Marx, in his groundbreaking economic treatise Capital, wrote that capitalism emerged “dripping from head to toe, from every pore, with blood and dirt”. He was observing the brutality of racism during capitalism’s ascendancy. The expansion of European empires exported capitalism around the world, bringing with it genocides and the dispossession and disenfranchisement of millions. Colonised peoples were cast as less than human, legitimately dominated by foreign powers and undeserving of dignity and rights.
In the last few days, Queensland has recorded more COVID-19 cases than in the previous two years because the state is opening too fast, too soon and without adequate preparation of the health system.
The spread of COVID-19 into western New South Wales is taking a terrible toll on the large Indigenous population in the area. More than 100 years ago, the Spanish flu wrought similar suffering on Indigenous communities in Queensland, where disease found fertile soil in neglected and woefully under-resourced settlements.
For the first three days of June, thousands of engineers, public servants and business moguls involved in the global arms trade packed the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre for the Land Forces 2021 exhibition.
The world’s biggest weapons manufacturers will descend on Brisbane for Land Forces— the largest military conference ever to take place in the South Pacific. On 1-3 June, merchants of death will mingle with the government ministers, strategise for war and showcase the latest breakthrough killing and maiming technologies.
The Indian government’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout could have been world-leading. Instead, vaccination clinics are running out of supplies, and just 3 percent of the population is fully immunised. India’s rich are responsible for this disaster.