religion

Review by Coral Wynter

Guantanamo: My Journey
By David Hicks
William Heinemann, 2010

February 25, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Everyone who is curious about David Hicks and his imprisonment at the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for six years, should read this book.

It is an honest account of Hicks’ life as a youngster and his torture at the hands of the US army. Contrary to what many of the mainstream reviews of Guantanamo: My Journey assert, Hicks goes into a lot of detail about why and how he first ended up in Pakistan, and then Afghanistan. He explains, in detail, the circumstances of how he became trapped in Afghanistan and his attempts to get back his Australian passport to be able to return home to Adelaide.

Hicks was like so many teenagers looking for adventure. He was also a confused young man, coming from a broken home when he was just nine years old and finding it difficult to find his place in his second family with his stepmother and stepbrothers.

Protesters chant anti-Iraqi government slogans during a protest at Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Iraq, on February 25, 2011. Thousands of demonstrators converged on central Baghdad as part of an anti-government rally inspired by uprisings across the Middle East and dubbed the "Day of Rage". Photo: Karim Kadim / AP.

By Tony Iltis

January 31, 2011 --

“Never let us be blind to developments within the masses as we were to the rise of Liberation Theology.” – Barry Healy, “Who’s Afraid of Liberation Theology”, Marxism Summer School 2005

“Christ who suffered on the cross continues to suffer with the land and the people of the land. In the suffering of the land and the people of the land, we see Christ suffering and we hear Christ crying out.” – Rainbow Spirit Elders, Rainbow Spirit Theology, p. 79, as quoted by Chris Budden in Following Jesus in Invaded Space, p. 70

Yoly Fernandez (left) during her 2009 Australian tour, organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network.

By Coral Wynter

Yoly Fernandez lives in a barrio in the city of Valencia in Venezuela. She has been involved in community politics all her life and is a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), headed by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Fernandez works in Mission MERCAL, the government agency that sells subsidised food to the population. I interviewed her in May 2010.

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How has the life of women improved over the last 10 years of the Chavez government?

Our lives have improved enormously, mainly in the area of humane values; not so much at the level of work or even at the political level. I say humane because now the role of women is valued, not as an object but as a subject, as mother, wife, daughter and sister.

[2010-12-17 -- Lewica.pl/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Poniższe wystąpienie zostało wygłoszone na pełnym ludzi zebraniu w centrum Sydney 24 listopada 2010r. Pip Hinman była jedną z dwóch mieszkańców, którzy zorganizowali zebranie na wzór rady miasta w odpowiedzi na niepokój w lokalnej społeczności spowodowany projektem ustawy prawicowego parlamentarzysty z Partii Chrześcijańsko-Demokratycznej Freda Nile'a o zakazie zakrywania twarzy i napisami na sklepie w Newtown "Powiedz burkom nie". Zebrani wysłuchali muzułmańskiego działacza studenckiego, lidera związku zawodowego oraz chrześcijańskiego pastora, którzy byli przeciwni wprowadzeniu zakazu. Wysłuchali oni także jego zwolenników. Rezolucja sprzeciwiająca się zakazowi przeszła większością dwóch trzecich głosów. Kliknij: http://links.org.au/node/2012 aby przeczytać więcej o zebraniu i dyskusji. Zobacz także: Australia – debata o zakazie noszenia burki: czy jeśli nie mogę nosić burki, to nie

By Pip Hinman

By Peter Boyle, Sydney

November 26, 2010 -- All around the Western world, far-right groups (some with neo-Nazi orgins and links) are gaining political ground through an orchestrated campaign against Muslim communities. By spreading fear and hatred against recent immigrant communities from Muslim countries these groups have tapped into well-resourced post-9/11 war propaganda campaigns initiated by rulers of the world’s richest and most powerful states.

One of the favourite tactics of these anti-Muslim hate campaigners is to push laws banning the burqa, the fully veiled dress style used by a tiny minority of Muslim women. In Australia, the ultra-conservative Reverend Fred Nile, leader of the Christian Democratic Party and a member of the NSW Legislative Council, and Liberal senator Cori Bernardi from South Australia, have unsuccessfully tried to move private member's bills to ban the burqa.

Kiraz Janicke's "Burqa Revolution".

Green Left Weekly -- On September 23, the Daily Telegraph reported on a wall mural in the Sydney inner-west suburb of Newtown by artist Sergio Redegalli with the slogan “Say no to burqas”. Redegalli’s mural has sparked protests by local residents who have condemned it as racist. Sydney Socialist Alliance activist Kiraz Janicke says Redegalli’s piece “has no other value than to promote racism”. She has responded with an artwork of her own — a submission to the Live Red Art Awards, titled “Burqa revolution”.

Below, Janicke argues that banning the burqa (a veil covering the entire body, with a mesh over the eyes), or other forms of Islamic dress worn by some Muslim women that cover the face, will hinder true women’s liberation.

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The Grand Design
Stephen Hawking (& Leonard Mlodinow)
Random House, 2010

του Χρήστου Κεφαλή

[Αγγλική εκδοχή σε http://links.org.au/node/1978]