Several contributors focus on John Howard’s military-assisted intervention into Aboriginal communities. This controversial intervention took place in 2007 towards the end of Howard’s prime ministership, and only months before Kevin Rudd delivered his widely publicised apology to the Stolen Generations. There are also essays on the significant and changing roles of religion and the university in contemporary Western culture, and on the persistence of Orientalism and ‘the American nuclear empire’.

Overall, I found Roland Boer’s article on ‘The New Secularism’ to be the most satisfying contribution to this edition. Boer draws a useful distinction between ‘secularism’ and ‘atheism’, and considers how religion has been a prominent and frequently inflammatory political topic in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, Anja Kanngieser’s piece on ‘self-organised universities’ was engaging and uplifting. Kanngieser rightly argues that ‘(t)he educational crisis faced by many university students in Australia today requires that we begin to move from contemplation … to action and experimentation’. She suggests various ways in which the university can function as something other than ‘a highly elitist, commercial and managerial enterprise’.

There are no easy answers to the problems that neo-liberalism has helped usher in. The aim of this edition of Arena Journal is not to find these answers but to consider what a more equal and fair world might resemble. The essays should inspire considerable discussion and debate between political activists and theorists.