Reflections on Field Trip to Willing Hearts

The day at Willing Hearts started with a trip first down to the kitchens where we had a behind-the-scenes look at the preparation of food. It was a spectacular sight as we get to observe exactly how huge the operations are just so that beneficiaries will not go starving. The number of volunteers that are present is huge and it was heart-warming to know that students were also there to help out in the cause. As we talked to a few of the volunteers at Willing Hearts, we got to know more about the beneficiaries and the amount of help that they receive from others to continue their operations.

With the new understanding in how the day-to-day operations are like, we helped to load up the packed food and headed out to help distribute the food. At each and every stop that we went to, it was hard to identify the people that required the food had it not been pointed out to us. These elderly were just every single one of us. There was nothing on them that identified them as those needing help. They were just like any other ordinary person you see on the street.

After distributing the food, we had the opportunity to take a look at the living conditions of the underprivileged. It seemed as though there was an effort to hide the true situation of those living in those rental flats as the corridors were constantly being cleaned by cleaners. As I've visited these, whilst it didn't strike me that the living conditions were small in size, it struck me that there was little or almost no help given to them.

This trip made me think whether the social security nets set up by our government is truly enough and whether there are enough help being given to those that have fallen through the cracks in the social security nets. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for me and I will definitely keep this experience close to me.

Lim Bing Le

The whiteness of binaries that erase the Global South: On Communicative Inversions and the invitation to Vijay Prashad in Aotearoa

When I learned through my activist networks that the public intellectual Vijay Prashad was coming to Aotearoa, I was filled with joy. In my early years in the U.S., when learning the basics of the struggle against the fascist forces of Hindutva, I came in conversation with Vijay's work. Two of his critical interventions, the book, The Karma of Brown Folk , and the journal article " The protean forms of Yankee Hindutva " co-authored with Biju Matthew and published in Ethnic and Racial Studies shaped my early activism. These pieces of work are core readings in understanding the workings of Hindutva fascism and how it mobilizes cultural tropes to serve fascist agendas. Much later, I felt overjoyed learning about his West Bengal roots and his actual commitment to the politics of the Left, reflected in the organising of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political register that shaped much of my earliest lessons around Global South resistance, collectivization, and orga...

Libertarianism, the Free Speech Union, and the Life of Disinformation

The rise of the far-right globally is intertwined with the globally networked power of libertarian think tanks, funded at the base by the global extractive industries . In this blog post, through an analysis of the disinformation-based campaign I have personally experienced since October 2023 mobilised by the communicative ecosystem of the Free Speech Union (FSU), I will attend to the lifecycle of disinformation in libertarian networks, arguing that the disinformation ecosystem is invested in upholding both white supremacy and extractive capital. The FSU’s investment in disinformation I argue that the FSU is invested in producing and circulating disinformation. In response to my analysis of the hypocrisy of the Free Speech Union (FSU) that positions itself as a champion of free speech in Aotearoa while one of its co-founders, council members and spokespersons David Cumin (who is also one of the key actors representing Israel Institute of New Zealand) actively targets the freedom of a...

Zionist hate mongering, the race/terror trope, and the Free Speech Union: Part 1

March 15, 2019. It was a day of terror. Unleashed by a white supremacist far-right terrorist. Driven by hate for brown people. Driven by Islamophobic hate. Earlier in the day, I had come across a hate-based hit piece targeting me, alongside other academics, the University of Auckland academic Professor Nicholas Rowe , Professor Richard Jackson at Otago University, Professor Kevin P Clements at Otago University, Dr. Rose Martin from University of Auckland and Dr. Nigel Parsons at Massey University. Titled, "More extremists in New Zealand Universities," the article threw in the labels "terror sympathisers" and "extremist views." Written by one David Cumin and hosted on the website of the Israel Institute of New Zealand, the article sought to create outrage that academics critical of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid are actually employed by universities in New Zealand. Figure 1: The web post written by David Cumin on the site of Israel Institute ...

Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Search This Blog