Samson & Delilah in German

The Indigenous directed film 'Samson and Delilah' has been dubbed in German and seems to have been received very favourably by critics and reviewers (also at the Zurich Film Festival); a reviewer said that the film is 'not easy' but excellent.

The German sub-title is 'Schweigen ist Gold' (Engl. 'silence is golden'), which I find very appropriate.

It would be intersting to hear something about the reception of this film in Italy; is there an Italian version?

Review by Publishers Weekly

Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture Paul Gilroy. Harvard Univ., $22.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-674-03570-6

Gilroy (Against Race) offers a shrewd and invigorating discussion—originally delivered as the W.E.B. Du Bois lectures at Harvard University—poised on the fraught intersections of race, class, and status present in the overlapping histories of African-American popular culture, the automobile as American capitalism's “ur-commodity,” and the race-coded global reach of American style. Paying special attention to musical vernacular—from Robert Johnson to 50 Cent—Gilroy's stimulating reappraisal of the seductions of car culture underscores how status improvement for minorities has shifted from acquiring rights to acquiring objects. At the same time, he argues for the anticonsumerist notes struck by such “responsible troubadours” as Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley. Gilroy demonstrates how understanding black experience is crucial in any serious study of modernity itself, at a time when global capitalism trades evermore in American-inflected styles of “blackness,” while simultaneously maintaining and reinforcing lines of racial and class subjugation. While assuming familiarity with Du Bois and latter-day Marxist cultural analysis, this is a reasonably accessible and highly rewarding read for anyone interested in the social and political significance of mass culture or the historically laden language of human rights in a postcolonial age. (Jan.)

Apology to Forgotten Generation

I've just come across an intersting article concerning yet another apology delivered by the Australian Prime Minister. This issue was all over the place in the Austrian news (though just for one day but at least in the headlines); the comparison made between the two apologies are interesting. It seems to have become a very fashionable political strategy to say 'sorry'. It's similar here in Austria and Germany, though the national apologies here seem to be a bit in the past now. Interestingly, a Berlin-based newspaper captioned the apology to the Stolen Generation as 'a cheap apology'...

"This week in New Matilda, Jeff Sparrow asked a simple but very good question: why was there no protest over the Apology to the Forgotten Generation, as there was over last year’s Apology to the Stolen Generation?

Where were the right-wingers to challenge the Apology? Where was the scepticism over the numbers of children involved, the stout defence of the good intentions of those running institutions, the claim, for all the abuse, that many children had benefited from their experience? Where was the concern about “opening the floodgates” to compensation?

Instead, this week’s Apology passed, rightly, with strong support from all sides. Malcolm Turnbull, who gave an excellent, heartfelt speech, was praised for it in his partyroom, even praised for being willing to talk about "love". There were no walkouts by angry conservatives.

It would be shameful if race was the determining issue, if apologising to indigenous people was somehow more objectionable to some than apologising to white Australians. It is, however, hard to think of any other explanation.

Possibly ideological obstinacy played a part in the Stolen Generations debate, a refusal on the part of right-wingers to admit that their opponents might ever be right about anything. In contrast, the Forgotten Generations issue has been a resolutely non-ideological matter. And let us not forget that even diehard conservatives like Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz gave graceful, even moving speeches of support last year as part of the Stolen Generations Apology.

Yet the horrible suspicion remains: for some politicians and commentators, abused black kids aren’t as deserving as abused white kids."

Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) (Hardcover)

Darker than Blue
On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture
Paul Gilroy -Coming out January 2010-

Paul Gilroy seeks to awaken a new understanding of W. E. B. Du Bois’ intellectual and political legacy. At a time of economic crisis, environmental degradation, ongoing warfare, and heated debate over human rights, how should we reassess the changing place of black culture?

Gilroy considers the ways that consumerism has diverted African Americans’ political and social aspirations. Luxury goods and branded items, especially the automobile—rich in symbolic value and the promise of individual freedom—have restratified society, weakened citizenship, and diminished the collective spirit. Jazz, blues, soul, reggae, and hip hop are now seen as generically American, yet artists like Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Bob Marley, who questioned the allure of mobility and speed, are not understood by people who have drained their music of its moral power.

Gilroy explores the way in which objects and technologies can become dynamic social forces, ensuring black culture’s global reach while undermining the drive for equality and justice. Drawing on the work of a number of thinkers, including Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon, he examines the ethical dimensions of living in a society that celebrates the object. What are the implications for our notions of freedom?

With his brilliant, provocative analysis and astonishing range of reference, Gilroy revitalizes the study of African American culture. He traces the shifting character of black intellectual and social movements, and shows how we can construct an account of moral progress that reflects today’s complex realities.

Paul Gilroy holds the Anthony Giddens Professorship in Social Theory at the London School of Economics.
FROM the publisher'site:http://www.hup.harvard.edu

Howard and the contemplation of the banality of closure

I followed with bemusement and incredulity the interview with John Howard in the BBC program, Hardtalk, conducted recently by Stephen Sackur on 30th October 2009.
The usual stubborn narrow argumentation, the old heroes firmly installed in their high thrones-Tatcher and Bush that is- all details about the Tampa we ever got were all wrong, ( he knew all the truths we did not know), the international and possibly UN committees... unreliable as ever and never to be trusted, apologies to those who must not be named... why one should apologize for something someone has never done...

It was amazing for a woman as naive as I am, to see this aged man, not a gentleman , that it not the word he inspires in me, more arrogant than ever, of a new arrogance in fact, one that constricts within a total closure of feelings and understanding. Like the dry hardness of cold stones that no moss nor colour of any kind will ever soffuse in light. Total dimness, obtuseness of immobility that obstructs your step, breaks your run.

It was a contemplation of oldness, of immutability, of near incommunicability.
It came back to me what Hannah Arendt means by political thought, in the words of Margaret Canovan:

Her work is political thought in the sense of representing the free play of an individual mind around politics, making sense of political events and placing them within an unfolding understanding of all that comes within that minds range.

M.Canovan The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt ( N.Y. and London: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, 1974) 2-3

In this sense I understood completely and clearly now, that John Howard was never a politician, but just a conservative.

AHRC report now published

Australian Human Rights Commission 2008-09 Annual Report tabled

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2008-09 Annual Report has been tabled in federal Parliament and is now available on the website at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/publications/annual_reports/2008_2009/

The report outlines the diverse range of activities undertaken by the Commission in pursuit of its statutory responsibilities and its vision of an Australian society where human rights are enjoyed by everyone, everywhere, everyday.

One of the Commission’s roles is the investigation and conciliation of complaints of alleged discrimination in the areas of sex, race, age and disability, as well as breaches of human rights. In summary, during 2008-09 the Commission received:

• 20 188 enquiries, an 8 per cent increase in comparison with the number of enquiries received in the last reporting period. There has been a 103 per cent increase in number of enquiries received over the past five years.
• 2 253 complaints – an 8 per cent increase in complaints received in 2007-08. There has been an 81 per cent increase in complaints received over the past five years.
• 48 per cent of finalised complaints were resolved through conciliation. Case studies that illustrate the types of matters resolved through conciliation are detailed in the Annual Report and cover issues that are often raised in complaints, such as alleged pregnancy discrimination, discrimination against students with disabilities, race discrimination in accommodation, racial hatred in the workplace and discrimination against older workers.

MENZIES CENTRE FOR AUSTRALIAN STUDIES, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON

Menzies Lecture :

Narrating the Nation in Australia

by Professor Graeme Davison, Monash University

18.00 Tuesday 20 October 2009

The Old Anatomy Theatre, Strand Building, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS

RSVP to Kirsten McIntyre Menzies Centre, The Australia Centre Strand, WC2B 4LG

Tel 020-7240 0220 Email: menzies.centre@kcl.ac.uk

The Menzies Lecture is one of two major public lectures organised each year by the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. It is designed to provide an opportunity for a distinguished person, of any nationality, to reflect on a subject of contemporary interest affecting Britain and Australia.

Graeme Davison is a Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor at Monash University. He is a graduate of the universities of Melbourne and Oxford and of the Australian National University, and has held visiting positions at Harvard, Edinburgh, the Australian National University, and King’s College London. He has written extensively on Australian history, especially on urban history, technology, national identity and public history. His book The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne (1978 and new edition 2004) won the Ernest Scott Prize and his most recent, Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities (2004) won the Nettie Palmer Prize in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. His long involvement in heritage, museums and other aspects of public history is reflected in The Use and Abuse of Australian History (2000, and his co-editorship of the Oxford Companion to Australian History (1998 and later editions). He is currently working on a book on Australian nationalism and beginning a history of Monash University.


Phone: +44 (0) 207 557 7162

Fax: +44 (0) 207 240 8292

frank.bongiorno@kcl.ac.uk / www.kcl.ac.uk

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/menzies/who/bongiorno.html