Mat Ward

  • Filastine battles political philistines

    Genre-bending musician Filastine says he has taken so much flak for being political in his music that these days he tries to be a little more innovative in getting his message across.

  • Some visitors treat Villawood like a zoo trip, says activist

    Activist Marlene Carrasco says some organisations visit refugees in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre in the same way they might make a trip to the zoo. “You know, [some of the big NGOs], they just come in, say hello, then the zoo visit’s over and they leave,” Carrasco told 91̳ Weekly outside Villawood on a gloomy Easter Sunday. The 42-year-old Muslim woman makes the short trip to Villawood every Sunday from Merrylands, the western Sydney suburb to which she migrated in the 1970s. She said visitors needed to do more than just visit refugees — and she should know.

  • Interview: New sun rises for Xavier Rudd

    Victorian surf/roots musician Xavier Rudd has long been known for his progressive politics and championing of Aboriginal and environmental issues. 91̳ Weekly’s Mat Ward caught up with the multi-instrumentalist before his Australasian tour for “Follow The Sun”, the lead single off his forthcoming new album.

  • Living Black thinks outside the idiot box

    Living Black Sundays, 4.30pm on SBS One from March 18 “I had a terrible time at school,” Living Black presenter Karla Grant tells 91̳ Weekly. The veteran journalist, who is about to host a new series of the flagship Aboriginal affairs show she launched for SBS a decade ago, has come a long way since being taunted as a “boong” and “coon” in Adelaide playgrounds. “It was awful,” says Grant, who is now Living Black’s executive producer as well as its host. “They were very ignorant - and I was the only Aboriginal kid at the school.”

  • Kicking cousins teach history through hip hop

    When Aboriginal rapper Darah Morris uploaded his first music video, "Aboriginal Style", to YouTube, it became an instant hit. Then it got deleted. "After 15,000 views on YouTube it got removed for 'inappropriate content', which I find really ridiculous," he tells 91̳ Weekly.

  • Greg Palast — investigative reporter gets personal

    Vultures’ Picnic Greg Palast 416 pages, 2011 Penguin Investigative reporter Greg Palast is back ― and this time, it’s personal. The former United States corporate crime investigator, who exposed the 2000 and 2004 elections of George W Bush as frauds, has gone for a more intimate feel in his latest book, Vultures’ Picnic.

  • Post-hardcore band: 'Our generation's got to fight to survive'

    Politically progressive post-hardcore band Enter Shikari say they only have to look at their fans to get a sense that the world can change for the better. “The past few years we've seen a huge increase in people that come up and thank us for singing about the things we do,” Rou Reynolds, frontman of the British band, tells 91̳ Weekly.

  • Former Asian Dub Foundation frontman: From pop star, to activist and back again

    Pride Of The Underdog Deeder Zaman Modulor, 2011 When Deeder Zaman was at the height of his fame as the vocalist for British dance rock group Asian Dub Foundation (ADF), he hung up his mike to become a full-time activist. So why did he swap such a high-profile, influential position for low-profile work with the National Civil Rights Movement, the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, the Miscarriages Of Justice Organisation and the Children with Aids Charity?

  • The Corporation author takes on ugly side of Facebook

    Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Ruthlessly Targets Children Joel Bakan Random House, 2011 277 pages Parents who read Joel Bakan's new book, Childhood Under Siege, may find themselves un-liking Facebook. In it, the law professor ― whose previous book The Corporation was made into Canada's biggest-grossing documentary ― describes the effect of the social media giant's applications on his 13-year-old daughter.

  • Software engineer tries to chip away at globalisation

    Last year, software engineer LN Rajaram started , a project aimed at “reversing globalisation” in Chennai, India. 91̳ Weekly’s Mat Ward spoke to him about it. * * * What’s your background? I was born in a village in Tamil Nadu, India, in 1949, but grew up in the streets of Mumbai, the finance capital of India.

  • Summer reading: Recommended books of the year

    Because 91̳ Weekly is taking a break for the summer, it asked staff, contributors — or just people it likes — to name the best books published this year. Here are their suggestions. Tim Dobson, 91̳ journalist and blogger at by Ronald Reng Yellow Jersey Press, 2011