In the 70s we demonstrated hard. Bowie said it we heard it and in the 80's we denied it. In 2023 we proved he was right
From the Outside Looking In: 40 years ago David Bowie lived here for 10 years and made the brutal assessment of what he found
Bowie lived in Elizebeth Bay
David Bowie lived in an apartment at Elizabeth Bay, Sydney for approximately 10 years up until 1992. His Sydney apartment was used as a base for month-long adventures to the outback and far north Queensland rainforests throughout the 1980s.
When asked about Australia in 1980s, the superstar had a blunt assessment of the nation. “He described Australia as one of the most racist countries in the world,” Indigenous man Daniel Browning told SBS NewDaniel Browning
Daniel is an Aboriginal journalist, radio broadcaster, sound artist and writer. Currently, producer and presenter of Awaye!, the Indigenous art and culture program on the ABC’s specialist journalism and arts network Radio National. Awaye! surveys contemporary Indigenous cultural pra... Read more
Bowie travelled around Australia visiting the outback and rainforest, and in his travels he learned of the plight of the Aboriginal population, the genocide in Australia’s recent past and the dispossession of indigenous communities. He also learned of white Australia’s refusal to engage this collective history and it’s insistence on assimilation as the only way forward.
In 1983 Bowie and director David Mallet simultaneously shot the videos for two of the singles from his album Let's Dance. The "China Girl" and "Let’s Dance" videos saw Bowie utilising his international pop star status to make an overtly political statement for the first time. MTV in the early 80s was becoming powerful cultural force and Bowie was eager to push the limits of the medium.
"China Girl" was shot in Sydney and featured New Zealand model Geeling Ng, who Bowie had met through her job as a waitress in Sydney. "Let’s Dance" was filmed around Sydney and in Carinda, rural NSW. The video portrayed Joelene King and Terry Roberts as a young Aboriginal couple attempting to assimilate into white Australian culture and their eventual rejection of this loaded struggle in favour of their own way of life.
It’s sobering to note that at the time of his death 33 years later, the situation for indigenous communities in contemporary Australia are not that dissimilar, with many of the issues raised in the "Let’s Dance" video still current and of crucial concern. As Bowie said of his decision to confront these topics: and tell the world https://www.vice.com/en/article/rb839v/bowie-racism-and-australia
Source: David Bowie’s exposure of Australia’s Indigenous struggle inspires new art project | SBS News
Israel-Gaza War Is Deadliest Month for Journalists Covering Conflict in Over 3 Decades
There is something extremely suspicious about the mechanical repetitious reporting about the Gaza-Israel war. No mention is made that of the 1400 people somewhere between 400-700 were IDF personnel said to have been killed by friendly fire by Israel. It has also been said that the 240 hostages have been hidden in tunnels being bombed by Israel to save them while killing their captors. All in al this sounds more like a press release that “must” be placed in all media reports but the originator of the sterile numbers remains unnamed.
Meanwhile the “The Gaza Health Officials” are always named when the Palestinian death count is delivered 9488 in this case but what isn’t said is 4,888 of these are children. Furthermore, what’s never mentioned is Hamas has constantly tried to negotiate a hostage swap with Netanyahu and stop the carnage of civilians but Netanyahu simply refuses. One of his MPs called it “mowing the grass” while one suspects Netanyahu sees it as an opportunity for genocidal dispossession hidden under the cover merciless “justice”.
As for Scott Morrion who on earth gives a fuck? Even a war can't redeem in the eyes of the Australian public? The question is he being paid when how and what was he promised behind closed doors?
Israel’s ground forces have encircled Gaza City after stepping up a bombing campaign aimed at “annihilating Hamas” after the group, considered a terrorist organisation by the Australian government, killed 1400 people and took more than 240 hostages in an October 7 assault in southern Israel.
Gaza health officials said on Saturday that 9488 Palestinians have been killed after Israel cut off power, food and water – allowing in a small number of aid trucks – while unleashing a bombing campaign that has targeted hospitals, refugee camps, ambulances and schools.
Source: Scott Morrison lands in Israel, Australians arrive home from Gaza
“Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them,” said one critic. Brett Wilkins Nov 06, 2023 2
Source: US Corporate Media Outlets Allow IDF to Vet ‘All Materials’ From Embedded Reporters in Gaza
For decades, the western world has been fed Israeli/Zionist narratives about their country being exceptional, Palestinians not existing or being less than human. False Israeli accounts have been swallowed by a compliant media and by politicians scared of being accused of being even slightly anti-Semitic.
A narrative polished and promoted for decades has reached its inhumane crescendo in a refusal to admit cruelty as policy – Palestinians as animals indistinct from Hamas, the thousands of children in Gaza blown to bits, unending dispossession and murder on the West Bank, hundreds of children and thousands of Palestinian adults imprisoned in Israeli jails without charge.
Given western governments seventy five years long responsibility for the carnage in Israel and genocide in Gaza, their leaders have stayed largely silent or have tasted and swallowed the Israeli narrative whose major objective is to impose a world rule which says no one should criticise Israel.
For too long, at the expense of the Palestinian people, this toxic narrative has contributed to confusion, untruths, murder and mayhem.
After the Gazan genocide, the chance of small steps being taken to foster peace with justice will depend on truths emerging, on diplomatic posturing and arrogance being discouraged, on this narrative being derided and dismissed.
Expose and dismiss the dominating Israeli narrative
Netanyahu the anti-Semite shows just who he is. While some politicians may support him the tide has turned into a Tsunami against him. He’s parted the sea for a second time but this time it’s an increasing division in the sea of humanity
Huge crowds of protesters filled the streets of Washington, D.C. and other U.S. cities on Saturday joining hundreds of thousands around the world to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Hamas, which has killed and wounded more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip in just one month.
Source: Hundreds of Thousands March Against Israel’s War
Hamas has been all over the news since its brutal October 7 attack, but there’s much less understanding of how the group emerged. Only by studying Hamas’s history can we chart a better way forward.
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