Revolution-A Spiritual Phenomenon: A Study in the History of Ideas

The irrational and utopian note of the revolution remained constant through its long and eventful history. I will try to show that the idea of modern revolution is not simply an attack on an established authority, but a phenomenon sui generis, i.e., an attack on order as such, based on an identifiable metaphysical position. The present article may be regarded as an attempt to contribute through an uncovering of the spiritual roots of the revolution, to an understanding upon which depends the survival of personal values in the social order, at a time when that order seems threatened from without and, even more, from within

Australia

Around two and a half percent of Australian citizens identify as indigenous, and this proportion continues to grow. Although indigenous peoples belong to hundreds of different cultural communities and language groups, the common experiences of colonization have led to the formation of a national indigenous identity and political movement. A prominent cultural and political distinction, however, exists between the Torres Strait Islander people of Northern Queensland and other groups (often collectively termed “Aboriginal”)

Australia

Australia’s growing indigenous community currently makes up two and a half percent of the total population, and more than half of these 460,000 indigenous residents live in urban and regional centres. However, a far greater proportion (27%)still live in very remote areas compared to the non-indigenous population (2%). The vast majority of Aborigines have been violently dispossessed of their land, and all have been subjected to economic and political marginalization and oppressive state control. Today, indigenous life expectancy remains 20 years below the national average, and indigenous citizens are far more likely to live in poverty, be removed from their families as children and be incarcerated than the general population

A Reconsideration of the Political Significance of Shared Responsibility Agreements

The 1996–2007 Howard Coalition government introduced Shared Responsibility Agreements in 2005 to allocate discretionary funding to indigenous communities in a "mutually responsible" way. The policy was widely criticized as an ineffective and ideologically driven "showpiece". Its significant governance-building dimensions went without comment. Through the deployment of the conceptual tools of contract and governance, SRAs established new and depoliticised relationships between government and indigenous peoples, replacing the centralized political structure of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. The future of the policy under the Rudd Government is uncertain, but understanding the impacts and implications of SRAs remains important

The Political Complexities of 'New Memorials': Victims and Perpetrators Sharing Space in the Australian Capital

Abstract, open and inclusive memorial forms appear most often in instances where nations attempt to memorialize their own crimes. They seem to be capable of allowing both the perpetrating nation and its victims to express their histories in a single, integrated monument, and thus to encapsulate a new unified postconflict identity. A close examination of the central symbolic space of the Australian capital, however, reveals more complex political interactions. The state’s use of open memorial forms to publicly remember the experiences of Indigenous peoples under colonialism allows these events to be included and ‘overcome’ without substantially confronting Indigenous identities. The interactive, passive monument reflects back the preexisting understandings of viewers, struggles to challenge the surrounding traditional memorials, and delegitimises ‘unofficial’ but more disruptive expressions of victims’ stories. This suggests that, where the processes of restitution are controlled by perpetrating nations, close attention needs to be paid to the ways that institutionally marginal victims may be silenced through the very act of inclusion