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Peace Bell
In Cowra, the Peace Bell tolls a warning, And magpies caw their raucous and wry chorus in reply. Their voices reach a quiet graveyard, An unusual place, Here Japanese mothers and children sleep. So far from home – they are not forgotten. ANZACS sleep nearby -almost – almost – beside them. They too attract the living – not forgotten. How strange, the earth’s embrace draws them so close. The Peace Bell tolls a warning. Keep them out the shrill galah shrieks And fearful faces turn to listen, hatred rising in their eyes. Across the plain a musty folk museum lies, Its most sacred relic, a roll-up flag. Turn them out the galah…
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Frontera Movie Review
The Frontera movie is a story about lives shattered by the US-Mexico border. The story unfolds around two families: one from the Mexican side, one from the U.S. side. Miguel (Michael Peña) crosses the border to find work to support his family, including his pregnant wife Paulina (Eva Longoria). On the other side lives a retired sheriff Roy (Ed Harris) and his wife Olivia (Amy Madigan). From the moment Miguel crosses the border everything goes wrong. As the tragedy unfolds, Olivia is shot and killed. Miguel, in the wrong place at the wrong time, is wrongly blamed. The actions of a cast of villains and fools deepen the tragedy as…
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It’s [not] a free planet
“It’s a free country.” In an age of anxiety you don’t hear people say it so much. And you certainly won’t hear anyone say “It’s a free planet”. For some people it’s getting less free all the time. The retreat in planetary freedom is measured in the rise of terms such as “border security” and the real and virtual fences are going up on the borders of the world. The barriers going up not just at the borders – within countries and beyond them mechanisms to keep ‘them’ out are being reinforced all the time. The highest and most impassable barrier is the wall being built in our minds, so that it becomes more and more difficult…
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More than one thousand deaths since 2000
On 15 December 2010, 50 people are believed to have drowned when their asylum seeker boat was smashed, only metres from safety, on the shores of Christmas Island. Some of the bodies of those who died will never be recovered. In protests by asylum seekers that followed, children held in detention are seen holding up placards asking: “The children died. Why?” [1] Yet the children and adults that died on 15 December are (horrifically) only a small fraction of deaths associated with “border security”. Sometime in 2010, the known number of deaths associated with Australia’s border controls passed 1000. This number in turn is only a small fraction of the known global toll associated with similar border security policies which are playing out on borders…
