The Asia-Pacific region.
Charity begins at home. Some agree, some do not. But the simple fact is that our treatment of those close to us sets the foundations for our behaviours toward others.…
Nataraja dances, his right foot supported by a crouching figure, his left foot elegantly raised. Of his four arms, one swings downwards, pointing to the raised foot; another with palm…
We were about eighteen miles east of Guernica when Anton pulled to the side of the road jammed on the brakes and started shouting. He pointed wildly ahead, and my…
…I show vice triumphing everywhere, and virtue as the victim of its own sacrifices, I show an unfortunate woman wandering from misfortune to misfortune, a plaything of wickedness and vice;…
Sydney: city of mystery, city of marvels. Sydney: its foreshores once teeming with Gadigal; now a captive city pregnant with memories, enveloped by memories of a Gadigal Atlantis. The traditional…
Last weekend I took a stroll through the Mesopotamia exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. While reading the commentary attached to a number of the artefacts I realised, in a profound…
Melanesia and Indigenous Australia: white privilege and the ‘rule of law’ … first, I made him know his Name should be Friday, which was the Day I sav'd his Life;…
On 2nd May, 2012 the Vanuatu Daily Post reported that Private Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Clarence Marae had been arrested at Sydney International Airport by the Australian Federal…
Fragments from the Alfoxden Notebook There he would stand In the still covert of some [lonesome?] rock, Or gaze upon the moon until its light Fell like a strain of…
"Upon my feeble knee, I beg this boon, with tears, not lightly shed" of my regular readers for my tardiness in posting over the last few weeks. I have been…
The Samoan Government has announced that Australian Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, will visit the country next week as part of a Pacific tour that also includes Nauru, Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Solomon…
July of 1969 was a big month. Whilst the ‘civilized’ world was focused on the deployment of three men to the moon, Indonesia was finalizing steps to wrest control of…
The more classically minded among Blak and Black’s readers will recognise the title of this post as being the opening words of Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid, "... sing of…
Complicity takes many forms, as discussed in posts by both Bakchos and me. Many believe that silent complicity is the least culpable, but to my mind if the silence enables…
The criminal justice system consists of three main parts: (1) Legislative (create laws); (2) adjudication (courts); and (3) corrections (prisons, probation, parole, fines, community service). In a criminal justice system,…
Yesterday, Thursday I received a phone call from Captain Fred Martens, the man who spent a 1,000 days in jail, having been wrongly convicted of an offence under Australia’s Child…
Captain Fred Martens, whom I have written extensively about on Blak and Black in the past, was employed as a commercial pilot flying light aircraft within PNG and between PNG…
Invaded by Indonesia in 1961, West Papua is the crisis on Australia’s doorstep. The conflict generated by the usurpation of the former Dutch protectorate is not recognized as anything other…
Little fly, Thy summer’s play My thoughtless hand Has brushed away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And…
The TNI under Suharto was seen as different from other armies because: Indonesian army sees itself as quite different from other armies in the world, because it was never created…