The Minefield

For the last two years, there has been a steady drumbeat of protests — sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly — in the centre of major Australian cities involving hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and, in one instance, hundreds of thousands of people. The vast majority of these protests have been pro-Palestinian and opposed to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. But this isn’t the only cause tha...

For the second time this year, millions of people have taken to the streets of cities and towns across the United States in response to the authoritarian tendencies and tactics of the second Trump administration. These crowds gathered under the  “No Kings” banner to register their deep disapproval of: immigration raids and deportations without due process; the deployment of National Guard troops t...

There is no doubt that silence can be a form of cowardice: a refusal to speak up or speak out on behalf of others, an unwillingness to join our voices with theirs lest we be made to bear their punishment. In such a case, we could say, the absence of words is not empty but full — full of self-protection, of ego. Being silenced, in turn, can crush the soul — to have our words treated with contempt;...

The politics of immigration has returned in recent months — and returned with a depth of feeling that suggests it never truly went away. It’s always there, lingering just beneath the surface of Western societies, waiting to be tapped into by politicians skilful (or brazen) enough to harness its power. So Donald Trump went to the 2024 presidential election excoriating his predecessor’s record on im...

In a remarkable column from 1944, George Orwell bemoaned the sheer range of social and political phenomena to which the label “Fascist” was being applied — to the point that he believed the word itself had become “almost entirely meaningless”. And while it conveyed little more than a term like “bully” would, “Fascist” nonetheless carried an emotional charge, a degree of opprobrium, that such an ev...

This week is the first ever “Minefield Mailbag”, where Waleed and Scott try to respond to what’s been on our listeners’ minds. The questions they take on cover such diverse topics as society’s obligations to self-professed “sovereign citizens”, whether NATO is to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, why “virtue signalling” may not be such a bad thing after all, and the discrete relationship bet...

It would be hard to overstate the significance of Charlie Kirk within the conservative movement and in the Trump administration. By some reckoning, his influence and social media prominence were second only to Donald Trump himself. As the founder and face of Turning Point USA, Kirk was pivotal in driving Trump’s appeal among younger voters — particularly young men. And, indeed, his singular appeal...

In August, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh from The Bookshelf on Radio National, teamed up with the indomitable Sophie Gee — Professor of English at Princeton University, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Sydney, and co-host of the podcast The Secret Life of Books — and Scott Stephens from The Minefield, to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen (1775–...

Whether it is in geopolitics or in social and personal relationships, the overweening desire to “save face” can have manifestly unjust and outright damaging consequences. Those who continue to languish under Iran’s oppressive regime take little comfort in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei being afforded the opportunity to shore up his public standing following the US missile strikes on its nuclear facilities...

There is something undeniably disorienting about the way AI features in public and political discussions. On some days, it is portrayed in utopian, almost messianic terms — as the essential technological innovation that will at once turbo-charge productivity and discover the cure to cancer, that will solve climate change and place the vast stores of human knowledge at the fingertips of every human...

In the middle of August, the Bendigo Writers Festival found itself at the centre of a firestorm after over fifty participants decided to withdraw — some claiming they were required to engage in a form of “self-censorship”, and others withdrawing in solidarity. Reports have it that, two days before the festival was due to open, a “code of conduct” was sent to those taking part in the one of the fou...

This week the federal government’s much-anticipated, and just as hyped,  Economic Reform Roundtable  has gotten underway. Central to the agenda is how to boost national productivity — which is, roughly speaking, a way of measuring the resources needed both to produce certain goods and to be able to afford to buy certain goods. Put simply: greater efficiency leads to greater affordability and highe...

In March, an ABC  Four Corners investigation detailed widespread instances of abuse, injury and neglect in childcare centres across the country. Just a few months later, in a climate of already heightened public awareness and media scrutiny, a series of deeply disturbing allegations came to light of  child sex abuse in childcare centres in  Victoria ,  New South Wales and  Queensland . The nature...

At the end of July, there was a strange juxtaposition of events that seemed almost designed to highlight the fault-lines which run through the political, legal, economic and ethical responses to climate change. On 23 July, the International Court of Justice handed down a non-binding advisory opinion  that climate change constitutes an “urgent and existential threat”, that nations have an obligatio...

On 24 July, French President Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, as part of France’s “historical commitment to a just and durable peace in the Middle East”. Just five days later, UK Prime Minister Keir  announced that the UK, too, will recognise a Palestinian state in September: “unless the Israeli government takes subst...

There are few things more peculiar to a person than their preferences. Why it is they enjoy one genre of music over another, or a particular artist within that genre but not others. Why they derive specific pleasure from a certain type of fiction (romantasy, say, or Scandinavian procedurals) whereas others (like Agatha Christie’s Poirot crime novels or dystopian sci-fi) leave them cold. And then t...

In a justly famous 1910 essay titled “The Moral Equivalent of War”, the American philosopher William James rejected the “fatalistic view” that war is an inevitability between nations, and expressed his hope of “a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as between civilized peoples”. For all this, however, James confessed that he did not believe “peace either ought to be or will be perma...

Could a stand-up routine ever rise to the level of “art” — the kind of performance that rewards multiple viewings, whose humour grows and deepens, which contains subtleties waiting to be discovered? A sketch certainly can. Just think of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” from 1944, or the trial of Ravelli in the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup from 1933, or Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s “One Leg Too...

In a digital age, it’s all about “content”. The post or tweet or reel or video or pod is nothing without something in it that permits it to be shared, to circulate, to attract attention, to promote engagement. What matters is the fact of circulation, not the usefulness or accuracy or beauty of what is circulating. In other words, “content” is generated not to last, but merely to attract attention...

As soon as it was published in February 1974, Peter Benchley’s novel “Jaws” was a sensation and remained on the New York Times best-seller list for over ten months. It continued to loom large in the public consciousness when, just 16 months after its publication, a 27-year-old Steven Spielberg adapted it for the big screen. While “Jaws” was the third such best-selling novel to be made into a popul...

On 12 June, Israel initiated a devastating series of strikes on Iran — the goal of which was evidently to diminish the nation’s increasingly problematic nuclear program and to “decapitate” the nation’s top military leaders and nuclear scientists. There is no doubt these attacks were meticulously planned and represent the culmination of a long-term strategy: to neutralise the threat posed by Iran a...

Between 1996 and 2022, for all but a brief and tumultuous six-year hiatus, the Coalition has governed Australia. Over this period, not only did the Liberal and National parties dominate federal politics, they defined the terrain upon which the political contest itself would be fought. On any number of policy fronts — from border security and immigration through to taxation, fiscal management and t...

It is a problem many people increasingly feel they can neither avoid nor ignore: we could characterise it as the problem of loving the art, but being unsettled by the behaviour or the beliefs of the artist who created it. This is a perfectly serviceable way of grasping the outline of the matter, but, on further reflection, it fails to get to its heart. For it’s not that we are merely put off by or...

Fresh from a commanding victory at the federal election, Anthony Albanese began to bundle his campaign policy offerings together in a new package — not just to give these political commitments a kind of internal coherence, but also to stake out what could be distinctive about his premiership as a whole. The term he reached for to sum it all up is “progressive patriotism”. In a  conversation with D...

Over the last two years, many in Australia and around the world have watched in horror as Sudan, Gaza and other zones of mass violence descend into humanitarian crises of devastating proportions. And while the cause of each crisis is unique, the consequences tend to share common characteristics — for especially civilians: millions of people are displaced and left without homes to return to; basic...