Few would have predicted, until recent times, that the biggest act at the Glastonbury music festival would be a 68-year-old socialist reciting .
Yet Labour leader Jeremy Corbynβs June 24 speech at Glastonbury attracted what was likely the largest crowd in the festivalβs history, said.
Song of Gulzarina
By Tariq Mehmood
Daraja Press
November 2016
βSing to the Western wind the song it understands.β
Song of Gulzarina, by British-Pakistani filmmaker and author Tariq Mehmood, stands out as a unique piece of literature that intertwines personal issues such as migration, identity crisis and romance, with the impact of racism, Islamophobia and Western imperialism in the Middle East.
The parliamentary majority President Emmanuel Macronβs coalition won in the second round of legislative elections held on June 18 was reported as a triumph against the weakened forces of both the left and the traditional right.
But questions have emerged over the real strength of the government as it prepares an assault on the rights of workers and their unions.
The 2017 Sydney Film Festival, which ran from June 7-18, featured a range of progressive-themed films. Below is a look at five by ΒιΆΉΣ³» Weeklyβs Zebedee Parkes.
***
Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves
By &
This is a genuinely interesting dramatic film, with an epic narrative and visual style.
A new campaign, #Notinmyname, is sweeping India and some major international cities, with protests breaking out against a recent streak of Muslim killings near the capital, New Delhi.
The movement has been fuelled by crimes such as those against three brothers who went to New Delhi to shop for the Islamic festival of Eid. A small argument over a seat on a train turned to religious slurs as the boys were taunted for being beef-eaters, one of the brothers, Shabir, 23, told The Indian Express from a hospital bed.
The neo-Nazi True Blue Crew held their second "Australian Pride" rally in Melbourne on June 25 and were met with an "anti-racist/anti-fascist" counter protest by No Room For Racism and Campaign Against Racism and Fascism.
There were about 150β200 fascists and about 200β300 anti-racists. Several hundred police, including from the Public Order Response Team, kept the two sides apart.
Five people were treated by Ambulance Victoria after police pepper-sprayed the anti-racists in Russell St after the main rally had broken up.
CSIRO staff voted by 58% to approve a new enterprise agreement, in a second round of voting after the 70% No vote last October.
The CSIRO Staff Association said the new agreement restored rights including a commitment to secure, ongoing employment, flexible working hours and on-site childcare, which were not in the October deal.
βWhile the new agreement represents a substantial improvement on the CSIROβs first offer there is a long way to go to rebuild morale, trust and confidence among scientists, researchers and other staff,β the Staff Associationβs Sam Popovski said.
Eighty tenants and supporters rallied at the Northcote public housing estate on June 24 to protest plans to evict the tenants and demolish their homes.
Northcote is one of nine public housing estates the Victorian Labor government wants to demolish. It wants to sell the land to private developers who would build high rise units. Some "social housing" would also be built.
Addressing the rally, Aboriginal activist and public housing tenant Viv Malo linked the planned evictions to the history of dispossession of Aboriginal people.
The media crackdown in Turkey by the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has grown in the aftermath of a failed coup in July last year.
Jailed reporters find themselves caught in a quagmire as they face legal limbo and deal with made-up charges, inhumane treatment and solitary confinement.Β
The biggest privatisation scam in NSW history is about to start as the NSW Coalition government prepares to sell off the $17 billion WestConnex tollway. The government and its project adviser Goldman Sachs are expected to start a market-testing exercise, with a deadline of October for expressions of interest from major private corporations.
How bad are things today when even the head of the Reserve Bank of Australia agrees workers are feeling too insecure to demand wage rises.
Speaking at the Australian National University on June 19, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said: βPeople value security and one way you can get a bit more security is to not demand a wage rise.β Although his argument was about the impact on economic growth, it highlights the level of insecurity felt by workers today.
