Tag: politics

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Contemporary pou for an existential threat

A guest post by Kerstin Hagena, Alina Hagena and Luis Arevalo

“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences”

(Winston Churchill, 1936)

Kia ora koutou! 

Here we are again, the trio of social service professionals and animal rights activists encouraging conversation within the social service sector about the imminent danger climate change poses to tamariki and whānau. We believe the ANZASW Code of Ethics gives us the responsibility to pay more attention to this threat and have written about this before (2024, 2023, 2022).

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Unpicking the appeal of the populist right

It does not take a miracle of intellectual analysis to realise that we live in challenging times, locally and globally. Geopolitical tensions are running high in the face of war in Europe, the brutal and unconscionable Israeli assault on the people of Palestine, and the gob-smacking possibilty of a second Trump presidency. This list is not exhaustive and the escalating threat of climate catastrophe looms over us all.

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Vicious nostalgia: Te Reo, climate, Palestine and social work

A guest post from Dr David Kenkel

A dictionary definition describes nostalgia as  “A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to, or of, some past period or irrecoverable condition” (Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, 2024). Nostalgia can be vicious; it is often a great deal more than the wistful yearnings for earlier remembered paradises.

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2024: Leaning into the wind

As a Collective we have developed a practice of reflection on the year past and the challenges ahead. The following are individual messages, yet they coalesce as an affirmation of unity and resolve. Times like these, locally and globally, can induce a logic of despair and defeatism, but such regressive political times can also engender a stubborn, stoic project of informed resistance. Don’t let anyone tell you that a more inclusive and socially just world is impossible. It is better by far, in whatever ways are open to you, to be a small part of making it so.

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Time to be Counted

The time for solidarity with the beseiged and brutalised inhabitants of Gaza, the wider Palestinian people and their collective human right for an independent state, is now! It is time for the people of the Western world to summon the political will to demand a free Palestine. Che Guevara is credited with the following appeal for a revolutionary moral consciousness that is both personal and universal: “Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world”. And, the Palestinian tragedy is not just another unfairness in an unfair world: it is perhaps the defining injustice of the post-war world order. It is a wound that has festered since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.

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