No Friend but the Mountains

No Friend but the Mountains
Author: Behrouz Boochani
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2019-02-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1487006845

Winner of Australia’s richest literary award, No Friend but the Mountains is Kurdish-Iranian journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani’s account of his detainment on Australia’s notorious Manus Island prison. Composed entirely by text message, this work represents the harrowing experience of stateless and imprisoned refugees and migrants around the world. In 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island, a refugee detention centre off the coast of Australia. He has been there ever since. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait of five years of incarceration and exile. Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature, No Friend but the Mountains is an extraordinary account — one that is disturbingly representative of the experience of the many stateless and imprisoned refugees and migrants around the world. “Our government jailed his body, but his soul remained that of a free man.” — From the Foreword by Man Booker Prize–winning author Richard Flanagan

Backlash

Backlash
Author: Helen Raleigh
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2020-11-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781736008508

By the time one finishes reading this penetrating book of history, politics, and public health, the very real COVID-19 crisis of 2020 becomes a metaphor for China's quest for hegemony. Helen Raleigh shows how Communist China, like the virus that began there, has spread its influence aggressively around the world. She begins with China's suppression of people within its own borders. She then shows how China has asserted geopolitical influence in the neighboring South China Sea region and across the whole world, through the use of subtle and not-so-subtle tactics, as it attempts to become the most powerful nation on earth. She concludes, however, that the Chinese aggression has backfired, as much of the rest of the world, especially powerful nations like the United States, though initially caught off guard, have begun a retaliation against China's aggression and mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak. Helen Raleigh is a recognized American entrepreneur, writer and speaker. She is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Her writings have also appeared in various national media, including The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and National Review. She is the author of several books, including her award-winning autobiography, Confucius Never Said. Equally important is the fact that she was born in China and has first-handedly experienced dramatic cultural and political changes in modern Chinese history. She retains the unique perspective of having both immersed in Chinese culture and thrived in the Western, and illuminates both intimately in the text. This book behooves every thinking American to better understand China's place in the world, as well as China's ambitions and strategies to achieve its Sino-centric goals.

The Australian Citizens’ Parliament and the Future of Deliberative Democracy

The Australian Citizens’ Parliament and the Future of Deliberative Democracy
Author: Lyn Carson
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2015-06-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0271069074

Growing numbers of scholars, practitioners, politicians, and citizens recognize the value of deliberative civic engagement processes that enable citizens and governments to come together in public spaces and engage in constructive dialogue, informed discussion, and decisive deliberation. This book seeks to fill a gap in empirical studies in deliberative democracy by studying the assembly of the Australian Citizens’ Parliament (ACP), which took place in Canberra on February 6–8, 2009. The ACP addressed the question “How can the Australian political system be strengthened to serve us better?” The ACP’s Canberra assembly is the first large-scale, face-to-face deliberative project to be completely audio-recorded and transcribed, enabling an unprecedented level of qualitative and quantitative assessment of participants’ actual spoken discourse. Each chapter reports on different research questions for different purposes to benefit different audiences. Combined, they exhibit how diverse modes of research focused on a single event can enhance both theoretical and practical knowledge about deliberative democracy.