness and complexity of everyday people and their experiences. Filled with percussive undertones and rhythmic piano licks, many of the songs hold a similar beat and harmonic progression, but in the way a carefully adorned house contains the same art, furniture and décor.

Most of the lyric-detail is in the finer details of majority of the songs. But some scream at you like a red dot on a white cashmere sweater. Once you’ve seen it, it’s there forever.

U2’s third studio album War begins with one of their alltime famous songs, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. As an opening track it’s effective in two ways: it immediately sets a harsher sounding tone with its militaristic drum beats, and it lets the listener immediately know that War is going to reflect on the strife and shambles that was the world in the latter half of the 20th century. Said strife and shambles is covered quite thoroughly on this ten track album, from the killings of 26 civilian protestors in Derry, Northern Ireland, to the anxiety of a possible nuclear war with the best track on the album “Seconds” – its core anxiety made palatable with its weirdly groovy bass line. Some of it is a little clumsy - “Red Light” immediately comes to mind - but 33 years later this remains a soulful and passionate album.

Mae Anthony

Rhys Tarling

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Have an EP, CD or Single coming out? Send it to us at: music.dircksey@gmail.com

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 5: POLITICS

Political Filmmaking: Political. But not too Political. But still Political.

by Sarah Stopforth

The medium of political filmmaking is crucial in communicating important world issues in a form that is easily accessible, channeling emotions through fiction and non-fiction storytelling. We as Australians are incredibly sheltered from the tragedies and disasters that are happening around the world every day. We only see what the media and the government want us to see, and so our bubble continues, un-penetrable.

Political filmmaking, particularly documentary films, are one of the best chances we have at piercing the bubble. Films make us react to what’s happening in the world around us in a particularly different way to media outlets. Films can influence change.

“In the realm of cinema, all nonnarrative genres – the documentary, the technical film etc.– have become marginal provinces, border regions so to speak,” Christian Metz explains in Some Points in the Semiotics of the Cinema, “while the feature-length film of novelistic fiction, which is simply called a “film,” –the usage is significant– has traced more and more clearly the king’s highway of filmic expression.” What Metz is implying is that when someone has a choice between watching a feature film or a documentary, they will, more often than not, choose the feature film. This is understandable as people tend to gravitate towards film for escapism; something light and easy that they don’t have to think deeply about - a film that does not pop the bubble they remain in. It is when you watch a feature or a documentary with subjects of debate or controversy that this bubble can be penetrated. Sometimes there is a crossover between feature film and documentary, where films are based on true stories, surrounded in real social and political issues, but are still presented through the ‘novelistic narrative’. These are most effective because in this form they can gently spoon feed audiences information.

Examples of such films are the Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) and In The Name of The Father (1993).

Phillip Noyce’s Australian classic Rabbit Proof Fence follows three Indigenous sisters who were a part of the stolen generation in Western Australia, 1931, to be trained as domestic servants. The three sisters manage to escape from the custody of the white folk and must walk 1500 miles, along the rabbit-proof fence, to find their way back home.

The film shows the tragic nature of what these particular children, acting as representatives of the entire stolen generation, had to endure upon the invasion of the European settlers and their government’s policies.

This film took our shameful political and social history and projected it through a novelistic lens so that the current generation can understand the unforgettable and despicable truth of how ‘Australia’ was born.

Australian filmmaker Eva Orner (Academy Award winner of Best Documentary for Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)) created an astonishingly emotional and powerful documentary about the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia’s offshore detention centers. It is an incredibly complex issue that should heed the attention of every Australian, however due to the ban on media coverage on the subject, it goes over most Australian’s heads.

Orner effectively presents years of footage from inside these detention centers, compiled with interviews, statistics and alternative solutions to shock and ignite change in Australia.

The documentary Five Broken Cameras (2011) also comes to mind when I think of people protesting against a higher power. When Israeli troops take over In The Name of The Father is an Irish/ the land of a small Palestinian village British film by Jim Sheridan, which is of Bil’in for a new settlement, the based on the true story of the Guildford locals continue to protest for years and Four, who were wrongly convicted years against the Israeli army, refusing of the Irish Republican Army pub to give up fighting for their right to bombings in Guildford, southwest of the land of their families. Five Broken London, 1974. Persecuted and abused Cameras captures the brutal violence

by British police, the four Irish citizens and harsh nature of what people in are charged for a crime they did not middle-eastern countries have to bear commit, in a time where ‘make love, on a daily basis; they’re scared, they’re not war’ was still on the brain of every angry, and people are dying every day, member of the new world. The film all around them. Seeing this kind of shines a protruding light on how the footage, from within the bunker, so to British law and order system at the speak, is something that everyone in time failed these individuals. In The the west should experience, so we Name of The Father created a needed can all comprehend the level of environment where transparency of violence and persecution asylum government could be discussed and seekers face in their home countries. displayed in public.

To see with your own eyes what is happening in the real world, this On the other hand, when one sits very minute, is very important. down to watch a documentary, the story presented is always going to be Political filmmaking is like a game a harder truth to swallow; we are no of chess. To hold power filmmakers longer viewing the world through guess their opponent’s (whether this the romantic “film” gaze. I cannot be the government, the media or their deny that documentaries are trying to target audience’s) next move. With fulfill the director’s personal agenda, this knowledge they can plan their however this agenda and world view film accordingly. And when they have is important to share, especially when cold, hard evidence caught on film? there are bans or restrictions on the Checkmate: they have the power to information being presented. change the world.

Chasing Asylum (2016) is a perfect example of this.

FILM / 29

DIRCKSEY

ISSUE 4: THE SEX & GENDER JAMBOREE

FILM REVIEWS

Dr. Strangelove

Five Broken Cameras

Stanley Kubrick, 1964 Master director Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a disturbing and hilarious insight into the Cold War between the Soviets Union and the United States.

The gist is that a psychopathic US general attempts to trigger a nuclear holocaust because he is convinced that the Russians are tampering with their water (“impurifying our precious bodily fluids!” he screams early on) – a deranged delusion that fulfils its purpose of assuaging his sexual inadequacies, human extinction be damned.

The sexual imagery pervades nearly every frame of this film (cigars, scantily clad secretary, and all) that’s largely set in militaristic settings, equating the proliferation of nuclear weapons with one protracted dick measuring contest between the East and the West. The alchemy of the existential nightmare of the Bomb and the basest of human insecurity edging that nightmare closer to reality, makes this feature one darkly delightful romp.

Rhys Tarling

Emad Burnat, 2011 Five Broken Cameras began when Palestinian civilian Emad Burnat bought a video camera to document the life and growth of his fourth son, Gibreel, after his birth in 2005. For five years, Burnat captured footage of the invasion of his home of Bil’in by Israeli troops sent to occupy the land for Israeli settlements. Burnat films close friends and villagers protest as a non-violent resistance against the army. As time moves, we see five cameras get violently broken, as well as his personal life and health deteriorate. Five Broken Cameras is an aggravating, heartbreaking and powerful documentary. It re-tells a story as old as time; Colonialist taking native land, but these strong Palestinian villagers do not give up without a fight. Burnat felt a responsibility to film what he saw… and so he watched from behind the lens as his people’s olive trees were burnt to the ground and villagers were killed. “I feel like the camera protects me, but it’s an illusion.” This one is a must see.

12 Years A Slave

Malcolm X

Steve McQueen, 2013 12 Years A Slave is shot like a period horror movie. The score is especially gruesome and foreboding, played to scenes of humiliating and painful human degradation, showing what happened in American history to their African American people. This was an incredibly hard movie to watch, in fact, I couldn’t finish it. It’s a hard truth, and an especially needed dramatized look at this time in American history. There really hasn’t been another movie quite like this, with amazing performances from Lupita Nyong’o and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It’s no wonder it was nominated and won so many awards. Not for the faint hearted.

Spike Lee, 1992 Move over, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, the best ‘90s film to spout “white devil” more than a dozen times is clearly Malcolm X. This film – a long-time passion project for director Spike Lee – is a beastly bio-pic. Pushing the 4-hour mark, the film does not drag and keeps you interested from start to finish. Starring, in the titular role - Denzel Washington gives an awesome performance, and was unfortunate not to claim what would have been his second Oscar (he lost to Al Pacino’s incessant “Hoo-ah!” in Scent of A Woman). At times it strays from the territory of bio-pic and wanders into the region of an adoring love letter. However, it does so in a tasteful, non-gratuitous way, and superbly reflects the importance and influence of the great man’s life. Lee had to fight hard to get his final cut, and I’m glad he did as Malcolm X is an absolute joy.

Corey Booth

30 / FILM

Sarah Stopforth

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