Socialist media project based in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
– Daphna Whitmore
Condoleezza Rice just called in to say thank you.
Thanks for the “long history of partnership”. Thanks for New Zealand’s military participation in wars in Korea, the Pacific and more recently in Afghanistan.
Hang on a minute, isn’t Helen Clark supposed to be a peacenik camouflaged in a power suit?
It’s a quandary for the western left: the same countries that have invaded Iraq and visited much suffering on many other poor countries now want to do good in Cyclone-ravaged Myanmar/Burma. Has US and British imperialism suddenly become a force for good? Don’t be fooled, says John Moore, who argues that we need to question the motives of those countries now offering aid. What they really want is to open Burma up to western investment and political control.
The disastrous cyclone that hit Burma in early May has once again placed the concerns of this county on the international stage. In New Zealand political organisations ranging from the Labour Party through to the Greens and the far-left have made statements condemning the brutal military regime’s appalling handling of the crisis, tied with calls for tightened sanctions and/or New Zealand disinvestment. The military regime’s handling of the cyclone disaster should be condemned. Its incompetence, coupled with unconcern for the victims, will merely strengthen the majority of the population’s hatred for the ruling junta. However, leftists who want to support the people of Myanmar/Burma should cast a critical eye on increasing calls by Western leaders for some form of “humanitarian” intervention and the continued imposition of sanctions. Leftist groups who continue to call for some form of economic boycott and don’t pose the dangers of Western “humanitarian” intervention risk the danger of acting as a leftist/liberal fig leaf for imperialist manoeuvrings in this troubled area.
Hear John Edmundson at Marxism 2008 on Afghanistan’s long-running resistance
New Zealand has been at war in Afghanistan since the beginning of that war, but people could be excused for not realising this. While the war in Iraq has made the news, Afghanistan is more or less ignored and New Zealand’s involvement is even less reported on.
Yet at the same time, Afghanistan is portrayed as “the good war”, in contrast to “the bad war” in Iraq. Whatever coverage there is is almost exclusively of one type; the good work New Zealand soldiers are doing in Bamian. With the embarrassing exception of the troops sent home recently for drug offenses, the only other story to make the news, and it was huge, was the awarding of the VC to Corporal Apiata.
For New Zealanders, the war in Afghanistan should be big news. Soldiers from this country are over there participating in this brutal occupation. We should be hearing about this and we should be opposing it. Instead, it is completely below the radar. (Saturday 31 May 10am)
The dialectics of nature and nurture – Daphna Whitmore challenges mechanical approaches to genes and the environment
The debate over what influences the development of an organism most – genes or environment – has largely been treated in a mechanical way. The pendulum has swung back and forth as to which plays the bigger role but few scientists take an all-sided view.
Drawing on the work of scientists Lewontin, Levins and Gould, who use the dialectical method, Daphna makes a case that there’s more to development than genes and environment.
It is 55 years since the structure of DNA was revealed and it is time to ask why gene therapy not progressed beyond the trial stage. Daphna argues that DNA doesn’t play quite the determining role that is commonly believed and that genes are irrelevant for some characteristics.
Daphna contends that ‘genomania’ has a social context which is holding back progress.
Likewise, our concept of the environment is shaped by current ideology. “Preserve the environment” is a catchy slogan but nonsense in biology, says Lewontin. Do organisms “adapt” to their environment or is adaptation a misused metaphor? Just how much is science guided by social thinking rather than objective exploration? (Saturday 31 May 4.15pm)
Join the discussions at Marxism 2008 Queens Birthday weekend Grey Lynn Community Centre, 510 Richmond Rd, Grey Lynn Auckland. (See full programme here)
April marks the 60th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre when up to 250 Palestinians, mainly old men, women and children, were massacred by Israeli forces during the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
Come along to this month’s Christchurch Workers’ Forum and hear how and why the Israeli state was set up through the dispossession of the Palestinians, what’s happening in Gaza at present and how we can support the Palestinians.
Speaker: John Edmundson
7pm, Monday, April 28
WEA
59 Gloucester Street
Organised by the Christchurch branch of the Workers Party
– Daphna Whitmore
Recent protests in Tibet have thrown the spotlight on one of the world’s most remote regions. Led by Tibetan monks, protesters attacked Han Chinese and Hui Muslim immigrants. Tibetans say the Chinese authorities favour the new migrants while treating the locals as second-class citizens.
As the government clamped down on demonstrators. reports have come in of dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests. With the Beijing Olympics just six months away, the protests may stay centre-stage.
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