recently restarted the schedule of attending public lecture after lecture after lecture (averaging two-a-week now, together with two-a-week social and one-a-week alone time schedules that I seem to fall into for optimal wellbeing)
last week (04/10): The Rule of Law in a Post-Truth Era by Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs
- realised afterwards that I had no idea how the rule of law came into all of this
- also realised that law lectures are frequently near-impossible because of all the jargon that lecturers don’t bother explaining; discourse that I can’t follow (tried to explain “discourse” to someone else the other day and failed, the word “discourse” is itself part of another discourse)
- learned more about contentious matters in Australian society, namely Australia’s policy of mandatory immigration detention & juvenile detention in the Northern Territory. both echo the difficult themes in Australian civil society and history — racism / xenophobia & the relationship with the Indigenous people of Australia
- alluded to the powerlessness of international law when not enshrined in domestic law; call for action to create a Bill of Rights in Australia
- another call for action: go on record with the truths you know to counter the slew of falsity
last week (05/10): Holding states and corporations to account for human rights abuses by Richard Hermer, Keren Adams, Shen Narayanasamy
- for the first time pretty much ever, my acrimony towards the legal profession as a whole waned
- incredible scope of cases, from establishing the right of the domestic court over military conduct overseas (arising from atrocities committed by the British army in the Iraq war), to fighting for compensation from corporations wreaking environmental havoc and destroying communities in developmental nations (a lot of heartrending stories here)
- generally work to make it such that corporations are tried before their home courts rather than the courts of the countries where subsidiaries are located
- emphasis on the need to be creative in the absence of legislative frameworks, both within and outside the legal domain, but also on the beauty of using simple models to argue a case
- acknowledgement of the limited role of the Lawyer and the need for judicious use of the law — you can actually cause more harm
- similarly but separately, often the most meaningful outcome for clients is having their stories acknowledged and reconciliation (striking example: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34231890)
- heard from someone actively involved in work to end offshore detention. fantastically interesting strategy to target investors in the corporations that are making these detention centres tick. but of course, this strategy cannot work alone. highlights the overarching point of a multi-prong approach.
- stimulating discussions on why human rights lawyers have had more success in the UK than in Australia and on the pros/cons of confidentiality (more generally, the concessions one makes to achieve settlement)
- links to the previous lecture: again, a call for a Bill of Rights, in this case especially to compel investigation and follow-up action; lack of human rights discourse in Australia because of the ongoing political commitment to mandatory immigration detention — unwillingness to open this can of worms
this week (10/10): Dark Times: The Road from Hurt, Hate and Disaffection to the ‘Promises’ of Radical Fundamentalism by Dr John Boots
- exploration of the question ‘what makes a fundamentalist?’ from a psychoanalytic perspective, though it seemed like a pretty generic psychological perspective as compared to insights from the analytic school per se.
- framed terrorism as “actions to create reactions”, rather than the more common “actions to spread fear”. makes explicit the implication that overreaction begets further extremism.
- extensive formulations of different routes to radicalisation that reminded me of history lessons back in 2012. haven’t yet pieced it all together — I’ll come back to this
- also really interested in the theme of intergenerational transmission of trauma — gave example of two of the perpetrators of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Paris Attacks, who were from a French-Algerian background. here there is particular historical resonance because of the recent trauma of French colonialism of Algeria.
- touched on the fundamental emotion of humiliation, together with marginalisation and disenfranchisement. interesting question from someone about how the humiliation of colonialism lives on in SEA (not sure though), which led me to think about the potential of risk coming from the Indigenous population — probably lower, but that is always this Elephant in sociopolitical discourse here.
- as I have heard for the nth time, the call to action has to do with opening dialogue (but that is difficult difficult difficult, even for the best —or most average— of us)