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Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 87]
Binoy Kampmark: Zimbabwe, Colonialism and Violence
Wednesday, 22 November 2017, 2:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The strongman lost some muscle this week. Robert Mugabe, a leader of the liberation movement that transformed colonially pressed Rhodesia into post-colonial Zimbabwe, had issued a letter of resignation. There had been no orgy of blood, no ordering ... More >>
A New Movement of Rights and the Right in Australia
Wednesday, 22 November 2017, 9:13 am | Binoy Kampmark
Scholars have wondered what “triggers” might be in the social furniture of a culture that might propel a people to embrace a bill of rights. Australia remains proudly, and idiosyncratically, opposed. More >>
Trump and the Nuclear Option: The Fiction of Sanity
Monday, 20 November 2017, 11:05 am | Binoy Kampmark
It had not happened in decades. On Tuesday, members of the US Congress gathered to consider the scope of presidential power in launching a nuclear strike. The state of the mind of the current president was very much at the forefront of the discussion, ... More >>
The Veiled Threat: Aust’s Campaign Against NZ Refugee Policy
Sunday, 19 November 2017, 4:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Another twist in the farce over the stained treatment of refugees on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island has surfaced. New Zealand has been insisting for some time that it is more than willing to welcome some 150 to its shores. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, ... More >>
Tale of Two teams: Australia, Italy and the World Cup
Sunday, 19 November 2017, 11:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
Australia chose a rather round about, and dangerous way, of getting to the finals of the FIFA World Cup. Qualifying by playing a South or Central American opponent has its pitfalls, the most memorable being Argentina at the Allianz Stadium in 1993. ... More >>
Trump in Asia
Thursday, 16 November 2017, 2:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was certainly a show, but getting to the meat of it was difficult. US President Donald J. Trump, on his return from an Asian tour lasting twelve days, had set out to “correct” mistakes made by those who had come before him. The fear, however, ... More >>
The Fordist Academic
Thursday, 16 November 2017, 9:09 am | Binoy Kampmark
Two figures tower over the idea, and the realisation, of industrial America. The first is Henry Ford, whose factory process dedicated to mass car production featured specifically focused machinery, a moving assembly line, and a linear process of interdependent ... More >>
Expensive Affirmation: Aust Says Yes to Same Sex Marriage
Wednesday, 15 November 2017, 3:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The overall figure was comfortable, though hardly dashing. 62 percent of Australians (7.82 million) decided that same sex marriage was a perfectly feasible, even desirable notion, while 38 percent (4.87 million) did not. More >>
Idiot Voters and Trolling the Internet: Russia and the US
Tuesday, 14 November 2017, 5:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The program usually pokes fun, riddles and irks a fourth estate that has long given up the chase for verity. Media Watch , after years of weather beaten but reliable service, remains Australia’s only real source of genuine critical comment about ... More >>
Trans-Pacific Follies: Australia Asleep as Canada Wakes Up
Monday, 13 November 2017, 7:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was as dreary as listening to the formulaic assessments of political economy by an unreconstructed Leninist. But Sunday morning with Steve Ciobo, Australia’s trade minister, was such an occasion. More >>
War Commemoration Porn: Remembrance Day Celebrations
Monday, 13 November 2017, 2:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The officials are called one by one to lay wreathes, a ceremony of mechanical efficiency. With each laying comes the sense of wonder at how this could happen. Political figures are the first to vote in parliaments and side with the executive when it comes to ... More >>
Fixations of Propriety: The Manus Closure Scandal
Saturday, 11 November 2017, 10:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When confronted with the spectacle of the malnourished, the impoverished, the famine stricken, and the desperate, the Australian political instinct is simple: Why did these poor fools get themselves into this mix? With each wave of refugees arriving ... More >>
When Illness Matters: Massacre in Texas
Thursday, 9 November 2017, 10:03 am | Binoy Kampmark
The massacre at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs was, to put it simply, effective and spectacular. It also had the resonances of the primeval, ignoring the sanctity of the church in favour of murder within it. The alleged assailant managed ... More >>
A Triumph of Accountancy: The Paradise Papers
Tuesday, 7 November 2017, 5:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This was another case of the big and the powerful undercutting the tax systems of the world. But could anyone be genuinely surprised at the revelations to come out of the Paradise Papers on the workings of the tax haven industry? More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Why WikiLeaks Was Right
Monday, 6 November 2017, 1:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It took some time of muzzling and concealment before the horror, but various Democrats have finally come clean about the Hillary Clinton machine: things were, it seems, rigged, stacked, and doctored. This was the language of Bernie Sanders and Donald ... More >>
Fallon’s Fall: Sexual Harassment Storm in UK Politics
Monday, 6 November 2017, 10:01 am | Binoy Kampmark
Sexual harassment - it’s revelation, that is - is all around at the moment, a toxic cold that is giving political establishments not so much a sneeze as debilitating pneumonia. In Britain, the cold covered various parties, initiating investigations, ... More >>
The Deepening Crisis on Manus
Sunday, 5 November 2017, 12:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What a weekend it has been. The Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea may well have closed, but the protests, and those resident at the camp, continue to defy and prevaricate. At a protest in Melbourne on Saturday, Australian Greens ... More >>
A Lethal Gift: The Halloween Attack, Trump and Immigration
Friday, 3 November 2017, 2:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It could not have been scripted better for the demagogues and security hysterics. With the country still grieving in confusion in the aftermath of the Las Vegas slayings, inflicted by an individual who resisted the classification of terrorist at the hands ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Chaos on Manus Island
Tuesday, 31 October 2017, 12:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There are standoffs, threats and continuing tensions over the imminent closure of the Manus Island Detention Centre. (The politically palatable term here is “processing centre”.) This closure, instigated by legal ruling by the Papua New Guinea Supreme ... More >>
The Last British Empire Paedophile Artist - Donald Friend
Monday, 30 October 2017, 8:45 am | Binoy Kampmark
Righteousness is never pretty, and it tends to often respond after the fact. The fallen hero, or at least the figure shrouded in mystery, is suddenly found to be a creature of ill repute, tarnished, and therefore, in need of emotional and psychic ... More >>
