Socialist media project based in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
Chris Brickell’s book Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand sheds light on a part of our history previously confined to closets and court records, detailing the history of male homosexuality in this country since the 19th Century. Spark journalist Ian Anderson speaks to Ronald Trifero Nelson, who has adapted this book for the theatre.
To start with, what do you set out to do when you make theatre?
Well it’s an old Fabian idea, to entertain and educate.
JUSTICE AND LIBERATION: THE ROAD TO PEACE –
Luis Jaladoni and Coni Ledesma
Luis Jalandoni is the International Representative of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF, http://www.ndfp.net), a post that he has held since 1977, and since 1994 he has been the Chairperson of the NDF’s Negotiating Panel for peace talks with the Government of the Philippines. The NDF is the coalition of several underground groups, including the Communist Party of the Philippines and its New People’s Army, which has been waging a war of liberation throughout the Philippines for more than 40 years, making it one of the longest running armed struggles in the world.
The country desperately needs peace with justice and security, so resolving this people’s war is central to that. Luis will be accompanied by his wife Coni Ledesma, who will also be speaking. She is a member of the NDF Negotiating Panel for peace talks; and is the International Spokesperson of MAKIBAKA, a revolutionary women’s group which belongs to the NDF. Luis and Coni are both veteran leading figures in the Philippine revolutionary Left. He was a Catholic priest in the 1960s and she was a nun. Both were founders of Christians for National Liberation, a member group of the NDF. [Read more…]
The Spark October 2010
reprinted from Beyond Resistance*
While the dust settles and Christchurch recovers from the 7.1 earthquake, people have begun to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives. But for many working class people this is not so easy. Those most affected by ‘natural disasters’ – whether by the tsunami in the Pacific, earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and now Christchurch, NZ – are those already on the margins of despair.
As the impact of the quake became known we saw the authorities rush to ‘lock down’ the CBD, and after a short time brought in the military in a quasi ‘martial law’ scenario. With the aid of the corporate media and using the odd collapsed and damaged building as a backdrop, a sensational picture was painted of a city in ruins. Their reports were far from helpful – heavily recycling dramatic images while providing little concrete advice and information for those of us on the ground. [Read more…]
The Spark October 2010
Philip Fergusson
While the media has emphasised how everyone in Canterbury has pulled together in the aftermath of the quake, workers in a number of businesses have found themselves short of pay, being forced to work straight after the quake when they needed some recovery time and being forced to use up holida
y pay. Well, at least until Unite union and local activists from groups like the Workers Party and Beyond Resistance got on their case.
Unite local organiser Matt Jones called for a “Tour of Shame”, a series of pickets for Sunday, September 19 to highlight four particular employers over these kinds of abuses. Two of the four outfits (a Subway store and Readings at the Palms) gave in before the Sunday. In the Subway case, this meant paying out their staff full pay. [Read more…]
The Spark October 2010
Philip Ferguson
In July this year, the Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) took an important step forward and disaffiliated from the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Over 85% of those who took part in the vote voted to disaffiliate. Dean Mighell, the secretary of the Victorian union, told the paper Green Left Weekly, “Our members have watched over a long period of time as the ALP has attacked their union. . . They like the idea of their union being politically independent and putting their interest first and not the interests of any one party. We didn’t get any sense that members don’t want us campaigning on political issues that affect them. But they don’t see themselves as wedded naturally to the Labor Party.”
Affiliation hinders workers
Mighell noted the affect that being affiliated to the ALP has on unions campaigning for their members, saying, “What I’m bitterly disappointed about is that the union movement only seriously campaigns when the conservatives are in power. In reality, we’ve got conservatives in power now.” The union “looked at how we achieve political change for our members and what the most effective way was to do it”. They decided that they would be much more effective politically by ending their affiliation to Labor. [Read more…]
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