Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Green Agenda Winter 2021: On Dissent
I will never forget the first protest I attended. It was 2002 and George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard were gearing up to go to war in Iraq. So was the movement of people around the world to oppose the invasion. I was still in high school, but a few friends and I organised to get leave from school... Read More
Culture, Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Show up and make noise: We must reject all attacks on our right to dissent
I’ve relayed this story many times over the years: the first rally I remember going to was in May 1988 when I was ten years old. At that time, my family lived in Canberra. My family attended the rally under the guise of attending something else – the day marked the official opening of the “new Parliament House” and government-planned... Read More
Culture, Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Peace, Social Justice, Uncategorised
Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud: An interview with Mehreen Faruqi
Dr Mehreen Faruqi is the Greens Senator for New South Wales (2018 – present). Green Agenda’s co-editor Simon Copland spoke with Mehreen about her recently published memoir, Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud, and what it means to be an ‘unapologetically Brown, Muslim, migrant, feminist woman‘ in Australian politics. The transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity. Simon Copland: Thank... Read More
Culture, Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Dis-settling critique in stasis: Reflections on the university from the South to the North
This piece originally appeared in Overland. We thank both the author, Heba Al Adawy, and Overland, for permission to republish this important piece. On a crispy November evening of 2019, Lahore’s smog filtered sky was buzzing with drone surveillance cameras, radiating an orangish glow over around 5,000 young protestors who had assembled at the chowk of Punjab Assembly. For the emerging student... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Rising above discrimination in an attempt to be heard: People with disability
When posing the question what mechanism does dissent play in Australian politics we can view this through the lens of history. Australia has a long history of formulating policy through grassroots actions; the shearers strike of 1891, the Pilbara strike of 1949 and the waterside workers strike of 1998 are each seminal points in history that have remade the conditions... Read More
Culture, Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021
The Art of Greenwashing: (De)funding creativity and silencing dissent
Tani Walker’s superb voice resonates around the crowded Freo Social venue. Head thrown back, she sings of the Noongar season of Bunuru (February to March) and a hope for relief from the Western Australian heat. She is part of Richard Walley’s Six Seasons, a series of songs each celebrating the Noongar seasons of Birak, Bunuru, Djeran, Makuru, Djilba and Kambarang.... Read More
Economy, Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021
Dissent within the contested transitions of the ecological endgame
Our collective progressive dissent over the deepening ecological crisis is at a political crossroads. The recent IPCC report confirms that the pace and form of global responses to the emergency are manifestly inadequate. This is highlighted by a multitude of alarming accelerated feedback loops, like the Amazon having transitioned into becoming a net emitter of carbon. Certainly we can point... Read More
Democracy, Economy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021
Without the right to stop work, all our rights are at risk
Why do most Australian workers have a standard of living with a minimum wage that keeps fully employed people out of poverty? It can be answered most simply by the long history of our forebears joining unions and going on strike. We have always needed to strike Have you ever stopped work to show your dissent in an organised way... Read More
Culture, Democracy, Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Policing dissent, enforcing consent
You can’t do it that way! When Extinction Rebellion protesters spray-painted “duty of care” across the front of Parliament House the morning after the latest IPCC Report was released, drawing national and international attention to the fact that the Minister for the Environment is appealing a court decision finding she actually has a legal duty of care to future generations... Read More