Keith Rankin – One of our least-discussed discriminatory ‘isms’ is what I call ‘lookism’. Discrimination on the basis of a person’s or a group’s appearance, noting in particular features of ancestry, age, and culture. Discrimination based on how individuals and peoples look to other people.

Discrimination on the basis of the presence or absence of ‘beauty’

This form of discrimination falls most particularly on females. Commonly we too easily see the death of a ‘beautiful’ woman as the greatest of all human tragedies, while regarding the death of an ‘ugly’ woman as the least of all such tragedies. The perfect victim is a beautiful woman.

Early yesterday (10 Sep 2025) I watched Al Jazeera Live, to get information about the Israeli attack on Qatar which had taken place about four hours earlier. (Refer Maps: Israel has attacked six countries in the past 72 hours, Al Jazeera, 10 Sep 2015.) At about 5:35am NZ time, the news network crossed to a White House press briefing, expecting to hear for the first time the official US take on the event.

Karoline Leavitt: “Today I would like to address the tragedy that had not received nearly enough media attention; the brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska. Here are the facts that many outlets have shamefully and intentionally failed to report until the President drew attention to it. On August 22nd Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death on the rail system in Charlotte North Carolina by a savage career criminal. This is a public transportation system that many in the area use every single day to go to school and work. Iryna was on the train that night, travelling home from her job at a pizzeria, still in uniform from her shift. This beautiful innocent 23-year-old young woman was a Ukrainian refugee who had recently fled her country for a chance at a safer life and a promising new beginning here in the United States of America. But tragically, the public transportation system in a major American city was more dangerous than the active war zone that she left. … “

Eventual break-back: Cyril Vanier [Al Jazeera anchor] “We are listening in intently because we are expecting that there may be comments from the White House on Israel’s attack on Doha just a few hours ago.” After more than 10 minutes Karoline Leavitt, a beautiful blond woman, made her short White House response to the Israeli attack.

After a couple of questions, she said; “As I told you, the President was notified by the United States’ military that Israel was attacking Hamas …”. The language indicated that the President was notified by the United States’ military rather than by the Israeli authorities; and that the attack on Qatar was already underway when the President first heard of it. (Maybe the United States is a proxy of Israel, and not the other way around?)

Note that Leavitt’s tale of Iryna Zarutska suggests, if taken at face value, that the “active war zone” in Ukraine is relatively safe?!

Back to my story

I had heard about the Iryna Zarutska case earlier this week (refer BBC: Suspect in fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee charged with federal crime), so this tragic story was not as underplayed as the White House intimated. Violent crime is ubiquitous throughout the western world; much of it is senseless, committed by underclass perpetrators, many with mental illness. For many African and Native American communities, terrifying violence, including femicide, is an all too frequent fact of their lives and deaths. Pretty blond immigrant victims are the exception, not the rule.

Terror is also perpetrated by the western world’s ruling classes, and much of it is aimed at immigrants with black or brown skin.

Especially on Al Jazeera, because Palestine is on their patch and because they do not downplay the violence perpetrated by the Israeli Einsatzgruppen, we see many victims – especially mothers wearing culturally-traditional black clothing and head coverings. To western viewers, these victims look quite unattractive; they are all-to-easily dismissed as mothers-of-terrorists, mothers of future terrorists, and future mothers of future terrorists. These women look less like westerners than the Palestinian men do, making it particularly hard for some of us to identify with them as humans like us.

Lookism regards as the most tragic of victims the young, the blond, the blue-eyed, the fair-skinned, the slim (but not emaciated). Lookism favours long or plaited hair; uncovered heads. Lookism is racism, ageism, culturism, and individualism.

Stereotypes of bad people (and non-people) are ugly, and dark. A problematic piece of twentieth-century literature which perpetuates these stereotypes is Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. These books became very popular with the ‘hippie’ generation, as well as with other generations which were into deeply problematic books such as Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand galvanised coteries of young men (and some young women, such as Liz Truss); her fans vary in age from 99 (eg Alan Greenspan) to 57 (eg Peter Thiel) to 19. Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, became the launching-pad for the 0.001 percenters and for people who aspire to the success-cocktail of concentrated-wealth, power-sex, and techno-utopia.

(Note How Bad Writing Destroyed the World: Ayn Rand and the Literary Origins of the Financial Crisis, 2016, by Adam Weiner; Weiner observes that 500,000 copies sold in the crisis year of 2009. And note the tech-focussed New Zealand school curriculum changes, New push for AI as Education Minister Erica Stanford announces curriculum changes RNZ 11 September 2025.)

The techno-supremacist 0.001 percenters seem to like three types of literature. Ultra-individualist rationalisations of ‘rationalism’ such as Atlas Shrugged and books recommended by the Mises Society, certain types of science fiction (see Do billionaires even understand the sci-fi they’re inspired by? The Listening Post Al Jazeera 7 September 2025), and mythic fantasies, such as Lord of the Rings.

Back to Lord of the Rings (noting that this was mentioned in the Listening Post story, and that Peter Thiel has read it “over ten times” as an adult). On reflection, it is drawn-out racist fantasia in which Middle Earth is a thinly veiled map of Europe. Mordor is the former caliphate, the Ottoman Empire. And Mordor’s maritime allies were from the coasts of North Africa, the Barbary Coast. The ugly (thereby evil!) Orcs were seemingly without women (though Peter Jackson made a joke about this in the second movie) and children; certainly, if present in the story, we would have wished for the death of them as the ugly mothers and future-mothers of ugly terrorists. There was however a big and ugly female spider Shelob; an embodiment of all tropes of wicked ugly women.

The beautiful people – which very much include blond and other fair-skinned women – draw on Celtic, Scandinavian and possibly Ukrainian identities (noting The Counteroffensive: How Ukraine uses ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to frame its battle for survival Mariana Lastovyria Kyiv Independent 29 August 2014, and Ukraine and the Orcs: Leaders slip into ‘Tolkien mindset’ Gwynne Dyer Manawatu Standard6 May 2022). The Kievan Rus’ were a people of Varangian – ie Scandinavian – origin. Aryan, for sure. By this view, if you want to know if someone is good – or, on the other hand, ‘deserves to die’ – just find out what their race is!

Conclusion – Lookism

Mythology, especially ethnic and pseudo-ethnic mythology, is dangerous at the best of times. Ugly myths about individualism and the virtue of beauty – and their flipsides (collectivism, and the vice of ugliness) – create a recipe for conflict without any point of resolution. Ugly won’t concede because (by conflation) it’s evil; and ‘beauty’ won’t concede because either it’s evil too, or because its adversary is too evil.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

OPEN LETTER: By Hassan Abo Qamar

Dear Mr Trump,

I am writing to you as a Palestinian and a survivor of genocide, who was born and raised in Gaza — a city of love and resilience.

I have read your statements about Gaza and frankly, I am confused.

You claim to be a “peacemaker”, but encourage Israel to continue its genocide, calling for “all hell” to break loose if your demands are not fulfilled.

Mr Trump, we have already been through hell. We lost 60,000 martyrs in it.

You claim credit for the ceasefire deal, and yet your government — one of its guarantors — refuses to pressure Israel into fulfilling all its obligations under it.

You call Gaza a “demolition site” but conveniently fail to name the criminal responsible — while simultaneously supplying it with more bombs, funding, and diplomatic cover.

You talk about Palestinians being “safe” and “happy”, yet you refer to us as if we are a burden to be offloaded onto Jordan, Egypt, or any country willing to take us.

You claim that we “only want to be in the Gaza Strip because [we] don’t know anything else”.

You profoundly misunderstand us

Mr Trump, I think you profoundly misunderstand who we are and what Gaza is to us.

You may think of us as a mere obstacle to your vision of luxury resorts, but we are a people with deep roots, long history, and unalienable rights.

We are the rightful owners of our land.

Gaza is not your business venture, and it is not for sale.Gaza is our home, our land, our inheritance.

And no, it is not true that we want to stay here because we “know nothing else”.

Although the 17-year-long Israeli siege has made life incredibly difficult for us, some of us have still managed to travel — for education, medical treatment or work. But these people still return because Gaza is home.

A powerful example is Dr Refaat Alareer, an inspiring figure, who the Israeli occupation targeted and killed in 2023.

He earned his master’s degree in the UK and later completed his PhD at Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Despite having the opportunity to stay abroad, he chose to return to Gaza, where he taught creative writing and literature at the Islamic University.

He also co-founded We Are Not Numbers, an initiative that paired young Palestinian writers with experienced authors to amplify their voices and resist occupation through storytelling. One of these voices is mine.

Last spring, I, too, had the opportunity to leave, but I decided against it. I could not leave my family, friends and Gaza amid a genocidal war. However, like many others, I plan to travel to complete my education and then return to help rebuild and support my people.

The Palestinian way
This is the Palestinian way – we seek knowledge and opportunities, not to abandon our homeland, but to build and strengthen it.

Speaking of building — you talk about your plans to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East”. The thing is, Gaza was the Riviera of the Middle East. Our ancestors built it into a flourishing trade hub, port city and cultural centre. It was “magnificent” — to use your words — until Israel was created and it started destroying it.

And yet, after every brutal Israeli assault on Gaza, Palestinians would rebuild. Despite all the Israeli violence, restrictions and thievery, Palestinians still made sure Gaza was a safe place with a cosy rhythm of life, where its youth were doing their best to pursue decent livelihoods, where families were happy and together, and where homes thrived.

Israel has now tried to reduce all of Gaza to rubble and death so we are no longer able to live in it. You have picked up on the idea, effectively endorsing our ethnic cleansing under the veneer of humanitarianism.

No, Mr Trump, we will not be “happy” and “safe” elsewhere.

But I agree with you on something else you said: “You’ve got to learn from history”. Indeed, history teaches us that settler-colonialism in modern times is unsustainable. In this sense, your plans and Israel’s plans are doomed to fail.

We, the people of Gaza – like any Indigenous people – refuse to be uprooted. We refuse to be dispossessed. We refuse to be forced into exile so that our land can be handed to the highest bidder. We are not a problem to be solved; we are a people with the right to live in our homeland in freedom and dignity.

No amount of bombs, blockades, or tanks will make us forget that. We will not be relocated, resettled, or replaced.

Power and wealth will not decide the fate of Gaza. History is not written by thieves – it is written by those who resist, by the will of the people. No matter the pressure, our connection to this land will never be severed. Surrender and abandonment are not an option. We will honour our martyrs with resistance by nourishing this land with love, care and remembrance.

Wishing you all the best in your futile pursuits,

Hassan Abuqamar
Gaza, Palestine

This open letter was first published by Al Jazeera.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Israeli police have confiscated hundreds of books with Palestinian titles or flags without understanding their contents in a draconian raid on a Palestinian educational bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem, say eyewitnesses.

More details have emerged on the Israeli police raid on a popular bookstore in occupied East Jerusalem.

The owners were arrested but police reportedly dropped charges of incitement while still detaining them for “disturbing the public order”.

The bookstore’s owners, Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and hundreds of titles related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict confiscated, before police ordered the store’s closure, according to May Muna, Mahmoud’s wife, reports Al Jazeera.

She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant”.

She said they used Google Translate on some of the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting them away in plastic bags.

Another police bookshop raid
Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in the Old City in East Jerusalem last week. In a statement, the police said the two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism”.

As an example, the police referred to an English-language children’s colouring book titled From the River to the Sea — a reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that today includes Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The bookshop raids have been widely condemned as a “war on knowledge and literature”.

The Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem is full with shoppers in solidarity a day after the Israel Police raided the Palestinian store, arrested its owners and confiscated books. They dropped the charges of incitement but still detain them for ‘disturbing the public order’ pic.twitter.com/ZfnkBttfY3

— David Issacharoff (@davidiss) February 10, 2025

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Tributes are pouring in for an acclaimed American Samoan poet and teacher who was murdered last Saturday in Apia allegedly by a fellow poet.

According to local police Dr Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, a retired professor from the University of Hawai’i Manoa, was found dead at the Galu Moana Theatre in Vaivase-Uta.

The Samoa Observer reported last Sunday that police had charged playwright and poet, Papalii Sia Figiel, with manslaughter with the death but on Monday upgraded the charge to murder.

The 78-year-old Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard, who was also a historian and environmentalist, has been described as a peaceful and calm person.

The Samoa Observer reports a friend of Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard said she was completely shocked and saddened when she found out.

She said Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard was a kindred spirit, a brilliant writer, and a supporter of writers.

“Someone who did not deserve to die like that. She was a very private person despite being a giant in the literary world,” they told the Observer.

Shocked literary friends
Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard’s death has also shocked many of her literary friends, who have been posting messages of condolence, and resulted in an outpouring of grief on social media reacting to the news.

In 2022, Dr Sinavaiana-Gabbard warned of the implications of the Samoa government’s inaction to address concerns about the adverse effects of paraquat. She was part of the group advocating for the ban on the dangerous weedkiller.

Born in 1946, she was an American Samoan academic, writer, poet, and environmentalist and was the first Samoan to become a full professor in the United States. She is the sister of American politician Mike Gabbard and the aunt of politician Tulsi Gabbard.

She was born in Utulei village in American Samoa and educated at Sonoma State University, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawai’i.

Her PhD thesis called ‘Traditional Comic Theatre in Samoa: A Holographic View’. She taught creative writing at the University of Hawai’i for nearly 20 years and was an associate professor of Pacific literature at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

In 2002, she published her collection of poetry, Alchemies of Distance and in August 2020, she was named by USA Today on its list of influential women from US territories.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli Hau’ofa, a name renowned across the Pacific as writer, as artist, as mentor, as friend.

The great Hau’ofa certainly wore many hats and made his mark on many lives, and his influence did not end the day his breath did in 2009.

The Tongan-Fijian writer and anthropologist was, among other things, the founder of the University of the South Pacific’s Oceania Centre for Arts.

A man who recognised the need for a place where fellow creatives could create, he can be credited with nurturing several generations of Pacific writers and artists.

His own work, particularly his side-splitting short stories and his 1993 paper titled “Our Sea of Islands” which sought to destroy the notion that Pacific Islands were small and insignificant in the larger world around us, will live on forever in the hands of academics.

But now, those who knew and loved the man have gone the extra step to ensure his name lives on. On March 7, 2024, a book titled “Remembering Epeli Hau’ofa: His Life and Legacy” was launched at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus in Fiji.

The book, a compilation of the memories of and odes to Hau’ofa, was compiled and edited by Eric Waddell, Professor Vijay Naidu and Dr Claire Slatter.

Poetry opening
Current director of the Oceania Centre for Arts and a renowned artist himself, Larry Thomas, called the book launch to order. Professor Sudesh Mishra read out a poem he wrote about Hau’ofa that can be found in the opening of the book itself.

The book was officially launched by USP Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga, sharing the tale of a younger Hau’ofa amused at Dr Paunga’s very formal tie to an otherwise informal event years ago, a look he recreated for the launch event.

“Remembering Epeli Hau’ofa is a book about a visionary,” the book’s foreword by Archbishop Emeritus of the Anglican Church, New Zealand and Polynesia, Winston Halapua says.

“Epeli was a leader who opened our eyes to the pulsing reality around us, the reality which sustains and connects us.

“This book, written in his memory, draws a portrait of a man with great mana who will continue to have wide influence on thinking and action throughout the region.”

Hau’ofa’s love for the Pacific and our oceans is legendary. As such, the book would have been incomplete without an excerpt of his own words expressing the feeling of belonging shared by all Pacific Islanders. Hau’ofa wrote:

“Wherever I am at any given moment, there is comfort in the knowledge stored at the back of my mind that somewhere in Oceania is a piece of earth to which I belong.

“In the turbulence of life, it is my anchor. No one can take it away from me. I may never return to it, not even as mortal remains, but it will always be homeland.

“We all have or should have homelands: family, community, national homelands. And to deny human beings the sense of homeland is to deny them a deep spot on earth to anchor their roots.”

Enlivened by humour
The book launch, a highly emotional event for some attendees but enlivened by humour in every speech and conversation in a very Hau’ofa style was an apt way to celebrate the comedic genius’ life.

His own family, community, and fellow nationals, it seems, will never forget him.

Several notable art pieces were displayed at the Oceania Centre for the book launch, including the piece by Lingikoni E. Vaka’uta that serves as the cover art for the book, an oil on canvas piece titled “The Legend of Maui slowing the sun”.

Another is “Boso”, a 1998 welded scrap metal sculpture of Epeli Hau’ofa himself, by artist Ben Fong.

The event was attended by noted academics, artists, friends, fans of the late Epeli Hau’ofa, and several members of the Hau’ofa family, including his son and aforementioned grandson.

Epeli Hau’ofa’s stories are sure to knock the wind out of you.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In late 1913 one of the most famous men in Britain arrived in Pago Pago.

Rupert Brooke, 26, was a literary sensation at the time and was taking an escape from celebrity to explore the South Seas: “I want to walk a thousand miles, and write a thousand plays, and sing a thousand poems, and drink a thousand pots of beer, and kiss a thousand girls – oh, a million things.”

Brooke landed in Pago Pago and quickly moved onto German ruled Āpia.

He marvelled at his accommodation: “I lived in a Sāmoan house (the coolest in the world) with a man and his wife, nine children, ranging from a proud beauty of 18 to a round object of 1 year, a dog, a cat, a proud hysterical hen, and a gaudy scarlet and green parrot, who roved the roof and beams with a wicked eye; choosing a place whence to — twice a day, with humorous precision, on my hat and clothes.

“The Sāmoan girls have extraordinarily beautiful bodies, and walk like goddesses. They’re a lovely brown colour, without any black Melanesian admixture; their necks and shoulders would be the wild envy of any European beauty; and in carriage and face they remind me continually and vividly of my incomparable heartless and ever-loved X.”

The German officials running Sāmoa impressed him saying the two governors had blocked forces that might destroy Sāmoa.

‘Painful operation’
“Dr Schultz, I have been told by old residents of Samoa, was tattooed in the native style, as were certain of his officials. It is reasonable to suppose that this judge, administrator, and collator of Samoan proverbs at least has some ulterior and altruistic purpose in view in undergoing a very painful operation.

“A Samoan who is not tattooed —it extends almost solid from the hips to the knees — appears naked beside one who is; and in no way can the custom be considered as disfiguring.”

English inhabitants had little to complain of other than saying the Germans were “too kind to the natives – an admirable testimonial”.

A Royal Navy gunboat had visited Āpia and were entertained by Sāmoans with music and dance, provided by “an eminent and very charming young princess”. She was a famous beauty with a keen intelligence. Her glorious singing voice made for a successful party.

“The princess led her guests afterwards to the flagstaff. Before anyone could stop her, she leapt onto the pole and raced up the sixty feet of it.”

At the top, she seized the German flag and tore it to pieces.

After visiting Fiji and Auckland, Brooke headed to Tahiti, staying at Mataiea, outside Pape’ete. He met Taatamata: “I think I shall write a book about her – only I fear I’m too fond of her.”

Three poems, no book
“There were three poems, but never a book.

He returned to England, moving toward war.

The Great War broke out in August 1914 and Brooke in September 1914 become a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Division, an unusual section of the British Army.

He heard that Deutsch-Sāmoa: “is ours,” he wrote, recalling his stay there a year earlier.

“Well, I know a princess who will have had the day of her life. Did they see [Robert Louis] Stevenson’s tomb gleaming high up on the hill, as they made for that passage in the reef….

“They must have landed from boats; and at noon, I see. How hot they got! I know that Āpia noon. Didn’t they rush to the Tivoli bar but I forget, New Zealanders are teetotalers.

“So, perhaps, the Sāmoans gave them the coolest of all drinks, kava; and they scored. And what dances in their honour, that night! but, again, I’m afraid the houla-houla would shock a New Zealander.

Sweetest South Sea songs
“I suppose they left a garrison, and went away. I can very vividly see them steaming out in the evening; and the crowd on shore would be singing them that sweetest and best-known of South Sea songs, which begins, ‘Good-bye, my Flenni’ (‘Friend,’ you’d pronounce it), and goes on in Sāmoan, a very beautiful tongue.

“I hope they’ll rule Sāmoa well.”

That last line was prophetic, given who buried Rupert Brooke.

George Richardson had been born in Britain but in years leading up to war, had been based in New Zealand. In December 1913, then Colonel Richardson sat as New Zealand’s representative on the Imperial General Staff in London.

With war, he became chief of staff of the new Royal Naval Division, an idea of First Sea Lord Winston Churchill to get unneeded sailors into the fighting as infantrymen. It was deployed to Gallipoli.

Rupert Brooke in December 1914 wrote to a friend from a camp in Dorset, that he had dreamt that he was back in Tahiti, where he met a woman who told him that Tahiti lover Taatamata was dead: “Perhaps it was the full moon that made me dream, because of the last full moon at (Tahiti).

“Perhaps it was my evil heart. I think the dream was true.”

A good time
Weeks later, Brooke received a letter from Taatamata, dated 2 May 1914 in which she told of having a good time with Argentinian sailors. She was always thinking of Brooke but wondered if he had already forgotten her.

After she died there were often rumours that Taatamata had a child, a girl, with Brooke and she grew up in Pape’ete.

Brooke wrote The Soldier:
If I should die, think only this of me;
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

Two days out from the landings at Gallipoli, on Shakespeare’s birthday (and the same day he died), April 23, Brooke died, the result of an infected mosquito bite.

He was buried on the Aegean island of Skyros.

George Richardson, who after the war would become one of Sāmoa’s worst colonial administrators, was given the job of burying Brooke.

‘I selected his grave on a little knoll under an olive tree and there he lies peacefully today.”

Republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Immigration New Zealand has confirmed that Behrouz Boochani has been given refugee status in New Zealand.

Boochani has been in New Zealand since November. He had travelled to Christchurch for a writers’ festival on a one-month visa and was supported by Amnesty International.

He was detained in Manus Island and in Port Moresby for six years under the Australian government’s policy to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat.

READ MORE: The journalist who became the victim of Australia’s punitive detention policies

He catapulted to worldwide fame in 2019 after his book, No Friend But The Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, won the Victorian Prize for Literature, Australia’s richest literature prize.

He wrote the book with WhatsApp on his phone.

Boochani’s 374-page book, detailing his experiences in detention, was written in secret and was smuggled out of the detention centre via hundreds of text messages to his translators and editors in Australia.

Boochani discovered he had been granted asylum by New Zealand almost seven years to the day from the moment he was arrested by the Australian Navy, taken to Christmas Island, and subsequently flown to PNG.

Moved to transit centres
Following the closure of the Manus Island centre in 2017, Boochani and his fellow detainees were moved to refugee transit centres near the island’s main town of Lorengau, and later, to the country’s capital Port Moresby.

The executive director of Amnesty, Meg de Ronde, said it is wonderful news that Boochani has been given asylum.

“This means that he’s now a free man. He is free from the persecution as a Kurdish journalist. He’s free from the persecution of Australia’s torturous detention system and he is able to enjoy his life as anyone should be able to under our human rights system.”

She said 400 asylum-seekers like him were still trapped in limbo however, and it was time for Australia to accept New Zealand’s offer to take 150 of those refugees per year.

“Some of them are still on Nauru, some of them are still in Papua New Guinea and some are now in various hotels in Australia in very poor conditions,de Ronde said.

“This issue continues to go on, and Australia needs to act to ensure no more people are put through the torturous regime that Behrooz Boochani was.”

Last month the National Party said it was surprised New Zealand immigration officials did not consult their Australian counterparts before granting a visa to Boochani.

Excluded from Australia
The party’s immigration spokesperson, Stuart Smith, said Boochani appeared to have been excluded from Australia, making him ineligible to come to New Zealand without a special direction.

He said despite that, the response to a parliamentary written question showed no contact was made with Australian officials before he was granted the visa.

“Which was surprising given the high profile nature of Boochani and the fact that the Australian foreign minister said that Boochani would never set foot in Australia.”

Boochani travelled through the Philippines to get to Auckland so that his flight did not touch down in Australia.

Green Party human rights spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman – herself an Iranian refugee – said it was a day of celebration.

“I’m just so excited for us and for him and so grateful for our refugee authorities demonstrating – at least to Australia – that it is possible to actually process and asylum seeker fairly.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

An Iranian asylum-seeker detained in Papua New Guinea under Australian asylum laws has won Australia’s most valuable literary prize for a book he reportedly wrote using the online messaging service WhatsApp, reports France 24/AFP.

Behrouz Boochani, a Kurd who has been held on PNG’s Manus Island since 2013, was awarded the Victorian Prize for Literature yesterday, said a statement on a government website for the state of Victoria.

The journalist and filmmaker was awarded the A$100,000 (NZ$106,000) prize for his book No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison.

READ MORE: The book written one text at a time

He will receive an additional A$25,000 after it also won the non-fiction category.

“(Boochani’s) award was accepted by the book’s translator Omid Tofighian, who worked with Boochani over five years to bring the stories to life,” the state website said.

-Partners-

Media reports said Boochani wrote the work on his phone and sent it to Tofighian bit-by-bit in text messages.

This was because he felt unsafe in the guarded camp, which was shut last year after a local court ruling and the asylum-seekers moved elsewhere on the island.

For years Canberra has sent asylum-seekers who try to enter the country by boat to Manus Island or Nauru in the Pacific for processing, with those found to be refugees barred from resettling in Australia.

The harsh policy is meant to deter people embarking on treacherous sea journeys, but the United Nations and other rights groups have criticised the camps’ conditions and long detention periods.

Boochani’s book beat 27 other shortlisted works published last year in Australia to win the overall prize.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Sylvia C. Frain reports from Hawai’i on the release of a poetry work focusing on the impact of nuclear activity in the Marshall Islands.

Nuclear activist, writer and poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijner from the Marshall Islands has launched her new poetry work which has a focus on nuclear weapons.

Her newest poem, “Anointed” can be seen as a short film by Dan Lin on YouTube.

At da Shop bookstore for the official launch of her poem, Jetñil-Kijner shared her writing process inspiration with the gathered audience. “I knew this poem could not be a broad nuclear weapons poem, but I needed to narrow the focus,”  says Jetñil-Kijner.

The project, which has an aim to personalise the ban of nuclear weapons, began during a talk-story session with photojournalist Lin three years ago in a café. Jetñil-Kijner told Lin that she wanted to perform a poem on the radioactive dome located on what remains of the Runit Island in the Enewetak Atoll Chain. Lin, who before this project worked as “only a photojournalist,”  agreed to document this collaborative “experiment”.  Lin spoke of how Jetñil-Kijner’s previous poems  had the “Kathy effect” which were filmed with only an iPhone and went viral across digital platforms. 

However, they agreed that this story deserved more in-depth documentation.  They partnered with the non-profit organisation,  Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) and with the Okeanos Foundation, specialising in sustainable sea transport. Travelling by Walap/Vaka Motu/Ocean Canoe for 11 days, Okeanos Marshall Islands ensured that zero carbon emissions were used and the experience served as a way to connect with the sea.

Runit Island
The radioactive dome on Runit Island is one of 14 islands in the Enewetak Atoll Chain, and the farthest atoll in the Ralik chain of the Marshall Islands. Enewetak and surrounding area has been studied scientifically after the 43 nuclear bomb explosions (out of the 67 total nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands) by the United States between 1948-1958.

Dubbed the “Cactus Crater”, Runit Island has limited economic possibilities. It is not a tourist destination nor has ability to export goods. No one will visit or purchase products from a radioactive location. This leaves the community dependent on funding from the United States. While many are grateful, they truly want to self-sustaining future. 

While conducting research for the poem, Jetñil-Kijner found that most of the literature is scientific and by journalists or researchers who do not include the voices of the local community or share the end results. Jetñil-Kijner wanted to create a poem focusing on the story of place beyond the association as a bombing site, and ask, “what is the island’s story?”

She learned from the elders that the island was considered the “pantry of the chiefs with lush vegetation, watermelons, and strong trees to build canoes”. As one of the remote atolls, the community consisted of navigators and canoe-builders with a thriving canoe culture.

Both Lin and Jetñil-Kijner said visiting the atolls was emotional and that approaching the dome felt like “visiting a sick relative you never met”.

The voyage included community discussions with elders and a writing workshop with the youth. Since the story of the dome is not usually a “happy one” the gatherings and workshops served as a method for the people to tell their stories not covered in the media or reported in US government documents.

Creating the poem with the community also required different protocols and Jetñil-Kijner thanked the community for generously sharing their knowledge and stories. She spoke to how the video connects the local community with a global audience across digital platforms. 

Digital technology and the future
Despite the remote location and distance as an outer island, there is limited wi-fi and the community has access to Facebook. These technological advances help with visualising these previous unfamiliar spaces, including using a drone to capture aerial shots of the dome and the rows of replanted but radioactive coconut trees. Supported by the Pacific Storytellers Cooperative, a digital platform for publishing Pacific voices, more young people are able to tell their stories online and foster relationships beyond the atoll.  

The newest generation is raising awareness through the incorporation of cultural knowledge combined with new media technologies to tell their stories. Empowered young leaders continue to unpack the layers of the nuclear legacy while highlighting their unique community and culture.

The Anointed poem and film serves as an educational resource to highlight the nuclear legacy and ongoing environmental issues in the Marshall Islands. This piece also promotes community justice and is a visual learning tool. Jetñil-Kijner and Lin encourage others to share Anointed and to join the call to action to ban nuclear weapons.

• Pacific Storytellers Cooperative – Marshall Islands audio nuclear archive

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3

Report by Pacific Media Centre ]]>