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Weekly feature
My family connection to Aboriginal genocide
by Paul Newbury
 My great-grandfather John Eckersley Newbury was a convict and a squatter who became wealthy through a generous land policy and because his wife's family helped set him up on the land. During this period, the Kamilaroi of northern NSW fought a guerilla war of resistance against the British.
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WEEK IN POLITICS
EUREKA STREET TV
Nuns, gurus and rebels: the best of Eureka Street TVPeter Kirkwood
 For the past three years video consultant Peter Kirkwood has produced a fortnightly series featuring some of the world's leading figures of faith and spirituality. We take a look back at some of his best Eureka Street TV interviews, including Hans Kung, Anwar Ibrahim, Peter Kennedy and more.
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Eureka Street PDFs - 2006 onwards
The online era 01-Apr-2013
 Print out entire editions of Eureka Street or view them in your favourite PDF reader. Click the thumbnail (left) to view PDF index. For PDF versions from Eurka Street's print era 1991–2006 see below.
A Muslim, a Buddhist, a Catholic and two atheists walked into the ABC
Irfan Yusuf 02-Apr-2013
 Many must have wondered if it was an April Fools joke. An episode of Q&A worth watching? One without a single pompous pundit or partisan politician? Despite the presence of two atheists, religion dominated, perhaps because the most articulate spokesperson for atheism was herself representing a faith.
Margaret Thatcher versus the Scots
Duncan MacLaren 09-Apr-2013
 While any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind', I must admit to pouring a glass of good malt at the news of Thatcher's passing. The Southern English may laud her as the greatest prime minister after Churchill but for us Scots she was a hate figure who in the last days of her premiership scarcely dared to cross the border for fear of being assassinated.
When community organisations sup with the devil
Andrew Hamilton 03-Apr-2013
 A certain metaphorical framework sees community organisations as factories and the people they serve as consumers. It can be useful to focus attention on the costs and efficiency of programs. But when it becomes the master model for caring for human beings, it betrays all that most community organisations are about.
Labor's cult of Rudd-hate
Ray Cassin 04-Apr-2013
 In Orwell's 1984, the daily 'two-minutes hate' sees citizens gather to scream their loathing at images of Big Brother's enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein. The ritual has become so entrenched that what Goldstein is supposed to have said or done has become mostly forgotten and largely irrelevant. So now it is with Rudd.
Francis right to break the rules
Andrew Hamilton 10-Apr-2013
 Pope Francis' Holy Thursday expedition to the juvenile justice centre to wash the feet of young people, male and female, Christian and Muslim, breached liturgical rules. But he was right to do so. Church and state laws are securely grounded only when there is a shared sense of the importance of human flourishing.
Downer and Costello's murky world of political lobbying
John Warhurst 01-Apr-2013
 In days past the 'consultancy' activity of former senior politicians was cloaked in respectability and not perceived as being at the hands-on end of lobbying. That pretence has now ended and Alexander Downer and Peter Costello are good examples. It is an unhealthy development with plenty of room for conflicts of interest.
Australia's 'comfortable' racism
Michael Mullins 21-Apr-2013
In a week of racist and xenophobic reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, one US observer commented separately on Australia's racism, describing our country as one of the 'most comfortably racist places' he'd ever been in. Racism is a source of shame in the US, but part of the culture in Australia.
The healing God of the Royal Commission
Fatima Measham 11-Apr-2013
 The Church is unique among the institutions under scrutiny from the Royal Commission. The trust laypeople hold in priests and other vowed religious is not the same trust held in teachers, doctors and coaches. It is sourced from the stories that feed their faith. This is the context in which the betrayal must be understood.
The Australian wars that Anzac Day neglects
Dean Ashenden 21-Apr-2013
 Around 20,000 people died in a series of violent conflicts between peoples extending across the entire continent and more than half of our history. We have yet to find a way to remember the loss of those people with anything like the scale and intensity of our other commemorations, such as Anzac Day.
Most Commented
Margaret Thatcher versus the Scots
Duncan MacLaren 09-Apr-2013
While any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind', I must admit to pouring a glass of good malt at the news of Thatcher's passing. The Southern English may laud her as the greatest prime minister after Churchill but for us Scots she was a hate figure who in the last days of her premiership scarcely dared to cross the border for fear of being assassinated.
Francis right to break the rules
Andrew Hamilton 10-Apr-2013
Pope Francis' Holy Thursday expedition to the juvenile justice centre to wash the feet of young people, male and female, Christian and Muslim, breached liturgical rules. But he was right to do so. Church and state laws are securely grounded only when there is a shared sense of the importance of human flourishing.
Labor's cult of Rudd-hate
Ray Cassin 04-Apr-2013
In Orwell's 1984, the daily 'two-minutes hate' sees citizens gather to scream their loathing at images of Big Brother's enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein. The ritual has become so entrenched that what Goldstein is supposed to have said or done has become mostly forgotten and largely irrelevant. So now it is with Rudd.
When community organisations sup with the devil
Andrew Hamilton 03-Apr-2013
A certain metaphorical framework sees community organisations as factories and the people they serve as consumers. It can be useful to focus attention on the costs and efficiency of programs. But when it becomes the master model for caring for human beings, it betrays all that most community organisations are about.
A Muslim, a Buddhist, a Catholic and two atheists walked into the ABC
Irfan Yusuf 02-Apr-2013
Many must have wondered if it was an April Fools joke. An episode of Q&A worth watching? One without a single pompous pundit or partisan politician? Despite the presence of two atheists, religion dominated, perhaps because the most articulate spokesperson for atheism was herself representing a faith.
Exceptional Thatcher and the feminist fallacy
Ruby Hamad 14-Apr-2013
 Whereas feminism realises the inherent potential and worth in all women, Exceptional Women succeed because of their perceived likeness, not to other women, but to men. Consequently, they make things harder, not easier, for other women. Margaret Thatcher was many things, but she absolutely was not a feminist.
The Australian wars that Anzac Day neglects
Dean Ashenden 21-Apr-2013
Around 20,000 people died in a series of violent conflicts between peoples extending across the entire continent and more than half of our history. We have yet to find a way to remember the loss of those people with anything like the scale and intensity of our other commemorations, such as Anzac Day.
Aged care dirty work done dirt cheap
Michael Mullins 28-Apr-2013
Wage increases for aged care workers should not be allowed to become yet another laudable but failed Gillard Government initiative that an incoming Coalition government refuses to countenance because of its stated commitment to fiscal responsibility. The dignity of older Australians is not expendable.
Australia's 'comfortable' racism
Michael Mullins 21-Apr-2013
In a week of racist and xenophobic reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, one US observer commented separately on Australia's racism, describing our country as one of the 'most comfortably racist places' he'd ever been in. Racism is a source of shame in the US, but part of the culture in Australia.
Turnbull's NBN will disempower the poor
Michael Mullins 14-Apr-2013
 Under the Coalition's version of the National Broadband Network, super-fast access is not lost for those who can afford the internet connectivity equivalent to a business class flight. Those who cannot however will make up the large new underclass of the digitally disadvantaged.
Buried Treasure
Perceval's delinquent angel
Various 15-Apr-2013
 ... is up to something, but will not reveal that tricksy intention ... it listens for the starting gun in the hands of a distant God.
How an advertiser toppled a dictator
Tim Kroenert 17-Apr-2013
 Pinochet's supporters are, with good reason, banking on the populace's fear and willingness to maintain the status quo. Enter brash young advertising executive René Saavedra. His rusted-on socialist colleagues are at first aghast but gradually persuaded by his conviction that rather than wallowing in negativity, they should be selling optimism.
Turkey's Kurdish Spring
William Gourlay 11-Apr-2013
 A public letter from the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), declared that PKK insurgents should forego armed struggle against the Turkish military. An end to terror is one thing, but there is a way to go before Turkey's Kurds have the rights and freedoms they've long hankered for.
Philosophical kissing
N. N. Trakakis and Vivien Arnold 22-Apr-2013
 'When it comes to the kiss, philosophy has very little to say,' you once protested. 'It would seem that the lovers of wisdom don't know how to kiss!' ... Always longing for union with my other (and better) half, the two pieces, long astray, finally fitted together, mouth-to-mouth ...
A modest solution to Morrison's asylum seeker woes
Brian Matthews 25-Apr-2013
 If the Shadow Minister for Immigration had read Swift's satirical essay 'A Modest Proposal', a new front in his asylum seeker campaign would have opened up. Spurning Nauru, all he has to do is channel asylum seekers into hunting-specified NSW parks and reserves and let Barry O'Farrell's hunters do the rest.
Refugee's tram ride to freedom
Margaret McDonald 23-Apr-2013
 The city seemed always to sulk under clouds. Only occasionally the sun showed its face, promising something but never delivering: just like his life. He was confused and often afraid. He had not wanted to leave his home, but his family had sacrificed much to send him here, and he was starting to feel he had let them down.
Tony Burke versus the invisible worm
Barry Breen 09-Apr-2013
 If poetry is the pulse of our cultural life, so too can it be seen as the pulse of our public decisions. Our poetry loving Minister for the Environment may find wisdom in the words of some of his favourite poets when it comes to decisions about the Murray Darling basin, Tarkine wilderness and Great Barrier Reef.
Did Australian authorities do enough to try to save asylum seeker lives?
Tony Kevin 15-Apr-2013
 We now have another distressing and perplexing case of possible Australian failure properly to use intelligence information to save lives. If the unnamed agency that briefed AMSA did have the relevant coordinates, and yet did not pass them to AMSA to pass to BASARNAS, it could be complicit in the deaths of up to 58 people last week.
Invading Australia
Saba Hakim, Ray Carmichael and Ouyang Yu 01-Apr-2013
 We have wished to invade Australia like you'd never imagined from where we are based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, countries reduced by hegemony to hell. We ruled the waves till we were in sight of an island that looked from afar like a welcome entity.
The Palestinian who would be Jewish
Tim Kroenert 10-Apr-2013
 A Rabbi informs Joseph that although he has been circumcised and celebrated his Bah Mitzvah, the revelations about his biological origins mean he must undergo 'cleansing' rituals to be accepted as a Jew. Religious institutions err when they elevate legalism over human need. In this instance the institution is found wanting.
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Today's lead
INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS
My family connection to Aboriginal genocide
Paul Newbury
My great-grandfather John Eckersley Newbury was a convict and a squatter who became wealthy through a generous land policy and because his wife's family helped set him up on the land. During this period, the Kamilaroi of northern NSW fought a guerilla war of resistance against the British.
3 comment(s) about this article.
Recent leads
POLITICS
Hope for a Malaysian Spring
Lily Zubaidah Rahim and Sven Schottmann
 Amid democratic transitions in Asia and protest movements in the Middle East, a growing number of Malaysians are unwilling to countenance any further their government's paternalistic politics. Whoever wins next Sunday's election will have the task of forging a new consensus on what it means to be Malaysian.
1 comment(s) about this article.
High Court hedges bets on free speech
Patrick McCabe
 In 2011 the US Supreme Court found it was not unlawful for members of Westboro Baptist Church to stage inflammatory protests at the funerals of US soldiers, whom the church believes are killed by God to demonstrate disapproval at tolerance of gay people. You might say 'only America', but recently something similar nearly happened here.
5 comment(s) about this article.
Abbott's GG gripe reignites republican sentiment
Ray Cassin
 Restarting the republic debate was almost certainly not what Tony Abbott had in mind when he wrote to Julia Gillard about the appointment of our next governor-general. He has unwittingly done Australians a service by reminding us why the people, not politicians, should choose the person who holds the office.
14 comment(s) about this article.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Real men don't rape
Andee Jones
 A recent study of sexual violence in six Asia-Pacific countries revealed that one in every four men had committed rape. When men who don't rape tell the violent minority that they have no such right, the dreadful statistics will start to plummet.
4 comment(s) about this article.
HISTORY
The Australian wars that Anzac Day neglects
Dean Ashenden
Around 20,000 people died in a series of violent conflicts between peoples extending across the entire continent and more than half of our history. We have yet to find a way to remember the loss of those people with anything like the scale and intensity of our other commemorations, such as Anzac Day.
22 comment(s) about this article.
THE MEDDLING PRIEST
Malaysia Solution is dead in the water
Frank Brennan
It is time for each side of politics to stop blaming the other for the increasing wave of boats and for Gillard to cease invoking the unreal prospect of a revised Malaysia Solution. A revised arrangement consistent with the recommendations of the Expert Panel is an impossibility before the election.
8 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Maintaining empathy as Boston mourns
Irfan Yusuf
 The image of the face of eight-year-old Boston victim Marty Richards will touch the hearts of all. Yet in his name, and depending on the outcome of the investigation, we might see calls for invasions of other lands. Such actions are hardly representative of the express wishes of terror victims and their families.
12 comment(s) about this article.
RELIGION
Positives of discrimination
Andrew Hamilton
 The debate about the right of church organisations to discriminate in employment is usually framed in terms of exclusion. But it can be framed more positively. A religious background may be required not because it satisfies the demands of the church, but to ensure that those whom the organisation serves continue to be treated with great respect.
5 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Australia in a sorry state as Gonski faces failure
Ray Cassin
 If the states give Gillard's Gonski education proposals the thumbs-down, as is expected to happen at Friday's COAG meeting, it will not be the first time since Labor's return to office in 2007 that Australia's creaking constitutional arrangements have made fundamental reform impossible.
6 comment(s) about this article.
Did Australian authorities do enough to try to save asylum seeker lives?
Tony Kevin
We now have another distressing and perplexing case of possible Australian failure properly to use intelligence information to save lives. If the unnamed agency that briefed AMSA did have the relevant coordinates, and yet did not pass them to AMSA to pass to BASARNAS, it could be complicit in the deaths of up to 58 people last week.
6 comment(s) about this article.
Exceptional Thatcher and the feminist fallacy
Ruby Hamad
Whereas feminism realises the inherent potential and worth in all women, Exceptional Women succeed because of their perceived likeness, not to other women, but to men. Consequently, they make things harder, not easier, for other women. Margaret Thatcher was many things, but she absolutely was not a feminist.
26 comment(s) about this article.
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Today's extra
NON-FICTION
Giving stick to incipient police violence
Brian Doyle
 A nightstick doesn't sound fearsome, but when you see one up close you respect the inherent violence of the thing. I stared at it for a while, contemplating how a burly policeman with his feet set could deliver a cracking blow to a head or a shoulder or an arm flung across your face to protect your eyes and brains.
RECENT EXTRA
POETRY
Frantic chat on the world wide spider web
Various
And in the raucosity of blogs, the avidity of trolls, the ubiquity of porn, the vidvidvidity of tubes, the facebookery of profiles, the aviary of twittervation — can the mind still find that space to stretch itself?
2 comment(s) about this article.
THE AGENDA
Aged care dirty work done dirt cheap
Michael Mullins
Wage increases for aged care workers should not be allowed to become yet another laudable but failed Gillard Government initiative that an incoming Coalition government refuses to countenance because of its stated commitment to fiscal responsibility. The dignity of older Australians is not expendable.
19 comment(s) about this article.
BY THE WAY
A modest solution to Morrison's asylum seeker woes
Brian Matthews
If the Shadow Minister for Immigration had read Swift's satirical essay 'A Modest Proposal', a new front in his asylum seeker campaign would have opened up. Spurning Nauru, all he has to do is channel asylum seekers into hunting-specified NSW parks and reserves and let Barry O'Farrell's hunters do the rest.
9 comment(s) about this article.
FICTION
Refugee's tram ride to freedom
Margaret McDonald
The city seemed always to sulk under clouds. Only occasionally the sun showed its face, promising something but never delivering: just like his life. He was confused and often afraid. He had not wanted to leave his home, but his family had sacrificed much to send him here, and he was starting to feel he had let them down.
2 comment(s) about this article.
POETRY
Philosophical kissing
N. N. Trakakis and Vivien Arnold
'When it comes to the kiss, philosophy has very little to say,' you once protested. 'It would seem that the lovers of wisdom don't know how to kiss!' ... Always longing for union with my other (and better) half, the two pieces, long astray, finally fitted together, mouth-to-mouth ...
4 comment(s) about this article.
THE AGENDA
Australia's 'comfortable' racism
Michael Mullins
In a week of racist and xenophobic reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, one US observer commented separately on Australia's racism, describing our country as one of the 'most comfortably racist places' he'd ever been in. Racism is a source of shame in the US, but part of the culture in Australia.
15 comment(s) about this article.
EUROPEAN DIARY
Pilgrims in the landscape of lament
Benedict Coleridge
 He was the same age as me and had the same name. But he looked old. He'd left Nigeria and walked to Macedonia; four years of walking. His feet were covered in callouses, dried and thickened. In the course of these wanderings he had been kidnapped, beaten and starved. The irregular migrants in Macedonia have come to the end of the road.
6 comment(s) about this article.
FILMS
How an advertiser toppled a dictator
Tim Kroenert
Pinochet's supporters are, with good reason, banking on the populace's fear and willingness to maintain the status quo. Enter brash young advertising executive René Saavedra. His rusted-on socialist colleagues are at first aghast but gradually persuaded by his conviction that rather than wallowing in negativity, they should be selling optimism.
MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD
Margaret Dooley Award for Young Writers 2013
Staff
 The 2013 Margaret Dooley Award for Young Writers is open to submissions from 16 April 2013–15 July 2012. Prize money totalling $2000 to be won. Here are the submission guidelines.
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