172: DISORDER / DYSFUNCTION
ISBN 0 9759554 8 0
SPRING 2003

What cranks Philip Ruddock’s motor? In this issue LINDA JAIVIN unearths the resourceful ways writers and artists are undermining the empathy obstacles placed by Howard government ministers: “Asylum seekers who speak to journalists may be interrogated, threatened and punished, sometimes with room searches in which their possessions are 'accidentally’ damaged.” Fiction, theatre and even video games, writes Jaivin, are successfully hurdling government attempts to impede public empathy. When is a refugee an “illegitimate bastard”? MICHAEL LEACH and FETHI MANSOURI expose some of the bureaucratic and media language dehumanising asylum seekers. Drawing on the media response to her recent book, The Meeting of the Waters, MARGARET SIMONS challenges the bullying tactics of Australia’s right-wing culture warriers. IAN SYSON pokes fun at ASIO’s snooping on some unusual suspects. STEPHEN FLEISCHFRESSER argues against the current scientific fad of imposing ‘normality’ on ‘different’ people, and VIVIAN ACHIA recalls the days in which she was repeatedly dosed with LSD as part of a social experiment. The publicity machine behind the big man of Australian poetry, Les Murray, is taken to task by JOHN LEONARD; HUMPRHEY McQUEEN warns against the dangers of ‘playing god’ with history; PHILIP MENDES documents the Herald Sun's influence on social policy; and CHRIS VEDELAGO writes of protest and the contemporary crackdown on dissent. Issue 172 also contains Overland's regular serve of reviews, poetry and fiction.