Global Happenings
Articles in the ‘Global Happenings’ section of the November 2008 and August 2009 editions of The Sydney Globalist.
The Sydney Globalist meets James Cockayne
Jessica Carter interviews James Cockayne, Senior Associate at the International Peace Institute.
James Cockayne may have a surname that sounds like an illicit drug, but you shouldn’t get the wrong idea: his career so far has been dedicated to public policy issues spanning peace and justice, organised crime and transnational security challenges. At the moment, he is a Senior Associate at the International Peace Institute, a not-for-profit research and policy development organisation in New York. [...]
The Socratic Dialogue: Get Up! Act Now! Seriously, YOUTH can do it!
Jessica Carter and Kelly Royds grapple with how young people can play a part in shaping global environmental solutions.
In September, the Australia Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision Australia banded together to bring young Aussies the Youth Decide vote on climate change. The vote asked young people to decide what kind of world they want to live in. More than anything else, Youth Decide sent one particularly loud message: it is young people, not politicians, who will live with the consequences of environmental inaction. According to this logic, young people have the greatest interest in saving the planet. The question is, do we have the power to do it? [...]
The Global Pancake
Charles Crane reviews Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat.
A certain reading experience can be expected from Thomas Friedman’s latest book. Friedman is The New York Times foreign affairs columnist who gained recognition for his books The Lexus and the Olive Tree and From Beirut to Jerusalem, in which he championed globalisation and the effects of international economic modernisation. Readers of his latest work can expect to be regaled by a conversational writing style that is both approachable and anecdotal. [...]
The Layperson’s Globalist: Obama’s ‘Smart Power’ Approach
Anna Bennett explains the ins and outs of hard power, soft power, and everything in between.
With Barack Obama in the White House, ‘smart power’ has come to the fore in U.S. foreign policy. Where ‘hard power’ is considered to be overbearing, and ‘soft power’ a liberalist fancy, smart power strikes the politically correct, and internationally successful, balance. When you have an annual $711 billion military budget, hard power might seem the obvious choice. Hard power involves getting others to do what you want, through force or coercion; here, threats and direct action are prevalent and generate supremacy. Think Jack Bauer in the television series 24.
The Sydney Globalist meets Professor Gillian Triggs
Professor Gillian Triggs is the new Dean of Sydney Law School and a distinguished public international lawyer. The Globalist asked Professor Triggs to finish these sentences, which reveal her views on international law, students in politics, and the advantages of a wooden lemon squeezer. My favourite aspect of international law is … its underlying premise [...]
The Layperson’s Globalist: R2P
Anna Bennett explains the nuts and bolts of humanitarian intervention.
The Responsibility to Protect, or ‘R2P’, is mostly self-explanatory, if you add a few words. There are two responsibilities involved: one, for a state, the responsibility to protect one’s own citizens from human rights atrocities; and two, for the international community, the responsibility to intervene when a state cannot or will not protect its population. Essentially, R2P is a mandate to prevent and respond to atrocities resulting from intra-state conflicts. [...]
Two Sides of the Coin: U.S. Imperialism
Camilla Green, Geoffrey Winters and Lewis D’Avigdor parse the motives of the world’s sole remaining superpower.
The proliferation of American influence is neatly encapsulated by a 1989 statement from the spokesman for former Soviet President Michael Gorbachev: “We now follow the Frank Sinatra Doctrine: I’ll do it my way.” Imperial behaviour is a necessary fixture in maintaining a civilised world order. In the last century, three serious contenders – the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan – vied for the role the U.S. occupies today. [...]
Culture: Slumming it Up
Poverty, gangsters, tourism: Lauren Whybrow looks at the many faces of Slumdog Millionaire.
If I say ‘slum’, what comes to mind? Poverty? Squalor? “Feel-good movie of the year?” Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, and winner of a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Picture, has been marketed as an uplifting and feel-good tale by both the publicity department of Fox Searchlight and various reviewers. [...]
The Trials of Anwar Ibrahim
Lisa Cantlon wonders if the Opposition will seize power in Malaysia for the first time since 1957.
In early July, Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s main Opposition Leader, was confident that his coalition could form government in the coming months. This would have been momentous in a country ruled by the same coalition, the Barisan Nasional, since its independence in 1957. However, within days, Anwar was arrested by armed, balaclava-clad police on charges of sodomising an aide. [...]
The Politics of Underground Electronic Music
Lillian Morrissey explores the politics of underground electronic music.
Midnight, July 13. Creeping out of the semi-darkness of the industrial outskirts of London is a deep, repetitive beat. Embedded in a neon spectacle of lights and movement, I can see more clearly with every advancing step, tucked under a highway underpass between a canal and a vacant lot. Cars pass overhead, entirely unaware of what is happening beneath them. [...]
