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Inside the sweatshop of the world

Inside the sweatshop of the world

Workshop, assembly line, machine, work card, overtime, wages … They’ve trained me to become docile Don’t know how to shout or rebel How to complain or denounce Only how to silently suffer exhaustion – Xu Lizhi, ‘I Fall Asleep, Just Standing Like...
Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Long Road to Democracy

Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Long Road to Democracy

“A share in two revolutions”, Thomas Paine wrote to George Washington in 1789, “is living to some purpose!” That same sentiment may well be applied to the Burmese leader Aung San, who didn’t just share in two colonial struggles, but led Burma’s battles for...
Why calls for compassion for refugees don’t work

Why calls for compassion for refugees don’t work

It’s easy to disparage those calling for a more humane approach to the refugee crisis. There’s The Spectator‘s line about moral grandstanding and, locally, Chris Kenny’s call for sobriety in The Australian: ‘Emotion, moral vanity,...
Why we aren’t more shocked by Nauru revelations

Why we aren’t more shocked by Nauru revelations

In his revolutionary pamphlet, ‘Rights of Man’, Thomas Paine responded to Edmund Burke’s criticism of the Parisian masses. They had razed the Bastille, killed a number of men they suspected of betraying them, put their heads on spikes and paraded...