Create an emergency preparedness plan.

This question, while highly important, is a bit vague. The kind of emergency that we are facing determines the kind of preparedness planning required.

What does that mean?

Working as a technical writer over the last 30 years, I have had to produce emergency procedures documents. The Australian financial industry is subject to myriad regulations and safety procedures. The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA), created by legislation in 1998, oversees the implementation of risk management procedures by Australian authorised deposit-taking institutions.

The APRA has a standard, CPS 230, Operational Risk Management. This requires that your business institution have a plan in place to continue operations in the event of major disruptions or disasters. Identifying and managing your operational risks requires preparation, and that means having procedures – an emergency plan – in place. What happens when there is a fire, flooding, another pandemic, which severely degrades the capability of your institution to function?

Preparing for such emergencies requires preparation and planning.

Let’s step outside the world of business for a minute, and ask ourselves a question – what happens when private business creates a sociopolitical and environmental problem? Do governments have an emergency plan in place for those kinds of problems?

Why do I ask these questions? A long awaited report in Britain was released only earlier this year. A prolonged enquiry into the dilapidated and failing system of Britain’s waterway regulations and sewage management, the Cunliffe report, this review provides a damning indictment of the privatised water sector in Britain.

For instance, not only have water bills increased for households across Britain, major effusions of untreated sewage are dumped into waterways around the nation. Water stations and equipment are neglected, the companies that run water services, such as Thames Water, are facing bankruptcy, and the mega gallons of effluent in Britain’s rivers pose a significant health risk.

Basically, Britain’s waterways are turning to shit. Why do I use that vulgar colloquialism? The conclusion of an article in Prospect Magazine, which reviews the impact of privatisation on the provision of water and filtration services is ‘How our water went to shit.’

You may find a map of the waterways in England and Wales filled with untreated sewage.

During the prime ministership of Thatcher’s UK conservatives, privatisation of public services, such as water provision, was promoted as a way to revitalise a decrepit sector of the economy. Instead, privatisation has produced leaking pipes, rivers unfit to swim in, and gallons of untreated sewage spilling into waterways.

If a business model fails to provide basic services to the public, then we can reasonably conclude that that particular business model is a failure. It is time for emergency measures, renationalising the water companies to revamp failing infrastructure and respond to the public health threat of unsanitary drinking water.

I am old enough to remember the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the response of the Soviet authorities. The latter were lambasted in the corporate media not only for their alleged incompetence in running a nuclear reactor, but also for their allegedly slow and ineffective response to that serious emergency. If they cannot protect their own citizens from nuclear fallout, so we were told, how can we trust Moscow’s ability to handle other serious ecological disasters?

Whether Moscow’s response to the Chernobyl nuclear accident was adequate or not, I do not know, and is outside the scope of this article. I do know that if the business sector creates an environmental and medical emergency, such as failing to provide clean safe drinking water, then questions must be asked if the guilty parties will be brought to account.

In capitalist societies, the profits are privatised, but the risks and harmful consequences are socialised – the tab is picked up by the public.

Emergency preparedness is not something that can be built up overnight. Planning is essential, to be sure. However, adequate responses to climate emergencies takes decades of information gathering and public investment.

We have all read news about the flash floods which occurred earlier this year in Texas. Flash flooding is nothing new in Texas, and the authorities responded as best they could. Sadly, there was loss of lives, including children, in the recent flooding disaster.

I would like to highlight a measure, long proposed by scientists, engineers and climate experts, which would increase the ability of the relevant authorities to respond and manage such disasters.

For decades, Congressional lawmakers (both Republican and Democrat) have rejected demands to install adequate flood warning gauges and systems across the major waterways and rivers in the United States.

Stream gauges, the necessary equipment to monitor flooding in waterways, are crucial in gathering and providing advance warnings of rising floodwaters. The absence of such gauges is not front page news, but constitutes a serious gap in flood emergency management.

The Trump administration, in the name of saving money, is cutting back funding for climate change and weather forecasting systems even further. Reducing such warning systems will only dilute the capacity of emergency response services to adequately prepare and address these kinds of worsening climate induced disasters.

When we lose the ability to protect life, property, biodiversity, agricultural resources and drinking water from disasters, then it is time to abandon the economic model that prioritises private profits over the public health and hygiene.

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

The game of cricket is completely uninteresting to me. That is the first observation. The nation of Zimbabwe is absolutely foreign to me. I have never been there, and I do not know as Zimbabweans.

Why am I explaining all this? The performance of the Zimbabwean cricket team, playing against England in May this year, was a source of immense joy for me personally. Why? I am not a cricket fan, nor am I Zimbabwean.

I am always overjoyed when small nations, especially those that have experienced trauma and prolonged suffering, find success in the field of sport. I am happy for diasporan communities, who live with a sense of melancholic disconnection from their homeland, when they confront nations that have traditionally dominated professional sport.

England is a cricketing powerhouse, its team one of the most successful in the world. In the days of the British empire, cricket was exported to its colonies. Constructing a cultural identity based on the imperial power is a necessary concomitant to empire-expansion. Empires have never relied on force alone to control their subjugated populations.

Cementing cultural and ideological links with the imperial centre of power is a vital prop for reinforcing colonial power. Winning the consent of the governed through sport and culture is just as important as projecting imperialist military power.

Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, learnt cricket from the English. Its team has not played against England since 2003. The economic and social problems of Zimbabwe are widely known. Media coverage of that nation’s economic travails is motivated perhaps more so by British sour grapes over the loss of their former colony, rather than pure humanitarian considerations for Zimbabwe’s farming and poor communities.

Playing a Test match against England in Nottingham earlier this year, the game was an occasion for Zimbabweans resident in England to come together and celebrate. Hundreds of Zimbabwean flags fluttered proudly, cuisine from the mother country was available at impromptu stalls, and songs rang out from the passionate crowd.

The Chevrons, the Zimbabwean cricket team, were roundly defeated by England. The latter’s experience in cricket showed. However, that did not diminish the carnival and community spirit of the Zimbabweans in attendance.

While the Chevrons were resoundingly trounced this time around, they will learn from their defeat, improve their skills, and bounce back the next time. I am quite certain they will recover from their initial heartbreak to achieve supreme successes in the future.

In the meantime, I will be cheering them on from Sydney.

What bothers you and why?

There is a vast legion of answers to that question, but let’s focus on a specific issue which fits into this category.

It is irritating to witness migrant communities, whether here in Sydney or in the United States, recycle the bigotry and prejudices of the mainstream Anglophone society onto other, newer ethnic groups. Only a few months ago, I published an article with a question to those Irish Americans who voted for Donald Trump’s MAGA platform.

Trump and his MAGA colleagues have openly expressed their contempt of migrants. His administration has deported (or at least attempting to) thousands of migrants to Latin American nations. He has used the powers of the 1798 Alien Enemies act to deport the people he deems a threat.

The irony is that the 1798 act was passed in order to target Irish Catholics, the latter regarded as the original internal enemy. My sincerest hope is that the MAGA Irish Americans will reconsider their political viewpoints, and recognise that the Trump/Vance team is using the age-old tactic of divide-and-rule.

A few years ago, during Trump’s first term in office, I wrote about the threat of deportation hanging over the Iraqi Assyrian and Chaldean communities. The latter two groups, having supported Trump by regurgitating Islamophobic hatred during the 2016 election, subsequently faced deportation to Iraq and Syria. Their tears of self-pity made for a human-interest story. It also demonstrated their remarkably narrow-minded politics.

No, I am not writing this article as an ‘I told you so’ point-scoring exercise. I am writing in the hope that those migrant communities who supported Trump politically will now re-examine their attitudes in light of the MAGA cult’s unrestrained bigotry.

When migrants arrive in a new country, full of hope and ambition to start a new life, they have to overcome the bigotry of the host community. In the Anglophone nations, nonwhite migrants faced enormous obstacles, and had to overcome them step by step to achieve a level of success.

Once established, the settled communities forget where they came from. Expressing a similar, parallel prejudice against newly arrived migrants only perpetuates a cycle of exclusion and hatred.

No, I am not suggesting that multicultural inclusion and acceptance is impossible – far from it. Overcoming racism and ethnocentric snobbery is a long struggle, and ultimately successful and rewarding.

What countries do you want to visit?

There are many nations around the world which would be extraordinarily interesting to visit. You could name almost any country in Africa – Nigeria, Botswana, Egypt – and I would eagerly jump at the opportunity to visit.

Let’s approach this question beyond mere individual satisfaction or enjoyment. Where can I, as an Australian by birth, demonstrated my solidarity and interest in a nation’s people and culture?

It has been 30 years since the execution of Nigerian environmental activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. Nigeria, and the Niger Delta in particular is rich in oil. The delta has been the subject of intensive oil exploration and extraction. This practice has been highly damaging to the natural environment and Ogoni people.

Highlighting the ecologically destructive practices of Shell oil corporation on his native Ogoniland, he formed a nonviolent organisation, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).

MOSOP declared that Shell petroleum corporation destroyed the natural environment, polluted the waterways, derived enormous profits from the sale of crude oil, and provided nothing for the Ogoni people. A new word was basically invented at this time (the late 1980s and early 1990s) for this practice – extractivism.

He and his fellow activists, denouncing the extractivism of multinational oil companies in the early 1990s, were targeted by the Nigerian military regime. The peaceful protests organised by MOSOP were met with violent repression. Shell corporation and the Nigerian authorities were colluding to silence any voices which spoke out against the exploitative practices of oil multinationals.

Brought to court on trumped up charges, the Ogoni 9, of which Saro-Wiwa was part, were sentenced to death and hanged in November 1995. Earlier this month, the Nigerian government issued a posthumous pardon for Saro-Wiwa.

Saro-Wiwa wrote of his experiences while in detention – A Month and a Day. Arrested in June 1993, he was held in deplorable conditions. It was the first of many clashes with the Nigerian authorities.

His book was published in 1996 in Australia, with a preface by Anglo-Scottish novelist William Boyd. That book was eye-opening, particularly given the political climate of the early-mid 1990s. The socialist bloc in Eastern Europe had just dissolved, and the corporate-controlled media was declaring the triumph of capitalism. The future belonged to Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Hollywood movies and fast cars, did it not?

Saro-Wiwa’s sacrifice, along with his Ogoni compatriots, reminded the world that capitalism involves exploitation and ecological degradation. Capitalism’s cheerleaders can jump up and down about supermarkets and hamburgers, but they cannot obscure the fact that Saro-Wiwa exposed the ugly truth of the profiteering extractivism at the heart of multinational corporations.

I would like to visit Saro-Wiwa’s grave, as well as the final resting place of the Ogoni 9 in Nigeria, and pay my respects to them.

So, Nigeria – that’s one.

Let’s stay in Africa, and venture over to Kenya.

Kenya has been a fascinating country for me over the decades. My late father made me aware of Kenya – in what way? As a cradle of humankind. Kenya is home to extensive archaeological and paleontological discoveries, including fossils which tell the story of human evolution.

Louis Leakey (1903 – 1972) the British-Kenyan paleontologist, made fossil hunting seem exciting and daring in his documentaries. I remember watching grainy old footage of Leakey out and about in the field, which was usually Lake Turkana, determinedly digging some patch of ground. Mary Leakey, Louis’ partner, was a scientist in her own right, sharing the glory of paleontological discoveries.

Their son Richard, who sadly passed away in 2022, was also a noted paleontologist.

Lake Turkana, located in northwest Kenya (branching into Ethiopia) is actually a saline desert lake. Surrounded by arid country, it is not the first place you would expect to be habitable for hominins. However, Lake Turkana’s eastern foreshore has yielded literally hundreds of hominin fossils, providing a unique insight into early human evolution.

A treasure trove of fossils, the story of human evolution is arguably the most important paleontological discovery of the last decades of the twentieth century. No, I am not rejecting the importance of quantum mechanics, continental plate tectonics or the germ theory of disease for their impact on our society and how we live. Each in turn faced fierce resistance when initially posited, gradually acquiring consensus based on the preponderance of evidence.

However, it is the natural history of human evolution, possessing a philosophically materialist foundation with no reference to or need for supernatural intervention, which is the most fascinating yet challenging consensus in contemporary capitalist society.

Kenya, while a small nation geographically, has played an outsized role in revealing the human story. The Kenyan Rift Valley, the subject of exploration for the last 50 years, has more secrets to reveal. Kenya has solidified its claim as the original location of humankind.

It would be an easy and entertaining option to be yet another Aussie tourist in Bali. I am certain that Bali is very appealing, but treading the well worn path of what is marketed as Aussie tourism is not for me.

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

If I had to select one positive change I have made in my life, it is the following: stopped worrying about fitting in or belonging. If I fit in with a particular group or social class, that is fantastic. If I do not, so be it – I stopped overthinking about that topic and losing sleep over it.

Some clarification is in order here.

It is important for your mental health to have a sense of belonging. We all need friendships, a social circle and the support of our peers. It is important for our self-esteem to obtain the approval of our friends and colleagues. When my manager gives me feedback about my work, I listen closely and change my work behaviour to meet the requirements of the job.

In Australia, there is an ongoing discussion about social cohesion. What exactly does that phrase mean? Political commentators from the major parties, as well as sociologists and immigration experts have weighed in on the topic. Under previous prime ministers, social cohesion was sometimes used interchangeably with social inclusion. The latter term has a more emphasis on the notion of belonging.

The underlying concept of social cohesion is nothing new. The term tries to encapsulate how governments can shape a society in which individuals feel they belong, and in reciprocal fashion how individuals can participate in activities that increase and encourage a sense of belonging. Both the wider community and the individual must change to achieve social cohesion.

Indeed, the Islamic philosopher and scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) arguably the founder of sociology, elaborated a concept of asabiyyah, or group cohesion. Khaldun argued that a social group’s ability to bind individuals together was the most crucial factor in sustaining a group’s longevity and consistency. Working for the group did not negate the individual; on the contrary, an individual’s best way to realise their own belonging is to contribute to the wellbeing of the group.

Greater urbanisation and economic mercantile activity has eroded social bonds, diminishing an individual’s ability to connect, thus increasing isolation and social fragmentation.

Erik Eriksson (1902 – 1994), the noted social psychologist, highlighted how he stumbled upon the issue of belonging. Being of Danish Jewish background, he found himself attacked by non-Jewish Danish students for being a Jew; yet at the yeshiva, he was attacked by Jewish students for being a blond, blue-eyed Nordic type.

I have found that belonging is a two-edged sword; being born in Australia, I still get challenged by the obnoxious question ‘where do you come from?’ by the Anglo Australians of the low IQ variety. I still have to prove my ‘Australian-ness’, even though I have lived here all my life.

While among Armenians, my support for the Palestinian cause is challenged by the contemptuously sneering question ‘why are you with Muslims?’ by my fellow diasporan Armenians infected with the same low IQ as the Anglo Australian majority.

My late father taught me to stand with the oppressed, regardless of their religious affiliation or ethnicity. So I have found the lack of solidarity among Sydney Armenians a barrier to a sense of collective belonging. The Palestinians did not choose the religion of their colonisers. If the oppressors of the Palestinians were Catholic, Buddhist or Sikh, I am certain they would resist colonisation in the ways they are currently doing.

I have had to stop overthinking about a loss of belonging, and concentrate on the areas where I do belong. Every week, I make it a point to read about an Islamic philosopher or scientist from the golden age of Islam. No, I am not religious myself, but reading that Muslim scholars were wrestling with questions that we are grappling with today gives me a strong sense of satisfaction. The Anglophone world owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the Arab/Islamic scholars.

In this world of neoliberal capitalism, hyper-individualistic competition is elevated to a way of life. It is time to break away from this dystopian, dysfunctional consensus, and find ways of belonging which are based on community solidarity.

If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

Thinking about this question raises a number of possibilities. Should I think only of my ego, and have the satisfaction of seeing my name attached to something popular? Or should I think about making my mark in a particular field, contributing something important to future generations?

How about combining the two. I think I would be ecstatic if I could have a new method of scientific management in business named after me. That would be an enormous contribution to the improvement of business processes, and also provide the egotistical validation of post-mortem fame. Well, it would be wonderful to have a new business management process named after me while I am alive, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

I am certain we are all familiar with Taylorism, the scientific management method named after American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1915). His model of factory production, innovative for its time, was the mainspring of Fordism, the business process implemented by the car manufacturer and founder of Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford. The latter pioneered a system of mass production in manufacturing which was subsequently widely imitated.

Taylorism today is largely superseded by newer business management processes – Continuous Improvement, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) – you may find multiple resources about these topics. Taylorism regarded individual workers as automatons, and required adherence to rigid procedures. Now, procedures are all well and good, and they form the backbone of a successful production. However, stifling individual creativity and flexibility is harmful to overall business needs.

Continuous Improvement is based upon the Japanese concept of Kaizen – a philosophy and business culture which should permeate the entire organisation. It is translated as Continuous Improvement and takes a holistic approach to business management. Taylorism breaks down tasks into discrete units. Continuous Improvement encourages employee engagement to improve business efficiency.

It is beyond the scope of this brief article to summarise the differences between all the scientific management practices. I am not suggesting that I have a blueprint for an entirely new management approach which is superior to Continuous Improvement or Business Process Reengineering. However, after decades of experience in the IT industry, having witnessed all the management consultants and their differing business philosophies, I think it is time to come up with an integrated approach.

A quick word about AI. The latter is already impacting business on so many levels. Bill Gates, billionaire entrepreneur, is hyping the success of AI, and claims that in a few years, AI systems will replace doctors, lawyers, accountants – his vision does not extend to replacing useless, intellectually barren and overvalued CEOs. This is a bit of AI hyperbole on the part of those who stand to profit most from the deployment of AI as it currently stands.

In fact, I think we have AI the wrong way around. I do not want robots to do all the creative work, like art and writing, so I have more time to wash dishes and laundry. Robotised synthetic intelligence can do all the monotonous and menial tasks, so that I have more time to concentrate on creative pursuits, such as art, painting, music and writing. Freddie deBoer, writer at Truthdig, states that those who are talking up AI have a vested interest in increasing their networth related to AI.

Be that as it may, I think AI has forced us to rethink our business management practices, and we need to update our ways of doing business to reflect people’s needs in this new world of AI. Do I have a solution? No, not yet. But it is worth thinking about.

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

The short answer is – all the time.

In my life, I derive enjoyment from researching and writing the long form essay. Articles that dive deeply into an issue, particularly sociopolitical and cultural topics, are a source of great inspiration for myself. The humanities, broadly understood, is my intellectual home.

I am definitely aware of short form content – Instagram and TikTok are the platforms for reels and videos. But I have said no – I have never uploaded a video to TikTok or photos to Instagram. Am I missing out on a larger audience? Yes. Does that disturb me? No.

All different sorts of organisations have an active presence on TikTok and Instagram. I have been asked, over the years, to begin a YouTube channel, or start a podcast. I have thus far said no. Please do not misunderstand – I am aware of the outreach these platforms have, and millions of people view video content, and listen to audio podcasts. Eventually, I will succumb to the rising tide of performative reels on TikTok, and submit my own audiovisual content.

But not just yet.

I am saying no, not because I am a stubborn Luddite, labouring away with obsolete technology in the vain hope my ancient ways will survive. I have had experience in running a weekly radio programme when I was a university student.

As a technical writer with over 30 years experience, user guides have definitely evolved from the one-thousand page printed manual, which nobody reads anyway, to interactive audiovisual pages on the internet. Help guides contain text, but are bolstered by webinars and video presentations. So, it is no secret to me that audience engagement has moved beyond just text.

I say no, because a deep dive into serious issues requires much more than just a TikTok video or Facebook reel. Publishing an examination of an issue requires concentration, not just short term attention spans motivated by clicks on the web.

This year is the 500th anniversary of the German Peasants’ War. A widespread uprising by huge numbers of peasants in feudal Central Europe, this uprising was the largest and most serious rebellion by the lower classes until the 1789 French Revolution.

Frederick Engels, a participant in the German revolution of his times, wrote an extensive analysis of the 1525 popular revolt. Evaluating the political and socioeconomic impact of this uprising was the goal of his book.

Jacobin magazine has published a number of articles evaluating this uprising, its egalitarian aspirations, the role of Martin Luther and the Reformation, the interplay between religious authority and social rebellion, and the long term implications of its eventual defeat. While it was militarily defeated, the egalitarian radicalism of the rebellious peasantry inspired future generations.

We are all at least casually familiar with the figure of Martin Luther, and his sturdy opposition to the Catholic Church. How many of us know about the radical preacher Thomas Münzter, who called for the complete overturning of the feudal social order, invoking Christian doctrine as his justification? A radical theologian, he urged the poor peasants to rise up, to the horror of Martin Luther.

What is the point of all this? It demonstrates that a deep dive into socioeconomic and political issues requires a long form article, and I have barely scratched the surface with the above summary. It is not a topic that can be summarised in a TikTok video.

I am quite certain that a quick YouTube search will return multiple videos on the subject of the German Peasants’ War. If you want to feel a smug sense of self-satisfaction thinking you have proven me wrong, go for it.

I think it is important to counter the short-attention span culture reinforced by social media, and encourage people to slow down, take the time to read, and thus gain a greater understanding of important issues, rather than take advice from social media influencers. After all, the latter are only interested in clicks and likes, which is not the basis for grounding ourselves in an encompassing world view.

Write about your dream home.

Owning your dream home is something of an obsession in Australia. I am certain that this preoccupation holds true in the United States, Britain, Canada and other nations dominated by neoliberal capitalism. There is nothing wrong with dreaming about your ideal home. I never begrudge anyone their success. However, we cannot sit and idly dream about a wonderful home is an age of anthropogenic climate change.

When hurricanes, floods, increasingly severe droughts, the encroachment of industrialised farming into previously untouched forests, worsening torrential downpours impact our houses, then it is high time to reevaluate our economic system that makes a dream home ever more illusory and out of reach.

Sydney has been promoted by real estate companies and investment property developers as the place of the ‘good life’. There is merit in that description. Sydney has a wonderful harbour, coastline, lots of inlets along the Parramatta river, beaches which are the envy of the world.

Western Sydney is the location of ever-expanding suburbia – and transport and services are always slow to follow the increasing population. As house prices and rents increase dramatically, the dream home is increasingly out of reach. The median house price in Sydney is currently $1.1 million.

Whenever the subject of mortgages arises in Sydney conversations – and basically that is the main topic of upwardly mobile yuppie types among the adult population – the alternative question is posed – why don’t you move out of Sydney?

The main commercial free-to-air channels in Sydney have almost become investment property promotion vehicles. Numerous home renovation programmes fill the airwaves; The Block, Love It or List It, just to name a few. Each programme sells not just a home, but human drama. Couples are pitted against each other, timetables for renovation are challenged, the overly effervescent and Aussie blokey Scotty Cam turns up to announce the week’s winners. All great drama – but also selling the fantasy of individualistic competition.

The Central and Northern Coasts of NSW are beautiful places. Offered as an alternative to the overly competitive and crowded Sydney, the good life can purportedly be found in the small towns and suburbs dotting the coastline. Certainly there is some truth to this – finding a dream home is much easier and affordable in locations outside of Sydney. Smaller communities provide a collective refuge from the relentless hustle-and-bustle of the big city of Sydney.

Human induced climate change, which has turned rainfall into a weapon, has hit towns such as Lismore, with severe flooding requiring numerous rescues and evacuations. Lismore and northern NSW towns are still struggling to rebuild after the devastating 2022 floods.

No, this is definitely not a case of a Sydneysider feeling schadenfreude over the suffering of Lismore and Northern NSW residents. I am drawing attention to the fact that runaway climate change has made finding that dream home all the more difficult. Indeed, in recent days, Sydney was hit with heavy rainstorms and flash flooding. Town Hall, a major CBD station, was flooded in a matter of minutes.

The severe thunderstorm that lashed Sydney on February 10 generated not only flooding, but prompted at least 550 calls to emergency services. Our homes and streets are not built to withstand increasing heavy rainfall episodes. Sydneysiders; we are in no position to lecture others about how to handle climate change induced emergency situations.

The dream homes of North Queensland have been inundated in recent days. Rollingstone, a semi-rural residential town 54 kilometres north of Townsville, Queensland, copped 702 mm (27.6 inches) of rain in 24 hours. This is just one example of the deluge that hit North Queensland in recent days and weeks.

Marina Koren, writing in The Atlantic, states that water, the cosmic source of life, has been turned into a weapon – more correctly, rainfall is now a source of great anxiety. Anthropogenic climate change has accelerated the rain-water cycle, with heavier precipitation caused by the increasing amount of moisture held by the warming atmosphere.

Please do not mistake my cautious approach with pessimism. I have no desire to belittle anyone’s dream home. If you are happy, and living your best life, more credit to you.

It’s great to have a dream house, but what will you do when 700 mm of water falls on your head?

What are your favorite sports to watch and play?

Firstly, last start with a confession – I am mostly a sports watcher, not a player. My sporting glory days, if you can call them that, are long behind me. Watching other people play sport is actually my main preoccupation these days.

Secondly, being an Australian born citizen, I can see the main sports my fellow countryfolk are obsessed with; cricket, rugby league, Australian Rules Football. None of these are particularly appealing to me. I have tried them, but I just don’t enjoy them. However, watching them is part of the mass culture in Australia, so if people enjoy being spectators, good luck to them.

Indeed, as the traditional churches and collective activities have declined, sport is the one avenue that provides a shared identity. Cheering for the Western Sydney Wanderers, a soccer/football team based in western Sydney, provides an outlet for a shared identity. A region normally marginalised, and where social atomisation is prevalent, the Red-and-Black bloc brings a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself.

Soccer has had to fight long and hard to be accepted as a national sport, beyond its perceived narrow ‘ethnic’ (meaning non-Anglo Celtic) origins. That is a bit strange, because Australia, draws its main Anglophone culture from England, the latter known for its national sport of soccer/football. Soccer clubs in Australia, originally introduced by and sustained by migrant communities, was seen as the ‘wogball’ inferior counterpart to the two Australian football codes.

Athletics is the main sport I play and watch – well, more so watch, now that I too old to be an athlete. In school, running and jumping over things was my main sporting outlet. Sprinting was my bag; long distance running, not so much.

I cheered wildly when Cathy Freeman, the indigenous athlete, won the 400 metres race at the Sydney Olympics. I always cheer for athletes from poorer nations who win in their particular competition. The Olympics, while it is a host to competing nationalist chauvinisms, can also be a place where talented athletes can shine.

Julien Alfred, a native of St Lucia, won the gold medal in the 100 metres sprint at the 2024 Olympic Games. The first gold medallist for her nation, she defeated the heavily favoured runner, American Sha’Carri Richardson. No offence to American readers, but the US can afford to settle for less than gold.

2024 was the first Olympics for Julien Alfred, a black woman. St Lucia, one of the few nations in the world named after a woman, erupted in unprecedented celebrations. No, I have never been to St Lucia, nor do I have any relatives there. But I was ecstatic that they won their first ever gold medal, courtesy of athletics. It was a moment of triumph for athleticism, as well as for the ability of smaller countries to surpass their larger, financially stronger rivals.

Athletics can be a great leveller, bringing nations with grandiose notions of their superiority down to size. In that regard, we have all heard the story of African American athlete Jesse Owens, the black sprinter whose victory in the 1936 Berlin Olympics disproved pseudoscientific claims of Aryan racial superiority in front of Hitler. Except that, this story is largely myth.

True, Owens won his competition, but he was not snubbed by Hitler, but by his own American society. Upon returning to the United States, Owens, along with all the black American competitors, were rejected by the white political and sporting establishment for whom they competed. Excluded from the wider society by legalised segregation, their story is an important one in the larger struggle for civil rights.

This brings me to an issue which is going to be controversial, but necessary to address, even in a short article such as this one – sporting boycotts. There is a systematic effort in western nations to ban Russian (and Byelorussian) athletes and competitors. For instance, in the most recent Australian Open tennis tournament, Russian and Belarusian players participated, but as neutral athletes. No Russian flags or symbols were displayed.

This ban is in line with the decision of international Olympic bodies to sanction Russian sporting teams due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. That is all well and good, but that raises a number of questions. Should individual athletes be held responsible for the actions of their governments? Israeli athletes have competed internationally, even though there have been calls to sanction them on account of the Israeli military’s genocidal assault against the Palestinians of Gaza.

If we are to go down this path – and banning sporting teams from international competitions is nothing new – then let’s be ethically consistent. Afghani athletes should be banned, because of the horrendous mistreatment of women and minorities under Taliban rule. Saudi Arabian competitors must be banned due to that regime’s continued use of beheadings as punishment for internal dissidents. Let’s ban Morocco for its ongoing and illegal occupation of Western Sahara.

While we are at it, let’s ban the United States athletics team for their nation’s numerous illegal and destructive wars and occupations of Middle Eastern, African and Asian countries.

There is another solution – do not ban any athletes from the Olympics.

There was a time when two pariah states, Israel and Russia, did send their respective athletes to compete. Well, Russia was then still the Soviet Union, and Israel was only a new state. In the 1950s, Yemeni-born Israeli basketballer Zacharia Ofri (1932 – 2018) competed against Soviet Russian athletes, both at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, and again at the European Cup held in Moscow in 1953.

Ofri, along with his teammates, travelled by train across the Eastern bloc, representing their new state in the USSR. Stalin had died earlier that year, and relations were still cordial, if not exactly friendly, between the two nations. Ofri and his friends squared off against the Soviet basketball team under the watchful portraits of Lenin and Stalin.

Never give up on your sporting ambitions. Physical health is the solid foundation for good mental health, and regular exercise is part of a healthy regimen.

Who knows, I may even take up running again.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

There are so many places in the world that I would choose to live – Paris, Lusaka, Cairo, the Okavango Delta, just to name a few. However, if I had to choose one location, it would be Ethiopia.

Why? No, I am not Ethiopian. No, I do not have family there. I cannot speak Amharic, one of the official languages of Ethiopia. Yes, I realise there is warfare occurring there. Nevertheless, Ethiopia remains a nation of constant amazement for me, and I would consider it the greatest honour and privilege of my life for an opportunity to live there.

In Australia, similarly to most of the Anglophone majority nations, the Global South is ignored by our mainstream media. The majority of the world’s population live in non-English speaking countries, but our corporate controlled media reports on the world as if Africa, Asia, Latin America and so on do not share the same planet as us.

Caitlin Johnstone, a prolific political blogger, makes the above astute observation about the culture of our mainstream media.

When we in the West speak of the international community, we focus exclusively on those nations closely aligned with the United States and Britain. If we ever hear about Ethiopia, or sub-Saharan Africa generally, it is only with regard to famines (remember the 1980s Live Aid concert?), interminable fratricidal warfare, poverty, corrupt dictatorships (many of which are economically allied to the US or France), and general misery.

Our political and cultural conversations and connections (to the extent Anglophone Australians have any) is necessarily restricted to the trials and tribulations of people in US-aligned nations. Oh yes, we have heard about ancient Egypt, and we do have the occasional exhibition of pharaonic artefacts, which satiates our Egyptomania. I have written about this topic before.

Africa before colonisation, of which Ethiopia is a part, forms this impenetrable mysterious land, a region outside of our Greco-Roman preoccupation. The ancient Egyptians traded with the Nubians, a black African civilisation – but is about the extent of our awareness of sub-Saharan Africa in the BCE.

However, that curtain of impenetrability is lifting.

Ethiopia has an extensive and long lasting continuous civilisation. Ethiopians converted to an Orthodox Christian denomination long before the Romans. Christianity, similarly to its Coptic Egyptian counterpart, maintained its autonomy from strict Roman Catholicism. The Aksumite empire, according to archaeologist Michael Harrower, was one of the ancient world’s most influential empires, yet remains barely understood.

The Kingdom of Aksum (sometimes spelt Axum), dominated the areas of modern day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Somaliland. Prospering through agriculture and trade, it was the first sub-Saharan African state to mint its own coinage.

It’s not just politics and religion that make Ethiopia truly fascinating.

Earlier I briefly mentioned archaeologists in the context of Ethiopian history. Well, there is another, related and important reason to focus on Ethiopia.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy, the hominin fossil which revolutionised the field of paleoanthropology and human origins.

In November 1974, palaeontologist Donald Johanson and his graduate student Tom Gray, (and the team) excavated the approximately 47 bones of a fossilised skeleton of Lucy – Australopithecus afarensis – compelled European scientists to examine Africa (and in particular East Africa) as the cradle of humanity.

Charles Darwin, back in the 1870s, surmised that Homo sapiens originated in Africa. However, there was a conspicuous lack of hominin fossils – the story is in the bones. Lucy, while having ape-like traits, walked upright. Bipedal locomotion is a hallmark of anatomically modern humans.

Palaeontologists prior to Lucy regarded bipedal locomotion, the expansion of the brain, (primates generally have much smaller brains than humans), and tool making, as having evolved in tandem. Lucy puts that notion to rest; bipedal gait emerged millions of years prior to what we call intelligence. No, I am not suggesting that our hominin cousins were stupid. The evolution of symbolic thinking and consciousness however, was not a singular event.

What Lucy, and Ethiopian fossils, compel us to do is rethink the stereotypical linear model of ape-to-human evolution. Rather, the picture that emerges is one of a branching, multifaceted mosaic of hominin species, more akin to a delta than a river. The celebrity fossil status of Lucy has been a positive influence in reawakening interest in human origins among English-speaking audiences.

In fact, out of respect for Ethiopians, it is high time to rename Lucy Dinkinesh. Why? That is the name in Amharic, which means ‘you are marvellous.’

Yohannes Haile-Selassie, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist and discoverer of fossils in his own right, is now director of the Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins.

I did not want to write too much about the current political climate in Ethiopia – the war with Eritrea, the Tigrayan question and so on. Perhaps that is the subject of a future blog article. However, I want to make an observation here. A few months ago, I wrote an article arguing that World War 2 began, not in 1939 as we have been taught with our Eurocentric vision, but in 1935 with Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia (then called Abyssinia).

The Ethiopians bravely resisted; the Italian military even deployed chemical weapons in that colonial adventure. Nevertheless, Ethiopia has its share of independence veterans. Courageously fighting against an attempt by an outside power to colonise their nation, sometimes I wonder what they think today. Their numbers are diminishing with the passage of time.

I wonder what they think of the Ethiopian government’s decision to closely integrate its military forces with those of the United States. Since 2001, Ethiopia’s authorities have allowed American military instructors and intelligence operatives to train its troops. Ethiopian soldiers have been deployed in the region, in accordance with the wishes of US foreign policy makers.

Ethiopia has become a close US ally in East Africa. Are Ethiopian soldiers being used as proxies by an outside power? I think so. Do not allow the fight against openly hostile colonialism (such as the Italian version in the 1930s) to blind you to the secretive, updated version of colonialism (namely, the United States) sneaking into the country with covert methods.

For all the reasons stated above, Ethiopia is the nation that excels in so many ways.