Coming out Asian Australian
Meet Eleanor Jackson, Peril’s poetry editor. She wants to meet more Asian Australian poets. For dinner and dancing, maybe some long walks on the beach. But probably just reading poetry. I updated my...
View ArticleDoes feminism speak for all women?
On March 18 this year I took part in a panel at Melbourne Town Hall organised by the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health. The event brought together feminists from multicultural backgrounds to talk...
View ArticleThe Importance of Being Earnest: an interview with Liberal Candidate John Nguyen
My Liberal candidate sent out a letter the other week. In it is an outline of the Coalition’s five-point plan, which takes a hardline position on border protection: A Liberal candidate wanting to ‘stop...
View ArticleAsian Australian faces in the 2013 Federal Election
Following Labor’s final round of leadership spills in July, the member for Chifley, Ed Husic, was appointed to the Labor ministry, and received some seriously disreputable public criticism about taking...
View ArticleAsian Australians in the Asian Century: my OzAsia Festival, Adelaide,...
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a lot happening for me in terms of cultural politics. Hanson’s One Nation Party had reached the zenith of its popular appeal. The National...
View ArticleRace Politics Lives!
The election is over. The Coalition won, amassing a formidable majority in the House of Representatives. The 44th parliament will welcome one, maybe two parliamentarians of Asian Australian descent,...
View ArticleAustralia’s got a talent for turning a blind eye
Malaysia’s democracy in waiting Following in the footsteps of the United States, who have mastered the art of turning a blind eye, playing the Gandhi of LGBTI rights in Russia while shaking hands with...
View ArticleNotes on how to make Australian publics more dangerous
The idea that the debate about racial vilification laws are locked in a fight over ‘political censorship’ and the right of Australians to ‘express a political opinion’ is part of a rhetorical flourish...
View ArticleThe practice of hope
I have submitted a piece of writing done by a friend I have met, visiting the Melbourne detention centre this year. He is a couple of years younger than me, and was a journalist in Sri Lanka before he...
View ArticleI see the moon and the moon sees me
Today is 6 August 2013 10.26 pm. I am in a detention camp. I feel like shouting a loud. My head feels burdened. I feel like smashing my head to break it open. I am desperate, no appetite, chest pain,...
View ArticleReflective thoughts from a Sri Lankan refugee… now a prisoner…but free!
I have completed 4 years and starting the 5th year since I came between these bars. I desire to recall all of my feelings and my own land which is fresh in my memory like my shadow. I owe to Kristalo...
View ArticleI am not the owner of this feeling
by ‘G’ Tamil refugee in Australian detention since 2009 (translated from Tamil) I would like to share my feelings with you. I am not the owner of this feeling. You are the real owners and that’s the...
View ArticleStill waiting in West Papua
It’s a cold autumn afternoon in Melbourne after a week of soaring heat. It’s been raining all day but it lets up as a small group of West Papuan’s begin setting the banners and signs outside the...
View ArticleThirty one Victorian Multicultural, Faith and Community organisations oppose...
Please see below the submission to the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) Exposure Draft from thirty one Victorian based multicultural, faith and community organisations and roof bodies. This coalition...
View ArticleBlak Dot’s “18C”– Opening night, Thus April 17th
Blak Dot Gallery’s 18C exhibition, co-curated by Jacob Tolo (co-founder and co-director of Indigenous run arts space Blak Dot Gallery with Kimba Thompson) and Torika Bolatagici (exhibiting artist and...
View Article18C: Reflecting on Art and Freedom of Expression
Art is, predominantly, a vehicle for artists to exercise their freedom of expression. The 18C exhibition at Blak Dot Gallery demonstrates the political power of art by inviting artists to respond to...
View ArticleWhy 18C Changes Failed to Sell
The 'freedom of speech' debate gathered little resonance among the broader white community. If 18C stopped everyday racial abuse, the story would have been different...
View ArticleThe role of diverse parliaments in strengthening Australian democracy
As unpopular as it may be to admit, 2014 has reinforced that racial thinking is alive and well in the Australian polity.
View ArticleSami Shah on I, Migrant
In his book, I, Migrant, Sami Shah uses satire and black humour to describe strikingly violent and tumultuous events. However, it is through this same humour that the reader captures a glimpse of a...
View ArticleModi in Oz: Diaspora, Tweets and a PM of Science? (Part one)
It is into this environment of ancient amnesia, anxieties of fitting in, and coming to terms with our increasing public visibility, that Indian Australians welcome the Indian Prime Minister to...
View ArticleModi in Oz: Rockstar and Hindutva (Part two)
The reality is that while all Indian Australians are equal, some are more equal than others.
View ArticleModi in Oz: Turning Water into Mines (Part three)
The ligature between the longed-for land of birth (India) and the fruitful land of work (Australia) can sometimes be guilt, for having abandoned the grit and grind of the India we left behind. Modi...
View ArticleEveryday Talk, Everyday Politics (with Dai Le)
The day before International Women’s Day and my interview with Dai Le, I am reminded of my place in the world. My GP does not work on a Saturday, so I see the other doctor in the practice to collect...
View ArticleLest we forget Vietnam
Thich Nhat Hanh at Hue City, Vietnam (2007). Picture sourced from Wikimedia Commons. It has been forty years since the fall of Saigon, a significant anniversary for the Vietnamese communities around...
View ArticleThe significance of the first anti-Chinese legislation in Australia
This month marks 160 years from the time when the first anti-Chinese legislation was enacted in Australia. In June 1855, the recently formed colony of Victoria passed its first anti-Chinese legislation...
View ArticleAustralia Council Funding – Budget Update
As you may already be aware, the Australia Council for the Arts has supported Peril since 2007. This support has enabled us to share work from - literally - hundreds of writers, poets, artists, and...
View ArticleHave your say on the arts budget
As you may already be aware, the Federal Government’s cuts to arts funding have raised more than just eyebrows and we let you know recently how we felt about that. Members of the literary community and...
View ArticleRacial Binds: Trapping Asians in Australia’s Education Wars
Few things so potently demonstrate oppression than a well-constructed double bind. And though not all double binds are oppressive; all oppressions employ double binds. They keep us scrambling to prove...
View ArticleUnsettling Century
For people who identify as Asian in Australia, one must be aware of one’s context if one is to make an opening of the political field. Communism in this country is ideology non grata and that is not...
View ArticleWesa’s guide to Federal elections and the Australian political system
As the 2016 Federal election is approaching, it is timely we talk about the Australian political system and how it works, and what it all means. It was not until I ran as an Australian Labor Party...
View ArticlePersonal Politics
For as long as I can remember I have thought of myself as a political person. To say as much is not to essentialise oneself, but rather to cast one’s eye back and make sense of symptoms, expressions,...
View ArticleLearning to speak Australian
In another edifying update to #thisweekinAustralianpolitics, “outspoken” Liberal Senator, Ian MacDonald prompted Senator Penelope Ying-Yen “Penny” Wong to call for the withdrawal of comments made to...
View ArticleTamil Feasts
We often miss the vital signs of political activity in our public life. Elections matter, question time matters, legislation matters, press conferences matter. Politicians are meant to be...
View ArticleFrom Greens to Grassroots
Dominic Golding (front) at a meeting while on placement with Colleen Hartland (Greens) My name is Dominic Golding. I am currently 40 years old. I am a Vietnamese adoptee with mild cerebral palsy and a...
View ArticleA Natural Education
In thinking about Australia now there is a residue of wilderness, of frontier in the imagination. Nature seems central to myths of national character even as those myths circulate in other settler...
View ArticleAnd you’re invited – Senate Inquiry into arts funding
This Wednesday, 4 November 2015, the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee will be holding a public hearing with regards to the impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth budget decisions...
View ArticlePerformative Protest and the Conflicted Search for the Self in: 7412...
On Monday the 28th of September 2015, a sea of yellow umbrellas flooded the government headquarters in Hong Kong in a peaceful demonstration to mark 12 months since the largest act of civil...
View ArticleA Foster Father to the Nation
Beware of Mr Gandhi: The untouchables are not the only community in India who thinks of Mr Gandhi in these terms. The same view of Mr Gandhi is entertained by the Muslims, Sikhs and Indian Christians....
View ArticleNotes from a Non-Native Son
There has been more ink spilled on white guilt, but this has by no means absolved or prohibited people of colour, people like myself and other Asian Australians, from thinking through and...
View Article2015 – the year of the sheep(ish) no more
“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson And so we close the books on another year at Peril Magazine. Thank you to all of our...
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