Below are the notes used for a seminar paper delivered in, I think 2001, at the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The paper was never prepared for publication. (PLEASE NOTE: A lot has happened since 2001. This article refers to the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD). This party split in 2007. […]
ARTICLE – After THE ACT OF THE KILLING: Indonesia, 1965: rehabilitating victims, rehabilitating revolution by Max Lane
Indonesia and 1965: rehabilitating victims, rehabilitating revolution under a counter-revolutionary state. Max Lane Text of notes used for talk delivered at Conference: “After The Act of Killing: Historical Justice and the 1965-66 Mass Killings in Indonesia”, University of Melbourne and Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat, Jakarta, August 30, 2013. It is very heartening to see the increased and more open […]
VERY SHORT COMMENT: The polls, the ALP and the Greens.
With the decline of the trade union movement (primarily due to the acquiescence of its bureaucratic caste leadership to the 1980s Prices-and-Incomes Accord and consequent demobilisation) and the connected decline of ALP activist membership, there are few (if any) mechanisms to know clearly the political thinking of the “public”, the working class, who make up […]
POEM: Fried Rice (Nasi Goreng).
We were talking about food last night and a memory came back to me – for the umpteenth time. Narrow and dark and most of all hot. If I ended up at a back table, 3 or 4 metres inside, the sweat would pour from forehead and my hair would be wet enough to comb […]
SHORT COMMENT: On feminism and feminism
Over the course of the last twelve months, due to developments in the small Australian, British and Indonesian lefts, the issue of the Marxist orientation to feminism has become higher up in the current discussion agenda. Over the last 30 years, I have been part of a tradition that has tried to explain the origins […]
SHORT COMMENT: The Greens, social democracy and ideological anemia – by Max Lane.
Even the paid professional commentariat working for the privately owned media as well as the ABC have long publicly recognised a significant sameness between the Australian Labour Party (ALP) and the Liberal National Coalition (LNC). The convergence between the ALP and the LNC was recognised in the 80s by the wit who described them as […]
Article: The circus in late capitalist Australian politics. – by Max lane
In 1975, the then Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser, urged people to vote for an Australia that would be ‘relaxed and comfortable” and where “sport would be back on the front page” of the newspapers. The long post-war economic boom and pretty much zero unemployment (noting that participation still did not really count women) […]
ON BALI: four pieces (2 poems, 2 essays).
BALI, INDONESIA Green, deep green Chlorophyll blinds the eyes keen Black earth, brown aches Sticky mud between toes cakes. Tears irrigate the picture painted under the labouring harvest’s stricture Paddy, palms, coconuts, frangipanis Creations of peasant hands canny. Rice sold and eaten Suffices to keep deep want beaten But for the future there are no […]
Article: Refugees and the ideological imperatives of late capitalism in Australia – by Max Lane.
As from July, 2013, the Australian government has a new policy as regards refugees arriving in Australian territory by boat, “without a visa”. The Australian government will no longer accept them as potential residents of Australia. They are to be shipped to detention camps in Papua New Guinea and, if recognized as ‘legitimate’ refugees, will […]
Poem: Cold Outside
Wet, cold, wind, nighttime quiet and darkthe outside makes the loneliness starkWarmth inside, heater but also long embraceNothing less lonely than the message on a lover’s face.
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