In these pages, you will find Honi’s feature on the USyd Gaza solidarity encampment. After four weeks, the encampment has grown to over 90 tents and represents a united front across multiple factions who are all uniting to participate in the struggle for a free Palestine, and the moral reckoning of our time.
Browsing: Editorials
Central to the edition is the ongoing Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Although it may be passed absent-mindedly on your way to Courtyard — a historical reckoning of our time is sprawling over our previously, perfectly manicured Quad lawns.
Although I no longer believe in what it represents, I still pass that neon blue cross every morning and night. When it was first installed, all I could do was stop and stare. I hope that you have the same feeling — a mixture of blind awe, fury and grace — as you explore the brilliant work of each writer and artist who has contributed to this edition.
Our front cover by Mahima Singh is an expression of solidarity between disability justice and Palestinian liberation. Our collective liberation will not come without standing together in solidarity with Palestine.
I wonder who is reading this right now. For history assignments, students like myself comb through real/digitised sheets of newspapers and periodicals. I wonder if this will one day be done to this paper. I hope students today and tomorrow find a sense of intimacy when reading these pages — in the familiar settings, feelings and issues. Our lives are worth literary attention.
In a panic to think of prompts for Honi reporters for this edition, I suggested Cliques, Chairs, and Chancellors as points of inspiration – the trifecta which governs one’s experience at the university. Cliques are immaterial but ubiquitous. Cliques are contagious.
The mythology underpinning modern Australia is as vast as our continent; incorporating various influences through a contested, often violent and surprisingly turbulent history. From the burnt orange sands of the red centre to the wiry brown grass of the northern savannahs; from Queensland’s blacksoil plains to the diverse hubbub of Sydney and its turquoise harbour — the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are unendingly interesting and intensely complex.
Born from the ink of Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969, is Handala, a faceless figure, back turned and hands tied, as consolidated in 1973. By depicting a 10-year-old Palestinian child who doesn’t grow up, al-Ali uses art to represent how the world — including the Arab world — has turned its back to Palestinian dispossession and deprivation of basic human rights.
Honi: Beware the Ides of March. Beware wage theft. Beware the police at Mardi Gras. Beware the healthcare system. Beware what lies underneath. Beware faux-feminism in literature. Beware stupid white bastards.
I hope this little community that Honi has created stays with you in some small way, wherever you go and wherever you may end up.
